But the truth was, no matter how much I wanted to pin it on someone else, the blame lay squarely at my feet. I was responsible for every decision I ever made: blowing off Martin Chu in favor of going to Macau with a stranger, walking out of the safety of the office and into the uncertainty of the streets, throwing the sensible stability of my five-year plan out the window. No one forced me to do any of it. I made those choices of my own volition.
I couldn’t stand another moment of solitude in my studio, where the silence amplified the weight of Fred’s words. So even though the sun had set long ago, and there was no room in my budget for a pint of Bitburger, I made what was most likely another irresponsible decision and went down to Zum Bauer.
Wolf greeted me at the podium with a broad smile. “Sophie! Do you have another tour group for us tonight?”
“No. I’m not…” My voice trailed off when I realized I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. I’m not really a tour guide. I’m not sure what I’m doing with my life. I’m not prepared to talk about this without a beer in my hand. “I’m just here to see Kat.”
He nodded as I made my way to the bar. The heavy happy hour crowds had already cleared out, but there were still several tables full of people toasting to the end of the day. The cheerful faces and raucous laughter grated on my nerves, and all of a sudden, my empty apartment was calling my name. Suffocating in my own loneliness seemed preferable to being reminded that I no longer had colleagues with whom to share a postwork beer or the extra cash to pay for a round of drinks. Just as I considered stealing back upstairs, Kat caught sight of me and waved. “Sophie!” she called, rendering my escape impossible. “Come here, I have something to ask you.”
I sat down on one of her handcrafted stools and assumed my fakest smile. “What’s up?”
She handed an overflowing pitcher of beer to a waiter at the service station, then wiped her hands clean on a rag stuck in the waistband of her skinny jeans. “What’s this I hear about you bringing in a tour group the other night when I was out? Did you take on a side gig on top of everything else you do?”
“Not exactly.” I fiddled with a cardboard coaster left behind by a previous customer, peeling away at the damp, frayed edges.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She cocked her head to the side and sucked in her cheeks, her expression saying, You can’t fool me. Like my failure was a visible, permanent stain, tarnishing my entire being. When her expression morphed from mock scolding to genuine concern, I pressed my fingertips to my face to discover it was damp. I hadn’t even realized I’d started to cry; I’d just been holding my tears in for so long, it seemed my lids could no longer stem their flow.
“Sorry,” I said.
Kat quickly replied, “Stop. You have nothing to be sorry for.” She filled a pint glass with Bitburger and set it down before me, but I waved it away.
“I shouldn’t.”
“It’s on the house. You look like you need it. Please, drink.”
After a couple of cool, fizzy sips, I finally summoned the courage to tell Kat that I’d quit my job, out of the blue, and my only plan was a half-baked idea about starting my own business.
“Congratulations! That’s wonderful!” Kat grinned, wide-eyed, clearly oblivious to how unqualified I was for this job, how unprepared I’d been for the challenge of entrepreneurship.
“It sounds really wonderful in theory, doesn’t it? I had all these romantic notions of what it would be like to follow my dreams. To chase joy, just like you did.” She raised one corner of her mouth in a sorry half-smile. I continued. “But the truth is, I’m not cut out for this, and now I’ve completely messed up my life. I don’t know what I’m doing and I have no idea how to make things right again.” I squeezed my temples and rested my elbows on the bar. “This was such a stupid idea.”
“You sound like me,” she said. “When I first opened Zum Bauer, I was convinced I had made a huge mistake.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. For the first month or so, I lived in a state of constant anxiety. I didn’t have a steady customer base, so my income was unpredictable. The chefs were having a hard time getting my mother’s recipes right. And Time Out New York gave me a one-star review. They called my restaurant a ‘tragic waste of perfectly good Hell’s Kitchen real estate.’ When I saw that, I cried for hours.”
“I can imagine,” I said, swiping at my cheeks to erase any remnants of my own review-induced tears.
