Chapter 28 Spilling
Spilling
“C’mon.” Heidi linked arms with Morgan. She waited until they were half a block away from Oscar’s Tavern before asking, “So what’s the deal with Manuela that you suddenly wanted to leave?”
“She’s a colleague,” Morgan said. “Who wants to talk shop outside of work?”
“But she’s someone you used to work with. That’s what you said when we bumped into her in the Park Grille.”
“Yes.” Morgan skidded in the snow but regained her footing.
Heidi tightened her grip. “‘Have you found,’ Manuela said before you invented the call with Fiona. What was she going to say that had you nervous? Something you didn’t want me to hear?”
“Like I said: It was work. Even though we don’t work together anymore, we still share a lot of contacts, sometimes tips on good investments.”
“I would have thought you’d keep them guarded. Get your clients the good deals, not share them with other firms.”
“Not always.” They reached the corner. A single streetlight flickered, and all the surrounding houses had lights on. There was no traffic.
“They’ll start plowing the streets tonight,” Morgan said.
Heidi stared straight ahead, picking her footing along the sidewalk. “Was she going to ask if you’d found another job yet?”
Silence. Morgan kept walking. “What makes you say that?” she said eventually.
“You only seemed uncomfortable with Manuela after I appeared. Before that, you seemed guarded, but not oh-my-God-get-me-out-of-here. What were you afraid I’d hear?” She took a breath. “Are you not working anywhere, Morgan?”
Morgan’s steps slowed, and she dropped Heidi’s hand, jamming her fists into her jacket pockets. “That’s quite a leap, when you see me working from home most days.”
“Are you?” Heidi said in a soft voice. “Are you really? I don’t know what’s on that spreadsheet, but every time I come past, it looks to be the same one. Same heading, same size of columns. One might think it was a nonsense sheet, the sort people display when they want to pretend they’re working.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Morgan’s voice was as crisp as the night air. “Why would I pretend that?”
“Because you’re embarrassed you’re not working?”
“So rather than tell you I’m unemployed, I waste hours a day sitting in front of a junk spreadsheet. Is that what you’re saying?”
Heidi stared at her feet beating time on the icy sidewalk.
It did sound bonkers when Morgan put it like that.
The final piece clicked into place. “Is that why you need a roommate? Because you’re not working, and the money isn’t coming in to pay for things you’ve always had.
Like a mortgage. Car payments maybe?” She sucked a breath.
“Morgan, are you sick? Have you lost health insurance? If so, maybe we can—”
“I’m perfectly healthy.” Morgan’s voice sliced like an ice shard.
“But your aunt Linda isn’t, is she? You’re offering to fund her surgery, but you’re not working.”
Morgan sped up so that she pushed ahead of Heidi. “It’s none of your business, Heidi. Please, can we drop this?”
“It’s not my business,” Heidi agreed. She caught up to Morgan and matched her, even though it meant she was trudging through the deeper snow outside the beaten path.
“But we are friends.” She mentally pushed aside the kisses.
Kisses didn’t necessarily mean they were more than friends.
“Friends trust each other, and I share the good and the bad with my friends. Making yourself vulnerable makes you human. Friendship isn’t just sharing the good times.
It’s being there for each other, no matter what. ”
Had she gone too far? She glanced across. Morgan’s face was set in stony lines, her brows lowered, and she stared straight ahead as she marched at a fierce pace.
Heidi scurried alongside. “Can you at least slow down a little? I’m not as fit as you.”
Morgan didn’t answer, but her pace slowed.
“Thank you.” Heidi gripped Morgan’s arm, forcing her to come to a halt. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but if I know, I can—”
“Can what?” Morgan swung around. Her cheeks and eyes were red. Was that from the cold, or was she upset? “So you can pity me? Make allowances for me? Tell Lula?”
“None of that. So that we can work together, knowing the facts, and maybe come up with something practical. Cheaper health insurance. The state program. Maybe renegotiate my rent. It’s more than reasonable—I can pay a bit more.”
“I’m not impoverished, Heidi. Please stop treating me like a charity case.”
“Sorry.” She held her hands up, palms out, and took a step back. “But, even if you want nothing else to change, if you at least tell me you’re not working, you can stop pretending whenever I’m around in business hours.”
Morgan held her stone face for long seconds. Then her mask crumbled, and she seemed younger, more vulnerable, a little scared. “Okay, you win. I lost my job just before you moved in. I was fired. Does it make you happy knowing that?”
“No. But I am happy you’re not pretending anymore. Are you looking for another job?”
“I was. But I’ve applied for everything suitable that’s come up, and I haven’t got any interviews. Most of the time, I don’t even get a rejection email. Just…nothing. I’m a pariah in the financial world now.”
“But not forever, surely?” Heidi injected bright optimism into her voice. “People will forget whatever you did and will go on your résumé and experience.”
Morgan shook her head. “You’re a na?ve idiot at times. Some things are never forgotten.”
