I stepped around the drunk like he was no more substantial than air. He shouted insults in my wake as I kept walking. I wanted to walk forever. I wanted to be like Forrest Gump, reaching one end of the country and turning around and heading for the other coast. I passed by a twenty-four-hour liquor store and a deli with red flowers clustered in buckets out front. I stepped over the chalk outline of a child’s hopscotch game and the broken amber glass of beer bottles. I keep walking, my shoes tapping a steady rhythm against the sidewalk of the city I’d loved so much.
Some time later—maybe an hour, maybe three—I passed a street I recognized. I stood on the corner, staring up at the
street sign. Somehow, I’d looped around and now I was only ten blocks away from my office. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees, and the wind was picking up. A storm was coming. My teeth chattered, and I could no longer feel my feet.
A thought wormed its way through the numbness of my brain. I had an extra set of keys to my apartment and twenty dollars in my desk drawer for emergencies.
No one would be at the office now; they’d all still be partying. I could slip into the building, then I could go home and swallow a sleeping pill and escape into oblivion.
I turned right, toward my office, and kept walking.
“Want me to turn on a light for you?” the security guard asked. I’d knocked on the glass window outside his station, and he’d put down his fork and Tupperware container of spaghetti and let me into the building. He used his passkey to open the door to my office after I mumbled a story about leaving my purse in a cab.
“I’ll get the lights,” I said, my voice coming out all husky, as if I’d been screaming for hours. “Thank you, John.”
“Don’t work too late now.” He tipped his head at me and headed for the elevator, whistling a song I didn’t recognize.
I sat down in the leather chair behind my desk and reached for the drawer with my money and keys, but before I could open it, I noticed something amiss on my desk. My pencils and Clio Award and stapler had been moved to one side, to make room for the magnum of champagne someone had put in the center. There was a silver card attached to the bottle. I reached for the card and laughed a mirthless laugh when I read it.
“Congratulations to our newest—and youngest ever—VP creative director!” the card said. It was from the board of directors of our agency.
I picked up the heavy bottle and turned it around and around in my hands. Dom. Nice to know that even though they’d stabbed me in the back, they hadn’t skimped on me.
Suddenly I was desperately thirsty. I must’ve walked for miles, inhaling black exhaust fumes from buses and cabs, and my throat felt so sore I could barely swallow. I pulled off the foil and wire twisted around the neck of the bottle and used my thumbs to pop the cork. I ignored the foam that cascaded over my hands and took a greedy gulp from the bottle.
When the phone on my desk shrilled, I nearly dropped the heavy bottle on my toe.
Who could be calling me at the office at—I squinted at the clock on the wall—nine-thirty on a Friday night? It was probably Matt, or maybe Mason. They could leave a message; there wasn’t anyone in the world I wanted to talk to right now.
I finally glanced at the caller ID on the third ring. It was Bradley Church.
Bradley, who always made me feel good. Bradley, who’d had a not-so-secret crush on me since the second grade. Bradley, whose red felt heart printed with the words “Be My Valentine” had been tucked in the secret compartment of my old jewelry box since the third grade. He was the one guy in the world who’d always made me feel like I was pretty. Like I was special. His deep voice would be a balm to my soul.
“Hey, you!” Bradley shouted. His voice was happy, excited. “I’ve been trying to reach you all night, but you didn’t answer your cell or at home. I can’t believe you’re still at the office!”
“Yeah,” I said. “Got tied up in a meeting. How are you?”
“Great,” he said. “Really great.”
I closed my eyes and pictured Bradley. His brown hair was always rumpled, he was on the skinny side, and his hands and feet seemed too big for his body, like a puppy’s. His eyes were
earnest behind his big wire-rimmed glasses, and he always carried a pen and notebook in his back pocket like a wallet, and at least two cameras slung around his neck. Bradley was the kind of guy people considered a geek in high school, at least the people who weren’t able to see how kind and good and honorable he was. Suddenly I missed him terribly.
