by Karen Grey
His hand is up, palm facing me. “Hey, I get it. That’s what I was trying to say. We tried, but this doesn’t add up, the two of us. Or maybe it’s timing. But whatever, I think we should…” His voice is completely devoid of emotion, which is much more painful to take than his outrage.
Nodding, I will my eyes to stay dry. “Yeah. We probably should.”
He nods too. “Well. I’ll see you.”
“Yep.” I just keep moving my head up and down. “Thanks.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
And he steps out, pulling the door shut behind him.
Eventually, I trudge back to the kitchen and slam the phone back into the charger. Then I find the note Will left on my fridge.
Grabbing the note, I ball it up in my fist, drop my ass into a kitchen chair and drop my heavy head onto my arms. I don’t have a single love letter from Will to remember him by.
Only this.
Late that night, Alice sits across from me at my kitchen table. Before leaving the office, I called her and she offered to come over. Head and heart so heavy I can barely sit upright, I tell her what happened.
“And then we had a huge fight and we broke up. And then I had to go to work and try to pretend everything was okay.”
Alice looks at the machine. “Can I hear the message?”
“Sure.”
When it ends, Alice just says, “Huh.”
“Huh? What does that mean?”
Her face is all pinched. “Well, it would make me mad. I mean, you guys kissed? ‘And all’? What does that mean?”
“He kissed me. It wasn’t like he asked my permission. It just happened.” My voice is squeaky, damn it. “And it was only a kiss. Nothing more.”
“Do you think you sent him signals that made him think that’s what you wanted?”
“I’ve been going over it and over it in my head, and I really don’t think I did. I was very clear that he was there as my fake date.” I slump down in my chair. “Will’s right on one thing. He did fit in with my family. Everybody loved him.”
Alice takes a generous sip from the glass of wine in front of her. “Hmm. How exactly did the kiss happen?”
I press my face into my palms. “We went outside because it was hot in the ballroom. Then he was just, like, behind me, and then he kissed me.” I peek at Alice between my fingers. “I didn’t stop him right away. I thought maybe I should see if there was anything there because he’s the kind of guy it seems like I should be with. I even thought maybe I should sleep with him. I didn’t want to, but I thought maybe I should be more… I don’t know.” I groan and push away from the table. Picking at a spot where the wood finish is chipped, I say, “Of course, I was thinking all these things while we kissed, and it may have gone on for a while.”
Alice makes a noise in the back of her throat. I look up to find her brows arched practically to her hairline. “Then what happened?”
“I explained that Will and I were taking a break but not… broken. So we went back inside and danced some more and then went home. To separate beds. Separate houses even.”
Alice stares at the machine like it might make things clearer than I have.
“Alice, I wish I were like you. I really do. But the whole dating thing has always been uncomfortable to me.” I’m whining, I know, but I can’t help it. “I didn’t date at all in high school. Then I met Jonathan the first week of college. What I had with him wasn’t really dating. It evolved.” I hug my knees to my chest, rest my cheek on them.
“By the time we had sex, I trusted him completely.” I lift my head and squeeze my hair, then my skull. “When he broke that trust, slept with that girl—”
Tears leak, but I have to get this out. “Right after giving me that ultimatum! The next day! It just killed me.” When I check, my friend’s eyes are filled with compassion, but it’s still hard to face her fully. “I never told you this part. When I got back to Virginia, I…” I have to push the words out. “I—I fell apart. I had a nervous breakdown.”
My throat’s closing down, but I’m almost to the finish line. “Alice, I couldn’t get out of bed for a month. My parents freaked out, made me go to a shrink and everything. I had to start my job at Fidelity late, pretend I’d had some medical issue. It was all really embarrassing. And kind of scary. Ever since, my parents have been like hawks, wanting me to come home so they can keep an eye on me. But it was work that saved me, really. My brain took over, and my heart just… went numb.”
She shakes her head slowly. “Kate. I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“You were all the way in Korea!”
“I know, but still. I feel like if I’d been around you wouldn’t have had to go home, you wouldn’t have had to start work late…”
“Alice.” I grab her hand. “You can’t take that on. But do you get why this is all so hard for me?”
“Of course.” She squeezes my hand hard. “Oh my god, yes.”
I attempt a smile before dropping my head into my free hand. “If I could just pick someone up and sleep with him and have it be all fun and easy? That would be, I don’t know—but I tried that with Will. I got attached.” I blow out a breath, give Alice’s hand a quick squeeze and get up. I need to move. “Kissing Steve felt really wrong. Not like morally wrong. Just—well, it felt like nothing. Even though I actually get along with him now and we danced and had great conversations. What I feel when Will kisses me is like…” I gesture up and down my body. “Everything. Everywhere.”
Alice refills our wineglasses, which seem to have emptied themselves. “I get it. Everyone is different. And it’s not like I sleep with every guy I meet.”
I accept my glass from her. “I know. And please, I’m not judging you. It’s just that—I mean, why risk a broken heart just to have an orgasm every once in a while? I can do that by myself.” I lean on the counter, stare at a crack in the ceiling. “And then get a good night’s sleep afterward.”
