Hour one had been consumed with recriminations. How did I not see? Was I stupid? Gullible? Greedy?
She had asked herself the same questions every interviewer either asked or implied and, in doing so over six months, could admit to a few answers. She recognized that, at the start, she’d been running from something rather than running toward—and hadn’t asked nearly enough questions or done a fraction of the due diligence she should have. She groaned at how cliché that answer sounded. Blame someone else. But she knew exactly who, and that was another problem.
There was no way to avoid her mom in Winsome.
That thought naturally stretched into hour three with a trip down Memory Lane to her last real day at home. Three years ago she drove up from Chicago to shove some boxes into her childhood closet on her way out of town. Her mom had just taken a job at the local bookshop and shouldn’t have been home.
But she was.
“Why are you moving? You always said you wanted to live here. Get married and move back from the city. That was the plan. It was perfect.”
Perfect. Oh, how that word had crawled up her spine that day, reached around her throat and almost choked her. It was the first time Alyssa understood the term silent rage. She had actually been so angry, and without air for a few heartbeats, that neither a breath nor a sound could escape.
Yet her mom was right. That had always been the plan, and it had been perfect. After all, it was her mom’s plan—which meant it was flawless. Zero chance of failure. Her mom’s plans never failed, and this one she’d modeled so well.
That was the lie Alyssa had believed.
She had swallowed the Kool-Aid like everyone else: her parents were the ideal life partners, never disagreeing on even minor details, much less wasting time fighting about them. They experienced wedded bliss to the enviable degree that after almost thirty years they still called each other “darling” and “my bride.” Their home was perfect; their cars clean; their yard perfectly manicured; her mom’s garden varied and impeccable, maintained by herself, of course. But don’t worry—despite volunteering around town daily, she would still have dinner on the table on time and at the ideal temperature.
In her impotent anger that afternoon, Alyssa had shoved a box into her closet with such force she’d pulled off an edge of the doorjamb. The rip in the wood tore something within her as well. It brought a sense of release with a wellspring of vitriol.
“Your warped idea of a perfect life doesn’t fly with me anymore. You made it look good, I’ll give you that, but the emperor hasn’t got clothes. Right, Mom? Or should I say she took them all off?”
It was a low blow, and even as the words flew from her mouth, Alyssa was surprised at her own courage . . . insolence . . . despair.
The words and the icy blast that carried them clearly shocked her mom. Always one with a firm grip on her demeanor, if not every attitude behind it, her mom, wan and red-eyed, sank onto the corner of Alyssa’s bed. “That’s not fair. If your dad and I divorce, I’m not the villain. You always believe he can do no wrong, but—”
“Don’t even talk about him.” Alyssa shoved in the last box before turning on her mom. “I’m done with you. You. Cheated. On. Him. Of course he’s going to divorce you, and please consider this a family affair—only I don’t have to wait for a judge. I can leave you right now.”
“Alyssa.” Her mom’s bark had morphed into a squeak as Alyssa stormed down the stairs and out the back door.
Revisiting those last moments at home made her stomach turn, so at hour five, Alyssa shifted her memory to the day when the FBI cleared XGC’s offices and shut it down. How, once people realized it wasn’t a joke, they became scared and wary of each other. After leaving Chicago, Alyssa had wanted family, a connection that felt like home had once upon a time, but one that wasn’t based on a lie, one she formed herself. You don’t have to be born into a family, she told herself during that initial thirty-six-hour drive, you can create one. And she’d chased it—she’d envisioned a better, truer life, and everyone at work seemed wired the same way.
Yet the illusion didn’t withstand a few months at XGC. People she hoped could become close friends became strangers within her first six months, enemies in the last six, and vanished altogether once the company folded. In fact, the first advice her lawyer gave her was “Trust no one.”
Hours six, seven, and eight recounted each and every moment of the seventeen failed interviews, including the one time Alyssa had essentially begged for an entry-level number-crunching job. I’m overqualified for this. You won’t have any problems with me, and even though I can’t answer these questions, I’m honest and I’ll be out of all this someday, and I’m smarter now. You won’t find a more dedicated employee. She’d stopped just short of tears that time, and far from getting hired.
Hour ten questioned the Pulse and how many times the same song could be played within a one-hour period. Hour eleven questioned why she hadn’t canceled her Sirius XM account and how much money that might have saved.
Hour thirteen was spent listening to a podcast on best interview practices, which proved singularly unhelpful. Didn’t everyone know to look an interviewer in the eye and offer a firm handshake? What about if you’re involved in the Scandal of the Century? The one that some pundits quipped made Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos look like amateur hour . . .
Hours sixteen through twenty-three were spent crashed on a lumpy mattress in a Motel Six in Rawlins, Wyoming.
Hours twenty-four through twenty-seven were spent filling out a police report and staring into her empty car.
“You didn’t unpack your car, ma’am?” was the officer’s first question. “There’s no sign of forced entry; did you even lock it?” was his last.
That was when the tears started.
Hour thirty-two was spent in a full-on self-lecture—out loud. “Everyone takes some time off during the summer. This is a summer break. By fall you’ll be cleared, back on your feet, back in Silicon Valley if you want, and back to work. You can do anything and go anywhere. You’re okay. This will not defeat you. Do not let this defeat you.”
Several hours after that were spent pondering the inconsistency between Subway salads as Alyssa found herself unable to focus on anything else.
And after another few hours of fitful sleep at a Comfort Inn, hour fifty found Alyssa, wilted in defeat, at a stop sign and a bed of daffodils at the edge of Winsome.
She stopped at the intersection and pondered the conundrum that was Winsome. None of the affluent suburbs stacked upon Chicago’s North Shore had stopped the city’s traffic, busyness, and development from creeping through them on the city’s ever-outward expansion. But little Winsome—not affluent or optimally situated—had. It sat just out of reach of those nineteenth-century carriages carrying summer residents to their holiday homes and remained a little too far north for twenty-first-century commuter comfort now.
In high school they all called it “Lose-some,” but today her heart lifted at the sight of the stop sign at North and Westover. She felt hungry for Winsome’s stability and familiarity. Nothing ever changed in Winsome. Not the stores. Not the traditions. Not the people.
She could find her footing here. She could live with her dad at his apartment, get a job, perhaps waiting tables at her best friend’s restaurant, and build up a cushion while looking for work. She shook her head, wondering why she’d waited so long to come home. It was perfect—an unchanging, welcoming, soft landing spot.