Chapter 18
“Happy birthday to our brand new assistant editor!”
The whole staff of the Albion Observer —all six of them, not counting Nora—was here in the paper’s office in the basement of the Whitman building. It was touching that somebody had remembered today was her birthday—and then the rest of Ben’s words hit her.
“What? What did you just say, Ben?”
Ben Francis was the editor of the Observer. He was a senior, and tall, and his hair was blonder than Nora’s. Maybe even blonder than her mother’s, which was saying something. “Well, I thought we’d celebrate two things at once. Efficient, right?”
“That’s amazing! Thank you! I promise I’ll do a good job.” She hadn’t expected a promotion, or even really thought about it. If you’d asked her, she would have said that obviously Marcia Bennett—a senior, an intern at the Albany Courier last year, an actual grown-up—would have gotten it.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Ben said with a laugh. “The biggest part of the job is keeping this lot,”—he gestured to the rest of the staff—“in line. You’ve heard the phrase ‘herding cats?’ It’s like that, but worse.”
That wasn’t true. Or was it?
She’d been late on articles more than once last spring, and Ben—he’d still been assistant editor then—had to harass her to get them done. She couldn’t have been the only one who needed a push now and then to meet a deadline.
But she could do that. Although, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to sit down with Ben for a chat, and pick his brain about the best way to go about it. But first, there was a candle to blow out, and a cupcake to eat.
And then she could head over to West Hall and tell Daniel her news.
He was probably planning some big surprise…
No, he wasn’t.
He wasn’t planning anything, and she wasn’t going to share her news with him. Because they weren’t together. They hadn’t been for over a year.
They wouldn’t ever be together.
Why couldn’t she just accept that already?
Daniel , September 6
“I assume you’ve begun researching possible employers, Mr. Keller?”
He had, but not today. Today, he’d been trying to figure out what to do for Nora for her birthday. She’d made his twentieth birthday special—beyond special—and he owed her…
He heard himself curse under his breath, and Professor Maddox stared hard at him. “Excuse me, Mr. Keller?”
How could this still be happening? How did Nora still have this much of a hold on him almost sixteen months after they’d broken up?
“I’m sorry, Sir. I think I finally understand what you told me, when we had that long talk.”
“Ah. Your Nora. I suspected that might be it.” Now his advisor smiled softly. “I wonder if you even know that you doodled her name in the margins of your final exam book last spring.”
“Sir?” How could he have done something like that? “Oh, God. I know what happened. I finished in an hour, and then I went over every answer three times, and everyone else in the class was still writing and I didn’t want to be the first one to hand in my exam, and I must have zoned out.”
Professor Maddox laughed—a real belly laugh.
“You truly are just like me, Mr. Keller. I also hated being the first to turn in my paper. It felt so awkward, everyone’s eyes on me, and I’d wonder if somehow there was a whole other page of the exam that I’d missed.
So I would sit there, trying to calculate the appropriate moment, and on occasion I, too, would become thoroughly lost in thought. ”
That was exactly how it felt! Daniel had never met anyone else who knew about that; but, then again, he was almost always the first to finish exams, going all the way back to grade school.
“Thanks, Sir. But I am sorry—I can’t believe I did that.
But it’s like you told me—I guess she’ll always be in here,” he put a hand over his heart.
“Never mind. You were asking me about job searching?” Except, how could he build a future when he couldn’t let go of his past with her?
It had to be possible—Professor Maddox had done it, hadn’t he?
“I would like to suggest a company to you. Quantum Networking Solutions. They are based in Chicago, and they are one of the largest companies in fiber-optic networks. It will be a huge growth field, and you can get in on the ground floor. Do some research on them, and if you like what you see, let me know. A reference from me would certainly not hurt you. An old fraternity brother of mine is a Vice President there.”
Daniel’s eyes went wide at that last comment, and his advisor noticed. “Don’t be so shocked, Mr. Keller. I did not always wear tweed jackets with elbow patches. You said you remembered our talk, so you know I, too, was young once.”
He’d have to take Professor Maddox’s word for it. There were no fraternities or sororities at Albion, so his knowledge of Greek life came entirely from “Animal House” and “Revenge of the Nerds.” It was impossible to picture his advisor doing anything from those movies.
