Anyway, I had other things to obsess about.
Georgia called on Tuesday to announce that she was currently in Naples, Florida.
“What are you talking about?’ I asked lazily, sitting back in my chair so I could peer up at the ceiling. It was afternoon in the empty Museum, and I’d spent the entire morning cataloguing a new shipment of reference books Minerva had found somewhere and wanted included in the library
immediately.
Because of the high volume of researchers we fielded daily, no doubt. I gazed around the empty Museum hall and sighed.
“I’m talking about my geographic location,” Georgia retorted. “I’m like
Where’s Waldo?
but with much better clothes.”
“You were at brunch on Sunday, is what I’m saying,” I replied, ignoring her tone. Her very bitchy tone.
“Well, now I am in Naples, Florida, and not in any fun, bikini-wearing, holiday-in-the-tropics way,” she hastened to add. “Although no one told Chris Starling that. He just announced he’s spending the afternoon by the pool, and who cares what the clients think.”
“Good for Chris Starling,” I said, propping my feet up on my desk, which would have given Minerva heart palpitations if she had seen me. Not because she cared about the desk, but because she felt feet on the desk was a
mannish
position and no woman ought to be
mannish
when she could be
womanly.
Happily, she was entirely too wrapped up in
mapping her song lines
to check up on my gender role today.
“I’m sure it’s great,” Georgia snapped, “but he’s the senior associate. He’s supposed to be handling the deposition. Whatever. I think he’s losing his mind.”
“I thought that happened a long time ago,” I said. “Like when he propositioned you. Or almost did.”
“Something’s up with him, that’s for sure,” Georgia muttered. “But that’s not why I called.”
“I could analyze Chris Starling for days,” I assured her. “It totally doesn’t matter that I’ve never met him.”
“You can change all that this Friday, as a matter of fact,” Georgia said. That she was trying, suddenly, to sound enthusiastic was so alarming that it took a moment for the words themselves to sink in.
“No way!” I said then. “Why do you think I want to go to your office party every year?” More to the point, why did I let her talk me into it every year?
“Because I want you to go, obviously,” Georgia said, dropping the scary enthusiastic voice. “Anyway, why not? The place is packed with young, reasonably attractive men. All of whom are gainfully employed. Any one of whom you could date.”
“You hate everyone you work with, particularly the young, reasonably attractive men,” I reminded her. “You refer to them as the Leeches, I believe, and that’s when you’re just being competitive. When you’re mad, you get way more personal.”
“Because I have to
contend
with them on a professional level,” Georgia said, sounding exasperated. “I can’t believe you’re arguing with me! When’s the last time you went out on a date, anyway?”
“A what?”
“Exactly.” She sniffed. “The fact of the matter, Gus, is that you’ve been locked in your scary post-Nate phase for way too long. This past weekend just proves my point. Whatever he might have said to you—and please, of course it was heinous, I’m not even debating that—racing across Boston with
Henry fucking Farland
to go get in Helen’s face in the middle of the night was just
insane.
Lunatic behavior.”
“It’s not like I
actually
got in Helen’s face,” I argued, stung. “And like I told you the first eight billion times, spending time with Henry actually turned out to be sort of illuminating.”
That was the word I’d used repeatedly on Sunday, when I’d been forced to explain to my disbelieving friends what had gone on the night before.
Illuminating
, I kept saying—
surprisingly illuminating!
But no matter how I tried to steer the conversation toward more interesting things, like what Nate was up to after I left Winchester—they kept getting stuck on the fact I’d chased after Helen in the first place. That I was stalking Nate through Helen. In the company of someone I hated. Someone we all hated, and had hated for years.
Needless to say, the version I’d told them of the end of the evening was edited to look a lot like the one I’d made up. As far as they knew, Henry dropped me off, I came to my senses, and decided not to go punch Helen in the face. The end. The part of me that felt badly about this was … very small indeed.
“It sure was illuminating,” Georgia agreed now. “For example, it illuminated the fact that you’ve been acting like a crazy person. You’re obsessed. But who cares, that’s over and done with. Come to the holiday party, find a nice lawyer boy, and you can start a whole new relationship with a whole new set of things to be obsessive and weird about.”
