He was quiet. It's a good offer. Financially, it's it's significant. It's the kind of growth the company needs, and it's the kind of role I built the company specifically to eventually take. But she closed her eyes.
But I've been sitting on it for a week, and I haven't sent a response. And I can't figure out why. Because 6 months ago, I would have sent a response in 48 hours. He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was careful, not protective, careful, honest.
Careful. What happened 6 months ago to change that? She knew the answer. She didn't say it. I don't know, she said instead, which was the first lie she'd told him.
He let it go. What does the proposal look like? If you want to talk through it, I don't want to talk through it. What do you want? She looked at the ceiling of her office, at the geometry of a room she'd designed to project a specific kind of authority, at the city through the glass, all that lit up ambition.
All those people moving towards something. I don't know, she said this time it wasn't a lie. Well, he said slowly. That might be the most honest thing I've heard you say. She pressed her hand flat against the carpet.
I'm not dishonest. I didn't say dishonest. I said, "You usually know what you want and you say it precisely and you move toward it with a kind of there's no wasted motion with you. It's like watching someone who decided a long time ago that the fastest distance between two points is a straight line, isn't it? Mathematically, yeah, but you miss everything on the sides."
She didn't answer. Natalie, what? How long have you been in your office? She checked her watch, looked at the ceiling. 11 and 1/2 hours.
Go home. I have whatever you have. It'll still be there in the morning. And you called me without a reason on a Friday night, which means some part of you already knows you should stop working. She pulled her knees to her chest, coat, and all, sitting on the floor of her 14th floor office, like a woman who had just recently remembered that floors existed.
I don't know where home is, she said very quietly. Not as a metaphor, or not only as a metaphor. He was quiet for long enough that she thought the call had dropped. The apartment here, she clarified. In DC?
I've had it for 2 years. I'm in it maybe 8 days a month. Does it feel like anything? It has very good furniture. That's not what I asked.