“It’s better to be alone than with some loser, Sophie. I’m telling you, all it takes is one man. One man can screw it all up for you.”
I knew what she was really talking about. One man had screwed it up for my mother. He got her pregnant, and he disappeared. Then she disappeared.
But I wasn’t my mother, and I never would be. What more did I have to do to show my grandmother that I was a completely different person from the woman who’d given birth to me?
“You know,” I said, “for years, I’ve done nothing but try to prove to you how responsible I am. I don’t understand why you still don’t trust me not to mess up my own life.”
She grabbed my hand and leaned forward in her chair. “Sophie, all I’ve ever wanted to do is keep you safe. I don’t want you to make some terrible, irreversible mistake that you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”
“I’m not going to.”
“I know you don’t think you’re going to. But it can happen in the blink of an eye. It can happen without you even knowing it’s happening.” Her eyes glistened in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. “Forget about these boys. Concentrate on yourself. On your plans for the future. On becoming a success. Because when it comes down to it, you’re the only person you’ll ever be able to rely on.”
I glanced over at Elena, who was chewing on her lower lip and staring sadly into the bouquet of flowers, as if they held the answers to all her desperate questions. Was this what became of women who trusted men? They abandoned their best friends overseas—or their baby daughters, still in diapers. They became unreliable and unambitious. They made messes of their lives.
Maybe Grandma was right.
“I should probably get going.” I stood up and finished the last of my coffee.
“But you just got here,” said Grandma.
I rinsed my empty mug in the sink and turned around to face her. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”
After exchanging hasty good-byes with my grandmother, Elena followed me to the front door. As soon as the lock clicked behind us, she pounced. “Who is he?”
“Who’s who?”
“Don’t play dumb. The ‘artist’ your grandmother was talking about. Are you dating someone?” Her eyes were alight with expectation and excitement, and beneath it all, a spark of solidarity. Like she was thinking, Now you know what it feels like.
The words came in a rush. “No, of course not. You know how she is, she exaggerates everything.”
“Well, she seemed awfully huffy about it.”
“It’s a long, stupid story, but honestly, it meant nothing.” I winced, feeling unexpectedly sucker punched by the gravity of what I’d just said. Carson and I meant nothing.
Elena gently squeezed my arm. “Hey, listen. When I first got here, you said things were a mess…Do you want to talk about it?”
Sniffing back my sorrow, I straightened up and shook my head. “Not right now. I’ve really gotta get to the office. I’m so behind in my work. Let me call you later.”
Before she could press any further, I spun around and headed for the train station. Though I could feel her eyes on me, I refused to turn back, too afraid that my crestfallen face would betray my thoughts. There was no way I wanted to commiserate with Elena about lost loves or romantic woes. Over the years, she’d allowed her relationship to consume her whole life, while her career and her independence paid the price. That could never be me. I wouldn’t allow it.
After the train pulled into Penn Station, I power walked uptown to my apartment, where I quickly changed into professional attire and grabbed my briefcase from the foyer before heading back out to One Bryant Park. There were approximately six hours of daylight left, and I intended to finish up those last three items on my task list before sundown. I was a woman who stuck to my plans, who never allowed myself to get distracted by frivolities. A tour of Peru? A camping trip through Australia? Those were silly daydreams. They weren’t real life.
So I buckled down, focused on my work, and didn’t look up from my desk until after five o’clock. When I did, I had a crick in my neck, and my stomach was growling, but all the boxes on my task list were finally checked. Plus, there was still at least an hour left before the sun began to set. It was funny, though, because after I finished up, I didn’t feel some great sense of accomplishment. All I felt was trepidation, knowing there’d be yet another task list waiting on my desk blotter before I showed up to the office the next morning.
As I waited for my laptop to power down, I fished my smartphone out of my bag. I’d heard it buzz a few times while I was working, but I’d ignored it, too afraid to break my fragile concentration. Now I scrolled through my texts to find a series of messages from Carson.
hey babe, got a sec to chat?
where are you?
call me when you can.
The last message had been received forty-five minutes earlier. In Hong Kong, it was the wee small hours of the morning. Either Carson was really drunk or battling insomnia. I slid my thumb to the CALL button and listened to it ring.
“Hey there.” His voice was low and smooth. He didn’t sound especially drunk or tired.
“Hi,” I said. “What’s up?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, why?”
“You sound like something’s wrong.”
I was fully aware of how frosty I sounded, but for some reason I couldn’t make it stop. “I’m just working.”
“Oh. That explains it. You’re scowling.”
I pressed my fingers to the space between my eyebrows and confirmed he was right. I was scowling.
“Is everything okay?” I asked, massaging my temples. “Why are you up at this hour?”
“I’m at the airport. I’ve got an early flight.”
“Flight?” My heart began to thump.
