“I get it. You didn’t want to get in too deep with me.”
“Right,” she says softly.
One night with her and I was in deep.
I wonder if I’m about to do the same thing with Jada… get too deep too soon. Hurt her. Get hurt. Something. I can’t imagine Jada hurting me, but I didn’t think Meryl would either. I also don’t want to hurt Jada and the position I’m in right now, that could happen whether I want it to or not. But you don’t know what you’re going to feel until you feel it. You don’t always know what you’ll do and then you just do it, and people get hurt - shit happens.
Meryl keeps talking. “But then things went crazy when I got home and so much happened so fast, so it turned out I was where I was supposed to be. Things happen for a reason, Austin, I really believe that.”
“I’m glad you’re happy. Despite everything.”
“I hope you find happiness, too, Austin,” she says.
I hold the phone a second but then launch into the reason for contacting her. “Anyway, I know you quit because of extenuating circumstances. Have you found a new job yet?”
“I… I have a job but it’s only a contract position and it ends in three weeks. I haven’t yet lined something up for after that. Can I ask why?”
“I’m in our New York office and we’re doing a re-org. We’d like to outsource more of our back-office procedures and it makes sense to expand the team we already built there in Manila. I’d like you to run that team. What do you think? You’re already trained on our systems, you know how we work, and the call center team there in Manila knows you.”
“From here? I could do it from here? All of it?”
“The building you worked in for us, there’s a suite next to that one that’s empty and available for lease. We’re talking to the property manager about knocking down a wall so we can expand into that suite. I’d like to have HR send you an offer letter on Monday. You’ll make one and a half times what you made working for us last time but there will be extra responsibility. I’ve got a rough outline of the job description for you. Can you handle it? Do you want it? You might need to travel once or twice a year but maybe not even every year.”
“I think I can,” she says. “I just want to talk it over with some people. Um -”
“With your fiancé,” I finish for her.
“Yes,” she says softly.
She’s a nice girl, trying to not rub it in with me.
“Do that. I’ll have HR send you the offer Monday morning our time by email and we can discuss after you’ve had a chance to review it.”
“That sounds great.” She sounds relieved. “Thank you for this opportunity, Austin.”
“You were an asset to our team before. You’re the right person to offer this job to. I’ll have the offer and a job description sent. We might have to fine tune the description, but your timing of three weeks works so that’ll be good. You won’t report directly to me, but you’ll report to someone in accounting who does.”
“That might make it an easier sell,” she says softly.
I chuckle. Her guy is possessive.
“I get it,” I say.
“Okay, sounds great so far. I’ll watch for it Monday and get you an answer as soon as I can. It might take me a little time to-”
“It’s fine. Think on it. Take care, Mer.”
“Thanks, Austin. You, too. Thanks again for this opportunity. If it all works out, I won’t randomly quit again.” There’s humor in her voice.
“Glad to hear that. Bye.”
I end the call and stare out the window for a bit.
And I feel pretty good about that. About gaining some closure with her.
41
Jada
Austin and I are being seated in a booth in a restaurant a few blocks from the building. And I feel like I’m floating, because he held my hand all the way here.
It happened as soon as we got to the elevator and I greeted Andrew.
“Hey,” Andrew smiled brightly at me as I got out of the elevator first.
Austin then came out and said, “Hey” and grabbed my hand and steered me toward the door.
It felt… proprietary. And I kinda wanted to laugh about it because I don’t think Andrew is into me or anything, but I also thought it was sexy the way Austin did it.
It turns out Austin and I are compatible with our pizza taste, which is probably a good thing in a relationship – if this is going to be a relationship. And I don’t know if it is. I don’t want to push for any sort of clarification yet, either, because what if it scares him off?