Page 61 of Hidden & Held

I stand there, feeling the weight of the door I am keeping closed, one I am not ready to let open yet.

“Thank you for the coffee,” I say, and follow Nessa into my side of the duplex.

Nessa looks around my sunroom-turned-bedroom that Jackson put together and gives a slow whistle.

“He really nailed your cozy cottage vibe in here.” She glances at me before getting to work.

“Alright, interview number one of two is happening in”—she glances at her watch—“three hours. Let’s grab what you need to get showered, prepped, and pure elegance up at my place, and I will be your boss babe chauffeur from one to the next.”

“Thanks, Nessa. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

She waves me off as if her catering to my injured self is nothing. “Don’t mention it. Or do, at the interview with my dad today, and throw in there how responsible, intelligent, and utterly on top of my shit I am too,” she says as a joke, but her voice is higher than usual.

I let it go and begin pointing her to everything I need, sending her upstairs to gather my toiletries. We get shuffled into her van and I stare out the window as we head toward her one-bedroom bungalow, watching the pine trees pass.

“Are you worried about the interviews?” Nessa gently nudges me into conversation, turning on her blinker.

“No,” I answer honestly, “I’m mainly thinking about my insurance gap. Actually, Rhodes called this morning—insurance is sorted for thirty more days. But what I do with that thirty matters.”

“Well then,” Nessa responds by pulling into her driveway and says, “Let’s get you scrubbed up and ready to wow.”

“How did it go?” Nessa asks as she meets me at the front doors of Skaden, Lowe & Jones.

“Good, they were impressed with my record and my already-established connections in the community.”

I have interviewed exactly four times in my professional life and I have always gotten the job. This should make me feel proud. Confident. Mostly, it feels like paperwork, a checkbox I have to get through before I can figure out what comes next.

“Of course they are, and you look good doing it if I do say so myself,” Nessa preens.

I went with a charcoal wide-leg trouser, a sky-blue silk blouse, and a fitted blazer that elevates me to the most professional of snobbish litigators in the business. One kitten heel on, and one purple cast. The cast is either going to be a problem or it won’t for my employers. Either way, it will tell me something useful about my future place of work.

“Thanks, now we have about two hours to kill before meeting at the Foundation. If you need to be somewhere, I can make myself busy.”

She waves me off, driving with purpose in the opposite direction of the Foundation. We pull into Cook’s Park, and she cuts the engine, getting out without explaining herself. I follow along on crutches, accustomed to Nessa’s whims, which I have to admit have never steered me wrong, despite being crazy at times.

We move to the bench overlooking the meandering river with a willow tree gently grazing the top of the water. Nessa reaches into her bag and pulls out a thermos and two travel-size cups, pouring us each a cup.

“It’s Tulsi tea. Basically, it’s nervous system armor. Don’t argue, drink it.”

I grab the tea automatically, inhaling the rich hints of clove and basil. Next, she grabs a small velvet pouch and hands me a small purple stone.

“Fluorite,” she says. “It’s for mental clarity and focus.”

“Did you match the crystal to my cast?” I tease, looking at my cast.

Nessa’s expression doesn’t change. “The universe matched your cast to the crystal.”

Facing the river, she doesn’t let me respond. “Now, let’s focus. I am going to take you on a guided meditation. One to bring alignment to your body, soul, and to all your past and future lives.”

I close my eyes, knowing better than to argue, hearing the gentle babble of the river in the distance.

“Listening to the earth, breathe-with-the-wind,” Nessa enunciates each syllable, aligning with a four count. “Hold-like-the-mountain.” Then breathes out another four count: “Let-it-go-slow.”

I realize through the sequence that she is using the box breathing method. It’s clinically proven as a stress reduction technique, which allows me to buy into the madness a little more.

With the sun warming my skin, my shoulders drop somewhere in the middle of my sixth exhale, releasing tension I didn’t know I was holding.

“There,” Nessa whispers.