by Sharpe, Elle
The more I talked about it, the more I was convinced that this really was a good idea. Our marketing team constantly struggled to bring in millennial customers. Baylor hotels were all about old-timey grandeur, but they didn’t appeal to the younger demographic as much. Some fun performances might draw in a different crowd, without fundamentally altering the hotel’s look and feel.
“Norah, why didn’t you tell me you’d gotten such an exciting offer?” her mother demanded.
“Well...it’s uh...it’s not something we’ve completely worked out yet.”
“Norah’s been driving a hard bargain,” I said. “That’s part of the reason she wanted me to come tonight. She told me she couldn’t go through with the deal without getting her family’s opinion.”
This lie could not have been any more flimsy. How many people asked their future boss to run a business proposal by their parents? If Norah really had asked me for something like that I couldn’t have taken her seriously as an employee.
But I correctly calculated that this kind of flattery would override Mrs. Green’s logic circuits. And Norah started playing along—albeit hesitantly—which led the story more credence.
“Yeah,” she said, speaking haltingly, “I thought you might not think it was worth pursuing, since, you know, I’d still be doing my silly act…”
Norah was prodding, I thought. Testing for a negative reaction. Either she really was considering the idea, and was genuinely curious about her mother’s opinion, or she hated the proposal and was hoping Mrs. Green would hate it too. But Mrs. Green was delighted.
“Oh no, dear. I’m sure that Ronan Baylor of all people knows what he’s talking about,” she gave a nervous, deferential laugh, like she couldn’t quite believe she had just said my name out loud. “If he likes your act, I’m sure it will do just fine.”
Norah crossed her arms.
“Ah, I see. So if he approves it’s suddenly not so silly after all, huh?”
“What are we talking about, folks?”
Norah’s Dad had bounded over from the other side of the table, sensing that some important conversation was taking place, and that he was being left out.
“Norah’s been offered a job,” Mrs. Green said, “By Ronan Baylor.”
“Ronan Baylor?”
Norah’s mother nodded over in my direction. Mr. Green wheeled around to face me.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, “The Ronan Baylor! Now I recognize you! What an honor to meet you, sir.”
He gave me a vigorous handshake.
“Norah is going to perform at his hotel,” Mrs. Green said.
There was so much pride in her voice. A few minutes ago she’d been unmovable, a woman determined to take her disapproval with her to the grave. Now she was beaming. She seemed relaxed. She was even smiling at her husband. Based on the way they’d acted together through most of the evening, I imagined this was a rarity.
And Mr. Green was smiling too. Both at his wife and at his daughter.
“Atta-girl, Norah! You see, I always knew you’d make it big one of these days. You just needed to believe in yourself.”
“And happen to befriend a billionaire hotel proprietor,” Norah said.
“Hey, you know what they say, the entertainment business is all about who you know. Isn’t that right, Ronan?” Mr. Green made some winking-and-nudging motions at me which I really didn’t know how to respond to. I cleared my throat.
“Norah is extremely talented. She deserves all the success in the world. I’m just honored to be able to be able to give her her first big break.”
Norah stood.
“Sorry everyone, I think you’re going to have to excuse me. Again.”
She wadded up her napkin and dropped it on her chair as she left.
Mrs. and Mr. Green looked like they wanted to pin me down and pepper me with questions. But they were both a little too in awe of me, so they just sat back and stared at me with big eyes and bigger smiles.
I excused myself as politely as possible and followed Norah down the hall for the second time.
I caught up with her just in front of the bathroom door.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
She smiled a sort of three-quarters smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Yup. Totally. Just going to the bathroom.”
She closed the door and locked it. Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the table and sat down again.
Norah stayed in the bathroom for a long time.
I spent the rest of the evening being Ronan Baylor. Once word got around about who I was everyone temporarily froze up. But I made sure to put them at their ease again with a friendly, casual demeanor. I answered any questions they had about what it was like to run my company, things they might have read about me in the tabloids, etc. I even laughed along with jokes about Barron, managing to repress the rage that usually bubbled up when I thought about him.
With Norah’s parents no longer at each other’s throats the mood of the party grew much lighter. Now the only thing they had to fight about was which one of them was more proud of Norah, and which one had always been most confident that she was destined to succeed. They did manage to argue over these questions, but they were good-natured about it. Mr. Green even put his arm around his wife. I didn’t want to get too big a head about it, but I was pretty sure I had just single-handedly saved their marriage.
When Norah finally re-emerged from the bathroom dinner was over, and everyone was busy mingling in the living room. She spent a little while talking to Allison, and then moved on to a few other relatives.
She looked happy and upbeat, which made me less fearful that she might have taken offense to what I had done. But every time I tried to join her in her conversation she had something else she needed to go do, or someone else that she needed to talk to.
We managed to remain apart for the whole rest of the evening. Finally, as people began leaving, I was able to approach her. She had just finished saying goodnight to her parents, and they had each wrapped her up in a firm, supportive hug. They demanded to be kept in the loop about every detail of the new job. They thanked me profusely and shook my hand again as I followed Norah out the door.
