“He doesn’t. I think he’s afraid to ask.” I walk to the chair next to her and take out my phone. “I’m going to call Meryl right now.” I take the phone and dial Meryl, who answers right away.

“Hey,” she says, answering the phone with us on speaker. “I just got your email and Olivia’s. You guys are on fire.” She laughs. “I should send you two away more often if you are going to come back with all these ideas.”

“Yeah,” I say, thinking of the whole look we did yesterday. We incorporated some country flair to the chic pictures they sent over. I was a graphic designer, and Olivia was a stylist, and the two of us together made quite the team. It also helped that we understood what the other was saying. “I’m calling with some news.”

“Oh,” she says, picking up the phone now, “is everything okay?”

“Well, we are still laying low. The detective is supposed to call us by the end of the week with the result from the fingerprints found at the scene,” I inform her. When we called her in the middle of the night, she knew it wasn’t good, and she knew from the news stories that it was going to get a lot worse before it got better, so she was more than okay with us leaving.

“Well, that’s good to hear,” she says. “So what’s up?”

“I guess there is no easy way to say this.” I think about when I started at the magazine five years ago, and how she took a chance on a brand-new student straight out of college with no experience. I think about my life back in LA and how different it is to the country. I used to do spin class five days a week, and I used to have celery juice every single morning. Now I have coffee and lard, and I couldn’t be happier. “I’m staying here.”

“What do you mean staying there?” she asks.

“I mean, when this is all over, I’m only going back to LA to pack up my stuff, and then I’m moving back.” Olivia reaches over and hugs me, putting her head on my shoulder.

“I see,” Meryl says.

“I love my job, I really do, but I love my life here even more. And now that I’m back, I can’t think about leaving.”

“What if I said you can do both?” Meryl says right away, and I look at Olivia, who looks at me with her eyes wide.

“I would say what do you mean?” And then Olivia chimes in.

“Actually, she would say hush your mouth.” She looks at me and whispers, “That was good, right?” and I nod, smiling.

“Oh, Jesus, do not tell me that you are turning country,” Meryl says, and Olivia laughs out loud.

“Heavens to bitsy, no!” Olivia shrieks, and I laugh.