“You won’t believe what happened to me tonight,” Bradley said.
Bet it can’t top my night, I thought, grimly swigging another gulp.
“I got stuck in an elevator for three hours,” he said. “You know that parking garage in downtown Bethesda? I was going to pick up a book at Barnes & Noble, and on the way back to my car, I got stuck between the third and fourth floors. It took forever for the firemen to get us out.”
“What a pain,” I said, covering a yawn.
It had been a mistake to answer the phone. I couldn’t do
casual chitchat tonight, even with Bradley. Exhaustion was starting to crash over me in thick, heavy waves, and I desperately wanted to succumb to it. I ached to collapse into my bed under my fluffy down comforter, to put my pillow over my head and curl up in the darkness.
“Well, at least you had something to read,” I said, cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder and opening my drawer with my free hand, the one that wasn’t clutching the champagne in a death grip. I found my keys exactly where I’d left them, a twenty-dollar bill pinned to the key chain with a paper clip. And they say anal-retentiveness is a character flaw.
“So there I was, stuck in the elevator,” Bradley said. I heard a woman giggling nearby. God, I hoped he’d wrap this up quickly. I needed to get off the phone.
“And guess who I ran into in the elevator?” he said.
I so didn’t want to play this game.
“No idea,” I said briskly. I didn’t want to be rude, but Bradley was too happy and chatty and I really needed to go home.
“I’ll give you a hint,” he said. “She’s a redhead.”
“A natural one!” a familiar voice shouted. “You’ve seen the proof, Bradley Church!”
This time I did drop the champagne bottle: “Shit!”
“Lindsey? Are you okay?” Bradley asked.
I snatched up the bottle before too much spilled.
“Alex?” I asked tentatively.
“None other.” She giggled. She must have been perched by Bradley’s side. Their faces must have been close together with the cell phone in between so they could both hear. Their cheeks were probably in that electric space just before skin touches skin.
“What a coincidence,” I said. The numbness was draining from my body; anxiety was evicting it and staking a claim.
“We’re starving to death after our ordeal,” Bradley said.
“Our heroic ordeal,” Alex added.
“Heroic,” Bradley agreed.
“Well,
you
were heroic,” Alex said. “Bradley gave me his bottle of water.”
“But you insisted I drink half,” Bradley said. “So you were noble.”
What the—what the—what the
fuck
? Why were they finishing each other’s sentences like an old married couple?
“Anyway,” Bradley said, “we’re about to grab dinner at that Thai place. Remember? It’s where you and I went the last time you were in town.”
We’d shared chicken satay with peanut sauce and crispy spring rolls and talked for hours. The restaurant was on the dark side, I suddenly remembered. With soft background music. And votive candles at every table.
“So this is really funny,” I said. I took another long gulp of champagne. “And natural redhead? What are you talking about, Alex?”
“I showed him the proof,” she said.
I closed my eyes. Alex was using her husky, there’s-an-attractive-man-in-the-house voice. Something close to hatred gripped my stomach like a fist.
“She showed me her forearm hair,” Bradley said quickly. “Trust me, we had a lot to talk about during those three hours.”
“Great!” I said too heartily.
“Why didn’t you tell me how handsome Bradley has gotten?” Alex said, laughing.
I could see her now, putting a hand on Bradley’s thin shoulder, brushing a crumb off his chest, leaning in to take a bite of his food off his fork. Alex could no sooner stop flirting than breathing.
My insides clenched up like a giant hand was grabbing them and mercilessly squeezing.
“Where’s Gary tonight?” I asked casually. Gary was Alex’s fiancé.
“Working,” Alex said, stretching out the word and making it sound like bo-ring. “As usual. Just like you. What are you doing at the office now?”
“I think our spring rolls are coming,” Bradley said.
“I’d love another glass of wine,” I heard Alex tell the waitress. “Bradley?”
“Sure,” he said. “We deserve it.”