“Tell me. Maybe we can figure out a way past this.”
“No.” A muscle in Morgan’s jaw twitched. “I’ve told you I was fired. Don’t ask me why.”
Rather than keep looking at the defeat on Morgan’s face, Heidi resumed walking.
When Morgan joined her, she took her gloved hand in her own and swung their arms like kids on a school outing.
“Transferable skills, then. You must have them. What? Accounting? Project management? Some other finance job where market knowledge is key?”
“Mattingley won’t give me a reference. Nothing past dates of employment and the fact they wouldn’t rehire me.”
“Can you go out on your own?”
Morgan huffed a breath. “It’s not that easy. Word spreads. I got a sort of job offer from a colleague-of-a-colleague, who’s starting a new business, but he’s always barely skirted unethical behavior. I won’t compromise myself like that.”
Heidi turned into the cross street, skating across the ice that had formed where vehicles had traveled. “There are jobs that don’t need references. You’d make a good bartender.”
“I didn’t go through six years of college to be a bartender.” Her voice snapped like an icicle plunging from a roofline. “And it wouldn’t support my lifestyle, allow me to keep my house, or pay for Aunt Linda’s treatment.”
The scorn in her voice was crushing. Was that what she thought of her? A menial worker, unskilled, earning minimum wage? She let go of Morgan’s hand. “There’s no need to demean me. I’m simply trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” Morgan snapped.
“But you do.” Heidi’s pulse raced with the need to make Morgan see reason.
“You need me to pay rent every month because, if you don’t room with me, you’re stuck with people who are a lot worse.
You need my money. And I know you don’t need my company—you’re like an asteroid, Morgan: You circle around people but never get too close—but I hope you like my company. ”
A car crawled past, snow tires clicking on the road as they broke through the snow.
“I do need you,” Morgan said with a sigh.
“I’m sorry; I’m being a bitch. I need your rent, and I need you.
Because you’re a kind and considerate person, and I’m comfortable with you.
I’m not at ease with too many people. My parents…
they’re the same. Our family keeps to ourselves most of the time, and I was encouraged to share my triumphs with others but never my failures.
I guess that explains why I’m like this. ”
“I’d say it goes a long way,” Heidi murmured.
“When I was nine, my grandparents divorced. They just outgrew each other after fifty years and went their separate ways. Mom told me not to tell anyone. She considered it shameful to have a divorced couple in the family.”
“I’m sorry that happened. It’s not shameful at all, as I’m sure you now realize.”
“I do. But all the same, you’re the first person I’ve told.”
Heidi’s heart expanded, enough that she took Morgan’s hurt and shame and tucked them into a corner. “I’ve got you. You can tell me anything. I won’t judge. I especially won’t judge you for something so out of your control as your grandparents’ divorce.”
“Thank you. And, please, don’t worry about me.
With your rent and my investments, I’m scraping by.
I can pay the mortgage, buy food, gas, wine.
And in time, and if I do a few upskilling courses on my own dollar, maybe I’ll get a foothold back in the industry.
” She stared down at her feet as they marched along the street.
“Now I’ve told you, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore. ”
She sounded so lost, so tentative and broken. So unlike the confident, almost arrogant, Morgan of their early days as roomies.
“Maybe you need to talk to someone about this, Morgan. If not me, then someone else.”
“I don’t.” Her voice held an echo of her usual crispness. “I’m fine. Please, drop it, Heidi.”
Heidi wanted to hold her, stroke that shining cap of hair, soothe her worries, kiss them away.
She stopped. Yes, kiss them away, soothe Morgan until the confident woman returned.
“If that’s what you want.” How could Morgan get past this if she bottled it up so tightly?
“It’s still early. What say when we get home, we eat our turkey leftovers—again—and watch a movie.
Something lighthearted and full of sunshine. Nothing depressing.”
“Definitely. Although I’m sure you’d find the sunshine in the most dismal movie.”
“I try.” Heidi gave a little skip, then gasped as her foot slid away on the ice.
“Don’t fall. Or if you do and break your ankle, be aware I’m a lousy nurse. You’d be rotting in your cold bedroom before I’d bring you breakfast.”
“And me being so helpful.” Heidi snorted. “See, I’m not falling. And I’m not going to before our road trip. You still want to come?”
“Of course. I said I would, didn’t I?”
“That was before I ratted you out. Before I got you tipsy on barely decent wine.”
“I thought it was okay.”
“I’m adding ‘poor taste in wine’ to the negative column. Really, Morgan, I thought your taste was better than that.”
“I guess my tastes are changing.” A smile flickered on Morgan’s face, and she freed her hand and linked arms with Heidi. “Let’s hurry home and have some of that turkey.”
How could Morgan compartmentalize her life so thoroughly? The moment of weakness had shuffled away out of sight. But that was how she was, and Heidi had to accept that.
She once again scurried to keep up with Morgan. “We’ll do that. And let’s plan what we’re going to do in Leadville.”