Having to give up Chelsea was a hard thing for Kyle to accept. He really didn’t want to do it; he liked her and liked what she represented. He’d never had fun with a woman like he’d had with her, never had a better lover. She was all the woman he could have ever dreamed of, and then some. It would be hard to top her, or even come close to her.

But facts were facts. They were far apart, and it would be difficult to get together at the best of times, and when they did it wouldn’t be for long.

Kyle knew of a few couples who had been able to survive long-term separations. One of the married girls in his office often told stories of when her husband had been in the Army Reserves and deployed to Iraq for months on end. She’d worried about him every day and she knew he was in no little danger all the time he was in the sandbox. But they had been a solid couple, and they still remained one. But then, he knew of more such stories that had gone the other way, too.

As Kyle thought about that over the course of the next several weeks, he realized that he and Chelsea hadn’t had the time to build up that degree of solidity. The way they had been going, a few more months would have made all the difference in the world – but they just hadn’t had those few months. Now, it seemed like she was farther away than ever, and there was little chance that Humpty Dumpty would be put back together again.

The hell of it was that he’d come to agree that she was right. It wasn’t hopeless, but it was increasingly unlikely, and maybe he’d be better off to find another girl, one who wouldn’t make waves with his parents just by her very existence. That made sense in his head, but his heart was slow to follow along on that logic.

Whatever happened, he still wanted to stay friends with Chelsea if for no more reason than she was a friend and he cared about her. At first they called and talked almost every night, but as time went on he slowly began to realize that they didn’t have much to talk about beyond themselves. He could talk about what had happened or hadn’t happened at the plant, and she could do the same for the library. They could talk about the weather – it was nicer in South Carolina than it was in Michigan, but not all that much nicer; the trees still lost their leaves, and as autumn progressed it got colder down there, occasionally with frost.

As the realization came on them that there really wasn’t much to say, their phone calls became shorter and shorter, and after a few weeks had passed, fewer and fewer. It started by missing a night once in a while, but as Thanksgiving approached they were only talking on the phone once or twice a week. They e-mailed each other, too – if they happened to come across some cute thing being e-mailed around by friends they would pass it on if they thought the other one might be interested. Sometimes such forwarded e-mails contained a brief letter, sometimes no more than two or three sentences about this or that thing they found amusing, but in time those extra notes became shorter and shorter, too.

Although his heart wasn’t in it, Kyle did at least look around a little to see if there were any women he might be interested in, but of course none of them came close to measuring up to Chelsea. There were a couple of women in the plant office he thought he might we willing to take on a date or something, but he rejected them before he ever even got to the point of asking. One, although she wasn’t bad looking in her way, was much too well-fed for his taste; another, a divorcee, was always complaining about her ex and her kids. It didn’t take long for Kyle to realize her ex may have had a damn good reason for leaving her, and the extra baggage represented by the kids seemed to be a little too much for him, anyway.

In time, Thanksgiving rolled around. By now Kyle was back on speaking terms with his folks, but barely. He’d left the call blocking on his phones, mostly because he was still aggravated at the way they had first pushed him into introducing Chelsea to them, and then rejecting her. The last time he’d talked to them, they’d invited him up to the house for Thanksgiving, but there was no way he was going to do it. He made a lame excuse, and figured he’d break out a turkey TV dinner for the holiday.

He didn’t; he happened to read in the local paper that a local woman was organizing a Thanksgiving dinner for people who had no family in the area. He didn’t really feel like he was that lost, but called her up and offered to help out with the cooking and such, which mostly amounted to the same thing without showing quite as much hopelessness about it. The dinner was good – probably better than his mother would have made – but it wasn’t the same thing. There had been the vain hope that he might meet a girl there he could get friendly with, but it didn’t happen. Most of the people at the meal were elderly, and the only women around his age were obviously happily married but also happy to volunteer for the festivities.

As it worked out, he went back to his apartment feeling even lonelier than he had been before he left. When he was home, he called Chelsea; it turned out that a local family had invited her to their dinner and she’d had a good time with them, so even she had a better day than he had. He spent the rest of the long weekend feeling dismal, feeling like he ought to get out and go somewhere and do something, but he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do.

He went back to work on Monday morning with one thought in mind: it was time to get out of Wychbold. In fact, it had been time for a while, but now he felt a little more determined to do something about it.

Essentially, he knew he faced the same problem he had back when he’d first considered the notion, back when the thought of Chelsea moving to Arlington had been a dark but distant cloud on the horizon. The problem was whether to look around for something much closer to where she was, or go elsewhere, possibly in a lateral transfer inside Mercer-Howe Manufacturing.

