Chapter Thirty-Two
Jaimie
“I don’t believe this,” said Randy in a low voice. “It’s just incredible.”
He tilted his computer screen so I could see it. “It says here that when manatees dive underwater, they can hold their breath for upwards of twenty minutes. I can’t even hold my breath for more than a few seconds. And apparently, when they exhale, ninety percent of the air in their lungs is replaced, compared to—what does it say?—ten percent for humans.”
“Sir.” I didn’t want to say what I was about to say, but there was no avoiding it. “There’s something we have to talk about, and I don’t know if you’re going to like it.”
With a look of concern, Randy turned the screen back around and gave me his full attention.
“And just know,” I said, “that nothing I’m about to say reflects badly on you. This is in no way a criticism of your management. But I’ve been offered a job with an independent record label.” I waited a beat before adding, “And I said yes.”
Randy drew in a deep breath, his face inscrutable. “And are they offering you a higher starting salary?”
“They are.”
He clapped his hands together, just once. “Well, that’s fantastic news! Wherever you go, I want you to prosper and be happy. When do you start?”
I grimaced guiltily. “Tomorrow morning.”
It took Randy a moment to absorb this news. “Well, I wish you had told me sooner. We could’ve spent the last couple weeks hiring and training your replacement.”
“I know, and I thought of that, and I’m sorry to have disappointed you, but it all happened so fast. I emailed this application on Thursday night and got called in for an interview on Tuesday morning. I went in, and they almost immediately gave me the job. I think they were so impressed with my resume that the interview was just a formality.”
“They must have been,” said Randy. “They never even called me asking for a recommendation. That’s why this is kind of a shock.”
A small box of glazed apple cinnamon muffins sat on the corner of the desk. He took one and bit into it thoughtfully. “It’s okay,” he said, half to himself. “I think tomorrow morning will be the hardest. Just walking in here and seeing you’re not at your desk. That’s going to take some getting used to.”
Remembering what Ren had said the day before, I hastened to add, “I’m not dying. I’ll still be around, and you’ll still see me every now and again.”
Randy frowned skeptically.
“Look, if it helps,” I said, “we can arrange to meet for lunch once a week. That’s what I did after I left my first job in college. My boss was a middle-aged British woman who had spent the last twenty years in America but still retained her accent. She would bring me coffee and cookies—she called them biscuits—and ask about my life. She actually cried when I announced I was quitting. Not wanting to lose touch, she invited me to dinner at her house one night a week until I moved to Boulder.”
“She sounds lovely,” said Randy, not looking me in the eyes.
“She truly was. My point is that this doesn’t have to be the end of our friendship. It may help to think of it as another beginning.”
He repeated the words back to himself as though trying to memorize them. Crumpling up the wrapper of the muffin, he threw it into a wastebasket.
“In the week after Joy died,” he said, “there was a night when I was sitting in her old rocking chair by the fire going through one of our old scrapbook albums. And a sudden chill swept through the room and the fire dimmed, just for a moment. And I got the distinct impression that she was sitting right next to me.
“It may sound crazy to put it this way, but it felt like there were several things she wanted me to know. One was that death hadn’t been the end of her life and it wasn’t the end of our relationship. The other thing was that she was safe now. I felt her conveying that so strongly: just the reassurance that she was safe. That I no longer had to worry about her.
“Now, I’m sure there are rational explanations for what I felt that night. Clearly, I was grieving and would have latched onto any viable source of comfort. But you try looking into the eyes of a man who’s just had that experience, and tell him that he’s deluded, and that he’ll never see his wife again. See where that gets you.”
He waited, as though half-expecting me to object, but I said nothing.
“There was another night, not very long after, when Joy came and spoke to me in a dream. In the dream, we were in a walled garden, and she was wearing a white silken dress with a garland of purple flowers in her hair. She looked, somehow, even more beautiful than she had in life. And we talked for about an hour, and I don’t even really remember all the specifics of what we talked about, but I remember waking up with a tremendous feeling of assurance, and a line from an old poem drifting through my head: ‘To die is different from what anyone supposed, and better.’”
“Mmmm.” I had always been skeptical of these ghostly encounters, but I wasn’t about to interrupt when he was speaking with such conviction.
“And I still think of that dream whenever I have to say goodbye to anyone,” he went on. “It helps to remember that if death can’t end a relationship, then neither can a change in employment or a move across the country. We’re all of us indissolubly bound together, living and dead. We all share the burden and joy of being human.”
“That’s beautiful, Randy.” Feeling moved in spite of myself, I reached my hand across the desk and took the tips of his fingers in mine. “Thank you.”
“So,” he said, breaking away and leaning back with a relaxed air, “consult with your new boss and find out when she’s available to have lunch. In the meantime, I’ll make tentative plans for next Thursday. I want to give you at least a week to get settled in.”
“Sounds perfect.”
The next morning was drizzly and damp, and a blue mist lingered over the streets and obscured the street lights. I arrived at the record label at the precise time of day when I would normally have been bringing Randy his coffee and croissant. A benevolently beaming woman wearing a plain gray suit led me on a tour of the grounds that ended at my new office. Here from the window of the fourth floor, I had a perfect view of the serenity garden at the front of the building and the playground across the street, all shrouded in a thin layer of mist.
A blonde girl wearing a knee-length skirt, her hair done up in curls like the heroine of a Regency romance, came skipping briskly toward me. Extending her hand eagerly, she said, “Hi, I’m Eleanor.”
“Jaimie.” I shook her hand with vigor. “A pleasure.”
“It is! I know we just met but would you like to go out for drinks tonight? Just to chat?”
“I’d love to,” I replied, “but I actually have to meet up with a friend tonight. I haven’t gotten to see him in several days.”
“Oh, do you have a boyfriend?”
Normally I would have been taken aback by the question, but the word evoked a flood of warm sensations. I had never yet given him that label—we had only really been official since Sunday—but it fit. It was perfect.
“I do,” I said, smiling. “We’ll take a raincheck, and maybe you can meet him the next time we go out.”