The day she stopped waiting

Chapter 4

She started keeping notes.

Not because she planned to do anything with them. It was more that writing things down was the only way she could look at them without flinching. On paper they were facts, not feelings. Facts were easier to deal with.

October 7. Daniel said he was working late. Called his office at 7 PM to ask what he wanted for dinner. He wasn't there. He got home at 9 PM and said the project had gone over. I didn't ask where he was. I should have asked where he was.

October 14. Selene came to dinner at Daniel's apartment. She brought wine the good kind, the kind that costs actual money, the kind she wouldn't normally spend on a Tuesday. She said she'd gotten a bonus at work. She touched Daniel's shoulder three times during the meal. I counted. Three times in two hours.

October 22. Daniel's phone lit up at 2 AM. He was asleep. The screen faced up and I could see the preview. It said: "Still thinking about what you said." Sender: S. I put the phone face-down. I lay in the dark for two hours. I didn't say anything in the morning.

October 30. Mom called to say Selene is having a rough patch and might need somewhere to stay for a few days. She asked if Daniel and I would be okay hosting her. I said of course. I have not told anyone how not of course that is.

She filled three pages by the end of October.

Work was where she could breathe. She was good at her job she had always been good at her job, the way competent, overlooked people tend to channel everything into the one arena where the rules are clear and the results are measurable. She worked in marketing, specifically brand strategy, and she was excellent at it. She could look at a brand and see what it was trying to say and why it wasn't landing, and she could fix it. Her boss, a man named Frank who said things like "you're the engine of this department, Lydia" and meant it sincerely, had nominated her for a promotion twice.

She had been passed over twice. Both times for someone louder.

She had not been angry about it. She had told Frank it was fine, she understood, she'd keep working hard. She had gone home and written in her notebook: I said it was fine. It wasn't fine. I have said this so many times it is becoming its own kind of lie.

The thing about saying it's fine is that eventually people believe you.

Her coworker Nina was the only one who didn't believe her.

Nina was twenty-four, which meant she had not yet learned to believe people when they said they were fine in that particular voice that meant they absolutely weren't. She had a mess of curly hair and a very direct way of looking at you and she brought Lydia coffee sometimes just because she was going to get some anyway, and one day in November she put a cup on Lydia's desk and said, without preamble, "You look like someone who's deciding something."

Lydia looked up. "What?"

"Like you're making up your mind about something big. You get this look. Like you're doing math in your head but it's not the good kind of math."

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, that's the other thing. You always say that."

"Because I am."

Nina sat on the edge of the desk. "Can I say something kind of presumptuous?"

"You're going to whether I say yes or not."

"True." Nina tilted her head. "You're one of the smartest people in this office. You know everything about everyone and you're always helping someone else think through their thing. When's the last time someone helped you think through yours?"

Lydia opened her mouth. Closed it.

She tried to think of a specific time. A person who had sat down and said: what's going on with you, what do you need, let's figure this out. She tried to think of one instance in the past two years where someone had been in her corner without her having to first be in theirs.

She tried.

"I'm going to get more coffee," she said.

"See?" Nina said behind her. "That's the math face."