by Erin McRae
He turned his phone off and left it in his pocket while he submitted to the mild indignity of having his hair done and makeup put on for the camera. He’d occasionally hung out backstage waiting for Dennis to be done with work so they could get up to some form of mischief together. All he had done then was watch the action and try to stay out of the way. He’d never been here to actually talk.
He heard Dennis’s introduction with a rising sense of stage fright mingled with a good dose of straight-up panic. He didn’t actually know how to do this.
A P.A. had to nudge Harry in the ribs to get him to stop lurking in the wings and actually step out onstage. The lights were blinding, which was the best thing that could be said for the situation. It meant Harry could hear the audience and their middlingly enthusiastic applause, but he couldn’t see them.
Dennis rose from his chair to give Harry the sort of back-slapping hug they never exchanged in real life. He wore a sharp grey suit with coordinating tie and pocket square in dark green and gold, and his wavy hair was styled to perfection. He looked almost intimidatingly put together. Harry was well-dressed too, of course, but Dennis was in his element and it showed.
Harry paged through his memory trying to think of some immensely embarrassing anecdote he could tell about Dennis to level the playing field a little. At least, one that wouldn’t also indict himself. There weren’t many.
Dennis was skilled at what he did, but Harry didn’t know if he could pull off a good interview with such an old, close friend. He also worried about his own ability to be at all appealing on camera. But to his relief Dennis led him through a conversation that was well-paced, funny, and sprinkled with bits of interesting information about Harry’s life and work. If Harry had the chance to do this another dozen times or so, he might actually get used to it. Not that that was ever going to happen.
“So you’ve written a book,” Dennis finally said.
“I have.”
“And you self-published it?”
“Would you like me to say something erudite about the democratization of publishing or be inappropriately judgmental of millions of authors who have done the same, with varying levels of success?”
“But I understand it’s been picked up by a publisher....” Dennis said, his voice leading. Harry supposed that was his job.
“I’m pleased to say, yes. It was always a bit of a problem child of a book. Not more than ninety pages. So I’m grateful someone wants to kill trees for such a thin volume.”
“You realize here no one cares about publishing. What’s the book about, Harry?”
“Well, apparently it’s currently a digital best-selling not-quite-memoir about a love affair that never happened,” Harry said. He forced himself to smile. ‘Hadn’t happened yet’ would be the more honest thing to say, but he didn’t need to talk about that on national television.
Dennis turned to the audience. “I’m sorry, I think we’re going to have to pry more out of him. Harry here has spent thirty years pretending to be the dignified party in our friendship. I can assure you, that’s not the case. I have seen things.”
“I’ve seen things too,” Harry snapped, smiling in spite of himself.
Dennis looked delighted. The audience sounded delighted. “Harry, there are network standards even at this appalling hour. So tell us about the book. And the girl. And the book and the girl.”
“I wrote the book during seventy-two hours in Vienna while I was supposed to be writing something else entirely. But I couldn’t get her out of my head. And Vienna’s a city of exile – I couldn’t be there without thinking of all the things I wasn’t supposed to be or have in my life. My agent told me it was the best thing I’d ever written and that she couldn’t sell it. Yet, here we are. It’s all been a little overwhelming.”
Dennis waved a hand as if to bat away the insignificant details. “But the girl, Harry. Has she read it?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Why unfortunately?”
“Because I didn’t tell her I wrote it, and when she found out she threw her e-reader at – well, not at me. But in my general direction.”
The look of sheer enjoyment on Dennis’s face was not just for the benefit of the cameras. The audience roared with laughter...and a few boos, for Harry and his bad behavior.
Harry turned his head to find a camera; it wasn’t hard, the damned things were everywhere. “Eliza,” he said to it, as if there were the remotest chance she were watching. “I’m so sorry.”
Eliza
AT ONE IN THE MORNING Eliza lay awake, staring at the ceiling while the sounds of the city rumbled by beneath her. When her phone rang she fumbled upright to answer it. Phone calls at this hour could not possibly be good.
It was Jonathan, which didn’t reassure her at all. He might have pocket dialed her, or there might be something dreadfully wrong.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“No, I was up.”
“Good. I mean, not good, but –”
“Jonathan, what’s wrong?” Eliza sat up. Random colleagues didn’t call in the middle of the night unless something was very wrong or someone was very dead. Her heart lurched. Harry.
“I think you should turn on your TV or computer or whatever and watch The Really Late Show.”
“Why?” Eliza asked groggily.
“Because Harry’s doing something monstrously ill-advised.”
Worse than what he’s done already? Eliza wasn’t sure she wanted to see him clear that bar. But she leaned over the edge of her bed to grope for the laptop she’d left on the floor.
“I emailed you the link to where it’s streaming,” Jonathan said as she woke her computer up.
“Why are you so perfect?” Eliza asked.
Jonathan laughed but the sound was hushed and nervous.
