Updrift (14 page)

Beyond those interactions however, she quickly fell into the same pattern she’d established as a junior in high school, which consisted of a heavy course load, intense studying, and little socializing. She exchanged daily texts with Maya, who was playing volleyball on scholarship at Penn State, and she e-mailed or called home each day as well. As always, she felt as though she lived two lives: one as a reserved, severe, and dedicated student bulldozing her way through college; the other as a less confident young woman, one who was afraid of her future, and who nursed a secret desire to hide herself away. She only saw this side of herself when she messaged back and forth with Maya or talked to her mother.

She did not allow herself to think of Gabe.

In an attempt to keep her professional train rolling, she established a correspondence contract with
Culinaria
that year as well. It paid almost nothing but she was happy to respond within the absurd deadline constraints in exchange for experience she could include on her resume. She also volunteered at the school newspaper, which quickly promoted her to managing editor thanks to her real-world experience.

In the spring, Kate interviewed for and landed a job at a lifestyle magazine in Sommerset. It was not intended to be a summer position although the editor agreed to work with her class schedule in the fall should things go well through August. She had no illusions about this being a result of her impressive credentials; she was adequately qualified, a little desperate, and she came cheap, which made her roughly as alluring as she could be to a publication like
Sommerset Journal
. She called home to tell her parents the good news.

“Oh, honey, good for you!” her mom gushed. “Will we get to have you here at all this summer, then?”

“Truthfully, I don’t know, Mom. I’m sure I can figure out a long weekend somewhere, but I’ll mostly have to hang out here.” Her mother caught her up on Everett’s antics and happenings at the library. She asked if she’d heard from Maya, and Kate gave her what news she had. Cara reported Solange and Luke were expecting their second child, and Sylvia was staying with them in Boston while she completed culinary training. She mentioned Carmen and Michael’s plans to spend the summer in Ireland with family there.

Kate didn’t bring him up but Cara informed her Gabe had been accepted into an eighteen-month academic program in Dublin. The disappointment of knowing she wouldn’t see him this summer crept over her anyway, although she’d never assumed she would see him. “He’ll graduate with his master’s at the end of it.” Kate could hear the pride in her voice. And she couldn’t stop herself from trying to find out more.

“Will he come home afterward? I mean to Griffins Bay?”

“I don’t know what his plans are. I heard he was considering medical school. He’s been talking with John about ophthalmology. But you should call him yourself.” Her mother’s suggestion sounded too tentative to Kate. “Unless, that is…are you seeing anyone at school?”

She was definitely fishing. “No, I’m not.” Kate sighed, wondering if it was wise to share this information. “I’m afraid I’ve kind of forgotten how to interact with people outside the context of studying or work.”

“Ease up on yourself, Kate. You should get in touch with Gabe. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you.” She paused before saying carefully, “You know, the Blakes all seem to find someone to marry after college.”

Kate felt sick to her stomach. “Mom, are you trying to tell me Gabe is seeing someone?”

“No! Honey! No, not at all. I just…” She sounded sad as she trailed off. Then she said in a rush, “I just feel like you’ve crammed about eight years of adult life into the last three, and the hope from this end is an early graduation will give you more flexibility in terms of marrying and having children. But now, I worry we pushed you too hard, and you’re investing everything in a career and not hoping for anything else. I want you to have a better life than that.”

Kate was so relieved Gabe wasn’t dating someone, she felt high. She blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she held. “I’ll be done in one year, Mom. I promise to start thinking about my romantic future then.” She laughed to put her mother at ease.

But to her surprise, her mother was satisfied with her response. “I think that’s a terrific plan. I just wish there was some way to make you happy in the meantime.”

“I don’t know that I’m unhappy, Mom. In a way, getting through school this way, which is to say very quickly, has its advantages.”

“Yes, well, I know you’re missing out on a lot, and I can’t help but regret that for you. I think it will all be worth it in the end, though.” Kate didn’t think she sounded too confident.

