True Love (and Other Lies)

by Whitney Gaskell

  Chapter 7

  Going into work the next day was a nightmare. The start of the workweek always fills me with dread, but today it was made worse by the knowledge that I was going to have to face the Inquisition completely unprepared and with maybe half of the research completed for my London column. I was planning to supplement my research with a London tourist guide (and yes, I was aware that this wasn’t a strictly ethical thing to do, but it wasn’t like I was going to plagiarize, just crib some basic information). However, my feeble attempt at tracking a guide down had failed—the book kiosk at LaGuardia didn’t have one in stock, and by the time I got home from the airport it was too late to trek out to my local Barnes & Noble. I prayed that in the meantime Robert wouldn’t ask me to go into the details of my research at our meeting that morning.

  It also didn’t help my mood that I really wasn’t up to facing my co-workers. They’re mostly much older than I—the magazine, after all, is a senior-interest rag—but the differences seem greater than just years. I’m a Gen Xer, part of a generation known for our apathy, sarcasm, and devotion to the pop culture of the eighties. My aging-boomer-or-older office mates veer to the opposite extreme, oozing with the kind of over-the-top optimism that makes me wonder where they’ve been for the past thirty years. It’s oddly disconcerting. I’m never quite sure how to react when they sing out “Happy Monday” to anyone who risks eye contact or insist on sharing the daily joke from their knock-knock-joke-a-day calendar.

  I don’t dislike everyone, of course. Helen, a peppy sixty-two-year-old, could be hysterically funny. She writes adventure articles, and for research is always off doing something cool, like kayaking, hang gliding, or attending grandparent-grandkid camp in the Cascade Mountains. I also got along pretty well with Olivia, the food editor, who has ageless skin the color of milky coffee, and if it weren’t for her wiry gray curls, it would be impossible to tell if she was forty-five or sixty-five. But as both are grandmothers, with seemingly dozens of children and grandchildren apiece, they’re not exactly women I can take long gossipy lunches with. Besides, I hate eating with Olivia—her specialty is transforming high-fat, high-calorie entrées into lighter versions, and she knows, and frequently announces, the nutritional content of every bite you put in your mouth. She also has an annoying habit of lecturing anyone who tries to butter a slice of bread or order a soft drink.

  I dumped my purse and coat in my gray-walled cubicle—which, after the payroll tax, may be the corporate world’s most depressing invention—and made my way to Robert’s office, telling myself that no matter what he said, I would not lose my temper. Between my botched research in London and whatever it was that Robert didn’t like about my San Antonio piece, I was on thin enough ice as it was.

  I liked to think that Robert hated me because of my youth, beauty, and talent (and not necessarily in that order), but I think it had more to do with the fact that he doesn’t think I respect his authority (and on that point, and that point alone, he was absolutely correct—I also don’t respect his editorial vision, his tightfisted approach to the year-end bonuses, or his tendency to wear the same pair of pants day after day). Lately he’d been particularly irritated at me, because while he was out of town for his summer vacation, I sneaked one of my rants (one on New Orleans, and the apparent disaster-level shortages of antiperspirant available to the populace) past the associate editor, assuring her that Robert had already approved the text. This was, of course, a bald-faced lie, and as a result, I’d dropped even further from his good graces. I don’t know why he would object—there were already a ton of articles and books out there listing the usual places to hear jazz in the French Quarter, or revealing the restaurants that are obvious tourist traps, but who else was going to warn you about the unpleasant smell? No one, that’s who. So at least I was original, and if the tone of my prose was a bit tart, a bit snarky, I say it made it all the more interesting. And it was futile to point out the pile of fan mail I’d gotten from the piece—it turns out that some of our readers have wickedly keen senses of humor and appreciated my sharp wit. Myopic Robert would just fix me with a dour stare and produce letters of his own—all from prissy old biddies lecturing me on my lack of manners.

  I knocked tentatively on the glass pane of his door.

  “Come!” he called out imperiously. I rolled my eyes and pushed open the door.