Alex laughed, an intimate, knowing laugh that reverberated in my mind like a villain’s cackle. “Are you sure? You told me you get tipsy after one glass. I might have to drive you home.”
I leapt up from my chair, feeling a scream rise in my throat. That was my private joke with Bradley, the fact that the two of us couldn’t have more than a single drink without feeling giddy.
That was
our
restaurant. Were they sitting at our table, too? Was Bradley going to send her a freaking valentine?
“Call me later, Sis,” Alex said, and the phone went dead.
I gulped champagne so quickly it burned as it slid down my throat. My mind was raging. Damn it, Alex had a fiancé, a rich, gorgeous guy. So why did she need to prove how irresistible she was? Why did she always need to have a pack of guys panting in her wake? It didn’t matter that she hadn’t known about Bradley’s crush on me. I’d never told her about it, but she knew Bradley and I were friends. She knew how close we were. Couldn’t she have left alone the only guy in the world who actually thought
I
was the special sister?
I paced my office, hot tears flooding my eyes.
I’d killed myself for a promotion that Cheryl won because she was sexier.
The guy who’d had a crush on me for twenty years spent a couple of hours with Alex and forgot all about me.
The moral was obvious: The pretty girls always won. No matter how smart I was, no matter hard I worked, it didn’t matter. I’d never be good enough. And what did I have to show for all my hard work? A one-bedroom apartment that I’d have to demolish my savings account to afford to buy, the account I’d spent seven years building up. A golden award on my desk. The beginnings of carpal tunnel and a body that was falling apart and a headache that never seemed to quit. I was twenty-nine years old, and the only thing in this world I had was a job that had betrayed me after I’d given it absolutely everything.
I wanted to leap out of my own skin. I wanted to run screaming down the streets of New York. I wanted to curl up under my desk and cry.
I wanted to be anyone but me.
Without being fully aware of what I was doing, I yanked
open the door to my office and stalked down the shadowy halls to the conference room. Cheryl’s storyboard was still up on the easel. I pulled off the drape cloth and stared at her campaign.
I took a step backward. Unbelievable. I’d spent a lot of time imagining her campaign, but I’d never expected anything like this.
She’d gone for a slice-of-life commercial. It was grade-schoolish in its lack of sophistication: Two pretty twenty-something women stood side by side in front of a bathroom mirror talking about their lipstick. One girl couldn’t believe Gloss could make her thin lips look plump and pretty, but she was won over when her friend made her try some.
This
had won Cheryl $50 million in new business? The tired, trite, naysayer-turned-true-believer slice-of-life ad?
But of course it hadn’t won Cheryl the account, I remembered, narrowing my eyes. Her face and body and sultry voice had won it. Cheryl had done her research, too, I had no doubt. But a different kind of research. Instead of figuring out Fenstermaker’s favorite drink or which type of bagel he preferred, she’d analyzed his ego for a weak spot and zeroed in. What middle-aged man wouldn’t be flattered by the gentle scrape of long nails against his knee, by the gaze that told him he was irresistible, by the deliberate flash of cleavage, especially when his marriage had dried up and his wife was sleeping with a thirty-year-old pilot? I had no doubt that Cheryl would follow up her flirtation with action. She’d probably already spent the afternoon in a hotel room with Fenstermaker; she’d probably known he was about to call so she could hold Mason’s feet to the fire.
Suddenly something clicked into place; Cheryl had made an abrupt mystery trip last week. Not even her assistant knew where she’d gone. Had she flown to Aspen and engineered
a meeting with Fenstermaker? Had their relationship started then?
Oh my God, I thought, staring at her storyboard. She’d had the winning strategy all along. She was smarter than me after all.
I raised my champagne bottle in a mock salute: Nice going, Cheryl. You’ve single-handedly set women’s lib back fifty years. I closed my eyes and tilted the bottle to my lips. I nearly toppled over and had to grab the back of a chair for balance. The champagne was hitting me at last, mercifully dulling the edges of my anger and pain.