Page 65 of The Perfect Secret
“I’ll wear my rain jacket. It has a hood.”
She left without another word. Later, he listened to the soft giggles from his living room as Tess talked with Lexi, and wondered for the hundredth time how things had changed so fast.
Chapter Nineteen
There was no way Hannah’s heart and mind could reconcile breaking up with Dan after she admitted to falling in love with him. The pain was a physical ache in her heart, her head, and her joints, even two weeks later. She’d thought Dan was old? She swore she’d aged fifty years since she’d left the coffee shop. Eating and sleeping were distant memories. Mascara was the most useless thing on the planet—even the waterproof kind—unless she wanted to look like a raccoon. Her grandmother took to whispering into the phone to God-knew-who, and staring at her with a worried expression.
Now she needed to put all of it aside for the first day of her new job.
Hannah took a deep breath before walking into her new office building. Giving her name to the receptionist, she waited until Barbara came into reception, a warm smile on her face.
“Hannah, welcome! I’m glad you’ve joined us. Come, let me introduce you around.”
She followed Barbara inside, shook hands with her new colleagues and tried to smile. Fifteen minutes later, she reached her desk, a pile of paperwork to be filled out in front of her. Letting out a breath, she sank into her chair. Pretending to be happy was exhausting.
She tried to focus on the task in front of her, but her mind spun in a million directions—most of them Dan-related. The forms took longer than they should have.
A few hours later, Barbara stopped by. “Want to grab some lunch?”
It wouldn’t do to refuse her new boss. They walked a few blocks to a cozy book and teashop and sat at a quiet table in the back. Bookshelves stacked with books of all sizes and genres lined the walls of the shop. Lower bookcases separated the room into sections. Small, round tables and spindly chairs filled in the middle spaces. A spiral iron staircase disappeared below. Sounds of dishes clinking told Hannah it led to the kitchen. The scent of vellum and leather mingled with tealeaves, and she took her first deep breath in days.
“This place is amazing.” She sat across the white lace tablecloth from Barbara.
“It’s this little hidden treasure where I love to come to get away from everything. I thought after the activity of meeting everyone this morning, you might appreciate the quiet.”
Her new boss was perceptive. “Thank you.”
“Since it’s too soon to ask how things are going,” she said with a smile, “I’ll just ask if you’re okay. Because you don’t seem quite yourself. I’m not complaining. It could be your adjustment to a new place. But I thought I’d ask in case anything is wrong.”
Hannah gripped the leather-bound menu tighter. Was she that transparent? If she told her she’d just broken up with her boyfriend, what kind of an impression would she make?
Before she could formulate an answer, Barbara reached across the table and covered Hannah’s hand. “Relax. I recognize the value you bring to the company. Like I told you when you interviewed, I care about my employees. So if you ever need to talk, I’m a good listener.”
“Thank you.” She needed to change the subject before she burst into tears on her first day of work in front of her brand-new boss. She swallowed over the enormous lump in her throat. “So, what kinds of projects do you envision me working on?”
Barbara said, “Well, my thought is I’d like to give you several projects to work on. They’ll be in different areas and once wesee how you do and where your strengths lie, we’ll narrow your focus.”
“You have the flexibility to do that?”
Barbara nodded. “I do this with all my new hires. The chemistry of a team is important and I want to make sure you mesh well with the people you work with. Based on our conversations and where I think you would do the best, I’ll give you three different projects—I’ve got a non-profit that needs straight publicity, a tech firm launching a new piece of software to help amputees, and a pharma company raising awareness of women’s health issues. Sound good?”
“I think the non-profit and the pharma interest me the most, but I’m happy to work on any of them.”
“You can look over the project information after lunch and get to work tomorrow. It’s a quiet week because of Thanksgiving so things won’t ramp up until after the holiday. I’ll observe you and talk to your teammates and you throughout the next month and based on feedback, we’ll determine your best fit.”
When the waitress brought their salads and sandwiches, Hannah and Barbara stopped talking about work. Hannah found out Barbara and her wife, Janet, were parents to a three-year-old daughter and a five-year-old son, and Hannah told her about her grandmother.
“I love the generational thing you have going there,” Barbara said. “That’s wonderful!”
“Yeah, my grandma and I have always been close. I love living with her. Plus it lets me pay her back in a way for all the things she did for me.”
Later, Hannah, fortified by her garden salad and tuna sandwich, reined her attention in and brushed up on the three projects she’d start work on tomorrow. As she made her way home, a desire to tell Dan about her wonderful new job washed over her and she leaned against the wall as flashes of his eyesdeep with understanding and bright with interest invaded her thoughts. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she let herself into her apartment.
“Hannahlah, is that you?”
She counted to five and put her keys on the side table. “Yes,Bubbe, it’s me.” She sniffed and walked into the kitchen, where Sylvia was making soup. “Mmm, smells delicious.”
“There’s bread warming in the oven. How was your first day?”