Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“I was thinking corporate casual,” I say with mock seriousness.
“Corporate casual,” Nate agrees, affecting the same tone. “Sounds like a good call.”
“Blue or black pants?”
“You wore blue yesterday, so black.”
There is nothing too mundane for our phone calls. I would listen to Nate read off his utility bills, and I know the feeling’s mutual.
Once we’ve talked through breakfast and I finish getting ready, I set out on my walk to InkWell.
“Don’t forget your keys,” Nate tells me just as I was about to walk out the door without them.
I laugh and grab them from the bowl near my door. “How’d you know I was going to leave them?”
“Because you made coffee at home today. You always leave them behind on days when you make coffee at home. Probably something about your hands being full.”
Huh.
Once I’m out on the sidewalk, Nate asks if the crazy hat lady is walking her dogs. I search the sidewalk, craning my neck looking for her. “We missed her,” I say, not even bothering to keep the sadness from my tone. We keep tabs on crazy hat lady, and we take our surveillance seriously.
“Bugger.”
“We’ll try again tomorrow. No wait!” I erupt when I spot her up ahead. She’s our favorite character in my morning commute. Better than pretzel guy and newspaper lady. “I see her! She’s wearing a cornflower blue tea hat. Roughly the size of a sombrero. Her dog is wearing—hold on, someone is walking in front—oh, yes.” I grin. “A coordinating sweater in the same exact color. He has a tiny tea hat of his own.”
Nate chuckles. “Perfect.”
“We really have to start cataloguing these. I don’t think she’s worn the same hat twice.”
“No, she did, remember? Last month, the red one with the feathers.”
I click my tongue. “You’re right. I’d forgotten.”
We go on talking for the ten minutes it takes me to make it to work. I go incredibly slow. I could cut the commute in half, but I dawdle where I can. Today though, I cut it too close.
“Hold it!” I say, in a rush to catch the elevator. I’m running a few minutes behind which shouldn’t matter because I don’t have any meetings today, but it’s the principle. I like to be at my desk, ready to tackle the day no later than 9:00 a.m., which is why I’m squeezing myself into this elevator and thanking the nice woman who held the door for me.
I smile at her. “Appreciate it.”
“Sure thing.”
“You’re so polite,” Nate says, teasing me. He knows I will not say anything to him in a jam-packed elevator, but it’s part of the bit.
Even on the elevator, our call doesn’t drop, but I go silent as we ascend toward the fourteenth floor, a place I’ll only be calling home for a few more days. Joy confirmed with me earlier this week that HR officially approved my request to work remotely.
“I still can’t believe you’re going to England,” she said during our meeting.
I smiled sheepishly, a little embarrassed. “Do you think it’s silly?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Silly?” She sat up, perfecting her posture, and then laid her hands carefully on her desk. “On the record, your personal life is none of my business. You don’t need to worry how it will affect our professional relationship.” Then she smiled and leaned in, dropping her manager mask. “Now between me and you, if I weren’t happily married with three children under three and if that man were in any way interested in shacking up with me? Summer, I’d be on a red-eye tonight.”
I laughed. “It just seems kind of crazy. Doesn’t it seem crazy?”
She tilted her head, studying me with a gentle expression. “Is it? I moved here from Arizona for Bob when we were dating. People move for their partners all the time.”
Shocking as it might seem, Emma has been reassuring me as well. We’ve seen each other a lot over the last few weeks, and not just at family dinners. We’ve met for coffee and to get our nails done. I brought her lunch at her practice the other day just because I had a free hour. She’s even chatted with Nate via FaceTime a few times, and she’s slowly but surely warmed up to the idea of me going to England, so much so that she’s blocked off a week of her schedule in late summer. She and Lincoln and the kids are going to come visit Sedbergh during the high season.
“Okay. I’m walking to my desk now, I really have to go,” I tell Nate.
“Do you, though?”
I laugh. “Nate. Yes. Of course I do.”
It’s so hard to say goodbye to him in the mornings. Sometimes we just don’t. Occasionally, we’ll stay on the phone until my AirPods die. He’ll listen as I work and I’ll listen as he writes at the coffee shop. He’s even taken me into Martin’s shop once and let me say hello.