Parker A PERFECT PAIR

I WAS SITTING AT MY desk in my bright office, chewing absentmindedly on a pen cap when Brian, my assistant, walked in and handed me a stack of magazines. The July issues. Had it really been almost four months of back to normal? Well, the “normal” in which Greer was gone, the embryos hadn’t taken, and Amelia had left? He looked a little rumpled, like he had just rolled out of bed. But he could return emails with more efficiency than I had ever seen, so I let it go. “So, what’s the deal with McCann acquiring Sea & Sky?” he asked.

I jerked my head up. “I’m sorry. What?”

“Did you not know?” Brian paused. “Well, then maybe it’s just a rumor.”

I shook my head, my mind racing. After Amelia had gotten a job there, I had looked into the magazine and been extremely impressed by how well it was doing. Circulation and ad sales were both up during a critically difficult market, which was really saying something. The word on the street was that they were looking to sell, and I had mentioned it offhandedly to my father-in-law, but I didn’t know he was actually considering it. And now that he was, I was beginning to have second thoughts. I would obviously have to make sure that Amelia wasn’t fired again in another McCann Media takeover. In fact, I would make sure she got a promotion. Yeah. That would make her happy.

I picked up a copy of Parenthood. I still thought every day about the way Amelia had said goodbye. It wasn’t a See you soon!

I thought that being unable to get that goodbye out of my head was a sign I should try to say hello again. But I didn’t have the nerve to reach out. And, even if I had, I wouldn’t have said all the things that were on my mind. I knew we’d both be home for the Summer Splash and Fish. At least, I assumed that she would be. I hated how excited I was to see her. I hated how the idea of looking over and seeing her sitting on the end of her dock, hair blowing in the breeze, made me want to kiss her like I had wanted to do for so long.

But then there was Greer. Was moving on dismissing her memory? So I said, “Hm. Keep me posted on that. I have a lot of ideas I’m going to want implemented.”

Brian saluted me. “Will do, boss. Will do.”

I glanced down at Parenthood again and noticed that the couple on the cover was telling a story of how they’d adopted out their frozen embryos. I thought of Amelia. I wondered if she’d ever finished that story.

I got a nostalgic feeling when I thought about the weeks we’d had together and remembered sitting beside her on the boat, puttering through the creeks and canals around the beach.

When I asked her to ride with me, she had said, “What if all that motion isn’t good for the babies?”

I had barely been able to get her out of the house all week, and, while I appreciated what she was doing, I didn’t want her stressed out or feeling stuck.

“We won’t go fast. Promise.”

As we made our way out of the marsh we both cherished, I glanced over at the serenity on her face. I loved the way she looked in moments like this, when it was just the two of us, the wind blowing her wavy hair, her skin bare and sun-kissed. She was so effortlessly beautiful. Greer was gorgeous. No doubt about that. But a lot of care and concern went into her appearance. It was a very different thing to be living with a woman who took five minutes to get ready in the morning.

“Thanks, Park,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “You’re right. This feels so good.”

I was convinced that there was nothing in the world better than the sun, the salt, and the fresh air to cure anything at all. Of course, I hadn’t done too good of a job curing myself.… But, as Amelia nestled closer to me on the bench seat and looped her arm around mine, I realized that the pain was fading rapidly.

“Thad never understood this,” Amelia said. “The perfection of being out on the water, of spending a day with your toes in the sand without making it a social event.”

“Greer didn’t either.” Immediately, I felt like I had betrayed her.

“Want to anchor at Sand Dollar Island and look for shells?” I asked.

She looked down at herself. “I don’t have a bathing suit on.”

“I’ll get you to shore.” I winked at her.

She held the wheel, while I threw the anchors and jumped in the chilly but invigorating water. It was only to my thighs, but would have been to Amelia’s waist.

She stepped to the back of the boat and said, “So what are we doing?”

“You’re getting on my shoulders.”

She laughed. “Oh Lord. Okay.”

I held my hands up so she could steady herself, as I walked through the water. On the beach, I steeled myself and kneeled down so she could climb off. I was out of breath and we were both laughing. I was trying to look tough and like it hadn’t been hard for me, so I turned so she couldn’t see me panting. And when I did, I saw the most perfect conch shell in a soft, weathered gray. I wanted to show it to Amelia, but she was already several yards away.

“Park!” she called, her hand in the air. “Look what I found.”

I walked to meet her in the middle, and she, too, had found a whole, weathered gray conch. I held mine up. “A perfect pair,” she said, her eyes meeting mine and holding my gaze for a moment.

Then, looking down at her stomach, as if remembering, she said, “We should save them for the babies. We can teach them to put their ear to them to hear the roar of the ocean.”

Back in my office, I smiled, remembering. Maybe not being alone anymore had just felt good. Maybe it was being with someone who had known me forever; I got to skip all the small talk and sob stories.

Being with Amelia had reignited a flame inside of me. And that’s when it hit me: I needed to extend some sort of olive branch to her before the fishing tournament. I skimmed the article about the couple who’d adopted out their frozen embryos. If they would talk to her, it would definitely help her with her story.

I flagged the article with a sticky note, retrieved a piece of stationery from my top drawer, and scrawled.

Thought this might help with your article. Let’s discuss at Summer Splash?

Best,

Parker

Too formal. It was like a memo I would send to an employee. I threw it into the tiny wastebasket.

Thought this might be a new lead for your frozen embryo story. Happy to help in any way. Can we discuss at the tournament?

Love,

Parker

P.S. Want to have another lemonade stand? Maybe with vodka this time?

I chuckled. Yes, this was much better. And it would make her laugh. Some twenty-five years ago, we had gotten the notion to create a traveling lemonade stand in the back of Amelia’s small boat. It would have been a great idea except that the first large boat that passed us nearly capsized our vessel, the lemonade dumped over, our signs were soaked, and we were out of business before we started.

