Chapter 23Hazel
Chapter 23
Hazel
I have worked from home for six years.
When it comes to virtual meetings, I’ve seen it all.
During my annual review, I once met with a manager who put her two-year-old child down for a nap.
She whispered my feedback to me between verses of Star Light and Star Bright . And then, she had the nerve to ask me if I might sing the next lullaby with her. “I just think if we both sing, little James will feel more comfortable.”
I’ve had coworkers accept pizza deliveries during meetings.
Chat with landscape crews.
I once had to sit through an entire virtual meeting peppered with snoring sounds. Devina was on an airplane, and the man beside her was seated so close that I could make out the pattern on his sleep mask. He snorted, drooled, and even talked in his sleep now and then.
Of all the awkwardness I’ve experienced, this has to be the worst.
Jack’s face is washed in bright sunshine. Beside him, I see a tanned midriff and narrow hips clad in low-rise cutoff jeans. The woman—whoever she is—has an intricate tattoo of a motorcycle that’s only half visible over the frayed waistline of her shorts.
Who is she?
Jack’s Wi-Fi is spotty. His screen keeps freezing, and his voice is disconnected from the video's movement.
“—a work call, and it’s important,” his disembodied voice says.
Then he cuts out again, but the video progresses. His mouth moves, no sound. He’s talking to the woman next to him.
The video freezes, but his voice is audible. “No, not a live video for fans, Jess, this is?—”
Wait… Jess?
Did he just say, Jess?
He’s hanging out with his ex?!
The lawyer on the call with us, Raymond Martinez, shifts in his seat. He’s rotund, with a buzz-cut halo of black hair around his bald patch. He fidgets impatiently as Jack’s screen jolts and jags, the sound catching up to the video feed and then lagging again.
Of course, Raymond is impatient. We have a mere sixty minutes for this call, and Jack and I are supposed to give him information he can use for our case.
“I think his connection must be weak,” I say to Raymond. And Jack might be a little distracted out there in Utah.
Distracted by a woman…
Specifically, his ex-girlfriend. Who happens to be gorgeous .
This is not how I wanted this call to go.
Finally, Jack’s spoken words and the movement of his mouth line up. “Sorry, guys,” he says to the camera, “I’m out in public, had to charge up. Busy scene here.”
Raymond coughs into his fist. “ Ah hem. Okay. Well!” He grips the armrests of his seat and readjusts his position so his spine’s straight. I can tell he wants to steer the conversation, but he’s unsure how. “Well, as long as we’re all here?—”
Jess’ face appears next to Jack’s. She waves. “Hello, everyone!”
This is a nightmare.
I hold back a groan.
“Jess, can you give me some room?” Jack asks.
Jess squeezes in closer to him and peers at the screen.
“Sorry!” she quips before turning to him. “I totally wish you were saying ‘hey’ to your fans! They must miss me. Okay, boring old work. I’ll let you get to it. What is your job these days, anyway? Did you ever hear back from that guy about the talk show?”
Jack peers into the screen. “Hazel? Can you give me a sec—like one quick?—”
Jess inches even closer to the camera. Her lashes are so long they almost touch Jack’s face when she bats them. “Wait… is this about the talk show? That was MTV, right? Is this the execs?”
“Jess… no, this is not MTV executives.” Jack pushes his hat back far on his brow.
“Hey, guys,” Jess says into the camera before looping her arm over Jack’s shoulder. “I just hope you know you have a friggin’ superstar here, on your work team or whatever. He was asked to be co-host on an actual television show.”
Jack rubs his forehead.
Jess waves happily, then finally backs away. Now, there are three faces on the screen, which is how it should have been from the start.
I am doing my best to stay here in my seat, staring at my desktop computer, but what I want to do is get up and walk away. Cross the living room, open my apartment door, and step outside.
Maybe a few gulps of fresh, crisp, ice-cold air would make this sick feeling go away.
I am in New Hampshire, land of the snow, while Jack is in sun-drenched Utah with his beautiful, perky ex-girlfriend…
Raymond shifts again. “Alrighty, folks. We have limited time for this discussion, so I suggest we get right into it. Hazel, I had a look at the policy you forwarded over to me. Thank you for that.”
“No problem,” I manage to say.
My eyes linger on Jack’s image, and I feel distracted.
This is the first time I’ve ‘seen’ him since we parted ways at the resort. I left for the airport before him, so we said goodbye outside the lobby. I remember how he kissed me tenderly and how I promised to text him when I landed.
