Chapter Twenty-Seven
A month after my interview in Kansas, the department administrator sends me a two-sentence email that begins Dear Candidate, lets me know I’m no longer being considered for the position, and ends with Best. The only surprise is that the committee waited a month to send it, though given the speed at which academia moves, this is actually lightning fast.
A week later, Dylan and I send Kate a full manuscript for A Siren Calls.
I’m wildly proud of it, both for the tribute it pays to my grandmother’s world and for the elements we came up with ourselves.
It’s a wonderful melding of three imaginations, and I’m surprised to find I feel more attached to it than I did to the three books I wrote entirely on my own.
I knew—or at least suspected—I could write those books before I opened a Word document.
This one’s different. I’ve learned things about myself I never expected, like straying from the safety of facts can be really fun, although merging facts with fantasy is even better. When done concisely, of course.
The following day, Rahul finishes the roof.
No more leaks. No more rodents getting into the attic.
No more choreographed bucket routine. He gives me a card for a contractor who does drywall, and I pin it to the fridge, knowing I can’t tackle more big repairs anytime soon.
Money is so tight right now. Dylan and I talked about looking for more paid work many times, but we agreed to see the manuscript through and then reassess.
Still, I’m so tired of tasteless pasta, cutting corners on energy use, and adding to the repair list without ever crossing anything off.
It’s been worth it, for now, but only because we’ve been lucky.
One more crisis with the house or, god forbid, a health emergency, and we’d have nothing to fall back on.
I can’t help reflecting on my conversation with my mom and how getting the job in Idaho could be key in maintaining a better safety net. A thought I resolutely keep to myself.
In the first week of April, shortly after fully reimbursing my siblings and celebrating the new roof their loans helped fund, I meet them in Portland for another bridesmaid-dress-shopping excursion, one we plan ourselves at an upscale consignment shop with an extensive, eclectic selection of dresses, from beachwear to bridal attire.
Our mom is gloriously absent since Riley convinced her to take a step back, and she agreed as long as the four of us still stand up beside him, wearing something that won’t embarrass her. Her words, not his.
In the spirit of compromise, we commit to a blue theme with a lot of personal leeway.
Eleanor goes simple and traditional with a navy silk sheath dress she can also wear to work.
Haley goes bold with a print jersey wrap dress that accentuates her curves.
Louisa finds a retro swing-style dress with white pindots against a cobalt background.
I try on what feels like a billion options before I step out of a dressing room in something that works: a robin’s-egg-blue sundress made from delicate handkerchief linen that reminds me of the shirt Dylan wore for the photo shoot on the boat.
The dress is so simple. A few pin tucks on the front, paralleling a row of tiny pearl buttons.
Narrow shoulder straps. A full but unadorned circle-cut skirt that falls to my ankles.
A satin ribbon around the waist. It’s timeless and beautiful, swishing around my legs with every step, and it’s a color I sincerely love for myself, one I hope is a first of many.
Everyone agrees this is “the dress,” and before I take it off, Louisa wrangles us for a group photo so we can show our mom she has nothing to worry about, and so she can coordinate the bouquets she’s refused to give up on, a concession Riley and Emil were happy to make.
We pass him our phones so he can rotate through them, and he’s about to shoot with my phone when it rings in his hand.
With a quick glance at the screen, he holds the phone toward me.
“You should take this,” he says, and I do, with all four of my siblings instantly on edge.
I step into the privacy of the dressing room and answer the call.
It’s Dr. Weingarten, the head of the search committee from the college in Idaho.
He apologizes for the delay, noting that the administration was enforcing new budgetary procedures that halted all hiring processes for several weeks, but he’s pleased to inform me that he has permission to offer me the job, starting July 1, giving me three months to sort out a move and get settled before starting work.
He talks me through the offer: the salary, benefits, teaching load, start-up support, and shortened tenure clock due to my prior tenured appointment.
He promises to send everything in detail via email by the end of the day, but he wanted to call as soon as he got the approval, as the committee was excited about the possibility of my joining them.