Next I texted my Mom, Can I have Amelia’s new address?

She responded, Sending her flowers? ;)

You wish.

I sort of wished, too, actually.

While I waited, I sent a memo to my father-in-law. He only worked down the hall, but we tried to limit our conversations during the day because a simple exchange could turn into an hour and a half. He still liked to get handwritten notes. I scrawled off:

I’ll meet you at the Tattersalls’ cocktail party next week at 7. RSVP’d for both of us. Can we discuss the Sea & Sky acquisition? I’d love to know your thoughts and I have some as well.

—P

P.S. Are you wearing your velvet slippers? I don’t want us to be twins.

I teased my father-in-law mercilessly about the gold-trimmed velvet slippers that he wore to cocktail parties. They were atrocious.

I closed my laptop, stood up, slipped my wallet in my back pocket and my phone in my front, and waved bye to Brian as I walked out the door.

I was meeting a potential new hire for lunch at Sant Ambroeus. She had just finished graduate school at UNC, and the dean had personally emailed about her interest in our digital media position. That had been Greer’s pet project, and since she had left, we hadn’t been able to find anyone to suitably fill her role. Or maybe it wasn’t that they weren’t suitable. Maybe it was that they weren’t Greer… I wasn’t sure.

The job listing specified at least five years’ work experience, but Lindsey Underhill didn’t let that deter her. When she sent her résumé, I deleted it right away. When the letter came from the dean, I dragged it over into my “Potential Résumés” folder. When I hadn’t contacted her after a week, Lindsey called, and I politely said, “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you don’t have the experience we’re looking for.”

She called back the next day. And the next. And the next.

And, while it was annoying, it was also kind of impressive. I wasn’t sure I’d ever had an employee who wanted a job quite that badly. And after five interviews with five perfect-on-paper candidates who’d fallen completely flat in real life, I thought, Why not? I still didn’t think Lindsey Underhill had enough real-life experience to be able to take on such a high-level position. But I figured, if she wanted to work for McCann that badly, maybe I could find another job for her.

I liked to be earlier than my interviewees, but I had missed the boat on that end. The maître d’ pointed me toward my usual table, the corner booth by the window, and as I approached, a blond girl in her early twenties wearing a red dress stood up to shake my hand. She was as tall as I was, and I was over six feet. After we had made our introductions and sat down, she said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

I smiled, amused. She was confident, no doubt about it. I motioned to the waiter for a black napkin instead of a white one so I wouldn’t go back to work with lint all over my pants, and said, “Please enlighten me, Lindsey. What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking that I don’t have enough experience for this position.”

I pulled a piece of bread from the basket and buttered it. I nodded, glancing down at the résumé she’d slid in front of me. “Wow,” I said. “Mind reader isn’t on your list of skills.” I paused. “Although I’ve told you that no fewer than a dozen times, so it’s not really a stretch.”

“Look, I know I haven’t had years and years of job experience, but I think that’s a positive. I have ideas. I can bring a fresh perspective. I can do things differently.” She paused, searching my face, as if deciding whether to forge ahead. “I can shake this position up like Greer did.”

No one, ever, in the history of the world, could do things like Greer did. My face must have changed, because she stumbled.

“I mean, no. Not like Greer did. I don’t mean I could replace her or anything like that. I just mean that she brought a fresh vision to McCann Media, and I have a new perspective that I could bring, too.”

She was clearly flustered, and I almost felt sorry for her. The waiter came to the table, and I ordered a bottle of wine, something I rarely did at a meeting. I felt the smile come back to my face naturally. I had forgiven her already.

She put her hands to her face and said, “I’m mortified. God. This is not how I thought this was going to go.”

I shook my head. “It’s going fine,” I said softly. “No one will ever be Greer, but, unfortunately, we all have to move on.”

It was like the words were coming from somewhere else. The phrase rolled around in my head: We all have to move on. I almost wanted to stand up on the chair and shout, WE ALL HAVE TO MOVE ON. I hadn’t moved on an inch in the past three years. Not a centimeter. Everyone and their brother had told me that. But Lindsay’s faux pas—plus, I had to admit, Mason’s unexpected wisdom—had made me see it.

We both ordered the catch of the day, and we talked about Lindsey’s ideas. Her face changed when she talked about McCann Media. “Greer is the reason I went to journalism school,” she said. “I followed her career for years. I reread her books every six months. I admired her, not just as a journalist, but as a woman, more than words can say. She inspired me so much.”

“She inspired me, too.” In everything. I sat across the table and looked at this person whose charm must have gotten her a lot of what she wanted in life. It was going to work for her again. I took a sip of wine and said, “You know what, Lindsey? I might regret this, but I’m going to give you the job.”

She looked shocked.

“Greer would have liked you,” I said. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do. If she were sitting here beside me, she would say, Look, Park, yeah, her résumé isn’t the best one we’ve seen, but she’s smart and she has passion. And sometimes that’s enough. And so I’m going to give you a three-month trial. But I want to be wowed, Lindsey.” I wrote a number on a sugar packet and slid it across the table. “If you make it past the three months, this will go up.”

She nodded. “Wow. Just, wow. Thank you for taking a chance on me. I know I have a lot to learn, but I promise I will learn fast. And I will transform your digital media for a new generation. I swear I will.”

I believed her. I paid the check and walked Lindsey to her car.

She turned and grinned at me, saying, “See you on Monday, boss.”

As I smiled and shook her hand, I realized this lunch had been the first time in four months that I’d been immersed in work, the first time in four months I’d gone more than an hour without thinking about Amelia.