Character Interview: Kathleen Reidy

At twenty-nine, Chelsea Lefevre’s life choices have been considered and prudent, meant to secure her on a shore far from the rocky place where she started out. Yet as Engineering a Love Story opens, the strands of Chelsea’s steady and safe life are unravelling. 

But I don’t know any of that. To me, Chelsea is simply a fellow traveler, one of many disembarking from this Orlando-to-Boston flight on the Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend 2000.

I first notice her on the jetway. Most of us are rushing, anxious to be away from the cramped plane and onto our sunny weekends. But this young woman is walking slowly, her head bent, almost as if she’s forcing herself forward. When I pass her, I catch a whiff of stale cigarettes and beer, and she’s visibly disheveled, as if she’s been on an overnight flight, though the one we’re just off only lasted three hours. 

I don’t think about her again until someone bumps me while I’m standing by the baggage carousel. I stumble, and a hand grips my elbow. “I’m so sorry!” Turning, I see the young woman from the jetway. “Are you okay?” she asks. 

I say that I am, not liking the concern I see in her face. I have a few decades on this young woman, but I can still handle a bump in the airport without physical injury. “Not a problem,” I say.

Then, peering at her more closely, I sense the worry in her face isn’t really for me. My travel now is fairly dull—this trip, for example, was spent visiting an elderly aunt. But I remember my youth and recognize the tumult this young woman appears to be in.

“How about you?” I ask, straightening myself. “Are you okay?”

The young woman startles. I sense she wants to dart away from my question. Or that she might be attempting to swallow tears. 

I hold her gaze, allowing my question to linger. 

“I’m not sure,” she says, finally, her shoulders sinking.

I make a humming noise, letting my gaze roam to the light over the carousel, the one we’re all willing to turn on and announce the arrival of our luggage. 

After a moment she puts her hand out. “I’m Chelsea. Sorry again for my clumsiness.”

I say my name and take her hand, which is so small, it feels almost like a child’s, though there’s a chunky diamond on her left ring finger. So, not a child.  

Chelsea’s face is still set in a puzzled expression. I ask if she’s visiting Boston for the long weekend. Does she need directions? Or restaurant recommendations?

But no, she says she’s not visiting. “This is home.” 

“And you were in Orlando?” 

“Yes,” she says, her voice wistful now.

“An enjoyable trip? Disney?”

“Oh, no.” She gives her head a quick shake, and there’s a small smile, the first I’ve seen on her. And she’s lovely, with the smile, a prettiness I didn’t notice at first. “It was a work thing.” 

“Ah. What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a software engineer.” 

I make a noise, impressed. “That’s the field now, isn’t it? Did you put the dot in dotcom, or whatever it is they say in all those TV ads?”

She laughs, quick and bright. “I wish. But no, I don’t even…the work I do now is kind of hard to explain.” She waves a hand, indicating she won’t say more.

“And where’s home?” I ask. “Boston proper?”

Her wistful expression returns, and I expect she’ll say yes and tell me how she adores Boston. I’m anxious to be home myself, to see what’s blooming now, all that May green.

Instead, Chelsea’s face falls a little. “I live on the North Shore?”

I watch her, my brow raised. “Do you?” She looks away, and I say, “How lovely,” because Boston’s North Shore is certainly that. 

Chelsea’s uncertainty makes me think again that she’s is in the midst of something, and I remember being in the midst of things myself. I was just about her age when I decided not to send out those wedding invitations, angering my mother in a way that turned out to be irreparable. 

“It’s always good to be home,” I say.

“Yes. Of course,” she says, but she doesn’t sound like she means it. She turns, her gaze pointing into the distance, away from the carousel, which the rest of us are watching expectantly. 

Then she says, “It’s just that somehow, all of a sudden, I have no idea what I’m doing.”

I exhale. “Ah. Well, that can happen.”  

“Can it?” Her head swings back, her eyes on my face. “Can I wreck it all and still be okay?”

I think again of my mother, the estrangement we endured until she died. And Barrett, the once-upon-a-time fiancé who, thankfully, never became my husband. 

“We all hit roadblocks,” I say. “Or…speedbumps, maybe. Forks in the road?”

“It’s just that I didn’t expect this…fork.” Chelsea shakes her head. “Like, maybe I knew it was there, off in the distance somewhere and maybe I’d reach it eventually—maybe even hoped I’d reach it, you know? But…I was on the straight-and-narrow. How did I do all the right things and end up in entirely the wrong place?” She’s quiet, and then: “It doesn’t matter anyway. Not now.”

“What doesn’t matter?”

“I went and did it. And what I want or what I think I want or whatever spirals I’m, they don’t matter. I have to go home and tell him. Confess. It’s the only way. I thought about it on the whole flight—”

The light over the luggage carousel finally flashes, its honk startling us both. Before I have a chance to say anything more, Chelsea moves away, toward the conveyor belt, which is moving now. I watch her go, surprised she hasn’t said good-bye. But she hadn’t really been speaking to me, not exactly. Her words were for herself, ones she’s likely been repeating in her mind for hours or days. Perhaps years.

When Chelsea’s bag drops onto the conveyor belt, she grabs it and is gone.

—

Kathleen Reidy is a writer and public librarian based in the Boston area. She holds a master’s degree in library science and spent more than a decade in the tech industry. Her short fiction has been published by Puddingstone Press and WayWords. She lives with her husband, daughters, and fluffy best friend. Engineering a Love Story is her first novel.

ENGINEERING A LOVE STORY

It’s the year 2000—dot-coms, Bush v. Gore, and sky-high San Francisco rents. But while the country swoons with irrational exuberance, Chelsea Lefevre’s life is deflating faster than a tech bubble.

She’d had everything she thought she was supposed to want: a house on Boston’s North Shore, exquisite wedding china, a Waspy mother-in-law. A safe, steady marriage.

But after a mortifying slip-up, Chelsea finds herself heading into the 21st century alone. Her lifeboat? A new job advising tech execs, taken to escape the misogyny she endured as a software engineer—only to discover she has a surprising knack for spotting the next hot thing.

Determined just to stay afloat, Chelsea doesn’t have time to wonder if anything beyond safe and steady is possible.

Then, on a West Coast assignment, she meets Seth Murphy, a magnetic sales executive at one of the country’s hottest startups. Professional boundaries make him off-limits, but she can’t resist his pull. What begins as a secret, casual affair soon jeopardizes Chelsea’s career, her newfound independence—and her heart.

Witty and warm, Engineering a Love Story questions how much a smart woman can risk when she’s the only female in the room.

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Category: Interviews, On Writing