she probably could have slept on an “L” platform.

After she parked her car in the office garage, she fixed her makeup and summoned her game face. Her office was the same. Clean, antiseptic, to the point, and ready for work. Back to work, she thought. That's what she needed.

That was what got her here.

Which was where, exactly? Up this “ladder” she kept talking about? A

bigger office, with better pay, longer hours, and shorter weekends? For what?

All day, she kept finding herself picturing herself in a tidy office in Golden

Grove. Maybe above the bakery, with wooden floors, the smell of fresh bread drifting up, a morning croissant with a to-go cup from The Screamin' Bean sitting next to her. Working on a big-screen computer. Not crunching numbers,

but design work. Nothing big, just enough to pay the bills and have some time to

herself.

After her last droning meeting, she closed her computer and stared out the

tall glass window. It was gray outside, no clouds, no rain, just gray. Golden Grove seemed like another world, like Narnia or Oz. Like something you needed

to step through a magic wardrobe or fly in a tornado to get to.

Like the souvenir snow globe perched on the corner of her desk. She picked

it up. Tiny orange and red leaves floated in slow motion past old brick houses and a church with a perfect white steeple. Just something you absentmindedly picked up and shook, then put back on the shelf before you returned to real life.

She should have known better. It was just supposed to be a job. A few weeks, maybe a month. Peter wasn't supposed to become her friend again. They

weren't supposed to sit by the old treehouse or look up at the stars. He wasn't supposed to kiss her. It should have all been done by now, but instead, it was all scattered. Like fallen leaves or the past or the glass from a ruined mobile.

For an instant, she thought about going back tonight. Getting in the car and

driving, all the way, back to the snow globe town, back to his house. Up his front porch and into his arms.

Then she realized why she had cried yesterday. It was loss. Loss of the past,

etched forever for good or bad. Loss of the future, unknown and unknowable.

She stared at nothing out the window until the sun was far past setting. The

streetlights from below cast the only light in her office, glancing pale orange light up the sides of the walls as she sat alone and silent in the dark.

* * *

The rest of the week was a blur. On Thursday, ahead of schedule even, Garman

received word from Nitrovex that Kate's preliminary rebranding proposal was one of the final two candidates. The meeting with the Garman team the next afternoon was also a success. Kate breezed in, confident in her navy-blue dress,

presented her designs, her plans, her new slogan.

The Art of Solutions.

It had come to her in the middle of the night, like all good ideas are supposed to, out of nowhere. She had been half asleep, thinking about the paintings at the Art Institute, as if she were in them, floating on a Monet lily pad, running through the smooth green melon-shaped hills of a Grant Wood painting.

And it had come to her.

It wasn't just all chemistry. There was an art to it, even though it seemed like

it was just about mixing together tanks of foaming liquid. Just like Peter had told her. There is an art, even a beauty to chemistry. Putting the molecules together for just the right solution. One tiny piece off and the whole thing wouldn't work.

She had even remembered that Nitrovex made binding agents for paints and art supplies.

The Garman board had loved the idea and the logo she had designed. A

stylized painter's palette that also looked like a beaker. It had fit perfectly into the larger proposal she had already been working on. They were just the last two

pieces, the capstone that held everything together. It had finally clicked. At least something finally had in her life.

She spent Saturday at the office, surrounded by co-workers who kept

congratulating her. This was the final stretch. She was due back at Nitrovex next

Friday for the last presentation, then on to the next project. No more Golden Grove whether she landed the account or not. Nitrovex would be handed off to

more junior staff. Onward and upward for Kate.

She should be happy. Right?

She stared out her apartment window that night, hands in her robe pocket.

The view was a similar apartment building across the way, banks of rectangles,

some lit, some not, staring blankly. She wondered if someone equally happy was

staring back at her from the dark of their living room.

This was the part where she was supposed to be ecstatic. Her bosses were impressed, her first big project looked like it was destined for success.

She picked up her phone and popped up her music app. A variety of

suggested playlists rolled through the screen, one picturing four snarling guys in eyeliner and huge blond hair.

“Pop go the eighties.” She smiled sadly, thinking of the dance going on tonight, her half-promise to Peter to be there.

She thumbed a song on, and cheesy, synthesized music bounced out. She

picked up her glass and sipped her wine. It was from a box left in the fridge, but it was surprisingly good. Another smile. But it was not the solution, right?