Tess in Boots

by Courtney Rice Gager

  A young-faced girl, I recognized her as a new hire in sales, appeared from behind the water cooler with mascara running down her cheeks.

  “What's going on?” Annie asked her.

  “You didn't hear?” The girl sniffed.

  Annie leaned forward. “Hear what?”

  “It's over,” she said.

  “What's over?” Annie threw her hands into the air.

  “Everything!” She hiccupped. “They’re closing down our branch. We’re all out of a job. They already sold the office space. We have an hour to leave before the cleaning crew comes in.” She broke into a fresh wave of sobs and darted off toward the bathroom.

  “This can't be happening.” I handed my coffee to Annie and walked to the oak door on the far side of the office. I knocked twice. A familiar voice called for me to come in.

  “Tess.” Jim sat back in his chair with his feet propped up on his desk. He had pulled the silver nameplate off his door and was turning it over in his hands. Fluorescent lights from above danced over the engraving: Jim Pierce, Operations Manager.

  “Is it true?”

  He grimaced. “Yes. I'm sorry to say so, but yes.”

  “Did you know?”

  He paused, and then nodded. “I haven’t known long. But, yeah… I knew.”

  I clenched my hands into fists by my side. “And you didn’t say anything?”

  He looked down. “I wanted to, but I didn’t have a choice. Not according to my contract. They backed me into a corner, Tess. What they did is wrong. It’s not fair, and it’s wrong. You don’t deserve this.” He gestured toward the door. “None of them do.”

  “I don’t understand why they didn’t tell us. How could they do that?”

  “They were afraid employees would steal information. Afraid someone would retaliate against the company in some way. They’re all a bunch of lowlife cowards.” He scowled.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I couldn't look at Jim anymore, not until I pulled myself together. I stared out the window overlooking the busy city streets. The sidewalks below were packed with bustling crowds. Out there, life was going on as usual. But here, everything I worked for was gone. It was all for nothing. In an instant, my existence here was erased.

  “Your promotion.” Jim clapped a hand to his forehead. “Oh, Tess. I'm so sorry.”

  I nodded and pulled my gaze from the window to meet his.

  “What do I do now?” It was as much a question for me as it was for Jim.

  He shook his head. “I've been wondering the same thing. What on earth am I going to do? I’ve been here for thirty years. This is the only place I know. I don’t know if I can start over. But you”—he stood and walked to my side, placing a hand on my shoulder—“you're so young. So talented. You'll find something incredible. You have your whole career ahead of you. Go be amazing.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Go be Tess.”

  ***

  Two hours later I sat at my kitchen table staring at the cardboard box which contained my life at Stevenson. I considered burying it, like a time capsule. Perhaps someday, someone would dig it up and it would end up in a museum somewhere.

  “And here we have the remains of an eternally single girl’s tanked career,” the curator would say. “Our records indicate she died alone in a tiny apartment in Hoboken. Poor girl. She was going to get married. She was going to be director of marketing, you know. Such a shame.”

  Better to save myself the embarrassment and burn it, I decided.

  I pulled a stack of business cards out of the box, shuffling them like a poker deck and thinking about what Jim said: “Go be Tess.”

  The Tess he was referring to had a great job. She had a boyfriend she was hoping to marry. This Tess had a cardboard box and a phone that hadn’t rung all morning.

  Go be Tess. It sounded simple enough. But I wasn't even sure where to start.

  Sitting in my kitchen, staring at my sad little box of a career and remembering the awful events of the night before, I was at an all-time low.

  I hadn’t prayed in ages, but I was desperate enough to give it a shot. I folded my hands and closed my eyes. The room was so quiet I could hear the refrigerator humming.

  “What do I do now, God?” The question came out a clumsy whisper. I fumbled around for something more eloquent to add, but I couldn’t think of anything.

  I opened my eyes and sighed. It was no use. I didn’t deserve an answer to that pathetic excuse for a prayer.

