The Girlfriend (The Boss)

by Abigail Barnette

  “I do want you to feel at home, though. This has the potential to be somewhat long term. I don’t want you to feel like a guest the whole time.” He paused, remembering something. “You’re going to have to speak with my lawyer about immigration forms. He emailed me yesterday. You can stay in the country for up to six months as a visitor. After that you’ll have to apply for something more official. But he’ll take care of everything.”

  “Six months in a different country. That’s exciting,” I said, then fell quiet. I got a lost in my thoughts as I ate. Neil and I were moving in together, in a totally different country. It was beyond insane, but since everything else in my life was insane, too, it seemed like a sensible plan to me. I looked up and said, “This is kind of a big step we’re taking.”

  “I was just thinking that, myself,” Neil admitted. A cloud of uncertainty shadowed his eyes, his brow drawing down as his gaze fixed on some invisible point between us. “I’m worried that you’ll get tired of me. Or that you’ll feel neglected. I do tend to spend a lot of time on my own, working or reading, or what have you... I like my space. I know we get along when you spend the weekend with me, but even the people we love can become unbearable when we’re getting used to being with them.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, too.” I sat up a little straighter. “I like to spend time alone. I’ve honestly had doubts that I would ever live with anyone in a non-platonic way.”

  He considered. “I suppose if we have our own doubts, we’ll be more conscious of each others’ feelings. At least, I hope we will be. I want to do this right, Sophie.”

  “Me too,” I agreed. “But hey, look at us. One crisis out of the way, and I think we handled it pretty well. Next up is—”

  “Christmas with my family.”

  “I was going to say your cancer, but wow, is Christmas really going to be that bad?” I laughed, my stomach all jumbled. Meeting Neil’s family. This was going to be weird, when he’d only gotten divorced a few months ago.

  He looked like he was mentally revising his opinion as he said, “No... I don’t think it will be. I will warn you that Emma’s mother will probably not care for you. I get the sense that Valerie is not pleased that I was involved with someone in the company, and especially with what she’s heard from Rudy.”

  “Oh, yikes, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Now I was really not looking forward to the festivities. That, and I wasn’t sure how Emma felt about me. Sure, she’d called me when Neil was in the hospital, but that had been a decent thing to do, whether she liked me or not. All her actions proved was that she was a good person.

  “But don’t worry. It’s going to be a small gathering, I’m sure my sister will love you. My mother can’t wait to meet you, now that she knows you’re coming, although that might change by the time we arrive. She has difficulty remembering things, since her stroke. My brothers and their families aren’t coming over this time. They still live in Reykjavik.”

  The concept of siblings was so utterly bizarre and foreign to me. My mom was close to her sisters, but it wasn’t the same, watching a sibling relationship from the outside. I did know that I couldn’t imagine one of my aunts not coming home for the holidays. None of them had ever moved further away than Houghton/Hancock, and my mom could get all of her sisters together for Sunday lunch, if she wanted to.

  “Do you ever go and visit them?”

  “Occasionally. I do like the city. I went to school there.” There was a touch of homesick pride in his voice that was adorable and endearing. “I go back once or twice a year for stockholder meetings. I’m on the board of my father’s company, but my brother, Runólf, is the managing officer.”

  I laughed and almost choked on my burger. “Oh, wow. You really lucked out with ‘Neil,’ didn’t you?”

  “My parents took turns naming us. I was born on mother’s turn.”

  I tilted my head, considering. “Where does Elwood come from? If your father was from Iceland?”

  “My father’s father was an Englishman,” he explained. “So my family has had generations of practice at blending the two different cultures.”

  “Do you have different traditions and stuff from us? Besides being English?” I’d never been in a relationship with someone from another country before. I keenly felt the pinch of my isolated, arrogant American upbringing.

  He looked amused at my ignorance. It reminded me of the first time we met, when I’d blatantly asked him if he was into “stupid girls,” because he had responded so positively to my fumbling conversation attempts. Ten minutes after that, he was in love with me. At least, according him.