Alice nudges me with a toe until I meet her gaze. “But don’t you miss the other stuff? The cuddling and pillow talk and all that?”
“I guess I threw that baby out with the bath water.” I take a swig of wine, but I don’t even taste it. “Because when I finally crawled out of that deep dark hole Jonathan left me in, the only thing I wanted was to prove him wrong. And I had to, like, harden myself to do that.”
Gripping the glass with both hands, I swirl the pink liquid. “The same thing at work. If I’m this person who is the best at what I do, nobody can question that. I can’t be soft and succeed. It was easier to keep that up if I wasn’t soft anywhere, with anyone.”
Alice clears her throat. “I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“But then I met Will. He seemed so different, so I thought maybe it was time I took a chance, thinking I deserved some fun after I’d been working so hard. An easy, physical thing.”
“And it wasn’t?” She sounds like she’s trying to calm a wild animal.
“Yes? And no. I mean, he seemed like such a good guy. Especially compared to the BSDs I work with. So I trusted him. The sex was really great. So much fun.”
A sudden searing deep in my chest has me squeezing my eyes shut and pressing a hand over my heart. “Seeing him with Callie, I fell right back in that black hole.”
I hear a chair scrape, and Alice is next to me, pressing her shoulder against mine. “But what you assumed happened didn’t, right?”
“That’s what he said.” I blow out a breath. “It’s still so complicated. He was so angry, and I just don’t—I gave up. I give up.” A slideshow of the fight clicks through my brain. “It’s all just—” I shake my head. “It’s too much.”
Alice rests her head on my shoulder. “I don’t know what to tell you, sweetie. I love you, and I want you to be happy.”
I huff out a broken laugh. “And if you could bottle the secret to that, I’d sell your shares and make us a bazillion dollars.”
We lean into each other for a few minutes. Then she straightens and claps her hands together. “Someone has already invented that, my friend.”
I give her a skeptical look.
“Ice cream. Duh. The universal healer of hearts and provider of happiness.”
Going all Vanna White on me, she gestures to my refrigerator. “Guess what I snuck into your freezer when I let myself in tonight?” Opening it, she pulls out four pints of ice cream, one of each of my favorites.
“Have I told you lately that you’re the best friend ever?”
She grabs a couple spoons. “What goes around comes around, baby. Now let’s pig out on creamy, delicious heart medicine and forget about men. Unless you want to have the Harry Hamlin vs. Mark Harmon debate? I’m always up for that one.”
I make a face as I open the Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia. “We’ll never agree on that. I don’t like Harry’s lips.”
“What? They are so kissable!”
“Ugh. Too soft.” I shudder. “They’re girly lips.”
Alice trades me for Häägen-Dazs Chocolate. “So, so wrong.”
“What about eyebrows? Mark Harmon’s brows are so much sexier.”
Letting myself be carried away by the dissection of celebrity male parts and a sugar rush like none other, I raise my spoon to clink against Alice’s. Short-term distraction at best.
Still, it’s better than wallowing in indecision, fear and sorrow all by myself.
When I finally fall into bed, I’m wrung out. My body’s confused from the ice cream and wine I consumed instead of dinner. Alice had me in hysterics multiple times in the past couple of hours, laughing at stories I missed out on since I’ve been so fully wrapped up in my own.
Which makes me feel bad, now that I think about it. On top of all the other bad feelings that come rushing back, now that I’m staring at the ceiling alone in bed.
“Frankie! Come here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”
Even Frankie’s been neglected since Will started sleeping over so much. He spends the night on the couch these days.
I just need some sort of warm body next to me. “Frankie!”
Just when I’m about to give up on every male in my life, I hear my kitty’s chirp and his heavy body lands on the bed. I stroke the side of his face, just the way he likes, until he curls up next to me.
I keep my sobs small so they won’t disturb him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BEEP. THURSDAY, 8:30 a.m.
Kate, it’s Steve. I’m out of the office on some calls but I wanted to tell you—that old professor of mine who does research on microfinance? She’s actually speaking at a conference this week at Tufts. I left the brochure on your desk and a message at her hotel and said you might say hello. Let me know how it goes.
KATE
By the end of Dr. Ortega’s lecture, I have a much better grasp of how microfinance works. It’s basically giving very small loans to individuals who would never be able to borrow from a traditional bank. What would be a drop in the bucket to a conventional business owner makes a huge difference in these borrowers’ lives. Kind of like that saying “when you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but when you teach a man to fish”—and, I guess, give him a rod and reel—“you feed him for a lifetime.” In the case of Ortega’s non-profit, when they give a woman money to buy a loom or a cow, they feed her and her family for a lifetime. Most of these loans are going to women in third-world countries, but I’m thinking that micro-loans are needed here in the U.S. as well.
With that in mind, I take one Will-breath after another, assume my lioness body and remind myself that I have unique gifts to offer as I move through the standing-room-only crowd toward the dais and my goal. When it’s my turn to speak to the professor, I tell her that I’m a colleague of Steve’s and that he let me know about her lecture, then I take one more deep breath and ask her if she might have time to meet with me while she’s in town so that I could ask her advice on career options.
