In her quest for a new writing hangout, Claudia’s first stop is the college coffee shop, where she figures she will fit in pretty well. Lots of people in their teens and twenties are typing furiously on laptops, trying to look like they are coming up with a brilliant thesis instead of updating their status on Facebook.
But then she sees Professor Moneywords at a table in the far corner, his eyes — and hands — a little too engaged with an attractive female student. Rather than fight urge to vomit every ten minutes, Claudia decides to try another locale…
At her neighborhood diner, Claudia finds the perfect mix of cheap food and free wi-fi. She selects a table by the window, puts on her headphones, and boots up her laptop. After a few minutes of checking email, and then a few more minutes of chastising herself for checking her email, Claudia gets to work on her latest story.
Around noon, the door begins to chime more frequently as the lunch crowd trickles in. Most appear to be students from the nearby high school. They are bursting with pubescent energy. Shuffling bodies jostle her chair. Annoying ringtones go off continuously. Claudia turns up the volume of her music to cover the new murmur of voices, but it’s too late. Her haven has disappeared.
In a last ditch effort, Claudia visits the local library. The donated chairs aren’t very comfy, the water fountain provides the only refreshment, and the librarian is a grumpy-looking woman with sharp, beady eyes. But there are no sketchy professors and no annoying teenagers. Just a few desks, a few patrons, and rows and rows of books.
For two blissful hours, Claudia does nothing but write. In this calm new environment, the words seem to flow straight from her brain to her screen. Her fingers fly so fast across the keys she can barely feel them. When she shuts down her laptop to go home for dinner, satisfaction settles around her like a warm blanket. This might be the place!
Then there is a tap on her shoulder, and she turns around slowly, dreading what she might find. Please don’t take this place from me, she silently begs the powers that be.
“Hi,” the shoulder tapper says. She’s a young woman about Claudia’s age, with freckles and a blond pixie haircut. “I noticed you working pretty hard over there. Are you… a writer?”
Claudia nods. “Well, sort of. I’m trying, anyway.”
The pixie grins. “If you keep working like that you’ll make it. Trust me.”
For some reason, Claudia does. “I’m Claudia,” she says, offering her hand.
“Ramona,” the pixie says, taking her hand and shaking firmly. “And I’m trying to be a writer too.”
*
While Sophie takes a few days to think about her relationship options, she has another problem to deal with: unemployment. More specifically, the lack of viable employment on the horizon. Every day she sends out at least one résumé, and a respectable number of those have turned into requests for interviews. But none of those interviews have excited her. In fact, some have been downright appalling, bizarre, or scary.
She meets up with Reggie one Sunday to complain.
“How many more corporate hearts did you break this week?” he asks while perusing the salad bar’s offerings.
“Two. But one guy had breath I could smell from across the room, and that was one of the more pleasant aspects of the interview. The other office was in a part of town I wouldn’t send Darth Vader to. Trust me, you wouldn’t have let me work for either of them.”
Reggie crunches on a crouton while they move down the line. “If I hahf to shpot you any mohr twennies for lunch, I woud let you work foh de devil.” He swallows, then scoops up a generous portion of pasta salad. “You’re running up quite the tab, missy.”
“Oh, you know I’m good for it.”
“What I know is that you’re being picky. And beggars can’t be choosers, my dear.”
They take a seat at a booth and begin to eat.
“I’m hardly a beggar,” Sophie says. “I was kicking butt at Arden. Plus I have a solid education, a year of work experience, and let’s not forget my dazzling personality.” She smiles at him to prove her point.
Reggie raises an eyebrow. “Winning disposition aside, you’re aware that you decided to quit in the middle of the worst economic crisis of our generation, right?”
Sophie frowns at him. “Are you saying it would have been better for me to stay at Arden and suffer through?” She stabs a bowtie pasta and chews it in frustration.
Reggie shakes his head. “No, because if it that were better, I’m sure that’s what you would have done. I believe in trusting your instincts.” He sighs. “But I’m not sure you’re giving all these places you’re interviewing with a real chance. You seem to be holding out for some dream job, and I just don’t think it exists. Not yet, anyway. Not for people our age.”
“Why not?”
“We haven’t put in our time as grunts yet.”