  “You wanted to see me?” I said with as much crisp efficiency as I could muster up so early on a Monday morning.

  Robert grunted, and turned his back on me to start shuffling through a stack of papers sitting on his battered old credenza. Knowing I wasn’t likely to be extended an invitation, I plopped down into one of the visitor chairs, and peered disdainfully around at his sad collection of macramé plant holders and cheap ceramics. Robert had graduated a few years before the hippie movement took over the college campuses, and apparently he so deeply regretted missing out on participating in the counterculture that he was eager to recapture those lost days. His hair was too long, his politics were leftist and reactionary, and he was still carrying a grudge against Richard Nixon thirty years after the man had resigned the presidency. When I really wanted to annoy him, I’d chirp, “Well, only Nixon could go to China”—and not necessarily in the context of what we were talking about, either. It never failed to cause Robert to turn purple and start ranting about the evils of the Nixon administration, which then led to a tirade on how unjust he thought the Vietnam War was, and how he marched in three—three, he would proudly bellow, holding up his three middle fingers, thumb and pinkie folded back against his palm as though he were about to take a scouting oath—protests against the war. It was fun to provoke him.

  He’d found what he was looking for—the draft of my San Antonio column that I’d handed in the previous week. He wheeled around to face me, holding the paper out between two of his fingers as though it pained him to touch it. True to form, it was dripping with red ink, every other word slashed out. I looked at the murdered article with dismay, trying to fight my growing irritation.

  “I’m afraid what you turned in just wasn’t acceptable,” Robert said, pulling a face that was supposed to communicate his stern disapproval, but which actually came off as a supercilious smirk.

  “What exactly was the problem with it?” I asked patiently, crossing my legs and folding my hands on top of them. I knew getting argumentative with him wouldn’t work—I’d tried it many times before without success.

  “Well, let me see,” Robert said, grabbing the pages back, eager to point out my deficiencies. He put on his bifocals and rustled the papers. “Well, here. Was it necessary to go into how your taxicab driver erupted into road rage when the woman in front of him stopped at a crosswalk?”

  “Why not? It was the most exciting thing that happened to me while I was there. And don’t you think seniors would be interested in the behavior of the local cab drivers?”

  Robert ignored me for a minute. He’d found something else he didn’t like in the column and was slashing through it anew with a fat red marker. I noticed that he was wearing a large peace symbol dangling from a ratty leather cord tied around his neck.

  “I doubt it,” he finally said. “I also doubt they’d be interested in your suggestion that ‘all drivers in the state of Texas be issued Prozac with their driver’s license.’ And here, where you said the chili you had for dinner ‘made you gassier than a helium-filled balloon’—that’s just crass.”

  “I think our readership would appreciate a warning to steer clear of that restaurant. If it gave me gas, what do you think it would do to a seventy-year-old man?” I asked.

  “And this entire section on how the boat ride down the Riverwalk is, and I quote, ‘the single lamest farce of an attraction ever to be perpetrated on tourists anywhere. The artificial canal looks and smells as though it were filled with recycled brine, and the only thing to see from your uncomfortable plastic seat is an array of overpriced, unexceptional chain restaurants.’ ”

  �
��That’s all true,” I exclaimed. “Have you ever been there? I can’t believe they try to pass it off as a tourist attraction. I did say nice things about the Alamo, and a few of the restaurants I reviewed were decent,” I said.

  “If I published this, the San Antonio tourist council would sue us the next day for libel,” he said. And before I could protest how ridiculous this assertion was—libel, give me a break—he raised his voice, apparently so I would know he meant business. “Rewrite that, and then get to work on the London piece. I hope you found more to recommend there than you did in this,” he said, flicking his finger at my San Antonio column with distaste.

  I scowled, and felt crabbier than ever as I shuffled out of his office. Maybe he wasn’t entirely wrong—the piece had been peppered with sarcasm—but wasn’t that more interesting than just another puff piece that sounded like it had been written by the city’s Chamber of Commerce?

