“All right. Leave it to me. I’m planning lots of fun activities.” He kissed her. She wrapped her arms around him and focused on giving all her concentration to this moment, with Jake.

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty

Winnie and Audrey met Colette outside the restaurant. Colette was wearing dark sunglasses, making it hard to read her. She stood off to the side, greeting them with a terse “Hello.”

Audrey worried that this pitch meeting was not going to go well, even though it had been surprisingly easy to persuade Colette to join them for lunch with the two executives from Global Capital, a well-known hedge fund. She and Winnie had pitched it as a client development opportunity as well as a mentoring lunch. If anything, Colette seemed shocked to be included. As she should be, noted Audrey to Winnie; it was generous of them to invite her.

Still, the three women had worked well together preparing for the lunch. They’d even had fun. Colette had made them watch a TED talk on body language, and they’d practiced doing the pitch in various power poses. Audrey had been surprised at how much the “leaning back, arms out, feet on the table” reminded her of Tim (even though he didn’t actually put his feet on her desk).

As Colette took off her sunglasses, Winnie put her arms out wide and struck a cowboy stance, saying, “Power poses everybody.” Audrey and Colette made their own stands, taking up as much space as possible on the sidewalk, and all three laughed.

The restaurant was crowded; it was restaurant week, when the prix fixe menu was discounted. Her father had loved restaurant week. He’d carefully decide which two restaurants he and her mom would visit. She should reignite that tradition when her mom returned. Her mom might be more receptive than she’d been to her trying to revive game night.

The maître d’ led them to the table occupied by the Global Capital executives. After the preliminary introductions, Audrey launched into the reason for their invitation.

“As I wrote in my email, both Colette and I are up for partner, and we heard through Winnie’s boyfriend that you strongly advise women to work together. We don’t want to be pitted against each other.”

“We’re impressed that your boyfriend attended our panel. Few men braved that room,” one of the women joked.

“He’s learning,” Winnie said. “Your presentation really made an impression on him.”

The two women shared their stories about how they’d worked together to be promoted and how having an ally had made the whole process much more fun.

“But didn’t you worry that only one of you might make it, and that it would ruin the friendship?” Colette asked, her head tilted as if carefully considering their remarks. Audrey glanced at Winnie—they should’ve organized this lunch ages ago.

“We did, but we still figured it was worth it.”