In only moments she had a browser window open and the show playing. Harry, curse him, looked lovely. The camera softened his wry edges and brought out the sadness that lurked in the corners of his mouth. That sadness had drawn Eliza in since she had first met Harry; now, it was drawing in everyone who was watching.
Irrationally, the notion that Harry should be so available to the world made her flare with anger. She tried to push those feelings down. Her reaction would have been unkind and inappropriate even if she and Harry were together. For now, it was useless.
“I wish they’d stop referring to me as ‘the girl,’” she said when she remembered she was still on the phone with Jonathan.
“Better than your name,” he pointed out.
“Better to be an adult person than a child object.” Eliza kept her voice low, not wanting to miss a word of this rather unlikely event.
“He’s very good at this,” Jonathan murmured.
Eliza wished Jonathan was wrong, but he wasn’t. She had no idea if Harry’s irritable but slightly flirtatious banter with Dennis was an act or not. Similarly, she had no idea of the sincerity of his chagrin regarding the book and her rage. But whatever he was doing, it played very well. If Harry hadn’t been talking about her she might have fallen a little in love with him.
Then Harry turned and looked directly into the camera.
“You’re not supposed to do that,” Jonathan said.
Eliza would have laughed at his very firm opinions on talk show rules, but Harry was looking right at her. Harry, was, in fact, talking directly to her, even if this had been recorded hours ago.
“Eliza, I’m so sorry,” tiny TV-on-a-laptop Harry said.
“How,” Eliza asked Jonathan as the audience cooed and laughed, “can this possibly be happening to me?”
Outside there was a flash and a crack of thunder. Wind pushed rain furiously against the windows. The hair on the back of Eliza’s neck stood up. Whenever she thought of Harry, the world seemed to flood.
ELIZA GOT TO WORK EARLY, in part because she couldn’t sleep any more, and in part because whatever Harry’s plan for the day was, she wanted to arrive first.
The off
ice was mostly empty when she got there, but as she walked down the hallway to her office Jonathan appeared holding a muffin and a cup of coffee. He put both of them down on top of a copy machine and pulled her into a brief, but tight, hug.
Eliza clung to him, startled both by the kindness of the gesture and how strongly it was affecting her. Until this moment she hadn’t realized that going through life without friends also meant, to some extent, going through life without allies. Having someone on her side meant more than she knew how to express.
So when Jonathan gave her one last squeeze and let her go, she blinked hard – was she about to cry? At work? Again? Oh please no – and grabbed Jonathan’s hand.
“Thank you.” Her voice was a whispery croak.
Jonathan, apparently completely unbothered by the breakdown she was on the verge of having, handed her the coffee cup and the muffin.
“You’re going to need some fuel for the day,” he said. And then, with one last supportive smile, he disappeared down the hall and behind the barricade of his cubicle.
ELIZA HAD BEEN AT HER desk about an hour when there was a knock on the door, and not Harry’s familiar one – or Jonathan’s, for that matter.
“Come in?”
A young woman, about Eliza’s age, opened the door.
“Elizabeth Abgral?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Jackie Park, from HR. Do you have a few minutes?”
“What for?” If she was about to get fired for Harry’s appalling stunt, she...well. She wasn’t sure what she would do. Maybe write a book.
“Just to ask you some questions. You’re not in trouble,” Jackie added hastily. “But after Mr. Sargent’s appearance on The Really Late Show we want to make sure you’re okay.”
Eliza scowled. Harry’s book – and him talking about it on TV – may have been unwanted, but it was a very public manifestation of a very private situation. She didn’t want to talk about it with anyone else, and certainly not with human resources.
“Do you mind coming with me?” Jackie asked.
Eliza sighed and stood up. It was hardly a request she would be allowed to turn down.
She ended up in the HR office on a floor of the building Eliza didn’t even know the publisher had offices on. Seated in the room with her was a kindly looking woman in her sixties who introduced herself as Cate Sanchez, the head of HR, and Jackie, who sat with a notepad on her knee. For the next half an hour, answered the same questions, asked over and over, from different angles and all with the same degree of caution and sympathy.
What was the nature of her relationship with Harry Sargent? Had he ever suggested, implied or stated that reciprocating his interest was a condition of employment? Had he used his position to harass or stalk her? Had he ever harassed or stalked her outside of his position? Was any of the attention he paid her unwelcome, unwanted, and did it make her uncomfortable in any way? Did she feel safe?
It was evident that this entire mess had only been brought to their attention by Harry’s appearance on that damn show last night. Eliza thought, rather darkly, that if she ever had needed HR’s intervention, they were a little late on the uptake.
“Look, I appreciate what you’re doing here,” she finally said. “I especially appreciate that you’re taking the safety of women seriously. But really, I’m okay. We were in a consensual relationship and now we’re not. We’ve both behaved poorly.” Which was ninety percent Harry’s fault, but then, she had thrown an e-reader. “But that’s between us as adults, and it’s fine. Though I promise,” she added, because she could tell Cate was about to object, “that if I ever do feel harassed or uncomfortable or whatever by Harry, I will come tell you right away.”