She stood on the curbside looking down at her phone, and didn’t acknowledge me when I came up beside her. I glanced down at her screen and noticed she was calling herself a Lyft.
“Didn’t you want to ride back with me?” I asked.
“No, I think I’ll head back separately,” Norah said.
Her voice was smooth and polite, without a hint of snark or anger. It hit me that if Norah had lost her bite something might be really, really wrong. My stomach sank as my next question left my mouth.
“I failed the test, didn’t I?”
I tried to say it as a joke, but it didn’t feel like a joke.
When she looked up at me I saw that her eyes were glittering, wet with moisture again. She was crying for the second time in one night. Just like before I wanted to comfort her, but this time I was afraid that her tears might be my fault.
“I...I don’t think we can be together, Ronan,” she said, keeping her tone firm. “I just don’t see how this could work. Sorry.”
This confirmation of my worst fear completely rattled me. I tried to pull myself together. I wasn’t willing to accept this judgement as final. Not yet.
“Because of the job idea? It came to me in the moment. I know I should have run it by you beforehand, but...well I was pretty excited about it. I guess I just got carried away. If you don’t like the idea you definitely don’t have to do it.”
“Don’t I?” she asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “Now my parents think this is a done deal, and they’re ever-so-proud of me. When I tell them that this offer ‘fell through’ or whatever I end up saying, they’re going to go ballistic. So thanks for giving me that shit show to look forward to.”
“It doesn’t have to fall through,” I insisted. “Even if you don’t want to be with
me, even if you never want to see me again, I still genuinely think this is a good business opportunity. I wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise. If you’re worried that I was acting out of nepotism, I can assure you that’s not the case.”
“You want us to work together and never see each other?” Norah asked.
The familiar irritation and challenge came back into her voice. Strangely, that made me feel somewhat relieved. Better to have Norah fighting with me than pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t.
“Ronan, you’re not making any sense. This whole idea doesn’t make any sense. You want to start up a whole concert program at Baylor Hotels, based completely around me? That’s nuts.”
“It isn’t. Lots of hotels are moving into live entertainment. It’s something we’ve considered for a long time.”
“But I’m not well-known enough. And I’m totally off-brand for you.”
“You don’t need to be well-known. And I think you are on-brand. You thought your act wouldn’t work at the Scholarship event, but it did. I think the interactive style will appeal to people.”
“Look, okay, you could be right, but that isn’t even the point.”
“Well, what is the point Norah? Are you so determined to think badly of yourself that you’ll turn down any good opportunity that comes your way?”
I sounded angrier than I wanted to. I was letting myself get too emotional. It was clear that I wasn’t just talking about her rejecting this business proposal. She also seemed dead-set on rejecting me, no matter what I did.
“You know why I think you’re afraid of liking me, Norah? I think you’re afraid of liking yourself.”
She gave a small, quick flinch.
But then she rounded on me, full of restrained fury, looking like she wished she had something to throw at me. She gripped her phone extra-tightly and looked directly at me, with eyes like blazing fires.
“You know what, Ronan? No. I do like myself. I like myself enough to not want to be controlled, and manipulated, and put in an unfair position by someone who claims to care about me. Do you really think it’s a good idea to be the boss or the patron of the girl you want to date? To basically be in charge of my career trajectory, my self esteem? Did it even occur to you the skewed position that might put us in? In what universe do you think that would turn out well?”
“I’m not some kind of sleaze-ball, Norah. I’m not going to take advantage of you. I’m not a bad person.”
The lines of rage in her face softened a little. But only a little.
“No,” she said. “No, you’re not a bad person. I know that. I know you’re just trying to help. But that’s the problem Ronan. You try to help, and you don’t even think about how it would work for the other person.
“You’re so far above most people, Ronan. You can snap your fingers and create a job for me inside of this huge organization, and what, you don’t even have to go to anyone for approval? I mean, you might run it by your key people or whatever, but you can come up with an idea and talk about it like it’s already decided, because in the end you have the final say, right? That’s not normal. Most people can’t do that.”
“I’m aware,” I said stiffly. “I’m trying to use the advantages I have to help you.”
“I know.”
She didn’t sound angry anymore. Just sad.
“The thing is Ronan, it’s not fair. It can never be fair. I don’t have a chance against you. Not if you’re always able to snap your fingers and fix my life. If I accepted your ability to do that I wouldn’t respect myself. I really wouldn’t like myself anymore. And you wouldn’t like me either. I’d become dependent on you. And you’d start thinking of me as one of those girls—one of the ones you broke up with because they just wanted you for your money and your position, and not for yourself.”
I shook my head. No. This was moronic. She couldn’t be ending things with me because I was helping too much.
“I couldn’t think of you that way, Norah. You’re too...you’re like an open flame. You burn all on your own. You’d never let yourself be dependent on me. On anyone.”
“Exactly,” she said. She let one lone tear fall from her eye, and didn’t try to wipe it away. “That’s exactly what I’m doing right now. I’m giving you my answer, and the answer is no. I’m sorry, Ronan.”
