Who You Know (24 page)

“Rette, I really want to thank you for tonight. You're not disappointed, are you?” Dan asked.

“No. In fact, I think this evening couldn't have turned out better.”

“Would it be okay if I e-mailed you every now and then? I'd love to know how the wedding goes.”

“I uh, I'm not sure if that's a good idea. We'll see, okay?”

We heard a car door open, then close. After a minute or so, Rette said into the microphone, “Meet me at my apartment.” The engine turned and we heard her tearing out of her parking spot.

Avery and I waited a full five minutes before moving from our spots below the truck's windows and heading over to Rette's place.

I charged up the stairs to Rette's apartment, threw open the door, and yelled, “You blew it!”

Rette was sitting on the couch; she'd already changed from her sexy clothes and was wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

“I did not. I thought if he thought I had something to lose by sleeping with him, he'd know I'd have to keep our affair secret and he'd be safe in sleeping with me.” She got up and went into the bathroom. I followed close behind. Avery stood against the wall, her arms crossed, her eyes on the floor. “He'd know it wouldn't turn into a fatal attraction thing and that I wouldn't expect him to leave his wife,” Rette said. “I don't know, playing it that way just came to me. I didn't have a script to work from, you know.”

“You did fine,” Avery said quietly.

Rette pulled her hair up in a ponytail, turned on the faucet, and began scrubbing all the makeup off her face.

“No, no,” I said, exasperated. “You were supposed to get him drunk and then lure him to some out-of-the-way place and then run your hand up his leg while kissing him lightly on his neck. My god, doesn't anyone know how to seduce a man anymore? Avery, you read romance novels, you know how it goes. You're not supposed to be honest and admit you're getting
married,
for god's sake.”

Rette rinsed her face, then patted her face dry and walked into the living room.

“Are you okay, Avery?”

“You did fine. Look, it's over, he didn't cheat on his wife. Let's just drop it, okay? I'm going to bed.” Avery stood and made her way toward the door.

“Bed? It's like only nine o'clock,” I said.

“I'll see you guys later. Thanks for the help tonight,” Avery said. The screen door swung shut behind her.

 

Why do relationships have to be so complicated? Poor Avery was taking the Art/Dan thing really hard. My own love life was as confused as ever. Things were strange between me and Tom. At work he acted nothing more than distantly polite to me. He didn't always call me when he said he'd call, and when he did want to get together, it was always at the last minute. In a way, I was glad I had Mike in my life. It kept me busy and not always just waiting around for Tom. But when Tom and I did get together, we always had fun.

The whole situation was tricky. I didn't know who to fantasize about before I fell asleep at night. I tried to give them each a 50/50 split of my fantasy time, but memories of Dave usually crowded them both out of my mind.

One morning, I couldn't stop thinking about sex with Dave, and I got so crazy horny, I e-mailed Tom suggesting we take his Excursion, find a secluded spot, and have a little lunchtime nookie. A few minutes later he arrived at my office door, grinning.

“Ready for lunch?” he asked.

“Am I ever,” I said, smiling.

“It's not even eleven,” Avery said.

“We want to beat the crowds,” I replied.

Tom and I drove to the farthest end of a Wal-Mart parking lot and parked next to a field near the Dumpsters in the back of the Wal-Mart. We climbed in the backseat and I unbuttoned his jeans and pulled them and his boxers down to his ankles. I took him in my mouth. Keeping him in my mouth, I pushed my skirt up and awkwardly worked out of my underwear—no easy feat in such a small space. I didn't want him to come before I had a chance, so after a couple of minutes, I straddled him, putting him inside me.

“I don't have a condom,” he said.

“Just pull out,” I said. I'd just had a period. I'd probably be fine.

I came after a few minutes. Tom guided me to change positions so I was sitting on the edge of the seat, reclined awkwardly, and he was kneeling on the floor. When he came, he pulled out and sprayed my stomach with his cum.

He sat next to me. “Here,” he said, giving me some Burger King napkins that had been lying on the floor. They looked clean enough, so I cleaned off as best I could. We dressed in silence.

