Chapter 7
7
Lucy
My stomach feels like the green blob from the movie Flubber has taken residence at the pit of it and it’s trying to climb up my throat. I lift my head off my pillow only to be welcomed with the sight of my tumbled heels on the floor, right next to a small heap of green satin.
“Ughhh…” I moan, just as my alarm goes off. The fact that I have to be out the door by eight in the morning with all of my luggage stuffed into Annabelle’s BMW causes the blob in my stomach to tumble. What was I thinking?
I drag myself off my bed and trudge to the kitchen, where Annabelle is shuffling two mugs on the counter next to a fresh pot of coffee.
“How are you up already?” I ask, walking past her to the fridge for a bottle of water.
She pokes a finger in my direction. “While you girls drank yourself silly, I stopped after the third tequila shot. There’s no way I would’ve been able to drive you to the airport if I didn’t. ”
She extends a mug to me, and I sigh with relief. It’s not my usual Starbucks, but the toasty aroma of coffee is more than enough to shoo away my hangover, just a little bit.
I slump onto the barstool lined up against our breakfast counter. “How much did we drink?”
“I lost count after your guys’ fourth round.”
“I think I counted six and a half before the rest of the night became a blur.” I slouch forward, burying my face into my hands. “Did I compare an orgasm to a sneeze?”
She laughs, taking a quick sip of her coffee. “I have no recollection of that.”
A loud, grumbly groan sounds through my lips.
“I ordered something from the twenty-four-hour diner on seventeenth. I just got you an omelet.”
“Oh, that sounds amazing.” I lift my head up and smile at Annabelle. “What would I do without you?”
“Well, you’re going to find out.”
A deep frown tugs the corners of my lips downward. I’m going to miss Annabelle. I’m going to miss my girls. Our weekend brunches, late-night charcuterie parties complete with a chocolate fountain and pent-up gossip, and even the occasional mishap. Like when Jeremy got out through the balcony and the four of us spent the entire night practically scaling the building looking for him.
Who am I going to spend my weekends with for three months?
I certainly can’t call up my sisters for a girls’ night. Not when all I can see is Nat’s face, looking at me like she pitied me while I lied to her, telling her this internship wasn’t a big deal when it absolutely was. I downplayed the importance of it because she wouldn’t understand. Because I didn’t know how to tell her I’m willing to take the risks of leaving my secure job at Mr. Bean’s for something that has a high probability of ending with nothing but three months of experience and still no job prospects. Or even worse, everyone there would tell me I didn’t belong, and I should go back to taking heavily filtered images of aesthetically pleasing backdrops and Jeremy sleeping.
“You okay?” Annabelle asks when I’ve been staring into my coffee mug for a long stretch of silence.
“Yeah,” I say with a sad face. “I guess I’m really nervous. This is so far beyond my comfort zone, and I’m worried I’ll be in over my head. Plus, I’m going to really miss you guys.” Jeremy chooses that moment to hop onto the kitchen counter, a place he is definitely not allowed. Neither Annabelle nor I shoo him off. Instead, I run a hand over this back as he arches into my touch. “And this little guy. I’m going miss him the most.”
“Hey.” Annabelle looks at me with kind, sympathetic eyes. “We’ve been over this. You got selected over hundreds of applicants. They didn’t choose you with some random eeny, meeny, miny, moe name draw. There was a reason you got in.” She pauses to firmly grip my hand. “Three months is going to fly by, and you’re going to come back and become the next Annie Leibovitz.”
I laugh and cast a grateful smile in her direction. “Seriously, what am I going to do without you?”
Annabelle is zipping through I-5 on the wet concrete of the highway with the bright early morning sun peeking through the clouds and hitting the streets like hundreds of beaming spotlights.
“You have everything?” Annabelle asks, switching lanes to bypass a slow-moving Jetta .
I nod, gnawing at the skin lining my thumb and peering down at my phone. “I just transferred you the money for rent,” I explain, pressing the final transfer button on my banking app after confirming the balance on my account. “I’ll transfer the rest when I get paid next month.”
“It’s such a godsend this internship is paid,” she says, facing the windshield.
“Tell me about it,” I answer, taking a quick peek inside my tote to make sure the plane ticket I’d printed out hadn’t mysteriously disappeared since I tucked it in there two days ago. “And that Elevate helped me find a place with a steal of a rental agreement.”
“It’s another reason you were meant to do this.”
“Yeah,” I huff in agreement.
I want to tell her that all of that’s bullshit. Fate or whatever the hell destiny or kismet is supposed to mean. Because none of that crap has ever worked in my favor. Or maybe it has but not in the way it’s supposed to. Like getting fired from my fancy corporate job was a sign that I should be slinging espressos and baked goods for the rest of my life. Or that this internship was just an opportunity for failure to remind me of what my true fate is: behind the register at Mr. Bean’s.
