An hour later, as they enjoyed Improv Brunch at Second City and the performers ad-libbed a hilarious musical about, ironically, teenagers, it was as though there’d never been any tension between them at all. After the show, they drove to the Shedd Aquarium, laughing about how they both thought dolphins were overrated and bonding over a shared fascination with manta rays. After Jon handed his keys to the valet, and while they were ascending the steps, he took his phone out of his pocket, glanced at it, and grimaced before putting it away again.
“Are you keeping it on vibrate now?” Jessica asked.
He nodded.
“What is it this time?”
“Ava just wants me to know that everything is going to shit again with her mother,” he said wearily. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Instead of feeling irritated, Jessica resolved to appreciate the fact that she had a partner who cared so much about the people in his life. “Is action required?”
“Not just yet.”
They had passed through admissions—naturally, Jon was an aquarium sponsor with VIP privileges—and were gazing at the huge Caribbean Reef tank when, this time, her own cell phone vibrated.
“It’s Marco,” she said, looking at the lock screen.
“By all means, take the call,” he said, nodding approvingly. “The man’s working on a Sunday!”
Laughing to herself about the endless complications of dating the boss, she answered. “Hi, Marco.”
“You haven’t gotten back to me,” he said brusquely.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’ve been out since morning, and I haven’t had a chance to—”
“Read my email,” he said. “Now!”
“Hang on,” she said, putting Marco on speaker while she pulled up her email.
Jon read along over her shoulder.
Jessica,
I am in Omaha and American Healthcare Systems is going to sign a contract with us tomorrow. We will need someone to oversee the Revelate rollout in their clinics across the country. I believe that someone is you. Call me when you read this.
Marco
“Are you still there?” Marco asked.
“Wow,” Jessica said.
“AHS is the fifth-largest hospital system in the country, and they think the Revelate can help them hit number one.”
Jessica tried to get her head around this sudden development. Marco had mentioned a possible deal, but she’d had no idea it would happen so soon or that he would ask her to be directly involved. And while this new assignment clearly belonged to the monitoring aspect of her job, the prospect of such a huge and outward-facing role was both flattering and paralyzing.
“We don’t even have full FDA approval yet,” she said to Jon as much as Marco. “Do we?”
Jon nodded enthusiastically.
“We do?” she exclaimed before Marco answered, forgetting for a split second that he had no idea who was standing beside her.
“Just got approval on Friday afternoon for leukemia biomarker testing,” Marco said, not seeming to notice her gaffe.
“OMG!” she said as Jon smiled broadly.
“Your job will be to liaise with administration and help integrate the Revelate into their protocols. Scaling up like this will help us accelerate our nationwide launch exponentially.”
Jon gave her a silent fist bump.
“The thing is, I need you to get on a plane tonight,” Marco said.
“Tonight?”
“The signing came together faster than expected, and we don’t want to be the ones to slow things down. They’re understandably eager to meet the person who’s going to head up the Cancura team. I’m booking you on a six o’clock flight from O’Hare.”
“I do have a few questions. More than a few.”
“All of which I’ll answer when I pick you up at the airport,” Marco said.
“I guess I’ll see you soon,” she said, feeling breathless and a little bit dizzy.
Moments after she ended the call, Jon’s phone vibrated with a message alert from Marco.
“Clearly you and Marco have been conspiring,” she said.
“Let’s just say, I know you’ve missed having patient contact.”
“I do, but . . .”
“I want you on the front lines. The face of Cancura.”
“Are you sure I’m—?”
“Brilliant and beautiful? Definitely.”
“You’re not bad-looking yourself,” she said, blushing. “I don’t want to leave you, though.”
“And I don’t want to be away from you, but with some creative scheduling, I bet we can work out how to spend more time together than we do now.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”
“I guess I’ll just have to rise to the occasion,” he said with a wink.
“That’s all well and good, but if I’m really going to catch that plane and impress our new clients in the morning, I need to get home and pack.”
“Not so fast,” he said. “You at least have to see the eels that change color and sex. They transform from blue-lined males to solid-yellow females.”
“But I—”
“Boss’s orders.”
Lark wandered gallery after gallery in the sprawling, neoclassical Art Institute, seeing everything from old armor and weapons to Renaissance masters to I-could-have-made-that modern art. She saw paintings she’d only ever seen as postcards: Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, Grant Wood’s American Gothic, and Vincent van Gogh’s The Bedroom. It was awe-inspiring and a little bit overwhelming. Suddenly, she realized more than two hours had passed, and her feet were killing her. Stopping at a little café for some coffee, she checked her phone for messages that weren’t there. Resisted the urge to nudge him. Called her mom instead.
“How’s Chicago?” she asked. “I hope he’s giving you the grand tour.”
“Cold but beautiful. I’m on my own right now because he had a work emergency come up.”
“You must be disappointed.”
“We’ll be getting together soon. The museum is amazing.”
“Send pictures?”
Lark promised she would. After a half-hearted spin through a couple more rooms, Lark realized her brain couldn’t handle any more profundity, so she left the museum. Michigan Avenue, festive with wreaths and red bows, was filling up with holiday shoppers and tourists. The air had suddenly become milder, and fluffy snowflakes began to fall, making the whole scene look like a gently shaken snow globe. On the steps beside her, the Art Institute lions both sported enormous wreaths, so she took a selfie, sent it to her parents, and posted it to Instagram.
As if on cue,
