The Babymoon Arrangement

Zara I have a system. It's not a complicated system. It's just — okay, fine, it's a little complicated. But it works , which is the point. Seven alarms, color-coded sticky notes on the bathroom mirror, a route mapped down to the minute. I have been fine-tuning this system for three years, ever since I decided that being late was a luxury I could not afford. People like me — people who grew up deciding between the electricity bill and dinner — don't get the luxury of being late. Today, my system has been set on fire. It started with Maya. My sister called at five-fifty-eight AM because she couldn't remember if she'd submitted her financial aid renewal form and she was spiraling, which meant I was suddenly forty minutes deep in the university's financial portal on her behalf while simultaneously ironing my blouse, which is how the iron ended up — briefly — in the wrong position. The blouse survived. Barely. Then the subway decided to have feelings about a signal delay at Forty-Second Street, so I got off two stops early and started walking because I am not the kind of person who stands on a platform waiting for the universe to sort itself out. I am the kind of person who walks six blocks in heels because the interview I have spent six months preparing for starts in thirty-nine minutes and I refuse, to be anything other than three minutes early. My name is Zara Ellison. I am twenty-seven years old. I have thirty-eight thousand dollars in student debt, a studio apartment the size of a parking space, a portfolio that would make your eyes water, and approximately thirty-eight minutes to get to Cavendish Group and convince someone to give me the job that will fix my entire life. I've been walking fast enough to generate my own weather system. The morning crowds part around me like I'm a hot knife and they're butter, which is honestly the best part of New York — everybody is in their own emergency, so no one cares about yours. I'm reciting my opening statement in my head, the one that's confident without being obnoxious, accomplished without being insufferable — I don't see it happen. I hear the car first: that specific, arrogant sound of a vehicle that's never had to wait for anything. Then I hear the splash. Then I feel it. The water hits me. For one full second I just stand there on the sidewalk with my white blouse plastered to my chest and my portfolio clutched to my side and my mouth open. A few people slow down, grimace sympathetically, and then keep walking because again — everyone has somewhere to be. "Oh— I'm sorry—" The voice comes from my left. I turn. He's standing at the curb, one hand still raised, wearing a suit that probably costs more than my rent. Dark hair, sharp jaw, the kind of face that belongs on the cover of something. He's staring at me with an expression that I think is meant to be remorse but is mostly coming across as inconvenience. Something snaps in my chest like a rubber band. "Are you serious ?" I said, and my voice came out louder than I intended. A few heads turned. "It was an accident," he said carefully. "An accident." I looked down at myself and then back up at him. "I have an interview in thirty-six minutes. This was my good blouse. This was my only good blouse — the other one has a coffee stain from last Tuesday and I haven't had time to deal with it yet because some of us have actual things happening in our lives—" "I understand—" "You stepped off the curb without looking," I said sharply, "at a puddle the size of Lake Michigan, in a suit that is probably insured, and now I look like I lost a fight with a drainage system." I sucked in a breath. "I'm sorry. That was a lot. But I'm— this is bad. This is genuinely bad for me." He was quiet for a moment. He had these dark eyes that were watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Maybe it was pity, I hate being pitied. "There's a boutique," he said finally, nodding across the street. "Let me buy you something to wear." I stared at him. "I'm sorry?" "For the interview," he said, with the precise tone of someone who was not accustomed to explaining themselves twice. "It's the least I can do." "I don't need a stranger to buy me clothes." "You said it yourself. You have thirty-six minutes." I hated that he was right. I hated it so much I could feel it in my teeth. I looked across the street; the boutique was small, the kind of place that had exactly three things in the window and all of them were perfect. I looked back down at my blouse. "Fine," I said, very dignified. "But I'm picking." He didn't say anything. He just gestured across the street. I crossed without him and pushed open the boutique door and started moving through the racks. He stayed near the entrance while I grabbed two options and disappeared into the fitting room. When I came out in a cream silk blouse with a collar, he glanced over once and nodded. "That one," he said simply. "I know," I said, already looking at the mirror. I came back out in four minutes flat with my ruined blouse in a paper bag and my portfolio dried off as best I could manage with the fitting room tissue paper. He was at the counter. He didn't blink at the price. I tried not to look at the price. "Thank you," I said, because I was raised correctly. "For the record, you should really watch where you drive." "Good luck with the interview," he said with a small smile. I walked out without looking back. I had twenty-nine minutes, clean clothes, and an opening statement ready to go. I told myself the morning had actually turned itself around. I was almost right. ~ The lobby of Cavendish Group was exactly what I expected; marble and glass. The receptionist smiled at me, checked my name, and walked me to the elevator bank. "Mr. Cavendish will see you on the forty-first floor," she said pleasantly. The elevator doors opened. I stepped in. I checked my reflection in the mirrored walls, smoothed my collar, and went over my opening line one last time. Walk in confident. Handshake first. Let him set the tone, then— The elevator opened. The office was enormous and quiet and full of grey afternoon light, and behind the desk — looking up from a file with those same dark eyes— was the man from the puddle splash. We looked at each other for a long, terrible moment. He set down the file. "Miss Ellison," he said, in a voice that gave absolutely nothing away. "Please sit down." My heart was doing something unhelpful in my chest, but my face — thank God for my face — stayed completely still. I sat down. And then he opened my portfolio, and looked at it for thirty seconds. "I have to say," he said slowly, "your qualifications are impressive." ~ I have, in my twenty-seven years on this earth, done a lot of embarrassing things. There was the time I called my seventh grade teacher "Mom" in front of the entire class. There was the time I walked into a job interview with my skirt tucked into my tights. There was last Christmas when I told Maya her boyfriend was mediocre and then found out he was standing directly behind me. None of those things — not a single one — prepared me for walking into a job interview and discovering that the man behind the desk was the same man I had just verbally dismantled on a public street forty minutes ago. I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.