Chapter Ten
As we race out of the ballroom, I catch sight of Marina, Jen, and Randy standing by the cushioned bench where we’d all lingered awkwardly less than half an hour ago.
“We’re running,” I say breathlessly, as if it isn’t obvious. I’m not even sure it’s necessary anymore now that we’ve left the ballroom, but they join us. Marina lets out a giddy laugh and Randy mutters “Why?” under his breath as he starts speedwalking behind us.
We run toward the lobby, and straight ahead is the revolving door where I caused a human traffic collision on my arrival.
I veer toward the manual door beside it, pushing it open and sprinting outside.
Only when I’ve gone another half block do I stop and bend over, hands on knees, lungs burning, struggling to catch my breath, yet feeling strangely light and fizzy inside.
“What was—what was that?” Randy lets out through a gasp.
“The real Sharon Bhatt showed up, and I panicked.” I look past the group, back toward the hotel entrance. There’s no sign that Sharon, the redhead, or hotel security have come chasing after us. “But I think we got away with it,” I say.
“I would have worn different shoes if I’d known there was a track component,” Tessa says, glancing down at her heels.
“Sorry,” I say, but Tessa just laughs and waves it off. Leaning against the brick wall of the café behind us, still panting but with a wide smile on her face, Tessa looks so much more relaxed than she did on the car ride here. I think we’re all awash with relief that the hard part is over.
Once I’ve caught my breath, I ask, “So, how did everyone do?”
“They’re letting us use their corporate discount at the print shop,” Randy says. “Any flyers, banners, or signs we need will be a little less expensive now.” He gives an apologetic shrug, but no victory is too small to discount. Not when I know how easy it would have been to leave empty-handed.
“That’s great,” I say, clapping Randy on the back. “We needed banners.”
His gaze slips to the floor and he smiles with something like pride, and I wonder how long it’s been since anyone at Ryser Cares got to feel like they accomplished something.
“My old colleague’s letting me promote the festival on Ryser’s social media accounts,” Jen says.
“Another win!” I reach over to high-five her. “Arun?”
“I got the equipment rental hookup,” Arun says, satisfaction entering his voice. “Tents, tables, chairs, at a pretty good discount. And hey,” he adds, looking down at the three Ryser water bottles he accidentally took on his way out, “free water bottles.”
“Yes!” I cheer.
“My friend in R he hands us sticky menus and leaves us to deliberate. We place our orders, and when our drinks come, we toast to ourselves and each other. My pale ale tastes like victory.
“I still can’t believe we pulled it off.” Arun bites into a shrimp and deposits the tail on one of the plates our server brought us. “Correction, you pulled it off,” he says, pointing at me.
My lungs swell with pride. “It was all of us. It was your idea to have everyone come. I couldn’t have done it without any of you.”
It is strange, now, to think about how it might have gone if I’d gone alone like I’d originally planned.
I wouldn’t have had the hassle of sneaking them all in, but I also wouldn’t have this moment now, the six of us sitting in a bar, making our way through a pile of stolen shrimp.
I’d still be at the event, nodding and clapping my way through jargon-filled speeches from Ryser executives.
“You could have done it without me,” Marina says. “No one needed my Greenstead guilt.”
“But we needed sustenance,” Tessa says, grabbing a shrimp. “We would have starved in the streets without you.”
“And this whole festival was your idea,” says Jen. “You gave us a reason to…” Her voice trails off. “Feel useful.”
“Of course you’re useful,” Marina says easily, casting Jen a sideways glance. Jen smiles with a feeling I know well, the tickled pleasure of unexpected pride.
Marina was great at that, building people up. I think back to pep talks before presentations, the fierce protectiveness in her eyes. How I’d once sobbed about my tenth-grade crush rejecting me, and she’d rattled off over a dozen reasons why I was better than him.
I don’t think I appreciated enough how good that felt, being the subject of Marina’s praise. Now, I’m lucky if she withholds a snippy remark.
I take another sip of my drink and turn to Jen. “Why do you stay? If being at Ryser Cares, in Greenstead, makes you feel useless?”
It’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. I’ve been plotting my escape ever since I was thrust back to Greenstead, yet they seem so perfectly complacent. They must want more. Tonight, they radiated excitement and triumph. They can’t be content to stay in exile at the Ryser Cares office forever.
Jen taps her lavender acrylic nails on the grooved wooden tabletop.
“I didn’t realize how much I hated my old job until I left it,” she said.
“The stress of running Ryser’s social media accounts, working on the weekends, having to be ready any moment with a response.
When I moved to Greenstead, I was free of all that.
I don’t think I want all that pressure. I don’t want to mess up again. ”
Randy nods, his expression pensive. “Exactly. Not that my job was high-pressure or anything, but falling for that stupid phishing scam made me never want to be in that position again. I don’t trust myself.
Christmas parties are about all I let myself handle at Ryser Cares.
Staying in Greenstead means my job is as low-pressure as I can take.
And I have a life here now. It’s where I met Marge, on one of those hikes the community center organized.
It’s where we got married, bought our house, became foster parents. I can’t imagine leaving.”
I lean my head back against the vinyl cushioned booth.
Setting aside the fact that Randy met Marge the same way my dad met Wendy—are community center–planned hikes the Greenstead equivalent of Tinder?
—I can’t stop turning his words over in my mind.
I don’t know how it is that he can’t imagine leaving, and yet that’s exactly what my mom did.
Like Randy, she had a life here, a spouse, a kid.
It wasn’t enough for her to stay. Yet for Randy, somehow, it is.
Seeing his soft smile when he utters his wife’s name, I can’t imagine him ever saying he feels stuck. My mind can’t make sense of it.
“And,” Arun says, “when you’re the laughingstock of the company—and your family, because your dad’s the COO—you start to lower your expectations about yourself.
They said Ryser Cares is all I can do. So, Ryser Cares is all I do.
I’m not gonna look for another events job when the last one I threw was a disaster.
I used to think maybe I was good at my job, but…
” He stares into his glass. “I think I just deluded myself into thinking I had any real skills. I had that job because of nepotism. That’s all there is to it. ”