“Very good,” Una said.
I glanced up at my sister-in-law, who was beaming at me proudly, waiting for me to put it all together. “Maybe…I need to focus on food? Maybe food is the answer?” Could food be the answer? That seemed too simple.
“The universe has spoken.” Una snapped the cap back on her glue stick, like that was the end of our conversation.
“But wait,” I said. “What does that even mean? Should I try to get a job in a restaurant or open my own place or…” It seemed impossible, but I felt even more confused now than I had before the food revelation. Pre-vision board, I would’ve been happy with any job, but now I wanted a job in a specific area? An area I’d never worked in before? I had a college degree and an expired teaching license in elementary education, not the culinary arts.
“Don’t question it,” Una said. “Wait for the opportunity to come to you.” She stood up and swanned out of the room.
“But I need a job now!” I called after her. “I’m forty-five, and I live with my parents! I can’t sit around waiting for inspiration.”
My dad spun in his chair then raised another toast to me. “Don’t worry, Dani,” he said. “You’ll find a job. And you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need to.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I focused hard on the vision board, waiting for another lightning strike revelation, but the universe had gone silent.
Chapter Two
Matt
December 2, eighteen days until deadline
“Jane!” I shouted from my office door. “Jane!”
My twenty-something assistant came bounding up the stairs. She always looked like she was cosplaying Ghost World (a movie she probably hadn’t even seen, come to think of it), what with the rimmed glasses and the patterned tights. “Yes, Mr. Bradford?”
I pointed to the tray sitting on the floor outside my door. “What’s this?”
She peered down at the bowl. “Dinner.”
“It’s ramen,” I said. “And not the good kind of ramen with all the veggies and meat and eggs and stuff in it—this is ramen from a package. I stopped eating that after college.” I stuck a finger in the broth. “And it’s cold.”
Jane placed a hand on her hip. “And?”
I shrugged, leaving my shoulders up by my ears. Yes, Jane was my employee, but she also had no problem calling me on my shit. She was the Moneypenny to my James Bond, minus any and all sexual tension. “And…I don’t want to eat this.”
“Well, it’s all I had time to make in between posting on your social media accounts and running interference between you and reporters and planning the obnoxious premiere party your publicist thinks is a good way to rehab your image…” She cocked her jaw, challenging me.
“You made me the ramen?” I asked.
“What? Do you think it conjured itself out of thin air?” she asked.
“No…”
Her shoulders dipped. “I made you soup because you’ve been in here working all day, and you need to eat something.”
“Well, thank you.” I still didn’t want to eat the cold ramen, but it wasn’t worth fighting Jane about. She was the only person in my life right now. And she had tried to provide me sustenance. That had been very kind of her. Plus, she was working overtime to make life easier for me, so I could (theoretically) focus on my book and keep my mind off the dreaded viral video. I owed her a bit of gratitude.
“You’re welcome.” Jane bit the inside of her cheek. “Have you given any more thought to hiring someone to cook and clean for you while you’re here? My mom says she knows someone…Matilda something, I think.”
“I don’t want to hire anyone,” I said quickly. That was a non-starter. “Can’t you just bring me more of your grandmother’s noodles?” Jane had grown up in the small town outside the resort where I was staying, and she’d moved back in with her parents for the month—but just for the month, she was always quick to remind me. Then we’d return to our real lives in Indianapolis. For the first few days we were here, she’d plied me with leftovers from home. My stomach grumbled just thinking about the hearty, savory dish packed with cabbage and ground pork.
“No,” she said. “My dad threatened to ground me if I took his leftovers again, and I’m a grown woman, mind you.” She paused. “Please. Let me find someone to help.”
“It’s all right, no,” I said. “I’ll handle it.” Maybe I could teach myself to make the delicious pork noodle dish. And I could definitely fold a sock or two.
“You have a book to write,” she said, “and you have to turn it in by December twentieth. That’s less than three weeks away. You need help.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “What did you have for lunch today?”
“Lunch today…?” I narrowed my eyes in thought. I couldn’t think past the ramen. What had been the last bite of food I’d put in my mouth? Oh, crap. “I had a low-carb meal,” I said, looking Jane straight in the eye.
She walked calmly to my garbage can and fished out an empty packet of airline peanuts (origin unknown) that I’d dug out of the bottom of my briefcase sometime around noon. “This low-carb meal?” she asked.
The peanuts had been the only thing I could find in the room. I worried that if I left my office to hunt for sustenance, Jane would see right through me and know I’d been farting around most of the day.
“Jane, seriously, I’m fine. I’m a forty-five-year-old man who has taken care of himself his whole adult life.”
“You are an author who has to finish his manuscript in the next few weeks. You need some help with the things you can delegate.” She folded her arms. “Think back to what life was like before you hit it big. What would you have given to have someone come in and take care of your house and cook for you, just like I manage your calendar and send your emails? You used to be against that, too.” She smiled. “Didn’t you once tell me that you always wanted an Alice?”
“An Alice?”
“From The Brady Bunch.”
Yeah, I had definitely said that once when Jane caught me bingeing old sitcoms on Hulu instead of writing. “No,” I said. “I do not need an ‘Alice.’” I took off down the stairs, and Jane followed me.
“You need to focus on the book.”
“I am focusing on the book, but me sitting in a chair all day every day isn’t healthy, either. Cooking and cleaning up after myself can be a nice diversion.”