Chapter One
Chicago
I took a quiz the other day. One of those “what should you do with your life, you indecisive idiot” ones.
Each question was meaningless (pick a color, choose a salad dressing) and interspersed with memes of celebrities I don’t recognize anymore.
At the end of it, I was told to become a kindergarten teacher.
I didn’t like that, so I took it again. It told me to go to medical school.
As if that was a thing I could just rock up to one evening.
I’ve decided to quit my job, you see. No, I’ve decided to quit my career .
Three years of law school, four years of law, and five weeks ago, I sat at my desk several hours after I was supposed to have gone home, closed one document, opened another, and realized that not only was I completely miserable, but I had been for a while.
It was like the shower in my first apartment, warm and normal one second, icy cold splinters the next.
Don’t get me wrong, it was a relief to finally acknowledge it, but ignorance is bliss, and when my next stage of enlightenment didn’t come, when I didn’t suddenly realize my passion for salsa dancing or my hidden dream to become an accountant, all I was left with was this sick, twisted feeling in my stomach while two little words echoed in my mind, over and over and over again.
Now what?
I still don’t have the answer.
When most people decide to change their lives, they usually know what they want to change them to . They take over a crumbling chalet in the south of France, they retrain as a social worker, they sell all their belongings and become a nun.
They tend not to talk about things like rent and student loans and health insurance. There’s never a four-part YouTube video about all the things I’ll still somehow have to pay for. Never a three-thousand-word blog on how to start again in a realistic, not-completely-abandoning-my-old-life way.
“Molly.”
Maybe I’ll start playing the lottery.
“ Molly .”
Or I could get a cat.
“Hey!”
I look up at the rapid knocking on the wall to see my friend Gabriela standing in the doorway.
“Didn’t you need to leave ten minutes ago?” she asks. “I thought you were done.”
“I am done.”
I am not done. I am never done.
“It’s fine.” I turn back to my laptop and the contract within it, blinking as the words swim before me. “I’ve got a forty-minute window for delays.”
“Of course you do.” She steps fully into the room, her arms crossed over her chest. You wouldn’t know from the look of her that she started work at seven a.m. this morning.
Her navy dress is still wrinkle-free, her makeup fresh, her dark curls pulled back into a low ponytail, showing off her heart-shaped face.
One of those curls bounces free as she comes closer, peering at the piles of paper before me. “Is it the Freeman contract?”
“Is it ever not the Freeman contract?” I mutter.
“Or do we just have one client now?” Because that’s what it feels like.
It’s all I’ve been working on for the past few weeks.
Or maybe it’s years. At this stage, I really can’t remember.
Back and forth on the sale of a company that should have been agreed on months ago.
“It’s like I’m being paid to waste everyone’s time. ”
“So long as you get paid,” she murmurs, dragging one of the folders toward her.
Gabriela also did three years of law school.
Three years of law school and five years of law.
She showed me around on my first day at Harman favors or strictly budgeted gifts.
Two weeks ago, she helped move my new mattress up three flights of stairs.
Something that, for two not-so-tall girls, is a lot harder than it sounds.
“This is for you and Michael,” I explain.
“Espresso brownies from that bakery in Little Italy.” I pry open the box, presenting the neatly sliced squares of goodness.
“Remember I brought them to your birthday party and you ate six?”
“I don’t because I’m pretty sure I had a bottle of champagne alongside them.” She reaches for the one closest to her, groaning when she bites into it.
“Put them in an airtight container when you get home,” I tell her as she takes the box from me. “And keep them at room temperature. They’re best with a bit of cream. And maybe some icing sugar. Or a little bit of—”
“I love that you think these babies are making it home,” she interrupts, licking the crumbs from her lips. “You should have been a chef.”
“I don’t make food. I eat food.”