She pulls up to the curb to the terminal entrance to gate number four. We silently exit, and I grab a luggage cart before Annabelle helps me load it.
With my hand gripped on the metal handle, I turn to Annabelle. “Send me lots of pictures of Jeremy.”
“I will,” she says, pulling me into a big hug. “Have a safe flight. And maybe splurge on a vodka mix. A little hair of the dog might help.”
I scrunch my face. “I’ll stick with water,” I answer, pulling away. “And maybe a bag of pretzels.”
We both turn to face the entrance at the same time the glass doors slide open. “I’m really doing this, aren’t I? ”
“You sure are.”
I face her one last time.
“You got this.”
I nod. “I got this.”
I give a sad little sigh in Annabelle’s direction and walk into the airport. After an hour-long wait at the check-in counter and the glaring stare from the not so friendly TSA officer at the metal detector, I finally get to my gate. Once I’m there, I settle with a loud huff into a seat, tucking my carry-on bags close to me so they’re not in the way of foot traffic.
I have my phone in my hand, aimlessly scrolling through my social media feeds, when it buzzes in my hand. “MOM” in big, scary, bold letters flashes across the screen.
“Hello?” I answer warily.
“Did I catch you at work?” I guess there’s no need for formalities like Hi, how are you? when you’re talking to your parents.
“Uh, no. I’m—it’s my day off, Mom.”
“Have you talked to Natalia recently?”
“Yeah, I talked to her last night.”
“So you heard?” she exclaims. I can hear the excitement in her voice, her using a monumental amount of restraint to avoid ruining the news if it hadn’t made it to my ears just yet.
I can’t help the warmth spreading through my chest that has me smiling. “Yeah, she told me.”
She squeals into the phone, and I truly can’t remember the last time I spoke to her on the phone and she sounded this excited. It seems every time we talk, it’s about how job searching is coming along or to tell me where to add “good at communicating” on my resume to make it stand out to future employers more. “I’m so happy for her!” she says giddily. I can almost picture her feet making a small hop and her fingers waving wildly in front of her .
“Me too,” I answer with a smile. “Hayden’s really amazing.”
“I’m so proud of him too,” she adds. “He’s been doing so much with the restaurant, and now that they’ve moved in together and they’re engaged, it’s just so perfect for them.”
“Yeah, I’m really happy for them.”
“How are things with you? Did you get my email?” she blurts, abruptly changing the subject. “It was for that job listing near your place. I think they were holding a job fair next week.” The shift in her voice is so apparent, I want to go back to talking about my sister when my mom sounded happier and carefree.
“Yeah, I got it,” I answer, holding back the disheartened sigh rising in my chest. “I’ll check it out.”
“Good,” she answers contently. “It sounded pretty promising. They had plenty of openings and?—”
A loud and really difficult to disguise announcement sounds on the intercom. I panic-press the buttons on my phone, slamming my thumb across the screen in an attempt to mute the call before I bring it back to my ear.
“—and it’s pretty close to you so you don’t have to worry about a long commute.”
I sigh. She didn’t hear it. “Thanks, Mom,” I finally answer after the announcement has passed and I unmute my phone. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”
“Okay,” she answers softly and a little defeated.
I feel like the biggest pile of disappointment in the world. Why can’t I just do something right in my life? Why can’t I do something my parents could be proud of instead of slabbing on worry after worry onto their already full plates? Instead, we have to share phone calls about job hunts and resumes and whether or not I’ll be able to pay rent next month. When will I be the one to shower her with good news like Nat ?
“And, Lucy, I’m really glad you decided not to apply for that internship,” she adds. My body freezes, and I hold my breath. “I don’t mean to bring it up again, but I want you to keep your focus on finding a job. You know, internships aren’t really promising. You’ll probably end up getting coffee all day instead of doing actual work, and I don’t want that for you. Maybe if you were still in college or something, but you’re almost thirty now. You shouldn’t be wasting your time doing grunt work for something so temporary. You’re so much better than that.”
“Yeah,” I answer with a weak, dejected voice. “I get it, Mom. It’s fine.”
“I love you, baby. I just want what’s best for you.”
“I, um, have to go,” I finally say after a long pause. My voice cracks, and I try to disguise it through a rough throat clearing. “I’ll call you soon.”
“Sure,” she answers, her voice a little lighter. “I’ll email you again if I find any more job leads.”
“Yeah, thanks, Mom.” I pause before adding, “And I love you too.”
I hang up and grip my phone in my hand, hoping all of this—the internship, the fruitless job searches, the sporadic calls from my mom asking me about those job searches in a forced optimistic voice, attempting to sound supportive instead of worried—will all change.