The first option was clearly the more appealing, to move down somewhere close to Arlington. Not too close; it seemed clear that Chelsea didn’t want knowledge of her relationship with her boyfriend to get too public within the town. But fairly close, say with fifty or a hundred miles or so was definitely a possibility – Columbia, Greenville, Charlotte, and Augusta all fell within a reasonable footprint. But a lot of evening web surfing mostly turned up a lot of nothing. Oh, there were a few jobs where he might be a fit, but only a few; most of them were entry-level jobs like he had now, and in general the pay didn’t even come up to what he was making at Mercer-Howe.

On the other hand, if he didn’t want to get close to where Chelsea was living, the possibilities were better, especially if he stayed with Mercer-Howe. One of the things that had appealed to him in the beginning about the company was a stated personnel policy to promote from within the company whenever possible, rather than bringing in people from the outside over the heads of those who had earned a promotion. Kyle had heard plenty of horror stories about companies where the management showed no loyalty to its workers, but from his limited experience Mercer-Howe was not one of them. What was more, they had several plants and offices around the country, although, a little sadly in his case, none to speak of in the Southeast.

If he couldn’t come up with something within the company, then the prospects were even greater. Where in the country might he like to go? He’d heard good things about the Pacific Northwest, say Seattle or Portland, and he knew from at least a little looking that there might be some prospects for him there.

But nothing had to be done right now; he could wait a while until the right deal came along.

Thus far, he hadn’t told Chelsea anything about his thinking on any of this, and he wasn’t sure he was going to until it was a done deal. Partly it was because the idea was a bit ephemeral; he wasn’t sure it was going to come off. He wasn’t sure why he felt the way he did, but at least part of it stemmed from the fact that she had in a practical sense run off and abandoned him without consulting him beforehand. It probably wouldn’t have mattered if she had since she had been looking before they had even met, but it had been presented to him as a done deal before she had even thought to ask his input.

Besides, he wasn’t sure how much she mattered anymore. Sure, he missed her and would rather have been with her, or had her close at hand, but with every day that passed it looked more and more like it was never going to happen. Even she had told him he ought to find another girlfriend elsewhere, and he had pretty well made up his mind that Wychbold wasn’t the place to initiate a search.

So he was especially down in the dumps on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Things were slow that morning; the company was still picking back up after the long weekend. The first thing in the morning he made a quick pass through his e-mail, and picked out a few important items from among the normal spam and company bulletins. There was nothing much there, but there were a few items he figured he might go back through a little more carefully when he had cleared away some things on his desk that needed to be dealt with first.

It was late in the morning before he got around to it. He deleted the spam of course, but took a little more careful look at the company bulletins. Most of them were about as useful as the spam, but after a few he came across one titled, “Position Announcement.” Really being in the mood to get out of Wychbold, he clicked on it, and to his amazement it was an announcement of a position open in the Fort Collins, Colorado, office for a senior purchasing and expediting agent with a strong background in quality control. It was a job that was right down his alley, and seemed to require about the level of knowledge and experience he had!

The salary range was pretty good, too – the low figure was well above what he was making now.

Much more interested now, he quickly searched for Fort Collins on the web and was even more impressed. It was right by the Front Range of the Rockies, with the mountains rising in the background. The temperature range was similar to Wychbold, although a bit warmer; rainfall was a lot less, so it was drier. It was home to Colorado State University, and frequently made lists of the best places to live in the country. It was, admittedly, a little bigger town than Kyle thought he might be comfortable in, but only a little bigger. Frankly, it seemed like a hell of a lot nicer place than Wychbold, Michigan, or Arlington, South Carolina.

This was definitely worth checking out!

He was still scanning through the web page when he heard the voice of his boss, Mike Wells, at the opening to his cubicle. “Hey, Kyle,” he said. “Did you catch that position announcement posting in Fort Collins in the company e-mail circular this morning?”

“I was just looking at it, and it looks pretty good. I was wondering if I have a chance at it.”

“I think you’d stand an excellent chance at it. If you’re willing to make the move to Colorado, you’d be a fool to not take a shot at it. If I read it correctly, a guy by the name of Bob Ross is still in charge in the department there, and he’s one of the good guys. I’d give you the best recommendation I could.”

“It does sound interesting. You think I could handle it?”

