My belly twisted, and I set my drink down, positioning it to line up perfectly straight with my water glass. “No, I won’t. Don’t say that.”
“I give it two months tops.”
“Until what?” I rolled my eyes. “Until I throw away my self-respect and beg his mother for a job just so I can be near him.” I added a dramatic shudder at the ridiculousness she was suggesting. Not that it hadn’t crossed my mind in my weakest moments.
She flicked her long, auburn hair behind her shoulder. “No. Until he comes for you.”
My stomach dropped into free fall. The idea that he would ever do that was impossible while also intoxicating and dangerous thinking. It was a daydream. An easily crushed fantasy. An idea made worse by the fact that in the deepest, most buried part of my heart—a place where I’d stuffed my love for him under a pile of self-ridicule at being a nanny falling for her widowed billionaire boss—a little flicker of hope pulsed to life. Fuck. I’d never get over him if I couldn’t stop fantasizing he missed me and couldn’t live without me.
I gritted my teeth. “Just stop it, okay. It fucking hurts, Mer. I told him how I feel. He knows. He knows and he isn’t capable of meeting me there. He’s too damaged. He’s untrusting. His heart is closed to me. It’s not happening. And I can’t afford to even entertain the idea that he’s thinking about me. I can’t. I’ll break apart. I’m barely hanging on here. Please, as my best friend, help me forget him, help me heal, don’t stick a lever in the cracks in my chest to pry them open.” Tears had sprung to my eyes.
Meredith’s face grew slack. Her hand covered mine where I’d pulverized what was left of the coaster. “Dammit. I’m so sorry, Josie. I’m so thoughtless sometimes. I… I didn’t realize that you really and truly fell for him. Shit.”
“I told you I did,” I whispered and swiped a hand across my cheek.
“And I guess I just thought it was lust and a massive crush … shit, I’m sorry.”
I laid my head down on my arms.
“Okay. I’m closing us out and then we’re going home to Taye Diggs. I’m sorry.”
Nodding, I mumbled, “Thank you.”
A few minutes later, we were walking down King Street toward home. The fall evening was still warm and balmy, but the breeze was laced with a cool undertone.
“I’m sorry,” Meredith said for the fourteenth time.
I slipped my arm through hers and linked us together. “I know.”
“So how was your first week at the new job,” she asked.
“Great, actually. I’m definitely among my people. Half the salary, of course, but twice the satisfaction level. Also, I’ve dusted off my old blog I started in college. I sent out an email to my old subscriber list and they’re all still there, been missing me.” My chest filled again with warmth at how awesome it had been to send out those cold emails after so many years and to have the responses start pouring in.
“Wait. Your Gargoyles and Medallions blog? That’s great. You really had something there, it was sad when you let it go. It was growing so fast, you could have monetized it.”
“I know. I got so caught up in the soulless competition of working for the architectural firm, thinking I could make a difference that way, I forgot the passion that got me into architecture in the first place.” I had Xavier to thank for waking me up to that. “I’m doubling down on doing what I love.” Then I rattled off the titles of the next five niche topics I planned to write about regarding foreign influences on classic architecture by country.
“I have no idea what you just said, kinda zoned out there, but it sounds great.”
“It just means I’ll be focusing a lot more on my interests. And if, big if, I happen to visit France one day again or anywhere else in Europe, I’ll be doing so for legitimate research purposes. And maybe I can even consult on building projects that are trying to conform to local architectural ordinances or aesthetics. Wherever the projects may be.”
Meredith glanced at me sidelong, and I could sense her biting her tongue. Instead, she squeezed my arm to her side. “Great. I’m happy for you.”
We approached the corner to our street, and I fished in my purse for the keys to the apartment. My phone vibrated, and I pulled it out. I had three missed calls and a voicemail from an unknown number. “Ugh,” I said. “Someone trying to sell me a warranty on that car I don’t own.”
I handed Meredith my keys and swiped over to the voicemail page where a message was transcribed. Josie, set stuffing. Silty play. Unable to transcribe remainder of message.
“Weird,” I said aloud to Meredith. Then I stopped still. Silty play? S’il te plait?
“What is it? Are you coming up?” Meredith stood holding the door open.
“Um. I think … I think Dauphine just left me a message. I can’t tell.”
“Listen to it then. Did you give her your number?”
“I did. I told her she could call me anytime.”
Meredith stared at me, her eyebrows raised expectantly. “As much as I like to stand on street corners …”
“Sorry.” I shook my head. We went inside and I pressed play and held the phone to my ear as we took the narrow carpeted stairwell up to our third floor apartment. Sure enough it was Dauphine’s voice, thick with tears and whispering. “Josie. It is Dauphine. S’il te plait, please you call me. I am so sad. I had a very bad dream. And I am awake. S’il te plait?”
“Oh, God.” I put my hand to my chest. “It is Dauphine. She woke up from a bad dream. I’m going to call her back.”
“So no Taye Diggs for you?”
“Start without me?”
Meredith rolled her eyes with a knowing smirk. “Fine.”
“What was that look for?”
“Nothing, Josie. You
