Chapter Six
When I cross the parking lot the next morning, my gait is steady. I train my eyes on the front doors that I’m definitely going to make it through without any goose-related interruptions.
Marina’s coming by this afternoon for our first festival planning meeting. I’m sure it’ll mean more pointed Ryser digs with her usual air of superiority, but I can’t even dread it. For the first time since coming here, I have a project to work on. I have purpose .
My colleagues are less enthused. Yesterday, I forwarded them the meeting invitation Marina sent me, but no one checked their email.
The mood in the office was subdued after Marina left.
Jen took up her crocheting, but she didn’t make much progress; every so often, she’d mutter about missing a stitch and unravel some to correct it.
Tessa took longer than usual to finish her sudoku puzzle; she kept looking up from her phone, deep in thought.
The air hockey table and Randy’s book went untouched; he was intently typing something on his phone, making me suspect he was texting his wife to ask how on earth she could do something as appalling as believe in him.
And Arun spent a good twenty minutes staring at nothing, clicking and unclicking his pen in rapid succession until Jen had to ask him to stop.
When we meet with Marina today, they’ll see this isn’t anything to worry about.
I’ll ease them back into the world of productivity slowly, gently.
I even stopped by the bakery on my way here and picked up bagels and cream cheese for the office.
They seem to like carbs. Maybe I could lay out the bagels in the conference room behind the kitchen.
No one’s used it since I’ve been here, but that’ll change today.
I never thought I’d be so excited for a meeting.
That’s when a goose runs at me, wings flapping wildly.
I scream and drop the box of bagels, then turn on my heels and run.
It’s honking now, the flapping sounds getting closer and closer until I feel air fanning the back of my neck and realize with horror that it’s flying after me.
I sprint across the parking lot, expecting any second for the feather-wind on my neck to be replaced by the puncture of a pointed beak.
Already, I’m mourning my untimely death by goose.
How tragic, to die here in the town I spent my life trying to escape. Geese must love irony.
I reach the end of the parking lot, veer left, and keep running.
The honking subsides, and I can’t hear the flapping anymore, but I don’t stop until I’ve done a full lap around the parking lot.
Only then, with heaving breaths and a stinging pain where the backs of my flats dug into my ankles, do I check to see if it’s safe.
I spot the goose about twenty yards away, side by side with its mate, who must have been enjoying the show from afar.
The pair strolls confidently past the old stationery store.
I don’t think they could get to me before I reach Ryser Cares, but still I bolt toward the office, pausing only to snatch the box of bagels.
The geese continue their slow walk, benevolently allowing me to reach the office alive.
Once inside, I check the bagels for damage. The bottom corner of the box is dented, but the sticker seal is still intact. The bagels, nestled beneath a layer of wax paper, are safe from harm. At least one of us is.
“That was cute,” a voice comments. I startle, almost dropping the bagels a second time. Marina sits at my desk, a book in her hands. She gestures toward the window, where she had a perfect view of me running for my life from a twelve-pound goose. “Is that like a morning routine?”
I pause to catch my breath, still ragged from the goose attack. “No,” I say. But when Marina narrows her eyes at me, I fold. “Yes,” I grumble, and she snickers. I drop the bagels on the desk in front of her. “They don’t bother you?”
“No,” she says with a shrug.
“And you didn’t want to help me out?”
She shakes her head like the answer is obvious. “The first rule of any nature documentary is not to intervene.”
I sigh. “What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting at two.”
“We were , but I moved it up. I called the county Chamber of Commerce this morning to float the idea of the festival and see how we could get vendors involved, and they said we needed to present the idea at their next meeting. Then they told me when their next meeting is.” She lowers her chin and waits for me to do the math.
“It’s today?” I guess, dread turning in my stomach.
“At four thirty. Their next one isn’t for another month, so…today it is.”
I sink into a chair beside my desk. “And when you say we need to present it, you mean…”
“You and me.” Confusion clouds her face, as though she’s trying to understand how I’ve forgotten the meaning of basic pronouns. “And the rest of the office, if they’re up for it.”
I imagine standing before every business owner in the county, declaring myself a Ryser representative.