“There were a few moments when I seriously considered selling the place and going back to the world of fine dining. Just like you, I kept thinking I’d made such a mess of my life.”
“And here you are, ten years later. Everything worked out. You’re living out your passion.”
She nodded tentatively, chewing on the inside of her lip. “Yes. But it took a lot of time and a lot of effort. I quickly learned that passion is worthless without the courage to see it through. So I pushed past all my fears and found a way to make it work.”
“How?”
“Well, I reevaluated my budget, hired a new chef, and changed my marketing scheme. But that wasn’t the end of it. Even now, I continually reevaluate my plans and change up my strategies. There are good days and there are bad days, and you have to accept that as part of the deal. Running your own business is a never-ending process of reinvention.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I took a long sip of Bitburger, while Kat fixed her eyes on me, waiting for an explanation. “I mean, how did you push past your fears? Because honestly, Kat, I’m terrified. When I was at McKinley, I could make big, important decisions so easily. Decisions involving millions of dollars and huge corporations, they didn’t worry me in the slightest. I think it was easy because my heart wasn’t in it. All I had to do was go through the motions, checking boxes on a task list someone else wrote out for me. But this…this is a huge risk. My dream is at stake, I’m the one who has to write out the task list, and so far, every single thing I’ve written is wrong.”
“Then rewrite the list,” she said. “Do it over and over again until you get it right. That’s what courage is. Doing what you need to do even when you’re scared out of your mind. Changing your plans when they’re no longer working for you.” She slapped a legal pad and ballpoint pen down on the bar in front of me. “Here, you can get started now.”
The top page was covered in handwriting, line after line of indecipherable German text. It appeared to be a list of some sort, or maybe a plan, one that had undergone numerous revisions. Several items were scribbled out; there were notes along the margins in different-colored ink. How many times had Kat rewritten this before she got it right? Or was it still a work in progress?
“You can do this, Sophie.” Her voice was soft, gentler than I’d ever heard it before. “Stop being so afraid to fail that you never allow yourself to succeed.”
She stepped to the opposite end of the bar, where two new customers awaited her attention, leaving me alone with the paper and pen and the echoing reminder of words I’d spat at Carson only a few days earlier, in the middle of a crowded street. You’re too afraid of failure to try to chase success. How these words were coming back to haunt me now. Because when your heart is in your work, the risk of failure seems unbearable. And sometimes, the fear of losing it all can prevent you from moving forward.
But I refused to let my worries rule my world. Like I’d told my grandmother, life was about taking risks and making messes, even when we’re afraid of what might happen. It was time to practice what I preached. With a shuddering breath, I folded the top paper back over the tattered tape binding to reveal a blank page. Crisp yellow with faint blue lines, at once barren and bursting with possibility. The ideal playground for a dreamer or a planner. Or someone who’s a little bit of both, like me.
One by one, I listed out the problems plaguing my business, then brainstormed solutions, listing out the pros and cons of each one. Ideas flowed faster than my pe
n could capture them, and my hand cramped under the duress of my rapid note-taking. I filled pages and pages with chicken scratch memos, mind maps, and action points, eventually whittling it all down to a single task list. It was nothing more than a jumble of ink scrawls, so much different from the neatly printed pages that would materialize on my desk at McKinley each morning, care of Elizabeth. So much less organized than my color-coded filing system or my perfectly balanced spreadsheets. It was messy and muddled and haphazardly slapped together, but it was one hundred percent mine.
“Looks like you’ve been busy.”
Kat stood above me, her eyes scanning the heap of yellow paper containing my newly revised business plan. I put down my pen and looked around to see the restaurant had completely emptied out; Wolf was wiping down the tables and upending the chairs. I’d been so engrossed in my work, I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. Even my beer had gone flat, abandoned before I’d reached the halfway point in my pint glass.
“I think I’ve figured out how to fix things,” I said.
“Good. And if, for some reason, this plan doesn’t work, you’ll rewrite your list and try again. Right?”
