Page 29 of June (New Orleans #6)

“Y ou’re moving?” Rory asked.

“Why do people just assume that when you get an interview for a job, it means you have the job already and are packing your bags and will be leaving?” Enid asked before she took a sip of the coffee from the coffee cart.

“You said she called you personally,” Jill said. “If she’s calling you and telling you to interview, that means you probably have the job, right?”

“Maybe.” She sighed. “I looked into the company this morning, and it’s a good one. They’ve been around for about fifteen years, but they already have over ten thousand employees, so there are tons of growth opportunities, which is important to me. I want to move up in an organization.”

“You want to be a CEO or something?” Jill asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You know Monica can probably get you into Arnette, right? Sophie could, too,” Rory said. “They’re pretty much always hiring. I don’t know about being their CEO one day, but that’s an option, and they’re letting people work remotely now, so you could stay here.”

“I wasn’t planning on a full-time job yet. I wanted to get my MBA, and I’d finally just started to invest in that instead of thinking of it as what I was doing because I’d lost my job and couldn’t find another one fast enough. I’m into it now, and I want to work on the project and see what the team can do. I only have two semesters left after my summer session, and I might be near the top of my class if I keep it up. I could probably get an even better job than the one Sylvie is offering.”

“Then, you wait,” Jill suggested and took a drink of her own coffee. “Tell this Sylvie, ‘No, thanks,’ finish school, and work at NOLA Guides in the meantime.”

“Is that why you’re on my campus?” Enid asked with a smile. “You’re recruiting for Melinda?”

Rory and Jill both laughed.

“No, we were on a long break, and Rory suggested we join you here for coffee since we ate lunch at the office. Kyle brought us all food,” Jill replied. “I do think it would be cool for us all to work together. Rory won’t be sticking around forever, obviously, but at least for a while, right?”

Rory nodded and replied, “I actually really like it so far, and Mel told me she’d work with my class schedule when school starts back up. I still have my regular nanny job, but the kids are getting older there, so they don’t need me for as many hours. I haven’t been working at Candace’s as much because the tips on the tours I have done so far have been pretty good, so if that keeps up, I’ll actually be able to just enjoy drinks at the bar and watch my girlfriend work instead of picking up shifts.”

“Please, you’ll still help Candace whenever she needs it,” Enid replied.

“Yes, but that’s because she’s my best friend and not because I’d need the money. Anything helps, obviously, but I don’t feel as stressed about it as I did before. Besides, Logan is making good money there, and she just started working with some guy she knows who owns his own shop. She’s picking up emergency jobs for him when she can, making a little extra there, too.”

“So, when’s the wedding?” Jill joked.

“In about five years,” Rory said with a laugh. “I’m not saying we’re merging our bank accounts or anything; we just got together. But it’s been nice to see her working on what she wants to do, and it’s good for me to be able to make the money I need with two jobs instead of three and babysitting when I have time. It means I can focus more on school and Logan, which is important.”

Enid smiled at her friend, knowing she and Logan had taken some interesting steps just recently, and Rory probably wanted to spend as much time taking those steps as possible, but since Enid wasn’t sure if Jill knew the details of Rory and Logan’s sex life how she did, she didn’t poke fun at Rory for wanting to be with her girlfriend all the time. Not that Enid had any right to poke fun at her, considering she wanted to spend all her time with Caroline.

For a while there, Enid had wondered if she’d even be good in a relationship because she’d gotten so used to being single and on her own that she enjoyed her independence and liked being able to make decisions on what to do with her time without having to consider someone else, but since she met Caroline, she loved having someone to text and see what she wanted for dinner that night or if Caroline wanted to go out with her friends. If Caroline had said that she preferred they be alone instead, Enid would have had no problem with that. They would’ve had a date night, and maybe she would’ve fallen asleep next to her.

