Cole was on his way to the court date that couldn’t be postponed when he checked his phone and saw the text from his mother.
WTG on winning the primary. This means we get to see you tonight. Dinner is at six.
He frowned at the phone. He had no memory of setting up dinner with the family. On the other hand, it was quite possible that he—
His phone buzzed again.
Don’t strain yourself. You didn’t forget to put it into your book. This is a spur of the moment event. But it’s not a request.
Yeah, that sounded like Mom, all right.
He made it through court intact—never a certainty with this judge—and headed for the grocery store. Mindful of what his schedule was going to be like for the next couple of months, he filled his cart with only the best canned vegetables and frozen meals. God only knew when he’d be back. Plus, this way he could assure his mother that he was eating healthy stuff at least once in a while.
Maybe he should make a point of cooking for himself once a week from now until the election, if only to be sure he had a break.
Maybe he could invite Jenna to share those meals.
Maybe they could get distracted and end up ordering pizza.
“There are worse things in life,” he said, tossing an economy-sized bag of frozen peas into the cart.
The flowers he grabbed on the way to the checkout were well worth the extra few bucks when he handed them to his mother that evening.
“Thank you,” she said, burying her nose into the bouquet of hydrangeas. “One of your best guilt offerings yet.”
“Why do I need to be guilty this time?”
“Oh, no reason. I’m sure every mother learns that her son won a primary by seeing it on the news.”
Shit.
“I didn’t know you’d want me to— Hey. Wait.” He followed her into the dining room. “It was Tuesday. You work until eleven on Tuesdays. Plus the last time I called you after a late shift, you threatened to make campaign signs with my baby pictures on them.”
“Naked baby pictures. That’s an important detail.” She shrugged. “I know all that. But I’m still allowed to torture you. It’s one of the perks of parenthood.”
“And then you wonder why I don’t come home very often.” He couldn’t keep the laughter from his voice. Judy Dekker often said that the best part of motherhood was harassing and embarrassing her kids. Given how often she seized the opportunity, he didn’t doubt it.
“Your father will be here any time,” she said, pointing to a chair. “And Abby and the kids will be here for dessert. Nathan has a soccer game, and Paulo is in Boston for business, so they’re running late and wild.”
“Can you name a time when they wouldn’t be?”
“Good point.” She sat in her favorite maple rocker and adjusted the pillows behind her back. “So? Are you pleased with how the election is going so far?”
“It’s still early, and last night wasn’t exactly a surprise.” At least, not the part that she was talking about. The rest, though—
Uh-oh. He wasn’t going to think about Jenna. Not in front of his mother.
“I think you’ll be able to beat Tadeson, but I don’t think it’s going to be a cakewalk.” Mom frowned. “It would help if he would do something stupid again. That whole thing when he got caught taking home the office recyclables to cash in himself—that was barely enough for people to remember. How’s his marriage? Should we send him a hooker-gram?”
“You know, Mom, people who don’t know you ask me why you’re not working on my campaign. But everyone who does know you just nods sadly and tells me to keep you far away.”
“Wusses. Nothing but wusses.”
Thank God his father picked that moment to walk in.
“Cole! You’re alive!”
“You sound so surprised.” Though given the post-Jenna exhaustion, Cole was still rather amazed himself.
“Relieved, mostly. Funerals are expensive.”
There was nothing like a night with his parents to help him remember to never take himself seriously.
Dad moved on to his two favorite topics—the idiots at work and the state of dinner—and between bites of spinach lasagna, they got caught up on the family, the jobs, and the town. It wasn’t until his plate was clean that he realized the golden opportunity that had been handed to him.
“Question,” he said as his father eyed the lasagna remaining in the pan. “Did you know Rob Elias when he lived here? Before he moved away, I mean.”
Dad sat back and transferred his gaze to Cole. “Yeah, I knew him. Not well. He was a year, maybe two behind me in school. But we were in the same Scout troop for a while.”
“What was he like?”
“Couldn’t light a fire for shit, I can tell you that.”
Bruce Dekker, soul of tact.
“You gotta remember, we were kids. Everybody’s an idiot when they’re a teenager.” Dad peered at Cole from beneath his eyebrows. “For example, there was that time you didn’t want to go to school so you heated the thermometer with a blow dryer so your mother would think you had a fever.”
