“But it doesn’t,” I say. “The disconnect only grows.”
Lindsey grabs her wine and gulps it. “Yup. You’re a much smarter cookie than I ever was—”
“Hey, you’re the one with the Ivy League degree.”
“And you’re the one with a sensitivity for bullshit. Your own and others’ too. So, yeah, you’ve always known that’s magical thinking—believing that if you just try hard enough, you can be as perfect as your Instagram feed says you are. But I guess I had to learn that lesson the hard way.” She refills her glass with a hand that shakes. “Palmer loved CrossFit. I hated it, but I did it because I wanted to have a shared hobby or whatever. And I hate my job, but I wanted us to be in the same profession so we’d always have that to talk about. Because we didn’t really have much else in common other than that.”
“What?” I widen my eyes. “You hate your job?”
“Em, I work eighty-hour weeks putting together prospectuses for structured product deals. Of course I hate my job.”
“What the hell is a structured product?”
“Trust me, you’d fall asleep long before I finished explaining that. But it’s boring, draining, never-ending work, and I fucking hate it. So, yeah. Now I’m alone, with a job I hate and a dream house I have to sell, and I just want to quit it all.” She laughs, the sound hard and unhappy. “I just might.”
“But you have it all. You’re the dream, Linds. The success story.”
Lindsey looks me in the eye for the first time since the conversation started. “If living a lie is the dream, then I want no part of it.”
“Wow.” I give myself a minute to let her words sink in. “Just…wow.”
“Look. If my life falling apart has taught me one thing, it’s that perfection is a Ponzi scheme. You rob yourself again and again of the truth so you can show the world something pretty but fake. The more you do it, the worse you feel. But the world tells us if we just keep trying, if we just get that trip or that ring or that dollar amount in our bank account, we’ll get to the top of the pyramid where pretty is finally real, and it will finally make us happy. So we keep stacking the bullshit blocks, ignoring the voice inside us that screams wrong over and over again. When I finally listened to that voice”—she draws a shaky breath—“it was too late.”
“My God.” I swallow, hard. “That metaphor is beautiful. And awful.”
“No shit. My life feels like one giant joke. Only the joke’s on me.”
I lace my fingers through hers. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“What?” She arches a brow. “You think you’re a joke?”
“Everything about me is a joke. My profession. My love life. My future.”
She sets down her wineglass on the table and turns on the couch to look at me, folding her legs underneath her. She takes both my hands and looks me in the eye. “Listen to me, Em. And listen carefully. Have you ever considered it’s our world that’s a joke and not you? You left a lucrative future in law to follow your dreams. Not our family’s dreams, your dreams. Look at me. I don’t even know what my dreams are. I’ve spent my whole life trying to become what the world told me I should be. According to that world’s rules, yeah, I was successful. My social media feed was perfect. But now I’m fucked. I’m going to lose most of my money in this divorce. All the partners at my firm are friendly with Palmer and have worked with him in the past, so God knows what they’ll think of me now. Mom and Dad are going to be devastated. But more than that, I’ve wasted whole decades of my life doing things I hate with people who aren’t my people. If that’s not a joke…”
“Well, I haven’t been happy all the time, either.”
“No one’s happy all the time. If they are, they aren’t telling themselves the truth. I mean, what if success looks less like a highlight reel and more like a life you don’t have to share with the world to feel good about it?” She searches my face. “I don’t want perfect anymore. I want real. I want what you have with Samuel.”
I’m so startled I start to cry all over again. “What? Why would you ever want the hot mess that we are?”
“Because,” she says softly, “you took a risk last night that, if I understand it correctly, was extremely brave. The connection you have with Samuel is inconvenient and scary, but it’s real. Samuel is in love with you, and if he wasn’t, this wouldn’t have accelerated the way it has. Take it from me—that sort of connection I picked up on in the space of, what, ten minutes between you and Samuel doesn’t happen very often. It’s worth another act of bravery. Another leap of faith. It’s worth risking everything for. Even your job. Because at the end of the day, it’s not a job that makes us happy. It’s relationships. It’s our people, the ones who love us for who we really are.”
I let that sink in for a minute. Lindsey’s right, of course. If I didn’t know that deep down, the burning sincerity in her eyes would convince me. But the reminder makes me feel mushy inside nonetheless.
It softens the shell that’s formed around my heart.
“But what about Samuel’s people?” I manage around the lump in my throat. “He loves his family, Lindsey. Like, loves them, more than anything. And I messed that up. I’m the wedge that came between Samuel and Hank.”
She offers me a small smile. “No offense, but if the Beauregards are as tight as you say they are, I don’t think your accidental love triangle situation is going to bring them down. Mistakes were made, sure. People were hurt. But I think you’re only going to end up hurting them more if you leave. Ever consider you might be more of a bridge than a wedge? What if this was always meant to happen, and Samuel and Hank were supposed to have this falling out so their relationship could become better and stronger and more true, the way it was always meant to be? Because it doesn’t sound like they’re very honest with each other. Maybe you were the nudge they needed.”
I feel the tiniest twinge of relief, and I let out a soft laugh. “What are you, a lawyer or something?”
“Meh. Not anymore, I don’t think.”
“But I fucked up so bad tonight, Linds. Isn’t that, I don’t know, exhibit A of why working with the man I love a bad idea?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. One, y’all are extraordinarily upset right now, so of course you’re going to fuck up. And two, who knows what the future will bring? If the resort is expanding like you said it is, then maybe you guys will evolve into new roles. Ones that don’t require you to work side by side seven days a week. Maybe you don’t have a dream scenario right now, but you could down the line. And even if it’s a dream, it still won’t be perfect. Which isn’t a bad thing, because even perfect stories can have bad endings.”
She’s right. Again. I keep waiting for just the right position at just the right place with just the right pay, benefits, coworkers, hours…and while I don’t think I should ever stop working toward a better situation, I do need to accept that it won’t ever be perfect, and that’s okay.