Chapter 10
The grand opening of the Evergreen Resort is everything Holly planned and more. Everything we’ve seen her do over the last week came together perfectly. The practice and the soft launches had shown her all the places she could improve, and she took all our suggestions and ran with them.
It was a resounding success. I know it because I've been here all week and watched every piece of it come together.
I know it because Holly has been running on four hours of sleep and pure vision since Wednesday and it shows in the way the whole thing is exactly right.
I know it because I'm a travel writer and I know what a thing being good feels like from the inside.
I also know it because Justin cries during his speech, and the whole crowd gives him a standing ovation in response, and Holly is already crying and Anthony beside me hands me a folded handkerchief without looking and I take it without looking and later I realize that is one of my favorite moments of the week.
I'm keeping the handkerchief. I'll figure out the etiquette later.
The piece I wrote goes live at noon.
I post it from a table in the resort bar with Anthony beside me and Holly refreshing her email with the frequency of someone who has been told good things are coming and isn't sure she believes it yet. She’s checking for reservations and responses from the other influencer who’d been here all week.
Meanwhile, I hold my breath until my post goes live.
The title is: What It Feels Like to Be Somewhere.
The lead is: There is a handsome wildlife veterinarian in the Colorado mountains who designs walking routes around where the wind drops.
He told me this on a Tuesday night in December at the most beautiful resort I’ve ever been to, and it is the best travel writing advice I've ever received from someone who has never written a word about travel.
I watch Anthony read it over my shoulder. His expression is still.
"You put me in the lead."
"You gave me the angle."
"We're going to have a conversation about you calling me a handsome wildlife veterinarian," he says.
"I know," I say, very pleasantly.
Holly, across the table, has given up pretending not to listen. "Is this going to be a whole thing?"
"Briefly," Anthony says.
"She's going to love it," Holly says to him.
"I know she is," he says. And looks at me. "And she's still going to hear about it."
I'm already smiling. I can't stop. I don't particularly want to.
By three o'clock, the piece has done something I haven't had happen in two years.
It's moving. Not just performing but actually moving, the way things move when they touch something real in people.
My inbox starts filling. Comments compound.
Three travel accounts with larger followings than mine share it.
A magazine editor I've been trying to get a response from for eight months emails to say she'd love to talk about a column.
And then the client inquiries start.
Not for the Evergreen specifically, for what I do. People who read the piece and want the person who wrote it to help them find something that feels like that. Real travel. Specific travel. The travel that's designed around what you feel and not just what you see.
Four of them by four o'clock. Seven by six.
I'm sitting in the corner of the bar with my laptop and my phone and the very specific overwhelmed expression of someone whose plan is working, when Anthony sets a coffee and a turkey croissant in front of me and pulls up a chair.
"Put the phone down for five minutes," he says.
"I have seven inquiries."
"They'll keep for five minutes."
He's right. They'll keep. And I've been staring at the screen for two hours and I haven't eaten since breakfast, and I can feel the specific frayed quality of running on adrenaline without any of the things that actually sustain you.
He can see it too. That's why he brought the coffee. That's why he's here.
I put the phone down.
"Thank you," I say.
"Eat your sandwich and tell me about the inquiries."
So I do, all seven of them, what they're looking for, the patterns I'm already seeing in what the piece reached.
"You need help," he says, when I finish.
"What kind of help?"
"The infrastructure kind. Someone to handle the intake while you do the actual work. A system of sorts."
He's right. I've been running the whole thing myself and that worked when the volume was low but it won't work now. Especially if it continues this way.
"I know someone," I say, slowly. "My friend Amber. She's been looking for remote work and she has an operations background and is incredibly organized."
"Ask her."
"I will tomorrow.”
"Ask her today," he says. "Don't let it be a tomorrow thing."
The tone. That specific low certainty that isn't a shout and doesn't need to be. I remember the spanking in the library. He’s not wrong. I do need help. I hope I’ll need help. I glance over at the computer and do some quick calculations. Oh yeah. I can afford to hire her part time.
I pick up my phone.
"Amber?" he asks.
"I'm asking Amber," I confirm.
"Good girl."
There it is. In public, at a bar table, in the middle of the grand opening of a luxury resort, said as easily and naturally as everything else he says. Like it belongs in every register of our life, not just the private ones.