I’m getting better at meeting strangers, but Dr. Ortega is intimidatingly self-possessed and apparently a huge deal in her field. She has a PhD and an MBA. She now teaches at the Wharton School at Penn as well as leading the non-profit. Still, her smile is genuine when I mention Steve.
“Of course. I was hoping you’d say hello. Steven had very nice things to say about you.” She looks over my shoulder at the thinning crowd. “There is a cocktail event I’m supposed to go to.” Eyes back on me, she whispers, “But I’d be happy to skip that if you want to have a drink in the lounge now.”
I do my best to hide my surprise. “That would be perfect, thank you.”
Moments later, we’re seated at a cozy spot and a waiter has taken our orders.
“I really appreciate you taking the time to meet with me, Dr. Ortega. Your lecture was so thought-provoking. Inspiring, really.”
“Please, call me Irma.” She sits back and crosses her legs. “I’m always happy to encourage young women making their way in finance. There aren’t very many of us, especially in your line of work.” The waiter arrives with our drinks, and she lifts her glass in a salute.
Mirroring her, I take a careful sip of my wine before setting it down. I need all my brain cells to focus. “Well, I have to confess, I’m thinking of getting out of investment banking.”
She cocks her head. “Really? Why?”
“This summer, I started visiting manufacturing plants as part of my research. Being there in person was completely different than talking to people on the phone. It opened my eyes to the human costs of what I do.”
Passion that’s been building for months around these issues, combined with Irma’s clear interest, spurs me on. “When I’m selling a company to shareholders, I’m rewarding that company for sending jobs overseas or replacing local workers with robots. I saw firsthand the poverty that creates. I don’t think I want to be a part of that system anymore.”
Getting these thoughts out of my head is such a relief I don’t care if it means my motormouth has full rein. “Then I happened to learn about microfinance and started reading up on it. I’m so glad I found out about this conference. When I heard your lecture—I mean, I just think I’d be a lot happier putting my energy into helping people make jobs rather than taking them away.”
Irma looks off to the right, probably trying to digest my spew of information. “What’s your background? Do you have an MBA?”
I swallow a gulp of wine. “No.”
She winces slightly, making the fine lines around her eyes visible for the first time.
“My plan was to get on-the-job experience before going to grad school. Since then I’ve been learning so much, another degree hasn’t seemed necessary.”
“Tell me what you’ve been doing.” She sets down her glass and leans forward. I give her a brief rundown of my résumé. She asks a few questions, but mostly lets me talk. Once I’ve wound down, Irma presses her lips together and picks up her glass, swirling the liquid.
Just as her silence starts to feel awkward, she sets the glass back down. “This may be fortuitous. Women to Women is based in Philly, but we’ve been planning to open another office here in Boston.” She sits back again, gesturing in the air around her. “We’d planned to hire someone local with experience in the nonprofit sector. There are a lot of alumni groups and potential donors here, as well as academics wanting to be involved peripherally. However, there is another piece that we’re planning to add, which might line up better with your background. SRIs.”
“SRIs?”
“Socially responsible investment dates back to the Quakers in Philadelphia, but it’s happening more and more on an institutional level now. With SRIs, you include corporations’ social and environmental practices as well as all the other factors you’d typically take into consideration when deciding how to invest.”
I have to press my lips together to keep my jaw from hanging open. How is it possible that I’ve never heard of this?
“Curre
ntly,” Irma continues, “Women to Women only engages in Program-related investing, which does not seek a return. A certain percentage of our annual payout has to be PRIs to fulfill our charter. However, we can engage in MRIs—market rate investments.”
She tips her head and wags a finger at me. “This is where you might be of value: researching companies to find ones that are making a positive impact. One of the reasons we want to do this is that many SRI groups avoid businesses involved in a number of activities they consider harmful, like tobacco, gambling, etcetera. But that reject list often includes family planning. WTW wants to actively support such businesses. Additionally, we need to grow our own funds so we can lend more to those in need.”
The excitement building in me now is nothing like the high I feel when Steve and I conquer a roomful of investors. Until I heard Irma speak today, I hadn’t clocked just how unhappy I’ve been at work. I haven’t allowed myself to dwell on people losing their jobs, because it literally makes me sick to my stomach. If I could use my skills to do good? “That sounds like the dream job I didn’t even know existed.”
Irma smiles. “Well, it doesn’t exist yet with us. And to be honest, I may have a hard time selling you to my partners. You’re young and inexperienced in some of the areas we need covered. I’ll talk to them when I get back, and if they’re willing to meet you, could you come down to Philadelphia?”
“Oh my gosh, yes! I’d have to get time off, but I have vacation time I haven’t used, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Goose bumps pebble my arms as Irma hands me a business card. “Wonderful. Give my assistant a call and send her your CV. If we can make it work, I’ll get back to you. We will want to talk to your current supervisor, of course.”
“Of course.” Asking Roland for a recommendation to go somewhere else will be tricky, but a worthwhile risk. “Thank you so much. I really appreciate you making this effort.”
