She slid her gaze to me. “And rather more dignity. We’re purveyors of classic fashion, not a social-media driven pop-up store. Now begone with you all and attempt to be productive.”
We gathered up our paper notepads and electronic tablets, shuffling out. “Not you, Amanda. Sit.” She pointed a glossy burgundy nail—the polish exactly matching the shade of her lipstick—at the chair beside her.
Great. Just wonderful.
She eyed me, cool and impassive. I aspire to be Adelina, in her unflappable Zen if nothing else. Once I even tried to imitate her sharp bob, but it flopped on my too-fine blond hair, never attaining the perfectly shaped thickly ebony and glossily precise points that underscored Adelina’s sculpted jawline. The woman had made herself into a work of art, and I always felt vaguely untidy next to her, no matter what grooming lengths I went to.
“When we discussed ideas for social media campaigns,” she finally said, “I didn’t quite imagine seeing one of my staff in a viral YouTube video.”
Even Adelina had seen the fucking thing?
“I apologize,” I said, trying to sound dignified. Adelina hates excuses of any kind. Accept responsibility and do better, she was forever telling us. “I’ll do better,” I added, though I had no idea what that would entail.
She seemed to agree, because she raised one ruthlessly plucked and penciled brow. The rest of her smooth expression didn’t alter by a hair, so I had no idea what the eyebrow indicated. Was she surprised? Dubious? Full of contempt? About to fire me?? Because that would just be the cherry on top of the shit sundae my life had become. Adelina had fired people for far less. She ran a high-class business and had zero patience for shenanigans.
“What, exactly, are you apologizing for?” Adelina asked, sounding genuinely interested.
For being such a fuck-up, though I couldn’t say that. “I’m apologizing for bringing bad press to you and Exposition Way.”
“Hmm.” She contemplated that, tapping her nails on the glass table. “Did I say you did that?”
No. No, she hadn’t. I needed to gather my fluttering thoughts. “I only meant that the flash-mob proposal was more the kind of thing for a pop-up store, as you say, not for purveyors of classic fashion.”
“I imagine that whole… event,” she chose the word carefully, “came as a surprise to you. Thus the dramatic conclusion.”
“I’m really sorry, Adelina,” I said, apologizing again, feeling miserable enough to cry. Which would be another crime in her eyes. Adeline detested weepiness, along with hysterics of all kinds.
“What are you apologizing for?” She snapped the question with impatience. “The only thing worse than refusal to take responsibility for mistakes is apologizing for things outside of your control.”
I filed that one away with the other Adelina guidelines for dealing with life.
“At least, I’m assuming that tacky display was outside of your control?” she asked. “Be careful how you answer, because I’d hate to be forced to think less of you.”
“It was a total surprise,” I told her, feeling a rush of gratitude at getting to explain. “I had no idea Brad was going to propose that way.”
“Hmm.” She studied me. “But you did think he might propose, I’m guessing. Just… less publicly. I recall his name as your plus one for the party Friday.”
“Exactly.” I shouldn’t be surprised that she knew or remembered that bit of information. Adelina guarded her business zealously and insisted on right of refusal for her employees’ plus ones, ever since one of the guys had tried to sneak a rival designer in as his date.
“And yet I see no diamond on your finger. Just as well, as that round-cut is all wrong for your hands. Next time, make sure you get something with a slimmer design, to match the narrowness of your build. Also, nix on the channel diamonds in the band—that’s just over the top expense for something no one sees. Tacky.”
I gaped at her, not at all sure what to say. Adelina had not only watched the video, she’d zeroed in on the ring.
She gave me an incredulous look, the most dramatic expression she’d made thus far. “Of course I looked at the ring. I wanted to see what you turned down. I assume you’ve turned him down permanently, not just for the camera?”
“Yes.” I stuck with the one word. Safer, and it gave me time to catch up with the conversation.
“Good. You know I like you, Amanda.”
I wouldn’t have replied, still swallowing my astonishment, but she eyed me expectantly, dark gaze sharp. Still, I had to think of something other than ‘you do?’ “Um, thank you.” It came out like a question, dammit.
