When the falls came into view, Trip asked, “So what will you do if they pass on your idea?”
“Get some gig work to tide me over. Decide which toy fairs I want to go to. Think about updating my website. Keep pitching.”
She didn’t bother to explain she’d charged this whole trip on a credit card that was already carrying a significant balance. Paying that off would be a victory in itself.
The volume of the cascading water forced both of them to raise their voices.
“Maybe you’re not thinking big enough,” he said, leaning in so his mouth was close to her ear.
“Big for me would be to license it myself, but I don’t have much of a track record, so if they like it and they offer to buy it outright—”
“Do you want to sell it to them?”
“I have other ideas. And who knows? Maybe this one’s no good, and it’s better to let someone else take the financial hit.”
“Do you really think the idea’s no good?”
“Honestly? No, but I need investors and stuff. My parents certainly don’t have that kind of cash. My mom teaches community college, and my dad is the operations manager for a construction company.”
“What if I offered to be your first investor?”
She could now barely hear him over the roaring falls, but she would have had a delayed reaction even in a quiet room. Her excitement at the words was tempered by a sudden stab of suspicion.
“Are you serious?” she asked, hardly able to process his words.
Trip nodded.
“We just met, and now you want to give me money? I like you a lot, Trip, but . . .”
But what kind of guy offered someone money in the morning? What kind of girl took it? Her head was spinning, and the motion of the boat and the noise of the falls made it even harder to think clearly.
“But what? Tell me what you’re worried about.”
“You’re kind of freaking me out. Is this what you do? You just hand out checks?”
The falls were fully in view, frothing white cataracts that held the rapt attention of the two dozen other people on board. But Trip stared only at her.
“If I could front you something, ten or twenty thousand to start, would that give you the breathing room to take yourself seriously?”
Lark shook her head. “Yes, of course. But is this a date or a business meeting? I have no idea if I want to see you again—if you want to see me—so adding money to the equation just makes it weird.”
“It’s only weird if we make it weird. The business side of the arrangement will be just that.”
“And the personal side?”
“Totally separate.”
Lark stared at him, unable to process it.
He squeezed her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “Zero pressure. Think about it. And see what happens in your meeting later. But don’t miss the view.”
They turned and looked as the boat sailed into the mist boiling off the falls. Her face and fingers felt cold and raw, but inside she was burning up.
Wrapping their arms around each other’s crinkly plastic ponchos, they hugged tightly as the water poured down around them.
As the boat chugged away, a ray of sun broke through the clouds and made a dazzling rainbow, prompting oohs and aahs and scattered applause from the other passengers.
“That is gorgeous,” said Trip. “Do you want to take a selfie? I understand if you want to keep this private.”
She took a breath, considering. “I’m single. You’re . . . you’re single, right?”
“As can be.”
Feeling light and happy, laughing, she nodded. They took selfies with both of their phones. Trip shared his on Instagram, which he confessed was new to him—he had “never been much of a social media guy but decided to try”—and she shared hers on Instagram and Twitter. Neither of them was on Facebook. They followed each other on Instagram and then stowed their phones before the water ruined them completely.
Her caption, because she wanted to play it cool and not give too much away, was, Sometimes you go to a business meeting and end up on a boat with a new friend.
She didn’t see his until she was waiting at the gate for her flight to board.
People say you can’t find the end of the rainbow. Not true.
Chapter Two
JESSICA
It’s not who you are now, but who you have the guts to become.
—“How I Lied about My Name and Discovered My Truth,” a TED Talk by Jon M. Wright
Spontaneous. Adventurous. Intrepid.
Three adjectives no one would ever have associated with Jessica Meyers.
Calculating, cautious, and circumspect had always been her jam.
Yet here she was in Chicago, for the first time ever, creeping around the truck that blocked the one open spot on the street in front of her new place in Lakeview. The building, a converted three-story warehouse made of rough gray stone, was a far cry from the charming redbrick walk-up she’d envisioned. Then again, after Jon told her he’d signed the lease, she had promised him she wouldn’t google the address, that she’d let the whole experience unfold spontaneously. And why not? The last year and a half had shown her that sometimes life’s unpredictability was better than anything you could plan for yourself.
Jessica pulled into the lot behind the building, which seemed far too small to accommodate every resident. The only two open spaces were located beneath a sign warning: ASSIGNED PARKING ONLY! WE TOW IMMEDIATELY! Stopping in front of the dumpster, she jotted a note saying she was moving in, flipped on her hazards, grabbed a laundry basket full of clothes, and hoped for the best. Despite the circumstances and the blustery weather, it was hard not to be hopeful as she took the key out of her purse. Jon had overnighted it to her in a box gift wrapped with a repeating pattern of colorful little houses and tied with a bow.
The tag hanging from the key was scribbled with his adorably illegible writing:
The key is to let your heart rule your head.
He knew her too well.
Little about her current reality tracked with the life plan she’d written in fifth grade for a class assignment. The essay, which she’d titled What I’m Destined to Be and Why (it had earned her an A-plus), had ameliorated an already budding concern about her future by providing an easy-to-follow blueprint: Good grades in high school! Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or best possible college! Medical school! Doctor who helps kids with cancer!!!
Other than a storybook wedding, which her recklessly confident grade school self had planned for the day after med school graduation—having failed to take into account the aching loneliness that endless study, impossible hours, and the grind of residency would exact on her ability to find a suitable mate—Jessica had followed her childhood plan to a T.
And then Jonathan Wright III, MD, PhD, had come along and shattered her painstakingly curated black-and-white reality, offering an opportunity to cross the last item off her list in an entirely different way than she’d imagined. Charming, brilliant, and rich, he’d recruited her for his hush-hush start-up, a private-equity moon shot developing an easy-to-swallow diagnostic tool to detect childhood cancers before Stage 0 and save untold thousands of young lives.
Though she’d been attracted to him the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, the idea they might actually fall in love had been the furthest thing from her mind. Sitting in an auditorium at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix while he shared his audacious vision, she’d been focused on his brilliance. A chance meeting at the reception following his lecture had sparked a connection that was undeniably electric. The days they’d spent together were the most alive she’d ever felt—the weeks apart made that much harder once she knew what she was missing.