Chapter Seven-and-Twenty
SEVEN-AND-TWENTY
By the time I head home a few days later, the Davises have had dozens of conversations: between Fisher and his dad; among all the Davises, with Gaby on video chat and Fisher acting as tech support; between Mr. and Mrs. Davis (I assume), in private; and of course between Fisher and his sister.
Together, they’ve managed to work out an arrangement that will bring Gaby back into the Davis Investment Group fold and prepare her to take over from her father someday.
She sounds more excited every time Fisher talks to her, which he tends to do late in the evenings, with me sitting right beside him.
But eager as she is for a career change, she can’t drop everything in California at a moment’s notice, so Fisher has agreed to stay in New York for as long as needed, probably into the spring as his dad is under strict orders to avoid strain and minimize stress.
Once the transition is made, or Mr. Davis’s doctors decide he’s well enough, Fisher is free to leave and pursue his own goals.
“But there’s always a job here, if you want it,” his dad assures him more than once.
They both know he’ll never take his dad up on that offer.
Fisher smooths over any lingering hard feelings by volunteering to take over his father’s seat on the board of the Davis Family Foundation permanently—one less thing for his dad to worry about.
The role of philanthropist suits Fisher, I think, and his mother is thrilled by the ready excuse for him to come back here a few times a year.
When he drops me off at the airport, Fisher confides, “I was waiting until I had you alone to tell you about an email I got this morning.” I raise my eyebrows in anticipation.
“I’ve been accepted into my top-choice doctoral program.
It’s a chance to work with one of the top theorists in discrete mathematics and graph coloring, a Fields Medal winner—that’s like the Nobel Prize of math. ”
“Congratulations!” People are bustling all around us, and I haven’t forgotten the incident at Rockefeller Center, but the light in his eyes makes it impossible for me to resist kissing him.
He’s the one who waited until we were in a public place to spring this on me, after all.
Then I slide back to my own two feet. “I, uh, I didn’t realize you’d already applied. ”
“Yeah, last fall. On a whim—with Professor Zhang’s encouragement. I wasn’t sure anything would come of it. But I wanted to know if I even had a chance.”
I snag my lower lip between my teeth. “So, um … where?”
Yale, surely. Or Harvard. Maybe the west coast. But we can make it work, right?
His expression is nothing short of devilish. “The University of Minnesota.”
“You’ll be in Minneapolis?”
“Actually”—he snatches my hands, dips his head so it’s level with mine—“I was planning to commute from Grantham. My dad took the house off the market, and he’s signing it over to me, as a thank you for coming back here when I needed him.”
Naturally, I burst into tears.
“Elle?” He searches my face with worried eyes. “I, um, I kinda hoped you’d be happy at the news.”
I snuffle and shake my head. “Not just happy,” I tell him. “Completely and perfectly and incandescently happy.”
He doesn’t know I’m quoting a movie, of course, since it no longer exists. But that doesn’t make the words any less true.
“It’s just—I have a job offer from GC,” I explain in a rush, dabbing at my eyes with my sleeve.
“They’re pushing Pedersen out because of …
well, you know. But he convinced them to hire me in a new research and administrative position in charge of the database.
I haven’t accepted it, yet. I’ve been sitting on the news, because you were … and I didn’t know …”
He nods his understanding, his expression suddenly somber. “Will it make you happy, Elle?”
“So happy,” I say, and launch myself into his embrace again.
“If they offered you a job over it,” Fisher says, when I let him catch his breath enough to speak, “that book you found really must be a big deal.”
“Yeah,” I agree with a laugh. “It really is.”
“So, what’s it about, anyway?”
“Oh, it’s the story of a rich guy and a spunky girl—she thinks he’s a jerk, he works hard to improve himself to be worthy of her, and she realizes she has some growing to do too. They figure it out, together.”
“Spoiler,” he says, with a chiding look.
“As if you were planning on reading it.”
He pauses to consider. “Actually, now that you mention it, I think I’d like to.”
Surprise streaks across my face before I can check it. “Oh, OK. Sure. I can … hold on.” I rummage in my bag and retrieve one of the last conference swag items, a bookmark printed with a code for a temporary gift login to OWEN-C. “You can access it with that.”
“Thanks.” He tucks the bookmark into the inner breast pocket of his coat, where I’m sure it will be forgotten, then glances toward the enormous digital clock at the entrance to the sprawling security checkpoint.
“I know it’s late. But before you go, I have a little something for you, too.
” He fishes in the pocket of his jeans and then drops into my hand a keyring containing a single old-fashioned key.
“Did you want me to check on your house while you’re gone?”
“Actually …” He squeezes my hand, just enough to press the metal into my palm; it’s warm from the heat of his body. “I was hoping you’d move in with me. I won’t be there all the time right now, obviously, but I can fly out on the weekends, if you want. And then, in a couple of months …”
He’s cute when he rambles.
I giggle through fresh tears. “Yes! Oh my God, yes. I love your house so much. I mean—” Now I’m the ridiculous one.
His answering laugh is adorably cocky. “I know what you mean.” Then he dips his head and whispers against my ear: “I love you too.”
