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I PULLED INTO COREY’S driveway and doused the headlights. In the dark, I could easily pinpoint the campfire. It was in the back yard between the house and the barn. Corey’s house had a big footprint, and his yard was even more expansive.
I lived in a loft above his garage. It was attached to the house but had a private entrance. The main residence was three stories with an open floor plan on the ground floor, five bedrooms on the second floor and a finished attic that the family used as an office/gym.
Outside, there was a barn where Corey did his woodworking. They were surrounded by trees, and the property backed up to a small, wooded area. If you walked a couple feet into the woods, you came to a creek that dried up in the winter and overflowed in the summer.
Cassie and Chloe collected pebbles from the streambed, built fairy houses on its banks, and made nests for whatever little creatures lived nearby. They had a swing set and a sandbox closer to the house, as well as two hammocks for enjoying a good book.
A barbeque grill was pushed up against the outer wall of the kitchen, and a basketball hoop hung above the driveway. There was a picnic table that the family used on a regular basis, and a fire pit for their weekly cookouts.
I pulled on the parking brake and grabbed the marshmallows.
“Aunt Teddy!” Chloe squealed, rushing up to hug me before I even had a chance to fully exit the car.
Cassie hung back for just a moment, allowing me to disentangle myself from her sister before throwing her arms around me. “Did you bring the marshmallows?”
“I got ‘em.” I shook the bag with a smile.
Cassie grabbed them from my hand, jumping up and down. She raced back to the fire to handed them to Corey, who opened the bag with much less enthusiasm. I wandered over, moving at a snail’s pace. I was tired, but I had to put in an appearance.
“Grab a beer.” Corey pointed to a cooler.
Who was I to argue? I reached into a soup of frigid water to retrieve a bottle. Cracking it open, I took a seat opposite my brother, facing him across the flames.
“How was your day?” Sunny asked.
She looked beautiful, as always. She was much more relaxed than I was, having spent her day taking care of the girls and her amazing home. She had a fresh glow about her that could only be described as healthy. I envied her sometimes, not for being married to my brother, but for having a legitimate partner in life.
My own romantic interludes had all been lacking in that particular dimension. Either the guy was too focused on sex or not focused enough. One ex-boyfriend was hardly ever around, while the other had been overwhelming in his presence. It seemed like all the good ones were taken.
“Fine,” I said.
“Hmm.” Corey gave me a critical look as he speared a marshmallow onto a store-bought roasting stick and handed it to Cassie.
“Okay, it sucked,” I allowed. “But it sucks every day, so what’s the difference?”
“You need to find another job,” Sunny said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But when do I have the time? By the time I get off work, I’m too tired.”
“You have some feelers out there,” Corey reminded me.
“Yeah, that library position,” Sunny remembered.
“No, I didn’t get that one,” I said.
“Oh.” Sunny pouted.
“Look, Daddy!” Chloe yelled, sticking her marshmallow deep into the fire.
“It’s going to burn up,” Cassie told her.
“That’s how I like it,” Chloe said.
“Did you guys go down to the stream today?” I asked my nieces.
“No,” Cassie said. “We had karate.”
I looked up at Corey and smiled. There was nothing cuter than his daughters dressed up in their cotton karate uniforms. I had been to a few of their moving up ceremonies where they demonstrated their board-breaking abilities. I didn’t think they would be able to hurt a fly with all their posturing and battle cries, but it was adorable to watch.
Just as Cassie said, Chole’s marshmallow caught fire, turning her roasting fork into a torch. She pulled it out and blew on it, sliding the gooey black and white mess off into her hand and licking it from her fingers.
Before I could stop her, she reached into my pocket and grabbed my phone. I wanted to be angry but couldn’t summon the energy. I worried about how easy it would be to clean the sugar off the screen. Then I decided it wasn’t that big a deal.
Cassie saw the exchange and immediately jumped on her sister. They snapped a bunch of pictures of themselves and of the adults, including yours truly. I didn’t pay much attention, and I certainly wasn’t trying to look good.
They finally handed the phone back when their mom stood up. “It’s time for bed,” she announced.
A chorus of groans erupted from the kids, and I had to laugh. I remembered being that age and never wanting to go to bed. It always seemed like I was missing out, when in fact, nothing could have been further from the truth.
After the girls were gone, I swiped through the photos they’d taken. As a general rule, I didn’t like pictures of myself. There was always something wrong with my hair, or a weird smile on my face. But the candids they’d shot were better than most. I had a beer in my hand, and the angle of the lens obscured the coffee shop’s logo on the front of my shirt. I looked like some kind of rugged model, stretched out beside the campfire.
