Harper's Rules (19 page)

While Harper was talking, I began to search for the hiding Starbucks. She was not in the bathtub in the master bathroom. She had to be on my pile of sweaters in the hall armoire.

“Are you saying, Harper, that if I date more than one person that I will do a better job of comparing? That proximity brings clarity? That I will feel that I made a more informed choice?”

“Yes, but it's deeper than that. You'll perform better too—date or interview. And do you know why? Because you will care less! Here is one of my cardinal rules of interviewing:

Candidates who interview like they don't need a job will almost always get the offer before candidates who interview like they do need a job.

“You want to get Wallace's job? A couple of interviews with other companies will only make you sharper, more comfortable with the flow. And you know what? That may come in handy, come offer time.”

“Because I'll obviously have more leverage if I have two offers?”

“Sure, but not just that. You're missing the single most important reason why you should have multiple interviews and multiple dates:

The thing that can make a headhunter either deliriously happy or suicidal when a candidate calls back after an interview; the reason why the business is never dull; the most important rule of all: you never know.

“It's that simple. The interview you went on for the hell of it turns out to be an amazing opportunity. The company that seemed too far to drive to or that had too small a market share turns out to have a CEO you find awe-inspiring and visionary. Everyone you meet at the interview makes you feel like you've worked there for years, and even though it was never your intention, even though it was a throwaway, even though it didn't seem like a fit—”

“I end up taking a job that didn't seem right for me because I gave myself a choice.”

“Exactly, and let's not forget one other thing: you have to look out for yourself. You don't have a job offer yet, and to my knowledge, no one has asked you for a commitment in a relationship. It could all disappear tomorrow. Choices protect you.”

I could hear Hannah asking me how I knew for sure Peter wasn't seeing anyone else. According to Harper, he should be. “It feels cold, Harper, like I'd be misleading, whether it's a guy or a company. Someone gets hurt just so I can have a choice?”

“Choice is the core of free will. It's only when you truly have choices that you make the best decisions for yourself. And Casey, what is best for you is by definition best for whomever you'd be working for or trying to love. A sense of obligation fades, kiddo.
You can't be with someone just because you wish you were the kind of person who could be with someone.”

Was Harper talking about Peter or his own marriage? It applied to Peter, though. He was good and kind and wanted a family and would never hurt me. I wanted to want Peter. “So you're saying I should go on the interviews and date others?”

“I'm saying I cover jobs, and I never regret a thing.”

“What if I end up taking another job besides InterAnnex? Won't you regret that?”

I made my way down to the basement, to the antique nine-foot pool table with leather mesh pockets in the center of the room. We bought it near the end of our marriage. No one has ever played pool on it, and now the emerald felt is covered in Maine Coon fur. I turned on the light, but she wasn't there.

I felt myself starting to panic. I had a sense that Harper felt he was saying something critical to our discussion, but I wasn't listening. I started throwing cushions around and opening drawers she couldn't possibly be in.

“No, I won't regret it if you take a job through some other means. Here's what you need to know about regret: we are
fantastic
at forgiving ourselves when we act and it turns out to have been the wrong call; we feel regret when we decide not to act at all. I acted—I sent you to a client. If it doesn't work out, I will forgive myself much more easily than I would if I chose to wait before sending you out and then found you took another job. Casey? Are you there?”

I was back in the living room looking under the sofa where I had already looked. I headed back to my bedroom to make sure Starbucks wasn't under the blankets or in the hamper. I tried to stay calm, and keeping Harper talking somehow felt like it would help.

“I'm listening, Harper. Didn't want to interrupt you while you were preaching.”

I hadn't let her out. That I knew. I would never. Then I saw that I had closed the door to my walk-in closet, one of her favorite places. Mystery solved. My shoulders dropped and I could breathe. The poor thing has been in there for hours; she is going to be furious with me. But why didn't she cry out? She couldn't have been sleeping this whole time. I opened the door to free her—she wasn't there.

“So the bottom line, kiddo, is when I cover jobs and candidates cover themselves and give themselves choices, they are protecting themselves from what we call in my office the Sixth-Month Stretch.”

She was gone! Oh my God, where is my baby? I felt my hands getting clammy and a buzzing in my ears.

“Harper, I . . . I don't . . .”

HARPER'S RULE
The Six-Month Stretch

In every job and every relationship, the initial six months is fundamentally false: you are on your best behavior. So much to learn about an office culture, its tempo, its system flow . . . nothing is redundant or boring. In the first six months of dating every story is being told for the first time, every place you go is the first time you have been there together, every move you make sexually is unknown and yields dividends.

It takes six months for you to realize those three moves were his only three moves. At work you now realize the job is kind of boring and reminds you of all the people you grew tired of at the job you left. When the Sixth Month Stretch comes, and it comes for us all in work and love, you will find it much easier to accept
if
you know you didn't settle.
If
you acted and made a true choice, you will never feel regret.

The garage door! It wouldn't open more than a foot. I meant to close it right away but then Lawn Man, the ID scare . . . oh God, that was
hours
ago. She has never been out more than a few minutes; she could be miles away. I screamed, flat-out, primal. I threw the phone down without even hanging up and ran outside, calling her name as I went.

You don't feel regret for things you did, Harper? Only for things you didn't do? Well, I just let my cat out. My world. A creature that is completely innocent and who loves me unconditionally has now been let down by me, as has every sentient being before her who has tried to love me. I did that, Harper, and you know what? I regret it already. So you go to hell. Oh, God, please let her be all right!

I had already rescued her once; I had to keep telling myself that.