Cassie meets me outside the MSP baggage claim, as I’d asked her to. And it’s probably just my imagination, but she seems … different, somehow. More like the Cassie of old.
I toss my suitcase into the trunk of her Corolla and slide into the passenger seat. “I really appreciate this, Cass,” I begin.
She shakes her head, making her exuberant curls bounce. “That’s Dr. Lewis to you.”
“You finished? You defended your dissertation? Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand.
“I figured you had enough going on these last few weeks.”
“You’re not wrong.” I’m tempted to lay it all out, the bad as well as the very, very good. In the end, though, I’m too curious about what’s going on with her. “But hey, congratulations! That’s amazing. So what’s next?”
“Well,” she says, stretching the word as she steers us out of the parking garage and toward the highway, “I’ve got about three dozen job applications out, so mostly, I wait.”
Three dozen? In the tight academic job market, that’s got all the earmarks of a national—maybe even global—search. “How’d you get Bill on board for that?”
“Oh, he’s not,” she answers. “We talked it over, I explained my situation; he said I’d just have to choose, and so I did.” She tosses her head again and turns up the music—hip-hop, an artist I don’t immediately recognize, but the beat is fierce. “I chose me.”
I can’t help it. I squeal. “Good for you, Cass—I mean, Dr. Lewis. Good for you!”
We jabber at one another for the next twenty minutes as she ticks off a list of her various prospects and preferences, and I finally tell her I’ve got a job too, at GC.
“So you’ll keep the apartment, then?” she asks. Our lease is up at the end of the spring semester.
“Actually, Fisher’s asked me to move in with him.”
“Girl.” I glance sideways, expecting her skeptical look. Instead, I see the corner of a smile. “He must have had one hell of a good explanation for his behavior at the Grind.”
“He did. I promise.” My eyes scan the scenery speeding past in shades of gray and white. “I wish …” I begin, then break off, because I don’t really know what I was about to say.
Cassie, however, seems to think she does. “You wish things had worked out with me and Bill too?” There’s an edge to her voice.
“Actually …” I weigh my answer carefully. “No. You never seemed yourself with him—never seemed happy.”
She laughs, the sound tinged with a hint of bitterness. “I wasn’t happy. I was … scared, I think. I didn’t want to face my future alone.”
“So what changed?”
“Well, that’s a funny story. Bill invited me to meet his kids, as he calls them—his high-school youth group.
And before the meeting got started, this cluster of girls was tucked into a corner, reading something on one of their phones.
When Bill motioned them over, they didn’t pay attention, and so he confiscated the phone and started reading aloud, and … shew.”
“What was it?”
“A sex scene from this online novel they’d found. First Impressions. Have you heard of it?”
Fortunately, she doesn’t wait for my answer.
“Well, Bill lost it. He told the girls’ parents, got them in trouble.
Only made them want to read it more, I’m sure.
I know I was curious. As soon as I got some time alone, I tracked it down and read the whole thing.
It’s a love story, but instead of two people growing apart, they …
grow together. They’re not perfect, but they’re happy—and they made me realize I wasn’t.
And I know it’s fiction, but by the end, I saw that I was never going to have that with Bill.
He was never going to care about what I wanted.
Never going to treat me like I was the most important person in his life.
I tried to get Bill to read it too, to talk about what I was feeling, but he said, and I quote, ‘it sounds like drivel designed to make women miserable about their lot.’ Their lot,” she repeats, biting off each word.
“Suddenly, being alone didn’t sound so bad. I walked out and never looked back.
“It was like waking up on that first warm sunny day after winter. Everything seemed sharper. Swear to God, colors were brighter. I know it sounds crazy, but that book saved my life.” She pauses, almost reverently, before adding, “Not that your relationship needs any help, but you should totally read it—the main male character, Lord Driscoll, kind of reminds me of Fisher.”
Of course he does.
Which is why I’ll never mention having written the story to him. He’d be mortified. Maybe a little flattered, too? But mostly mortified.
“It’s gotten so popular,” she continues, “people are starting to copy the idea.”
“Cool,” I say. “Maybe it’ll turn into a whole big thing, eventually. A happy endings genre.”
I expect her to scoff at that, but she nods. “Yeah, maybe it will.”
I’m lost in thought for the next stretch of the ride. I’ve never doubted that books can change lives. I never thought my book would be one of them.
But the longer I chew on that thought, the more I realize it’s not just my book anymore.
As we approach the Grantham exit, I pull out my phone and uninstall the Wordstitch app, so I won’t be tempted by notifications.
Then I reread their email. I can’t deny it’s a flattering offer, a lot of money to turn down.
After listening to Cassie, though, I’m thinking about those youth group girls and what would be lost if First Impressions was behind a paywall.
I want everyone to be able to read it. And then I want those readers to write books of their own—different books; better books. I want there to be so many of them, my own is nothing more than a single voice in a chorus.
I hit reply and begin to type.
Thank you for considering my work for this opportunity. However, I have decided to decline. I want First Impressions to remain free to access, so it can reach and inspire as many readers as possible, because I believe it’s vitally important for women to have power over their own stories.
Through the window, I catch my first glimpse of home as I click send.