Cate and Jackie exchanged looks. Jackie nodded, which was evidently a signal, because Cate turned back to Eliza and asked, “Now, if that’s settled, do you mind if we ask Mr. Sargent to join us?”
Eliza deeply regretted not staying home in bed today. “Not at all.”
Cate left the room and returned less than a minute later with Harry. Eliza wondered how long they’d kept him waiting outside. In spite of herself she gave him a weak smile. If nothing else, they could commiserate on this.
Harry tried to smile in return, but mostly he looked deeply alarmed.
In all, Eliza decided she preferred the questions about whether Harry was abusing his position relative to her to the grilling about whether their personal relationship overstepped the bounds of professional propriety. Especially since the only honest answer she could give to all questions in that regard was no, they most definitely were not. Not anymore.
Harry joined with her in roundly denying any current relationship. Ironically, it was the most united they’d been on anything since Harry had left Paris.
WHEN THEY WERE FINALLY released on their own recognizance, she and Harry stood awkwardly by the elevator bank waiting for a car to arrive.
“I’m sorry about that,” Harry said, his hands tucked in his pockets.
Eliza shrugged. “The HR part of this mess was probably on both of us. But for the rest of it, thank you.” An apology was the least he owed her, but she would take it.
“Can we talk?” Harry asked.
Eliza thought about snapping at him. No conversation could solve accidental bestseller or national TV. But it wasn’t worth the effort. “I have a ton of work to do, and I lost two hours dealing with your need to talk about the book you wrote about me on national TV.”
Harry said nothing.
While she wanted to be angry with him for not walking away, she was also keenly aware she hadn’t gone anywhere either. Why were they still drawn to each other, even in the middle of this giant mess? She sighed in irritation with herself, with Harry, and with the universe. “Fine. Later?” she asked.
Harry closed his eyes for a moment, as if in relief. “Yes. Thank you.”
AT SEVEN THAT EVENING Harry knocked quietly on Eliza’s open door. “Hi,” he said, almost sheepishly. “I didn’t want to presume and order food, but...?”
She was hungry, but uncertain. And exhausted. She wanted to come to terms about this massively untenable position Harry had put them both in. But she didn’t have the energy for another fight, and she really didn’t want to have one over a meal. Even if it was just out of takeout containers.
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “Did you want to come in?” Harry was still hovering in the doorway.
He nodded with evident caution.
“Sit down,” she told him, not brusquely.
“Why the change of heart?” he asked as he slid into one of the chairs at her desk.
Eliza looked at him with something approaching disbelief. “That is presumptuous,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” Harry looked contrite, but Eliza wasn’t in the mood to be affected. “I just wanted to get everything out in the open.”
“You mean like you did before you wrote a book about me, published it, and then went and talked about it on a TV segment that’s now gone viral?” she said sharply.
“I know I can’t fix that,” Harry said. “But I was a coward for a long time, and the least I can do is make myself available for...whatever you want to say to me.”
“And if I don’t want to say anything to you?” she asked.
“You did ask me to come in,” Harry pointed out.
Eliza had to concede that. “It’s not a change of heart,” she said. “I’m still furious with you. But I’m also tired of this.” She waved a hand to encompass the tension between them and the mess that was rippling outwards from them to the world beyond.
“Were you really in love with me?” Harry asked.
From the offer of a meal to this. If it had been anyone else, Eliza would have ordered him right back out of her office again. But it was Harry, and Harry had never been like anyone else. Until he had been awful.
“I still am,” she said. “I just hate you too.”
A complicated expression that might have been hope or rel
ief fluttered across Harry’s face. “Can we fix this?” he asked.
Eliza felt lost. “In what capacity? I don’t even know if there’s anything to fix.”
“You’ve read the book – and again, I am so sorry –”
Eliza held up a hand. Further apologies would do nothing.
“You read the book,” Harry repeated, quiet but insistent. “You can hardly think your feelings aren’t returned.”
“I most certainly can. I don’t even understand what happened. Both the good part and this...” she fished for a word. “Disaster.”
“I got scared.”
“So? People are scared all the time.” Harry looked distressed, but he didn’t say anything. Eliza pressed on. “Are you still a child? Do you still think I’m one?”
“I’m twenty years older than you. An incredibly close friend of mine died in January. I don’t do relationships –”
“You never told me you were a cad,” Eliza interrupted scornfully.
“– because they don’t interest me. Didn’t. And then there was you.”
“What do you mean relationships don’t interest you?” Eliza asked. “You’ve told me so much about people who have mattered to you tremendously.”
“But the way other people do them,” Harry said. “What are they for?” He sounded so bewildered that Eliza was taken aback. She’d asked herself the same question as a teen, but answers were so easily forthcoming from everyone around her. They were for status and security. They were for barter, cooperation, and trust. None of that was awful or unreasonable, but it had all always seemed so bloodless to Eliza, and she’d never really known if that was about her or about everyone else.
“They’re for talking to people about books when you’re not at the office,” she said.
“I have friends for that,” Harry replied.