  But I did get an answer. Or at least, it sure seemed that way.

  In a matter of seconds, as if the Almighty Himself had me on speed dial for such an occasion, my phone rang.

  CHAPTER 3

  The twin thing is real.

  At least, that's what my twin brother, Jake, always said. He claimed to have an instinct for knowing whenever something was wrong with me. And he did have a knack for always showing up in my hour of need, so maybe there was something to it, after all. I wouldn't know because I’d never had such an intuition.

  Of course, nothing was ever wrong with Jake. He lived a worry-free, permanent vacation sort of lifestyle. This in itself worried me. Almost everything about Jake worried me. Besides having shared a womb, the only commonalities between Jake and I were double-jointed thumbs and a susceptibility to burn after too much time in the sun.

  But different as we were, I loved my free-spirited brother. And the timing of his call was too strange to ignore. So, although I was in no mood to speak to anyone, I picked up the phone on the third ring.

  “Hi, Jake.”

  “Tessy!” There was a loud whooshing sound on his end of the line.

  “Jake, where are you?”

  “I'm on top of the world!” He echoed the last word several times, like an announcer at a wrestling match.

  I rolled my eyes. “Be serious. Where are you?”

  “I'm on a mountain, Tessy. I'm on my mountain.”

  “Your mountain?”

  “Yep, I own a mountain. Well, I own the land on the mountain. We own it.”

  “We who?”

  “Me and Sara.”

  Jake and his wife of five years, Sara, met on spring break during his third senior year of college. This time he was majoring in hospitality and tourism, mainly because he thought it would land him a job at a luxury hotel on a beach somewhere. He claimed the spring-break trip was a hands-on educational experience. Jake and Sara went to Vegas and got married on a whim two months after they met. I was alerted via text message at four in the morning on a Tuesday. When I got the news, I shook my head and went back to sleep. Jake had long since stopped surprising me with his impulsive antics.

  The marriage itself did surprise me, though. Despite its spontaneous beginning, the relationship seemed to be flourishing, and I had to admit, Sara was pretty great. I couldn't help but like her. She was a sweet girl who put up with my brother. What else could I ask for in a sister-in-law?

  “You and Sara bought land?”

  “Well, no. We inherited it. From Sara's great uncle. And it's not land. It's a vineyard.”

  “A vineyard?”

  “Yes. A vineyard. You know, with grapes and stuff?”

  “I know what a vineyard is.”

  “You seem tense, Tessy.”

  “I'm… I'm fine. Sorry.”

  “That's why I called. Because I knew you were feeling tense. My twin powers were tingling. You need a vacation.”

  “I told you I'm fine.”

  “Okay, we can pretend you're fine, then. So let me put it to you this way: I need you.”

  Oh here we go. Here is where Jake tells me he's broke, and he needs to borrow a few bucks, but only for a little bit. Like the time we were in high school and he convinced me to lend him five-hundred dollars for a junk car he found for sale in the paper. “It’s an investment,” he said. The car died after a couple months, and I never saw a penny of the money Jake promised he’d pay back with interest. But it wasn’t a total waste, because it gave me s
ome leverage when he approached me about investing in an alpaca farm a few years later. I reminded him he still owed me five-hundred dollars for the 1976 Toyota Corolla, and he quickly changed the subject.

  “Jake—”

  “Let me finish, Tessy. I know what you're thinking. But this is not another one of my crazy schemes, and I don't need a cent. I need you. Your ideas. I want to try and make something of this place. It's a little off the beaten path and a little run-down, but it has potential. Serious potential. Come help me get the word out, oh great marketing genius. Come for a week, a month, the summer, whatever. Just come.”

  I sat there listening to the wind whipping on the other end of the line. I did need a job… Would this count?

  No, Tess. Don’t be ridiculous.

  “Jake, I can't pick up and go to… where are you anyway?”

  “North Carolina,” he said.

  “Right. Well I can't drop everything and head down there. I have a life here.”