“Except I went overboard and she thought I was going to start convulsing at any moment and called 911. I know. But maybe we could save the embarrassing stories of my youth for a better time, like a debate. Right now I’m interested in Rob Elias.”
“Why?”
Mom had returned to the room so quietly that Cole had missed her entrance.
“Sorry?”
“Why are you so concerned about him all of a sudden?”
Cole weighed his words carefully. “I met him today.”
Dad sat back in his chair. “How’d that happen?”
“We were both at a coffee shop. He recognized me and congratulated me.” Then, because Cole knew that word would get back to his mother somehow anyway—probably via Ram’s Nonny—he added, “His daughter was there, too. Her sister owns the place. Rob wanted to talk to her, but she made it clear she wasn’t interested, so Ram and I—uh—helped make sure he didn’t get to her.”
Dad raised an eyebrow. Mom rolled her eyes.
“Please tell me you didn’t try to escort him out like when you thought someone was breaking into the Baker place and it turned out to be Mr. Baker without his beard.”
“No, Mother. I had a bit more restraint than that.” This time.
His father scratched the side of his face. “You want the truth, Cole? I don’t remember too much about him. He wasn’t the top kid in the school, but he wasn’t one of the stoners or the ones just making an appearance until they turned sixteen. He wasn’t quiet, but he didn’t go out of his way to be noticed, either. I remember working with him on some things at Scouts, and as long as it didn’t involve a fire, he was okay. He was competent but not exceptional, I guess you’d say.”
It wasn’t what Cole had expected, but neither was it way out of line with what he knew. “Was he into student government in school?”
“Rob? No. Oh, I think maybe he might have been head of the Model UN—yeah, I’m pretty sure he was in that—but nothing else.”
Model United Nations was definitely more of a fit.
“The one thing that stands out, now that I think of it, is that he always had your back. If somebody needed a few bucks, or couldn’t make sense of the algebra homework, or had a teacher riding your ass and you couldn’t figure out what to do about it, Rob was the one you talked to. He didn’t do anything official but he always seemed to know the right thing to say. And if he didn’t know, he’d say so, but then he always knew who could help.” Dad nodded slowly. “I guess that was the big thing. He was a people person. He knew who was good at what, and if you had a problem, he knew who to hook you up with to make sure you got things solved. It didn’t seem so remarkable at the time, but now that I think about it, you know? That was a pretty damned fine talent to have.”
One that would have come in very handy in Rob’s political life, for sure.
“It’s a shame, what happened to him. He could have gone places.”
“He did,” Cole said. “Costa Rica.”
“And then prison.” There was no hint of Mom’s usual smile as she rocked. “I know I was joking about creating a scandal for Tadeson, Cole, but you want to stay far away from Rob Elias. Even if all he does is say hello to you, it would be far too easy for someone to get the wrong impression.”
“Your mother’s right.” Dad pushed his plate away and rested his arms on the table. “I know you were trying to help, and I’m proud of you for stepping up. But if I were you, I would stay far away from anyone named Elias.”
***
Margie’s birthday had always been an excuse to forget it was late September and have one last beach day, no matter the weather. Which was how Jenna found herself spending the last Sunday of the month huddled in a jacket around a campfire on the shore of Calypso Lake, doing her best to toast a rack of marshmallows without either burning them or freezing her ass off.
“Margie, I vote that from now on we celebrate your birthday a month early. This is ridiculous.”
“You’re only saying that because you’re too skinny. You still need more meat on your bones. Look.” Margie hefted her ample self off the log she was using as a chair and extended her arms, no doubt to show off the short sleeves on her T-shirt. “The supermodel look doesn’t work in this climate.”
“Yeah, and your warmth doesn’t have anything to do with the peppermint schnapps you added to your hot chocolate,” Bree said.
Margie winked. “Be prepared and all that jazz.”
Jenna laughed along with the others but wondered how her own favorite Boy Scout was doing this evening. Thanks to her classes, his campaigning, both their job schedules, and general family and life stuff—not to mention the fact that Kyrie was back in town until Columbus Day—they had managed only a handful of nights together since the primary. It definitely wasn’t enough for Jenna. Just the other day, she’d caught herself doodling anatomically accurate pictures of Cole in the margins of her notebook during statistics.
Damn, but it was nice to feel healed. To be here, laughing and shivering with the people she loved most in the world. To feel enticing and alluring and alive once more.
