“What? No,” Eamonn said. He was in the act of handing the glass he carried to his mother, and his hand jerked so that water slopped over the edge. “Nell, you can’t—”
She raised her eyebrows at him. “You’re going to try to stop me?” she asked drily.
“But—”
“I’ve got to shower, sort out my resume and get some job hunting started, and I’m teaching two classes tonight. I really do have to go,” she told him.
He rubbed his hands against his thighs to get rid of the water droplets that had splashed him. “But I can’t even call you,” he said.
She smiled at that, and wondered if he’d always been the one to do the leaving. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. I’ll be at the Frog and Ball around five thirty. You can buy me a drink, all right?”
Chin up, Nells. You can handle anything life throws at you. Her dad had taught her well, and her martial arts training reinforced it.
Once she’d recovered from the first shock of losing her job, she made a plan and set herself to coping with the situation. A quick workout, a hot shower, a protein shake, and a multivitamin tablet put her back on track within her body. She researched and prepared a dozen job applications — none of the opportunities were terribly exciting, but any of them would help pay her rent, and if she could only pick up one or two more teaching hours a week, she’d be able to make ends meet and keep training. But without a phone number, she was at a disadvantage. Who would hire someone with no phone?
Without a job, she figured she wouldn’t be able to get an expensive new phone on an installment plan or as part of a contract — it would doubtless require payment up front. Every article on cheap phones and budget options pushed a different opinion, and Nell couldn’t decide how far she dared dip into her savings or what features were truly necessary. Maybe a temporary option would do: there were virtual phone number apps that claimed she’d be able to make phone calls from her tablet for only a few dollars a month.
No one was going to be looking at job applications before Monday morning. If I haven’t made a decision about a phone by then, I’ll sign up for a burner number to use ’til I get a job.
She read and re-read her dad’s email. Those nuthatches couldn’t find their ethics or their brains with two flashlights and a GPS tracker. I’ll be home in a month and I’ll take you out to dinner, and if you haven’t found a job by then, I’ll see what I can do. There’s always the Service, you know. “I’m not joining the Air Force, Dad,” she muttered to herself. It would interfere with her training, and they’d want her to do things their way rather than her own. He knew that. But he’d always held it out as an option if she got desperate, and the mention of it was as familiar as him calling her Nells or calling people who’d displeased him nuthatches — a substitute curse-word for use in front of his daughter, something he’d never once slipped up on.
Her mother’s email was predictable in a different way, offering airfare to Australia for a visit, as if running away would solve the problem. Of course, a change of scenery and sunshine and cocktail parties had solved Nell’s mother’s problems — she’d met Anthony — and she no doubt thought that if Nell would just come and meet some nice young Australian men, the same fix would occur. Call me when you get your new phone, she wrote.
Amy was up in Vancouver filming, but made a shocked face and sympathetic noises via video chat and promised to come over with a huge bottle of gin and a box of Cheese Nips as soon as she was back home. “You’ll be okay, bestie! I’ve been unemployed or underemployed a million times, and it always works out.”
Nell arrived at the Frog and Ball just after five o’clock — nearly half an hour before she’d told Eamonn she’d be there. To her profound dismay, he’d arrived ahead of her.
Crap. Not what I’d planned. She’d intended to sit at the bar, as usual, counting on the bartender’s presence to keep the conversation on a not too personal track. Instead, he’d settled into one of the booths behind the pool table — as private as one could get in a drinking establishment. Before she could wrap her mind around a decision, a plan of action, he spotted her and stood up, his face brightening as he waved her over.
A couple of the sports-watching regulars looked up from their nachos as she made her way between the tables, and she nodded in brief acknowledgment as she passed. Will they realize I’m here on a date?
“Hey,” said Eamonn, when she reached him. His arms were open, inviting a hug, and — without thinking about it — she stepped into his space and let him wrap himself around her. He murmured in her ear, “You came. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“I said I’d be here,” she reminded him, tensing a little at the suggestion that she might not have kept her word. He must have felt her body stiffen because he immediately loosened his hug to let her pull away if she so chose. And for a split second, she wanted to stay in the lovely warmth of his arms, smelling his skin and soap. Then she pulled herself together and stepped back. “So, I’m here.”
“Yeah, well,
