No. No, she decided firmly. She didn’t need Maggie’s opinion or anyone else’s: even addressing her feelings would just indulge this silly infatuation.
It occurred to her as she put Casey’s leash away and opened her laptop that there might be another way. “Information is power”, after all, and where better to gather it than on the information superhighway? It wouldn’t hurt to know a little bit more about him. Perhaps she would find something so objectionable it would immediately reverse her inconvenient, fledgling feelings.
She decided to Google him.
Sitting Indian-style on her loveseat, she pulled the laptop onto her lap, shaking off the voice in her head that chastised her as a voyeuristic busybody. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
She typed SAM KELLEY into the Google search bar. Wow. Who knew so many people were named “Sam Kelley?” She narrowed it down by typing SAM KELLEY CHICAGO.
Hmm. LinkedIn. A sportswriter? Probably not. He hadn’t mentioned sports once. Hmm…Mutual Trust Associates. She clicked on the link.
Sam’s handsome face stared back at her from the screen in a formal black-and-white photo. He was dressed sharply in a suit jacket and tie over a crisp, white dress shirt. His hair was slicked back like an actor from the movie Wall Street, and he wore a reserved smile, which was direct yet approachable at once. Under the photo was his title—Vice President, Mutual Trust— and a short bio about his education and experience.
Jenny combed over the brief paragraph. He had gone to the University of Chicago where he graduated with a B.S. in Economics in 2004 and it looked like he had worked at Mutual Trust for about seven years; she counted back in her head and guessed his age at 28 or 29. He had received his last promotion about a year and a half ago, making him one of the youngest vice presidents in MTA’s history. It said he had initiated his group’s entry into cutting-edge active quantitative strategies and called him “one of the rising stars” at MTA.
Jenny smiled and even felt a little bit proud of him. He must be pretty smart.
She stared at his face, feeling her own soften in pleasure, and wondered if she could find more pictures of him. Clicking on the word Images on the Google toolbar, she waited until a page of tiny thumbnail photos came up. The first picture was the black-and-white one she had just seen on his company’s website. There were several other photos of various unfamiliar faces, and then…
A thumbnail of Sam in a tuxedo, with a stunning woman beside him. Jenny’s heart leapt in her chest, and she clicked on the tiny picture. She was redirected to a photographer’s website: Joseph Grant Photography – 2012 Fall Charity Gala at Navy Pier. She scrolled down until she found the picture again.
It was Sam, all right, looking more handsome than she could have imagined in a tuxedo with his hair gelled back and a devastatingly beautiful woman by his side. If a picture was worth a thousand words, their body language said it all. He had his arm around her and Jenny could see his hand holding on tightly to her waist. The woman leaned into Sam but offered a dazzling smile to the photographer. She was an inch or two shorter than Sam but still tall at around 5’10”, Jenny guessed. She had on a red silk dress that clung to her perfect body like a slip, ending just above her stylish silver high-heeled shoes. The dress had a plunging neckline that showed off her assets and a dramatic slit in the skirt that almost went up to her waist, showing her tan, toned leg underneath.
Jenny read the caption under the photo. CHICAGO’S OWN PEPPER PETTWAY WITH HER BOYFRIEND, SAM KELLEY, ATTENDS THE ANNUAL CHARITY GALA AT NAVY PIER, OCTOBER 2012.
Jenny exhaled loudly, her mind racing, at a loss for words. She had assumed Sam’s life in Chicago was more glamorous than her life in Gardiner, but she had no idea how incredibly far away their worlds were from one another until she sat staring at his girlfriend, Pepper Pettway.
She looked like a supermodel, or minimally someone very important or famous. Jenny opened another Google session and typed: PEPPER PETTWAY.
Oh, wow. Her heart sank.
50 MOST BEAUTIFUL CHICAGOANS. FOX CHICAGO SUNDAY MORNING’S, “WHAT’S THE WEATHER? WITH PEPPER”. Pepper Pettway and Sam Kelley at the Chicago Museum of Art. Pepper Pettway and Sam Kelley at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Pepper and Sam kissing on the huge HD screen at Wrigley Field, wearing matching Cubs caps. Pepper in a bright yellow skirt suit surrounded by bandaged children, reading stories at the pediatric burn unit of the University of Chicago Medical Center.
She looked like a model, she was on the TV, she wore beautiful clothes but still enjoyed a baseball game, and she volunteered her time to read stories to burned children. She’s beautiful and glamorous and she’s a good person, too.