“I’m sure your work is interesting!” I blurt. “Variation, or whatever.” I try to think of some keywords from the absolutely impenetrable Wikipedia page on “quantitative analysts” I read last week in preparation for this meeting. I think I quit reading at the word stochastic, which actually sort of reminded me of Reid, if what it means is a combination of stoic and sarcastic. But I’m pretty sure it has to do with calculus.

“What kind of project?” Reid asks, and it is absolutely a deliberate cutoff. He is not interested in talking about his work with me, which I suppose I should be grateful for. It is both too math adjacent and too ex-fiancée adjacent.

I stop, gesture to one of the few empty benches on this busier part of the Promenade. Once I’m seated, I pull my bag onto my lap, reach in for the slim, soft-covered notebook I’ve been using for my ideas. When Reid sits beside me, I wince at the crinkle of stuff inside—a half-eaten bag of pretzels, probably ten balled-up receipts from Target. I start talking immediately to cover it, and maybe it’s a gift—having to rush this out. It ensures that I don’t think too hard about Reid being the first person I’ve told.

“There’s this company, Make It Happyn? ‘Happen’ but with a y, so it’s—uh, ‘happy’ also.”

“I don’t get it.”

Frankly, I don’t get it, either. It is cheesy in a way that makes me slightly embarrassed, but I don’t want to admit that to Reid, so I move on. “They’re a big brand for most of the major craft retailers. They make build-your-own planner materials. Folios and accessories and calendar pages.”

“Like what you make.”

“Not really,” I say, thinking of the big, neon-signed store on Atlantic Avenue that I visited after my first phone call with the artistic director, a bold-voiced, fast-talking woman named Ivonne. The Make It Happyn aisle had been crowded with shoppers, some displays nearly sold out. I’d felt uncertain initially, seeing some of the more generic stuff. A January spread done all in ice blue. February, pinks and reds. March, all green. April, raindrops. May? An actual Maypole, which made Bloom Where You’re Planted feel damned subtle by comparison.

But I’d been excited, too, by the possibilities, by the treatments I could create. It could be career-changing, this job, giving me the kind of opportunities most people in my position would love to have. Life-changing, especially now, if it means I can stay in my place on my own, at least for a while.