3. Morning After, Missing Man
MORNING AFTER, MISSING MAN
Lani
Iwake up reaching for him.
My hand hits cold sheets.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, listening to the ocean through the balcony door. The curtains drift. The bed smells like him. Cedar and expensive soap, and a night I told myself not to remember.
He's gone.
No note. No number. No dent in the pillow.
I sit up and take stock. My dress is folded over the chair. I didn't do that. The thought stings more than it should, so I don't sit with it. I get up.
In the bathroom mirror, I look like a woman who made excellent decisions.
I laugh. It comes out wrong. Too sharp.
I brush my teeth. Splash water on my face.
The shower is too hot but I stay in it anyway, letting the water pound against my shoulders until my skin turns pink. I think about his face when he said first draft. Annoyed at himself for meaning it.
I pack. He said no names. I said no lives. We both knew what it was.
It was one night.
It was nothing.
I repeat it in the cab to the airport. On the plane. Somewhere over the Pacific, I start to believe it.
I think about his absence. No goodbye. No explanation. Just cold sheets and a folded dress and the particular silence of a room someone left on purpose.
Clean breaks heal faster. At least that's what I tell myself.
I watch the clouds shift outside the window and think about the fact that I almost told him my name. That I opened my mouth and his hand was on my waist and the word was right there. Lani. Two syllables away from breaking the only rule that mattered.
I didn't say it. He didn't ask.
That should make this easier. It doesn't.
New York hits like a wall.
Gray sky. Cab horns. The smell of midtown in October. I haul my suitcase up the steps to my apartment, drop it inside the door, and stand in the middle of my living room.
The radiator clanks. Someone upstairs is playing music I can't identify. My plant on the windowsill has given up on me, leaves brown and curled.
Welcome home.
I should unpack. I should check my email. The hundred things that have been piling up aren't going anywhere.
The startup stuff is still on my kitchen table. Spreadsheets I printed three weeks ago, when I thought there was something to save. A coffee mug with a sticky note that says pivot? in my own handwriting.
I peel the note off. Drop it in the trash.
Then I spend the next few days pretending I'm fine.
I update my resume. Apply to things. Go for runs I don't finish and make coffee I let go cold.
Wednesday I reorganize my closet because I need to control one room in my life.
Friday I sit on my couch at 3 p.m. eating cereal from the box and staring at a job listing that wants five years of experience for an entry-level salary.
By Friday I've applied to eleven positions, heard back from zero, and spent more time than I'd like staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m.
By Sunday I'm ready to admit I need a lifeline.
My phone rings Monday morning, like it heard me.
Maya.
I answer before it rings twice. Maya has been my first call for ten years, and right now I need a voice that doesn't belong to the inside of my own head.
“Tell me you had fun in Maui.” No hello.
“Define fun.”
“Did you leave the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Did you talk to a human?”
I pause one second too long.
“Lani.” Her voice goes up. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing happened.”
“That pause was not a nothing pause.”
“I met someone at the bar.” I keep my voice flat. “One night. He was gone in the morning. It's fine.”
Silence. Then, “Was he hot?”
“Irrelevant.”
“So yes.”
“Maya.”
“If you're going to have a mysterious one-night stand in paradise, he should at least be worth the story.”
“There's no story.”
“There's always a story.” She sighs. I can picture her face. The knowing look. The patience that outlasts my stubbornness every time. “Fine. Keep your secrets.”
“Noted.”
“Listen, I'm calling because I have something. Ace needs a new EA. His last one quit. Something about seventeen emails before 6 a.m.”
“Sounds like a great boss.”
“He's difficult.” She says it like describing a weather event. “But the pay is real, the role is legitimate, and you need something while you figure out your next move. You're overqualified and we both know it, but it's immediate. He needs someone tomorrow.”
I look at the spreadsheets on my table. The ghost of the sticky note on the mug.
A month ago I had a team. A pitch deck. Two years of work that made investors lean forward.
Now I have a dead plant and a best friend offering me a temp job.
Pride is a luxury I can't afford right now.
“Fine,” I say.
“Really?” She sounds surprised. “No lecture about corporate hierarchy?”
“Don't push it.”
She laughs. “Okay. I'll send you the details tonight.”
A small pause. She's deciding whether to say something.
“Lani. Before I send anything.” Her voice gets careful. “You remember the rules, right? About Ace?”
I do.
Maya's brother is private. The result of a custody situation she's never wanted to talk about.
No photos online. No mention of him on her social media.
No talking about him outside of family. When she mentions him at all, it's “Ace,” never his real name.
She had me sign something the first year we were friends, a casual NDA she said was easier than explaining.
In ten years of friendship, I've never met him. Never seen a picture. I know he's older than her. I know he's in business. I know there's a family situation that means his life stays out of hers.
I also know Maya has a niece. A little girl she's mentioned twice in four years, both times by accident, both times changed the subject. I respected it. That's what you do with friends. You leave the closed doors closed.
“I remember,” I say.
“You won't talk about working there. To anyone.”
“I know how to keep a secret.”
“You do.” Her voice softens. “Okay. I'll send you the details tonight. And Lani?”
A beat.
“Be patient with him. He's going through something right now. You'll be great with him because you don't take anyone's crap. But he's not always how he comes off.”
“Noted.”
“Thank you.” She means it. “You're saving me.”
We hang up.
I open her text. Mercer Ventures.
I sit with that for a long minute.
I know what Mercer Ventures is. I never connected it to Maya's “Ace.” She kept it that separate. I don't know what the man on the cover of those magazines looks like. I scroll past finance headlines because finance bores me, and Mercer's PR team doesn't run candid photos.
He's a stranger to me. The only one in Maya's life who is.
I type back: See you on the other side.
She sends a confetti emoji.
I set my phone down and look around my apartment. The spreadsheets are gone, recycled three days ago. The place looks like someone who's trying.
I pick out something to wear tomorrow. A blazer that says I have my life together. Dark jeans that say I don't care if you believe it.
Maya sends one more message before I put my phone away.
Fair warning. He's a lot. But you can handle him. You can handle anything.
I set the phone face-down.
Tomorrow I walk into someone else's corner office and answer someone else's emails. That's the job. That's all it is.