I could have washed up better once we got to the office, but in an odd way, I liked having the sticky remnants of him on my stomach. The thought of our midday romp kept a smile on my face for the rest of the day.

After work, Mike took me out for a dinner that must have been at least $200, considering all the wine we had. Being taken to a nice meal always made me feel especially generous, and when we got home, I gave him a long, particularly delicious blow job, then snuggled up next to him to fall asleep. In the minutes it took to fall asleep, images of Dave kept popping into my mind. Dave laughing, Dave coming, Dave flashing me that smile of his.

How was it that I could be dating two guys and still feel so lonely?

RETTE

T
he fact that my mother was coming for a visit dramatically compounded my yuletide-and-work-induced stress. When Mom was around, I felt like a lab mouse trapped in an experiment I learned about in college. In the experiment, there were three different groups of mice. A lever was set up in the mice's cages. When one group pressed the lever, they would be rewarded with a pellet of food every time. In another group, the mice would never be rewarded, and in the last group, the mice were rewarded sporadically. The first and second groups quickly grew bored with the game, but the mice that were in the third group just couldn't stop themselves. They would do anything to get that periodic reward. They'd press the level until their paws bled. That's how I felt with my mother: I alternately felt stung and loved by her, and I couldn't always tell what I'd do to elicit one response or another. It was exhausting constantly being wary, trying to brace myself to keep from being wounded by one of her comments or disapproving looks. But every now and then I'd be rewarded with an unexpected compliment.

Part of it was that we were so different. Even as a little girl, when she tried to dress me in frilly pink dresses and hair ribbons, I considered it the gravest, cruelest punishment imaginable. She'd cajole, then she'd pull the I'm-your-mom-and-you'll-do-what-I-say card. I'd kick and scream and tear the ribbons out of my hair at the first possible opportunity, causing my mother much frustration and gritted teeth. It was a battle that would continue in a slightly different form for the rest of my life.

When I was a teenager, as my curves developed without permission from me, I took to wearing enormously oversized clothes to hide my burgeoning figure. Mom hated my outfits and told me that if I didn't wear such muumuu-ish clothes, I wouldn't look so much like a circus tent. (She actually said that.
Ouch.
) But every now and then, I'd buy an article of clothing that Mom liked. She'd smile and tell me how nice I looked.
Ka-ching!
Pellet. You'd think I'd keep trying for more pellets, and I did, to some extent, but there was also that teenage rebelliousness in me that said,
Yeah, you want me to be skinny and starve myself like you do? Screw you!

Okay, this backfired on me much more than on Mom, I see that now, but doesn't most teenage rebellion?

Part of me wanted to be into clothes and doing my nails and learning how to accessorize myself in a dazzling manner, but if something didn't challenge my intellect, I just couldn't bring myself to care. Jen did a much better job of garnering Mom's approval. Jen got pellets up the ying-yang, but of course she couldn't eat them because she was on a perpetual diet.

At least Mom paid attention, right? Unlike Dad. With Dad, Jen and I could have been doing cartwheels while on fire and he wouldn't have noticed. But for some reason, Dad being in his own little world didn't bother me nearly as much as Mom picking on me like a monkey mom at the zoo, picking straw and whatever the equivalent of lint is in primate circles off her monkey baby.

Jen and my relationship to food had a lot to do with what we learned from Mom's relationship to it. She knew the fat content and calorie count of every food on the face of the earth. Any time she had the tiniest sliver of cake at the holidays, she would ruin it by talking the entire time about how bad she was and how fattening it was and how much more she'd have to work out the next day to burn it off. She could never just enjoy anything.

She thought of food as an insidious enemy, an unfortunate necessity of life. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she never prepared good food. Instead of fresh baked bread we had Wonderbread. Instead of brie, we had Cheesewhiz. Instead of filet mignon, we had Hamburger Helper. Instead of fresh pasta we had Mac 'n Cheese. You'd think someone as calorie conscious as our mom would have made things with fresh fruits and vegetables, but since food wasn't a pleasure to my mother, she just wanted to get dinner on the table and over with as fast as possible.

