Page 38 of An American in London

I’m alternating between sitting and standing at my desk. Every time I manage to sit, I get the urge to run to the exit.

“You’re sure I don’t need to go up there?” I ask Gail, glancing at the elevators. “Mr. Jenkins was adamant I was going to be in the meeting. I’ve been working on this health check for weeks.”

Gail shrugs. “All I know is Ben called him and changed the meeting, so James went to him rather than the other way around.”

“And he moved the meeting up by an hour? I wouldn’t have gone to get my lunch if I’d known.”

I spent the entire weekend with Ben. We watched two and a half Daniel De Luca movies.

We went out for brunch on Sunday, where we’d had two mimosas each and eaten a truckload of avocados.

He’d run me a bath that smelled just like him and then refused to join me in the water despite the tub being big enough for a dozen people.

Instead, he sat on the bathroom floor and we talked about whether he should get a dog and how much I don’t want to live in Brooklyn.

About how he felt when he first moved into his house, and the sunsets in Madison County.

When the water had reached room temperature, he’d toweled me dry, applied lotion all over me, and combed my hair.

I wondered if there was a chance I could bottle our final weekend together so I could take part of it back to New York.

At no time did he mention anything about changing the time of the health check.

“Don’t worry,” Gail says. “James isn’t going to be angry with you. You had the presentation ready for him. You briefed him. If he’d have wanted you in the meeting, he would have told me to call you, and he definitely didn’t.”

I sigh and lean back on my desk. “He’s been up there over an hour. Is that normal?”

“For most health checks, yes. But Ben is usually too busy to spend the time. Stop worrying.”

Easy for her to say. If I went back to New York without a place on the management fast track, what would I be left with?

Precisely nothing. No fiancé, no home, no job.

The elevator doors ping open and I jump to attention as Mr. Jenkins bounds in our direction. He’s smiling as he passes my desk. I hold my breath, waiting for him to give me some indication of how it went.

Just as he gets to the office door, he turns. “Good job, Tuesday. You covered every base. He was very happy. You’ve impressed me. I’m happy to put you on the fast track.”

He doesn’t wait for a response before heading into his office and shutting the door.

I turn, open-mouthed, and stare at Gail.

“See? I told you not to worry,” she says.

My brain feels empty, like I don’t know how I’m feeling or what I’m thinking.

I’ve been waiting for months to hear those words from Mr. Jenkins.

I should feel elated. It was what I’d dreamed of when I checked in at the Daniel De Luca hotel all those weeks ago.

It was the entire reason for being in London.

Having a job means my career up to this point hasn’t been a waste of time. It means I can build forward from now on. It’s the bit of good news I needed so badly.

I jump at the sound of Mr. Jenkins’s office door opening again. He leans out. “Take the rest of the day off, Tuesday. You earned it.” Then before I can protest, he goes back inside and closes the door.

“Take the day off?” I ask.

Gail narrows her eyes, like she wants to ask me a question.

“He’s joking, though, right?”

“I’ve only seen him do it once before,” Gail says. “To me, actually. I ignored him, and he was furious when he found me still at my desk. If I were you, I’d get out of here.”

This day is turning into one of the most surreal I’ve had since landing in London. And that’s saying something, given the things that have happened to me on this trip.

That was it? Health check complete. Career salvaged. Half a day off.

Then back to New York? Or Brooklyn.

And then what?

“Can I make an observation, Tuesday?” Gail asks as I slip my half-eaten croissant left over from breakfast into my bag.

If Ben was here, he’d say Gail shouldn’t ask if she should make an observation, she should just do so. I smile to myself, despite my insides feeling like wet sand. “Of course you can.”

“You’ve worked really hard while you’ve been here,” she says.

I check my bag for my headphones and wallet. “Thanks.”

“I started off in client relations,” she says, and I snap my head up to meet her gaze. She shrugs. “I liked it well enough, but I didn’t love it. I always knew I wanted to love my job.”

I nod, encouraging her to go on. She’s clearly got more to say.

“And then James’s secretary left to get married; that’s what a lot of women did in those days.

They asked me to step in—again, it would never happen now.

I was lucky, because I love this job. I can see the impact I’m having on James every day.

I lighten his load, keep unnecessary nonsense from crossing his desk, make sure he doesn’t spend time doing things he shouldn’t.

I get a real kick out of seeing the fruits of my labor. ”

“I can see that,” I reply. “You run his office with extreme efficiency.”

She gives me a confident smile. “I know. I just wonder if you think you’ll get a real kick out of the management fast track.”

I glance at James’s office door. I would hate for him to hear our conversation.

“You don’t need to worry about James. I swear, I could be out here naked with a baby gorilla on my desk and he’d never notice.”

I briefly close my eyes, wanting to unsee the image that just popped into my brain.

“I’ve only ever worked at the bank,” I say.

“I’ve been wanting onto this fast-track program for the last five years.

The pay is good and the people I work with are smart and savvy.

And the bank’s reputation is excellent .

..” I trail off as I remember my conversation with Ben.

The job with the bank wasn’t anything I was looking for when I was in college. “I don’t hate it,” I conclude lamely.

Gail nods. “It’s different as you get older, if you have kids and a mortgage to make. This is the time to strive to do something you love. Not that you don’t hate .”