“Don’t thank me.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t thank someone for recognizing your worth. Those designs you showed me. They’re not good, not yet, but they have potential. Have you made any of them? Drawings are one thing, but fashion is more than the two-dimensional. I need the substance. So do you.”
She’d looked at my designs? I’d had no idea. And I’d been sewing only my New Year’s Eve outfit and that cursed tuxedo for the last several months, which were not among the sketches I’d showed her. “Not yet,” I said, resisting the urge to add an apology.
“What are you waiting for?” She gave me a puzzled look. “You know, you’ve always reminded me of myself, though up until recently you’ve been considerably more focused than I was, back in the day. You seemed to have potential. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
I’d reminded her of herself, but not anymore, because I hadn’t made any of the clothes I’d showed her. Or because of Brad’s stunt, or because I chose the wrong diamond or… I gave up. “Am I being fired?”
Oh, God—I’d have no job, no money. I’d end up moving back home and living in that house again.
“What? Of course you’re not being fired. Though I should fire you now, for being an idiot.” Adelina tapped her nails in a staccato of impatience. “Let me spell this out, as that vast burst of millennial testosterone has clearly addled your wits. You’re better than that bro you narrowly avoided marrying. I seriously question your judgment in dating him in the first place. If you want to be me someday, as I assume you do or you wouldn’t put up with my shit, then you need to get your priorities in order. Who we choose as a partner in life is key to our success. Don’t marry just to marry, dammit. Choose someone with a brain in his head, someone who values you and gets you. Not an idiot who’d make you faint from shock and horror, then drag your good name through the muck. There is such a thing as bad publicity, you know, and if you want your name to mean something someday, to mean beautiful clothes that elevate how we feel about ourselves, then for the love of all things, don’t ever put yourself in that position again. Now, please tell me you understand.”
What else could I say?
“I understand.” I barely stopped myself from thanking her. And apologizing again. Okay, I did need to get a grip.
“Better. Now, get to work. The best solution for all emotional upsets is work and plenty of it. Focus on what you are about.”
“Yes, Adelina.” Feeling dismissed, I stood, but she pinned me with her hard-ass stare.
“I didn’t have this talk with you to be cruel,” she said. “I hope you know that. We all make mistakes—the point is moving forward. Someday I’ll tell you about the man I almost married.”
“The… man?” I asked.
She actually flashed a full smile, one that crinkled her eyes. “Exactly. Which tells you how wrong-headed I was. When I finally got my own shit together, I found Yvette and that’s made all the difference. I want you to figure out the same thing.”
“Ah. Um. I don’t think that I’m…”
“Oh for the love of all things, I don’t mean that you should be dating women. I mean you need to get out of your own way. You chose badly that time. To your credit, you figured that out before it was too late. My advice to you is to reverse that by dating someone you wouldn’t normally choose. The opposite. It doesn’t have to be gender-wise, thoug
h that’s an easy reversal to pick. In fact, find that kind of date for the party. I need your plus one’s name by tomorrow.”
“Date… by tomorrow?” I’d been reduced to breathless stammering.
Her smile folded back into her serene expressionlessness. “Yes. For the place cards. We can’t have these things left to the last moment, and have them turn out shabby. You’ll thank me for this someday. It’s the best relationship advice there is: if you keep picking the wrong kind of person, then find someone you aren’t attracted to and date them.”
“You want me to bring someone I’m not attracted to.”
She stood, straightening the impeccable lines of her skirt—her own, as Adelina only ever wore her own designs—and nodded. “Break your own bad habits. The short timeframe will keep you from overthinking. You don’t have to marry whoever you bring, but you do have to bring someone I’m satisfied is completely different. Don’t disappoint. Now—don’t you have work to do?”
~ 8 ~
“I feel like I’m in a rom-com,” I complained to Julie.
“Don’t be silly. In a rom-com you’d talk your handsome guy best friend—who you’ve inexplicably never noticed—into pretending to be your fiancé for the company party, so you’d get that promotion you wanted.” Julie paused in her chopping and frowned. “In fact, wasn’t that a Jennifer Aniston movie?”