“...which will work in your favor, I believe,” Raymond says. “The more specific a policy is, the easier it is to get our feet on the ground, so to speak.”
“Hm?” I say.
“Then again,” he goes on, “some of the vague policies that businesses have these days leave a lot of wiggle room, and that sure can help, too. Let’s dive in, shall we? I’ll pull it up so you can read along.”
The Buzzy Digital Marketing company policy fills my computer screen a moment later.
“So.” His cursor moves, and he highlights keywords as he talks. “Here you can see the policy names consensual romantic relationships , and of course, we have this clause about supervisor-subordinate relationships, in which one person has authority over another. That’s very common to see that lifted up.”
“Makes sense,” I murmur, even though I’m barely keeping up.
Raymond nods. “At this point, I’d like to ask you both: where are you within the company’s hierarchy?”
“Equals,” I say.
Jack nods. “Equals. We’re both Sales Leads.”
“Wonderful.” Raymond props himself up again, bracing against his armrests. “Really, that’s very good. You can’t imagine how challenging this gets when one person is higher on the pecking order than the other. Now…”
He drones on.
I struggle to keep up with him as he reads through several paragraphs of very technical, scary-sounding regulations.
When he wraps that up, he whips out an expensive-looking pen and removes the cap. He poises it over his legal pad. “Let’s explore your version of what occurred. Hazel, you mentioned Hawaii. That’s when this policy breach happened, is that right?”
I nod, feeling numb.
He must take it as a sign I’m ready to talk. “Great. Good. Let’s get into it. Tell me about your time there. I don’t need details, just a brief overview to understand what we’re working with.”
My tummy dips.
Hawaii…
That magical week.
I will never be the same, thanks to seven days on that island. Given how life-changing the trip was, it feels very odd to be asked to reduce it all to a few sentences. Even more strange is that right now, I can’t even really grasp the truth of what happened in Honolulu.
Did that magic—with Jack—even happen?
My mouth feels parched, but now’s no time to reach for my coffee cup. I’m supposed to speak.
I feel Jack’s eyes on me, somehow cutting through the virtual setting.
“I—er—okay… hm. A little tough to do this, but I’ll try. We, um, both won this work trip. We met at the resort in person for the first time ever… under funny circumstances. Anyway, we didn’t even realize we were coworkers at first. We went out to dinner a couple of times…”
“Mm hm, okay, dinner…” Raymond’s pen wiggles at a fast rate. “I’m trying to look at this from your point of view, as well as from the positions of your employers. You’re bringing up dinner, which I understand. But the issue with dinner would be any physical contact that occurred before, during, or after your meals out.”
“Um…”
I told myself I’d be as honest as possible.
I’m not up for telling a bald-faced lie with the stakes this big. “I suppose… well, we did kiss on several occasions.”
“Any physical intimacy beyond that?” His pen keeps moving as he jots notes.
Jack jumps in. “No, sir.”
Thank you, Jack .
I hate sitting here talking about this sensitive stuff with a stranger.
Raymond echoes my thoughts. “Thank you, Jack.”
Jack nods. “Sure thing, bud. Hey, I’d like to add my two cents.” His warm eyes search the screen… like he’s trying to connect with me.
That’s tough to do now that we’re reduced to pixels.
He rubs his chin. “So, yeah, Hazel and I might have had a few kisses, but that was it. As for this ‘consensual romantic’ stuff, that sounds way too serious for what went on.”
He pauses, and I see his Adam’s Apple dip down as he gulps. He hates lying under these circumstances as much as I do.
But he’s doing it, so I don’t have to.
“It was all just no big deal,” he mutters, his voice strained. “We didn’t… uh… form some deep— ah hem , sorry, really dry here—some deep love connection or anything. Nothing that’s going to mess with our work. We’re back to how it was before, no hard feelings, no big deal. We’re moving on.”
Raymond nods. He’s jotting down more notes. “So, I’m hearing limited contact. Great. And there’s no lasting relationship between you both. Is that correct?”
“It’s over,” Jack says.
Hearing his deep voice pronounce those words sends a chill down my spine.
It’s over.
Is it?
What happened in Hawaii was life-changing for me.
It was a gift.
Maybe I’m meant to accept the gift for what it was: nourishing water on the cracked, dry earth that was my life. Now, newness can spring up.
When water rains down from the heavens, you don’t try to hold it in your hands forever. It’s impossible to do that.
