章 42: It Felt Like A Dream
After dinner, people were free to do whatever they wanted for the rest of the night and some people, including Max, wanted to go sightseeing. Penelope didn't see the point since she had lived in San Francisco for two years and had already seen all the good stuff.
Nobody here would believe that though because it had happened in another world. Max probably knew where she had gone to college; it would never work.
So she let herself be dragged along to see things she had already seen multiple times. Some of the group had never been to San Francisco at all despite it being in the same state. It was quite a drive though.
Penelope and a few others acted as de facto tour guides since they had been here before. It wouldn't be questionable for her to say she had visited here before and knew some of the best things to see.
They only managed to hit Lombard Street and the Golden Gate Bridge before having to head back to the hotel to sleep because of traffic. Most people wanted to continue sightseeing every day during breaks from the conference but she bowed out of that immediately using her status as a patient.
All that walking around wore her out and she had promised both Roman and Darren that she wouldn't overdo it. Tomorrow she would use that free time to rest rather than get dragged along by her coworkers' whims.
===
The advertising conference was held in a conference center only a few miles from Penelope's old university. People from mid-sized to large advertising firms from all over the country had come out to hear panelists speak on a variety of different topics as the world's media continued to change as well as be a part of activities meant to utilize this new information.
The conference provided lunch and dinner and involved a three-hour break between the last activity and dinner, where everyone was seated separately from their groups for the sake of networking. Penelope would be able to go back to the hotel and take a nap every day if she timed it right.
She stood in front of the first exhibition hall after getting her name badge and looked around with a sense of awe. She never would have imagined herself being able to participate in anything like this.
She had to stop herself from bouncing in anticipation because that wouldn't be professional. Penelope Cross was a calm and collected businesswoman; she wouldn't be excited about seeing something that was fairly normal in her field.
That begged the question of what did excite her. Penelope had read the journals and knew they had similar tastes and opinions on a lot of things but she couldn't fathom the woman's heart at all.
If she loved her husband, why did she keep putting her job first? Why exactly did she prioritize her job so much? What had been the motivation behind drawing Roman as water and herself as fire?
It could be looked at in a variety of ways. Water and fire were typically seen as elemental opposites. She could be saying that they were too different.
Or, in a more positive way, that because he was like water he could be around her passion without getting burned. But that obviously wasn't true based on how much her inability to prioritize was hurting him.
It could also be taken negatively, like he kept trying to put out her fire by getting her to do what he wanted her to do and extinguishing her spark. That was a selfish take on it since Penelope had read about the arguments and thought he had proposed a reasonable compromise.
Their life experiences were so different that she couldn't fathom her other self's thought process. If Penelope had even a fraction of what she did, she would be sure to properly appreciate it.
Therein laid the problem. Right now she had everything Penelope Cross did but wasn't sure if she was morally allowed to enjoy it and make this foreign life her own.
That was what she had to decide while she was here. She had slightly less than a week to make her choice but the decision couldn't be made lightly. She needed to carefully consider the pros and cons of all of her limited options.
The sketch she drew yesterday encapsulated her feelings pretty well. She felt chained by expectations—Percy's, Roman's and so on—and the life that her other self was supposed to be living. She couldn't escape her past and live the largely carefree life she had found herself stuck with because of guilt either. There was no winning.
"Penny! Come sit by me; the welcome ceremony is about to start," Max called.
Penelope realized she was zoning out standing in the aisle of the largest exhibit hall and that she needed to move. People behind her had started to grumble. Murmuring an apology to them, she made her way to where Max was sitting with the other members of the creative department.
She did need to do a lot of thinking to make her choice but she also needed to pay attention to what was going on around her. If she was truly going to be stuck here, she needed to know more about advertising or she was going to get fired.
She might not be obsessed with her job like her counterpart but she still wanted to be involved in the field of graphic design since she lost out on her chance before. Getting fired would make that difficult.
"What all do you think they're going to talk about today?" Penelope asked her coworkers conversationally.
"Not a clue," Julie replied with a shrug.
"I think they're probably going to talk about the history of advertising and how ads need to change with the times," Kyle contributed.
They all made noises or acknowledgement or nodded along to what he was saying. That would make sense. While looking to the future, it was usually a good idea to review what had already been done. Penelope was impressed by his insight and looked forward to seeing whether or not he was right.
She still couldn't believe she was actually here! It felt like a dream to be on a business trip since neither of her jobs were the type to make people travel. She had to make the most of the next week.
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