“This is not helpful.” I sipped from the glass of wine I’d bought to pacify Julie’s bosses. They didn’t mind if I hung out at the chef’s table while Julie did prep, as long as I cleared out before the place got busy—or anyone else wanted that table. Still, it sweetened things if I bought a glass—or bottle—of wine, though I was trying to not do that so much, especially at restaurant prices. Julie and the other chefs often gave me little tastes of the night’s special or some new thing they might be concocting. Not only delicious, but sometimes enough to constitute a full meal. Before Brad, I’d stopped by after work most nights. “Though I was contemplating asking Charley if I could borrow Daniel for the evening…”
“Ah.” Julie nodded sagely, dumping the chopped lemongrass in a glass bowl and passing it to another sous-chef. “Thus the plot thickens. Though that would only work for our script if Daniel turned out to be secretly in love with you. And you’d have to give Charley your brother or boyfriend in exchange, or the audience will hate you for stealing Daniel from her.”
“No they won’t. First of all, my brothers are horrible. Second, Charley is gorgeous, glamorous, and successful. They’d be happy to see her comeuppance, losing the hero to her mousy, overlooked friend.”
“Ha! The day anyone calls you mousy is the day I give up entirely. I notice you don’t mention Damien as a possible fake date.”
“Well, he would be helpful in convincing Adelina that I’d picked someone totally different than I usually date.” I focused glumly on the last skim of wine in the glass. I should’ve gotten a bottle. These were desperate times. “I don’t even know what that’s about.”
“Well established psychological phenomenon,” Shin Takahara said, delivering a carton of apples to Julie and taking away her chopped garlic. “People tend to gravitate to a type, hardwired into us as kids. Whatever relationship role model we grow up with, we emulate. So if your mom, say, picked a crap guy for a husband, you’ll pick the same kind of crap guy.”
“Why the hell would I pick a guy like my dad?” I demanded. “That’s nonsense. Jules—pour me another glass when you get a moment.”
“Saying ‘pick’ is an oversimplification,” Shin explained. “You’re subconsciously attracted to that type. That’s why deliberately picking a guy you’re not attracted to is how you break out of that rut.”
“Just finished his first semester in psych grad work—can’t shut him up,” Julie said in an exaggerated stage whisper to me, ducking when he pointed a paring knife at her. “Shin, are you going to be a master chef or a shrink? Make up your mind.”
“Why should I choose? I can be both. Food for the body and for the troubled mind.” He flashed me a grin. “And I could be your fake date. Sexy Asian is in. Besides,” he added, when Julie snorted in disbelief, “at least I’m not one of those flashy white-bread rich boys you always bring ’round.”
“See, that disproves your theory right there,” I pointed out, giving Julie a grateful smile when she generously filled my glass and left the bottle. “My dad is not rich. Quite the opposite, he was born with holes in his pockets, my gran always says. No one would call him flashy.” Thinking of my dad, with his beer paunch and collection of stained brewpub shirts, gave me a twinge. “Brad is nothing like him.”
“I can’t say.” Shin shrugged that off. “But I can say every guy I’ve seen you date is the same—magazine handsome, big mouth, lots of charm, all surface and no substance.”
“Ouch.” Was that true? If so, that didn’t speak well of me.
“Oh, now, that’s not fair,” Julie protested, giving me a sympathetic look. “Don’t be so hard on her.”
“Don’t be so easy on her,” Shin retorted. “You’re not doing Amy any favors by enabling her self-destructive choices.”
“Whoa!” My turn to protest. “Dating Brad was hardly self-destructive.”
“You sure about that? Go watch your viral video.”
“Believe me, I have.”
“Watch it again.” Shin got very serious. “Not all the other stuff going on. Study your own face. Then think about what that fucktard did that was just like your dad.”
“Meanwhile I still need a name for Adelina’s party list by tomorrow,” I called at his back as Shin hustled off again.
