give myself an ultimatum. You either go now or never.
Without bothering to change out of my sweats, I meander for a while along the marina. Dante and I have texted a bit, but he’s having a busy day in Salt Lake City and we haven't had a chance to talk.
After talking to Mom, I call Allison. No one knows my real purpose of being here except for Dante. That's the whole point of being undercover, but I still need to talk to someone to make this low level of anxiety go away.
Allison answers on the second ring.
Her voice is upbeat and happy-go-lucky. That is until she hears me and I remind her of the fact that I'm in Seattle.
"You forgot?" I laugh. ”How could you forget that I'm over here?"
"I don't know. I have my own life. So, the interview was today?"
“Yeah.” I nod even though she can't see me.
"How did it go?"
"Actually pretty well, but then again, I'm not really sure if I'm a great judge of what makes for a good interview," I say, purposely being vague about the details. I do mention that it’s a company that makes microprocessors and the job is for an administrative assistant.
"Why are you applying for this job again? I thought you wanted to be a journalist,” she says after a long pause.
"Well, they’re hiring and the pay is good,” I lie.
We talk a little bit longer and I notice that Allison is in a particularly good mood. I fill her in on some aspects of the job and what it entails and she harps on the fact that if I get it, I won't live in New York and we won't be able to hang out as much.
I promise her that there's a very slim chance of me actually getting it, but we will always be in touch no matter what.
"So how's everything with work? What have you been up to?" I ask.
I can feel her shrugging and I also have known her long enough to know that something's up.
"What's going on?" I ask.
"I'm still in the Hamptons," Allison says.
"What are you talking about? How?”
"Richard and I have been kind of hanging out."
"What about your job?” I ask, shaking my head.
"Well, I took some time off. I had a bunch of days saved up and I don't know, I just want to see where this goes."
"Wow, you never take time off.” I laugh. "You're just this Energizer bunny who works and works and works."
"I know, but I thought that it'd be good if I change some aspect of my personality."
"You mean for Richard?” I regret this as soon as I say it, but it’s too late.
"No, I didn't say that," she snaps.
"How has it been?" I ask. "Do you like him?”
"Girl, I think I love him."
There's a long pause as I try to process that information.
Love.
My friend Allison has always been so easy-going and casual. Unable to commit, perhaps would be a better way of putting it, and here she is actually talking about love.
“Richard is just so fun, you know? And he's so easy to be with."
"Having a lot of money helps."
"No, that's not true. I've been with other guys, and maybe they weren't as rich, but they were more than comfortable and they were just so stressed out, everything worried them. And with Richard, he's just so at ease with what he does, with who he is. It really just makes life much more easy-going, you know?”
"You're not going to quit your job, are you?” I ask. I hate how unkind and unsupportive I’m being but I can’t help but be skeptical.
"No, not at all. Who do you think I am? I worked really hard to get where I am and I love what I do. I don't love everyone I work with, of course, but you know how that goes."
"So how much more time off are you taking?"
"I'm not so sure.” She says. "I had a week. I'm almost at that, I have some more sick days, but I’ve got to go back to work. It’s fine, I mean, I don't mind. It has just been so fun. I didn't realize this was a vacation that I needed until I actually took it."
We talk for a little while until she says she has to go and I ask her to stay in touch. We usually text once or twice a day, but now I have so much more that I have to know.
I wonder where all of this