  It had always been my dream to have my own column. But in that dream I’d seen myself at someplace . . . well, someplace with a pulse. Someplace where a little more attention was paid to art exhibits and new restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs, and a little less to which brand of meal-replacement shake tasted the best. Maybe my attitude sounds ageist, but I’m really not an age bigot. I’m just not all that passionate about issues facing today’s seniors, which may have something to do with the fact that I’m thirty-two, single, and childless, and so don’t really want to spend the majority of my waking hours focusing on menopause, long-term care facilities for married couples, or how to talk to your grandchildren.

  I looked up from my overedited column to see an alarming apparition of gray hair, powdered skin, and stretch polyester blocking my way.

  “Hello, Claire. Why are you looking so glum? Don’t tell me—you have a case of the Mondays,” she cackled. It was Barbara Downs, Robert’s busybody of a secretary. I looked around, hoping there was a large plant I could hide behind, but before I could escape she’d clamped down on my wrist with a surprisingly firm grip.

  “I’m glad I found you, dear. We’re planning Doris’s birthday party this Friday, and everyone’s bringing something in. You’re the only one who isn’t signed up,” she said, dragging me to her desk, parked right outside Robert’s door, from which she could monitor all of the comings and goings of the office.

  “Um, okay,” I said, although I positively hate office parties. As if it weren’t bad enough that I had to work with these people, the dreary little birthday celebrations meant I had to socialize with them, too. I glanced down at the list and noticed that the only open slot on her sign-up form was for the sheet cake.

  “I don’t understand—you want me to buy the whole cake?” I asked incredulously.

  “Well, as you can see, you’re the last one to sign up, dear,” Barbara said slyly.

  “Wait . . . there are three, no, four people splitting the duty of bringing in paper napkins, and I’m solely responsible for a forty-dollar sheet cake?” I said.

  Barbara was still smiling. She seemed to think that she’d pulled one over on me, but between my jet lag, my run-in with Robert, and the whole Jack-Maddy situation, I lacked my usual patience (which, to be honest, wasn’t normally all that high to begin with).

  “No,” I said calmly, handing the paper back to her.

  She gaped at me as though I had refused to accept the Congressional Medal of Honor.

  “What do you mean, ‘no’? Everyone’s bringing something.”

  “Everyone else is bringing in a bag of chips or a bottle of soda, and I’m supposed to front the entire cost of the cake? That’s ridiculous. I won’t do it,” I said.

  “It’s only fair. It was first-come, first-served on signing up, after all. And if you’re not going to chip in, I’m afraid you can’t attend the party,” she concluded sadly, as if this would be some great loss for me.

  “I totally understand. And actually, it all works out for the best. I’m so overloaded right now, I really can’t afford to take the time off for the party anyway,” I said, turning on my heel, feeling victorious at the lemon-sucking expression on Babs’s face I’d caught before I strode away.

  Of course, I knew Barbara the Mouth would be spreading our tiff around the office in no time—doubtlessly editing out the part where she’d tried to manipulate me into bearing the largest cost of the party supplies. Not that anyone would find this unfair—I’m sure they would all welcome the attempt to foist the cake-buying on me. I already took enough crap from my co-workers about the amount of money I spend on shoes and haircuts, as if it’s any business of theirs (and as though going down to Supercuts and paying ten dollars for a hairstyle that looks like the wig Vicki Lawrence wore in Mama’s Family is something to be proud of). But for once, I didn’t care . . . I’d managed to wriggle my way out of the obnoxious party, and pissed Barbara off in the process. Happy day.

  I’ve worked in places where everyone is young and full of energy, the kind of offices that have open floor plans and funky office furniture from Herman Miller, and on any given day there are a half dozen people eager to go out to lunch, or grab a drink after work, and the place practically shimmers with the energy and enthusiasm of youthful vigor. The office intrigue usually swirls around who slept with whom, and whether or not the guy in accounting was still coked up when he came into work that day. Yes, sometimes the constant drama could get old, but at least it made the day interesting.