She might have to find a way to stash a mattress in the kitchen at headquarters and convince Cole to stay late tomorrow night.
Suddenly, the wind off the lake didn’t feel nearly as cold.
“Hey, Paige e-mailed today,” Annie chimed in. “She said that she wanted to send you a special birthday present, Margie, but the only bagpiper she could convince to perform in nothing but a kilt had let his passport expire.”
“Why?” Margie tossed her head back and wailed to the heavens. “Why must you torture me so?”
When the laughter faded away, Neenee pointed her hot dog stick at Jenna. “You’ll have better luck with those marshmallows if you actually put the stick near the fire. And how’s the job search going?”
“Not bad.” Jenna moved the marshmallows a fraction of an inch closer to the heat. The line between golden and flaming was one that was swiftly crossed. “I actually have an interview next week with a place up in Brockport.”
“When?” Margie hefted her mug of spiked cocoa. “Need a chauffeur?”
“This is a Skype interview.” Thank God. Convincing Margie to let her go alone would have been a complication no one needed. “If I make it past this one, the next one will be on-site.”
“What’s the job?” asked Bree.
“PR assistant. Very entry level, but the company looks like they’re growing, and I know someone who did an internship with them over the summer and said it’s a good work environment.”
“Why isn’t she applying?” Neenee pushed Jenna’s wrist down another inch. Definitely the action of someone who preferred her marshmallows charred.
“She said she would, but her boyfriend is out in Silicon Valley and she wants to find something closer to him.”
“Men.” Margie shook her head sadly. “They always mess up a good thing.”
“Hey, they have their appeal,” Kyrie added.
Margie snorted. “You have to say that. You’re—what’s the phrase? Oh yeah. ‘Blissfully engaged’.”
“You love Ben and you know it, Margie, so no whining allowed.”
“Oh, he’s a nice guy, I’ll grant you that. If you have to be with someone, you could have done a damned sight worse. But I still say, if you’re going to run off and leave your family and never come home and leave us all whimpering in sorrow for the rest of our lives, then you know, maybe there should be more reason than just some man, no matter how cute his tushie might be.”
Laughter and catcalls erupted around the fire. Jenna joined in but her heart wasn’t in it. Margie’s words had left a hollow pit of agreement in her gut, thrusting her forward to the day when she would end up leaving town.
She wanted to go. She did. But oh, she was going to miss being close enough to meet her mother for an impulse lunch, or stop by Margie’s shop to harass her.
And damn. The marshmallows were now a three-alarm blaze.
Jenna waved her stick and tried to pull herself from the doldrums.
“Margie,” she said, “what are you doing checking out Ben’s butt? He’s probably thirty years younger than you.”
“Yeah, maybe so, if you’re going to be all official about it. But I don’t feel like more than, oh, twenty-five, twenty-six. So if you’re talking emotional age, he’s older than me.”
Kyrie pulled her phone from her pocket. “Dear Ben,” she pretended to type. “Never ever let yourself be left alone in a room with Margie.”
“Speaking of men who mess up your lives,” Annie said, “I finally sat down with our father last week.”
Well, that definitely brought a halt to the laughter.
Neenee stopped trying to pluck a marshmallow from Jenna’s branch and turned to Annie. “Sweetie? What . . . why . . . what made you . . .”
Annie shrugged, the motion almost lost inside her oversized jacket. “I was curious. I mean, even if he was never part of my life, he did contribute half of my genes. I wanted to see if there was anything there.”
“And?” Bree prompted when it seemed Annie was done.
“And . . . we had a nice lunch. He was easy to talk to.”
“He always was a great storyteller,” Neenee said, and no one missed the double meaning beneath her words.
“When it was done, I felt . . . I don’t know. Like maybe it would be possible to like him if I didn’t know what he’d done to all of you.”
“He hurt you, too, honey.” Margie sounded more sober than she had in the last four years.
“Yeah, in theory he hurt me. But it’s not the same as it was for you guys.”
Jenna had to ask. “Are you going to see him again?”
“To be decided.”
“He might take the decision out of your hands.” Jenna scowled at the flames. “He showed up at the shop again a couple of weeks ago.”
“Again?” Kyrie’s voice sharpened. “I thought you let him know he should never come back.”
“I did. Obviously the man has a hearing problem.”
“What did he want?” asked Bree.
