“Oh, he did, did he?”
I paused by her desk and reached for the paper that she held, swiping it out of her hand to look at the message. I felt my stomach sink when I saw the name on the paper. I quickly straightened and offered a smile.
“Thank you, Cindy,” I said. “I’ll take care of this right away.”
I stepped into my office and closed the door, leaning back against it as I looked down at the message again.
He wouldn’t. Would he?
Robin
“Hello? Snow? This is Robin. You remember? Your nearest, dearest, and most devoted best friend? Just thought you might need a little reminder. I haven’t heard from you in a few days. Call me. Email me. Tweet me. Like me. Poke me. Swipe me. Smoke signal me. Do something.”
I ended the voice mail and dropped my phone to my kitchen counter. Turning back to my stove, I took hold of the wooden spoon and stirred slowly. The rich aroma was starting to fill my lungs and I was eagerly anticipating the concoction when I heard a key in the lock to my apartment and the door opened. Snow stepped in and looked at me strangely. I noticed that she was holding her phone to her ear.
“Did you just tell me to swipe you?” she asked as she closed the door and locked it.
“Well, since guys are apparently your life now.”
“And you know that you will always be my very best guy.”
“No, I don’t know that,” I snapped, a little more aggressively than I might have wanted to.
“What’s that all about?” Snow asked as she came into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry. I’ve just missed you the last few days. I haven’t even heard from you this week.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She sniffed the air. “What is that?”
“My specialty,” I said.
“Packaged hot chocolate with crème de menthe?”
“Only the classiest.”
“Pour me a cup.”
I looked at Snow a little closer as she climbed up onto one of the bar stools positioned around the kitchen island. There was something different about her. She had only been to the retreat a few times, but I could already see it changing her. She had always been sure of herself with a personality that could fill a room, but her confidence was stronger now. She held herself differently, as though she had become more acquainted with her body and knew better how to hold and move it. The way that she was looking then, though, didn’t seem that she was enjoying the change as much as she should.
“What’s going on with you today?”
“Lucille came over.”
“She what?” I asked, ladling the hot chocolate into two mugs and sliding one over to her. “I thought that the two of you hated each other and now she’s stopping by for a friendly chat and afternoon tea?”
“Well, there was no tea and I wouldn’t exactly call the encounter a friendly chat.”
“How did she even know where you live?”
“She’s running the company. She can look in my personal file and find out anything about me that she wants.”
“That’s not frightening at all.”
“I know.”
“So, why did she come over?”
“To demand that I submit to her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Maybe that wasn’t the best terminology. She showed up and told me that I needed to just give up and go away because she won and she was going to make sure that my life was miserable for as long as it took to get rid of me.”
“What did you say to her?”
“That I wasn’t going to do what she wanted.”
“Good for you. What are you actually going to do?”
She glared at me.
“I’m not going to do what she wants. I’ve had to claw my way past her my whole career and deal with her shit every step of the way. I’ve never been able to accomplish anything without having to fight through her first.”
“That makes it even more impressive,” I said. “You’re where you are and you’ve done what you’ve done in spite of her, and there’s a lot to be said for that.”
“What if she’s serious?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if she really is going to make my life miserable until she’s gotten me out of the way?”
“What do you think that she could possibly do to get you out of the way?”
Snow shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
“Nothing,” I said. “That’s what. You are flawless in your career. You’ve never disappointed a client. Never used unethical practices. You don’t even show up late to work. There’s nothing that she can do, Snow, and she knows it. She’s just running scared, now, and she’ll keep talking a big game as long as she can until someone calls her out on her bullshit or she talks herself out of her cushy little marriage and then everything will go back to the way that it should be. So now all you need to do is sit back and let it happen. You still have weeks of vacation to go. Relax. Enjoy. Everything is going to work out fine.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked.
“Of course, I do. The world is yours, Snow, and now that you are doing this retreat, you are actually going to figure that out. And once you do, you’re going to be unstoppable. There won’t be anything that anyone will be able to do to stand in your way. I just hope that you don’t forget about little old me when you shoot off into the stratosphere.”
Snow laughed and reached over to squeeze my hand.
“I could never forget about you,” she said. “Remember, you’re why I’m doing all of this.”
Chapter Sixteen
Snow
The limo arrived to pick me up for my date just after breakfast and I was immediately intrigued, wondering what type of date could be planned for that early in the day, especially with the first of the outfits that had been sent to me. The jeans I wore were tight, but lacked the splashy brand name of the ones I had worn to Sam’s rehearsal, and they were topped off with a black tank top and flannel shirt that I tied at my waist, unsure of anything else to do with it. I wore work boots on my feet and my hair hung in a braid down my back. Something told me that there were going to be no VIP lounge or screaming crowds involved with this date.
The limo turned in the opposite direction away from the retreat than it had the last two dates and soon we were wandering along narrow, twisting backroads. It seemed that my body had gotten too accustomed to the lazy mornings and lack of structure and I found myself getting sleepier the further that we drove. I had drifted off by the time we arrived and the car stopping startled me back into consciousness. I peered out of the tinted window and saw that we seemed to be out in the middle of nowhere. The door opened and I looked out at the chauffer.
“Are you sure that this is the right place?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
I stepped out and from the vantage point of being out of the car I saw that we weren’t really in the middle of nowhere, but appeared to be on a farm of some kind. I stood on a dirt path that led down in between to large wooden fences and I could hear the low rumble of an engine somewhere in the distance. The driver got back into the limo and drove away, leaving me, yet again, to wonder where I was and what I was supposed to be doing. I was sorely missing the idea of being picked up at my door for dates, though there was something nice about knowing that my room at the cottage was my space and I didn’t have to share it with anyone, not even for a few minutes.
Not knowing what else to do, I started toward the sound of the engine. The further that I walked, the more I recognized where I was, and after a few minutes a man on horseback coming toward me all but confirmed it. He slowed the animal and looked down at me.
“You must be Snow,” he said.
“We’re on a ranch,” I said.
I hadn’t really intended on saying that. It had just kind of tumbled out of my mouth when I opened it to introduce myself.
“Yes, we are,” the man on horseback said.
I looked around and then back at him.
“Like a ranch-ranch. Like a the-only-place-it’s-appropriate-to-say-dude, I might as well dip my veggies in it ranch.”
“Again, yes.”