“I’m sure you could. If anything, you’re overqualified for it, and I can tell you that there won’t be any promotion for you here very soon, just because there won’t be any openings for your expertise in the next few years. I mean, it would be my job that we’d have to be talking about and I don’t plan on leaving at least until the kids are out of school. I know Fort Collins is a long way away, but it’s a hell of a nice town and has one of the best plants in the company. Hop on this one, Kyle. It’s worth it.”

It didn’t take much more of a sales job than that – from Wells, his immediate boss – to have Kyle pulling up his résumé and updating it. Within a couple of hours it was on its way by e-mail, and a hard copy to follow. This looked like a real, serious opportunity.

Kyle thought about it after he went home that evening. One thing that a town the size of Fort Collins would have would be plenty of opportunities to meet women. It had been very hard in Wychbold, and except for Chelsea, he’d never had much luck at it. It seemed like the only possibilities were to hang around bars or hang around churches, and Kyle had always figured he wouldn’t want to have much to do with a woman he met in either place.

He also decided to keep this news to himself, at least until the prospect became a reality. Part of it was a little bit of irrational bitterness about the way Chelsea had handled the news of her getting the job in Arlington; it may have been small of him, but he felt he she couldn’t complain too much if he returned the favor.

He also didn’t want to tell his folks about it because he didn’t want their advice, not after the way they’d acted about Chelsea. That still ground at him, and more than a little, not that it would have changed anything either way. Wychbold hadn’t proved to be far enough away from them to live his own life, but Colorado might be.

Over a week went by, and he didn’t hear a thing. He was starting to suspect that his application had dropped into a black hole, and the posting had been sent out as a paperwork cover for a decision that had already been made, so it didn’t really mean anything. At least the announcement got him thinking a little more seriously about moving on, since he’d taken to heart the news he’d already long suspected, that there would be no promotion for him in Wychbold anytime soon. He wasn’t exactly breaking his neck looking, but he was a little more serious about it.

One afternoon the week after he’d send out the résumé, he got a call in his office. He didn’t expect it was much of anything, probably just news on an order that had recently been placed and wasn’t due in for a while, but he picked up the phone and said, “Kyle Murray.”

“Kyle, I’m glad I caught you,” a voice on the other end of the phone said. “This is Bob Ross at Mercer-Howe in Fort Collins. I see you sent in a résumé on a position we have open out here.”

Holy crap! Kyle thought. This is real! “Yes, I did,” he replied, trying keep from sounding too excited. “It sounded like something I might be interested in.”

“Well, we’d like to talk to you about it,” Ross replied. “Could you make it out here the first of the week? We’ll pick up the travel expenses, of course.”

“I’m pretty sure I can. I’ll have to ask my supervisor, though. I can either put you on hold for a moment, or call you right back.”

“Go and ask him, and tell Mike I said hello.”

Kyle hit the hold button on his phone, and was out of his chair like a shot. It wouldn’t be fair to say he ran to Mike’s office, but it was a very quick walk. “I just got a call from Bob Ross,” he announced. “They want me out there for an interview the first of the week.”

“Go for it, and tell Bob hello from me, would you?”

In only a couple of minutes everything was set. After Kyle got off the phone he went back to Mike’s office. “It’s a go,” he reported. “One o’clock on Monday.”

“Good. I told Bob the other day you were a good worker and had potential for the future. This could be a good move for you, Kyle. From what Bob told me, I don’t want to say you’re a shoo-in for the job, but I think the chances are very good. If you do get it, there’s room for you to grow out there. Don’t feel you have to hurry back. If it looks promising, you might want to take a look at the apartment situation while you’re there. It’s a college town so there are probably lots of them, but they might be a little on the pricey side, too.”

“Yeah, sure. I can do that, if you don’t mind.”

“Look, one thing. I’d really like to have you here for the end-of-the-year reports, but if they need you out there sooner, don’t let the reports here stand in your way. I don’t know how anxious they are to have you there, but the holiday season is a tough time to move.”

The prospect of a new job in Colorado had Kyle on a high he hadn’t felt since well before Chelsea left. He felt he needed to get ready for the interview in every way he could, so on Saturday he drove down to Fort Wayne and invested over four hundred dollars on a new suit. His hair had been getting a little shaggy, and he’d known he needed a haircut, so while he was there he found a quality hair stylist and had it trimmed back. When he looked at himself in the mirror he hoped he looked very businesslike.

Very early on Monday morning he was in the pickup, heading for Midway Airport in Chicago. He’d never had any reason to fly very much and some of it was a little strange and confusing, but after a long wait he was squeezed into a tiny seat aboard an airliner heading for Denver.