  He finished chewing before he answered. “I suppose I’m not as entirely English as I might consider myself. My daughter’s middle name is Úlfhildur, that’s not exactly Jane or Anne, is it?”

  “Oh my god, poor Emma!” I held my sides, I was laughing so hard. It didn’t help my cramps, but it felt so good not to be tense and guilty and relieved and confused all at the same time. “I can’t believe she still talks to you!”

  “I think Úlfhildur is a beautiful name!” Neil protested with a chuckle of his own. He raised his voice over my hysterical giggling, and that only made it funnier to him, too. “I had a very nice piano teacher named Úlfhildur. She had the most enormous breasts; I wanted to pay them tribute.”

  My face and abs both hurt. “That is not true!”

  “No, you’re right, it’s not,” he confessed. “But it would be an amazing story.”

  I felt a little bad for teasing him about what he’d chosen to name his daughter, but Emma Úlfhildur Elwood was such a tragedy of a name. “I shudder to think what you’d name a kid of ours.”

  I need to refine that skill where you realize you’ve said something stupid before you say it. I squeezed my eyes shut. “I’m sorry, that was so insensitive.”

  “Not at all,” he responded easily, but it was polite, his entire demeanor instantly restrained.

  All at once, that crushing sadness came back. Not at the decision I had made, but at the fact that Neil and I weren’t on the same page about it. That I might have caused him pain.

  It was unfair that there had been no way to be fair.

  My burger didn’t taste as good anymore. “I want to go to bed.”

  Neil cleared up our food while I stumbled into my bedroom, trying to hold back irrational tears and failing.

  When I got to my room, I stopped dead in my tracks. Holy shit. This would be the first night Neil and I spent together without having sex. We’d even fooled around the night before, mostly because we’d been so nervous and in desperate need of a distraction.

  I straightened the covers a little bit before I slid into my bed. I dimmed the bedside lamp to its lowest setting and lay on my side, an arm under my pillow. I wanted to be sure to leave enough room for Neil.

  He came in just a moment later and leaned over his bag, pulling up a phone charger. “Plug?”

  I gestured to the nightstand. “You can just unplug my alarm clock. I’m not going to want to deal with it in the morning, anyway.”

  I watched him silently as he went about the mundane task of plugging in his phone and taking out his contacts. He pulled his shirt over his head and took off his pants, coming to bed in just his boxers.

  Millions of people in relationships were going to bed like this tonight. It was so... domestic.

  This was weird, and it felt like too much to deal with. What the hell was happening?

  “You know,” he said as he climbed in behind me. “It occurs to me that we’ve never done this before.”

  “Go to bed without fucking?” I asked, and when I said it out loud, it sounded ludicrous.

  “Exactly.” His arm fell across my waist, and I wriggled back, letting him spoon around me.

  “I was just thinking that myself. It’s kind of... I don’t know.” I sighed, not exactly unhappy, but not entirely happy, either. “Is this it? Is this the night we become a boring couple? I’m going to bed in yoga
pants.”

  “I don’t think we’re ever going to be boring together.” He nuzzled my ear. “And I happen to think those yoga pants make your bum look fantastic. But it can’t be all paddles and orgasms, can it? No relationship ever is.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I just hate admitting that we’re changing. That our lives are changing. I’m kind of afraid. I’ve never done this before.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?” he asked, kissing my ear. “I’ve never done this before, either, because the circumstances of each relationship are different. I’ve never lived with and made a serious commitment to Sophie Scaife before. I have run away from you before, but I promise you, this time I’m not going to run.”

  I nestled against him, choosing sleep over my out of control emotions. But it was far too quiet. “Can we listen to some music?” I asked softly. “I’m kind of used to falling asleep here to the sounds of Holli cackling at Workaholics.”

