Page 65 of The Best Worst Thing
Goodbye
May, Two Years Ago
Nicole’s knuckles grazed the glass pane of Logan Milgram’s corner office, then mustered up a single, soft knock.
He’d been sitting there, AirPods in, knees to chest, the gum soles of his Reeboks tapping against the dark blue cushion of his always-swiveling office chair.
His eyes were on his computer screen, and half a stale break room croissant was dangling from his mouth.
His hair, as disheveled as expected for half past four on a Monday.
He issued Nicole a cordial smile, nodded her inside, mouthed Quentin, sorry, with an obligatory minicringe, then tipped his head toward the couch behind him.
Nicole had a seat and, while Logan finished his call, took a few seconds to study the place.
The mess of paperwork and random pens and chocolate-covered pretzels on his desk.
The stacks of years-old Adweeks piled high atop his filing cabinet.
The wall-mounted whiteboard calendar where his team’s travel schedule for the next six weeks was neatly recorded in color-coded handwriting that definitely wasn’t his.
The plastic vat of animal crackers he sometimes used as an ottoman.
After begrudgingly agreeing to get on the next flight to Monterey, Logan hung up the phone and spun his chair around.
His right arm was in a brace.
“What can I do for—”
“What’s wrong with your hand?”
“I’m, uh, having this problem with the tendon in my thumb.”
“Oh, wow,” she said. “How’d that happen?”
He scratched his jaw, half chuckling. A year ago, Nicole would’ve spent thirty minutes guessing how he’d gotten himself into this predicament. Today, she simply waited for an answer.
“Between you and me, I may have taken last week off to hang out with my nephews, but they all got hand, foot, and mouth. Huge outbreak, apparently. We were supposed to go to Daniel Tiger Live and everything. Anyway, I ended up playing a hundred hours of video games at my parents’ house instead.
By Saturday, the swelling in my wrist was so bad, I couldn’t even open a can of soda.
My mom had to drive me to urgent care. So, yeah, that’s what happened.
That’s how I, a thirty-six-year-old man, spent my PTO. ”
Nicole laughed. She couldn’t help it. The jolt of energy—for half a second—almost made her forget what had happened over the past few days. What she’d decided. What she was doing here. It was the first time she’d felt even close to normal since Thursday.
“What’s Daniel Tiger Live?” she said.
“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Nicole’s eyes scrunched closed.
Logan’s face fell at once.
“I’m sorry,” he said, wincing. “I don’t know why I said that. I wasn’t thinking, I …”
“It’s fine. It’s actually why I’m here. I wanted to come and talk to you.”
“Do you want to take time off? You can talk to Emily about that, for sure. If you take medical leave, you’re protected. You’ll still have Brie’s job lined up, she’s not leaving until July …”
Nicole shook her head.
“I’m not going to take the job,” she said as Logan flinched. Her voice was wobbling and her hands were wrung together in her lap. “Today’s my last day.”
“Nicole …”
“Please,” she said. “I can’t do it all. I need to focus. I need to not be so stressed.”
Logan rubbed his throat, nodding. “Of course.”
Nicole took another look around—the case of Gatorade under his desk, the Mariners’ schedule pasted on his wall, the fish bowl on his coffee table teeming with crumpled-up Post-it notes he was not yet prepared to throw away. Slowly, she came to a stand.
“You should try reading,” she said.
“I read,” he said.
“I know. But now you’ve got an extra hundred hours a week, and only one opposable thumb.”
He smirked, but barely. “You got any ideas?”
“Yeah, I’ll … I’ll make you a list. I can leave it on your desk tonight, if you want? I know you’re heading out soon.”
“Oh, okay, wow. Sure. That’d be great.” He stood from his chair. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”
He held out his good hand. Nicole stared at it.
Logan, mouth twitching, shrugged his shoulders and smiled weakly.
“It’s been a pleasure, Missouri.”
There it was—that tug, that ache.
“Yeah,” she said. “It sure has.”
And then she mustered up some semblance of a too-slow, too-long, all-wrong handshake, swallowed a mess of words she did not know how to say, and began to walk away.
“Hey, Nicole?”
She turned around, heart racing.
But what could he possibly do? What could he possibly say? They were work friends. They were colleagues. That was it. That was all.
“I hope you get everything you want,” he said.
“You too,” she said.
And then she issued him one last half smile, took a deep breath, and quietly closed his door.