“Georgia—” I began, annoyed, but she cut me off.
“And anyway,” she said, “I always have more fun when you’re there. I have to go and kiss some asses, but I’m not taking no for an answer from you, Gus, so just prepare yourself.”
“I’m not going,” I told her.
“You have to,” she said then. “I told Jared it wasn’t a date thing. He wouldn’t go if it was just him as my date because he thinks that’s too much pressure and can you just do this for me, Gus? Please?”
“Georgia, that’s crazy,” I began.
“Like you’re one to talk,” she snapped, and then she hung up on me. Which happened to be one of my pet peeves, as she knew very well.
I returned to a more upright position, took my feet off my desk, and fumed, for two reasons. The first reason was that I knew I would end up going to Georgia’s stupid party, because I couldn’t withstand the guilt trip if I didn’t. Please. I couldn’t withstand a long, lawyerish look. More to the point, I already felt guilty for the crimes she didn’t know I’d committed. The second reason was that I thought Georgia was insane to let some little shithead play games with her, and
she
thought
I
was equally insane—but she had faulty information.
Okay, sure, Georgia and Amy Lee had maybe had a point about the Nate and Helen thing. I had gone a tad overboard. Not so much in anything I’d
done
, I didn’t think, but I could maybe tone down the rhetoric a bit—particularly, as Georgia had pointed out, since I was the one who kept bringing them up again and again.
But their major point—the thing, they’d said, that indicated I’d lost my freaking mind—was that I’d willingly gotten into a car with Henry who—as Amy Lee had reminded me—I’d been at pains to convince them was evil incarnate for weeks.
So I could hardly turn around now and announce that Henry really wasn’t
that
bad.
What would I tell them, anyway? That I imagined he might have tender moments? I mean, I could try, but sooner or later someone (probably Georgia, who was predisposed to consider problems concerning Henry) would start wondering
why
I hated him so much if he
wasn’t that bad.
I couldn’t tell them that we’d slept together the night I’d walked in on Nate and Helen, and I certainly couldn’t tell them about our more recent shenanigans, unless I was ready to explain how I’d managed to sleep with the major epic crush of Georgia’s twenties without sparing her so much as a thought. Twice.
So I was basically screwed. Either Henry wasn’t that bad and I would be outed as a liar and a betrayer, or he was evil as usual and I was just your garden variety psycho ex-girlfriend.
Frankly, I didn’t much care for either option.
What a tangled web, indeed.
“
Y
ou don’t
really
think I’m crazy though,” I said the day after next, encouraging Amy Lee to agree with me. Amy Lee had her Thursday morning free and had met me for an early lunch. She just stared at me now, over her mountainous turkey sandwich. Fresh turkey sliced from the newly-roasted bird in front of her eyes, because suddenly nothing prepackaged would suit her, yet I was the crazy person.
“Oh, come on!”
“Gus, I don’t care if you’re clinically psychotic,” she replied. “Just to be clear.”
“But you think I am.”
“Oh, hell, yes,” she said. “But the good news about that is, I’ve always thought you were crazy. Since the day we met. When you were ranting about your mix tapes and you had your hair in that …”
She gestured at her head, forcing us both to remember the hair I’d graduated from high school with.
“That
thing
,” she finished vaguely.
“That’s very reassuring.” I stared glumly at my own sandwich—sun-dried tomatoes and brie, usually delicious and today practically tasteless as far as I was concerned. Revisiting hairstyles past didn’t exactly help, either.
“It was actually sort of cute back then,” Amy Lee lied, looking at my expression.
“I don’t know that you should really be the one to talk, here,” I sniped at her. “It’s not like you’re your usual pulled-together self today, are you?”
It was true. Amy Lee looked frazzled, and her cheeks were flushed. Two things about as un-Amy Lee-ish as could be.
“I’m fighting off the flu,” she snapped at me. And apparently she was feeding that possible fever, because she practically inhaled a huge bite of her sandwich.
“Obviously,” I said then, forgetting about her flu, “I want you to tell me that you think Georgia’s just using my
supposed
insanity as a cover for the fact that Georgia’s
own
situation with what’s-his-name—”
“Jared,” Amy Lee interjected. “I’m pretty sure. Or maybe Justin. Or no, that’s the singer guy.”
