Perfect on Paper: The (Mis)Adventures of Waverly Bryson

by Maria Murnane

  “Yeah, well … it was really hard because my dad had just started pitching in the minor leagues when they had me, and apparently he had a really promising future ahead of him, but then my mom got sick, and he had to give everything up….”

  He nodded again but didn’t say anything, sensing that I had more to say, just like Shane had done at Morton’s. Polite, sensitive, respectful. Wow.

  I took a deep breath. “And after he quit baseball, he wasn’t able to get it together with a real career or anything … you know … so things were hard … you know, financially … and he and I … well … we just … well, we’re just so different … so it was hard that way too … actually, it’s still pretty hard … and … and, well, I help him out sometimes, but he’s still struggling a bit with managing his money.” My voice trailed off again, and I looked back down at the floor. Why was I telling him all this?

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I took a sip of my drink, my gaze still down. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this. I’m not really used to talking about it.”

  “You feel guilty, don’t you,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

  I looked back up at him and tried to laugh. “Am I that obvious, Mr. McIntyre?”

  “Well, you’re clearly doing well for yourself now, and if he’s still having a hard time, it’s only natural to feel a little guilty about that.”

  I shrugged. “I guess. My dad sure knows how to make me feel guilty about it.”

  “I’m sure you’re more important to your dad than a career in baseball would have been, Waverly.”

  I shook my head. “You’re really sweet, but I don’t think so.”

  “You honestly think that baseball is more important to your dad than his own daughter?”

  I nodded. “Sometimes.”

  “Are you serious?”

  I smiled weakly. “Okay, I’m only half serious, but I’ve noticed that I’m not always sure which half. And now that I’ve officially rained all over this parade, I’m changing the subject back to you. Where do your parents live?”

  He put his hands up. “Okay, I’ll back off with the amateur psychoanalysis. My parents are still in Miami, in the same house where I grew up. I have an older brother who lives a few miles away from them and an older sister who lives in Boston with her husband and kids.”

  “That’s nice,” I said, wondering how I could change the subject even further away from family and families. I glanced over at two security guards by the fire exit and then looked back at Jake. “Hey, have you ever noticed how almost all cops have mustaches?” I said.

  He smiled. “What?”

  “Security guards, too. What’s that all about?”

  He shook his head. “I never really thought about it.”

  I shrugged. “It’s just something I’ve noticed. It’s quite fascinating when you start to pay attention. I wonder what the percentage is compared to the general population.”

  “You spend a lot of time noticing things, don’t you?” he said.

  I shrugged again. “A little. Oh, crap.”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry. I just remembered that I forgot to set my DVR to record American Idol this week.”

  He laughed. “American Idol? Seriously?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said, nodding. “It’s my favorite show.”

  “Your favorite show? For real?”

  “Yep. I even went to the concert last year.”

  He smiled. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  Had I really just told him that I went to the American Idol concert on the heels of talking about my mother’s cancer and my screwed-up childhood? Was I insane? I was so flustered that I honestly had no idea what I was saying anymore. And the alcohol wasn’t helping. My head was all foggy, and I’d already forgotten half of what I had said just five minutes earlier. Sweaty Chuck was a distant memory.

  I pushed my hair behind my ear and told myself to get it together.

  “So, um, you said not being able to choose where you live is one of the few things you don’t like about working in the NBA. What are the other things?” I said.

  “If I tell you, you’ll laugh.”

  “Try me.”

  He cleared his throat. “Well, sometimes it’s hard to—”

  “Jake McIntyre! I thought you might be here. How are you, darling?”

  We both turned around as a supertall, stick-thin brunette with matching stick-straight hair and bangs nearly jumped into Jake’s lap, or what would have been his lap if he had been sitting down.

  Jake blushed, and my wobbling self-confidence took a nose dive.

  “Hi, Carolyn, how are you?” he said.

  “I’m just wonderful, darling. Busy with the new Prada line, but doing great. We’re off to New York on Monday to start the winter season.”

  She looked at me with a frosty smile. “Hi, I’m Carolyn Weller.”

  “Waverly Bryson,” I said quietly, suddenly feeling like a sixth grader in a high school locker room. How could something that skinny have such huge breasts?

  She turned her attention back to Jake and put her arm around his waist. She whispered something into his ear, and he laughed. I took that as my cue to make a gracious exit. I softly said Nice meeting you both, but neither of them seemed to hear me, so I backed away and headed through the crowd to the bar.

  Then I ordered another drink and decided that getting trashed wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  “Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty. Fifty. Fifty. Fifty.” I was sitting on a bar stool at a high round table in the corner of the room, counting out loud the white roses in the vase to my right. “Fifty roses. That’s five dozen roses. No, that’s six dozen roses. Hell, I have no idea how many dozen roses that is.”

  I gazed down at my half-empty glass. How many drinks had I had? How long had I been sitting there? It’s never a good sign when you lose track.

  I looked over at the huge, blurry crowd. What had I been thinking? Jake wasn’t interested in me. Why would he be? He was just being polite. My dad was right. Aaron was right. I was right. I was damaged goods, destined to sit on the back of the shelf until my expiration date.