“No idea. Cole and his friend Ram were there, and they did a great imitation of the Great Wall of China.”
Bree regarded her with narrowed eyes. “Wait a minute. You let a man stand up for you? You? Jenna? Mom, you’d better check her for a fever.”
“What can I say? If I’d pushed them out of the way and shoved him out the door the way I wanted to, it would have upset all the nice customers who pay for Kyrie to fly out to see her honey.”
It was a good comeback. It bought her a moment of laughter. But Jenna had to admit that she had rather enjoyed that feeling of having someone on her side. Other than her mom and sisters—and Margie, of course—it had been a long time since someone else had stood up for her.
Though in fairness, Kendall had done that at first. Back when they were dating, even for a while after they got married. But by the end—nope. Sometimes she had imagined he was a crocodile, hiding in the reeds, waiting for her to say something the slightest bit silly or wrong, and then, snap! He was throwing her under the bus faster than a croc could lunge.
She should have left him before the accident. She should never have stayed in that farce of a marriage. But he had paid the bills and he had—much as it pained her to admit—done some wonderful things for her family, making their lives a bit easier, so she had sucked it up and stayed.
In some ways, hitting that patch of ice was the luckiest move she’d ever made.
Not to mention that if she hadn’t landed at Kyrie’s, she never would have met Cole.
“I think I need to talk to him,” Neenee said into the sudden silence.
Jenna dropped her stick into the fire.
“Mom?” Bree, of course, was the first to speak. “Why?”
“To tell him to leave you girls alone.” Neenee tossed her hands in the air. “Duh.”
If it hadn’t been so determinedly casual, it would have been easier to believe.
“You don’t have to do that,” Kyrie said.
Annie nodded. “Right. We’re big girls, Mom. We can handle this.”
“Right,” Jenna said. “I mean, he’s a pain in the ass, but I think we’ve all dealt with other idiots. We have this down.”
“I’d like to know why he’s doing it.” Margie’s words were so low that Jenna, bent over to retrieve her stick, almost missed them.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Bree asked. “He’s trying to redeem himself. Reestablish a relationship with us. Maybe he’s doing some sort of twelve-step program.”
“Assholes Anonymous?” suggested Annie.
“That’s part of it.” Margie crossed wide arms over her chest. “But remember, ladies, I’ve known him longer than any of you. My little brother has a sentimental side, no doubt about it. and I’m sure he feels bad about what he did. But he never does anything just because of feelings. Not even for himself. If he’s going to all this work, he has something up his sleeve, I guarantee it. And I, for one, would kind of like to know what it is before he decides to surprise us all again.”
***
It was the first Thursday in October, one week before Cole was set to debate Paul Tadeson, and the heat was on. Everything had tripled since the primary. There were more volunteers, more phone calls, more questions, more decisions. The only things he had less of were sleep and sanity.
And Jenna.
She was deep in a project for a class, which meant she’d had to cut her hours on the race. She was still there at least two or three nights a week, but even then, they could never catch a moment alone. There was always someone around. Always something urgent. Always something that demanded his time and energy so that at the end of the night, all he could do was pray he could stay awake long enough to drive home. The one time he did head up to her apartment, he had passed out before he could even get out of his clothes.
Of course, there had been a very fine awakening a few hours later, but still. Not his finest moment.
So when he felt the buzz of an incoming text as he wrestled with his list of talking points for the debate, he almost ignored it. When he gave in and checked the phone, though, he was suddenly glad for his mother always telling him to avoid putting things off.
Because the message was from Jenna.
Hey. There’s a pissed-off constituent who needs to talk to you about that giant pothole on Pembroke. He’s threatening to put up a lifeguard station if someone doesn’t come up with a plan for fixing it. You need to go talk to him. Right now.
Cole glanced around the crowded room. For the first time all day, his smile didn’t feel forced.
You want to tell me where I could find this disgruntled constituent?
Two doors down and up the stairs. Park around back if you must make people believe you’re doing something legitimate.
Devious, aren’t you?
Desperate. And Cole? We’re talking a really serious hole. So make sure you bring enough to fill it.
He couldn’t quite hide the snort that escaped, but somehow he managed to turn it into a cough as he told Ram he was going to run out for a bit to talk to someone with a problem.
“How big a problem? Need me to come along?”
“No thanks. I think I can handle it.”