  “With Britches?”

  “His name is Logan.”

  Jake nicknamed Logan Britches after he spent a weekend with my family a few years back. Logan wore khakis to breakfast and Jake, who’d slept in his swim trunks and was still wearing them that particular morning, couldn’t get over why anyone would willingly wear khakis on the weekend, let alone before noon.

  “Right,” he said, “Logan. That's what I meant. Look, Tessy, come for a week. One week. I have a place for you to stay and everything. All you have to do is pack a bag and get in the car. Come spend some quality time with your big brother.”

  Jake was three minutes older than me, but he never missed an opportunity to refer to himself as my big brother.

  “What do you say, Tessy?”

  I sighed. “I'll think about it.”

  “Great! I'll put clean sheets on the bed.”

  “I said I'll think about it.”

  “I'll text you the address.”

  “Jake, I'm not—”

  “See you soon.” His end of the line went silent.

  I let out a frustrated grunt and slid my phone across the kitchen table. It bounced off the cardboard box and clattered to the floor. I didn’t bother picking it up.

  I rested my chin in my hands and debated Jake's offer. He was right; I did need a vacation.

  For seven years, I’d thrown most of my waking energy into my job. At the end of the day, whatever was left went to Logan. Tomorrow, I wouldn't wake up to the sound of my alarm telling me it was time to go to work. And Logan was out of the country for ten days. Our last moments together were so strained. It was obvious he’d been put off by my pathetic and desperate attempt to tie him down.

  One week. I could go for a week and be back before Logan even knew I was gone. Because when he returned, I wanted to be here waiting for him. I was sure he would come over and… and what?

  And pretend nothing happened? Was that the best I could hope for? For us to go on indefinitely, like we had for years, while everyone around me got married and had babies and moved on with their lives?

  I picked up the phone and stared at it. Logan said he would call, but he hadn't yet. With the way things ended, I'd be lucky if I ever heard from him again. Maybe it was time to shake things up. Maybe it was time to give him a little scare.

  What if he comes back and I’m not here?

  The very thought made my stomach fizzy. Did I have the guts to try something like that? I always dreamed of being the kind of girl who was chased down by some handsome, lovesick guy in the movies. I never dreamed of being this girl; the girl who tried to bully her perfect boyfriend into marrying her. And as much as I wanted Logan to call, I wasn’t looking forward to waiting around for him to make a move.

  So what if I did disappear for a bit? Would he chase me? I hoped so. At the very least, getting away would help to keep my mind off things. It’s not like I had anything else to do.

  I would go, I decided, but just for a little bit. Just long enough for Logan to realize what he was missing and beg me to come home.

  CHAPTER 4

  The next morning, before the sun came up, I was all packed and staring at a blank pad of paper wondering what to write. Logan had a key to my apartment, and in the past, he came over and let himself in after business trips. This time, he would open the door to an empty apartment and a note that would leave him riddled with fear he’d lost me, his one true love, forever. But how to word such a note?

  I wanted to sound as vague and casual as possible.

  Well, if I was being honest with myself, I wanted to write:

  Dearest Logan,

  I have run away in a desperate attempt to get you to chase me down and win my heart with a very grand romantic gesture. Please come with roses, preferably on a white horse. No cake this time.

  XOXO,

  Tess

  That's what I wanted to write. But today, I was the new Tess. The new, non-pathetic, c'est la vie Tess. So I wrote:

  Needed to get away for a bit.

  -Tess

  Wow. I admired my loopy, careless scribble as I placed the note on the entry table where he couldn’t miss it. Then, I loaded two large duffel bags onto my shoulders, pulled my bulging suitcase through the doorway, and locked the door behind me. I walked slowly, struggling under the weight of my bags. They were heavy, but I wasn’t sure what I needed at the vineyard, and I wanted to be prepared.

