I searched my memory. “Oh, Sean. I thought he was gay.”
My friends exchanged pitying looks.
“He isn’t gay,” Vida explained to me, speaking as though I was a rather slow five-year-old. “He’s perfect for you. He’s got a great job, a great house—”
“And a sailboat,” Connie supplied.
“And he has a degree from the London School of Economics,” Vida continued, ticking off the meritorious qualities of this guy I could barely remember. “And season tickets to the opera and—”
“And a boyfriend he keeps in a little place on Potrero Hill,” I concluded.
“He’s not gay!” They both insisted loudly. The saleswoman poked her head around the corner with a curious expression on her face. She probably thought we were discussing the groom. She opened her mouth as if to speak, then smiled brightly and backed out of the doorway.
“Maybe it’s time we were going,” I suggested.
“He’s not gay.” Vida refused to be distracted. “I know someone he used to date, and she said he was unbelievable in bed. Apparently he did this thing—”
“The point is”—Connie cut her off before Vida could provide any details of Sean’s advanced sexual technique—“that you, Becks, when presented with this perfectly good specimen of the single male of the species, didn’t even take a second look.”
“Right,” Vida agreed. “Sean didn’t jump up and say ‘I’m interested’ so you didn’t even notice him. Instead, you went out and got involved with Greg.” She scrunched her nose in distaste as she said his name. “Who was an okay guy but totally wrong for you.”
“But he did all the work. He called you. He pursued you. He fell right into your lap,” Connie said.
“Until you kicked him back out again,” Vida concluded. “Right on schedule.”
I behaved in an un–Bridal Elegance manner by chugging the rest of the bubbly. It gave me time to recover.
“Wait a minute.” I turned to Vida. “If this guy Sean is so perfect, why don’t you go out with him?”
“Becks, it’s not like there’s one man who’s perfect for everyone. He’s so not perfect for me. But he was completely perfect for you.” She sighed and looked at herself critically in the mirror. “Besides, he’s one of the huge number of men who don’t seem to realize I’m a woman.”
“You’re not.” Connie’s matter-of-fact statement came from somewhere behind a rack of white silk stilettos. “You’re one of the guys.” She reappeared holding a Manolo Blahnik with a completely unreasonable heel. “But we’re not talking about you. I’m the bride and therefore the rightful center of attention.”
Vida and I performed synchronized eye rolls.
“Hang on,” I said, “you can’t just blast me like this and then change the subject. Do you guys really think my radar’s that off?”
Connie gave a martyred sigh and sat down. “Fine, but I don’t have the time for you to fight me on this,” she said. “Your only problem is that you’re date lazy.”
Oh God. Had she been cruising the self-help aisle at Barnes & Noble again? “What does that mean?”
“Date lazy,” she explained. “It means you don’t put any effort or thought into who you date.”
“I do too!” I protested. “I have a whole list of rules.” I began counting them off. “Don’t date a guy who wears more jewelry than me, don’t date a guy who uses party as a verb, don’t date a Taurus because they’re emotionally unavailable—”
“Becks, that’s not what she’s talking about,” Vida cut off my recitation, which could have gone on much longer. “What she means is you don’t ever go out with a guy you totally want to go out with.”
“Of course I do.”
Connie snorted. “You’re never the one who chooses. You date the guys who approach you, instead of making the effort of finding someone you really want.”
“Exactly.” Vida nodded. “You’re date lazy.”
“I am not,” I said firmly. “I just have better things to do than troll bars looking for some mythical Prince Charming.”
“We’re not talking about bars, and we’re not talking about Prince Charming. We’re just talking about opening your eyes a little bit and looking around at the men you meet. Geez, it’s like some guy has to conk you over the head and say ‘please go out with me’ before you even think of him as a prospect. And then what do you do? You consult your stupid list of rules, and if he gets a passing grade, you go out with him. Do you stop to ask yourself if you’re even interested in him? No! And so of course you end up turning into a total bitch and dumping him six weeks later because you shouldn’t have been going out with him in the first place!” Vida sank onto a nearby couch looking exhausted.
“Gosh, Vee, tell me what you really think.”
“We just want you to be happy, Becks,” Connie said. “Like me.” She gave the Manolo a critical eye, then dropped it with a look of distaste.
I almost said something about how I didn’t know if it was realistic to rely on some guy to make me happy, but I didn’t want to get yelled at anymore. Besides, Bridal Elegance was hardly the venue for that conversation.
“You just need to think about it a little bit,” Vida suggested. “For God’s sake, you have a point-by-point plan for every other aspect of your life, why don’t you come up with a man plan?”
“A man plan.” I nodded. “Right. And then I’ll make a wish on the evening star, and before you know it, he’ll ride right up to me on a white stallion.”
“Fine,” Connie sniffed. “Don’t listen to your best friends. I don’t know why we’re even having this conversation when my entire wedding is in jeopardy over your stupid shoes!”
WE’D GONE from the bridal shop to a restaurant, and from there to a bar, and by the time we called it quits the shoe crisis had passed, and I was willing to admit to a certain inattention to my love life. I still didn’t think it was my biggest problem, but after the fourth margarita I’d stopped arguing.
