The room is warm. Too warm. I blow a puff air up over my face and blink several times. I need to focus. I know it’s not the thermostat setting in the office. The room temperature is fine. Javier always keeps a steady seventy-four degrees throughout the year, regardless of the season. Apparently, our CEO read some sort of Business News report about productivity being at the ultimate level of achievability at seventy-four degrees, which is why we never go over or under it. There’s even a sign underneath the thermostat in the hallway, typed in caps using Arial Black font that reads: “IF YOU HAVE BODY-REGULATING ISSUES YOU CAN HAVE A FLOOR HEATER AT YOUR DESK IN THE WINTER OR A DESK FAN IN THE SUMMER. THE MAIN TEMPERATURE WILL NOT CHANGE.”
Always seventy-four. Yet today it feels so much hotter. It’s January. Shouldn’t it be cold? I fan my hand in front of my face. My hairline is moist. I’m uncomfortably hot. How am I supposed to be able to think in this furnace? The temperature will not change.
Change. So much has changed since I left Baltimore, Maryland, before Christmas and headed home to Texas for the holidays. Back then my fingers were empty. Ringless. Now there is a sparkling diamond staring at me from my left hand, which is shaking slightly. I try to steady it. The ring is trying to break the “inanimate objects can’t talk to people” rule and remind me that I’m now engaged.
I roll my eyes. As if I could forget about it? It’s not like I’m not happy about it. I am. My heart squeezes tight anytime Jack crosses my mind. Which is all the time. When I kissed him goodbye at the airport on Sunday, I hesitated for a second and debated internally about getting on the plane. Leaving him and his arms stung. I’ve never been so sad to leave Texas.
When I left for college, I was excited about all the opportunities ahead of me. I’ve spent each moment working towards a career, not just a job. My hard work paid off, literally, as I landed a huge promotion, right before I left for my Christmas holiday. But, there is a problem. Now I’m in the frying pan of life. The kitchen has gotten too hot and I don’t know what to do. Which direction to take. I love the reason I’m wearing this ring. It’s not a why reason, but rather a who. Jack.
Everything happened so fast… I can’t catch my breath. When, we’re together it’s as if we are on our own planet with no gravity. And when I’m without him it’s like I’ve lost my oxygen tank and I can’t breathe. I’m floating into outer space without my ship.
I take in a deep breath. I’m not going to cry at work.
It catches in my chest… I force myself to exhale. How am I supposed to sit here and focus on these résumés and not on him? It’s so weird to have known someone for such a short period of time and then for them to become your whole world.
Except, he isn’t exactly my whole world. I have my own life here in Baltimore and he has his life in Texas. A life that was uprooted about a year ago when his brother Lewis died. Jack put his architecture business on hold to help Lewis’s widow, Sherry, handle things at Vintage Estates, a retirement home that has been in their family for years. My grandmother has an apartment there. It’s how we met…or how she set us up over Thanksgiving.
The day I was going nuts for a simple two ounces of pecans.
I’m nuts about Jack and the idea of being married to him. Little scatters of excitement jolt across my insides. I can’t wait until we can finally be together. But I don’t even know what it means. We haven’t discussed this to a level of an actual plan…yet. Jack is a good planner and even though, when we first met, he accused me of being a poor planner, I’m not. We just need to get some arrangements figured out. Something. We haven’t even set a date for our wedding… Well, he wants to run off and elope, but my family would be extremely upset for decades if we didn’t have a huge wedding. And honestly I would be a bit bothered too… I don’t have a wedding scrapbook comprised of dresses, decorations, designs, themes, etc., like Brianna—my best friend who is not engaged. But I would like some sort of wedding, with a celebration. A party. Something to commemorate the day besides a Vegas picture and maybe a loss at the blackjack tables. Jack. I bite my lip.
It has been less than twenty-four hours since I’ve seen Jack and I already miss him. My throat is dry. I swallow. I’m parched. I take a sip from my coffee mug. I need to focus! The promotion I was given before Christmas break means I am no longer on a team, but I am running one. Or I am about to run one. I shuffle the papers in front of me. There are names across the top of each paper followed by call times, sales rankings, conflict resolution percentages, etc. I’m supposed to figure out which of these candidates I want on my team.
I blow air up over my face again and wipe away the sweat beads along my hairline. I have never really had an issue with the temperature at work, but I am now considering opting into the desk fan program. I can’t be a hot mess, especially not as the boss. Shiat. I’m the boss. My chest tightens and I jump at the sound coming from my desk.
My office phone is ringing. I jerk my head back and lift the handle off the receiver.
“Lauren Hauser, how may I help you?”
“Lauren, darling! My you sound so professional.”
“Grandmother, hi—how did you get this number?” I don’t even know my new office number yet.
“Oh darling, you know if I want something, I get it.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Speaking of, there is something I want you to do.”
My insides clutch tight.
“What’s that?”
“Darling, you know every year at the Fourth of July festival there is an apple pie baking contest?”
“Yes.” I swallow but the lump in the back of my throat doesn’t clear.
“I want you to enter it. It’s time Lauren. You are ready to be the next pie baking award winner of the family.”
My eyes practically fall from my head. I am by far the least culinary-savvy person in our family. I do not understand why my grandmother keeps putting me up to these baking challenges. Over Thanksgiving she insisted that I make our family pecan