Slightly Settled

by Wendy Markham

  “How about if we don’t talk at all?” he asks, and leans over to kiss me again.

  The next morning, I get up extra early to take a shower while Jack packs for his business trip. I fully intend to be out of here before Mike and Dianne get up.

  I packed a bag before I came last night, so this time, I have my own toothbrush, underwear and two towels I brought along just in case.

  There’s a knock on the bathroom door as I’m combing through my wet hair.

  “Yeah?” I ask in a hushed tone, assuming it’s Jack.

  It’s not. It’s Dianne, and she sounds aggravated.

  “Can you hurry up in there? I have an early meeting, and I’ve been waiting for ten minutes.”

  “Oh! I’m really sorry. I’ll be right out.”

  “Thanks.”

  I listen for her footsteps to retreat back down the hall, but they don’t.

  Which means she’s standing there, waiting for me to come out.

  Which means she wants me out now.

  I had planned to get dressed first, to avoid a replay of last week’s disaster. But I don’t want to piss her off even further by making her wait, so I hurriedly grab my stuff, wrap one of my towels securely around my body and the other around my hair, and open the door.

  Sure enough, Dianne is standing there, practically tapping her foot.

  “Good morning,” I say sweetly.

  “Good morning,” she says tartly.

  “It’s all yours.”

  “Thanks.”

  I tread cautiously down the hall toward Jack’s room.

  “Oh, and Tracey,” she calls after me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Not to be a pain or anything, but you should really only use one towel when you take a shower here. In case you haven’t noticed, these guys are short on towels and they don’t do laundry very often.”

  I open my mouth to tell her they’re my own towels, but the bathroom door has already closed behind her with a click.

  Bitch, I think.

  Jack is taking a car service to JFK, so I’ll have to ride to midtown myself today—unless I want to hang out and wait for Mike and Dianne.

  Which I don’t.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Jack tells me. “I’ll call you as soon as I land. If I get in on time, we can get dinner before the show.”

  Right. The show.

  Tell him.

  “Sounds perfect.” That’s what I tell him.

  After all, I invited him first.

  And I really want to take him.

  The thing with Buckley was…well, it was just an experiment. Not that I’m not attracted to him, and not that I want to hurt him….

  Crap.

  I don’t want to hurt him.

  But I don’t want to hurt Jack, either.

  And most of all, I don’t want to hurt me.

  As I stand there shivering in the icy morning air, watching Jack wave out the back window of a black Town Car as it pulls away, I realize that I’ve got a big decision to make in the next twenty-four hours.

  No matter which way I go, a great guy is going to get hurt.

  Thank God I have my weekly appointment with Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum after work. I know she won’t tell me what I should do, but maybe it’ll help to talk to somebody—even if she doesn’t talk back, damn her.

  “Good morning, Tracey,” Merry says, sticking her head into my cube an hour later. “Did you bring your dish to pass?”

  “Dish to pass?” I look up from my fat-free muffin, which is dry and flavorless—unless you count the chemical after-taste—as fat-free muffins always seem to be.

  “For the potluck.”

  Welcome to Kansas, Dorothy.

  “What potluck, Merry?”

  “The Secret Snowflake luncheon at noon,” Merry says. “Did you forget?”

  “That’s today? I thought it was tomorrow.”

  “We had to change it because the Creatives needed the tenth-floor conference room and there was nothing else available. But the caterer wanted to charge extra to make it a day earlier so we decided to make it a potluck instead. I wrote it all in the e-mail.”

  “I didn’t get it.”

  “So you didn’t bring something to pass?” She looks around my office like she expects to see a covered dish peering out from under a stack of folders.

  “I don’t usually bring casseroles to work just for the hell of it, Merry.”

  “Oh, it doesn’t have to be a casserole. I’m not bringing a casserole.”

  “What are you bringing?”

  “I made a goose and a bûche de Noël.”