Am I trying too hard to hold onto what I had with Jack?
Is he trying too hard?
What if it’s an impossible task we’ve both assigned ourselves?
We want to hold onto that magical, loving feeling we had. Right now, as I look at the small square on the computer that contains his image, I wonder if it’s wrong to drag what happened in Hawaii into my life going forward.
What if it was meant to be temporary?
Worse—what if Jack wants it to be temporary?
Raymond’s talking again, and I’ve yet again lost track of what he’s saying. I lean forward, trying to get my brain to re-engage.
“...an attempt to avoid potential problems. Now, if you’re telling me there is no lasting romantic contact between you whatsoever, I feel that can absolutely work in our favor. That negates all the threats this document is designed to protect against.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “Harassment suits, conflict of interest, decreased productivity…”
I knew those three things would come back to haunt me.
Jack’s voice sounds incredibly sad. “Hey, I’ve heard those before… In fact, Hazel brought all that up when we were on the island.”
“Did she?” Raymond asks.
I feel myself nodding. “Yeah, yeah, I did.” My shoulders slump, heavy with the weight of what’s happening.
Raymond seems pleased. “Good. That’s great, actually. You did well in considering the policy together. It’s wild how many people sign handbooks and whatnot without ever reading through the dang things.”
“Maybe companies should make animated videos instead of handing out chapter books,” Jack suggests.
Raymond chuckles. “Ha! Videos. I like that. You might have a business idea on your hands there, Mr. Morgan. It does seem the population has shorter and shorter attention spans these days.”
Jack chuckles, too. “Hey, I like it. Maybe I’ll follow up. Cartoons, that’s where it’s at, man.” He laughs again. It’s not his natural, relaxed laugh—the one I know. It’s a form of social currency meant to soften the conversation.
It works.
Raymond is loosening up. It’s clear he thinks we’re out of the tough stuff and into lighter territory. He rests his beefy shoulders back against the deluxe office chair. “I don’t want to come off sounding jaded, guys, but I see many of these situations. It’s nice to feel I’m working with two mature adults for a change.”
“That’s us. Right, Hazel?” Jack asks.
I nod again.
Even as I nod, my eyes flit over to Jess’ long legs, and a quick burst of doubt flickers through me. I feel as insecure as a teenager, worrying about her crush’s feelings for another girl in gym class.
I really wish I felt mature right now.
I really wish I was the person I’m pretending to be: a woman so seasoned by years and years of life’s lessons that all this barely fazes her.
So cultivated, mellow, and worldly that she can kiss a man under the moon in Hawaii and then ‘move on’ without a hitch in her step.
That woman, I’m sure, could sit here and discuss harmless, silly kisses with a lawyer and say they meant nothing.
That woman probably could move on with her professional life without missing a beat.
But that’s not me.
Not right now.
Even though those shared kisses may have been no big deal to another person, they meant so much to me.
It’s a struggle to try to keep everything straight right now.
Did Jack and I form a lasting bond, or not?
What is real, and what’s a story for the lawyer?
The situation is eerily familiar with how it all started. We faked being a couple for photographs, and that was a slippery slope.
Now we’re faking a break-up… and it’s starting to feel uncomfortably real to me.
Maybe Jack does want to move on.
Maybe to him, all that happened was ‘no big deal.’
On the screen, Jack and Raymond keep up their small talk.
“... yeah, the place was great, man,” Jack says. “If you ever have a chance to go, I highly recommend it.”
“You said, Hanu, like, H-A-N-U…”
“Yeah, it's an eco-friendly place, so if you like animals and nature, you’d dig it.”
Raymond swivels to his desktop and works the keyboard for a minute. “Hey, look at this. Sea turtles, dolphins, and look at all those birds… my kids might like this place.”
The conversation turns to kids: Raymond has a daughter and a son. Jack asks for their names, ages, and favorite hobbies.
I’m dying .
Finally, Raymond looks back at his legal pad. “Okay, you know, I think I’ve got enough. It sounds like a casual encounter, with no hard feelings, and you both knew exactly what lines couldn’t be crossed. No complicated situations moving forward, which makes my job easy. I worked a case a couple of years ago where this woman who owned a restaurant was having a kid with one of the waiters on her staff. They wanted me to prove that nothing happened between them…”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Now, that was tough. You’d be surprised at how many folks run around pretending to be all grown up but acting like teenagers who don’t know up from down. Well, you two seem to have an excellent grasp on the situation.”