  He leaned over me and snagged his phone, dropping it into my waiting hand. “You pick.”

  “You trust me to look at your phone?” He might as well have trusted me to rifle through his dresser drawers. Phones were so personal.

  “Use this power for good,” he said dryly.

  I liked what we’d been listening to before, so I left it on Sigur Ros and set the iPhone carefully back on my nightstand. Then I reached up and clicked off the light.

  In the comforting shelter of his arms, I let myself drift with the melancholy, hopeful strains of the music. The lyrics weren’t in English, and it took my sleepy mind some idle wondering before I remembered that Neil could probably translate them. “What’s this song about?” I murmured sleepily.

  I heard him swallow, felt his deep, sudden breath at my back. “He’s describing weathering a storm at sea, in a sailboat. Landing on a rocky shore, thankful just to be alive, while the storm goes on around them.” Neil’s voice was rough, thick with emotion. “We will come out the other side of this, Sophie. And we’ll be stronger for it.”

  He wasn’t talking just about the abortion; I didn’t even have to ask to know that. We had a tenuous new start on our relationship, and many challenges ahead of us.

  I was grateful we had each other to cling to while we weathered the storm.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On Monday morning, Neil had to return to work, and so did I. That is, he had to oversee Rudy’s switch to interim Editor-in-Chief, and I had to go empty out my desk at Porteras for the final time. It was a deja vu situation, since I’d just cleaned out my desk in Neil’s office a few weeks ago to switch to the beauty department.

  We’d spent the night in my apartment again, although according to Neil my bed was an instrument of torture. He woke me before he left, leaning down to kiss my cheek. His face was soft and he smelled like aftershave.

  “I’m leaving, darling. I’ll send Tony back with the car?” There was a note of concern in Neil’s voice, as though he were worried I would try to carry a carton of my stuff home on the train.

  In the past, when we’d been fighting so hard to keep our relationship a secret, I would have rejected the idea outright. But I’d learned from Deja that my involvement with Neil was out, and a huge scandal around the office. I didn’t look forward to even showing up today, let alone doing a walk of shame with all my belongings. I nodded sleepily. “Sure. I’ll get up now and get ready.”

  Even though I didn’t work at Porteras anymore, I didn’t want to go into the office and give everyone the impression that I was somehow defeated. I selected my clothing carefully, deciding on dark indigo skinny jeans, a loose and flowing black tunic— to disguise the post-abortion bloat that was making me feel so sexy— and tall black boots. I wound a gray and orange Hermes Camails patterned scarf around my neck. The scarf had been a gift from Gabriella; both Penelope and I had gotten them for Christmas the year before. It seemed crucial that I have some link to that old part of my life so that when I walked into Porteras no one could make me feel like I didn’t belong.

  I’d just finished my make-up and my artfully sloppy braided bun when Tony buzzed the intercom. I put on some small hammered silver hoop earrings, grabbed the sturdy cardboard moving box I would take with me to collect my things, and headed into the breach.

  “Good morning, Ms. Scaife,” Tony said, holding the door for me.

  “Good morning, Tony. I’ll try not to puke back here today,” I quipped, noting that when I climbed into the backseat, it didn’t smell even faintly of vomit. There was no stain on the floor, either.

  “Very good, ma’am,” he said, and his stereotypical Noo Yawk accent made the formal phrase sound more personal. “I’m glad you feel better.”

  When we arrived at the office, Tony offered to go up with me to carry my things, but I asked him to wait with the car, instead. Like hell I was going to give anyone up there more ammunition to gossip behind my back.

  At the security stand in the lobby, I checked in and received a visitor’s pass. That kind of smarted. I rode the elevator up with two other people, neither of them from the magazine, and I got off before they did. The first person I saw in reception was Ivanka, who looked up from the desk with a little smirk.

  “Just going to get my stuff,” I said as I strode past her. I hadn’t meant to glance toward Neil’s office, but I did, and I spotted Deja sitting at my old desk.