Then again, if you asked Daniel’s friends from high school, they’d all say it was impossible to picture him ever having a serious girlfriend, let alone aching over her sixteen months after they’d broken up.
Nora , September 15
God, Ben was handsome.
He obviously spent a lot of effort styling his hair so that it looked like it didn’t take any effort at all. It was like an art form, one that Nora herself had never come close to mastering. And he knew exactly what colors to wear and how to wear them.
“Hey, Nora, are you okay?”
What she wanted to say was “no,” because how could she be expected to concentrate on this week’s articles when he was sitting there like he’d just stepped out of a Benetton catalog?
“Sorry, I just got lost in thought for a minute.”
It hit her then; this was the first time she’d thought that way about anyone since Daniel. Sure, she’d swooned over the pottery scene in Ghost and imagined Patrick Swayze’s arms around her, just like every other girl with a pulse, but that didn’t count.
This did. Ben was an actual human, sitting four feet away from her, and he looked—well, hot—even under the horrible fluorescent lights of the Observer office.
“Nora? Are you sure you’re all right? We can do this tomorrow, if you’re not feeling well.”
No. Ben would still be hot tomorrow. Hot, thoughtful, smart, and worst of all he acted like he didn’t even know it.
Being his assistant editor was going to be a lot more difficult than she’d thought.
Daniel , September 20
Daniel sat at the desk watching over the brand new Macintosh lab in Ellis Hall. A dozen Mac SE’s for anyone on campus to use, as well as anyone at the nearby Albany College of Law. Apparently the law school didn’t have their own computer lab.
He didn’t mind. The law students were very quiet and—well, studious. They never asked for help or advice or anything. It left him free to catch up on his classwork, which was a mercy because Data Communications was proving to be a struggle to keep up with.
For the last hour, though, he hadn’t been doing schoolwork. He’d been staring at the birthday card he’d bought two weeks ago for Nora and then stashed in the back of his desk instead of giving it to her.
Even two weeks late, he could give it to her. She’d probably think it was hilarious. But he hadn’t even written in it; what could he possibly say?
He was snapped out of his distraction by an angry grunt, followed by a woman’s voice not quite shouting, “Oh, my God! You’re supposed to be smarter than I am!” Then there was a light thump, like a fist hitting a table, and finally, “I give up! Can somebody please help me?”
Daniel looked up, and other than the owner of the voice—a blonde woman with her hair tied back in a ponytail—he was the only somebody in the room.
She should have checked in with him and left her ID, so he could hand her a disk with whatever software she needed, but she must have just grabbed a disk right off his desk without him noticing.
He could mention that to her later; there was no point making a big production out of it when she was the only other person here.
He went over, and she turned to face him.
He wasn’t great at guessing ages, but she seemed a little older than him—she might be one of those normally quiet law students.
She had brown eyes, and she was trying not to smile.
Her smile was probably warm and inviting and—God, where had that thought come from?
He needed to get a grip; he hadn’t thought about anybody’s smile since… Nora.
“Hi,” he said, trying to forget about soft brown eyes and a warm almost-smile. And about Nora, too. “What’s going on?”
“MacWrite isn’t cooperating.”
He grabbed a chair and sat down next to her. “You’ll have to be a little more specific.”
She pointed. “See here? It’s not centering my name. It should look like this,” she handed him a paper—someone’s resume, obviously not hers. “Carrie said she did her resume here in five minutes, and it looks great and mine looks like garbage so far.”
Hearing it out loud jogged his memory. He’d been working on an assignment while Bob was covering the desk last week, and Bob had spent the better part of an hour formatting a resume for a girl named Carrie. He’d never looked up, but he’d heard the whole thing.
“I hate to tell you, but your friend Carrie stretched the truth a little bit. My friend Bob did it for her, and it took him nearly an hour.”
The woman laughed. “I should have guessed. She’s been known to exaggerate from time to time.
” She took the resume back from Daniel. “Look, right here.” She pointed.
“Summer Intern, Fitch & Calabria. Duties included assisting in the strategic preparation and execution of multi-jurisdictional litigation with direct impact on corporate compliance.” She rolled her eyes dramatically.
“Do you know what Carrie actually did there?”
Daniel shook his head. He was pretty sure she didn’t expect him to answer.