Do we, though?
That’s what I want to know.
Raymond assures me he’ll sit in on my call with Marissa Snell from the Legal Department.
I’m exhausted at the thought of it and dreading it already.
As I close my computer, I’m still trying to process some of what he said.
My thoughts snag on the bit about the company pecking order. I am fighting not only to keep my job but also to get a promotion.
A promotion I really do deserve. I have worked incredibly hard.
My phone rings.
“Jack?”
“Hey. So, that went pretty well. You feelin’ okay about it?”
His voice, so deep, resonant, and warm, tugs me back to the white sand beaches of Hawaii.
But when I look up, all I see is my stark white wall.
I swivel to look out my apartment window at the snow piling up on the sill. It is still snowing out. When will it end?
“I wouldn't say I’m feeling good ,” I admit. My whole body is tense and tired at the same time.
“Yeah, I get that,” he says. He sounds pretty beat up, too.
I wonder how much of that has to do with the meeting we endured and how much has to do with his feelings toward me. We’re trying to navigate a challenging shift in our new relationship, which is not going well so far.
The long-distance thing is incredibly hard, even for people who have well-established relationships. Jack and I only had seven days together.
“Look, if you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to,” he says.
My fatigue turns to fear.
Yeah, this isn’t going well, but I didn’t expect him to say this .
What I just witnessed on the screen—him swearing it’s over—seems even more real.
In his mind, it’s already over. We lasted one day.
If I were on the beach with him, I’d probably pull down the brim of my hat. That would give me a minute to think. Even better, it’d allow him to lift the brim and peer into my eyes.
I can feel myself pulling back and retreating. And now, he’s not here to get past my defenses.
He’s far away… hanging out with Jess.
“I’m in a boxing ring with Devina,” I murmur. “She’s fighting to keep her job… but she’s a terrible manager, Jack. I could do so much better.”
This work stuff is not the whole story. Inside me, all my doubts rise up. Does Jack still have feelings for his ex? Is he trying to get her back?
I’ve been hurt so badly in the past. Derek made a fool out of me. I vowed not to become that foolish woman again.
“Ooh, ho ho, that’s putting it lightly.” He’s trying to sound casual, but some strain sneaks in. “She’s the worst boss I’ve ever had, to be honest. You’d be way better. Everyone would be so psyched if you stepped up.”
My throat is so tight.
I want to burst into tears.
My stomach’s a knot; my chest aches with sadness.
Jack waits for me, but I can’t talk.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he says. “I mean, we have Hawaii. That was amazing, Hazel. If we need to cool it, we’ll cool it.”
I don’t want to cool anything.
I want love, and warmth, and sunshine.
I want Jack.
But all my doubts and fears stop me from speaking up.
Maybe this is his way of saying that he’s over it. He must want to move on.
Jack has a whole life in Utah, and right now, he’s probably realizing what a mistake he made, promising himself to me.
I wanted commitment.
That was me putting that expectation on us.
He’s so optimistic, and loving, and giving… he gave me what I wanted.
Now, I have to let him get out of it.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding though he can’t see me.
A tear slides down my cheek, surprising me. I don’t even know when it first welled up. But now another slides down, right behind it, and I’m aware that the tight feeling in my throat is going to give way to a sob at any moment now.
“I think that’s best,” I choke out. It takes all my effort to get words through the constriction. My chest is so tight I can barely breathe.
“Okay, but Hazel…?”
“Y-yeah?”
“I do want you to know that you’re special. And I had a great time getting to know you better. And?—”
It’s impossible to get even one word out. Tears flood my eyes and stream down my face. I press my trembling lips together and wait.
“And—I mean, I don’t know,” he goes on. “It happened fast, didn’t it? Good luck. With the job. I know you’re gonna get it. Fabian What’s-his-name would be an idiot not to snatch you up. Don’t assign me all the pain-in-the-butt clients just ’cause I can work magic, and I know all the good realtors. I pull bunnies out of hats when I have to, but it’s not easy.”
He’s joking.
Trying to make me laugh.
I feel a smile flicker through my tears. I swipe at the salty wetness. “You do pull bunnies out of hats.”
“It’s a gift,” he says.
We both fall quiet.
It’s like neither of us wants to give up first.
But I have to mop up my face and try to breathe normally again, and I know Jack has things to take care of out there in Moab.
When we say our goodbyes, it feels like my heart is getting ripped in two right here in my living room.