Maybe because Mom never kept any kind of snacks in the house—even low-fat pretzels or fresh fruit—potato chips and candy bars became my forbidden fruit. While other teenagers snuck alcohol in an effort at rebellion, I snuck junk food. The pounds added up slowly over the years, but I wore such baggie clothes, it took me awhile to notice. One day I noticed an unfortunate sprawl of my thigh and realized that I was not comfortable moving in my body (not that I ever had been). I thought, I've become a disgusting fat pig, how did this happen? So I'd starve myself in penance, then binge in an oh-screw-it-I'll-just-be-fat moment of frustration.

I knew my body disappointed my mother, and I couldn't blame her, it disappointed me, and no matter what I did, it always would. I learned that I would never be good enough from the first magazine I ever read with tips on how to find the right bathing suit to cover our “flaws”: short waist, long waist, a bust that's too large or too small (they never say there is a size that's just right because this isn't Goldilock's porridge; when it comes to women's bodies, there are no just rights, just flaws and imperfections that need to be covered and hidden). I learned that my pores would never be small enough, my clothes would never be fashionable enough, my hair would never be shiny enough, and my house would never be homey enough. Somehow, I also managed to learn that stuff like that wouldn't make me happy. It would, however, make seeing my mother for Christmas considerably less stressful.

There wasn't much I could do about it now. An alcoholic or a drug addict can get wasted behind locked doors and still make it into the office or onto the movie set the next day. Being overweight meant I advertised my addiction every moment of every day. I publicized my sorrow in every angry stretch mark, in the ungainly, rolling heft of me that couldn't be covered or hidden away.

AVERY

S
unday morning, I awoke to a day that was gray and cold and as listless as I felt. I had to shake my mood. I'd been in a funk since I'd seen Dan's face smiling back at me from the computer screen earlier in the week.

I lit aromatherapy candles and tried to do some yoga, but I just couldn't concentrate.

I pulled my journal out from beneath my mattress, sat at the kitchen table, and waited for the words to come. Usually, struggling to get my thoughts on paper had a cathartic effect, but I couldn't even begin to describe why I felt so hurt. I grabbed the phone from the end table and called Les.

“Hello?”

“Hey, you. How's your weekend going?” I asked.

“Pretty uneventful. I squeezed a workout in yesterday, but otherwise I've pretty much been one with the couch all weekend. I just can't seem to get motivated. How about you? You sound a little glum. Is it because of Dan? Are you disappointed?”

“I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed in Dan. I thought he and Lydia had such a great marriage. I mean she's pregnant with his child, and instead of Dan being supportive, he decides he's not getting enough attention. It's just so sad.” I close my eyes, trying to blink away the tears. “I really thought I had something real with Art. We didn't even know what the other looked like; it was a relationship based purely on the fact that we seemed to really get each other. It seemed substantive and real. But maybe what makes something romantic are the details you don't know, the imperfections you aren't yet aware of or can overlook. In the missing details, you fill in your own, making him into what you want him to be.”

“What about in
When Harry Met Sally?
There, the only obstacle was that they didn't realize they were meant to be together. They knew all of each others' faults and it wasn't until they were ready to see just how well they fit together that they were able to start living happily ever after.”

“Or maybe they just got sick of dating and settled for each other.”

“Maybe that's what true love is: Giving up your illusions and loving the reality of an imperfect person.”

“I guess. It just doesn't quite seem as exciting.”

“That's why it's so hard. Exciting takes no work whatsoever; it just carries you along. A serious relationship, one that keeps getting deeper and better, that's hard work.”

 

 

T
he next morning, it took me a long time to drag myself out of bed. I went through the motions of showering and dressing and drove to the office on automatic pilot. I walked past the cubicles padded like the walls in an asylum, along the institutional gray carpet. The hum of the computers, the click of fingers tapping at the keyboards, the sound of voices on the phone fused with artificial enthusiasm, into my tiny office where I spent most of my waking hours.

I sat down, turned on my computer, and went to the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, ready to dutifully poison myself to be a productive employee.

I lingered in the kitchen, drinking my coffee until I was finished. I put the mug in the dishwasher. I was too restless to go back to my office, and I couldn't exactly hang out in the kitchen all day. I went to Rette's office instead.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, I'm just great. Eleanore just yelled at me for half an hour about widows and orphans.”

