The Trouble with Love
Page 7

Camille tapped her fingernails on the desk. “Everything ruined?”
Emma shrugged. “I’ll know more when I get back today. But it didn’t look good when I left. My landlord is bringing some people in to survey the situation. Figure out what’s salvageable.”
“Hmm.”
Emma waited for her boss to say more, but Camille fell silent.
“Your turn,” Emma prodded.
To her surprise, Camille’s usually intense, take-no-prisoners expression transformed into a girlish grin. “I met someone.”
Emma’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re taking three months off work because you met someone?”
Camille merely leaned back in her chair and grinned wider. “So skeptical, Emma. You’re one of my Love girls. Surely you can understand what it’s like to fall, and fall hard.”
“Actually, I’m more like your breakup, single-life girl,” Emma corrected.
“Which is why I brought you in here,” Camille said, straightening a bit.
Emma held up a finger. “Your story first. ‘I met someone’ isn’t nearly enough information.”
“Fine. But for the record, your little flood story wasn’t worth this exchange of information,” Camille said, without much heat.
Emma had the feeling her boss wanted to talk about her sabbatical. Emma just wasn’t sure she wanted to be the one doing the listening. She’d had quite enough of other people’s luck in the love department lately.
“He’s a photographer,” Camille said. “Ken. Kenny.”
Kenny?
“We met a couple months ago when we were each dining solo at a little Italian place in the Village, and it was just…we clicked. He’s so different from my ex. Exes, plural. He’s a dreamer. A thrill seeker.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Emma said, knowing from the smitten expression on Camille’s face that her boss wasn’t looking for conversation so much as a chance to talk about her rapture.
“He’s taking me down under,” Camille continued.
“Okay, way too much info—wait. Down Under. Like Australia?”
“You got it, mate,” Camille said in what Emma gathered was supposed to be an Australian accent. “Some tourist company is paying for his apartment in Sydney. All he has to do is capture the local flavor. And he asked me to tag along, and you know? I’ll be fifty-five next year, and I haven’t done anything exciting since I was twenty. I want some adventure before I’m too old to get it.”
“So you’re going to another country—no, continent—with a guy you just met? For three months?”
Camille gave a happy shrug. “What can I say, when you’re in love—”
“Um, when you’re in love, you give it at least six months to see if it will last before gallivanting all over the globe,” Emma suggested patiently.
“Why so cynical, Sinclair?” Camille paused. “Cynical Sinclair. That’s got to be a nickname of yours.”
“It’s not,” Emma said drily. “And by all means let’s not let it become one.”
Camille waved this aside. “Listen, the reason I called you in here is because your last piece was fantastic. The whole surviving-singledom-while-your-friends-are-coupled-up thing is going to hit home for a lot of women. Myself included.”
“Um, thanks?” Emma said, not at all sure where this was going, but pretty sure she wasn’t going to like it.
“Your story before that was also good,” Camille continued. “I like that you focused on all the reasons modern women might be better off without a significant other.”
Emma sat back in her chair, bracing for whatever was coming. Camille was a fair boss, but not usually effusive with praise. This little pep talk couldn’t be going anywhere good.
“And the piece before that—”
“Camille. Please. Drop the bomb on me already. I can take it.”
Her boss gave a sigh of relief, then blurted it out: “You’re in a rut. A writing rut.”
Emma frowned. “But—”
“I’ll rephrase. The writing is fine. Excellent. You’re one of my best. But the topics are…they’re good, but they’re going to get stale if you don’t change it up.”
Emma had the sudden urge to cross her arms and pout. Pouting had always worked so well for her sister over the years. Too bad Emma had never perfected it.
“Change it up how?” Emma asked.
Camille picked up her cellphone. “Well, my college roommate’s nephew just moved to New York from San Francisco—”
Emma closed her eyes and groaned. “No.”
“No, you can’t say no,” Camille said as she scrolled through her photos. “Just look.”
She held the phone across the desk until Emma relented and looked at…an absolutely gorgeous guy.
“Right?” Camille said smugly. “His name is Benedict Wade, and he’s a VP of sales for some…actually, don’t remember, don’t care. I only see the dimples. But he’s one of the good ones, Emma.”
“Then why is he still single?” Emma asked, taking a closer look in spite of herself. The dimples really were first-rate. As was the slight wave to his dark blond hair, the even row of white teeth, and the tiniest bit of crookedness to his nose, as though it had been broken once or twice.
Camille heaved a sigh. “See? You’re cynical. But because I, too, have been cynical, I’ll be patient with you. Benedict’s only recently single. He broke up with his girlfriend a couple months ago when she got a job offer in London just as he got one in New York, and he realized they were moving in different directions.”