“Her own thing is precarious and bad and also insane, and that’s what her issue is.” I eyed her. “That’s what’s going on here, right? This isn’t
actually
about me at all.”
She smiled.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, “I think Georgia is
also
crazy.”
Friday night came despite my best efforts.
I didn’t make the mistake of believing that Georgia might be put off by a display of surliness on my part or by my not being ready when she arrived. I’d tried that kind of thing before, with little result. If I was lolling around in sweats and an attitude when she arrived at my house to usher me to the Waterbury, Ellis and Reardon holiday party she would simply haul my butt into the shower, then into an outfit of her choosing, and then frog-march me off to make merry.
Much as
she
might enjoy that, I knew I certainly would not, so I was reluctantly dressed in all my finery when my buzzer rang. (I’d even applied a curling iron to my hair—an almost unheard-of event.) So much for my fervent prayers that the snow we’d been having would have caused interminable delays and she would remain stuck somewhere south. She buzzed again—and I could practically
hear
her impatience. I pressed the button to unlatch the door. Slowly.
“This is very disappointing,” Georgia murmured when I opened the door for her. She had an evil spark in her eye. “I was really looking forward to dragging your ass off the couch and tossing you into the shower. Sometimes I think I would have made an excellent prison guard.”
“It’s nice to see you too, so glad your plane wasn’t delayed,” I said, with a wide, insincere smile. “And that’s possibly the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth. Which is saying something.”
“Whatever,” Georgia retorted. “Let’s go. Jared said he’ll meet us there later.” The “maybe” was implied.
“Great,” I said, with an eye roll toward the back of her head as she walked out the door. “What a fun night. Lawyers and partners and Jared, oh my!”
“Don’t start with me,” Georgia warned as I locked the door.
“I wouldn’t dare,” I murmured. I waited for Irwin to emerge from his den, but apparently even he was cowed by Georgia in stilettos.
“I’ve just spent way too long in the exclusive company of Chris Starling and my boyfriend can’t seem to return a voice mail message in under seventy-two hours,” Georgia snarled. “I had to deal with Logan Airport on a Friday, don’t get me
started
on the traffic, and I am not in the mood for any shit, okay?”
“Wait—what?” I zoomed in on the crucial bit of information in that little rant. “Your
boyfriend
? When did this guy become your
boyfriend
and why wasn’t I informed?”
“We can talk about that later, at the party,” Georgia said, “because what you’re not hearing is that I need a cocktail.” She pointed her finger at me. “Right now you just need to start thinking about your reasonably attractive, brand-new boyfriend, the one you’re about to meet.”
“The one who will save me from myself, like in all the fairy tales?” I asked in an over-the-top voice that suggested I was disgusted at the very idea. But I was a single female on the verge of thirty, so in the unlikely event that Prince Charming did pop up at Georgia’s office party, it’s not as if I would slap him down just to retain my feminist street cred. Tattered as it was. Though I would insist on saving myself, for sure.
“It’s entirely possible that you might need saving tonight,” Georgia barked at me. “And not from yourself.”
“I can’t wait,” I lied, and we were on our way.
Georgia fetched us each a cocktail when we arrived, and I sipped mine as she did a few perfunctory rounds of Schmooze and Smile. The big conference hall on the top floor of the firm had been given over to the Waterbury, Ellis and Reardon version of holiday fun. Fir trees were topped with menorahs in a gesture toward inclusion, no doubt offending all parties. The main attractions were the bar and the buffet table, while a band played sedately in the background. Some in the crowd were glammed up, while others looked as if they’d just returned from court. Harried-looking paralegals appeared periodically—in suits that looked rumpled, possibly because they’d slept in them—and whispered into various partying ears. Despite the fact it was a work event, I knew from experience that it was only a matter of time before the liquor flowed just that little bit too freely. The dancing would start, some first-year (or tenth-year) associate would become delightfully inappropriate, and the real fun would begin. Until then, everyone was schmoozing their ambitious behinds off, and I half expected William Shatner and Candice Bergen to come waltzing out from behind the nearest potted plant.