  Part of me would love to know where the hell one finds a goose in postmillennial Manhattan and what the hell a bûche de Noël even is, but another part of me just wants Merry to get the fuck out of my cube.

  That’s the part that snarls, “Well, I can’t make it to the potluck today.”

  The nicer part of me adds, “Sorry.”

  “But…it’s mandatory.”

  “No, it isn’t, Merry.”

  “Yes, it is, Tracey.”

  “Let me guess. There’s a list of Secret Snowflake bylaws, but somebody forgot to e-mail that to me, too?”

  “You really don’t have to get all snippy.”

  Yes, I really do.

  Because I’m not in the mood for any of this. I’ve got two tickets to Radio City tomorrow night and two dates, and if that isn’t more important than a potluck luncheon, I don’t know what is.

  I glare at Merry, hoping she’ll get the hint and leave.

  She doesn’t.

  I glare harder and send her a telepathic message.

  Just back out of the cube slowly and nobody gets hurt, see?

  She doesn’t get that, either.

  “Tracey, you really have to come to the luncheon,” she says. “It’s—”

  “If you say mandatory one more time,” I say, wagging my finger in her face like a wise-ass street punk, missing only a bandanna, a switchblade and a vocabulary dotted with Yo’s, “I’m going to…”

  What am I going to do?

  I’d like to smush my fat-free muffin into her face, at the very least. But I’ve never been in a girl fight in my life, and I can’t start now.

  For one thing, it’s a safe bet that beating up a co-worker is grounds for termination.

  For another, it would probably get back to Jack, and something tells me wise-ass street punks aren’t his type.

  “Hey, Chief, what’s going on?”

  I look up to see Mike looming in the doorway behind Merry.

  It’s hard to believe that I once thought the Chief thing was cute. Now I think if I hear that one more time, I’ll have to smush my fat-free muffin in Mike’s face, too.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks, looking from me to Merry.

  “Mike, please tell her that there’s no such thing as a mandatory Secret Snowflake luncheon,” I say.

  Mike blinks. “The Secret Snowflake luncheon isn’t mandatory?”

  “It is,” Merry says.

  “Yeah, just like the Secret Snowflake thing was mandatory.”

  “It is,” she repeats.

  “Then why am I the only one in my whole department who was suckered into doing it?”

  “I did it, too,” Mike says.

  Oh.

  Well, clearly, Merry and her committee prey on new employees who don’t know any better.

  “I thought it was mandatory, too,” Mike says.

  “It is,” Merry says for the third time. This time, she adds, “In a way.”

  Mike and I exchange a glance.

  “I can’t go to the luncheon today,” I inform Merry again.

  “Then I guess you’ll never find out who your Secret Snowflake is,” she says primly, folding her arms.

  She doesn’t say So There, but she might as well.

  I don’t roll my eyes, either, but I might as well.

  “It’s probably better that way,” I tell her, “because
if I found out who my Snowflake is, I’d probably just want to ask her why the hell she spent all that money on me. I’d tell her how shitty it made me feel, getting gifts that cost at least ten times what I was spending on my own Snowflake every—”

  That’s when I catch the expression on Mike’s face.

  And in that terrible instant, my Secret Snowflake’s identity becomes crystal-clear.

  The day started off badly, and it goes rapidly downhill after the Secret Snowflake hullabaloo.

  Merry beat a hasty retreat out of my office, and I wished Mike would follow her, but he didn’t.

  Instead he stayed to apologize—repeatedly—for showering me with extravagant gifts.

  He told me that it was all Dianne’s idea. Apparently, she felt sorry for me because I didn’t have a boyfriend this Christmas.

  She was the one who suggested that Mike pass along some of the gifts he gets from magazines and television stations.

  It turns out everything he gave me—with the exception of the Sephora Gift Certificate, which he bought at Dianne’s suggestion—was regifted. Even the tickets to Radio City were comps from one of the TV networks.

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” Mike said about a thousand times. “I was trying to do something nice for you. I didn’t realize you were upset by it.”