  I stood up and steadied myself, which took way too much effort. I picked up my drink and decided to go find Davey and Kent. They had to be in the crowd somewhere. I swung around and smacked right into a young couple standing by my table, spilling what was left of my drink all over the floor.

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I slurred.

  “No worries,” the fresh-faced guy said. “Are you okay?”

  I smoothed my hands on my jeans. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” Fine? I was nearly seeing double.

  “You look familiar.” The young blonde standing next to him cocked her head to one side. “Do you live in San Francisco?”

  “Um, yeah,” I said.

  She held out her hand. “I’m Kristi Benton. This is my boyfriend, John Callahan. We work at Reebok’s advertising agency. What’s your name?”

  “Amanda Woodward. I work at D&D Advertising,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “Hi, Amanda, it’s nice to meet you.”

  I shook my head. “Actually, I was just kidding.”

  Blank stares.

  “You know, D&D Advertising, miniskirts, Melrose Place?” I said.

  More blank stares.

  Okay, I’m way old. “Uh, I’m Waverly Bryson. I work at K.A. Marketing.”

  Kristi smiled. “That’s it. I knew I’d seen you before. My older sister’s roommate works there. Mandy Edwards.”

  “Oh, yes, Mandy works in my department.” Definitely slurring.

  “We met Mandy for lunch at her office a few weeks ago. She says she loves working there.”

  I nodded. “It’s a good company.” If Mandy only knew that no one else loved her working there.

  “Well, it’s good to meet you, Waverly. I’ll tell Mandy I saw you.”

  “Great,” I said. Crap. “It was nice talking to you.
”

  I turned to escape and bumped smack into someone else. Good God. I needed to drink a gallon of water and put myself to bed.

  “Hey, there you are. I thought you left.”

  I looked up and saw Jake standing there.

  I casually reached for a barstool to keep my balance. “Um, nope, not yet. How’s it going?”

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Why? Did something happen?”

  He shook his head. “You just disappeared. Where did you go?”

  “Did I? Oh, sorry. I had to use the restroom. And you, uh, well, you seemed busy.”

  “Busy? I seemed busy?” He smiled, and I could feel my heart beating faster.

  I played with my earring. “Well, I mean, with your friend and all, you know, it looked like you had things to talk about, and I didn’t want to intrude….”

  He said nothing for a moment, just looked at me.

  Then he spoke.

  “Waverly, do you want to dance?”

  Did I want to dance? Was he kidding? I wanted to spring to the stage and pay the band ten grand to play a slow song.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “After you.” We turned toward the dance floor. As we began to walk, he put his hand on the small of my back to guide me, and the heat I felt when he touched me could have burned a hole right through me. We maneuvered our way to the dance floor, where I spotted Kent and Davey dancing with two girls I didn’t recognize. They waved us over.

  “There you are! We’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Davey pulled me through the crowd and introduced me to his and Kent’s dancing partners, two sales reps from Nike. I could barely hear him above the sound of Madonna’s “Vogue” blasting from the stage.

  “This is Jake!” I belted over the music. “Jake, this is Davey and Kent!”

  “Hi, Jake!” Davey yelled.

  “It’s nice to meet you!” Kent shouted.

  “Nice to meet you, too!” Jake said in a near scream.

  “Should I go find a bullhorn?” I slurred at a normal decibel. But I don’t think anyone heard me.

  The tiny hole that had opened on the dance floor quickly closed, and Jake and I got swallowed up in the crowd. And then, as if the gods had listened to my prayers, “Vogue” ended, and the band started playing what may be the best slow-dance song ever, “Who’s Crying Now?” by Journey.

  Jake looked down at me. “Should we keep on dancing?”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Whatever? That’s your answer?”

  I smiled. “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Waverly, you are something else.” I looked up, and he laughed and put his arms around me. I rested my head on his chest, and suddenly we were dancing.

  I felt my entire body heat up, and a tingling sensation ran from my head all the way to my fingers and toes.

  “Waverly?” he whispered, looking down at me.

  I closed my eyes and sighed. “Hmm?” I felt like I was floating.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  I was about to look up and answer him, but once I closed my eyes, the harsh reality of major overintoxication kicked in with a vengeance. And suddenly I felt really dizzy. Horribly, horribly dizzy.

  I had to get out of there. I had to get to a bathroom. Fast.

  I broke away from him and covered my hand with my mouth as I started walking away. “I have to go now.”

  He grabbed my hand. “Are you okay? Where are you going?”

  I didn’t know what else to say. I was suddenly so terribly drunk that I couldn’t really see or think straight, but I knew I had to get away from him, away from everyone. I pulled my hand away and pushed my way through the blurry crowd.

  When I got off the dance floor, I kept moving and headed toward the lounge, nearly knocking over Mandy Edwards’s friends on the way. I ignored them and knocked open the doors to the restroom. I hurried through the plush carpeted area and ran to the last stall.

  Then I threw up. Over and over and over.

