How to Be a Grown-up (20 page)

Thank God for JeuneBug. For the irrepressibly pink walls, for the kids worrying if Hello Giggles would take their blog post or their ironic bowling team’s T-shirts would arrive. Nobody was married except maybe the girl with the barbed wire tattooed around her ring finger. But she also had a gun-toting vagina inked across her shoulders, so it was anyone’s guess.

My colleagues were psyched because Taylor was psyched and Taylor was psyched because sales were picking up, and not just from my vertical. On the day earnings were posted, she actually brought in bite-sized cupcakes, exactly one per person. Kimmy washed down hers with Emergen-C. Merrill deliberated hers as if Stanford PhD candidates were testing delayed gratification. I ate mine while reading an e-mail from Kathryn inviting me to dinner at Jean-Georges. Were we becoming genuine friends? Did she want to reward our hard work?

Booking the sitter to come a luxurious fifteen minutes early, I gulped wine, blew out my hair, and otherwise prepared to celebrate like a woman for whom a mini-cupcake was not going to cut it.

Pushing through the wind tunnel to the restaurant’s entrance, I reluctantly handed my coat to the hostess and followed her to the back room where the glass walls overlooked the bronze globe that marked uptown’s conclusion. Trump is rumored to have commissioned it after hearing his gauche building, perceived by many as an architectural middle finger, emanated bad feng shui.

Kathryn was seated in a corner banquet, her mink smartly draped about her hunched shoulders. “Miserable out there,” she said, half-standing to greet me for a cheek kiss. “The holiday decorations come down, and then it’s one long slog of bundling and unbundling until May.”

“This was definitely worth braving the elements for,” I said as the waiter pulled out my seat.

“Well, this place is the reason my fridge is empty.” She brought her full martini to her lips. “I haven’t gotten them to run a tray over to me yet, but I’m wearing Jean down.” She smiled. “Did you want something in particular? He’ll prepare whatever you’d like.”

“As long as we’re not arguing about you swallowing SpongeBob toothpaste, this is better than the prom.” I lay my napkin in my lap. “One of those, please.” I pointed to her drink and settled back as the waiter departed.

“So?” she asked, resting her elbow on the tablecloth and chin on top of her hand in an uncharacteristic posture. “How are things?”

“Fantastic, as you’ve seen.”

“Yes, the numbers are surprising.”

“Every vertical,” I marveled. “Except Cleanse.” I took in the fish laid like rose petals on the plate slid before me. “Poor Cleanse.”

“The BluePrint partnership was inspired, but I think parents still just hear ‘juice’ and shudder.” She slid the stem of her glass between her pointer and middle fingers as I began to eat. “And how are you liking full-time? Your family’s managing without you?”

“Actually,” I swallowed, hoping my professional success would blunt the pain of having to state personal failure, “we’ve been going through a transition, Blake and I.”

“A transition?” Silverware continued to clink around us.

“We’re getting separated. Divorced.” There. I’d said it. And the globe did not come unhinged from its axis and roll a path of destruction down Broadway. I took a drink, the vodka hot in my throat.

“Oh.” Kathryn took me in, her eyes softening. “Oh, Rory.”

“Yes, Happy New Year!” I mugged, the last bite of fish losing flavor.

Her fingers brushed my wrist. “I’ve got the lawyer for you.” I loved that she didn’t pry, didn’t need to ask a single question.

“Oh, thank you, but we’ve just started with a mediator—”

“A mediator,” she repeated as if I’d said
outhouse
. “How’s that going?”

“Amicably, which I now understand means not actually killing each other.”

“Yes.” She took a bite before returning her fork to signal the waiter that she was done. “When I think of the hours I spent in counseling getting blamed for everything short of the Gulf War. Those I’d like back.”

“This isn’t counseling. God, if only.”

“I know what mediation is, Rory. It’s why God invented litigators. I’ll call him for you. I’m insisting.”

“Thank you.” I looked for the arrival of the next dish, hoping it might offer a change of topic.

She studied me. “That’s an awful lot for you to be managing with work.”

“Please, work’s my saving grace. It’s been invaluable to have something to throw myself into.”

“Mort’s retiring,” she said abruptly. “Which, of course, we all knew. He’s in his eighties. How long can you care about acquiring
Cat Fancy
?”

“What’s going to happen?”

“He’s naming his successor June first. If you’d seen Asher swagger out of Mort’s office after
that
meeting—ugh—the man marries children because he
is
one. Stellar won’t survive him.”

“You have to admit, JeuneBug’s turning out to be a decent investment,” I felt compelled to point out.

“It’s only a matter of time before competition arrives.”

“But their software’s proprietary.”