I feel it all the way down to my toes.
I text Amber.
MAYA: Question and say no if it's not right.
AMBER: Okay.
MAYA: I need someone to help run the operational side of the content business. It would be remote with flexible hours. You'd be dealing with client intake forms, sending documents out to my partnerships, and scheduling. Paid properly.
AMBER: ...
AMBER: Maya.
MAYA: You said you were looking for remote work and you have the background and I trust you completely and the business is growing fast enough that I actually need this now not in three months.
AMBER: Yes.
MAYA: Yes?
AMBER: Obviously yes. When do I start?
MAYA: After the new year? I need to get back and get set up properly.
AMBER: Done. Are you crying?
MAYA: A little. It's been a day.
AMBER: A good day?
MAYA: The best kind of day. The kind where everything is happening at once and you're terrified and grateful simultaneously.
AMBER: I've heard those are the best ones.
MAYA: They are. Thank you.
AMBER: Are you with Anthony?
MAYA: I am.
AMBER: He's a keeper.
MAYA: I know.
They arrive at seven.
I don't know they're coming until Holly materializes at my elbow with the expression of someone who has been keeping a secret for twenty-four hours and has reached the limit of her capacity.
"There's something in the lobby," she says.
"Holly —"
"Come and see."
She takes my hand and tows me through the grand opening crowd toward the atrium, and I hear them before I see them, the specific sound of the Naughty Girls Book Club assembled in a space, which is loud and warm and overlapping and the best sound I know.
Chloe sees me first and squeals loudly. Lily is already moving. Madison gets there simultaneously and then it's all of them, Emily included, and we are five women hugging in the atrium of a Christmas resort while the string quartet plays something festive and politely ignores us.
"What are you — how are you here?" I get out when I can.
"Holly invited us," Chloe says. "A week ago. She said come for the opening and bring overnight bags."
"She knew a week ago?"
"She knew everything a week ago," Madison says. "She's been feeding us updates. We know about the elk and the coffee and the ornament and the ridge and the —"
"I shared some things," Holly says, not remotely sorry.
Of course she did. Of course my best friend invited my people to see the thing she knew was going to happen before I did.
I am not even a little bit mad.
"Where is he?" Emily asks.
"He's —" I turn, and he's there, across the atrium, watching this with the quiet, warm expression he gets when something is as it should be. I wave him over.
He comes.
"Anthony," I say, when he reaches us, "these are my favorite women of the Naughty Girls Book Club."
"Holly's described you," he says. Which is an extremely diplomatic way of indicating that he knows everything.
"She's described you too," Madison says, with her sweetest smile. "You're taller than I expected."
"Madison," I say.
"I'm just noting."
"It's noted."
He holds out his hand to her, entirely unruffled. "Anthony Rossi."
"I know," she says, shaking it. "We all do."
He glances at me. I give him a look that says: yes, they know everything. Welcome to my life.
He gives me a look back that says: I'll deal with you later.
The night is everything.
Dinner is at the big table with me and Anthony and Holly and Justin and Marco and the five girls, plus Chloe's Tyler who drove up from Denver, and Madison's Ty who flew in from wherever Ty is perpetually emerging from, and Lily's Ethan who arrived with a bottle of something remarkable and the calm of a man who is used to Lily's life being eventful. Because Lily’s life is always chaotic and Ethan is her peace in the storm.
The table is loud and warm and full of overlapping conversations and Holly keeps reaching over to squeeze my hand and Justin and Anthony have a conversation at the end of the table that looks serious and comfortable in equal measure, the ease of two people who know each other well enough that they don't need to perform it.
Colt appears at some point, invited by no one and welcomed by everyone, and spends twenty minutes telling the group chat contingent about the day I nearly walked into the bear enclosure, which earns him a look from Anthony and a lot of delight from the girls.
"He redirected her with one look," Colt says, with the energy of someone telling the best story. "One look and she stopped."
"I stopped because it was the right call," I say.
"She stopped because of the look," Colt says, to the table.
"Colt," Anthony says.
Colt becomes very interested in his bread roll.
The table loses it entirely.
Even Anthony is smiling.
I decide I love Colt.