end of the month, but was still terrified to get the hospital bill. I had a hefty severance check, though, and as Cameron mentioned the night before, he had a line on a new job for me.
“Connie did say that, even though the Tower card came up upright, which, as you know, indicates a huge life change, but, like, in a chaotic way,” I enlightened him as we got into his Toyota RAV4, “she pulled the Nine of Cups upright next, which is great for my immediate future because it means positivity and success and stuff.”
He turned to stare at me from the driver’s seat.
“What?”
“Start with who Connie is, and then explain everything else you just said.”
I couldn’t help laughing, which hurt a bit, but I was happy to tell him all about Connie, Lance’s girlfriend, who I talked to when Lance called me from the road at two in the morning. Cameron was passed out, and I watched him sleep as we talked, the three of us together, as they had me on speaker. It had been good, and I told Lance how proud of him I was. Connie, of course, had pulled my Tarot cards for me while we were talking.
“I always liked you,” I confessed.
“I know,” she assured me.
They had promised to keep in touch. I hoped they would.
The day was a blur, but in a good way. Cameron scheduled us to look at three apartments, all in downtown Sacramento. When we got to the first one, with a doorman who handed us off to a concierge, I elbowed my new boyfriend in the ribs.
“Okay, so that one was a bit much,” he admitted when we were back in the SUV.
“Ya think?” I teased him. “What was your first clue? The private balcony, the valet service, or the view of the skyline?”
“Shut up,” he grumbled.
“I need coffee before I meet the next concierge.”
The death glare did not concern me in the least.
Apartment number two was more reasonable, also downtown, a few blocks from Golden 1 Center and within walking distance to a ton of bars and restaurants. It was a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath, and newly remodeled, with one of those open floor plans. There were quartz countertops in the kitchen, which Cameron liked, and a balcony that overlooked what I was guessing could pass for a garden, if you liked only cactus. He said the crown molding was a nice touch and similar to what he had in his own home. The property manager also made sure to show us the pool and the assigned parking space in the garage.
I didn’t love it, could only imagine what the rent was—tried not to hyperventilate when I did imagine—and listened when he described how close it was to school.
“If you get the job you’re going to interview for, you’ll be so close to everything.”
The interview wasn’t happening until Wednesday—he’d wanted to give me longer to mend, and I needed to nail down my schedule with Betty—and was for an in-house life skills counselor position at an IT company that operated 24/7 and kept bigger companies up and running. Helping other businesses’ in-house personnel with their networks, clouds, security, all the moving parts of a digital infrastructure, was, as expected, stressful, and the employees burned out on a regular basis.
The company, Fortress Technologies, based in California, had implemented a program where team members who were stressed, for whatever reason, now had access to a counselor on-site. The program, that fell under the umbrella of human resources, first implemented in Silicon Valley, had been wildly successful in contributing to employee retention. People were coming back at the end of their lunch breaks now, instead of disappearing, since they knew they could vent their frustration to someone who would listen and make recommendations to promote their self-care. Similar results had been validated in Los Angeles, and were being rolled out to every city where Fortress had an office.
The expansion of the program meant they needed counselors who were willing to work second shift, which narrowed the candidate pool. Not as many qualified applicants wanted to work nights, but it would be ideal for me, so when Cameron had reached out to his contact at the office in Sacramento, she was—his words—nearly rabid to meet me.
“But what if they have a bigger issue than I can handle?” It was a valid concern I raised as we drove to look at the third apartment.
“From what Jennifer said, if something is so bad as to be