49. Darcy
FORTY-NINE
DARCY
My phone rings while I’m packing up the stand at the farmers market. It’s a name I don’t expect: Landon.
Landon Mitchell is the team captain where I used to work, and he was always good to me. Though we weren’t supposed to fraternize, his wife sometimes had me over for their pool days in the summer. They’re just good people and part of what I miss about Raleigh.
“Hello?”
“There she is! I thought I’d never talk to you again!” he shouts. “How ya been, Rossetti?”
I laugh and tuck the phone against my shoulder. “All you had to do was call.”
“Bro, I’ve been calling. It always goes to voicemail. We miss you around here.”
I chuckle. “Who is we?”
“You know. All of us! Hey, how’s Stormy?”
Landon was highly invested in my rescue of Stormy, jealous that he couldn’t keep her because of his allergies. As if she was his to keep when I’m the one who pulled her out of the gutter, but I digress. “She’s good. Living her best life on my family’s farm.”
“Yeah, Rob said something about the farm. But that’s not a metaphor for her being dead and you not wanting to tell me, right?”
I shake my head. Landon is a character. “No, she’s quite well. She’s catching mice and stuff at the farm. Getting to be feral.”
“Okay, good, good. Hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up. I think they’re going to call you in the next week or so and offer you your job back. The woman they got to replace you quit like, so fast. I guess they didn’t realize how much you did. And,” he lowers his voice, “rumor has it you might still be up for head of marketing. I started that rumor because I was the one pushing for you.”
I flap my mouth, breath suspended in my chest. “I . . . don’t know what to say. Do you even have a say in that kind of stuff?”
“Not usually, but I basically talk about you whenever I’m with the GM.”
I sit back on the truck’s tailgate. “W-why? Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Rob screwed you over. We miss you. We want you back.”
“I can’t . . . work with him again,” I sputter.
Landon coughs out a laugh. “Oh? You didn’t hear? Bro got himself fired. Total downward spiral. I think he was part of the reason the girl who replaced you left. He acted like a nut. Oh, and hey—” He cackles again. “Did your new boyfriend punch him? Somebody sent me a pic of him from the office after the Fourth. He looked like shit.”
My face screws up. “Landon, how much gossip do you get from work?”
“Oh, you don’t even know the half of it,” he says.
A bird squawks in the background. “Where are you anyway?”
“A villa in Costa Rica,” he says. “Where are you ?”
“A farmers market in Paint, West Virginia.”
He cackles and his voice fades. “Hey, babe! Darcy’s at a farmers market! She’s a farmer now or something!” He comes back to the phone. “Marissa says hi. But anyway! Be on the lookout for a call Monday. I think they really want you back. And this is me asking you to come back.”
My mouth is dry. “Okay. Yeah. You know, I’ve gotta go, but thanks for the call.”
“Alright. See you soon!” Landon hangs up and I stand with shaking hands. I could work for the team again. I could move back to Raleigh. Get my old life back, my life before Rob, if that’s possible.
But is that what I want?