“You’re saying I should give up all the work I’ve put in at the bank?”

“Life is long, Tuesday. Do you want to be in a job you don’t hate for the next forty years, when there’s something out there that will make your heart sing? Now’s not the time to settle.”

It sounds like the exact thing my mom would say to me if she were here now.

She’d be able to see that although getting on the fast track is important, it’s not because I love my job.

It’s because I’ve never thought about what the alternative might be.

My life has been packaged in a neat box and fixed with a bow since she died; I wanted it that way.

It was safe and not sad. But not sad isn’t enough anymore.

The box is too small and the ribbon is untied. I just don’t know what’s next.

I’ve never been to the coffee shop at this time of day. Even though Mr. Jenkins told me to take the rest of the day off, it feels like I’m playing hooky. It’s busier than it is in the mornings. It seems the entire population of London wants coffee today.

Except Ben.

I’ve been glancing back at the door while I wait in line, but of course he’s not here. Why would he be? But he’s all I want right now.

I open my phone and check my list of Daniel De Luca sightseeing spots.

I’ve done most of them, but there’s one where he proposes to Poppy Kent I haven’t gotten to yet.

The scene was filmed on location at the Beale Theatre.

It’s kind of difficult to visit a theater without seeing a show, but that scene?

It’s a moment in cinema that turns the hardest heart to mush.

Childhood sweethearts getting a second chance at love after a tumultuous ten years that saw Daniel’s character move to Hollywood and become a famous actor.

He runs into Poppy Kent’s character when he’s back in London taking the West End by storm.

She’s hauling her cello onto a bus in the rain.

He stops to help and they meet again. Just thinking about that scene can bring me to tears sometimes.

What would have happened to Simon and Rose if they hadn’t met again by chance?

If it hadn’t been raining or if the bus had left slightly earlier?

I bring up details of the theater and learn there’s a musical on at the moment: a remake of Sleeping Beauty .

There are tickets available, but I can’t bring myself to go on my own.

But there’s always something to see in London and so much I haven’t done yet.

I’m going to take a walk and see what I run into.

I turn left onto the street and dodge a delivery van unloading a brown paper package the size and shape of a cow into an art gallery. I’m the only one who notices. Everyone else going this way and that is focused on their day. I’m the only one floating about with no direction. No place to go.

I pass by a stationery shop, then stop and turn back.

The window is crammed with every office accoutrement you could think of.

Highlighters, pens, pencils, Sharpies in every color of the rainbow, and a thousand other colors too.

Swatches of paper and cards are arranged at the back like multicolored flowers, and on the right there’s a tower of staplers.

Hanging from the ceiling like ornaments in a Christmas scene are pads of sticky notes in every size.

In between are lines of paperclips, linked together like daisy chains, spinning a little in the draft so they look like rain.

A window like this deserves attention; the shop behind a window like this deserves a browse. It’s the kind of shop my mother would have lost an afternoon in.

An old-fashioned brass bell attached to the door rings as I enter. A pretty blond woman with a pixie haircut looks up from behind the counter and smiles. There’s no offer of help—this is London, after all. But I don’t want help. I just want to look.

There’s an entire wall dedicated to pens of every type and color.

I can’t help but wonder if there’re enough people buying pens to keep the place going.

I pick out a couple and keep going to the eraser section.

This place would have been heaven to teenage me, and it’s still pretty exciting now, as I round the corner on thirty.

Who knew I needed an iguana-shaped eraser?

But I do. I pick it up and feel bad I’m leaving such true artistry behind.

Along with the beautiful but expected rainbows, hearts, and butterflies, there are llamas, avocados, and even cartons of milk jostling for real estate in Eraser World.

Toward the back of the shop, things start getting serious.

I feel like I’m standing in a rainbow of paper and cardstock stacked in neat, sectioned trays that look like they’ve been specially made for the purpose.

I consider asking the woman behind the cash register whether I can bring my things from the hotel and spend the rest of my stay in London here.

There’s something so calming about it. My gaze hits on the stack of mount boards, which remind me of the vision boards my mom and I used to create before she died.

They had all our hopes and dreams of the future on them.

Usually, a future where I’d be Mrs. Daniel De Luca.

My love of vision boards died with my mom. So had my hopes and dreams about my future—marital and otherwise. Things started to rearrange themselves in my mind. I stopped hoping for things when my mom died. I just knew what I didn’t want—the sadness. The grief. The loneliness.

I’d had enough of people leaving me after my mom died.

I clung to Melanie, forsaking new friendships in favor of hanging tight to the one I already had.

I went to college because I wanted to make my dad happy so he wouldn’t have a reason to leave me.

Then I hung on to Jed long past the point any love between us died.

It was all in the name of the status quo—protecting myself from loss. Keeping grief at bay.

I’d been desperate not to be on my own. Desperate not to be sad.

Daniel De Luca was the last man I wanted. Until Ben.

What else have I been clinging to simply because holding on feels easier than letting go?

I pull out one of the gigantic mount boards. I know how I’m spending the rest of my day. I’m going to put together my first vision board in nearly fifteen years, full of things I choose for me. Full of my hopes and dreams for here and now, not way back when.

Before I tear the first image from a magazine, I know it won’t be Daniel De Luca I put up on that board. And it won’t be a job at the bank either.