“Which are?”

“Something no one but a fascist editor would care about. They're when you have a column that begins with the last line of a paragraph or when you end a paragraph with a small word. We get rid of them to make copy look better, so I missed a paragraph that ended with a four-letter word when Eleanore
has already told me
never to end with
anything fewer than five letters
. Then, to help my day get even better, I got five e-mails in the last hour from marketing people who have copy for me to edit. They all mark their e-mails highest priority, with the subject line ‘Due today' as if it's my fault they waited till past their deadline to finish it and as if every other marketing person didn't also just send me a high-priority e-mail. And do you think people thank me for changing their
Illicit
to
Elicit?
No, they don't thank me for what I catch, they just blame me for what I miss. God forbid I don't catch everything. I'm the fall guy for every mistake. I've made just a stellar career choice.”

“You like writing, don't you? Maybe you could work in the marketing department writing releases and ad copy.”

“Yeah, but then I'd have to deal with Glenn. Eleanore's a monster, but at least she's a good editor. Glenn is shockingly talentless. You can deal with people who have egos all out of proportion to their talent, but I can't. I do not get paid enough to put up with any of this.”

“I know. It's almost Christmas. I need time off, not overtime. And it's not helping that your sister is not pulling her weight on the Expert project. I mean I know she's your sister and all, but I'm doing maybe ninety percent of the work and I just, gosh, I mean I need more help.”

“She's probably too busy with Sharon's stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's helping Sharon with the budget and some other stuff so she can take over for Sharon while she's on maternity leave.”

I looked at her blankly for too long a moment. “Really. I didn't realize she was going for that position. I wouldn't think she'd want a more stressful job.”

“She doesn't. She wants more money.”

“Don't we all.” I tried without much success to keep my tone light. “Well, I guess I should probably get back to work.”

“See ya.”

I made my way unsteadily to the women's bathroom and locked myself in a stall. I leaned against the stall wall, hugging myself, starring at the gray tile floor until the tears blurred my view.

Stop it!
I told myself.
You have too much work to take time out to have a breakdown.

This was my fault. I stupidly thought that my hard work would be rewarded even though none of my efforts had been rewarded in the past. Sharon and I had started working at McKenna at the same time. Even though I had a lot more people skills than Sharon did, she'd moved up the ladder faster. She knew how to brag about her hard work. Every bit of work she did she played up to seem like she was a workaholic who accomplished an amazing number of important tasks for the company. She knew what it took to succeed, while I waited quietly and patiently for someone to notice my work and reward me for it.

I dried my tears. It wasn't too late. The announcement hadn't been made yet; it wasn't official. Even if I didn't get Sharon's job, I needed to let the higher-ups know I was ready to take on more challenges.

I emerged from the stall, thankful that no one else was in the bathroom. I patted my eyes dry, but I couldn't get rid of the telltale red eyes. All I could do was hope no one saw me and ask what was wrong. If they did, I knew I'd burst into tears again.

I went back to my office. It was almost nine and Jen still wasn't in, and I was grateful. I took a few deep breaths and composed an e-mail to Sharon.

I waited eagerly all afternoon for her response. She never wrote back.

 

 

What I wanted to do when I got home from work was hide under the covers and never come out. Unfortunately, I had to go to the company office party. I thought about skipping it, but this was a prime opportunity to rub elbows with the bigwigs. I was going to network and befriend and suck up—whatever I needed to do. I was going to try anyway.

At least I had Les to go with as my “date.”

“Avery, my god, you're gorgeous,” he said when I opened the door to let him in. “I mean you're always gorgeous, but you really look beautiful tonight.”

“Thanks, Les.” I had bought the dress almost a year ago during the post-holiday clearance sales, and I hadn't had an opportunity to wear it until tonight. It wasn't the typical sort of thing for me to buy; it was much too risqué, much too Halle-Berry-goes-to-the-Oscars. It was a gold silk dress, a color that matched well with my dark blond hair; sheer gold-colored fabric lined the scooped neck and plunging back like a thin, translucent scarf. The dress didn't reveal cleavage but threatened to do so. It did show off my neck and back, and the silky fabric was very sensual and might have made me horny if I hadn't been so damned depressed. “You mind if we stick around here for a little bit? I'd like to finish my glass of wine before we leave.”

