When the campaign was winding down three years ago, I must have sent resumes out to a hundred papers. I had gotten some offers from smaller papers in Boston and D.C., but I knew I wanted to be in New York. I still wanted The Times, but I had been through it before, losing out on another job because I was holding out for them. Just before the inauguration I got a call from The New York Post. A fact checking job was open, a low-paying and pretty much thankless position, but once I paid my dues I would have my chance, and I got it. After almost a year, I talked my way into a features assignment and got my first byline, and not too long afterward, I got myself a desk in the newsroom.
It was still early, so it was quiet in the office when I sat down. I had a few emails waiting for me and a couple of potential assignments sitting in my in-box. I was getting through the emails when I got a text from my friend Leslie, wanting to meet at the coffee cart. She was understandably shocked to learn that I was already at work, and it was only ten minutes later that she was standing over my desk demanding to know what was wrong. Crap.
Les and I were in the trenches together when we started at The Post. After a martini feulled Breakfast Club experience one night after work, as she sloppily tied her blonde hair into a bun, she filled me in on how she came to New York from Chicago on a whim, after her boyfriend, Ben, broke her heart when he cheated on her. She wrote freelance before she landed the fact checking gig. For my part, the gin spilled to her about Logan, turning down the proposal, how he left for California and I hadn't heard from him since. In response, Leslie ordered another round, we vowed to leave all of that in the past in favor of fresh starts in the city, and we've been friends ever since.
My plan had been to dive into work and try to forget about all of the craziness that had been running through my head this morning, but Leslie knew me too well. She knew something was up and she wasn't going to let it go. She dragged me from my desk, into the break room, sat me down at the table and put a fresh cup of coffee in front of me, "Spill."
I started to tell her about the dream, but I stopped short in the middle of my sentence when, for the first time today, I notice the date on the calendar behind her… It's his birthday.
It really shouldn't matter. Why is it even on my radar? I haven't spoken to him at all, let alone wished him happy birthday in four years. And anyway, he never made a big deal about his birthday… But I did. I remembered the Gilmore-approved extravaganza I planned for his 25th… Stop it! I took a deep breath and a big gulp of coffee, before I finished confessing to Les.
I expected her to tell me to snap out of it, as we had always done to each other on the rare occasion that our pasts had come up to haunt us, but instead she looked at me through her mascaraed lashes with her mouth tight. Now I knew something was wrong. "What?"
"Rory… He's in the city."
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