“Absolutely,” I say into the handset in my best high-powered professional voice. “I’ll have those marked up and back to you within the hour.”

“Thanks, Josephine,” my manager says. “Keep up the good work.”

“I do,” I say. Shit. “I will. Thanks, Mark, I—”

He ends the call with a click. 

I sit back and take a deep breath.

I did not exactly nail that phone call, but I’m getting there. Three weeks on the job, and this is the second compliment from the department manager today.

On the notepad by my computer I neatly list the task at hand and underline it—urgent. I’m going to take care of it right now. My computer chimes to underscore the urgency. There are the changes from Mark, arriving in my inbox.

My next cup of coffee will have to wait.

My eyes feel gritty, my eyelids heavy, but that didn’t stop me from getting up early to hit the gym this morning and it’s not going to stop me from tackling this assignment now. I can do this. I can do this. I repeat the affirmation one more time, then open Mark’s email and get to work.

I haven’t been inside a bar since I abandoned the barstool at the hotel a month ago, which is why it’s bullshit that I’m so tired. Still, it’s the first time in my life that I’m satisfied at the end of the day.

Well, almost.

I left that bar and went back to my room. I pulled out my laptop, got out my phone, and spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening calling everyone I could think of who worked anywhere I could think of. Then I sat up all night applying for jobs online.

The old Josephine, the Josephine who would have gone on a weeklong bender, had been left behind at Emerald Shores. 

One week later, I’d landed myself an interview in the marketing department of a credit union—one of the city’s biggest—and Jesus, did I have to fake it. My last big expense was a custom-fitted business suit and a makeover. I walked in there that day with a perfect blowout, looking every inch like a dark-haired corporate Barbie. Or one of her friends, I guess. I walked out with an offer, and I didn’t even need Dad’s friend Howard to get it.

What did I do first? I called my mom.

“I don’t need your money.” That’s how I’d greeted her, riding the adrenaline high of getting my very first real job.

“Josie!” she cried. “I’ve barely heard from you. What are you talking about?”

“Cut me off right now, if you want to. I already switched to my own phone plan—” That wasn’t quite true. I was on my way to do it right then. “—and I don’t need an allowance from you and dad anymore.”

“What?” 

“I got a job.”

“An internship?”

“A job. At one of the credit unions in Midtown. I start on Monday.”

“Josie, that’s wonderful!” Her voice was all warm enthusiasm and pride. Which—what? “But we don’t want to stop the payments from your trust fund. Your father—” She paused for a long moment. “He was worried about you. He thought it would be the only way to make you see—”

“To make me see what?”

“To help you understand,” she said softly. “He thought if you could get out there on your own two feet, independently of—” My mom doesn’t want to mention Rolly’s name. “Anyone in your life, then you might see that you can have real happiness, even if—” In her voice I could hear that she was getting a little choked up. “—even if things go wrong. We didn’t want you to spend all your time hiding away from life.”

“Well, I got a job at a bank, so I’m fully engaged in life now, mom.” She laughed a little bit. “But really, I don’t need the money.” I felt a strange kind of power, a strange kind of freedom, for the first time in my life. “Save it. Let it build in the trust, if you want. I just—I need to do this on my own for a while.”

It seemed a lot easier then, that’s for sure.

That week, I moved the last of my things out of the apartment I’d shared with Rolly, canceled the lease, and found a postage stamp of an apartment three blocks from the bank. It’s barely big enough for a full-size bed and my dresser, but I’ve set up a neat little space for me to watch an old movie or two before I go to bed.

I don’t go to the bar anymore.

My one splurge is my gym membership, because it’s in the next building over. I go religiously, every single morning. I run on the treadmill if it’s still dark when I wake up and lift weights until my muscles burn.

It’s still not enough to keep my mind away from Charlie.

Over the last three weeks, I’ve thrown myself into work with the same energy that I try to burn out at the gym. My therapist—I did let my mom foot the bill for those weekly meetings, to give her some peace of mind—has been warning me that I’m going to push too hard.

“You need joy in your life,” she said to me yesterday. “It’s true, Josie. You have to give yourself time for joy.”

“I did that,” I’d told her, my chin lifted. “I did that for years. Now it’s time to work.”

So here I sit, at my desk, slashing my way through my daily to-do list with a vengeance. 

I’ve also learned that trying not to think of him is counter-productive. When the caving-in feeling in my chest gets to be too much, I give myself five minutes. I let my mind linger over his body, his blue eyes in the sunset, the taste of his lips on mine.

Then I put it away and get back to work.

I finish the project for my boss and stretch, my arms up above my head. Thirty minutes left in the day. I don’t feel any sense of excitement about it. At home, where everything is relatively quiet, aside from the low-level din of the neighbors, sometimes I slip into thinking about Charlie for ten minutes. Fifteen. Maybe even twenty.

If I get trapped in it for thirty, I go to the gym.

At five o’clock sharp, the office starts to pack up. I linger for another fifteen minutes, ticking off a few more items on my to-do list, then put everything back in its place.

Outside, the air is warm and humid, the sunlight beginning to turn into the golden of evening. 

I’ll admit it—I look for him. For a Town Car parked against the curb. For his shoulders in a crisp dress shirt. I can’t help it. Some days, I think even a glimpse of him would let me move on.

I let myself linger on Charlie for the walk home.

Then I change out of my work clothes and head for the gym.