tales of grace: no place like home

“Don’t you dare start getting ready without me!” Chloe said as I hung up the phone. She had called to let me know her plane from San Fran has just landed at BNA and she had arranged for a car and driver from our condo to pick her up. Glancing at myself in the mirror I knew we were not going to make our 8:30 pm dinner reservation. It was already 6:45 pm, I looked like hell, and Chloe barely had both feet in Tennessee. It was ok, though. The restaurant in our building was incredible and much more convenient. And I know Chloe wouldn’t dream of turning down their martinis.

In three years of living together, the last twelve days were the longest Chlo and I had been apart. We moved to Nashville together about a month ago, but she had to return to San Fran for a work trip. She was lucky enough to get hired on at A+P’s sister site, Corporation, here in Nashville, which meant she essentially got to keep doing the job she had during her internship… now she just got paid for it. Her schedule in San Fran was ridiculous, so we hadn’t had a chance to do much talking.  She hadn’t heard a thing about my first week at Non Profit.

I had been standing in my closet, staring at my clothes, for what felt like only moments, when I heard the front door open.

“Chlo!” I squealed as we embraced. Hugging her neck, I breathed in the smell of the coconut extract shampoo in her beautiful, red popular girl hair.  No one dresses for travel as impeccably as Chloe.  As she stepped back to sit down her luggage, I couldn’t help but admire her new outfit.

“Girl, I am going to miss California shopping so much,” she said. And she was right; the style of the South was very different than the West Coast, and I had some perfect examples of that just from my first week of work at Non-Profit. But just as I was getting ready to share the past week's "fashion don'ts" with her, Chloe started talking about her boyfriend, Bryson, and the dates they went on in California. I instinctively flinched. Was Chloe saying that she had time in San Fran to go out with Bryson multiple times, but she was too busy working to catch up with me, her BFF?

Chloe's recapping of her romantic escapades lasted the whole two hours it took us to get ready. As we finally made our way down to the bar, I reminded her that I had just had my first week at work. “All week was new hire orientation,” I explained, “which means we watched videos on equal employment and drug free work environments. Most of the people there are really nice. There is this one girl, Charity, who seems super sweet. She invited me to bring my lunch one day and eat in the staff lounge with her so that we could get to know each other.”

“Bring your lunch to the staff lounge? What is this…elementary school?” Chloe chortled. “My new supervisor is taking me to The Cat Bird Seat Monday evening for my first day in the Nashville office. The only thing more outrageous then their menu is the wait list to even get into the place.  Did they even treat you to a fabulous anything on your first day?!”

Silently, I shook my head as Chloe snapped at the bartender for her martini to be freshened.  “That just doesn’t make sense to me,” she said with a toss of her hair. “Treating a new hire to dinner and drinks is just proper etiquette.”  

I squared my shoulders, and with a twinkle in my eye retorted in my best faux Southern drawl, "Dah-ling, we're not in Kansas anymore."

Chloe let out a high peel of laughter. "It sounds like that is exactly where you are."