23. Jake #3
“New business plan, based on Mike’s ideas. Yes. That’s my weekend project.”
“How’s your day job?”
“Demanding.”
“Don’t you have a slow time of year?”
“We could, but I volunteered to do the daily report on the Asian markets, so I’m in two hours earlier each day.”
“You don’t have time for that.”
“No, I don’t, but I want the promotion that’s coming up. Theoretically, the estate will be settled eventually and I’ll have time to breathe then.”
“What would you rather be doing?” she asks to my surprise. “Probably not just breathing.”
I’m thinking of one thing I like to do, but it would spoil the tone of the conversation here – which is kind of amazing – if I said it out loud.
“I like my job. Doing it without the other stuff would be fine.”
“You like playing with money.”
“True.”
“But you must like something else.”
I look out the window at the darkened lake. I’ve told her pretty much everything else. Why not this too? Will I ever see her again? I’m thinking not, so I go for it. “One of these days, I’m going to get a sailboat, and spend my weekends sailing.”
“Have you done it before?”
“At university. Once a friend took me out, I went whenever I could. It’s why, actually, I bought this place.”
“It has a lake view.”
“Yes.”
“But wouldn’t it be better to be on the lake, rather than looking at it?”
“Of course, but I don’t have time right now.”
“When will you have time?”
I sigh. Time is not something I have in abundance. “That is the question.”
Mackenzie laughs. “Maybe you should make time for what you want. Get your boat now, Jake, and get out there. Give yourself a day off once in a while.”
It sounds good but it’s a fantasy. “Maybe once the estate is settled.”
“So, there’s a difference between us,” she says. “I want to follow my dreams so much that I won’t compromise them. And you’re compromising your dream, holding onto it for someday, instead of following it.”
“Different kinds of dreams,” I point out, even though there’s truth in what she’s saying. “Your dreams are career related and ambitions. Mine is about leisure time. It’s pure fantasy.”
“I think they’re both about lifestyle choices.
I work as many hours as you, Jake, but it doesn’t feel like it.
I live at the vineyard. I walk the fields every day.
This place is my consuming passion. Are numbers that important to you, or are they a means to an end?
And if they are the means but not the destination, what is the goal? ”
“You ask really good questions in the wee hours of Thursday morning,” I say and she laughs again.
“Sorry. Feeling philosophical tonight. Thank you, Jake. You’ve helped me decide what to do about Darcy.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
I can hear her smile. “Yes. And thanks for being my friend.”
“Right back at you.”
We bask in the glow of mutual admiration for a moment before I realize what she said. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You just called him Darcy.”
“Because it’s his name.”
“No. No! His name is not really Darcy!”
“It is.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. And once I start, I can’t stop. I’m dying and, in a heartbeat, Mackenzie is laughing along with me.
“I knew it,” she says, pretending to be furious. “I knew you would make a joke of it.”
“I don’t have to. It’s already funny.”
“I know.” She sobers and her voice drops. “I imagined your reaction as soon as I was introduced.”
My laughter stops at that. She was thinking of me when she met her mom’s choice.
That’s a lot. I’m insanely pleased but also troubled.
“I need to be less predictable,” I say gruffly instead of digging into that.
Mackenzie laughs. “Maybe more spontaneous,” she says and I’m startled. “Wasn’t that what you wanted?”
“Of course.” But she’s right. I’m not spontaneous. My routine is set in concrete. My life is more regimented than it would have been with Chelsea.
She would have booked annual vacations, at least.
What the fuck am I doing? I stand there and look around the condo I wanted more than life itself, the view that is really just taunting me with what I’m not doing, and can’t think of one thing to say to the only person who might understand.
“Sounds like I shook you up,” Mackenzie says finally, her tone playful.
It is her gift, but I won’t tell her that.
“You made me think, that’s for sure. Thank you.” I make a joke because this is getting too serious. “If you’d said it in French, Isobelle, I would have forgotten the friends bit.”
“Probably safer for both of us that I didn’t then,” she says lightly. “Bon soir, Jake. Et merci.”
I pretend to swoon and she laughs. After we end the call, I know I won’t sleep anytime soon. I don’t have time for that, but I’m also wound up, thanks to her questions.
Do I have to wait until I can fully commit to a life of leisure, or could I possibly have a bit of my fantasy life now? I am thirty-seven, speaking of biological clocks. Tick tock. Maybe it’s time.
Maybe I can’t afford it just yet.
Maybe that sounds like something my father would say. Always saving for a rainy day – at least until he found Monsoon Candace.
Maybe I can’t afford to let it wait any longer.