  I had expected every eye in the place to be on me, judging and condemning. I guess I was full of myself, because no one seemed to care at all that I was there. I got one or two curious looks from people as I breezed past their desks, and only one openly hostile glare.

  Well, almost only one.

  The glass door to the beauty department was open, but I knocked on it anyway. Only India Vaughn, the lead beauty editor, was inside, peering at some lipstick swatches on the back of her hand. When she looked up, her pleasantly neutral expression froze for an instant.

  “I’m here to clear out my desk,” I said, holding out the box.

  Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded, pursing her lips. “Ah. Spy number two. My already very full workday is complete.”

  “Uh...” My gaze flitted around the room. Jessica Nguyen, the other assistant beauty editor, was nowhere to be seen. When I’d met with my old boss, Gabriella, she’d told me Jessica was coming to work for her. But India seemed to be taking it a little more personally than if it was just a simple change of career. Had Jessica been a mole? “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you, and Jessica, working for Gabriella right under my nose.” India rose from the stool she’d been seated on. “You know, at first I thought you were spying for Neil Elwood, since he gave you the job. Ballsy move, biting the hand that promoted you.”

  I shook my head. “I wasn’t anybody’s spy, India.”

  “What did you tell Gabriella?” India shrugged and crossed her arms. “Did you tell her I was drinking again? Because I know she would have asked.”

  “I told Gabriella that you were a very capable editor. I am not in bed with her.” Poor choice of phrasing, I realized. “And I’m not working for Neil, he fired me.”

  “That’s the part I don’t understand. He fired you, but you’re not working for Gabriella?” India’s curiosity was winning the battle over her anger.

  “Look, if I tell you— “ I looked to the open door, sighed, and set the box on the work table. “Do you mind if I close this?”

  “This sounds intriguing. Let me get my coffee.”

  While India moved to her desk in the corner, I shut the door and pulled the blinds over the long window.

  What are you doing? This is stupid. It could potentially hurt Neil. It could potentially hurt Porteras.

  But if I knew one thing about India Vaughn, it was that she loved this magazine more than she loved anything else in the world. It was her dream, the way it had been mine. I could trust her with this information.

  I spoke very softly. “Look, I didn’t get fired because I was spying for Gabriella. I neve
r told her anything. I warned Rudy at the beginning of December to watch out for Jake Kirchner, because I had a feeling something was up. We were work friends, before he became a total douche bag.”

  “He’s always been a total douche bag, Sophie.” In India’s working class London accent, it sounded like a condemnation of Jake and sympathy for my shortsightedness at the same time.

  I shrugged. “You take Gabriella’s dog to the holistic vet for Hopi ear candling, and then you come back and tell me how easy it is to separate real people from fake ones.”

  “Point taken.” India sipped her coffee. Her nails were filed into ovals, and painted a yummy shade of deep plum. Very festive.

  I was going to miss working in fashion.

  “Anyway, I got fired because I knew that someone in the company had access to the subscriber list and was feeding the information into Gabriella’s new magazine venture. And I didn’t tell, because I didn’t want to jeopardize the possibility of being offered a job with her.” Wow, that sounded super sleazy out loud. No wonder Neil had been pissed enough to consider dumping me. “But I wasn’t spying for her.”

  “No, Jessica was.” India tilted her head. “Why didn’t you tell me, or Rudy, when you knew about the subscribers?”

  I took a deep breath. “If I tell you, you have to swear this goes no further than this room. It could damage Elwood and Stern, it could damage this magazine, and it would really not endear you to Neil Elwood. I think you know he’s not a guy you want to piss off, if you still want to work in publishing.”

  “Understood,” India said easily. That made me wonder what other secrets she’d heard over the years and kept to herself, because I had never heard any serious office gossip attributed to her as the source.

  “I was going to tell Neil. Because I’m his girlfriend.”