A sea of disappointed faces appears in my mind.
Tim Cooper of Cooper Cakes. Rosie Lee, who owns the farm-slash-petting zoo where we used to go on field trips.
Her pigs, my favorite part of the field trip, join the fray too, snorting at me in disgust. Even Mayor Bradley enters the picture.
After Marina’s Bigfoot comment, I asked my dad about Mayor Bradley at dinner last night, and he told me he’s notoriously reclusive.
In his five years as Greenstead’s mayor, he’s held exactly one press conference, and that was just to announce he does not answer phone calls and would communicate over email only.
But sure, let’s throw Mayor Bradley into the mix too, coming out of hiding just to declare me an official traitor.
I imagine boos. Tomatoes hitting my chest and landing at my feet with a sickening plop.
The idea of publicly putting myself on display just to be called a disappointment makes me want to plod right out the door and submit myself to death by geese. It would be less painful.
But I don’t know how to express any of that to Marina. She’d just confirm my fears and list all the reasons she and everyone else in town are disappointed in me. Just like yesterday, I need to stop seeing her as my ex–best friend and see her like a prospect. It’s easier that way.
“I think you’d be better suited to take the reins,” I say, tapping back into Business Partner me. “This is your idea. Your perspective will really resonate with everyone.”
Marina frowns. “You said you’d help.”
“Of course. I just think I’d be of more value…behind the scenes.”
“What if they ask about Ryser’s involvement? I don’t even know what that means. But you do.”
Her eyes are serious. I can see frustration starting to build beneath the surface. It is a reasonable assumption, that I might know how the hell Ryser will be supporting this festival I agreed to help with.
There’s no getting out of this, unless I’m willing to admit the truth.
I swallow my anxiety and give her my best fake smile. “You’re right. I’ll present with you.”
A satisfied smirk crosses her face. “Good.”
“Good.”
That settled, Marina leans back and surveys the empty office. “Where is everyone?”
“They usually get in at around ten.” On a good day. When she looks less than impressed, I add, “Ryser encourages flexible schedules.”
I ignore her skeptical scoff, turn on my laptop, and say we should get started on the presentation. A concept that definitely doesn’t make my stomach curdle.
***
Working on the presentation with Marina reminds me of the times we spent working on projects together in high school, but in a parallel universe sort of way.
None of that warmth, our shorthand, the research rabbit holes we’d go down.
Now, we sit several feet apart, just close enough to reach the laptop.
Our words are reluctant and focused only on the task at hand.
We avoid eye contact whenever possible, talking at the laptop instead.
But there are little moments that feel like déjà vu.
The way she spends ages scouring PowerPoint templates to find the right one, ignoring the ones I point to as my patience dwindles.
The excitement that lights her eyes when she gets a burst of inspiration.
The pieces are there, but they don’t fit the same way anymore.
It makes me wish I could snap my fingers and get our easy dynamic back, when we fit together and made sense.
“What’s that?” Arun asks when he enters the office, nodding his chin at the PowerPoint slide on my computer screen.
I toss a wary glance at Marina, then silently pray Arun has gotten over his reluctance about reviving the apple festival. “We’re working on a presentation for potential vendors. We have to present it at the Chamber of Commerce today.”
His brow pinches like I’m speaking another language. “Oh,” he says, which is probably the best I can hope for. “I actually wasn’t asking about that; I was asking about…” He points to the box at the edge of my desk.
“Bagels and cream cheese,” I say through a quiet sigh. I don’t bother checking to see how Marina’s taking in Arun’s uncooperativeness. “Have some.”
“Sweet. Thanks.”
We watch Arun help himself to a cinnamon-raisin bagel and apply cream cheese to each half with artful intensity.
“You wanna grab a chair?” Marina offers. “We’re putting together a list of the ways vendors would benefit from exhibiting at the apple festival.”
Arun smiles grimly. “I’m no help. Sorry. I just…make things worse.”
It’s a surprisingly glum response from someone wearing a bright-green shirt covered in cartoon bananas. Arun lifts his bagel at us in thanks, then wanders off to the kitchen in the back.
“Arun knows his boundaries,” I say sunnily.