Page 52 of It Couldn't Be You
“If you are good with it?” he asked. “Obviously, we’ll get a payment transfer set up. We’ll need to get all that set up anyway to bring you on the team. I think we should schedule it to publish two weekends from now. It would perfectly coincide with Valentine’s Day.”
I nodded eagerly. “I would be honored.” It was a dramatic thing to say, but I was too happy to care.
“I must say, I loved your old work, but this one…I think you’ve gotten better. If you can continue to bring that unique style to your travel writing, being more than just a tourist. We want the writing to reflect the real way places we visit or live in can help people grow and change and think.”
“That’s what I want to write,” I said honestly. “That’s what was missing from my old job.”
“You’re not with the newspaper anymore, you said?” Terrence double-checked.
“That’s right.”
“You’ll be a little freer to travel then,” he said, putting a positive spin on my career collapse. “What got you into writing?”
“I’ve always been into writing since I was a little girl scribbling in notebooks. It’s come natural to me like how runners run, how singers sing. I write. It’s what I do everywhere I go. I write about my hometown, my school, the park. Every trip I take gets me inspired, gets me thinking about myself and the world around me. I studied journalism in school with this in mind.” The door of the shop rang as a group of friends piled in, giggling and loud.
“I’m not much of a writer. I wanted to be because I’ve always loved reading and creating. I’m more of a business guy. I own this magazine with the hope of it becoming a print periodical—which is actually coming to fruition soon. But I own a few businesses, whether as the founder or a partner. I’m creative, just in a different way than you.”
“You gotta have all kinds of creative in this world,” I mused.
“Otherwise, who would print those words you write?” He agreed. And he was right, but I sipped my coffee and thought,I’d be writing these words even if they were only ever scribbled in journals.
“And I’d love to print your words. We’re in the middle of some big transitions so all we have right now are some freelance opportunities. But you said in your email that freelance was what you were interested in?”
“That would be perfect,” I said, though something in me, hidden back behind all the fears and doubts about my future, was disappointed that there weren’t bigger opportunities with the magazine. Part of me, way in the back, was aching for something more.
“I’ll get someone to connect with you about this.” He opened his phone and typed away. “Right now,” he laughed. “I’ve sent your info over to Marianne. She’ll get you set up.”
“Thank you,” I said. It felt like this meeting was coming to an end, but then he asked, “What happened with your reporting job anyway?”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, they had to downsize. In the wake of that happening, I kind of realized I hadn’t exactly been writing what I wanted to write…”
“No, no, I was meaning… You’d mentioned in your email that you wanted to travel write, and you were just saying that you went to school with travel writing in mind, so when you graduated, you wound up at the paper instead. I’m wondering why?”
“Well,” I cleared my throat. “I tried to find a position that looked more like ‘the dream’ after I graduated, but I got a couple of…rejections. Right when I was looking for something outside of those dreams, the position with the newspaper opened up. The editor was someone I’d known growing up, an old teacher, actually. He reached out to me and asked me to come interview. It felt like a gift. Plus, the job was journalism. It aligned with my major, and it felt comfortable. It made me happy for a time. You know, in a way, I did love it.”
He nodded. “You loved the job, although it wasn’t the perfect fit.” I grinned at the reference to the article I had just written for him. “You maybe justoutgrewit, and it was time to move on.”
“I guess I wasn’t the only one wanting out of the relationship in the end,” I joked along.
“Well, I hope writing for us is the first step toward finding…what’smeant to be.” He winked.
“A girl can dream,” I said.
“As a guy who has often stumbled along through missteps until I found what I actually wanted, because, let me tell you, while studying business management in school, I wasn’t sitting around thinking about founding a very specific digital travel magazine, or juggling a bunch of startups. I never had a clear-cut direction like you had since you were a little girl. I was just energetic, creative, and wanted to make things, and I realized business was exciting enough for me. Figuring out life, and what you want to do, is a different story for everyone. Sometimes it’s stumbling along until you go, ‘Oh, this is right,’ a lot like finding the one. Or, sometimes, it’s knowing what you wanted all along and getting the guts to go after it—”
“Also, sometimes, like finding the one,” I added with a laugh.
“Ah, that sounds—” But then suddenly Katie was standing by our table.
“Just wanted to check if either of you need anything?” she asked. Since when did we offer tableside service? I wanted to tease her about it but knew better.
“Do you recommend anything?” Terrence asked, turning his entire body toward her.
“You know, as a little welcome to Sweet River, we have some butter pecan scones fresh from the oven,” she said, eyes sparkling. “The pecans come straight from our own trees.”
“She made them herself, and they’re perfect,” I said. “Truly the perfect welcome to Sweet River for any out-of-towner.”
“I’m sold. I’ll take one of those then,” he said. But before she could leave, he asked, “So you’re the chef here?”