  When I woke up on Saturday morning, I could have sworn that I had an entire bag of jumbo-size cotton balls stuffed in my mouth. My whole body ached, and I felt like a very large nutcracker was squeezing my head. I rolled over and looked at the clock on the nightstand.

  It was 7:14. What time had I gone to bed? How had I gotten back to the hotel?

  I sat up and held my pounding head in my hands. Then I looked down at the bedspread. The bed was still made, and I was on top of the covers. I glanced over and saw my coat, purse, and sweater on a chair. In addition to my clothes and shoes, I was still wearing my earrings, necklace, and watch.

  “Well, at least I didn’t lose anything other than my dignity and my dinner,” I said to no one. But I didn’t feel like laughing.

  I kicked off my shoes, then crawled across the bed and reached over to the top of the dresser for the manila file folder that held my itinerary. I opened it up and pulled out my flight info. My flight back to San Francisco was at ten o’clock, which meant I needed to leave for the airport by eight thirty. At least I hadn’t slept through my flight.

  Very, very slowly, I stood up and walked to the minibar. I opened a four-dollar bottle of water and drank the entire thing without stopping. Then I pulled off my clothes, threw them in a pile on the floor, and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand it and gently stepped inside. The steam was so thick that I couldn’t see anything, which was just as I wanted it.

  I leaned my head against the glass door and sighed. I was pretty foggy on the details, but the main events of the previous evening were painfully clear. Getting plastered and throwing up? What was I, a cast member of the Real World? And at a client event, no less. In the image-driven world of PR, that’s the professional equivalent of, hmm, maybe being a driving instructor and running over your student’s grandparents?

  The last thing I could remember clearly was being on the dance floor and suddenly feeling too dizzy to stand up. I vaguely remembered getting sick in the bathroom, and that was it. I didn’t even know how I had gotten home. Had Jake seen me like that? Had anyone else seen me like that?

  If it were possible to die from shame, that morning would have been the end of me. I looked down at the big freckle on the top of my left foot. If they found me dead in the shower, the coroner would declare humiliation as the cause of death, and McKenna would have to fly in to identify my naked body. That stupid freckle I’d always hated would finally serve for something.

  Before it had been speculation, but now it was official.

  I was the biggest loser ever.

  At 8 a.m., the elevator doors opened to the lobby, although my stomach felt like I was still moving. I shakily walked out wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and black clothes to reflect my state of hangover-induced near-death. I checked out and left my suitcase with the concierge, then headed over to the breakfast buffet to get some coffee and eggs. One of the only things I learned in college that I still remember is that a plate of salty scrambled eggs with cheese is the world’s best cure for a hangover.

  I sat down at a booth and ordered a cup of coffee, then took off my sunglasses and looked around. The lobby and restaurant were relatively empty, and I was praying that I could make it out of there without having to speak to anyone.

  I put my head in my hands and groaned. I don’t think I’d ever been so hungover, or at least not since before I’d met Aaron, who wasn’t much of a drinker. I loved a tasty cocktail as much as the next person, but puking in a public restroom? Please. And for the first time since Aaron, I’d met a guy I was actually interested in, and I’d managed to screw it up before we’d even had one dance. Nice.

  I boarded my plane an hour later, and neither my pounding head nor the three cups of coffee I’d drunk could keep me from crashing out. I fell into a deep sleep and dreamt that the captain came back to the main cabin to speak to me. He said he’d met me the night before at a bar. His name was Chuck, and he offered me a compli
mentary rookie if I would come up to the cockpit and sit on his lap.

  When I woke up, we were landing at San Francisco International Airport. I had been asleep for nearly five hours. We waited for what seemed like an eternity to be let off the plane, and of course everyone insisted on jumping out of their seats the second the plane came to a stop, even though it was obvious that we weren’t going anywhere. I had the aisle seat, and the guy next to me and his wife stood all hunched over me for, like, five minutes. I will never understand people.

  By the time I got back to my apartment, it was nearly two o’clock, and despite my marathon cross-country siesta, I was still exhausted. I dropped my suitcase on the floor of the bedroom, kicked off my shoes, and buried myself under the covers, where I decided to stay until the year 2037.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When I opened my eyes Sunday morning, I didn’t know where I was. For about six seconds, I was blissfully unaware. And then I remembered everything. I put my head under the pillow and groaned.

  At least my hangover was gone.

  I shuffled into the kitchen wearing my robe and slippers to make some coffee. I leaned one hip against the counter and watched the water slowly drip into the pot, wondering if it would ever finish. Have you ever noticed how coffee pots seem to know when you’re standing there watching them? It’s like they’re friends with the regular pots.

  While I waited for the coffee, I grabbed a piece of paper from the shopping list magnet on my fridge and sat down at the kitchen table.

  Front: Ever drink too much at a party and make a fool of yourself?

  Inside: Honey, that’s okay. At least you weren’t home alone watching Touched by an Angel reruns.

  Front: Feel like you never do the right thing?

  Inside: Honey, look at it this way—if you always did the right thing, you’d probably have no friends, because who wants to hang out with someone that boring?