“Your girls take nice pictures,” I told Corey.
“Let me see.” He held out his hand.
I passed the phone over, poking at the fire with one of the roasting sticks while he checked his own pictures. I saw him frown and pinch his fingers together before swiping right.
“Did they get marshmallow on the screen?” I asked.
“Just a little bit,” he admitted.
“It’s fine.”
“Sorry, sis.”
We sat in silence for a long moment before Corey pulled out his own phone. It was a sign of the times. Even out in the back yard under the stars, no one could sit still for very long without opening TikTok.
To my surprise, Corey wasn’t scrolling social media. “I knew it,” he exclaimed, holding the phone out for me to see. “Retro’s hiring.”
“What?” I sat up abruptly, nearly spilling my drink.
“I thought I’d seen something, and since you were down in the dumps about your coffee shop job, I decided to go back and check.” He indicated that I should take his phone, but I retreated to mine.
“Where did you find that?” I asked.
“On the job board,” he said.
“Which one?”
“NowHiring.com.”
I began to type in the address, but the browser took over. I had visited the site so many times in the past few months, the computer was two steps ahead of me. I poked at the search bar and typed in the name Retro. Sure enough, a single listing popped up. They were hiring an executive assistant.
I set the phone down on my knee, stunned. The thoughts refused to coalesce in my brain, so I took another sip of beer. Corey was watching me carefully. Without saying a word, he stood up and crossed to the cooler. Pulling another two drinks from the mostly melted ice, he handed one over to me.
“I haven’t finished this one,” I told him.
“I know,” he replied. “I’m just lazy. I don’t want to get up again.”
He sat back down, opening his second beer. “What are you thinking?”
“Should I apply?” I wondered.
“Why not?” He shrugged.
“Because they fired me, and it was horribly painful,” I spat.
“They didn’t fire you,” Corey reminded me. “They let you go with the rest of the staff. It was nothing personal.”
“They didn’t fire everyone,” I complained.
“What, they kept like two people?”
“Five,” I bantered back. “But I see your point.”
“What could it possibly hurt?” Corey argued. “You know that company inside and out. You’d be a great fit for the job.”
“Executive assistant,” I murmured, bringing the phone back up.
The paragraph underneath the job announcement served as a description of what the job would entail. Apparently, they were looking for someone to support the CEO. That meant the new guy, the same one who had unceremoniously kicked me to the curb. I didn’t think I wanted to work for him, but Corey had a point.
I wanted out of the coffee shop and out of restaurant work altogether. I hadn’t had any luck sending my resume out far and wide, why not try the one place I had proven myself? Thinking about things as they were before, I had a sudden burst of insight.
“Oh my goodness,” I said, laughing.
“What?” Corey asked.
“The previous executive assistant, Rebecca, she was pregnant.”
“I guess she had her baby,” Corey surmised.
“That must be it,” I decided. “So now they’re scrambling.”
“Could be the perfect opportunity.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, finishing off the first drink. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Never,” my brother swore. “If the girls found out you were leaving, they would be in tears.”
I sighed, picking up the second drink. It probably wasn’t smart to drink so much so late at night. I needed to go to bed, but instead, I felt a wicked sense of adventure. Taking a sip, I began to fill out the online application form.
“Are you doing it?” Corey asked.
I nodded.
“Good girl,” he cheered.
“I don’t want to disappoint Cassie and Chloe,” I said carefully, “But I would love my own place.”
“I know,” Corey replied, returning to his own phone.
We sat there, each engaged with a device, until Sunny returned to ask Corey to put out the fire. I just had a few more fields to fill in, but I didn’t want to hold him back.
“Are you sure I can turn out the light?” he asked cautiously.
“I’m sure,” I said. “I can see.”
Using a poker, Corey separated the logs, tamping them down until the rosy glow went out and there was nothing but smoke and dust left. He abandoned the cooler but collected the empty bottles before kissing the top of my head.
“Almost done,” I promised.
“Take your time,” he said, following his wife back into the house.
I finished filling out the form and stared at it for a long moment before I hit “send.” It almost seemed anticlimactic after all the debating. Should I, or shouldn’t I? Was it really a possibility, and did I even want it to be? Well, it was done, and I didn’t want to sit out on the ground alone for the rest of the night.
Standing up, I brushed my seat off. Walking upstairs to my loft, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something odd had happened. Did I push the wrong button to submit the application? Had I chosen the right file from my phone? I hoped I hadn’t done anything to embarrass myself, but what was the worst that could happen? Either I would get the job, or I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be any worse off than I was at that moment.
Flicking my light on, I walked to the kitchen to get something to eat.