  “It’s okay, Mike,” I said every time he told me he was sorry.

  But the whole thing has left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and it isn’t from synthetic muffin.

  Just when I was getting over the whole tighty-whitie/naked fall, this put a whole fresh strain on my relationship with Mike.

  I don’t blame him if he thinks I’m an ungrateful wench.

  Who in her right mind would be offended by a pile of expensive presents?

  Never mind that Mike didn’t pay for most of them…and that he only gave them to me because he and Dianne decided I was pathetic.

  I should have accepted graciously and kept my mouth shut.

  Well, I should do a lot of things.

  Except the thing I shouldn’t do.

  Which I have an uncanny knack for doing.

  Like inviting Buckley to see the Rockettes with me tomorrow night after I had already invited Jack.

  I’m starting to suspect that I need to uninvite him ASAP.

  Which him, you wonder?

  I wonder the same thing.

  I have Jack’s travel itinerary, and I can call him at the hotel tonight if I want.

  Or I can call Buckley at home.

  But which guy should I uninvite?

  I think I know.

  But I need to run it by somebody first. Namely, my shrink.

  Unfortunately, on Thursday afternoon, Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum’s office calls to cancel my appointment. It seems she’s taken a spill on an icy sidewalk and fractured her wrist.

  Okay, there goes my plan to run the potential blow-off by Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum.

  Since I don’t trust my own judgment, and since I’m avoiding all of my work friends today due to the stripper disaster, and since I already know that Kate will automatically say I should choose Buckley over Jack, I’m left with only one person to turn to for advice.

  God help me.

  My laundry’s already in the spin cycle and One-Sock Sally’s taken up three dryers by the time Raphael breezes into the Laundromat with a sack full of laundry over his shoulder and a wicker basket in his hand.

  Inside the basket, on a nest of white linen napkins, are a silver cocktail shaker and two glasses.

  “No martinis for me,” I tell him, holding up my Rolling Rock. “I can’t afford to get trashed tonight. I’ve got a major decision to make.”

  I wait for him to ask what the decision involves, but he’s too busy folding the linen cocktail napkins, setting up the glasses and saying, “These aren’t martinis, Tracey. They’re Brandy Alexanders, in honor of the boy I met last night at Oh, Boy. Guess what his name was?”

  “Um, Joe?”

  “No! Tracey, it was Alexander,” he says, oblivious to my sarcasm.

  “What happened to Carl?”

  “He has a boyfriend,” he says with an easy-come, easy-go wave. “Alexander is beautiful. Blond, like Carl. Tall, too. But not as meaty.”

  Eeew.

  Speaking of meaty…

  “If that’s how it works, I should be drinking Sexual Steve Slammers today,” I tell Raphael.

  “Ooh, sounds yummy. What’s in them?”

  I smack him in the arm and snap, “They’re not a real drink, Raphael, and it’s a miracle I’m not a Juicebox convert after what I witnessed last night.”

  I fill him in on the whole sordid Sexual Steve tale.

  Unlike Jack, he’s sympathetic and horrified. No self-respecting gay male would be the least bit amused by the thought of a less-than-perfect physique being flaunted in a public forum.

  Raphael shudders profusely, then apologies profusely. He also offers to make it up to me—by sending the newly sprung Bodacious B over to my place for a private lap dance.

  “No, thank you,” I say politely, because God only knows where Bodacious B’s “lap” has been.

  “Anyway, listen, Raphael, I have a huge problem and it’s really been bothering me. I need you to tell me what I should do.”

  “Electrolysis,” he says promptly, rattling the silver cocktail shaker above his head with both hands. “I’ve been hoping you’d ask.”

  “What?”

  “Aren’t we talking about your upper lip, Tracey?”

  “No, we’re not talking about my upper lip!”

  My hand goes right to my recently—but apparently not recently enough—waxed mustache, courtesy of my Mediterranean heritage.