“And it doesn’t bother you that we have to?”
“Be grunts? Nah, it’s just how the world works. Or at least, our world. And let me tell you, it’s a lot better than what people in other places have to go through.”
Sophie sighs. She can’t deny the truth of what Reggie is saying, and she’s glad that he’s got such a positive attitude about it. So why can’t she be the same way? What makes her so dissatisfied with “good,” what drives her to want “better” or “the best”? And what if “better” or “the best” don’t exist? Is Reggie right, is she being too picky? Will she ever be content?
Suddenly she notices Reggie eyeing her baked potato. “Can I help you?” she asks.
“Maybe I can help you,” he says. “If you’re not going to finish that.”
She isn’t, but she can’t help laughing. “It’s an all you can eat salad bar, dude. You don’t have to steal my food, you can go back and get your own.”
“I know, but apparently all you can eat isn’t very much. So this is less wasteful. I’m being green.”
“You’re being lazy,” she corrects. But she slides her plate over to his side of the table, and he grins.
*
Over in the UK, things between Felix and MJ are still horribly awkward, and she starts to feel guilty for avoiding him. How are they ever going to get past the almost-kiss and be friends again if she never gives them the chance to deal with it?
One day, instead of going to the lab early, MJ times her arrival to match his. But instead of greeting her with a smile and a joke like he used to, Felix beelines straight for the coffee cart in the lobby, where several other grad students are milling about. Strange, she thinks, but she will just have to catch him after lab.
However, once they clean up their workstation that afternoon, Felix quickly finds a friend to walk back to the dorms with. Realizing that she wasn’t the only one avoiding the situation, MJ decides to stay at the lab to write up her report.
“Working late?”
MJ looks up to see Dr. Storm smiling at her. “Not that late,” she says. But when she looks around, she sees that the lab is empty, save for them two, and the windows are all darkened by night. “Oh, then again…”
Dr. Storm chuckles. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”
“Or avoiding someone.” MJ sighs and starts to pack up.
“What’s wrong?”
MJ sighs. Looking at Dr. Storm’s face — his movie star perfect face — MJ can’t help wanting to confide in him. But it would be unprofessional, she reminds herself. Felix works in Dr. Storm’s lab too, and their silly personal issues are just that: silly, and personal.
Before she can respond, Dr. Storm steps forward and touches her face. At first she thinks maybe she has something in her hair — lint, dirt, or some deadly compound from the lab — but he tenderly brushes the strands behind her ear, and she knows this is something else. Her heart begins to beat in staccato.
“You can tell me, MJ,” he says. “We’re… friends, right?”
MJ can’t answer. The part of her living in the moment is frozen, torn, tentative. The rest of her is stepping back, analyzing the situation. Here is a man she works with, leaning towards her with obvious intentions, his face attentive and affectionate as it watches hers carefully. A man she finds attractive. A man who is smart and kind and ambitious. He’s a lot like Felix, she realizes, but a few years down the road.
With Felix, she stopped herself because he was a friend, and she didn’t want to ruin that. With Dr. Storm, she’s stopping herself because… Because it would be inappropriate? Well, technically there’s no rule against dating the lab supervisor, even if it might look bad. Because he’s older, then? No, that doesn’t bother her either. Because he’s so damn near perfect that she would feel inadequate next to him? No, she’s got more self-confidence than that.
So why? She asks herself this question a million times in the span of a millisecond. Why aren’t I moving forward?
Because he’s not Felix.
The instant the answer comes to her, she stumbles backward, knocking over her chair. “Oh, I, um, sorry, I’ve got, well, I’ll see you, okay, yeah!” And she’s out the door before Dr. Storm can say a word.
MJ runs all the way to the pub where she knows Felix will be. She smiles when she spots him at the bar, because she was right. She has no idea what will happen, but she knows she wants to try. Desperate to talk to him, she pushes through a throng of Germans watching a soccer match on the telly. “Felix!” she calls out, but he can’t hear her over the din.
At last she gets to the other side of the crowd, takes a deep breath, and straightens. She opens her mouth to get his attention again, but no sound comes out. Instead she just stares, gaping and transfixed.
Felix is at the bar with another girl from the lab. They are kissing.
