Chapter 33
I fell asleep next to Mum and woke up later than I normally did. When I finally came to and checked the time on my phone, I realised that if I didn’t hurry, I was going to be late to meet Alex.
We’d planned to meet at Parkrun. I think partly because something in the daylight and so wholesome felt like neutral ground. But also, Alex’s life was one of routine, even in the midst of an emotional maelstrom.
We both ran around the lake, Alex at the front and me in the middle of the pack, then walked in companionable silence to the market. As we ordered coffees at Padre, I wondered how it was possible for so much to change over so few weeks. Again. We carried our long blacks to our table and sat down.
‘It’s a no, isn’t it?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’ I paused for a moment and took a sip of my coffee, even though it was still scalding. ‘I’m sorry for making things weird yesterday, for giving you the impression that there was hope for us. But I was doing the thing that I do when I get scared – I run towards the person who won’t hurt me.’
‘Ouch,’ he said, with a smile that didn’t meet his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again.
‘I’m sorry too,’ he said. ‘That I came here and messed everything up for you.’
‘Have you signed your new job contract?’ I asked.
‘No, but I’m going to,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, they have labs all over the world – I’ll leave Melbourne.’
‘ATG aren’t going to commercialise your work, they’re going to mothball it,’ I said.
‘Shit,’ he said. His face morphed from sadness to despondency. That I wasn’t in love with him had bruised him. This news had broken his heart. ‘I knew that was a possibility, but I thought—’
‘That if you had a consultant on the inside to advocate for your work, you’d reduce the risk of that outcome?’
‘That’s not the reason I asked for you to work on this project,’ he said. Then he looked up and his bright eyes met mine. ‘It wasn’t the only reason.’
I smiled. Because, in a way, it was reassuring to know that Alex hadn’t only come back into my life because he’d been harbouring a flame for me all these years.
Maybe that was the story he’d told himself.
But on some level, he’d sought me out because I was someone who could help further his agenda.
Alex had grown up and changed. But some things hadn’t – his work still came first.
‘I’ve only known about ATG’s plans since Monday. Because they knew we had history, I was kept out of the loop before then,’ I said, with a shrug. ‘I should have told you earlier this week.’
Alex took a sip of his steaming coffee as he processed what I’d told him. I knew that part of him would enjoy the feeling of his tongue burning, to validate the emotional pain he was working through.
‘You know that now you’ve told me what they’re going to do, I won’t sign my contract.
I’ll go to one of their competitors and I won’t rest until I create something brilliant,’ he said.
His tone was flat and his eyes were aflame.
What he was saying wasn’t hyperbole. With his brain and work ethic, fuelled by a need to exact revenge, I had no doubt that he could do exactly that.
‘And they’re smart enough to know that the information that changed my mind came from you. You’ll be fired.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to ask you to protect my career. But I am going to ask you to think about yours.’
His eyes narrowed.
‘Your whole life’s work has been in your mum’s memory,’ I explained. ‘But... from what I know about her, from what you’ve told me, she would have only wanted you to have a happy, fulfilling life. I don’t think she would have wanted every part of you to be a shrine to her tragic death.’
Alex’s jaw tightened, and the knuckles of his hands became white as he clenched them tightly around his mug.
‘I think purpose can be incredible,’ I continued. ‘But only when it enhances your life, not when it cannibalises all the other good things in it too.’
I’d never seen him lose his temper before, but for a moment I wondered if he was going to leap up from his chair and storm off.
Then he crumpled. For a moment I caught a glimpse of the lost, lonely, grieving boy he’d been.
The one who was still inside him. I reached across the table and took one of his hands and held it in mine.
‘I think one of the reasons you enjoyed our summer together is that we spent so much of our time in lectures, learning things. During “Lecture Lottery”, you came alive. I remember watching you talking with undergrads about what they’d been studying and you were always so genuinely fascinated by those conversations.
And they blossomed under your attention.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen how brilliant you are at speaking and teaching – in a world where no one has an attention span, you can hold a room.
‘I think if you spend your life enjoying your work and passing on everything you’ve learned, because of what happened to your mum... well, I think that would be an incredible legacy.’
I paused for a moment, letting him process what I was saying.
‘My instinct is still to go with the devote-every-fibre-of-my-being-to-revenge option,’ he said.
‘You do you. And don’t worry about me,’ I said, taking my hands back.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ he said. And although he’d grinned as he’d spoken, at the end of the day he’d always do what he needed to do.
Alex had given me a ring because he’d wanted me to move to the place he wanted to be for his work. He loved me, but the ring represented his dreams for his life. He hadn’t passed Lily’s engagement ring test.
After we’d finished our coffees, as I walked out of the darkness of the covered market and into the sun, I knew that I’d never see Alex Lawson again.
I spent the rest of the weekend letting my family and friends know that the wedding was off, trying and failing to hold back tears. Then on Monday I went to work. Not my work – our team was still on the beach – I went to Lily’s work.
‘Now, I’m here today to be your consultant.’
‘You don’t look so well,’ she said, looking concerned. ‘And I can’t afford you.’
‘Firstly, I know,’ I said. I knew my skin looked blotchy and my eyes were raw and red.
I hadn’t been able to muster the energy to wash, let alone blow-dry my hair, so it was a knotted tangle of greasy curls, and not the fashionable kind.
‘Apparently, this is what you look like when you’re heartbroken. ’
‘Yeah, sometimes,’ Lily looked at me, her eyes dull. She’d still managed to dress in one of her outfits: a linen waistcoat and cargo pants with totally hideous oversized runners. But I could tell that today it was a uniform rather than a form of her creative expression.
‘And secondly, I basically owe you this to thank you for the work you did on our wedding rings.’