Enid could have had that last night, but she’d screwed that up, so after they had stood on that corner, saying that they’d wanted this to work between them, Enid had driven Caroline back to the dorm in relative silence. She’d asked if Caroline had been too hot in the car and had offered to turn up the AC just to have something to break the ice, but Caroline had replied that she’d been fine, and it hadn’t been the icebreaker Enid had hoped it would be. She hadn’t yet talked to Caroline that morning, which was strange to her now.

They had been waking up and texting each other since they started dating, so now that they’d slept over a few times, Enid had assumed they would only get closer on the mornings they woke up apart, but she’d kept something to herself, and Caroline knew her well enough already to read it right on her face. Enid considered that a good thing in a relationship, but it was also something that got her in trouble last night.

“So, why do you look like you’re sad right now?” Rory asked. “You’ve wanted a job since you lost the first one.”

“It’s Caroline, isn’t it?” Jill asked with a soft smile.

“No, not exactly,” she said. “I mean, I can’t make a giant life decision based on a brand-new relationship, as much as I like her and want this to work.”

“Agreed,” Jill said.

“I have to keep all my options open. Care will be here for at least another two years, and if we’re still together, I think she’s up for moving if I got something in another city or state, but that’s after two years together and would make more sense for us.”

“So, if you took it, you’d have to do long-distance. Do you want that?” Rory asked.

“No, I want to wake up with her,” Enid replied. “I like her.” She chuckled. “She’s so different from anyone I’ve ever met before.”

“No offense?” Jill said, teasing her a bit.

“No offense to both of you, technically,” Enid replied.

“God, Enid. Give me what you have already. You got Rory to like you, me to like you, and now, Caroline to like you. What do you have that makes all the girls want you?”

Enid laughed and said, “I have no idea. Nothing.”

“I think it’s that you are who you are,” Rory said.

“Huh?” Enid asked.

“Well, when I liked you like that, that’s what I noticed. You never seemed to care about what anyone thought of you, and you have this quiet confidence that isn’t arrogance or ego. You just knew what you wanted, and you went for it. That’s what got me , anyway. I had no confidence in myself back then and had no experience with women, either, and you seemed like you just understood everything.”

Enid laughed again and replied, “That is definitely not true.”

“Huh…” Jill uttered, sounding like she had just realized something, and tilted her head. “You know what I noticed?”

“Do I want to know?” Enid asked.

“For me, it was the opposite.”

“What do you mean?”

“You felt a little lost, like me,” Jill said with a shrug. “I mean, I do like my job, and I see a career there, but I’ve been feeling lonely for a while now, with all of my friends pairing up. Getting my new apartment helped, but I think when you and I really met, I saw that you might be in the same spot. It was nice to see someone who maybe felt like me, and I think that attracted me to you.”

“You were like a lost puppy,” Rory said with a playful smile.

“I still am,” Enid replied.

“You’re not, though,” Jill said. “You’re figuring things out. We all are. Rory has, like, eighty jobs and only just now had real sex for the first time because I’m choosing not to count the one guy who didn’t exactly give her much to talk about after, if you know what I mean.” Jill laughed a little. “Then, there’s me. I’m waiting on that promotion from Mel to give me some idea of what a career could look like doing what I do, but I’m still a little lost, and I’m still lonely, wondering when I’m going to meet the woman I’ll spend the rest of my life with. It’s getting harder, though, not easier, because it seems like it’s all the time now that people around me are meeting their people. I don’t know if Caroline is your person or not, Enid, but you clearly like her enough to consider her in this decision, even if you’re pretending that you’re not.”

“Maybe that’s what Caroline sees,” Rory suggested.

Jill turned to her and asked, “What do you mean?”

“She seems to be confident in what she wants when it comes to Enid, but she’s also a little lost, right?” Rory leaned over the table toward Enid. “Maybe she sees someone who understands her while she’s figuring things out, but she also sees someone who’s confident in what they want. You want Caroline and a good career in business. She doesn’t yet have a major, but it seems like she knows she wants you.”