“You must be Gus,” a voice said in my ear, and I turned, assuming it was Georgia’s (apparent, and sure-to-be-odious) “boyfriend.”
Instead of the sleek, toothy guy I remembered—very vaguely—from the Park Plaza, an older man stood in front of me. He was about Georgia’s height, and had the liveliest pair of brown eyes I’d ever seen. It took me a moment to notice anything else about him—his eyes danced with merriment and cleverness, so that he seemed to be lit from within.
“Hi,” I said, immediately charmed. I had no idea who he was.
“I’m a psychic,” he said, very matter-of-factly. “I discerned your name from the ether.”
I almost believed it, too.
“Or I told it to him,” Georgia snapped in exasperation. She shook her head at the guy. “Why can’t you just introduce yourself like a normal person?”
“It’s hard to believe I’m her boss, I know,” he said. Supposedly to me, but he was looking at Georgia. “Beneath all that bluster, she’s really impressed with my authority.”
“Gus,” Georgia said, waving her hand at him. “This is Chris Starling.”
“I know Georgia uses other names, most of them inappropriate, but you can call me Chris,” he told me. I wasn’t sure, but I thought my jaw might have dropped open in astonishment. Not that either one of them was paying me any mind. They were far too caught up in their banter.
“And again—hilarious,” Georgia was saying, rolling her eyes.
“And there’s Bob Young, giving me the ‘come worship’ eye,” Chris Starling said, only grinning at her. “Off to the salt mines I go.”
“My lord,” Georgia said when he walked away. “Isn’t he the most annoying man you’ve ever met?”
It took her a long moment to stop frowning after him, and to look at me.
I searched her face. “Georgia, you told me he was short, fat, balding, and horrible!”
Georgia’s gaze was blank.
“He is,” she said.
“Sure,” I agreed. “Except for the part where he’s not short at all, not fat at all, and has the most amazing eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s got Gandalf eyes or something. It’s like he
knows things.
”
“What are you talking about?” Georgia asked. “Did you just say
Gandalf??
? And what do you mean, he’s not fat? Believe me, maybe it’s hidden behind his jacket tonight, but the guy hardly has abs of steel.”
“
Maybe
he has a stomach, which is very different from being
fat.
” I enunciated each word carefully. “And maybe he’s secretly the boss from hell, but he seemed
nice.
Charming, actually. Not horrible and nasty at all!”
Georgia stared at me for a moment, as if she couldn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Then she let out a laugh.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I forbid it.”
Now it was my turn to stare uncomprehendingly. “You forbid what?”
“You and Chris Starling,” she said. “I didn’t bring you here so you could hook up with my weird,
old
boss. That’s like trading in
crazy
for an entire
asylum.
Forget it, you can’t have him.” She patted me on the arm. “You’ll just have to find a nice guy your own age, and look! There’s a whole pack of them by the bar.”
“First of all, he’s what? Forty-five at the most?”
“Old,” Georgia repeated. “And off-limits. Seriously.”
“I don’t want him!” I snapped at her.
“Glad to hear it,” she said. She frowned at me. “What is your problem?”
I shook my head to clear it, and frowned back at her.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just kind of stunned that you created this whole version of him that isn’t even remotely real!”
That hung there for a moment, taunting me. I felt as if I’d somehow ejected myself from my own body and was hovering outside it, watching myself say that out loud.
I almost wished Henry were there to witness it himself, since he’d be the one to enjoy it the most, given my daily assassinations of his character.
I was so taken back that it took me a moment to notice that Georgia wasn’t paying me the slightest bit of attention. She was looking off across the room, and she was smiling. A big, relieved smile.
“There he is,” she said, in the voice that meant Jared. “I wasn’t sure he would come. Stay here,” she continued, finally glancing at me. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
She took off across the room, and I was left to stand there and really bask in the full extent of my hypocrisy. I was amazed that you could become a hypocrite without even meaning to—
just like that.
That it was so simple. That you could look into someone else’s life and see the things they were doing with such clarity, even as you ignored those same things when you did them yourself.
The sad thing was, with a cocktail, it didn’t sting nearly as much as I thought it should.