Page 40 of Ricardo

“I imagine it does.”

She looks away first. “That’s the part I hate. I know they’re wrong, and somehow I still leave feeling like I’m the one who’s doing something wrong, like I should be apologizing.”

I look at her profile, at the tight set of her mouth and the way she keeps her eyes on the floor instead of on me.

“Apologizing for what?” I ask.

She lets out a small, humorless breath. “Existing incorrectly, apparently.”

The answer is dry, but her voice is too quiet for it to be only a joke.

I set my espresso down beside me. “You came back to Chicago. You took a job. You ended something that wasn’t right for you. None of those things requires an apology.”

For a brief moment, there is something raw in her expression before she manages to smooth it away.

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is simple from where I am sitting.”

“Because you’re not the one sitting at their table.”

“No,” I say. “I am sitting on the floor with you after an espresso machine tried to kill you.”

That gets the smallest breath of a laugh from her, but it does not last.

“I know what I’m good at,” she says quietly. “I know I’m good at what I was doing before. The events, the donors, the schedules, the politics, the people who say one thing and mean six others. I know how to manage all of it.”

“So why not continue doing that, but doing it here instead?”

She looks at me for a moment.

“Being good at something doesn't mean you love it,” she says. “I thought I did. Maybe I do, I don't know. I know I love the cause, but I didn't love the rest of it.”

“What was the rest of it?” I ask, wanting to hear it in her words.

“The rest was convincing rich people to care long enough to be seen caring.” She looks down at her cup. “I was good at that too, but it started to feel like I was spending more time managing egos than helping anyone.”

“That would wear on anyone,” I say.

“It wore on me more after a while. Especially once I realized half the people in those rooms cared more about where their names went on the program than whether the money actually reached anyone.”

She shifts the damp towel in her lap, her expression tightening for a second before she settles.

“And then I became the fiancée of the future congressman,” she says, quieter now. “Things changed even more. He loved that world. Not the cause. The room. The cameras. The people watching him shake hands and look generous.”

I keep quiet. She has not said anything about him before now, and I do not want to interrupt the first time she does.

“He used to tell me I was good for him,” she continues. “At first, I thought he meant I helped. Later, I understood he meant I made him look better.”

I set my cup down because my grip has tightened around it.

“That is an ugly thing to realize after you have already promised to marry someone.”

She looks at me.

“Yes,” she says. “It was.”

“And your parents liked him.”