“And from your personal standpoint?” I asked.
“While I’m sorry for your pain, her loss is my gain. I think she’s an idiot.”
Did I say Avery was a goddess?
I moved in with Avery after three months of dating, and six months later I bought an engagement ring. My daughters had met her several times by that point and both fell in love with her. It seems the karmic shift in the universe had come back my way. I intended to give her the ring at an intimate dinner I had planned for Saturday night.
And then karma shifted away from me. Thursday afternoon Avery called me at work to tell me she would be a little late, but she had a big announcement and she was paying for dinner. We set up dinner for 7 at a fancy restaurant, and when I got there Traci was already seated at a table, with a guy about my age sitting at the table across from her. They were smiling and laughing, and both had flutes of champagne. My immediate reaction when I saw them was anger, and I thought about turning on my heel and walking out, but then I resolved to go to the table, and, if it was what I suspected, this time I was going to kick the shit out of the guy.
I told the woman at the desk whose table I was looking for, and she led me to Avery’s table. As I got close, Avery spotted me, jumped up and practically threw herself into my arms. She planted a big, deep kiss on my lips in front of whoever this was, so at the least I knew this wasn’t a literal kiss-off.
“Mickey, this is Dr. Ken Otani, director of XYZ Enterprises, one of the leading scientific communities on the West Coast. He just offered me a spot on their team in San Diego. I’d be working on plant-based research for a cancer cure.”
Dr. Otani stood up and we shook hands. I tried to look as happy as Avery seemed to be, but in the back of my mind I knew this was the beginning of the end for us. This was Avery’s dream job, the major leagues of her profession. There was no way she was turning this down to stay here with me, and unless I was ready and willing to pack up my life and go with her right now, it was best that I do the right thing and set her free.
The champagne flowed and the evening was great. Avery and Otani laid out her job for me, told me all about the huge salary and tremendous perks. The salary was even larger than the $250K I was pulling down. Everything sounded great, but after an hour I was tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“So when do you start?” I asked finally.
Avery kind of blanched at the question, the first time I had ever seen that reaction from her in our relationship. She’d already made her decision, without discussing it first with me. That told me everything I needed to know. She might love me — even deeply — but not deep enough for me to have a say in what was probably the most important decision in her life. Apparently my love for her was just a little deeper, because in my pocket was a sign that said she would have a say in every decision in my life from now on. But apparently that sign was going to remain exactly where it was.