  “Oh.” Visibly troubled, Raphael pours himself a drink. “Are you sure you don’t want one, Tracey?”

  “I’m positive.” I snatch the shaker from him and try to glimpse my reflection in its silvery surface.

  Mental Note: Price electrolysis while home for Christmas; will be cheaper in Brookside than Manhattan.

  “So if we’re not talking about your upper lip, Tracey, what are we talking about?”

  I plunk the cocktail shaker down on the table next to the laundry he’s beginning to sort. “I need to run something by you, Raphael. It’s about Jack. And Buckley.”

  “Delicious,” Raphael pronounces, sipping his foamy white drink and closing his eyes in ecstasy. “Not as delicious as Alexander himself, but—”

  “Raphael, please!”

  “Sorry. I’m listening,” he says in his best, soothing Frasier Crane voice.

  So I tell him. About Jack, and about Buckley, and about the kisses and the dates and the tickets.

  And as I talk, it becomes clear to me which guy I have to uninvite.

  Good thing, because Raphael the lush is no more help than Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum.

  By the time I’m done sorting things out aloud, he’s done sorting his laundry, and half in the bag.

  Raphael. Not the laundry.

  “How much booze is in those Brandy Alexanders, Raphael?” I ask, plucking a wayward pair of red velour socks out of his pile of whites.

  “I don’t know. Do you think too much? I couldn’t remember which was the jigger and which was the shot. Want to try some?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I need to be clearheaded for the grim task ahead.

  He answers on the third ring.

  “Tracey!” he says. “I was just thinking about you.”

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He sounds breathless. “Crunches,” he tells me, and my lusty brain instantly downloads an image of his washboard abs.

  Then I quickly shove it out of my head. I don’t dare think of how attracted I am to him when I’m about to tell him I can’t see him again.

  Nor do I dare ask him why he thought of me while he was doing crunches, since he has to have noticed that my abs are not the least bit washboardy.

  “Listen, I have to talk to you,” I say, de
termined to stay on task, here.

  “Uh-oh. Sounds serious.”

  “It is. I feel really bad, but…” I take a deep breath.

  “You’re going to tell me we can’t go out tomorrow night, aren’t you?”

  Caught off guard, I sputter, “Why…who…what makes you think that?”

  “I’ve been blown off enough times to recognize the tone.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and to my horror, I start to cry.

  “It’s okay,” he says. “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. I don’t think either of us is in the right place for this right now.”

  “You’re a great guy,” I tell him, meaning it with all my heart.

  “I know I am. But not for you,” he says.

  “Right.” I sniffle.

  “Have fun with State Capital guy,” Buckley says.

  And, shoving aside a wistful little pang for what might have been, I promise him that I will.

  16

  The Saturday-morning flight from LaGuardia to Buffalo is oversold, and I have to admit, there’s a moment when I actually consider giving up my seat.

  Visions of Christmas in Manhattan with Jack dance through my head….

  But only momentarily.

  Because Jack won’t be here for Christmas, remember? He’ll be in Aspen, where his family has rented the same house every Christmas since he was ten.

  So if I don’t get home to Brookside, I’ll be stuck here in New York for a solitary Christmas, and who, besides Will McCraw, who is his own favorite companion, wants that?

  Certainly not me.

  I slink down in my seat and I don’t volunteer to get bumped.

  Apparently, nobody else on the plane is interested in a solitary Will McCraw Christmas because they don’t volunteer to get bumped, either.

  Which leads to involuntary bumping.

  Which can get ugly, especially at Christmastime, and quickly does. It’s like a Survivor tribal council featuring, in the Jeff Probst role, a fake-smiling, fake-blond flight attendant with fake boobs, pretty much manhandling those who have been voted off.

  Finally, those of us who make the cut find ourselves in the air for the “short ride over to Buffalo,” as the pilot puts it when he comes on the intercom. Pilots always make it sound so easy, like they’re driving the carpool around the corner to school.