PART(Y) V
JEN AND CHRIS’S WEDDING
Norah
I woke up the day after the family reunion feeling sick to my stomach. I guess it’s true that you don’t realize how much you want something until you know that you can’t have it.
I’d told him no, once and for all. I was not going to be the girlfriend of Ronan Baylor, multi-millionaire. Or billionaire. Or whatever the hell he was nowadays. And I wasn’t sad about that. But I was sad about not being with Ronan Baylor, actual-human-person-as-it-turns-out.
He’d insisted on waiting until my Lyft arrived before heading home. He’d insisted on giving me one last, tight hug goodbye. I may or may not have taken one last deep inhale of his scent while he had his arms around me.
As I sat up in bed with that nauseous feeling in my belly, I thought about his face. His expression as I’d left him standing alone in front of my parents’ house. He’d looked crushed. I hadn’t known it was possible to crush Ronan Baylor.
Still, there was nothing to be done about it. I had made my decision, and I knew it had been the right thing to do.
I looked around my lonely pigsty of an apartment and had a good, long moment of feeling sorry for myself.
Then I swallowed my pride, picked up my phone, and called my cousin Allison.
“Hey, Ally. Hi. I was wondering if I could ask you for some...professional advice.”
Ronan
Norah didn’t know what she was talking about. I was sure of that. There was only one logical explanation: she was trying to wreck any chance of a relationship between us before it began. She was being scared, and stupid.
And of course, that was her prerogative. But it wasn’t only herself she was hurting. Now I had to try to scrub her out of my mind. Her smell, her taste, the feel of her skin. Every time I tried to erase a memory my mind just clenched tighter around it.
I should have tried sleeping with someone else. I knew that. I should have done everything I could do to get Norah out of my system. But it was hard to find that idea appealing.
Sure, I could find plenty of women willing to come home with me. But I would inevitably compare them to Norah. No one else was going to come after me the way Norah did, relishing each bit of pleasure she caused me like it was a personal triumph. No one else was going to moan so deliciously in defeat when I loomed over her.
No one else was going to understand how good it could feel when arousal felt like a battle. Or how sweet it was to finally call a truce.
I pictured some other perfectly nice woman doing all the “right” things. Sighing and crying out in all the “right” ways. She would act challenging if she thought I wanted her to, demure and passive if she sensed that that better suited my taste. She wouldn’t have fire in her eyes like Norah did. There wouldn’t be any real heat, or any real danger.
Well, I’d played with fire, and I’d gotten burned. Served me right.
I told myself one of the reasons it was impossible to forget Norah was that I did still have to see her again, at least once. After all, we were in the same wedding party, and the wedding was just a few months away. It tended to be pretty difficult for a best man and a maid of honor to avoid each other at a wedding.
I wondered if Norah had told Jen anything about what had happened between us. I wondered if it even made a difference.
I needed to distract myself. I needed to focus more on work. I still thought a performance series at the hotel was a good idea, so I threw myself into that project. I hired an events programmer and got them to start scoping promising acts. I went to the gym more often. God help me, I spent more time with Barron, which was always infuriating, but never dull. I was
going to do whatever it took.
By the time the wedding rolled around, I would be over Norah. This wasn’t a prediction that I made, it was a goal that I set for myself. The next time I saw her I would be friendly, and distant, and polite, and it would all be perfectly sincere. I would get there. I would be completely at peace, inside and out.
On the night of the rehearsal dinner—two nights before the wedding—I still wasn’t over Norah.
However, it turned out that I still had those two days to meet my deadline. The rest of the wedding party was there at the Baylor Clarion Hotel Mountain Resort to practice the procession down the aisle, but Norah was nowhere to be seen. While every other groomsman practiced linking up with his assigned bridesmaid, I walked down the aisle alone.
If Chris and Jen were worried about the fact that the maid of honor hadn’t bothered to turn up, they didn’t show it. I honestly wondered if they’d even noticed. They were so absorbed with one another that the rest of us might as well have been mannequins rolling down the aisle on roller-skates for all they seemed to care.
Jen kept pulling faces at Chris as he watched her approach, and he barely made any attempt to stop himself from laughing. Then during the mock ceremony he kept trying to kiss her before it was time. Instead of reading their full vows—which they wanted to keep a surprise—they kept saying, “I love you more,” “No I love you more,” “No, I love you more.”
Finally even the kindly officiant lost patience with them, declared them rehearsal-man and rehearsal-wife, and told Chris he really could kiss the bride now. He took full advantage, and sucked Jen’s face off for a full minute. If I hadn’t been in such a terrible mood I might have found it endearing. Instead I wanted to tape both their mouths shut.
I didn’t particularly want to talk to either of them at the dinner that followed, but I was still tempted to ask Jen something about Norah. Had she and Jen had some kind of falling out? Was Norah even going to be at the wedding? What if she had decided to leave Jen and Chris’s social circle completely? What if I really did never see her again? That idea made my chest clench up like a fist.