What Pretty Girls Are Made Of (20 page)

“Really?” I replied. He nodded, still smiling. “Ooh, no one has ever asked me that before. Interesting question.”

I took a deep breath and thought.

“Do I get to think about my answer, or do I have to tell you the first thing that comes to mind?”

“Since I’m a nice guy, I’ll let you think about it. But if you don’t tell me before the fries come, I’m eating yours.”

He smiled. I liked his smile. It was warm and bright, and his face lit up while the lines around his eyes crinkled.

Threatening my fries was enough to get me to think of my answer then and there. I guess if he wanted to know something intimate, I would share and not worry about the consequences. Why not?

“Okay,” I said slowly. “No judgment?”

“No judgment. Promise.”

He could have told me anything at that moment and I still probably would have melted.

“Okay, wait. Maybe a little judgment, so I take that back. I can’t promise none at all.”

“I’ll take my chances, but you’d better think of something great, too.”

“I’m waiting,” he said as he picked up his fork and held it at the ready, should my fries arrive.

“Okay, okay!” I faked exasperation. I was having a ball. “When I was a kid, up until about seventeen, I think, whenever I left for college, I slept with a little pillow.”

“A pillow?” Bret chuckled and nodded his head. “Describe this pillow. Did this pillow have a name?” I couldn’t tell if he was playing with me or genuinely interested in hearing more about Pillow.

“Well, Pillow was named Pillow and was red gingham on one side, with different red and white square patches of fabric on the other. Oh, and Pillow has a thin white eyelet ruffle around the edges.”

“I believe you just said that Pillow
has
, in the present tense, a ruffle?” he questioned.

“Technically, Pillow is still alive and resides at my parents’ house and adorns the bed I slept in growing up. But Pillow went everywhere with me: sleepovers, summer camp, movies . . .”

“Is Pillow all old and mangled?”

“My mom replaced the gingham many times over the years. I wouldn’t let her change the pattern. It had to be the same red-and-white check, so she bought a whole roll of it!”

“That’s very cute. So Pillow didn’t go with you to college?”

“No. I decided that at age seventeen I had to break free of the habit and leave Pillow at home. Okay, no more Pillow talk, so to speak. Your turn!”

Bret took a sip of water and smiled. I had no idea what he was going to tell me, but I hoped it was something funny.

“In the vein of funny childhood things, I will tell you that my family calls me Dog.”

As I waited for him to elaborate, our waitress came with our main course. The much-anticipated steak frites. Bret dug in.

“Don’t think that because you just had the best timing ever, mister, I’m going to let you get away without telling me why your nickname is Dog.”

“I cannot focus on anything but my indescribable plate of food right now. I’m in heaven. And what’s in this sauce? I could have it as soup.”

It was divine. I was so glad that he was enjoying my restaurant choice.

“Okay.” He exhaled fully. “Because I know that you’re dying to hear my story, I’ll continue.”

I nodded, my mouth full of buttery, pepper-speckled steak.

“From about age three to seven, I insisted that I was a puppy dog. I used to crawl around the house and make my parents and siblings pet me. I even had a whimper that was very effective for getting my sisters to do things for me.”

“So they called you Dog for that?” I interrupted.

“Well, that, and I refused to eat at the table if my food wasn’t in a bowl. And there were days when I wouldn’t eat unless my mom put my bowl on the floor so I could put my head into it.” He laughed at the memory. “My sisters still tease me about it. Sometimes, if I’m visiting home, my mom will put my food in a bowl and tell me she won’t serve me unless I eat from the floor. It’s hilarious. So that’s why they call me Dog.”

“I think you win,” I replied. “That’s super cute. I hope they have pictures of you eating out of your dog bowl.”

“I’m sure they do. I hope they never see the light of day, though.”

“Are you a big dog lover, then?”

“Yeah. I love dogs. Would love one of my own but wouldn’t want to get one because of my crazy work schedule. It’s not fair to the little guy. Someday.”

An unspoken pull to finish the food on our plates put a halt to the conversation. If only we really were in Paris. Though I was so swept up in our date, I could have been anywhere.

“Okay,” he said, after finishing his plate of frites. “I didn’t think you would be so spot-on about these fries, but damn. Are you going to finish yours off? I can help you, if you need it.”

“Absolutely not. I have a technique here: some fries, steak, and then finish off the fries in the leftover delicious green mystery steak sauce.”

I knew he wanted to take his fork and polish off my portion. He didn’t know that the restaurant served a second helping, which arrived shortly. Bret was like a kid on Christmas morning when the waitress refilled his plate.