Donald and I had walked through the aisles of cages at the Humane Society to make our choice. I noticed a cage tag that read, maine coon!!—the only tag with exclamation points. This one was what they called a “Russian Blue”: deep grey, with white streaks under her chin and on all of her paws, as if she were wearing gloves to offset her outfit. One of the volunteers, no doubt trained to pounce when there was interest, told me how sad it was that nobody wanted a purebred Maine Coon just because she had a “funny eye.” And now that she mentioned it, the cat's right eye was funny: watery and lighter than her other eye. The volunteer shrugged and said people just don't take damaged pets. We left, thirty minutes later, with the soon-to-be-named Starbucks in tow.

We began our life together with a rescue, I kept thinking, now so far from the house I could barely see it. It would only be right if it happened again. But the light was fading; it was getting chilly. Damn it, Starbucks, where are you?

Every salesperson knows the mantra: keep yourself in the mind of the customer. I tried to imagine what Starbucks would be thinking as she ventured into the woods for the first time. I had no idea and was wandering aimlessly. I yelled out to her over and over and tried to keep the panic out of my voice. The thing that scared me most were the coyotes. I yelled at Donald about them so much he would interrupt me, “I
know
, honey, you don't have to say it every time I open a damn door.” But I was relentless. And why not? Nine cats in three years in our neighborhood killed by coyotes. We all told ourselves lies: “They come back days, sometimes weeks later. You hear those stories about pets making their way back home from cross country.” Yeah, right.

It was nearly dark. I decided to go home, get a flashlight, and call everyone I knew to come and form a search party. Oh, God, if I lose her . . . I will have to kill myself. Is that unprecedented? Would I be judged insane? I'm just so tired of loss. I've been trying to tell myself I have only lost things that I didn't care enough about to save, things that I didn't really want, but it still hurts. So how can I be expected to survive if I lose the one thing left I do care about, the one creature I have no ambivalence about? There would be no bouncing back.

I heard a rustling in leaves about two hundred feet to my left. I saw something disappear behind the cluster of birch trees. Was she just playing because she knew once I brought her back in she wouldn't get this chance again? Doesn't she realize the torture I am enduring?

And then I heard them. Coyotes don't bark or growl. It's a long, meandering moan. Patient. Like an echo. I started to feel sick.

She was so stupid to trust me. Didn't she know? Hasn't she been paying attention? This is what I do. I am not to be counted on. I cannot sustain things like love or work. I let go. It's just that I don't always let the ones counting on me know I've let go. You screwed up, little girl; you should have stayed at the Humane Society and took your chances on someone else taking you by week's end. For the first time in my life, I wanted to die. Not for drama or attention, but for the cessation of despair. I felt myself surrender. I stopped calling her name and made my way toward the house as best I could.

I didn't feel shock when I came out of the woods and saw them on the deck steps. I distinctly remember the first feeling I had was how comfortable a scene it was, how right it seemed. He was stroking her back as she lay stretched out in his lap. I could hear her purr of bliss ten feet away. He smiled at me and looked up at the stars.

“Nice night,” he said.

“Harper, can I please have my cat?”

He handed her over, which did not make her happy, and I nearly smothered her. I buried my face in her fur and cried, and Harper was gracious enough to look away and say nothing.

“How?”

“You mean how did I find her? You freaked and went running in the woods, right? But if they've never been out, they don't go far. She was in your neighbor's garden.”

“I meant how did you know?” I asked, my voice normalizing.

“Well, right as I was working up to my chapter's denouement, you screamed her name and didn't come back on the line. Also, in an early draft of your résumé, under career objective you wrote, ‘to never let my cat out.' It was pretty obvious.”

“I'm going to feed her. She must be starving.”

“I already did—the IAMS can on the counter.”

We sat quietly for a few minutes. I rocked Starbucks. The night descended. A flicker of a family.

“Know what the worst part was? The thought that shamed me the most?”

“You thought about getting another cat. It had just happened, and yet there was a part of you that was already finding a way past it.”

I nodded and then the tears came back, but this time in convulsions.

Even when we met for drinks to celebrate the two times Harper had placed me, we had never embraced. Now he put his arm around me and squeezed. He kissed the top of my head lightly, as you would a child, and whispered that it was all over; it was all okay.

“Sorry,” I said. “I must seem like such an idiot to you. On so many levels. Such a drama queen.”

“Can I ask you something, Casey, something I probably should have asked a long time ago?”

I decided not to trust my voice and what it might give away. I nodded as gently as I could. I wanted him to know it was safe. That I felt it too.

Headlights briefly enveloped us in a stage tableau.

“That would be Peter,” I informed Harper.

Peter bounded out of his car, puffed his chest up, and starting pointing at Harper. I couldn't even find the energy to get concerned. I suppose if nothing else I should have worried about Harper's welfare, but I could tell he was equally unconcerned. He was, if anything, bemused.

“We had a date!”

“Which I broke, and I told you specifically not to come over.”

“Well, I decided to come over anyway!”

“You have to remember,” Harper offered, tapping me on the shoulder, “he's not good at showing restraint, unless you draw it up legally.”

Peter's face fell.

“You told him? You told him the most personal thing that has ever happened to me?”

“Actually, I told her,” Harper said. “Headhunter. It's kind of what I do.”

“Peter, you've heard me talk about Harper Scott.”

Peter leaned over the steps, bent down, and got in Harper's face. Harper looked up and smiled. There wasn't a hint of fear.

“Peter, the rooster act can, in certain circumstances, be very effective. Even attractive. But given what I'm doing here, this is not one of those times.”

“What are you doing here?” Peter demanded.

“Starbucks got out,” I said. “I was on the phone with Harper when I realized it. Harper came over and found her for me.”

Peter ran his hands through his hair, a sign of frustration I once noticed at the gym when he had to tell a client for the tenth time how to do a triceps kickback.