“He’s full of advice these days, like he’s some superhero combo of head doctor and Iron Fist. Ignore him.” Julie smiled encouragingly. “Now, let’s think. Who can you invite? There have to be tons of guys who’d love to have dinner at Somerset.”
“None that haven’t seen the video.”
“Oh, come on—that won’t matter to them. It’s not like you’re some sort of social pariah.”
“No, but…” I put my head in my hands, feeling sick and utterly depressed. The wine had maybe not been the best idea. “I just can’t deal with everyone knowing. It’s not anything that makes sense.” Except that I couldn’t shake the sense of being ashamed, no matter that I wasn’t sure of what.
“Just tell Adelina you’re not ready to date anyone yet and you’re coming solo. Say you need the time to heal or something.”
“I thought about that, but she’ll think less of me. Adelina is a get-back-on-the-horse type. She has no patience for licking wounds.”
“Well, she’s your boss. She doesn’t run your life.”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Takahara said, stopping as she moved through the kitchen. “I’m your boss, and I run your life.”
Julie gave her a warm smile. “That’s because you’re so much better at it than I am.”
“Huh.” Mrs. Takahara snorted, then gave me the hairy eyeball. “You, Ms. Amy, are cluttering up my kitchen. This is a restaurant, not a lonely-hearts advice center.”
I drank down the last of the wine in my glass, and stood obediently, making sure not to crack a smile at that phrasing. I imagined a row of skinny, middle-aged women in outdated pink prom dresses sitting awkwardly along a wall, eying a group of equally threadbare and self-conscious bachelors. “Yes, ma’am.”
She patted my cheek. “You’re a good girl. You’ll find a nice husband—one who respects what marriage means, and doesn’t make a show on the internet for everyone but you. That boy, he loves only himself. You can do better. Now get gone.”
Mrs. Takahara had seen the video, too? I wanted to curl up and hide my face, but I made myself keep my back straight and a smile on my face as I bussed my table so they wouldn’t have to.
Julie gave me a rueful shrug as I said my goodbyes. I went out the back way, nodding to the dishwasher taking a break in the alley. If I hadn’t been wearing high heels, I’d have been tempted to walk home, wear o
ut some of this turbulent emotional energy. Or, better, to run until I couldn’t stand. But I was wearing heels and the night was bitter cold, with the wind tossing the Christmas decorations on the street lamps.
Even so, I thought about walking. Then wondered if that was more self-destructive behavior. And did Brad love only himself and that’s why the flash-mob proposal had rubbed me so wrong? My father was self-destructive, no matter how you sliced it. Arguably my mother, too, for staying with him despite everything. A match made in hell, they tormented each other, taking painful bites and torturing each other more than any array of demons ever could. Even my brothers weren’t going home for Christmas this year, which spoke volumes.
Since it couldn’t hurt to try this thing of going against my impulses—though I wasn’t at all sure I believed in that reverse psychology stuff—I resisted the longing to walk or run until I couldn’t feel anything and made myself to go the L station. There, that wasn’t difficult.
I could find a date for the office party, just as easily. After all, I was attractive, well-mannered, and reasonably successful. I’d dated plenty of guys—good catches, too—and wasn’t some Miss Lonely Hearts watching the scene from the sidelines. Finding a date for Friday to the hottest place in town, impossible to get into for the holiday season, should be a snap.
However, I could think of only one person who fit the bill of someone I wasn’t attracted to and had never considered dating. For really good reasons, and not because I’d inexplicably never noticed him. Waiting for the train to arrive, I stood in the commuter crush and thumbed on the contacts in my phone. There he was: John Ahearn.
Did I have the guts to call him? He’d said to call if I ever wanted to talk. Not text. It would be much easier to text him, but the Luddite probably had a flip phone or something.
Maybe I could call and just be chatty. Nice seeing him the other night. Wanted to follow through on that call I’d never made, ha-ha. Then let it wind around to let’s get together sometime, and oh hey, what about Friday? Yeah, just a little work thing, but the food should be good.
Missed Connections Box Set Page 30