Ram’s eyes took on a speculative gleam. Once again, Cole wondered at the wisdom of having his oldest friend work with him.
“Don’t suppose you’d care to share the details of this problem. You know. So I can do some research for you.”
“I think I’m good, thanks.”
“Should we ask the constituent if she agrees with that assessment?”
Cole was pretty sure there wasn’t a politician alive who could come up with a good answer for that one, so he gave Ram a quick wave and headed for the door, his friend’s soft chuckles trailing behind him.
Two minutes later, his car suitably stashed at the back of the plaza—because damn it, even someone running for office was entitled to some privacy—he punched in the code for the alarm and let himself in. Jenna poked her head over the railing at the top of the stairs.
“What took you so long?”
He debated coming up with a smart remark, but when he made it to the top of the stairs, Jenna grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into a far better use for his lips. And brain. And assorted other parts.
“Your sister?” he managed as she hurried him toward the bedroom, which he had privately dubbed the Pleasure Palace.
“Community choir practice. Won’t be home until ten.”
“Remind me to double their funding if I’m elected.”
“When you’re elected,” she said, pushing him onto the bed, and for the next while, every registered voter in town could have decided to move away and Cole wouldn’t have cared one whit.
Half an hour or so later, when sanity and the ability to both breathe and talk had returned, he rolled onto his side and rubbed a strand of her hair between his fingers.
“Hi,” he said. “I don’t think I had the chance to say it before.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hello, Cole. How are you this fine evening?”
“Much better than when I walked in here, I can tell you that.”
“Mmmm, me too. That was definitely one of my better impulse moves.”
“Agreed. How’s your project going? Will we see you in the office soon?”
“End of the week. We have to meet tomorrow to go over our presentation, and after that I’m all yours.”
“There’s a promise I like to hear.”
“One I like making, too. How do things look? Have I missed anything major?”
“We’re gearing up for next week. It feels kind of silly to do a whole debate for a small-town mayor gig, but—”
“But it will get people interested and give them a different forum to see you and hear about your plans. Plus you’re younger and cuter than Tadeson. That’s going to help you.”
“I didn’t know this was a beauty contest.”
“It isn’t. On the other hand, being a major hunk sure didn’t hurt Justin Trudeau.”
There was that.
She nestled her head into the sweet spot between his shoulder and neck. “The real reason I dragged you up here tonight—”
“Yeah, you really had to drag me.”
She swatted at his chin. “Hush. You’re here to help me celebrate. I had an interview yesterday, for a funky little marketing firm, and they already asked me to do a second one. In person, this time.”
“Hey, that’s great! Where is it?”
“Brockport.”
“Ah.”
“You know it?”
He shifted to pull her closer. “Yeah. One of my cousins went to school there. I visited him a couple of times. He married a girl he met there, and they had the wedding in the chapel on campus. That was—two, maybe three years ago?” No, that couldn’t be right. “Wait. It must have been about five years ago, because I was still working in the city, and I wasn’t sure I could get the time off to go. Pretty place.” And a solid two hours from Calypso Falls.
All of a sudden, his affection for Brockport dropped dramatically.
“When’s the interview?” he asked. Maybe it wouldn’t be for a while. After all, it was only October, and she wouldn’t be finished with classes until Christmas. Maybe they weren’t in a hurry to hire anyone. Or maybe they were in a big hurry, and wouldn’t be able to wait for her, and she would end up finding something else. Something closer.
It probably wasn’t a good thing that he liked that scenario so much better. After all, Jenna had made it perfectly clear: this was a limited-time engagement. She was his only until the election. Maybe, if he was lucky, until she was done with school. But after that it was good-bye, Cole.
It had been so easy to agree to those terms back then.
“Two weeks from Monday.”
“Good. You’ll have time to prepare, but not enough time to worry.”
“Trust me, I can always find time to get a bit freaked out.” She ran one finger down the center of his chest. “I had this crazy idea . . .”
To not go there after all? He could get behind that.
“I thought maybe I’d go up the day before, on Sunday. Spend some time walking around and getting the feel of the place. My interview is bright and early Monday morning, so it would be good to not have to worry about leaving here at the butt crack of dawn.”
“That doesn’t sound so strange to me.”
“Well, the other part is, I was wondering if you would like to come with me.”
Ah.
