Page 64 of It Couldn't Be You
Yet the question was there on my lips. I had seen and respected the taste and perspective Terrence brought to the magazine. His feedback or advice would be gold.
“That’s good, that’s good.” He was in an office with a window overlooking downtown Vancouver. “Was it an adjustment?”
I briefly wondered if Katie had shared with him what an adjustment my first day had been for me writing-wise. “It was. I had to find out how to work with the new requirements and with the new way of traveling.”
“You know, not every piece will be sponsored with the same requirements and specifications. But we do have to have a few,” he explained.
I nodded. “I found my flow, anyway,” I said chirpily. Some of the questions I had for him were waiting to come out, but I was just scared. Katie was smiling at me as we spoke, completely fine if I asked.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that. We’ll send you a few more opportunities. I’ll remind Marianne. You know, I was curious. Is this what you want to keep doing? Writing freelance? Or are you doing this while biding your time looking for another staff writing position or maybe reporting? What’s the zoomed-out picture there?” He said all of this so fast, so easily, as if the question was at the top of my mind.
I swallowed hard. My heart said,I want to be writing a column, writing whenever and however I can, and going out with my pen and notepad.
But my mouth said, “I’m just trying to figure it out as I go. I have a few feelers out there.” A vague job-interview answer.
I looked at Katie, who was frowning, but I wasn’t sure if it were because of me, the sun shining hot on her face, or Midnight running toward us at that very moment.
He knocked her over with slobbery dog kisses, and she dropped the phone. I could hear her telling Midnight, “No, no, bad dog,” and Terrence laughing from the screen.
I felt like I’d not only broken my promise not to interrupt Katie’s love life with my work life, but I also felt I’d stumbled around while talking to someone I really respected and wanted advice from.
“Okay, so listen to this,” Katie said, putting the phone back on herself.
I tiptoed off to the house as the two of them returned to their call.
Gabriel was upstairs doing something, maybe writing, or reading, or having a FaceTime call of his own. All afternoon I’d kept hoping he’d sit with us outside, that he’d ask me about my trip to Oklahoma, or that he’d tell me about trips of his own. I told myself I wasn’t waiting, but when the clock kept ticking. Katie stayed chatting with Terrence, and even Midnight had enough of me and chose to stay behind. I knew I was biding time.
I should leave. I have things to do at home, I told myself as I padded barefoot, shoes in my hand, through the backyard toward the house. I should go pick up some groceries and clean my kitchen. I should work on one of my freelance projects. I should call my mom.
Instead, I slowly walked up the back porch, slid open the glass sliding doors, and meandered through the living room, stopping and looking at framed photos I’d seen a thousand times. I poured myself a glass of water and sipped it in the kitchen.
I “accidentally” or maybe subconsciously purposefully bumped loudly into a barstool and said, “Oops,” loudly to the void of the kitchen. In case he hadn’t known I was here and only needed to hear my voice. I blushed all the way to my chest afterward at how pathetic this was.
Gabriel stayed upstairs. After all these hours. After my loud “oops.” He remained distant, a heavy pull, an undeniable presence, but distant.
I thought about the last time we spoke when I had to hang up because Jordan was calling. And there was the last time I saw his face as he drove away and left me in the parking lot. Neither of those times ended on a good note. I had hoped I could see him and smile at him and maybe make him laugh.
We’d become adept at brushing over things with small talk and pleasantries with “normal.” The tension and pull between us, the intense conversations, the desperation for him to walk downstairs and talk to me—all of this was the unspoken “not normal” that we pretended wasn’t there, or hadn’t happened, by painting over it with “normal.”
But instead, he was leaving everything sitting in “not normal” between us by staying upstairs. I emptied the glass and set it quietly in the sink. I walked to the front door, stood for a few moments, and glanced up the stairs.What would happen if I went and knocked on his door? If I went to him right now?
My core tingled, reacting to the thought as if my body was saying, “Yes, that’s the idea, Emma,” but my brain said, “Go home, woman.”
Later that night, as I sat on my balcony wrapped in a blanket with a novel in my lap, replaying my earlier conversation with Terrence kept interrupting the story I was reading. He was this pivotal, important person for my writing career. Someone who I feltgotmy writing. He had asked me about my future, point blank, and instead of taking the opportunity to get advice or even plug myself into his magazine, I stumbled.
I looked out at the sunset, blazing pink over the edge of downtown like it was showing off for the last few moments it had left of daytime. I always stumbled around the truth like a boulder I didn't want to run into. Tripping over self-reflection like a trap I don’t want to catch me.What do you want out of the future, Emma?And I’m scrambling for an exit route, a path around, a way out.
What am I so afraid of?I rubbed the spine of my book and asked myself aloud, “What box are you trying to fit into?” echoing a past conversation I had with Gabriel.
I could remember the late spring night like I was still eighteen, still sitting under the inky black sky beside Gabriel. I could practically hear the crickets even now.The summer after my senior year, I had been accepted to two colleges, and I was torn between them. Typical indecisive Emma. Both schools had two big champions. The school Katie planned on attending a few hours away, and the school Gabriel was currently attending in New England.
This particular night, Gabriel was sitting agonizingly close to me, our two lawn chairs pushed up close to each other, encouraging me to choose his school. He was home for spring break, and I’d felt the lack of him the past eight months. I had desperately missed his magnetic presence, his dinnertime conversation, the electrical rush of brushing past him at school, how he would drop book recommendations in my purse, his messy curly hair on lazy Saturdays in their backyard.
So, I was basking in his presence as he told me the wonders of his school’s English Department. The firepit was crackling a few feet away from us, and everyone else was deep in other conversations. Only a few moments ago, he’d thrillingly pulled his chair up beside mine.
“Seriously, I think you would really like the professors and all the students in our department—I could see us taking a class together. It’d be so fun, Em,” he said to me, earnest and excited.
“Oh,” I yawned. “I probably won’t major in English even if I do go to your school.”