After hanging up, Kate checked messages on her computer. Gabe had left one for her and Maya about his Dublin plans. She replied to them both, congratulating Gabe, and she shared news of her
Sommerset Journal
job with them. As usual, she felt happier and less constricted communicating with her old friends, which showed her, by contrast, how introverted she was otherwise. She viewed herself as she might a stranger, as if she was waiting for her real life to start, but she didn’t know when that would be, or what she should do to prepare. Unwilling to wallow in this familiar pool of doubt and worry, she signed off and dove into studying for final exams.

The week of her twenty-first birthday, Kate graduated from Sommerset University. She’d finished a year earlier than her peers, with honors, prepared for a job in the field of her choice. In trade, she’d foregone forming close friendships in college, the kind most people she knew kept throughout their lives; and she had declined to participate in a whole host of social activities defining the typical American collegiate experience.

As she marched across the stage to accept her diploma from the university president, her small entourage of fans hooting their support, she felt equal parts relief and terror; relief for the fact she would never again have to sprint but sprint through a life that centered only on school and work and more school. She was truly free for the first time in four years.

Her terror was for the great unknown she now faced, how she wasn’t sure what to do with herself from here on out. With the experience she’d amassed at
Culinaria
and
Sommerset Journal
, she landed a job with
Conde Nast Publications
starting in mid-June, a coup her aunt assured her. Even a demanding new job, however, would not compete with the schedule she’d kept since she was seventeen. Her terror was for the hole in her abysmal social life work would in no way fill, and for the choice she now faced on what she was going to do about that.

Before starting her new job, she spent two weeks at home in Childress. The Blakes had invited her to stay with them in Italy for all or part of that time but as she knew Gabe would not be with them—and had not mentioned Italy to her himself—she sent her regrets. “Maybe next summer, dear,” Carmen wrote back.

Kate was delighted to play in the garden at home and help out at the library again, with no urgent assignments hanging over her. She planted a new border of flowers at the house, tamed the raspberry patch at the library, and played in the kitchen, experimenting with whatever was ready to pick out back. She brought Everett to the park and read him his favorite books. They all relaxed as a family in the evenings, watching a movie or playing croquet on the lawn. Kate’s old sense of self came back to her.

She had a harder time with her next parting from home. Unlike when she’d gone to college, this departure felt more final. She was leaving under no one’s guidance but her own, to her own apartment, and a regulation, grown-up job. Her mother tried to reassure her, “Don’t think of it like that, Kate. Be careful of how much of yourself you give away. No job is worth all your time and energy, no matter what it is. If you get overwhelmed, call me, and we’ll figure something out.”

Dana’s advice was the exact opposite. “Keep going. Dig in, work hard—harder than anyone else—and watch how you get promoted and recognized. You’ll be happy you did.”

She smiled politely at her aunt, disbelieving this advice for the first time in her life. Dana’s professional efforts had yielded her a nice house, expensive cars, and pretty clothes but they had not made her happy. She was willing to concede Dana’s choices may have made another person fulfilled and content, although she doubted it. But she could see killing yourself at work did not result in a happy life based on Dana’s example.

She didn’t know where that left her, but she only knew of one way to approach the job she was going to, and that was with the best effort she had. The paces she’d been put through at her school paper and internships gave her, on day one, experiential knowledge few first-timers shared. Too, her appreciation for the harried pace of publishing—and for the pressured contributions of everyone on a publications team—resulted in the respect and inclusion she would need to advance. By the end of July, Kate managed her job smoothly and had made herself useful to another editor in the office whose sponsorship she sought. She was so stimulated and gratified by her competence—and the opportunities it brought—her comparatively bleak social life didn’t chafe so much, although she could never quite obliterate the desolation hounding her in quiet hours. The outcome of her all-career focus, professional recognition aside, would not hold her forever, she feared.

