Chapter 26
W hen I woke up the next morning, it wasn’t morning anymore. Fuzzy tree-shaded light was streaming in through the gauzy curtains. I was used to waking up before the sunrise and downing coffee to keep me awake, but I found that I was so well rested and boneless that I could stay in bed all day.
ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING? Wow. Good for you, Charlie baby!
WAKE UP AND COME PLAY!!!!
can’t stop thinking about you. it’s a problem.
Call me. Got you an interview!
In a group text, I texted Mom and Benny that I was coming down soon, then replied to Alex and said I was having the same exact problem. After that, I called Georgia. She answered quickly and got right to it without any pleasantries.
“Hi, Charlie, so there’s a corporate consulting firm based in Cupertino that is looking for someone to analyze their clients’ HR and marketing policies and give them risk assessment.
I told them about your experience and how diligent and hardworking you are.
They want to do an interview in person at their offices as soon as possible.
Tomorrow would be ideal. They need the role filled immediately and this one is yours for the taking.
You would get a significant salary bump, too.
This is a really stable position with lots of room for upward growth. ”
“Oh, wow,” I said. It was the type of job that, even just a week ago, I would have taken, no questions asked. Stable, predictable work and a new ladder to climb.
So, when I had the urge to scream NO!! my pulse immediately quickened at the impulse.
The idea of even driving back to San Francisco and putting on my tight pencil skirts and itchy blazers made me feel lightheaded with resistance. Interviewing with a bunch of people in cookie-cutter suits, trying to impress upon them my unbeatable work ethic, it all felt so unappealing.
It was a shocking and sudden disgust.
A long drawn-out pause hung between Georgia and me as I waited for my logic to make the right decision. Even my brain was saying, No, no, no, while thundering white noise and static.
“When can you do an interview?” Georgia asked into the silence with a touch of irritation. “I want to get back to them as soon as possible.”
Still more silence stretched as I willed myself to say I’ll leave immediately, get back on track, get back to my life. But I couldn’t. Not even forcing those words out was possible, never mind actually packing and getting in my car to make the drive.
I don’t want to live the same day over and over and call it a life.
Josh’s words reverberated in my mind, bounced off far-flung corners, echoing until I couldn’t do anything but really hear them for the first time since he spoke them.
“Charlie?” Georgia asked into the long, now exceedingly awkward pause. “Did I lose you?”
“No,” I stammered, clearing my throat. “I’m here.
” My chest expanded with air and I steadied myself to speak.
“I’m in Los Angeles visiting my family right now.
” Another pause, not quite believing the words coming out of my mouth.
“I’m so sorry, but I don’t think this position will work for me.
Can you hold off on the search? I can let you know if I want to start looking again.
I think I’m going to take some time off actually. ”
A tense beat passed, then Georgia said, “Really?” The judgment was unmistakable, like she was raising an eyebrow at me. “I wouldn’t advise anyone right now to turn a good job down.”
A deep anxiety pulsed through me, but something else did as well.
Exhilaration .
“I know,” I said to Georgia. “I appreciate that. But I need to see something through here. I’ll let you know when I want to start looking again.”
“This is the one interview I managed to get for you, Charlie. Do you understand that? You are accomplished and if this were pre-pandemic, I would have had several interviews lined up for you already. Are you sure about this?”
“It’ll all work out,” I heard myself say.
She made a sound that could have been a scoff. It surprised me. “Well, I hope so, for your sake,” she said, wryly. “Let me know when you want to start looking again and make sure you’re serious about it. I really sold you to this company and they were excited about you.”
“I apologize, Georgia. My circumstances changed.”
“You get out of the rat race for too long you don’t want to jump back in,” she warned. “The best thing is to keep working. But let me know. I’ll be here when you’re serious again.”
She hung up before I said anything else, and I was a bit taken aback from her forceful tone.
Had she always been this cutthroat? It grated on me, that sense of desperate grasping, like if you stopped working even for a month, you’d lose everything .
Mom would call that a “scarcity mindset.” I saw it for what it was—fear.
No wonder hardly anyone I knew took vacations, even when their company offered unlimited time off.
No wonder everyone worked until they were sick to their very bones.
It was a badge of honor to never take a day off.
A badge of honor to reply to emails at midnight, and to start answering them again at four or five in the morning.
It was all completely normal, expected, seemingly the only way to get ahead these days.
I lived to work for so long I didn’t even know any other way of operating.
But now, strangely, that life felt like it belonged to an entirely different person.
I heard a door open and close downstairs, muffled voices, and all I wanted to do was get dressed and see what Mom and Benny were up to. To tell them about Disneyland, to text Alex, make bread, eat pizza, see the beach again, and actually live in the day I was in.
I had no idea what these desires meant for my future.
But for the first time, I wasn’t thinking of the future at all.