  At Sassy Seniors the only excitement that was ever stirred up was when someone put a dirty coffee cup in the office kitchen sink instead of immediately rinsing it out and placing it in the dishwasher, thus disobeying the handwritten note taped up over the sink: Your Mother Doesn’t Work Here! If You Use a Dish, Wash It! I’m not kidding—people go ballistic over one slightly used mug sitting in the sink for ten minutes. Peggy, the office manager, and quite possibly the most condescending person who has ever lived—she talks in the fakey-sweet tone of an elementary school principal and has the supercilious habit of peering down at people over her bifocals—had been known to take the offending coffee cup and traipse up and down the hall with it, interrupting everyone hard at work to interrogate them on whether they were the culprit. And even though I was usually the guilty party, I only did it because I figured it would just be easier to rinse out my dishes at the end of the day (although to be honest, I rarely remembered), but now I just did it to piss Peggy off, as she was the worst of the office group—officious, bossy, and a complete tattletale. And on top of that, with her ultra-blue eyes, pale skin, and thin lips, she had a Germanic appearance that became faintly sinister when you pictured her as a matron of the Third Reich, as I frequently did.

  As I dragged myself home from work, I was fantasizing about a hot bath and twelve hours of sleep, but when I got to my apartment, Max, my next-door neighbor, was playing his favorite Elvis CD at a wall-shaking, earsplitting volume. Still wearing my pea coat, with my work tote slung over my shoulder, I banged on his door until he answered.

  When the door opened, and his impish, smiling face appeared, I said, “Don’t tell me. Elvis is actually in your apartment, putting on a live concert.”

  “I wish,” Max said, hugging me.

  We had met the day I moved in two years earlier—I found Max in the hall, shamelessly rifling through the box containing my DVD collection—and we had been friends ever since. A lot of people think Max is gay, probably because he’s a fashion photographer, and he’s small and thin and tends to be manic, and he uses an ill-advised amount of gel in his short, dark hair to keep it spiked up all over his head. But he’s actually as straight as an arrow, and completely unapologetic for his rather flamboyant personality. His long-suffering girlfriend, Daphne—an ethereal massage therapist whose pale, milky skin and red Raphael curls make her look like she should be headlining Lilith Fair—worships him. She’s one of those New Agey, vegan types, but not in an aggressive, in-your-face way; in fact, she’s remarkably down-to-earth, and I looked for her as Max let me into his apartment. />
  “Is Daphne here?” I asked.

  “No. She had a late booking, and then was going to have her tarot cards read,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure they’ll tell her she’s destined to marry a sex machine whose name begins with an M. I don’t know how much longer I can put her off. Yesterday she left the Tiffany’s catalogue on my table, after circling all of the engagement rings with a Sharpie marker.”

  “Tiffany’s? Really? I’d have thought they were too corporate for her. I see her as the vintage, estate-jewelry type,” I said.

  I tried very hard not to think about the Tiffany-ring-box fantasies I’d indulged in while dating Sawyer. Nothing feels quite as foolish as being a marriage-obsessed single woman—it evokes memories of the chicken that stalked Foghorn Leghorn while screeching “Ah need a ma-an!”

  “Apparently, when it comes to diamonds, Daphne’s a corporate gal,” Max replied.

  Max’s apartment is literally four times the size of my little hovel, which was the only reason Max has stayed at our scruffy building, since, unlike me, he could certainly afford a more stylish address. It’s stuffed to capacity with midcentury modern furniture, including a Saarinen “tulip” table, a Knoll credenza, and his prize possession: a vintage leather Eames lounge chair and ottoman. I settled in on his armless sofa as he turned Elvis off.

  “So?” I asked.

  “So what?”

  “When are you going to pop the question?” I teased him.

  Max rolled his eyes heavenward and shook his head. This was a running joke between us. Max claimed to be a commitment-phobe, but I knew he loved Daphne. If she ever put her foot down and issued the clichéd ultimatum, he’d come groveling, Tiffany box in hand.

  “So, tell, tell, how was London?”

  “Complicated,” I said. Max—bless his heart—fetched a glass of red wine for me. “Mmmm, this is just what I wanted. It’s freezing out tonight.”