“Well, it certainly sounds like you might be an excellent fit for the Herald-Trumpet,” Edmund says, his voice on the other end of the line slightly faint, like the distance between here and South Dakota matters to cell phones.
I look out over the valley, at the sun lowering in the sky, and I blink at it.
“That’s wonderful to hear,” I say, standing up a little straighter. “The Metro Editor position sounds like it’s a fascinating opportunity.”
There’s a brief moment of silence. Papers shuffle on the other end. Behind me, on the Parkway, a car goes past the vista point where I’m standing. Fifty feet away, Levi’s sitting in the bed of his truck, reading a paperback as if he planned on spending his time like this.
I swallow and look back at the view, because I can’t look at him right now.
“June, we’d like to move you into the next round of interviews,” says Adrianne, the paper’s Managing Editor, also on the line. “That would mean coming to Bluff City for an in-person interview one day next week. Would you be amenable to that?”
“Yes, that sounds wonderful,” I say. “I can’t wait to meet the whole Herald-Trumpet team.”
I shut my eyes, the words rolling out of me like rocks down a hill. By now I’ve parroted so much job-application-business speak that I practically dream about it.
“Perfect,” she says, and I hear papers shuffling in the background again. “Does Tuesday work for you? I’m afraid that the closest airport in Salt Plains only has a few flights a day, so you may need to fly into Rapid City and rent a car. But I’m sure you’ll figure it out, you seem very resourceful.”
I navigated my way out of the wilderness an hour ago, I want to tell her, but I don’t.
“I’ll be sure to check into all my options,” I say.
“Great,” says Edmund. “We’ll email you to confirm the details in a few minutes. It was a delight to speak with you, June.”
“Likewise,” I say, eyes still shut.
We exchange a few more pleasantries, and then finally, I hang up the phone.
This is what you want, I remind myself. You’ve spent months feeling pointless and useless. You need a job. You need a career.
You need to not give any of that up for bad reasons.
I should be happy. After months of trying, I’ve finally scored an in-person interview, and I should be over the moon about it but I’m not.
I take a deep breath. I look out over the valley one more time, the first leaves just starting to turn yellow and orange, and I think about how two weeks from now it’ll be a carpet of sunset and it’ll smell like Halloween and apple picking. I think about curling up on Levi’s back porch with hot cocoa and a blanket, looking out over his yard and the forest beyond while Hedwig fetches sticks and runs them back to me.
Maybe I could take up knitting. I could learn to can, make jam, preserve… preserves, I guess, and I could start a blog about being a country house-girlfriend.
Except that’s not me. I’m not homey and I’m not comfy and I’ve never preserved a preserve in my life, because I was meant to be off chasing exciting stories and fighting with editors to get the truth out and doing cool, exciting reporter things.
Like what? I think, still looking out over the valley, lost in thought, my phone by my side. Covering Town Hall meetings about Sewage Awareness Wednesday and trying to make the local school’s Fourth of July Parade sound interesting?
You don’t even care about the parade in Sprucevale, and you know half the kids in it.
Then I turn sharply and walk back toward the truck where Levi’s waiting before I can think any more about this.
“Hey,” he says, an easy smile on his face, like he’s glad to see me even though he’s been close by this whole time. “How’d it go?”
He stands, puts a bookmark into the book he’s reading, hops over the side of the truck and down onto the pavement next to me.
Is it weird that I find bookmark use sexy? I kinda do.
“I think it went well,” I say, and the next thing is right on the tip of my tongue: I have to fly to South Dakota next week for the last round of interviews.
I don’t say it. I hold my breath. I glance down at the black screen of my phone like it’ll tell me what to do, but it’s stubbornly silent and hint-free, and then I look back into Levi’s earth-brown eyes and I can’t do it. I can’t say it.
Not now. Not after this weekend that was strangely perfect despite the tree murder and the lack of showers.
“That’s great,” Levi says, but he doesn’t look at me either. He looks away, at the horizon, and he sounds oddly distant. He takes a deep breath.