“So some Silicon Valley savant will come up with something better.” She leaned in, further dropping her voice. “This corporation cannot be handed over to a man who’s reduced his masthead to an
Oscar party
. Who publishes not one but
two
Marilyn Monroe covers a year. She was beautiful, a blank slate the world could project on like a golden retriever, but she is not, by any measure,
news
.” Kathryn looked—she looked scared. For a moment. Then her fingers passed over her thick bangs and she steadied herself.

“Asher isn’t going to be named CEO of Stellar,” I assured her.

“Asher stuck his neck out for your employers, albeit for the wrong reasons. I lobbied against them. This company will be
the
most recent mark on Mort’s tally sheet, and it will either be for or against me.”

“I’m so sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m not asking for your sympathy.” She took out her lipstick, refreshing herself without a mirror. Our eyes met, and it was suddenly, nauseatingly clear. Somehow I was supposed to tip the tally in Kathryn’s favor.

“Kathryn, I wouldn’t know where to even begin—”

“I don’t have an appetite this evening.” She dropped her lipstick in her clutch and turned her attention to the waiter. “You don’t mind if we skip dessert, do you?”

“What do think she’s envisioning?” Jessica asked me after I got home so disappointingly early that I still had two bedtimes to get through.

“I have no idea,” I said, gob-smacked. “Pull the fire alarm before the investors’ meeting? Smoke-bomb the toilets?”

“If you’re going to get into sabotage, you have to think bigger than
National Lampoon
. How’s it going with the mediator?”

“Fine. Polite. It’s not like we have any assets anyway. I almost became hysterical when he started itemizing the wedding presents from Val’s friends.
“Blake, if you’re taking the petrified wood bookends, I am definitely entitled to the amethyst ashtray.”

“Well, I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor. If he tries to take that, I’ll kill him.”

A week later I was waiting for the elevator when I heard, “Rory!” I spun around to see Taylor clicking toward me. “Where’re you going?” She came to a stop, wrapping her fingers around where her blouse opened at her biceps.

“Just running to a showroom at the DDB before they close. Need something?”

“It’s only, like, three o’clock.”

“They close at four on Fridays.”

“Of course they do,” she scoffed.

“What can I do for you?” The elevator arrived, and I put my hand out to hold the door.

“I got you someone,” she said so coyly I half-expected the wall to lift and Blake to step out with flowers. “An assistant. You still want one, don’t you?”

“An assistant—yes. Great!”

“Ginger found her.” She flitted her fingers to give Ginger, sitting behind us at the reception desk, credit.

“On InternQueen,” Ginger filled me in. “Ruth something. She goes to NYU and wants to work here, like, really bad. It’s cute.”

“What graduate program is she in?” I asked.

“You’re welcome,” Taylor answered, flipping her hair to the front of her shoulders before walking off.

Ruth was not in a graduate program.

Ruth was all of twenty and, despite the frigid temperature, dripping hair put her just out of a shower. Her only concession to being in public was a thick streak of eyeliner clearly applied en route. And her sallow skin suggested she hadn’t seen a vegetable in a long, long time. Simultaneously underwhelmed, wary and wound, she approached me like this was the first day of the rest of her life.

“I’m Ruth Yelczek.” She thrust her hand out for me to shake.

“Rory. Hi,” I said, signing us into the lobby guard’s ledger. “Thanks for meeting me in midtown.”

“No prob.” She looked at me askance as I dug through my bag for my notebook. “So you’re a . . . ?”

“Stylist,” I answered, motioning for her to follow me into the elevator. “To orient you, our next shoot’s for the Valentine’s Day spread. Since the site’s for kids, this one’s not about romance so much as the cheerful iconography of the holiday. We’ll be creating a playroom. South Beach via Diane Von Furstenberg. Glossy white walls set against a red lips swing. Like those phones in the eighties.” I unbuttoned my coat. “Does that make sense?”

“The eighties?” she said dubiously.

“Right. You were . . .”

“Not born. But cool. That sounds cool. I mean, kind of unrealistic but . . .”

I pushed through the door into the showroom, which was dotted with Jeff Koon’s–like upholstered pieces. I scanned for Jenny, the salesgirl and unwound my scarf. “Jenny, this is Ruth, my new assistant.”

“People don’t actually buy those, do they?” Ruth was pointing to the designer’s signature ribbon chairs that, it’s true, looked like dog poop pumped out of a frosting tube—and cost the equivalent of a year of Ruth’s education.

Jenny laughed uncomfortably. “I have two lip chairs in stock and another I could get rushed from the workroom. But see if the size works for you first.”

“Suspended from sailor’s rope, they would be fantastic,” I exclaimed, passing my measuring tape to Ruth as Jenny returned to her desk. “If you could get the depth on those, I’m going to grab the tear sheets. Sound good?”