When I got home, the light was blinking on my answering machine. “Could that be Prince Charming himself?” I mumbled as I reached for the button.
But it wasn’t.
It was better. It was Mitch Hastings.
It was a job.
Four
Three days later I presented myself to the receptionist at PlanetCom prepared to knock them dead—despite the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about the job I was interviewing for. Mitch had been pretty vague about the details. He’d just said there was a project in a horrible mess and he’d thought of me. I told myself that was because he knew I was brilliant at solving problems and not because the phrase “horrible mess” called me to mind.
The first person I spoke with seemed as clueless about the position as I was. But she was just a recruiter sent from human resources. She was only there to get me to sign a few nondisclosure forms and verify that I was indeed Rebecca Mansfield, Marketing Genius, before taking me to the real interviewers.
She led me down a series of hallways, making lefts and rights and more lefts and leaving me with no hope that I’d ever be able to find my way back without an escort. Of course, I’d have an escort. The big pink tag I’d been instructed to wear around my neck clearly stated that I was not to be set loose in the building alone.
Actually, as I watched the candy-colored stripes on the HR rep’s pantsuit streaming down the hall ahead of me, I reflected that the security seemed a little over the top. There were cameras in every corridor, and everyone I saw moving purposefully from closed door to closed door wore a color-coded picture ID badge. Stripy suit had to keep pulling her (bright orange) badge out and swiping it in readers as we went farther into the labyrinth of commerce that was PlanetCom.
I knew the company’s major focus was on wireless communication, which was presumably a pretty competitive marketplace, but I’d never seen this level of corporate paranoia. I started to get a little excited. Maybe what they were doing was so earth-shatteringly, groundbreakingly revo
lutionary that corporate spies were just dying to get their hands on it. Maybe, after all this time, I was on to a winner.
I started peeking at the little placards outside the rooms we passed. The personality quirks of high-tech companies often show up in the naming scheme for their conference rooms. I worked for one place that held meetings in Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Joshua Tree. The implication was that they were into some sort of “green” technology, but no. They produced a hideously boring (which is not how I marketed it) customer contact tracking system.
If I was trying to learn anything about PlanetCom from their room names, I was out of luck, unless I could infer anything from A207E or S99F. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out the meanings behind the codes, which was possibly the point.
At last we arrived at C767U, which was just as cozy as it sounds. The HR rep gave me a professional smile and sent me into the room with assurances that Chad would be there in a few minutes, and in the meantime I could enjoy the bottle of water she’d provided and stare at the clean white-boards.
“Great,” I said, and she vanished.
Chad. I had no idea if he was someone I’d be reporting to or someone who’d be reporting to me. Or possibly neither. I opened the water and sipped self-consciously, wondering if there were hidden cameras on me, observing how I behaved when unobserved. I was trying to decide if it would look bad for me to subtly adjust my interview outfit (sober black Donna Karan skirt and perfectly tailored Thomas Pink blouse) when the door opened.
A preppy young executive type appeared, wearing khakis and a blue Oxford shirt with a discreet PlanetCom logo over his heart. He had that intentionally harried look that people wear around an office, the one that says “God, I’m busy and important” and was calculated to make you feel grateful for five minutes of his time.
“Becks Mansfield? I’m Chad Barlow. I’ve heard so much about you!”
I heard the faint sound of a starter pistol, and we were off.
I WAS FABULOUS. I know I was fabulous because people kept saying things like “Really? That’s fabulous!” I was amazing. I’m sure I was amazing because there was more than one instance of someone saying, “Gosh, that’s amazing!”
I might not have found my dream job in the past few years, but I had damn well learned how to kill in an interview.
I was three people into the process before I had a glimmer of understanding of what exactly PlanetCom did and what precisely they’d like me to do for them. That understanding came with the realization that I’d have to shelve any feelings I had about the protection of individual privacy rights and somehow embrace the beauty of point-to-point wireless communication, but for the right salary I could probably do that.
Suffice it to say, things went well.
Particularly with one Mr. Chad Barlow. I’d spent five hours talking to five people and thought I was finished when Chad came back for seconds.
“Exhausted yet?”
I was, but I grinned in an I’m-game-for-anything way. “Hell no. Bring it on.”
He came in and closed the door behind him. “I don’t think you’ll be surprised to know we’re all pretty excited about you.”
Not surprised, no. But relieved anyway. “Thanks.”
He sat and gave me an endearingly shy smile. “Speaking for myself, I’m very excited.”
Okay, he clearly expected me to say something. “So what brings you back, Chad?”
“Oh.” His eyes widened. “Someone else wants to chat with you, just for a minute, if that’s okay.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“So I thought I’d grab the chance to spend a little more time with you myself.” There was that smile again.
“Do you mind telling me who I’ll be seeing?”
“It’s such a coincidence. She couldn’t believe it when I mentioned your name earlier. Said she’d worked with you back—Oh, here she is now!”
