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“You have a year and a half of vacation saved up?”
“Not on purpose. Every time I tried to take time off, Brad needed me or if he was traveling, he had me cover for him. I kept accruing comp time. It snowballed. The directors are angry at me about this.”
“I’m angry at you about this.”
“When I started out before Brad and I were together, I wouldn’t take it because I wanted to immerse myself in the work so I could be perfect.”
“Stop with your damn dirty words. Perfect is a dirty dirty word.” She leans back on her elbows and shakes her head slightly. “The word is misunderstood. Go on.”
“He said no. Then denied me the time off for a vacation with him in an official email. He has a giant TAG Heuer pitch next week. I finished all the work for it, but he wanted me in town in case he needed me to do more.”
“Let me just state. You cover for him, you do his work and he won’t let you lie on a beach with him. What did you do?”
“I snapped.” She bawls again and I scoop her up. She’s shaking a bit.
“I yelled back that I was going on vacation with or without him. And so I booked this trip in front of him and sent it to his bosses and HR to approve.” Her face is mottled and turning beet red as she says this.
“This is a good thing.” She starts crying again.
“I wasn’t supposed to come until you were in Copenhagen. And that would have been over the five days the office was closed for painting. I would have worked from there.”
“Then we should probably have an actual vacation. Let me get dressed.”
KAT: Buffet reservation is pushed back. Anna needs me.
ZANE: I’ll allow it.
KAT: See if you can get that balcony at Hôtel Belle-Vue
ZANE: I’ll see what Liesel can do. You may have to pretend to film
KAT: How hard can that be?
ZANE: I look forward to showing you how hard I can be. I mean it can be.
Chapter 54
I Dreamed a Dream of Graffiti and Soap
KAT
Marseille
I grab my camera and head off to once again purge my mother and help Anna vacate. I stomp down the street, headed nowhere in particular.
She skips in front of me and walks backward. “You love him, don’t you?”
“Can we focus on Nan, I’m pretty sure she’ll side with Zane in the breakup.”
“There won’t be one,” she says and turns into a little shop on this narrow street.
Wouldn’t that be wild. A small smile breaks across my face as I bask in that ridiculous moment when you like someone where you believe beyond all expectations, that not only can this feeling last forever, but so can the two of you.
I snap some pictures and then chase after Anna. She’s smelling soap. I point at her with a skein of lavender.
“You know what? I don’t feel sorry for him dealing with our mothers. All of this is his fault. I’m done covering his ass with my mother who, by the way, had plenty of things to be disappointed about before this fairytale.”
“Text that to him right now. Or you’re just as full of shit as I am. I have so much I’ve always wanted to say but thought better of it.” Shit. I have a stuffed email account full of that.
