Chapter 7: The Offer

On Sunday night I sent five emails to five hotels.

Lisbon, Santa Fe, Mexico City, Banff and Nashville.

Each one said the same thing, in the same polite words.

I am the booker on the reservation below, and I request the full change history, including the phone numbers that made any changes.

I had never written anything so calm.

Joss knocked on my door at seven on Monday evening.

She had a white pastry box in her hands and a leather folder under her arm.

I almost didn't open it.

"Five minutes," she said, through the door. "Then I'll go. I promise."

I opened it.

She came in wearing the camel coat and the gold earrings she wore for sponsor meetings.

She set the box on my table and sat down in Jared's old chair without asking.

"I owe you the biggest apology of my life," she said.

I stayed standing.

"Go ahead."

"I should have told you about Jared. I should have said it two years ago. I was a coward, and you were my best friend, and I'm so ashamed."

Her eyes filled.

I had seen her cry on cue in front of nine people, so I waited.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me," she said. "I'm asking to make it right."

She opened the leather folder and slid a paper across the table.

It was a payment schedule.

Thirty-one thousand, four hundred and eighty dollars, in five installments, with her signature already on the bottom line.

I read it standing up.

"That is every trip," she said. "Not just Jared's part. I'll pay all of it. I can afford it. The guides have been doing really well."

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