Joy

Marisol slices her chicken and brings a piece to her mouth. After she chews, she waves broadly behind her, indicating the small restaurant in the heart of St. Germain des Pres where we’re dining. “I’m so glad you could have dinner tonight.”

“This place is fantastic. The salad is one of the best I’ve had so far in Paris,” I say in French, since I want to impress her.

She raises her eyebrows in appreciation. “Well said.”

We chat more about the company, the products I’m overseeing, and life in Paris. I tell her I’m learning more French every day, and growing more comfortable with the language and the city.

She smiles. “I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed it.”

I flinch for a moment, noticing she used the past tense. “I am enjoying it,” I say, since I want to make sure she knows this is a present tense thing for me. Paris is where I live. Paris is what I love.

“And I’ve enjoyed having you here.”

My chest pinches. I set my fork down when I hear that word. I part my lips, unsure where to start, but quickly decide that this company didn’t hire me so I could beat around the bush. I choose directness. “Is there something I need to know?”

Marisol laughs nervously. “As a matter of fact,” she says, setting down her utensil, “I wanted to have dinner with you to talk about what’s next.”

“Okay, let’s talk,” I say, since I signed a one-year contract, and I haven’t even hit the three-month mark yet.

“First, we love your work.”

My heart is a stone. It sinks heavily in my chest. That’s the professional equivalent of it’s not you, it’s me. “Thank you.” I tense, waiting for the shoe to drop.

She neatly tucks her blonde strands behind her ears. “And you’ve been absolutely amazing at L’Artisan. So much I don’t want to see you go.”

“I don’t want to go,” I say cautiously, as worry threads deeper into me.

She sighs heavily. “It pains me to do this, but I wanted to let you know the company will be making an offer to take you back to the United States.”

My brain goes haywire. Lights and buttons and noises whir in a cacophony. This isn’t in the script. This isn’t what comes next. It’s completely out of left field. “I don’t understand.”

“The parent company loves your work here, and they’ve been reading the progress reports I’ve sent.” She flashes a rueful smile. “Perhaps that was my mistake. To let them know how very talented you are. Now, it seems there’s been an opening in the Austin office, and they’re going to offer it to you.”

That’s everything I wanted several months ago. I blink, trying to process this unexpected news. “They are? To run the fragrance lab?”

She shakes her head. “No. To run the perfume lab.”

My eyes widen. Everything around me slows to a crawl. The waiters walk sluggishly. Noise ceases, and the moment closes in on itself. That was my dream job forever. I swallow past the shock and try to restart the motor. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. That’s the plan. There have been some changes at the corporate office, and they’re putting together an offer for you. You’ll likely have it on your desk on Monday morning. You have to know I’d love to keep you here if there were some way, but I don’t know that we can compete with their offer. We’re the same company, yes, but we operate somewhat autonomously as a French division, as you know. We don’t yet have a perfume lab.”

“And they do,” I say, with something like wonder in my voice. I know that lab. I’ve stood outside the door. Gazed inside. Hoped and prayed and longed to lead it. I wouldn’t just be a fragrance chemist. I’d be a perfume composer. That would be passion meeting work in the most wonderful coupling. My heart dares to speed up at the prospect of crafting what I love for my job.

I adore creating scents.

But I’m in love with perfume.

She raises her glass of water and takes a drink. “They have a great lab, and it seems when I wrote the report about your new formulation in progress, they were so impressed they wanted to take you from me.”

Her lips curve into a frown. Then quickly, they quirk up in the most wistful congratulatory smile I’ve ever seen. She’s letting me go, if I want to. She’s giving me permission to go home.

But where is my home now?

* * *

On the walk home, I text my sister.

But truthfully, the answer is I don’t know.

* * *

Griffin’s jaw drops. “Wow. That’s tremendous, and totally unexpected.”

“I know, right?” I say, as I flop down on the chaise on my terrace, the stars winking faintly above us.

“Are you going to take it?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I love it here so much. But the chance to run a perfume lab? That’s a dream come true.”

He nods thoughtfully, as if he’s trying to convince himself. “Yeah, it would be amazing,” he says, but the words come out funny, as if he’s not sure how to say them.

“It would be amazing,” I repeat, because that’s simply a fact.

“When will you decide?” He takes my hand in his and rubs his thumb over my palm.

“Supposedly, I’ll have the offer in a few more days.”

Another nod. He swallows this time. Exhales. Scrubs a hand over his jaw. “That’s . . .”

But he doesn’t finish.

I squeeze his hand. “What would you do if you were me?”

I can ask him freely now since there’s no pressure, no expectation. It’s not as if we’re going to be together when I make this choice. I can make this decision for me, and only me, as my sister said. I can choose my career without losing myself. I can rewrite the mistakes of my past.

“When would they want you back?” he asks, and the question comes out rough, as if there’s gravel in his throat.

“Probably in a month, Marisol said.” I furrow my brow. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Absolutely. Just, wow. This is wow,” he says, tapping his fingers against his skull then spreading them wide open, as if this is blowing his mind. Maybe it is. “You’d move back home.”

Home.

That word echoes between us. For a while it felt like home was here with him. But we’re a vacation. We’re an escape. He’s not my home because he’s leaving, and I may as well take off now, too. How fitting that we came together in Paris like a chemical reaction. We combusted, and now we’re repelling. We’re shooting away from our epicenter, both of us, drifting farther apart. Maybe it was meant to be this way.

Home isn’t him and me.

It’s elsewhere.

I squeeze his hand, asking again, “What would you do?”

“If it’s your dream come true, you should go for it,” he says, his voice thick, almost as if it’s clogged with emotion. “I don’t want to hold you back.”

I tilt my head to the side, curiosity gripping me. “How would you hold me back? You won’t even be here.”

He winces and looks away.

“You won’t be here, right?” I ask, pressing. For a split second, my heart leaps. Has he changed his mind? Is he staying? I wait patiently for an answer.

His eyes shine with sadness, and I try to read their meaning. But they’re a language that won’t translate for me.

So, I go first. Taking a tentative step. “If you were here, it would be different.”

He closes his eyes and gathers me close.