“Right.” I tore my pages out of the pad and slid it back across the bar. “I can’t thank you enough for your help, Kat.”
“It was nothing. We all need someone to talk us down from the ledge sometimes, you know? I’m just glad you’re not giving up.”
“No, I’m definitely in this for the long haul. There are a bunch of changes I want to make now. Hopefully, they’ll help me attract some more customers.” I peered down at my notes. “Speaking of which, I have a question for you: Does your menu have any gluten-free options?”
* * *
The next morning, I woke with the sunrise. It was an effortless arousal, since I refused Kat’s generous offer of a parting Jäger shot. I simply couldn’t risk a hangover; there were too many tasks to check off my list before I set off on my first tour of the day.
First, I signed up for an account with a third-party payment processor so I could start accepting credit and debit cards right away. Then I updated my website, revising all the verbiage to reflect my modified policies and procedures. Reservations now required a deposit and had to be canceled at least two hours in advance to avoid a charge. Furthermore, customized itineraries were no longer a standard offering but for twenty extra dollars per person, groups could reserve their own private walking tour with an individualized agenda. I also included a link to the special prix fixe menu Kat designed for post-tour meals, which included lots of options plucked from the regular menu but labeled according to their dietary restrictions, including vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free. In exchange for promoting Zum Bauer on my website, Kat agreed to give me 10 percent of all the revenue my tour groups brought in.
Next, it was time to make myself presentable. After a hot shower, I arranged my hair into an aesthetically pleasing configuration of curls while repeating positive affirmations to my reflection in the medicine chest. You can do this, Sophie. Don’t be afraid of failure. Fear is your enemy. Feeling dauntless from my one-woman pep talk, I flung open the door to my closet. Beaming out from amid the crush of practical dark-colored clothing was my lemon-yellow sundress. It beckoned to me, stirring up memories of the risks I took with Carson, walking the sultry streets of Hong Kong and Macau with little knowledge of what would come next. The last time I wore this dress, I’d felt confident, competent, and courageous, even in the face of the unknown. Maybe if I wore it again, I’d recapture those feelings by sheer osmosis. As an added bonus, the bright color would help me stand out in a sea of garden-variety jeans and T-shirts. I slipped the dress over my head and quickly changed the header on my home page to read, “Look for the woman in yellow!”
After donning a light jacket to shield my shoulders from the chilly spring air, I headed for the post office on 52nd Street to drop off a package—my most expensive Brooks Brothers suit had sold overnight, providing a much-needed boost to my withering savings—and continued on to the copy shop four blocks farther north. The final task on my checklist was to address one of the problems I’d identified in the previous night’s brainstorming session: the limitations of my current marketing scheme. With my website and social media presence, I was only targeting people who were regularly plugged into the Internet. But as I’d learned from Carson, not everyone lives their lives with their noses buried in their phones. So I devised an alternative way to reach them.
Twenty minutes later, I emerged from the copy shop with four hundred flyers for “Sophie’s Spontaneous Tours.” They’d turned out perfectly: Along the top, I’d printed the times and meeting places for each of my tours, and at the bottom, I wrote my phone number in big, bold letters. But the focal point of the advertisement, right smack dab in the center, was the caricature Carson had created of Sophie the Spontaneous Tour Guide. His drawing was the embodiment of everything I wanted my business to be: fun, fanciful, and full of charm.
For the next two hours, I distributed them throughout Midtown, stapling them to telephone poles in central locations and handing them to passersby on the crowded sidewalks. While most people veered away from my outstretched arm, ignoring my hollers of, “Let a real New Yorker show you the real sights of the city!” there were a few merciful souls who accepted my offerings with the barest of smiles. Even though they most likely deposited those flyers in the nearest corner trash can as soon as I retreated from view, I still took these small gestures of kindness as a good omen.
