Page 48 of Under the Weatherman
“We’re getting close. Maybe we’ll unlock Portugal today, huh?” She knocked my shoulder with hers.
I liked seeing her in such a good mood. That list along with her wizard of a therapist had brought her a long way. “Maybe even Spain! Bas seems to be happy to help you check things off.”
That was the most surprising part of all this. I couldn’t tell if she was using him for points, or if he was using her list to spend time with her, but either way, she’d given him her phone number. These were unprecedented times.
“Don’t worry. He’ll lose interest soon enough.”
I peered over at her, trying to read her expression for any tells. “He cooked for you. Twice. You’re gonna act like he doesn’t want more?”
“He won’t get very far.”
“It’s unfair. You’re struggling because you attracted a guy who might actuallybethe perfect boyfriend and you don’t know what to do with that. Meanwhile, I managed to scare off a guy I would have wanted to date in any normal universe.”
She pressed her lips together in that kind of sympathetic frown reserved for lost causes when there wasn’t anything left to say. “So, have you had a chance to talk with Evan?”
I winced. “We managed to avoid each other after the six o’clock news on Thursday, but I don’t see how that will last. I’d quit if I had anything better.” That reminded me. I took out my phone. “Speaking of which, how does this sound?” I began reading from my draft email to Kate. “‘You depend on me to be available for the most critical work, assuming I’ll have time between the jobs that actually pay my bills.’”
Chelsea frowned thoughtfully. She was never very talkative early in the morning, while my brain came straight out my mouth. “Loving the energy. Maybe you want to focus more on how promoting you to full-time helps her. She already knows you’re juggling jobs and still takes advantage of how fast you turn things around. Be bold. Make her worry she could lose you.”
Right. “That’s true. If she lost me, she’d have to pay someone else at least twice as much to get the same results. What if I threatened to quit?”
“That’s one way to go.” She glanced down at her own phone and grunted a laugh. As she feverishly typed a response, her face lit up with a kind of glee she usually reserved for booking flights.
I harrumphed. “Is that Bas?” Since she wasn’t textingme, the only other person it could be was her mom. But she never smiled after hearing from her loser mother.
“It’s nothing.”
“Uh huh.” It wasn’t nothing though. It was obvious she was casually chatting with Bas. And she wasn’t even banging him. I didn’t know what to do with that information.
She forced her smile back into a scowl. “I’d say you should only threaten to quit if you mean it. The newsroom job pays pretty well, right?”
I blew a raspberry. “Sure. It’s physically, emotionally, and mentally draining, but I can afford new shoes.”
Which I might need since my blisters had blisters.
We crossed the bridge over the tracks, and always on the lookout for an escape hatch, Chelsea said, “We should hop on the train and just go wherever it goes.”
“It goes to Charlotte,” I said. “And Atlanta.”
“And New York,” she retorted. “And New Orleans.”
I rained on her daydream. “You don’t want to be stuck on a train for thirty hours.”
“Probably not.”
“We’ll go somewhere in January. It’s not that much longer. Hang in there.”
“How many points to go to Morocco?” she shot back.
I rolled my eyes. “Too many. What about Tijuana?”
She made a stink face, and I knew she’d find a way to make sure we left the continent, list or no list. We were going to have to decide soon, though. It was getting close to time to start booking flights and hotels.
We reached the Corner, the sidewalks becoming progressively more crowded with college kids, professors, parents, families, and townies—like Chelsea and I had become. She said, “I’m gonna get some coffee,” and headed toward a corporate chain store.
I balked. “From here?”
“Come on. It won’t kill us to sample the competition.”