I tell him I’m thrilled about the offer—even though I’m a lot of other things, too—and ask for two weeks to consider it.
He’s warm and friendly as he agrees, and he says they hope to hear back soon so they’re not leaving other candidates waiting, especially if they might need to make another offer.
I emerge from the dressing room to find my siblings exchanging whispers and wary glances. As the door swings shut behind me, all heads turn my way.
“Well?” Louisa asks.
“I got the job in Idaho,” I say.
A silence falls, and no one moves, which speaks volumes.
“Are we celebrating, stress eating, or both?” Haley asks.
Eleanor reaches into her purse and holds out a travel pack of tissues. “Just in case.”
I wave off the tissues, and she returns them to her purse as I sink onto a nearby bench.
“It’s nice to have an offer,” I say, and wow, that does not sound celebratory.
“And?” Eleanor asks.
“And I promised Mom I’d take it if I got it.”
Another silence, one that feels more and more excruciating the longer it stretches on.
“Dylan and I just sent Grams’s agent the first manuscript,” I say.
“I don’t want to lose the opportunity to see that through.
I don’t want Dylan to lose it, either. With the teaching salary, I could keep the house, which would allow Dylan to continue living there and allow me to stay there during breaks.
I’d have the summers to keep writing with him, if he was up for it and if we sold the first book.
If I turn down the job, I have to let go of all of that.
Sure, I’d find another job somewhere, at some point, but I don’t have the same marketable skills you all have.
I’d be lucky to get a retail or serving position, and I wouldn’t make enough to finish even the most essential repairs on the house.
Without the house, I don’t have a place to moor the boat, so I’d have to sell her, too, after all the effort Dylan and his friends put into getting her seaworthy again and all the money Grams’s fans poured into her.
And without summers off, when would I write novels? ”
Haley sits beside me and takes my hand into her lap, giving it a good squeeze.
“Grams did it,” she says.
“Yeah, and according to Mom, she was broke, exhausted, and miserable.”
Eleanor nudges my toe with hers. “Until she wasn’t.”
I nod, considering. The Grams we remember was joyous, energetic, and far from broke. Not that I’d delude myself into thinking I’ll become a bestselling author of dozens of novels, but I wouldn’t necessarily be miserable or any more exhausted than I was as a full-time professor.
Louisa eyes me skeptically. “Would you really have summers off?”
“I mean . . . maybe?” I cringe at my answer, recognizing that I never had a summer off at my last job, or even a full week.
I was busy planning the next term’s classes, researching for my next book, advising for fall registration, and writing conference proposals, recommendation letters, grant applications, equipment requests, and budget spreadsheets.
“I’ll find a way. I’ll make the best of this.
Nine months there, three here. It might be great. I won’t know unless I try.”
For several seconds, no one says anything.
My brain fills the silence as my thoughts spiral in a familiar way.
The house. The boat. Waking up to the sound and view of the ocean.
Living near my family. Staying with Dylan.
Writing Grams’s books. Giving my teaching career another shot before I give up on it.
Making enough money to meet my needs without begging for help.
Having a job versus having a vocation. Being noticed and cared for.
Life so seldom presents us with a simple question of this or that.
It’s a complicated nexus of interlocking priorities.
If I can’t have it all, what can I have, and what am I willing to sacrifice in order to have it?
Riley takes a seat, bookending me between him and Haley.
“We’ll miss you,” he says, and just like that, the tears come.
Eleanor whips out her tissues like she was expecting this any second.
Haley wraps an arm around me from one side, and Riley from the other.
Louisa lets me take a tissue before grabbing one for herself.
A clerk approaches, takes one look, and walks away, leaving us in our sad little gathering, wilting against one another, despite receiving news that should have us cheering.
“I need a plan,” I say. “This isn’t a bad one.”
No one contradicts me. No one agrees with me, either.
This is my choice to make, which is both freeing and terrifying.
Mostly terrifying, especially when I think about the conversation ahead of me, the one I need to have with a man who has a gift for walking out of rooms he doesn’t want to be in, and who’s told me, himself, that he seldom fights when faced with conflict. Instead, he leaves.