“I know you’re insanely busy,” she said in a rush. “If you can’t do it, no problem, I completely understand. Really. But I thought, you know, it might be good for you to get away for a night. Clear your head and get some fresh air and, you know, have a mini break in there before you dive into the homestretch.”
“Jenna . . .”
He shouldn’t do it. She was right. He had four hundred things to do every day between now and the election, and the thought of taking off for a day—almost two, really, by the time they would get back—well, it was probably impossible.
But saying no seemed equally impossible.
“That’s a damned tempting offer.”
“Well, yeah. Do you think I would make any other kind?” She pressed a kiss to his jaw. “And I’ll tell you right now, I’m not above using unfair means to make it even more tempting.”
“I don’t know if I could live through any more of your attempts to convince me to agree with you.”
“Yeah, but you would die a very happy man.”
That he would.
“But I know how much this election means to you, so I’ll play fair. This time.” She delivered a brisk pat to his groin. “The one thing I’ll say, though, is something my mother used to say to us when we were freaking out over how to juggle exams and chores and jobs and everything.”
“What was that?”
“She used to say, the more you think you don’t have time to take a break, the more you need one.”
“Easy to say,” he began, but he had to stop, because in the back of his mind, another voice was sounding. “Actually,” he said, “I remember hearing Ram’s Nonny say something like that.”
“To Ram? If that guy were any mellower, he’d be comatose.”
“No. To me. Back in my New York days.”
“Burned the candle at both ends, did you?”
“Both ends, the middle, and with the wax that was left, I made another candle so I could finish reading contracts.”
“How long were you on that treadmill?”
“Too long. Five years.” He stretched a little just to rub his leg against hers. God, he loved the feel of her skin against his. “I finally got a clue the day I turned thirty.”
“You woke up and saw that life was passing you by?”
“More like I woke up and saw that I’d passed out on my desk after staying up until God knows when, hunting for creative screw-you clauses to add to a contract.”
She rose up on one hand and stared down at him, her mouth slightly agape. “You?”
“Not my finest hour, I agree.”
“But that’s . . . seriously . . . whoa.” She dropped back down but continued to prop herself on her elbow to squint in his direction. “My mind is officially blown. I mean, it was hard enough imagining you working in the city for so long, but that . . . I would never have expected that from you.”
“Neither did I.”
“Was it like in that John Grisham book, where they sucked you into the giant firm and then manipulated you until you had no choice but to do what they wanted?”
“Sorry. I went to work there because I had student loans up the ass. I figured I’d stay two, three years, pay down my debt, and then go be a real person.”
“So what happened?”
It really was impossible to think when she hovered above him like that. He kept trying to focus on her face, but her breasts hung down right around eye level. He couldn’t afford to look at them. He’d been out of the office too long already, and if he went another round with Jenna, he knew he’d be too wiped to fool anyone when he walked back in.
“What happened?” He tugged her back down and tucked her against him. “Lots of things. Living there was even more expensive than I’d figured. That was a big one. A lot of the work was actually interesting, I was learning things, I made friends, all of a sudden it didn’t seem so important to be out by a certain date. Then I got assigned to another partner, a big step up, and I got caught up in the work and the track, and face it, when you’re pulling fourteen-hour days on a regular basis, who has time to step back and see where you’re headed?”
“Okay,” she said softly. “I know how you can get so deep into something that you can’t see anything else.”
He didn’t like that she’d had to go through something that would give her that experience—but he was deeply glad that she understood.
“Anyway, I woke up, drooling all over my desk and my papers, and I started to think about how I could sneak out and go home long enough to shower and change. Because, oh yeah, I had spilled a cup of coffee when I fell asleep, and I was a walking stain. And then I looked down at the stains and thought, well, obviously I’m going to have to start keeping extra clothes at the office, because this is bound to happen again.”
“And that’s when you woke up?”
“Sad to say, it wasn’t. I didn’t understand what I was doing until I caught myself tossing shirts into an overnight bag. Then it was, hey, wait a minute.”
“Did you go in and hand in your resignation, then and there?”
He tweaked her nose. “Big fan of Disney movies, Jen?”
“Bite me.”
“Can’t. I have to get back to work. But to answer your question, no, not that day. However, I made myself leave at six that night.”
“And spent the weekend drafting your letter.”
“Uh . . . no. What I haven’t mentioned is that I was engaged back then.”