“Is something wrong? Is the Dan thing still bothering you?”

“Les, there have just been so many things disappointing me lately, I hardly know where to begin. Let's just say my coworkers are the last people on earth I want to spend the evening with. Do you want a glass of wine?”

“I'm good.”

While I finished my wine I told him about the Jen/ Sharon situation. He said all the right things about how I still had a good chance of getting that job or something even better, but I was in a bad mood and nothing anyone could say would get me out of it.

 

 

W
hen we got to the banquet room of the hotel, Mary came up to Les and me to greet us.

“Here are your drink tickets,” she announced, handing us each two. Then, in a conspiratorial whisper she said, “Let me know if you need any more. I had them print up a couple hundred extra!”

Before I could even thank her, she was moving on to the next guests.

“Can I get you a drink?” Les asked.

“Yes. Please. Chablis.”

With Les waiting in line, I was by myself, feeling awkward and alone in a group of people I saw everyday. I looked around for someone to talk to and spotted Jim from sales crying in the corner. He gripped his drink close to his heart, like rosary beads he was praying over. I crossed the room to meet him.

“Jim, what's going on? What's wrong?” I asked.

“My wife left me. She took everything. All my money, my stereo, my computer, my TV, my VCR, my microwave, most of my clothes.”

I hadn't even known Jim was married, let alone long enough to have gotten a divorce. Then he said, “I don't even know where she is, whether she's still in the States or if she went back to the Philippines,” and I remembered our conversation over the coffee maker a few months earlier when he'd told me about his mail-order bride. As his tears started with a renewed vigor, I patted Jim on the shoulders and told him the usual stuff about how everything would be all right. I did feel bad for him. Part of me, however, wanted to high-five the bride and tell her, “You go, girl!”

After a few minutes, I saw Rette making a “come over here” gesture to me from across the room. She looked worried. Anyway, I was happy to have an excuse to get away from Jim. I parted ways as politely as I could and made my way through the crowd.

“What's going on?” I asked Rette when I reached her table.

“It's Jen. She just slammed two drinks in a row, and I think she'd been drinking before she came. She can hold her liquor pretty well, but I think we need to get her out of here before she does something she's going to regret. Something that we're going to regret, for that matter.”

“Is she upset about something?”

“She'd planned on coming here with Tom, but then he gave her some excuse about not wanting to go public with the whole interoffice romance thing, and she wasn't sure if she should ask Mike in case that would mess things up with Tom, as if that relationship wasn't already in shambles, but . . .”

I waited for Rette to continue, but when I looked to see what she was looking at, I understood why she shut up so quickly. Jen was walking toward us. She looked beautiful in a backless black dress. Her red hair was swept up in a dramatic, complicated style. She was a little unsteady, but I wasn't sure if it was from the preposterously high heels or from having a drink or five too many. I was so focused on Jen, it took me a moment to notice someone was walking beside her. I caught my breath, unable to move.

“Hey girls, look who's here,” Jen said, slurring her words. “Dan, I don' think you've met my sister, Rette, yet. She started workin' in our editorial department a couple'mosago. And you remember Avery. Of course, you may know her better as Dancinfool.”

Dan looked confused, then nervous.

“Rette, would you mind coming with me for a second?” Jen said.

Rette looked at me, slightly panicked. I was too stunned to send out a “Please don't go!” signal, and she and Jen left Dan and me alone. At that moment, I hated Jen. Why had I ever confided in her?

“I think I missed something,” Dan said with a forced laugh. “I'm confused.”

All of my feelings of hurt and disappointment turned into anger. “I'm Dancinfool, Dan. I'm the one who's been e-mailing you these last few months. When you sent your picture, and we learned who you were,” my voice faltered, “we wanted to know just how far you'd take it—we were looking out for Lydia—so we sent Rette in my place.”