“I hope there’s more to it than that,” Enid said with a little laugh that she hoped hid her insecurity. “I have so much fun with her, Rory, but it’s not just that. I know she’s younger than us, but there’s something about her that feels older.”

“Like an old soul thing?” Jill asked.

“Yes. And I’m totally into that.”

“I get it,” Jill said. “That can be hot.”

“And when we kiss or when I touch her, it’s the only thing in the world that I want to do, but I also want to wake up with her and talk to her all the time, so it’s not just that, either. I don’t know what to do about this job because I feel like I have to at least go for it. It’s my future. We’re just too early and new for me to ask her for anything.”

“You can ask her what she wants,” Rory suggested.

“She said she wants us.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jill replied.

“But we would be long-distance, and she told me very clearly that she doesn’t want to live in Florida, so we would be long-distance for a while. This company only has one office, so I’d have nowhere to transfer out of Florida. I’d have to get another job somewhere or see if they’d let me go remote later if we’re ever going to not be long-distance.”

Jill laughed hard and shook her head.

“What?” Enid asked.

“You’re already talking like your wedding will be before Logan and Rory say, ‘I do,’ and they’ve only met a month or two ago. Just chill out a little, Enid. What will be will be. If you and Caroline are still together when she graduates, you’ll figure out the next step then. You don’t have to worry about it all now.”

“But I am a worrier. I’ve always worried about five years from now today.”

“Does she do that?”

“No,” Enid said.

“Good. Let some of her rub off on some of you, then.” Jill shook her head again. “That came out wrong. You know what I mean. Just do the interview. If you get it, you’ll talk to your girlfriend and figure out what you both want. If she says that she doesn’t want to do the distance thing, you’ll need to decide what you want: do you stay and be with her, or do you go.”

“It’s an eight-hour drive,” Enid said. “And a two-and-a-half-hour flight.”

“That’s not that bad. Bryce and Sophie are doing it.”

“But Bryce is moving here eventually. They already have their plan. I don’t know where I’ll end up if I don’t take this, and I don’t know where she will, either.”

“Probably because you’ve only been together for, like, six minutes,” Jill said, laughing. “Maybe just talk to her, Enid. Do the interview, see how it goes, and if you get it, figure it out. God, why are lesbians like this?”

“I can’t wait until you get a girlfriend of your own and start acting exactly how we are right now,” Enid replied.

“Enid, you might end up hating it after you interview anyway,” Rory said.

“True,” Jill agreed.

“She’s turning twenty-one,” Enid shared.

“Okay?” Jill asked more than said.

“I wanted to plan something. Like, I was thinking about asking Candace if we could have a party there so Care could have her first legal drink.”

“What does that have to do with the job?”

“She’s not exactly happy with me right now,” Enid replied. “I was going to tell her, but I didn’t plan on dropping the bomb in the bar with a bunch of people around. I just wanted to do the interview first and have as much information as I could before she and I sat down and I talked to her about it.”

“Have the birthday thing,” Jill said. “Talk to her before, but let’s still celebrate.”

“What if she says no?” Enid asked. “Or dumps me before the party? That would be embarrassing.”

“She’s upset right now that you might be leaving. I think that means she likes you, Enid. She’s not going to dump you,” Rory reasoned.

“When I look at her,” Enid began. “For the first time, I can see my future, and it’s not work that I’m talking about. I was going to start my career and get settled before I even planned on trying to find someone, but I can see her next to me every morning, and I want that. I want to have breakfast with her and watch her sketch random objects around the house. I want to travel with her and watch her draw people, buildings, and landscapes while I run my hands through her hair. I want to sit at home with her and work while she’s next to me. I have never felt like that before, and it’s the scariest thing because it’s still so new, and I’ve never thought about much outside of school and work.”

“That sounds nice, Enid,” Rory said with a smile.

“It sounds terrifying to me ,” Enid replied.

“I think it’s kind of supposed to,” Jill noted. “Not that I would know. But maybe I’ll be terrified and annoying one day, too.”