The door opened again to reveal a small thirtyish gnome. She wore a floaty gray dress and had a seriously bad dye job. The long red hair parted in the middle and hanging over her face, paired with the hideous dress, indicated that she was going for some sort of Druid priestess look. I remembered her instantly. Everything except her name and where I’d worked with her. But the hair was etched in my memory. And, if the pieces were coming together correctly, she’d had a habit of knitting in meetings. Madame Defarge, I thought, but knew I was wrong. So I did what any other self-respecting marketing professional would. I faked it.
“Oh my God! It’s so great to see you!”
She smiled a tight smile that triggered a little something, but no name popped magically to the forefront of my brain.
“Becks.” She dropped my name on the table like a gauntlet.
“Wow, I had no idea you were here!”
She turned to Chad. “Could you give us a minute?”
“Sure.” He turned to me with another smile, this one less shy and possibly inappropriate. “I’m sure I’ll be talking to you again, Becks.”
And he winked. Definitely inappropriate, but I didn’t care because the next thing he said was “See you, Rita” before he left.
“Rita!” I gushed. “How long have you been at PlanetCom?”
She gave me a look that could have frozen lava in its tracks. “Since you fired me, you bitch.”
“SHE DIDN’T!” Max’s jaw actually dropped, which is exactly why I’d called him to meet me for drinks the instant I’d gotten out of PlanetCom. You could always count on Max to provide a gratifying audience for life’s little disasters.
“She did,” I affirmed. “‘You bitch,’ she said.”
“And did you remember firing her?”
“I didn’t fire her.” I downed the last of my lemon drop and looked meaningfully at the empty glass. Max, bless him, made the universal “another round” gesture at the bartender. “It was when I was a manager for a minute and a half at WiredGlobe and I got stuck doing a bunch of layoffs before I got laid off myself. She called me a bitch then, too.”
“Well, given the circumstances, I suppose that might have been expected.”
“But, come on!” I protested. “She still hasn’t gotten over it?”
Max patted my arm. “Not everyone is as used to it as you are. Now, take it from the top. Tell me everything she said.”
I nodded and reached for my new drink. “First”—I sipped—“she told me she’d see me in hell before she’d let me get a job at PlanetCom.”
“Ouch.”
“Then she just started shouting at me. That I was—again—a bitch, and that everyone at WiredGlobe had hated me and—” It was too much. I had to stop for vodka. “She said I was a corporate machine,” I told him. “She said I didn’t care about anything but getting promoted.”
This was the point at which Max was required to murmur “That’s complete nonsense” or something equally reassuring. I looked at him expectantly.
He suddenly found the stem of his glass completely fascinating.
“Max?”
“Was that all she said? Becks, she’s just a sad, bitter woman. You shouldn’t spend one more minute thinking about her. Life’s too short.”
I nodded glumly. “Life’s too short,” I agreed. “Assuming you have a life.”
And by a life, I meant a job.
Five
After a few days of licking my Rita-induced wounds, I decided I’d better keep my day job. That is, I’d better keep vanquishing the evil foes of Vladima, Defender of the Night. Meaning, I’d better go see Josh.
The studio where he and a small but dedicated band of artists and animators created Vladima’s bloodthirsty world was located in a low brick building on Folsom, in a neighborhood where electrical supply houses and auto repair shops were giving way to trendy bars and industrial lofts. They were pretty nice digs, considering the fact that I couldn’t figure out how Josh managed to fund the whole enterprise.
There was no reception desk, just an electronic keypad where you could enter
your security code and come in off the street to a minuscule lobby containing a staircase to the business upstairs (which I suspected was some sort of shady enterprise, since nobody ever seemed to come or go there) and the door leading to Vladima’s inner sanctum.
I keyed my code into that door, entered the bat cave, and let my eyes adjust to the gloom. The décor of the place was undoubtedly inspired by the subject matter created there. The walls were painted dark gray, and I wasn’t sure if the mottled concrete floor was a pricey interior designer’s reference to an oil slick or evidence that the building had once actually been a garage. There were posters of Vladima everywhere, alongside various other superheroes and assorted children of the night. Pride of place was given to an original movie poster of the silent classic Nosferatu, autographed by the director F. W. Murnau himself. It was kept under glass, and more than once when deadlines had been close I’d seen candles burning under it. The staff took their work very seriously.
The office area was barely big enough to contain twelve cubicles for Vladima’s minions (their term, not mine) and one glass-walled office for Josh. The cubicles were constructed out of something that looked like gray burlap. The only windows letting a little natural light into the place were made of a thick wire-reinforced glass that left the place pretty murky, which is just how the inhabitants liked it. I’d once commented on how dismal it was and had been given a lengthy lecture on eyestrain suffered by computer artists and how soft indirect light was best for them.
It certainly didn’t do much for anyone’s complexion.
I could see Josh was on the phone, so I wandered through the aisle of cubicles, heading for the break room at the opposite end of the building. The minions all wore headphones and were pretty much glued to their monitors, pushing pixels with intense concentration. It would take more than one mild-mannered voiceover artist to disturb their concentration.
The Balance Thing Page 3