Finally, staring at a miniature portrait of a woman with ruby-red lips, I decided to just get on with it. Embrace the new life, the new job.

And so I slipped my silver cell phone from my purse and called Evan, still at his desk, and asked him if he’d discuss budgeting with me over a cup of coffee. I couldn’t talk to him in the office, for fear that someone would overhear us and I’d look ill-suited for the job.

“No coffee,” Evan said. “I need a beer. Sounds like you do, too.”

“Fine. Wrightwood Tap, I presume.”

“Baby, I love how you know me.” It wasn’t hard to guess that Evan would want to go to Wrightwood Tap, a DePaul University hangout. Evan had attended DePaul for his undergrad degree, and the Tap was still his favorite watering hole. It probably didn’t hurt that the place was always full of female coeds, sipping beers and hiking up their very low-waisted jeans.

At five o’clock, I met him at the bar, and we found a tall open table by the front windows. The place had a center rectangular bar, scarred wood floors and laminated menus boasting the usual bar fare.

We ordered beers-a Corona for me, Old Style for Evan. Despite being a VP and living in a slick, north side condo, Evan was still very south side in his beer tastes. “It’s in the genes,” he always said. Personally, I felt that Evan was holding tight to something that would make him similar, in some small way, to his father. Tommy O’Reilly, Evan’s dad, was a career plumber who wanted his only son to learn the business and eventually take it over. Instead, Evan got a scholarship to DePaul and went into PR. He endured constant barbs from his father about how he must be a “fairy” to do such a job, but Evan still went back to the south side on Sundays to watch football or baseball with his dad. And he still drank Old Style.

“So what’s happening, hot stuff?” Evan asked as our beers were delivered.

“It’s the budgeting. I don’t know how to do it. I mean, math has never been my forte, and now I’m crunching numbers all the time. I never know if the numbers I’m throwing out there are legit or if they’re totally off. And how do you decide on an initial figure? It’s so random. And-”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down. It’s no big deal. You’ll get the hang of it.”

“It is a big deal.”

“Why?”

“Hello? Because I’ll get fired if I can’t do this job correctly.”

“So, you’re afraid someone will do to you what you did to Alexa?”

I silently fiddled with the label of my beer bottle. I’d been trying not to think about Alexa all day. I’d avoided her now empty cubicle. I’d sent her file back to HR. But I couldn’t stop seeing her shocked face when I’d told her, and I couldn’t stop hearing the sound of those lyrically vindictive Spanish words.

“Thanks for the reminder,” I said at last.

Evan shrugged innocently.

“All right, yes,” I said, “I’m afraid I’ll get fired or demoted or whatever. You know how hard I worked to get here, Ev.”

“Sure, I do, but no one’s going to fire you.” He reached across the table and patted my hand. Actually, it was more than a pat. It was something like a rub. His hand was very warm.

I felt a crazy desire to grasp his hand, but instead, I pulled away and made a show of glancing at the menu. “C’mon, Roslyn will demote me or fire me in a heartbeat if I don’t pull my weight.”

“No, she won’t.”

“What do you mean? Remember Chad from two years ago? She fired him after he’d made VP. And she just okayed me to fire Alexa, so she obviously doesn’t have a problem with axing people.”

“Yeah, but that was Chad and Alexa. She’d never fire you.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Evan’s mint-green eyes squinted for a second, as if searching for something in a bright room in his mind. “She just wouldn’t. You’re supposed to be a VP. So it doesn’t matter what you do.”

I was reminded of Chris last night, when I raised the topic of why we were suddenly getting along so well, telling me it didn’t matter. I got a flash of that green frog on my nightstand.

“Look, Ev, just help me out, okay? Tell me how to do this.” I pulled a manila envelope from my bag, the one holding Odette’s account, which was up for rebudgeting. I wanted to be able to do so much for her, but I knew she had limited funds to pay us.

“Anything for you.” Evan dragged his stool around so we sat side by side. Our arms touched as he pulled Odette’s file from the envelope.

“Okay,” he said, holding out the old budget. As he did this, he put his other hand very lightly on the side of my thigh. It seemed an innocent enough gesture, but I could feel the warmth of his hand on my leg, and for a moment, my Everlasting Crush turned on with full force.

Evan began talking about the different figures on the page, about the results we’d gotten for Odette thus far and what that meant in terms of revising her budget. I tried to focus, but the numbers swam. His hand now felt heavy and hot. I had a brief flash of longing for that hand to move higher.

A moment later, he took his hand away to search for something in the file, but I could still sense it, as if he’d left a handprint, one that seared through my skirt, into my skin. Even after I’d thanked him, paid for our beers and began walking home, I could still feel it.

I called my sister Hadley the next morning.

“Billy! How are you?” she said, voice booming through the phone. In London it was the end of the day, but she sounded as chipper as if she’d just arrived at her office after ten hours of sleep. The truth was, Hadley was one of those people who required only five hours a night.

“I’m great, Hads. How are you?” I took a seat on a bar stool in our kitchen, my morning Diet Coke in front of me.

“It’s insane around here. You know how it goes.”

“Sure,” I said. But really, I had no idea what it was like to be a top asset manager at an investment bank, nor did Hadley ever tell me. Although we e-mailed occasionally, this was the first time I’d spoken to her on the phone in months.

“What about you?” Hadley asked.

“Well, I just made vice president.”

“That’s amazing!” Hadley might not have come home for my wedding, but she appreciated corporate ladder-climbing.

“Yeah, thanks. Hey, have you been in touch with Mom? I got a postcard that said she’s in Milan.”

“I saw her last night.”

“You did?” I tried to keep the shock from my voice. Not only was my mother at the fashion shows in Milan, but she’d traveled to London, too? “Is she okay?”

“She’s great,” Hadley said. “She was so nice about the-” she cleared her throat “-baby stuff.” The “baby stuff” was what Hadley called her infertility problems.

“How’s that going?”

“It’s not. I think maybe I waited too long.” Her voice was lower now, and it made me sad.

“God, I’m sorry, Hadley. This must be so hard.”

“Oh, it’s okay. Nigel mentioned to Mom that we might look into getting a surrogate, since I seem to be the problem, and when Mom heard that, she offered to do it.”

I cracked up at the image of my nearly sixty-year-old mother with a ripe, pregnant belly, but it didn’t surprise me that she’d offered to do something scientifically impossible. My mother would do (or at least attempt to do) anything for us. Particularly since my father had left. At the fleeting thought of my dad, I waited for the usual pang to hit my psyche, the feeling of utter disappointment, a sick wondering of why. But nothing happened. I made myself think of him again. Wonderfully, nothing.

“So when is Mom heading home?” I asked.

“Not sure. She’s back in Milan as far as I know. Hold on.” Hadley began talking to someone in her office, rattling off stock prices and call orders.

“Hads,” I said, “I’ll let you go, but do you know where Mom is staying?”

“The Grand Hotel. You want the number?”

I grabbed the pad of paper sitting on our granite bartop and jotted the phone number.