Chapter Fifteen
fifteen
Lanie
■ 3-OCT ■ Trans-Continental Airways ■ ? Flight: 278 ■
LHR-London, Heathrow ? JFK-John F. Kennedy Int’l Airport
Seat Assignment: 32A
Ever since Lanie left her graduate program at Empire University and started working there instead, her boss, the chair of the Psychology Department, had been a cantankerous, pompous know-it-all. Five years later, he was still pompous but now he was her cantankerous know-it-all. And over nearly two years of everyone working primarily from home, he had become her ridiculously understanding and lenient, pompous, know-it-all boss. His remote work policy was as long as the work got done he didn’t particularly care where anyone worked from. Though he liked when you were in for you to be in , present and accounted for. So, Lanie made a habit of eating lunch at her desk. Still, occasionally, he did surprise her.
“It’s a beautiful day out, Melanie. What are you doing inside?”
She shook her head. “Just being my dutiful self.” She gave him a quick salute. “After all those months apart, I thought you’d want to see my pretty face. No?” She batted her eyelashes exaggeratedly.
“Sure, sure, very good. Anyway, I’m off to lunch with Dean Michaels, before my seminar. You want anything while I’m out?”
She shook her head.
“By the way, did you get the application, from Dr. Markham at Berkeley? I had him resend it to your house. You should have received it by now.” He raised an eyebrow at her.
Ever since a merit-based raise had necessitated he take a gander at her personnel file, Professor Skinner wouldn’t let this subject drop. She didn’t know why the old man cared so much. It was like now that he knew she had three-fifths of a doctorate, he was personally invested.
“Yep.”
“And you’re giving it some thought?”
“Not really,” she joked. “I’m content in this department. Taking care of you lot.”
“Nice try.” The older man smiled. “You’re hiding out here. I want you to start thinking about school again. Got it?”
“I swear you and Narcisa are in cahoots,” Lanie said, pointing her pen at him, squinting. Narcisa and her wife, Isis, were professors in his department. “But yes, Dr. Skinner, I got it.”
And I have no intention of doing anything with it. She’d learned her lesson already. They’d made sure she learned it.
“I won’t pretend Dr. Escolástico and I haven’t discussed you and your future once or twice,” he admitted. “And we agree. You need to move on. You need to spread your wings.”
“Yup,” she said again.
“I see you nodding but I feel like it’s going in one ear and coming out the other.” Professor Skinner shook his head.
“I’m trying to clear everything off my desk and get the filing done while I’m in this week.”
“Suit yourself. Off to England shortly again, then?”
“Yes, I’m checking in on my grandmother.” When he nodded, she continued, “Then I’m helping look for wedding venues with my cousin. But I’ve rebooked all our meetings so we can see each other virtually—noting the time difference, so don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” he replied and she could tell it was the truth.
“Dr. Skinner, I appreciate you understanding...this is certainly a unique situation.”
“No more unique than the past few years.” Her boss waved his hand like the accommodation he was making for her was no big deal. “But it only proves my point that you should enjoy the nice weather while we have it,” he said as he headed out the door. “Outside, Melanie. That’s an order.”
“Sure thing,” Lanie said, settling further into her seat. She had too many things to catch up on to waste time outside. The phone rang and she waited for Professor Skinner to be fully out of earshot before she picked it up, not wanting to draw him back in for a second lecture. “Office of the Chair. How may I help you?”
“I found you.” The voice was smooth and deep like it was dipped in dark chocolate but the sentiment was terrifying.
“Excuse me?” Lanie applied her toughest hard-ass New Yorker accent, conveying to the person on the other end that this was a business phone on which only business would be discussed. She had no time for mouth breathers and wasn’t about to be on an episode of those true crime shows her mom liked so much. “This is the Psychology Department. Now, how may I help you?”
The person on the other line cleared their throat audibly. “L-Lanie?”
No one at work called her Lanie.
“Yes?” Despite that, she didn’t relent or crack. “Who is this?”
“Ridley.”
Oh, shit .
Lanie slapped a hand across her mouth. Sure, they’d been texting off and on for about three weeks now, but she’d forgotten what he sounded like...and what that voice was liable to do to her upon hearing it. Thank God. She couldn’t imagine listening to that voice for three weeks straight without her panties spontaneously combusting.
“Ridley?” She was a little shell-shocked.
“Yes, sorry. I thought it would be a nice surprise to call your work number. Don’t ask me why. I wanted to let you know I was in town.”
He’d said he’d be there later in the week but Lanie had relegated thoughts of him to the section of her brain designated for all things tentative—and to put it bluntly, unlikely. Like, the very idea of a hot doctor from the UK that she met and texted back and forth with a couple times wanting to see her again. Yet, here he was.
“Something came up at home that I have to be back for. So, this is a quick forty-eight hours in town and I’ll be gone by Thursday night. I wanted to let you know because, um...” Lanie could hear a breathlessness, as if he were exerting himself. “I’m worried we’re going to miss each other.”
Lanie’s short-lived surprise curdled into disappointment. “Oh no, I wanted you to see it before it got too cold.”
“See what?”
She could hear a car door close amid the traffic noise outside. “The Wonder Wheel?” She winced, awaiting his response.
Ridley sighed heavily. “You’re still trying to convert me into a Ferris wheel enthusiast? Even though you know I don’t love heights?”
She chuckled at his impatience. She’d forgotten how soothing the cadence of his voice was and how it entered her eardrums, flowing directly into her nervous system. He had the kind of voice that could tuck her into bed at night. Lanie fought her own sigh, just listening.
“There are other things there. Like the Cyclone and the Thunderbolt roller coasters, the boardwalk, the ocean. There’s a Halloween Harvest with pumpkins. Plus, Nathan’s. I was planning a no-expenses-spared outing. Dinner included. Really do it up!” She laughed.
“Hot dogs, huh?”
She was pleased to hear him finally laughing too. “ Uh ...as many as you wanted.”
“Wow, you were really planning to spoil me.”
“I’m trying to put our best foot forward.”
“Well, you’re certainly doing it with that kind of itinerary.”
Lanie kept the smile off her face as one of the professors passed by. She lowered her voice. “I try.”
On the line, she could hear Ridley negotiating things with a cabdriver. “Sixty-eighth and First.”
Straight to the hospital. He wasn’t even dropping off his luggage at the hotel. And so close , she contended with a twinge of inexplicable disappointment.
“You sound super busy, let me let you go,” she said, fully aware that he’d called her.
“No, that’s why I’m calling. Since I’m going to be east today instead of Uptown, I thought I’d swing by my office for an hour or two, then come get you for a long lunch. I just figured out that my office on the East Campus is literally four blocks away. Did you know that?”
Yes. “Really?” Lanie feigned surprise.
“So, what do you say? Lunch at two?”
“Can we make it one?” Lanie thought about when her boss would be back. But he did tell me to go out, didn’t he?
“One thirty?”
Lanie rolled her eyes at this horse-trading. “Okay, but then you’ll get a half hour less of my delightful company.”
“How will I manage to persevere?” As usual, his delivery was as dry as the Mojave.