She socialized more than she ever had—ate lunch with colleagues, attended happy hours and evening excursions with others her age, ones she’d met through work or in her neighborhood—and the interactions were fun. But they weren’t gripping or deep enough to replace the intensely scheduled existence she’d maintained, and they did not erase her worries about how lonely her life might be in another ten years if she didn’t figure out a better plan.

Hoping to take some small control over her destiny, she started a blog. She did it discreetly, so as not to alarm managers and coworkers who needed to believe they had harnessed all her creative talent; and she developed it purely for her own enjoyment, which did, in fact, help with her desire to steer herself rather than feel driven.

She’d forgotten the reasons behind her chosen career, the trance she got into when she wrote; or how absorbed she could become in a recipe, its structure or style, or a compelling photograph of an interesting dish. She operated under the username
Mavenly
, and used her Twitter account to front announcements and links to essays on her site. Her articles were quirky, irreverent expositions on cooking and whatever aspect of private life she deemed worthy, be it what she ate for breakfast, where she found the coolest local gardens, or what homemade solution was best for washing sheets so they felt like heaven. Her subject matter was old-school but her perspective wasn’t, and she knew from the responses she received she shared something meaningful with people like her, young professionals who valued a little sanctity after work hours without slaving to have it. She built a small, devoted following, and she loved it.

On a Tuesday in mid-August, she came home to a message from Gabe. “I’m in Griffins Bay. Come see me. I need to talk to you.”

Her lungs deflated and her stomach became a block of cold, iron ore that weighted her onto her chair. She felt the same way as she had when Gabe had surprised her at lunch with John, like she’d been sleep-dreaming this entire past year, or maybe viewing her life through a soft-focus lens, and now here she was in an over-bright, amped up world she didn’t recognize. She put her head between her knees, holding the phone in her hand, and struggled to decide on her response. She dialed half of the phone number to her parents’ house in Childress but hung up. She didn’t want to talk to her mother. She started over and redialed the number Gabe had used to leave his message.

He answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

She couldn’t catch her breath. “Gabe! I just got your message.” Awkward silence. She wasn’t sure what to say next.

“How soon can you come home?” It was not a request.

“I’m supposed to be in a meeting late Friday. Are you home already?”

“Yes. I got back this afternoon.”

“I can’t leave until after my meeting.” This suddenly seemed like an eternity away to her. “Can you come here, instead?” She did not know what gave her the courage to be so forward but she felt inexplicably courageous.

He sighed. “No. It’s better if you come here. I’ll explain why when I see you. Can you be here Saturday?”

“I’ll leave Friday after work,” Kate promised. “Is everything okay?”

“Everyone’s fine, if that’s what you mean. I want to talk, that’s all.”

“And it can’t wait?”

“Ha. You sound like my mother.” His voice softened then. “There’s no emergency. I just want to see you.” She heard equal parts humor and frustration in his tone. “Do you want to wait?”

Kate steeled herself against the desire to shout her response. “No. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll be at the beach.”

She was now on fire to get out of her Friday meeting. She actually felt like resigning so she could leave sooner. She even mentally composed an e-mail to her boss as she hurried back to the office.
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to work here these past three months. I have to check in on a romantic prospect back home, so I quit. Best wishes.
Lunacy. She laughed at how quickly she was willing to throw over her carefully built career plans to spend time with Gabe.

So good Dana can’t see me now
.

She powered up her computer with the intention of churning through as much work as she could, freeing herself for the weekend. After an hour, she was startled to hear the elevator ring and the door open. Her supervisor, Janice, exited the elevator car.

“Working late again, Kate? Did we overload you this week?”

“Not at all. I got a message from an old friend asking if we could get together this weekend, and I want to get ahead of things so I can scoot back to North Carolina after Friday’s meeting.”

Janice studied Kate briefly, went to her office for a file, and then meandered back to perch on the edge of Kate’s desk. “I just came back to get through some copy before tomorrow,” she said absently. “How long is your friend in town?”