Approaching the airport, he got a glimpse of the high mountains to the west, with a snow line well down them – it was certainly a lot different than the relative flatlands around Wychbold. There wasn’t much snow on the ground, and even from the air he was impressed with how dry things looked; that was going to be different, too.

Before much longer he was in a rental car heading north up I-25 toward Fort Collins, drinking in the sights compared to the country around Wychbold. There wasn’t the profusion of trees he was used to in Michigan, and once again he noticed that things seemed to be pretty dry, even in the winter.

With the help of the GPS he’d brought along with him, he found the Mercer-Howe plant without difficulty, and even with stopping for a brief lunch he was there in plenty of time. The plant was considerably bigger than the one in Wychbold, which was not surprising. He knew that it was more involved in aircraft parts and subassemblies than the one in Wychbold – which dealt mostly in auto parts. It was his one real concern with the job, since he wasn’t familiar with aircraft parts, but his expertise was on the materials end of things, so maybe he didn’t need to know that much. He figured he could learn what he needed to along the way.

Bob Ross proved to be a tall, lean guy with short-cropped hair, and seemed to be pretty easy-going. They chatted for a moment about Mike, back in Wychbold – the two seemed to know each other pretty well, so Kyle thought that was a point in his favor – then turned to the ins and outs of purchasing for Mercer-Howe.

It went well enough that Kyle was introduced to a larger group for a bigger interview; there were more questions, but he thought he handled them adequately. After a while, he was asked to step out of the room. Kyle complied of course, but he figured that his future was the topic of discussion. He didn’t have to wait outside long before Bob stuck his head out of the door and called him back in and asked him to sit back down at the table.

“Kyle,” Bob started, “We’ve talked it over, and we agree you’re the best candidate for the job. I’ve known Mike for a long time, and I trust him, so when he said you were a good fit for this job I listened to him. So we’d like to offer you the position.” He named a starting salary considerably above the minimum on the position posting, one that would be hard to turn down.

“That ought to work out just fine,” Kyle told him. “I expect it’s a little more expensive to live out here, but that should more than make up the difference.”

“Good. Realistically, Kyle, we need you out here as soon as possible. I know the holidays are a lousy time to move, but is there any chance you could settle up affairs in the Wychbold plant and be out here right after the first of the year?”

“Mike and I talked about that. He’d like me to be around for the annual inventory closing right at the first of the year, but he said it isn’t imperative. If I have to be there for that, I probably couldn’t get here before the tenth or the fifteenth.”

“How about if I call Mike up and square it with him?”

“I think he’d understand.”

“Good, I’ll do it. Thanks for coming out here, Kyle. I think we’re going to have a great future with you here.”

There was a considerable discussion about the details of the move, and a bit about the job – he’d have an office, rather than the cubicle he had in Wychbold, and would have an administrative assistant and two other expediters. That was a step up in the world, too.

Kyle spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the town, just to get a feel for it. While it was a big town, there were some small-town elements to it that made him think he’d be able to fit in there pretty well. He had a dinner in Sotelo’s Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant downtown, and it was superb – the best Mexican food he’d ever tasted.

The next day he went looking for an apartment, and turned up a nice one fairly quickly. It was within a couple miles of the plant, not much farther than he had to commute in Wychbold. The price was less than he had been expecting, and two-bedroom apartments were only slightly higher than single-bedrooms. He wasn’t sure what he’d want the extra space for, but the rooms were small, and he figured he could use one as a home computer room, or just for a place to dump stuff, so he took one of the bigger ones, which was on the ground floor. The rest of the day was spent in making various arrangements like electricity, cable TV, internet, and phone access.

There was no reason he couldn’t head back to Michigan on Wednesday, so he did. Once again, he was squeezed into the seat of a rather crowded airplane, but it gave him time to think. He was satisfied and even excited about the new job in a new town, but not unexpectedly, he was having some mild second thoughts about the whole idea.

His biggest doubt was about Chelsea. Even though he would be much farther away from her, it was only a couple more hours on an airplane than it would have been to go see her from Wychbold, and that was something he thought he could handle.

Besides, it was seeming more and more that she didn’t matter much any longer. He hadn’t seen her in over two months now, and even their phone calls and e-mails were dwindling. The prospects for finding someone new seemed much better in Fort Collins than they had in Wychbold – and that was even ignoring the fact that Fort Collins was a college town. He wasn’t so old that he wouldn’t be willing to take up with the right college student.

And, if he couldn’t find anyone, it would probably be as easy to be lonely in Fort Collins as it was in Wychbold.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.