‘Which you won’t be using and that you paid for,’ she said.
‘You didn’t charge us enough,’ I said. ‘Pricing is one of the things I’m going to be focusing on today.’
‘Is there a world where I get to say no?’ she asked weakly.
‘No.’
‘Fine. Though it’s too late, anyway,’ she said.
‘Lil, I think that there are only a few people in the world who feel like they can’t not do something. That there’s this one thing that makes them feel truly alive.’
She stared at me for a moment then slowly nodded.
‘Yeah, I love it,’ she said. ‘But sometimes, like right now, I just really wish I didn’t. I wish I wanted to have a good-enough job and then like... play pickleball on the weekend.’
‘I understand that there are practical realities. You have a kid, you and Aaron have to pay for childcare and all of Arlo’s... nappies and mush.’
‘He doesn’t eat mush anymore,’ Lily said, smiling for the first time.
‘Not really my point,’ I said, smiling back.
‘I’m not minimising rental payments, emergency savings, electricity bills and dentist trips.
I get that you have to do what you have to do for your family.
But I’m really good at thinking through problems. And before you totally give up on the thing that makes you spark, and that I suspect makes you a better partner and mum.
.. let’s go through all the numbers? Just in case. ’
‘Okay,’ she said, and I felt the energy in the room shift.
We spent the whole day, when there weren’t customers in the store, going through years of paperwork.
I searched through endless drawers of questionable filing to find the relevant numbers that I needed to plug into my Excel spreadsheet.
I wished, as I tried to remember the models that had come as naturally to me as breathing in my first few years as a consultant, that I had Lucas there to do the heavy lifting.
By the end of the day, I’d pulled together a good snapshot of Lily’s business. Lily had been quiet all day. I knew how vulnerable she would be feeling – I was doing the business equivalent of rifling in her lingerie drawer. I also had the experience to know how to make her feel okay about it.
Lily closed the store at 5 pm. Without asking, she poured us both a glass of wine.
‘So . . .?’
‘Obviously, I need to spend more time looking over everything – but I think you might have options.’
‘Really?’ she asked. I could hear a trace of hope infiltrate her voice.
‘Yeah. So, let’s start with the bad news: you’re right that the shop has to go. The rent has gone up, staffing costs have gone up. The numbers don’t work for being a bricks-and-mortar business.’
I saw her swallow, but she didn’t let her face betray any emotion. ‘Okay,’ she said.
‘But most of your revenue doesn’t come through the store. You sell quite a bit online,’ I said.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ Lily said slowly.
‘And your highest margins are on your cheaper products and also your custom designs,’ I said.
‘With the less-expensive stuff, I do the design then get them manufactured. And people don’t mind paying a premium for their engagement rings or birthstone rings or whatever.’
‘Exactly. If you were fully online and focused on high-volume less-expensive products and then used your studio at home for meeting clients and making bespoke pieces – I think it could still be a really viable business,’ I said.
I turned my laptop around and showed her the projected revenue range I’d modelled.
‘Obviously, these numbers aren’t a promise.
Just my best guesstimate,’ I said. ‘Whatever you do next is totally up to you. And Aaron. But this is just... more information to help you make the decision for how you want to live your life.’
‘Right,’ Lily said. Colour had returned to her face, like she was preparing to reawaken a part of herself that she’d consigned to the grave. ‘You’re really good at this.’
‘I have a brain that knows how to absorb large amounts of information quickly and sort it all out. It’s made me really good at my job. But... maybe not so good at life.’
On Tuesday, the last beach day, I woke up in Mum’s guest room to a message from Miranda.
Do you have time for a chat later today?
She’d phrased it as a question, but it wasn’t really. I hauled myself into the shower, into a suit and then onto a tram to the city, my stomach swirling the whole time.
I walked slowly across the floor, taking it all in. This place had felt like my home for nearly a decade. All my colleagues, across the many teams I’d been part of, had been my people.
I knew that there was every chance that Alex had turned up to ATG on Monday, all guns blazing, ripping up his contract, broadcasting his visions of vengeance, employment lawyers in tow. If so, this would be my last day in this office.
‘Miranda?’ I knocked on her office door and she waved me in.
‘I’m sure you’ve been waiting with bated breath, but the partners made their decision yesterday.’
‘Yes, of course,’ I said. In all the chaos I’d totally forgotten that the promotion meetings were happening this week.
‘You got it,’ she said, beaming widely. ‘The partners were very impressed that you wooed a new client and won more work.’
‘So, it’s full steam ahead on the new project? And there were no issues on the Alex Lawson contract front?’
‘He’s going back to Harvard. Apparently, the uni and a whole lot of students were devastated when he left. And all the money he made them when they did the spin-off of his work probably didn’t hurt either,’ Miranda said.
I tried to keep my face neutral as a wave of relief enveloped me. Partly that he hadn’t kicked up an enormous fuss and put my career at risk. But mostly because I knew that he was going to be happy.
‘And they don’t care that he didn’t sign his contract extension?’ I asked.
‘They can live with this outcome. He’s harmless on a campus. They just didn’t want his brain at a competitor,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I wanted to share the good news this morning, before it’s officially announced, so you can enjoy the day! So, off you go – celebrate!’
I left the office and went to Siglo, a small rooftop wine bar that overlooked Victorian Parliament, a short walk from the office.
I ordered myself a bottle of champagne without even checking the price.
Once again, I was sitting on a rooftop, drinking something that made my nose fizz, celebrating.
Once again, I was on top of a city. And I’d never felt so flat.
I pulled out my phone and typed out a message to Matt. Then I deleted it. Instead, I opened a new document.
Things I NEED To Do
1. Plan wedding.