At ten o’clock, “Midtown Highlights” was scheduled to meet right outside the entrance to the Empire State Building. No one had called to reserve a space, but I still kept my chin up as I walked down 5th Avenue. I was in this for the long haul; I couldn’t give up on my dream because of one bad tour, one bad review, or even one bad week.
You can do this. Don’t be afraid. Fear is the enemy.
At five minutes to ten, I stopped at the curb in front of the revolving glass doors that led to the lobby of the second tallest building in New York, the fifth tallest skyscraper in the United States. Standing beside a potted-plant-cum-communal-ashtray, I tilted my head all the way back, studying its Art Deco façade. From this vantage point, it was impossible to see its pinnacle. There were only windows embedded in concrete, growing smaller and smaller the higher they climbed, until they disappeared into the milky overcast sky.
“You must be Sophie.”
The sound of my name pulled me back to the ground floor, where three women stood before me on the sidewalk. They all looked to be around my age, sporting sensible travel purses and comfortable walking shoes, their faces alight with eager smiles. One of them held my flyer in her hands. Seems like that new marketing plan was already working.
“You look just like the cartoon in your ad.”
“I love your dress. Yellow’s a great color for you.”
Before I could say thank you, they procured three different credit cards from their respective wallets.
“It’s forty dollars a person, right?”
“Do you take Amex?”
Biting back a giddy smile, I said, “Of course.” As I entered their payment information in my phone, I asked them some questions to break the ice. “So, where are you guys from?”
“Ohio.”
“We’re on a girls’ trip.”
“We just got in yesterday. We’re in New York for the whole week!”
“How fun!” Though my personal experience with girls’ trips wasn’t something I’d describe as “fun”—at least, not the “girls” portion of the trip—these three friends seemed to be having a great time. “What’s on your agenda? Besides this tour, I mean.”
“No agenda.”
“Yeah, we’re just winging it. Do you have any tips? Especially for nightlife.” They eyed each other conspiratorially. “We’re looking to get a little wild.”
“Ladies,” I said, unable to control my grin, “you’ve come to the right woman.”
C
HAPTER TWENTY-NINE
By the end of the following week, business was starting to pick up. Inquiries had increased significantly since I’d revised my business plan, and in the span of a few days, I went from canceling tours because no one showed up to routinely hitting my minimum quota of three people per tour, sometimes even more. Some of this newfound success was due to my revised list of itineraries—I’d eliminated the tours that consistently underperformed, while doubling up on the popular ones—and I’m sure the new crop of positive Yelp reviews didn’t hurt either. But when I asked my customers where they’d heard about me, they almost always said, “I saw your flyer.” So it was safe to say my new ad campaign was working its magic.
Which wasn’t all that surprising. Carson’s caricature was so well done, it grabbed people’s attention right away. Who wouldn’t want to tour the streets of New York with the smiling, curly-haired woman in the picture? She looked confident, courageous, and happy. All the qualities Carson saw in me and translated to the page. I only wished I’d seen them in myself a little sooner. Like he said, though, sometimes people don’t know what they want until they see it drawn out for them.
There were a million things I wanted to say to him. I wanted to explain the look on Seth’s face when his father hung up on him, to tell him how I’d quit my job, to show him all the wonderful risks I was taking to pursue my new career. My new life. My happiness.
More than anything, though, I wanted to thank him. Because I never would’ve surrendered to my inner dreamer if he hadn’t challenged my perceptions of what a successful life could look like. In all probability, I’d have continued to let my secret aspirations fade away while I stayed at McKinley forever. Climbing the corporate ladder, collecting fat paychecks, but at the end of the day, never feeling fulfilled.
By now, I was sure he was far away, somewhere on a distant continent, finding new sources of creative inspiration. The sketchbook filled with our intimate memories of Hong Kong had been sitting untouched in my nightstand drawer ever since his departure. I couldn’t bring myself to look at it, knowing that he might have already found someone else to be his muse. Someone who didn’t ridicule his choices, who accepted him as he was. Someone who had the courage to say yes instead of defaulting to the comfort of no.
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