After a mocha-meringue tower dessert, Bret paid the bill and we shuffled out of the restaurant.

“Good call not to waste stomach space on bread. I appreciate your looking out for me.” He smiled and I finally understood the meaning of the phrase “weak in the knees.” “You know,” he said, “we’re very close to my office, actually.”

“I didn’t know that. You can now come and have a French lunch anytime, I guess.”

“I think I would want to eat my lunch and go home and take a nap. That was so tasty.” Bret pointed to the building diagonally across the street from us. “That’s my office: fourth floor, second window from the left.” He put his arms around me as we looked up to his floor.

“Looks like you left your light on,” I remarked, seeing the lights on the floor all lit up.

“I have my associates finishing up a deal that has to close ASAP. I’m probably going to get in early tomorrow morning to help them.”

“That’s so nice of you, after leaving them there to finish while you went to Paris for the evening,” I said.

He took my hand and walked me a few blocks up to my apartment building. I was a hand-holder. He had strong, masculine hands that were surprisingly soft. They had dark hair running down them and onto his fingers. I liked that, too.

“I had fun tonight,” I said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He moved closer to me and put his hand around my waist again.
Loving this.
His lips touched mine and we started kissing, a few feet away from the front of my apartment building. His tongue felt for mine. He pulled me closer.

“I like kissing you,” he said.

“I like kissing you, too.” I hoped that the doormen inside my building weren’t able to catch our make-out session on camera.

After kissing for another few minutes, fully wanting to ask him up to my apartment, I pulled away and exercised the little French that I knew.

“
Bonne nuit
,” I said.

“Good night,” Bret replied. I turned and walked into my building, forcing myself not to take another look at him before I went upstairs.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Do Not Use on Broken Skin

I
glided into work the next morning still full of hope, frites, and perfectly cooked steak. Waiting on my desk was a handwritten note. I knew who it was from based on the handwriting. She had never written an official note to me before, but I couldn’t imagine that inside the folded piece of paper was a love letter.

Alison—

There are one hundred and ninety eight returned postcards on your desk. I counted them. This number appales me. Please call me immediately upon your arrival to work. I need to figure out how and who this big mistake belongs to. I have a feeling you are the culprit. I want answers.

I hadn’t thought to hide the growing pile of postcards that had been accumulating on my desk. I’d design these and send them out prior to every QVC appearance. They would reach more than twenty thousand people across the country. Inevitably, some postcards were returned as people’s addresses changed, and Sally knew that. The Mongrel would call the few returns she saw “postcard mistakes,” and Laramie and I would remove the returned names from the system when we had spare time.

Sally picked up after one ring. Uh-oh.

“So if it costs thirty-four cents to mail a postcard, and I counted a hundred and ninety-eight returns on your desk, I would figure that you owe me $67.32, plus the cost of production for those returns.”

Pause.

“Hi, Sally. I’m sorry that you saw those returned postcards on my desk.”

“Damn right, you should be sorry. Should I have you write me a check for the cost, or should I take it out of your pay for the week?”

“Look, Sally, I haven’t yet had a chance to take those returns out of the system, since things have been a bit crazy around the studio, but I’ll make sure it gets done by the end of the week.”
. . . And I’m auditioning for a QVC host position with the man who is casting your office reality show, so hope you’re okay
with that!
Couldn’t say it.

“Are you not hearing what I just said? I told you that you’re going to be paying for the returned cards, unless you can tell me that it’s someone else’s fault, which I find hard to believe.”

“I heard you, Sally. But I sent out slightly more than twenty thousand postcards. So if a hundred and ninety-eight of them were returned, that’s less than a one percent return rate. I would say that was a pretty successful postcard mailing.”

“Just because you think you’re smart, Alison, and can pull up numbers like that, doesn’t account for your not doing your job.”

Clearly she wasn’t starting the day in a rational state, so I quickly got off the phone. Did she really think that I was going to pay the cost of the returned postcards? She could not be serious, but I made a mental note to scour my next paystub.

When I told my dad about the postcard incident, he reminded me that people like Sally would breed only one type of employee: vindictive. “She’ll shoot herself in the foot and her employees will stab her in the back,” the wise patriarch of my family said.

Which got me thinking. I would not focus on the potential lack of funds for my next paycheck but instead on two far more positive things: the possibility of actually getting revenge on this woman (thank you, Dad) and my theater tickets for that night. I’d put the revenge thought in my pocket and figure that out later, after the theater.

