Not Quite Crazy
Page 26

“Yeah,” Monica agreed. “It’s all good until after Christmas, and then it just gets old.”
“Really? I was hoping I’d get used to it.”
Monica turned her gaze back to Rachel. “Sorry. I shouldn’t make it sound so awful.”
Rachel finished chewing her food. “I’d rather the truth than sugarcoated bull any day.”
“When I start getting moody, Barefoot takes me to Jamaica.”
“The perks of your husband owning planes,” Rachel said.
“You’ll have to come sometime.”
Rachel couldn’t imagine taking Monica up on the offer. Chances were the suggestion was her polite way of making conversation, anyway.
“Maybe,” she said, knowing she’d never do it. “So let me tell you about my idea of Flying with a Heart.”
“Flying with a Heart? Is that a slogan?”
“Yes, which is up for change. But I had to call it something while I outlined my ideas.” For the next thirty minutes, Rachel recapped what she thought she knew about Fairchild Charters’ involvement with relief efforts from disaster torn regions and let Monica fill in some of the blanks. Borderless Doctors and Borderless Nurses were partnering players, and Monica and Trent were the liaisons between all parties. Fairchild had started a foundation closer to home for organ transplant flights. As Monica pointed out, it wasn’t just the rich who needed a liver or heart, and when the cost of flying was taken into the cost of transporting organs, it often meant people in need did without.
They knocked around ideas for finding more backers, putting a heart in all the Fairchild Charters marketing plans to remind everyone who used their service that their support as a customer helped, in a small way, to help others.
By the time they finished their sandwiches, they were both on the same page.
They both bundled up in coats before walking outside. “It smells like snow,” Monica said only two feet from the restaurant.
“Does it?”
“Yeah, I should get home before it lets loose. I brought my car instead of taking the train.”
Rachel glanced at the gray clouds above the skyscrapers. “I haven’t taken the trains yet,” she confessed.
“You’re kidding.”
“No . . . they’re so, I don’t know.”
“Hey, I get it. I’m from LA, too. But driving in the snow and dealing with Manhattan traffic in bad weather isn’t worth it. You’ll end up in a ditch or worse.”
Rachel smiled. “You mean like Jason?”
Monica glanced over as they walked the two blocks back to work. “What do you mean?”
“That’s how I met your brother-in-law.”
“You ended up in a ditch?”
“No, he ended up in a ditch. To be fair, I was probably driving about as fast as a nearsighted ninety-year-old, and he was trying to pass me on a hill. But he’s the one that ended up in the ditch.”
“You’re kidding?” Monica asked, laughing.
“Nope. I gave him a ride to my house, where he waited for someone to give him a ride home. Imagine my surprise when I walked into a meeting last week to see him there. I had no idea he was my boss.”
Monica stopped her by placing a hand on her arm. The people behind them just walked around as if they were a rock in a stream and the water needed to move beyond. “He didn’t tell you his name?”
“He said Jason. Last names didn’t seem needed.” Rachel started walking again.
“That’s crazy.”
“Yeah.” Rachel wanted to quiz Monica. Why was someone as together as Jason not married? What kind of women did he date? What did he do when he wasn’t at work and wasn’t putting up her Christmas lights? Was he a sports guy, or would he rather watch a movie?
“Someone got quiet.”
She shook off her train of thought. “Sorry.”
Monica chuckled. “It’s okay. He’s a good-looking man, they all are.”
“I-I wasn’t thinking about how attractive Jason is.”
“Really?”
“No, I was wondering why he isn’t married.”
“That’s easy. He doesn’t date.”
Rachel hesitated. “Why not?”
Monica opened the massive glass door leading into the high-rise. “I don’t know. I ask Barefoot all the time. He tells me his brother is overly dedicated to his job and it would take someone special to pull him away from it. Glen says he hasn’t dated, outside a social obligation, for years. Neither of them even know the last time he asked someone out.”
Rachel actually snorted.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said a little too quickly. The last thing she needed was Jason’s sister-in-law to know he’d asked Rachel out. “I bet he just keeps his private life to himself.”
“I thought that, too. Probably for the best. Someone as eligible as him and people will start rumors and predictions. I’m glad Trent and I didn’t have society breathing down our necks when we were dating. I didn’t know his world, and he had only seen a glimpse of mine. And Mary . . .” Monica pressed the button for the elevator. “That’s Glen’s wife, she lived on the West Coast when they were dating. Of course, Glen was a playboy, so the rumors were that he was dating some movie star or some such garbage.”
“I thought I read that his wife was a therapist.”
“She is. Very sweet and always analyzing people.”
They moved into the elevator with several other people. Rachel lowered her voice. “So what does she say about”—she looked around, didn’t want to use any names—“him not going out?”
Monica leaned in closer, almost whispered, “Something about him being the oldest. Trying to be a role model for his brothers. Taking over for his parents in a weird sort of way.”
“That would have to fade at some point. I mean . . .” The elevator door opened and several people got out. “It isn’t like your husband is a teenager.”
“I know. Believe me, Mary and I have been on a quest to set him up.”
They reached their floor, stepped out. “I doubt that would be hard.”
“For women, no. But he wants nothing to do with it.” Monica leaned in again. “We even have it set up to auction him off in our spring fundraiser if he doesn’t show up with a date.”
Rachel started to laugh. “Dinner with the CEO millionaire?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Sounds like a romance novel.”
“We hope so. He either brings a date or we set him up. His choice.”
The thought of Jason standing on an auction block while women bid on him had her grinning. “This I’d like to see.”
“He’s a great guy. I just hate to see him solo. I don’t even care that he gets married, just go out and enjoy life a little more.”
They came to the intersecting hall where Monica would veer off to the higher management offices and Rachel would return to her cubicle.
“I’m glad we had this time to chat,” Rachel said.
“Me too. You have a lot of great ideas. I’m sure Jason is happy to have you on the team.”
“We’ll talk again.”
Monica smiled as she walked away.
“Oh. My. God!” The snow held out until sometime in the middle of the night. Then it dumped. There was well over a foot in her driveway, and it was still snowing. From her bedroom window, she could see up and down the street. There were very few tracks in the snow, and almost no activity. After turning on her TV to the local news to catch the weather report, she ran through her room, throwing on clothes. Rachel had lived there long enough to hear the locals talk about nor’easters. From the looks of outside, they weren’t exaggerating.