Finding Fraser (2 page)

Facing the Future…

11:30 pm, February 15

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Well.

My first blog post.

I have to admit to being a little
nervous. About the writing I mean. Actually, I’m nervous about the whole thing——this
whole adventure. But the writing…I don’t know. I’ve never been trendy, so maybe
that’s why this is working for me now. Now that the rest of the world has moved
on to Twitter and Pinterest and Tumblr, it’ll just be me and my travel blog.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s a travel blog. Until yesterday, I was night manager at
the Hitchhiker’s Coffee Bar in midtown Chicago.

Today, everything has changed.

I’ve decided to go on a quest. A quest to
find a living, breathing, twenty-first century warrior who will fight off every
villain life can throw at us to remain stalwart by my side. And since I don’t
have anyone able——or willing——to travel with me, this
is the next best thing. To share with you, my readers, all my adventures.

Let’s see what happens, shall we?

- Emma Sheridan

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I
closed the lid of my laptop.
One post and I was
sick of my online persona already. Who was this falsely cheery person? She
sounded like she knew what she was doing.

Let’s see what happens? More like “Let’s
document the debacle.” Or … “Let’s have some kind of a record so that the
police know where to look when I disappear on this ill-fated potential disaster.”

My birthday is February 14th. Which, this
year, was yesterday. Now, when I was a kid, it was kind of a double-win. Cake,
presents AND valentine chocolate all in one day? Total bonus.

But something changed as I got older. The
first year of middle school, I was excited. I brought the usual bag filled with
paper valentines to class, only to find some invisible force—one that I
could not hope to tap into—had declared them uncool. High school was
worse and by the time I made it to my twenties, I began to face the day with
something like dread. If I had a boyfriend at the time, it was usually fine.
Still, out of the nine birthdays I have lived through in my twenties, I’ve had
a boyfriend for only two of them. I also had a husband for one, but that
birthday was the worst of all.

Until now.

Yesterday, I turned 29. No valentine
chocolate. Three cards: a birthday card from my sister, one from my friend
Jazmin—and a valentine from my bank. Apparently they’d “love” to send me
a new credit card at a reduced rate … ‘specially for me.

As of yesterday, I also had a boss who went
ballistic when he found out I was adding free shots of chocolate to people’s
mochas in honor of the day.

I guess I should say … Ex-boss.

Look, I know there must be other people in
the same situation. Valentine’s Day is a particularly lonely day to turn
twenty-nine. It shouldn’t be worse than having a birthday on Christmas, right? Statistically,
at least 1/365th (which my calculator tells me is 0.274%) of the world’s
population must at least have a chance of sharing my birthday. But it doesn’t
feel like it’s the case at all.

What it feels like … is something has to
change. Something big. I’m not sure what this is going to look like. I’m
scared.

But I’m going.

Fond Farewells…

7:45 pm, February 16

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Saying goodbye is hard. My parents live
down south, but I have siblings in the city.
A
sibling, anyway. But farewells are just part of a new adventure,
right?

Right?

- Emma S

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My
sister loves me.
I’m sure she does. But we come
from practical stock: good, solid English grandparents, sensible and organized
parents. She’s true to her roots. My more — ah—
unique
ideas have never met with her approval.

The conversation we had earlier today did
not
go well.

 
“Emma,
you are completely, entirely, without-a-doubt, batshit crazy.”

“I’m not crazy. I just—I just need to
do this, Soph. I’m not asking for your approval.”

“You wouldn’t get it if you were.” She held
up a finger. “In the first place, you’ve hardly been anywhere, and never on
your own.”

“Then it’s high time I tried it, right?”

She glanced over her shoulder, pushed her
chair back and closed her office door. Behind the glass walls, sensible people
buzzed by, doing sensible, salary-earning work and living sensible lives. With
Sophia that worked up, I was relieved I hadn’t mentioned the whole
searching-for-Jamie blog thing when I said I was leaving. No need to stir the
pot even further.