Jill and I were going to see
Collected Stories
, put on by the Manhattan Theatre Club, my favorite theater company in New York. Its Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, a stunning space of blue, gold, and cream, was always my remedy for sadness or a bad mood. Plays took me out of my own head and fulfilled me in a way that no other art form could.

I had scored front-row seats from a director friend in the industry. Though I fully expected to sit on the side, surprisingly our seats were the first two off the center aisle. We didn’t know much about the play, other than that it was by Donald Margulies and that it focused on writer Ruth Steiner and her protégée, assistant, and friend-turned-competitor, Lisa Morrison.

Watching actors sweat and being so close to the stage that you could see their pupils dilate was, in my opinion, a perfect evening. The lead actress’s vocal inflections and subtly raised brow drew me into the story in a way I hadn’t felt for so long. I was so enrapt in the world in front of me, I didn’t have a moment to realize that I wasn’t acting in it. Maybe I wasn’t missing acting as much as I thought I would.

I felt a connection with the young and naive Lisa as the young woman who worked in Manhattan after graduating from college. I spoke with upward inflection as she did in the first act, too often sounding as if questions were coming out of my mouth instead of statements.

In the second act, Lisa learned to drop her voice and matured yet still had to mask her sensitivity while demonstrating the strength of a bull. Act 2 unexpectedly twisted my insides, seeping into me, my defenses unknowingly down.

Lisa says to Ruth, “You don’t get it, do you? You know? All I want . . . I want so much to please you. You know? And no matter what I do, it’s wrong. I always seem to get your
dis
approval when it’s the opposite I want so badly. All these months, it’s been both
wonderful and excruciating working for you. I mean, to be so close to you, when I admire you
so
much . . . But every day I see you it’s like a test: What faux pas will I make? What will I do that’ll annoy her
today
?”

My life was playing out in front of me. I crumpled in my seat. Big, hot tears dripped down my face uncontrollably. I let them flow, however unprepared I’d been for the outpouring of such emotion.
But if I don’t miss the life of an actress, why haven’t I found my place
yet?
Jill put her hand on mine and squeezed.

“So,” Jill said, a few moments after we exited the theater in silence. “Did you know what this play was about before you picked it tonight, or was this all a coincidence?”

“Yeah. I had no idea” was my response. “But man, that desire to please so badly—I’m blaming my mom for it. Not sure why, but she has it, too. Dad gets blamed for the curly hair, and Mom gets the cankles and need to please.”

“It’s just a job, Alison. We have to get you to leave that office. We have to get you out of there.”

“Agreed. But while I find my way out, I’m going to attempt some major changes. I’ll get back to you with what those will be shortly.”

“Fantastic,” Jill said. “Can we stop for fro-yo on the way home?”

I smiled in affirmation.

I woke up the next
morning with the fierce determination to stick to my commitment of “big changes.” I hadn’t slept much after the show, but it was all right because my mind was racing positively about the future.

Mental list:

1. No more taking stupid Sally Steele crap personally.

2. Try to change my role in the company—if I can’t yet find a new job, see if I can move my position internally so I don’t have to deal with the Beast every second of the workday.

3. Do a better job of leaving work on time at the end of the day.

4. Events for the studio, perhaps?

5. Talk to Ira/Sally about a raise—never received one post-fauxmotion discussion.

6. What about this place/job do I like? And what can I do with those skills?

7. Failure is not an option.

After walking calmly to work, I noticed an email in my inbox that was supposed to have gone to Ira, and certainly not to me.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: FWD: Thank You

Ira,

See below for an email I received from the possible studio manager candidate I interviewed yesterday. I liked her. She was ok. She seemed to be good, but a little two overeager. Kind of like Allison in that regards. I don’t know if I can take 2 of those in the same studio with 1 of them being my asst. Worth u meeting her though than we can decide if we like her and want to check refferences.

Sally

Are there such things as Freudian email slips? Or maybe she was being passive-aggressive and sent it to me on purpose. I forwarded the email to Ira, letting him know that I didn’t think it was meant for me. He called and apologized for the slipup, even though it wasn’t his mistake.

I think I had too much leftover sensitivity from the night before, because Sally’s email set me off. Once again, hot tears poured down my cheeks. Was that how she viewed my hard work and dedication? As overeagerness?

She doesn’t deserve me.

I was taught never to take abuse from a family member or a love interest. Why was I letting the woman who wrote my paychecks abuse me? I couldn’t even call it golden handcuffs, since mine were more like an old, rusty metal pair. But the hard truth was, as decrepit as they may have been, sometimes they did indeed flicker with a smidge of gold. It’s never easy to turn away from those shiny flecks.