Page 61 of Engineering a Love Story

When we’re back outside, Ash waves a hand at the courthouse. “What the hell? You’re crying now?” He stares at me, incredulous.

I want to ask him what it had all been for. I worked so hard to get away from what I’d perceived to be a risky, small future, only to settle into a life that was just as confining, despite our four bedrooms. Why had we both so willing to settle?

Ash trains his eyes on my face, until he rears back slightly.

“You’re miserable,” he says, a touch of surprise in his voice. “You were always miserable.” I can see this might be a freeing realization for him.

I’m too shaky to argue or to attempt any coherence at all. Ash strides away down the brick sidewalk. As he rounds a corner and disappears out of sight, I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.

***

I go home and do nothing that weekend but try to sleep, even as I know that sort of effort only makes sleep more elusive. I cycle, attempting to tire myself out. Read. Try not to nap, no matter how tired I am. The air is cool—good sleeping weather, I hope. I even try allergy medicine, which has worked for me in the past, but it now only leaves me with sandy eyeballs and a sour stomach, wide awake.

Evan and Travis both call on Saturday, trying to get me out. I tell Travis about the conversation with Seth and the disastrous trip to the courthouse. He offers to visit, but I want to be alone.

I speak to no one for the rest of the weekend, my mind swirling endlessly. The sadness about Seth, the anxiety about potential repercussions of the article, and the mess with the Market Spotlight—all of it morphs into an irrational worry about sleep. Which keeps me awake.

This happened to me this badly once before, after I’d been working at BayBank for about six months. The relentlessness of that first full-time job—you had to go every morning, five days a week! All those old, unfriendly guys. Donny and his radio. I stopped sleeping, and then fear of having to go to work unrested took over. That I might cry in front of Donny and the others, exactly as they expected a woman to do.

Ash proposed during that time. Why he wanted to marry an unhappy person who didn’t sleep and cried all the time, I don’t know. I think now he hadn’t even realized what I’d been going through.

In any event, I moved on. Planned the wedding. Figured out tricks to get through the day—reading breaks in the bathroom and long walks at lunchtime. I started to sleep better. One day led to the next and it passed.

In the small hours of Monday morning, I’m switching from side to side, trying to settle, and dreading the week ahead. I worry how I’ll perform in Chicago, where I’m scheduled to travel on Wednesday for the consulting days at Alliance Bank. It will be absolutely unacceptable to cry in a conference room with all those men stoically watching me, and I lie awake, picturing it in vivid detail.

I also remember I’m slated to have coffee with Sofra’s Ronald Spillane on Friday. Sofra is based in Chicago, and Ronald always pesters me to visit when I’m in town. Unfortunately, the last time we spoke, I admitted I had a trip coming up. He never wants to pay Gilroy for my time, so I was able to beg off an office visit but did agree to coffee. Now, I can barely tolerate the prospect of that meeting. Ronald’s aggressive bluster is bad enough under normal circumstances. I don’t know how I’ll handle it in my tattered state. Plus, I’m certain he’ll bring up Aurelian PayNow, since he’ll want to review Sofra’s own bill-pay release, which he briefed us on back in August.

Remembering that meeting, I get out of bed, thinking I’ll find the handout Ronald left with us then. Maybe prepping to see him will cool my anxiety—or with any luck, looking at his presentation will put me to sleep.

I dig into the stack of papers towering near my stereo, certain that’s where I left the stapled copy of Ronald’s slides. I paw through an early draft of the Market Spotlight, a few other printed Gilroy reports, some old sections of The Globe. The issue of Forbes with the Aurelian article is even there. I tossed that on the pile just the other day. But no presentation from Sofra.

Spreading everything out on my rug, I search again. I know it was here. I even remember seeing the little Sofra logo and the word confidential peeking out of the stack the morning I moved the pile off the table, when Seth was here.

Seth.

I straighten and look down at the mess. I haven’t touched this pile since that day, haven’t cleaned up or thrown anything away. And no one else has been here. Seth must have taken the Sofra presentation for competitive intelligence. Could this be true? I sink to the floor, knowing it must be. I wonder if he came here with that intention or if he only took the opportunity when it presented itself.

I can’t believe I was so stupid. I’d thought he was falling in love with me. I’m crying again, though the burning in my eyes indicates I never really stopped.

Ash is right: I’m miserable. Why did I ever suppose any other outcome was possible? It was ridiculous to think I could go out in the world, allow myself to get swept up by some romantic ideal, and it somehow wouldn’t end in disaster. Now I’m divorced, alone, my job probably hanging by a thread, unable to sleep. Heartbroken. Stupid. Miserable.

All those awful days months ago when I methodically ended my marriage, I packed and mowed and plodded forward soldierlike and cold. Now, it’s as if a dam has broken. Leaving Ash, I lost the person who was my best friend for years. It was like losing a sibling, but I hardly mourned the loss. Instead, I threw myself into a new love affair, silly and rash. Now, I fear I’ve fallen from the tightrope I’ve been balancing on for months. Maybe years. I fucked up.

I can’t wish to still be married to Ash—I can’t unfeel everything I’ve felt in recent months. But still, I wonder what might happen if I drop my basket entirely. I have outdated visions of a padded room, me in it unable to stop crying. Who will I call if I completely lose my shit?

In the days after my mother died, my father’s small house was crammed with uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, neighbors. There were tears and hugs, though it was not a demonstrative crowd—it was still New England. But those people were there, with bags of doughnuts and cans of beer. Just staying and talking, the crisis breeding intimacy.

I don’t know if my Gilroy friends will stay in my life if I lose this job. I know no one in this building except unfriendly Hector downstairs. There’s Bethany, but she’s busy with her husband, her baby, her return to work—already a full life. All the people I knew when I was married have melted away.

Wade? The idea of appearing on Melanie’s doorstep and making some kind of damn-plain-Yankee go of it in Charlotte makes me laugh, even as I lie sobbing on my living room rug. It’s inevitable I’ll end up home with my father, shrouded in failure.

Thirty-Five

In the end, the engagement at Alliance Bank passes without incident. I do not sleep much early in the week as I’m attempting to prep for the consulting session. But on the flight to Chicago on Wednesday, I doze during takeoff, the rumble and rocking of the plane lulling me. And I never wake up, not for pretzels and ginger ale or to open my laptop and work, as I’d planned to do.

I arrive in Chicago a little saner. My work with Alliance isn’t perfect. I’m more vacant and flustered than I should be, jumpy whenever Peter Lublin mentions Aurelian. I encourage his team to evaluate Sofra, express skepticism about PayNow, allude to rumors that the Aurelian product isn’t ready, and insist that Peter meticulously check references, though I stop short of saying PayNow doesn’t exist. They’ll find out soon enough.

When I leave Alliance mid-day Friday, I’m anxious to go home. Having the consulting days behind me releases a wave of stress from my body, as if my skin is larger, loose after being stretched tight with tension. I hope that with some of the pressure off—this week over, the divorce final, the article possibly fading into the past—I can calm down and sleep.