Chapter 22: Her Own Terms

The email came on Wednesday, while I was shaping rolls at Bree's back counter.

I read it with flour on my thumbs.

It was from the director of the firm I had wanted since college, and it was eleven lines long.

She had seen my work, it said.

She would like to speak with me on Friday.

"Bree," I said.

Bree kept her eyes on the dough.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Bree."

"I sent them your old portfolio," she said. "The campaign you built for my opening. The one with the one-armed croissant."

"It was a joke."

"It sold out the first week. I've been carrying it around on my phone for three years."

She finally looked up, red-faced and defiant.

"You were going to say no, so I did it first," she said.

I laughed so hard I had to sit down on a flour sack.

Dexter's divorce papers had come back signed the day before.

He had signed in a shaky hand and contested nothing.

I had a lawyer, a bakery job, a ring on my finger and a man waiting for me every night with a pot of tea he had learned to make.

I had not had an interview in seven years.

On Friday I wore a grey suit that Bree had taken in at the waist.

The firm's offices stood on the twentieth floor of a glass tower.

A receptionist led me to a conference room with a view of the river.

A woman in her fifties stood at the window with a folder.

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