By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(5)

Izzy and Priya walked into their hotel room and turned to each other with huge grins on their faces. There were palm trees and sunshine, right outside their hotel room. When Izzy had seen the Pacific Ocean out the window of the airplane as they’d descended into Los Angeles, she’d determined that she was going to enjoy this trip, no matter what.

Izzy unzipped her suitcase, and Priya laughed.

“You know we’re only here for four days, right? I thought I packed a lot!”

Izzy shrugged. “I like to be prepared.” Okay, sure, she’d definitely overpacked, but still, she liked to have options! Clothes for the conference, all her favorite pairs of pajamas so she could truly enjoy this hotel room, the workout clothes she knew she wouldn’t wear but had packed anyway, a few sundresses out of sheer optimism that she’d get outside and have a chance to experience LA weather and not just hotel-ballroom air conditioning, the notebooks that she brought everywhere out of habit, even though she hadn’t written in them in months, a few pairs of flats, and…yeah, nope, she was definitely not going to work out, she’d forgotten to pack her sneakers. Oh well.

Izzy looked around the room and sighed a little. She wished she’d had her own hotel room. She loved Priya, but after living with her parents for the past three years, she just wanted a place for at least a few days where she wasn’t sharing space—or a bathroom!—with anyone.

After an afternoon where they’d both run back and forth and back and forth across a convention center at least a dozen times, Izzy and Priya returned to their room to change for the conference cocktail party.

As Izzy swiped some lipstick on, Priya grinned at her.

“I, for one,” Priya said, “am ready for some free wine and tiny snacks. Are you?”

That sounded absolutely fantastic.

“I definitely am.” She checked out Priya’s outfit—a deep red dress, huge dangly gold earrings, and flat gold sandals. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re devastatingly beautiful?”

Priya tossed her hair so her earrings jangled. “I was just about to say the same thing to you.”

They both cracked up. A very drunk guy at a bar a few months before had told them each, separately, that she was devastatingly beautiful, and they’d been trading the compliment ever since.

“But really, that lipstick is amazing. Hot pink is good on you. And obviously I love the dress.”

Izzy smiled as she looked at herself in the mirror. She liked this dress too. Priya had helped her buy it last summer. It was color-blocked, red and pink—a combination that she hadn’t been sure she could pull off until Priya had gasped in glee when she’d come out of the dressing room. But Priya had been right, these colors looked great against her brown skin, especially with the hot-pink lipstick.

“I figure we’re in California, might as well wear something other than black.” She tucked one of her braids back into her big topknot and slung her badge over her neck. Okay, she was ready. “Come on, let’s get there before people eat all the good snacks.”

They made a beeline for the bar as soon as they walked into the cocktail party and managed to immediately snag glasses of the cheap white wine the bar was serving. Izzy turned around to tell Priya they should go find some of their other friends from TAOAT—and the snacks—when she came face-to-face with Josephine Henry.

“Isabelle, hello,” Josephine said. “So nice to see you again.”

“Hi, Josephine,” Izzy said. Did she sound normal? Probably not. She’d wondered, too often, how different things might be for her if she’d gotten that editorial assistant job with Josephine instead of with Marta. How much better Josephine would have been as a mentor, how much more she would have learned, how much more comfortable she’d be about speaking up.

Maybe none of this would be the case. Who knew? Maybe this was all about the grass being greener on the other side. But she didn’t think so.

Izzy shifted her wineglass from one hand to another and tried to look casual. “It’s great to see you,” she said. “How are you?”

Josephine smiled at her. “I’ll definitely be better once I have a glass of wine, you know how the first days of these things are, so rushed and busy.” She glanced down at Izzy’s name tag. “Oh, that’s right, you’re over at TAOAT now. Who are you working for?”

Priya melted away. She knew Izzy’s history with Josephine.

“Marta Wallace.” Izzy gestured to the room. “She’s here somewhere.”

Josephine laughed. “I’m sure I’ll run into her at some point tonight. It’s always so funny at these things—we all work just blocks from one another in New York, and yet we’re on the other side of the country and I run into people I haven’t seen in nine months.”

The bartender handed Josephine a glass of wine, and she nodded her thanks. Izzy started to back away—she assumed Josephine would need to go talk to more important people. But instead, Josephine stepped to the side and motioned for Izzy to follow her.

“I haven’t seen you for a while. How’s it going for you, Isabelle?”

Izzy knew how she was supposed to respond to questions like this, what people wanted to hear. She did it all the time.

“Oh, everything is great! Busy, but a lot of fun! Working in publishing is a dream come true, and it’s so exciting to be here!”