Luckily, my sister is not an Internet
time-waster. There are not, in her words, enough hours in the day to “squander
a single minute reading the uneducated drivel produced by people with too much
time on their hands.” All the better.

But I digress.

My sister is a broker. (Funny, really,
considering I’ve always been the broker one …) Sophia’s position as CFO of
Angst & Argot was hard-won, and as a rule, she doesn’t tolerate
interruptions in her day. But when I’d emailed her with my plans, she’d called
me immediately and insisted I stop by her office.

“Look,” she continued, perching on the
corner of her desk in her Ann Taylor suit, “I know you’ve been struggling at
work. And … I’m sorry the thing with Egon didn’t work out.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’re sorry? You
were against my relationship with Egon from the start. ‘He’s a graphic artist,
Emma. He drinks lattes, for Christ’s sake. And what kind of name is Egon,
anyway? It’s the name of a flake. He’s nothing but a latte-drinking hipster
artist flake.’”

She shrugged, and directed her gaze out at
the 38
^th
-floor vista. The Chicago skyline had the dark and lowering
look it often has in February, reminding us resident mortals that winter isn’t
even half done with us yet. My sister blinked at me. “All I’m saying is that no
matter how bad things are at home, it’ll get better.”

That made me snort. “I’m not struggling with
my sexuality here, Sophia. I’m not suicidal.”

“Egon was all wrong for you, Em. You just
need to find the right man. If it’s about a guy, why not try Internet dating
again? Didn’t you meet Egon online? You can find someone without leaving the
country.”

“This is not about a man,” I said, waving my
hand as dismissively as I could manage. “I’m just going to leave town for a
while.”

“On a fool’s errand. A journey to nowhere.”

“Scotland is not nowhere. It’s a viable
tourist destination.”

It was her turn to make a disgusting nasal
sound.

“Maybe in July. Take a look out there, Emma.
It’s the dead of winter, and
we’re
in
a civilized country. In Scotland, it’ll be sleet and snow and no sun for six
more months at least. If you’re going to run away, why not head for the Caribbean?
Maybe you’ll meet a rich guy who’ll make you forget all about Egon and his
penchant for teenagers.”

That was hard to take sitting down, so I
stood up.

It was hard to take standing up, too, but by
that time, I’d at least thought of a response.

“Tiffany’s twenty, and he’s welcome to her,“
I retorted. “Anyway, the whole thing with Egon was over almost a year ago. And
I don’t want to go to the Caribbean for a fling. I’m almost thirty. I’m
embracing my agency as a woman. I need to see if I can have an actual life
experience.”

Sophia slammed her fist down on the desk. It
looked like a gesture a CEO would make. I think maybe she’d been practicing. “I
knew it! This idea has midlife crisis written all over it. Listen, Emma, what
you should be doing right now is finding a decent job and solidifying your financial
portfolio. You’re half way to retirement age. You can’t start ticking things
off your bucket list when you don’t even own a bucket.”

She was, of course, depressingly correct.
Half way to retirement, and I’ve never even held a job that offered benefits.
But I was disinclined to remind her of that fact, and anyway, there was no
arguing with my sister when she was on a roll. That she’s two years younger
than I am didn’t help, either.

So I began to nod—and back away,
slowly. “Okay, Soph. I’ll think about it, I swear.”

Her phone rang, and she held up a hand.
“Wait a sec, I’ll just put this on hold.
Sophia
Sheridan, here
—
”

But as soon as she picked up the phone, I
waved back, smiled apologetically, gave her the universal finger-thumb gesture
that I would call her—and bolted.

She didn’t need to know that I hadn’t exactly
quit
my job. Or that I was in the
process of selling everything I owned.

Feeling Fine…

1:00 am, February 17

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Warm family good-byes are behind me, and
preparations for the trip are well underway. Scotland, here I come!

- ES

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