  I was a few steps away from my front door when I remembered the cardboard box on the kitchen table. I dropped my bags, scrambled to unlock the door, and tucked the box into the coat closet, throwing a quilt over it as an extra precaution. No sense letting Logan find out my entire life had fallen to pieces. Not until after he chased me down, anyway.

  With one final look around the apartment, I shut the door, turned the lock, and was off.

  ***

  “Annie, it’s me.” I concentrated on not spilling my coffee as I walked through the parking lot of the rest stop.

  “Hey. How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay.” I spotted my car and walked toward it. “You?”

  “I have two interviews lined up for tomorrow,” she said.

  Leave it to Annie to get right back on the horse.

  “That’s amazing!” I clicked the button to unlock my car and slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Thanks. How about you?” she asked.

  “I found… something.”

  “Already? What?”

  I placed my coffee in the cup holder. “It’s a… uh, temporary position in marketing.”

  “Where?”

  “Out of town,” I said.

  “Out of town where?”

  “North Carolina.”

  “What?”

  I sighed. “Jake inherited a vineyard, and he wants me to help him get the word out.”

  “Oh gee whiz.”

  “I know. But I could use a getaway. I’m only going for a couple weeks, tops.”

  “Where are you now?” she asked.

  I glanced at a nearby sign. “I think I’m somewhere in Delaware.”

  “Well, be careful driving. At least you get to spend some time with Jake.”

  “Yeah. It’s not such a bad job.” It wasn’t a real job, though. We both knew it, but neither of us said anything.

  “Give me a call when you get there, will you?”

  “Sure. Call me after your interview?”

  “Will do.”

  “Okay. I gotta get back on the road. Talk to you later.”

  “Bye, Tess.”

  I started the car and merged onto the highway. When I left this morning, I felt an unusual sense of bravery. Now that feeling was scaling back like the fuel gauge on the dashboard. Every inch of me silently screamed to turn the car around. To go home and wait for Logan. To head back and try to put my life together.

  I couldn’t listen to myself think. Not if I was going to go through with this. I needed to drown out the noise in my head, so I did something I hadn’t done in years. I
turned up the radio as loud as it would go, rolled down the windows, and sang.

  ***

  Ten hours and two rest stops later, I was driving along an unmarked country road, running low on gas, and cursing my phone’s battery for dying somewhere in Virginia.

  Jake’s directions seemed simple enough, but as soon as I turned off the main highway, all the street signs mysteriously disappeared, leaving me with no way of knowing where to go next. I would have to find a gas station, and soon. I considered merging back onto the highway, but the last exit I remembered passing was at least ten miles down the road, maybe even farther. I wasn’t sure I had enough gas to make it there.

  As I drove along the winding road, climbing and diving with the slope of the mountains, I looked around for any signs of civilization. There were a few old houses tucked away in the trees. Other than that, the town seemed empty, as though it was abandoned years ago. Under any other circumstances, it would have been peaceful, but it was starting to look more and more like something right out of a horror movie. This would be the perfect place for some crazed lunatic to hide out, waiting for a girl like me to turn off the highway and get lost. In fact, I thought with a shudder, there probably was such a lunatic lurking about. He was probably the one who hid all the street signs.

  The fuel warning light came on, and I began to pray for the second time since my world fell apart. “Please, God, don’t let me run out of gas. Please, God, don’t let me run out of gas.”

  I repeated the words in a frantic whisper until I rounded a corner and saw a large brick building. It was a firehouse, I realized as I got closer. Though it wasn’t quite the gas station I’d been hoping for, it was better than nothing, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled into the gravel lot. The parking lot was packed. There were cars everywhere, and I had to park at a precarious angle in the far corner. I wasn’t sure why such a small town would need so many firemen on duty, but it would be dark soon, and I was glad to be somewhere safe. At least I wouldn’t have to go knocking on some stranger’s door for help.

  It felt good to get out of the car and stretch my legs. I half-ran, half-hopped across the gravel to the main door of the firehouse.