“Yup. I’m done with Hong Kong.”
“Really?” The thought of him leaving the country made me inexplicably nervous. Why did I care so much if he left? “Where are you headed?”
“Sydney.”
“Australia?” My heart began a free fall to my stomach.
“Yeah. Last night, our little chat got me thinking. It sounds like a pretty incredible country. Wanna come meet me? We can explore it together. Maybe make that fantasy of camping in the Outback into a reality.”
At this point, I was pretty sure my heart stopped beating. There was nothing I’d rather do than hop a plane and meet Carson in the arrivals section of Sydney Airport, or lie naked with him beneath the Southern Cross. But that would never fly in real life. “You know I can’t do that,” I said.
“I know. But I figured I had to ask.” The muffled echo of a voice on a loudspeaker rang through the earpiece of my phone. “My flight’s boarding. I’ve gotta go. So, listen, I’ll call you as soon as I can. I’m not sure how this international cell phone thing works, though. I’ll go talk to someone at a store when I get to Sydney, but I don’t know if, like, I’ll have the same phone number or—”
“That’s okay, Carson. You don’t have to.”
“I don’t have to what? Go to a store? You mean, it’ll just automatically work when I land in Australia?”
“No. Well, actually, I’m not totally sure about that. What I mean is, you don’t have to call.”
Heavy silence filled the thousands of miles between us. Finally, he said, “I don’t understand.”
“I mean, what’s the point?”
“What’s the point of what?”
“Of us. I’m here; you’re there. This isn’t going anywhere. It can’t.”
“Why does it have to go anywhere? Why can’t we just enjoy what we have, where we are, in the moment?”
“You know the answer to that already.”
I heard him swallow and release a long breath. “You need to know where you’re going. At all times.”
“Right,” I said, trying hard to steady my voice. “But I hope you have a great time. And see a lot of amazing th
ings. And create a lot of beautiful sketches.”
The announcement in the background grew louder, more urgent. “So, this is it?” he said. “This is the last time we ever speak?”
Was this really what I wanted? To say good-bye right now and never hear his voice again?
I loved him. But love caused nothing but problems. I didn’t want to be Elena. I didn’t want to be my mom.
“It’s better this way,” I said.
“Fine.”
A click, and then silence.
No good-bye.
I glanced down at my completed task list. All the checked boxes looked fuzzy through my tears.
My life wasn’t exciting. It certainly wasn’t wild. And, if I was being totally honest, it didn’t make me particularly happy, either.
But at least it wasn’t a mess.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Unsurprisingly, there was a new task list awaiting my arrival at the office the next morning. Two double-sided pages, still warm from the printer. I counted the number of checkboxes. Eighty-seven.
I laughed out loud.
When I turned on my laptop, I found half a dozen messages from Elizabeth, in which she picked apart all the work I’d done, criticizing my approach and lack of attention to detail. She even asked me to revisit a few of the items I’d already completed last week. The crazy thing was, I’d followed her instructions to a T. It was almost as if she was changing the rules of the game after it was already over. And not once did she say thank you.
She did, however, complain about how long I took to finish the job.
To: Sophie Bruno
From: Elizabeth Fischman
Subject: Due Dates
These tasks were expected to be delivered by COB Friday. Instead, they were handed over last night (Sunday). Please keep in mind the importance of due dates for future project work.
Again, I laughed out loud. Because, really, in the grand scheme of things, what difference did it make? I’d compiled the data exactly as she’d requested it and presented it to her in a perfect package, ready for her to review first thing Monday morning. She didn’t have to work over the weekend; that was her choice. The auditors didn’t need this information for at least another three weeks. As long as they had everything by their deadline, the interim due dates were irrelevant. She was only being such a stickler because she was on a perpetual power trip.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she was giving Seth this much grief over his missed targets. From the disorder on his deserted desk, I had serious doubts that he’d made any sort of progress since we’d parted ways on Friday. Between his late arrivals, long lunches, and early departures, last week he’d hardly been in the office more than six hours a day, and most of those six hours were spent fielding personal calls or surfing the Web. There could be no way his task list was already finished.
Then again, Elizabeth probably didn’t want to run afoul of John Ramsey’s son. Unlike Seth, she had to tread carefully if she wanted to rise through the ranks at McKinley. Which meant she needed to keep the founding partners—and their family members—happy. I just wished I wasn’t the one who had to suffer the blowback.
There was nothing else to do but settle in and work. What choice did I have in the matter? So I started checking boxes. By the time Seth strolled in at 10:15, without a word of greeting, I’d already finished two tasks. After another wordless hour and a half, he left for lunch with Owen, and I’d checked off two more. At 1:45, the cramps in my stomach demanded I take a quick break. All day, I’d consumed nothing but coffee and a buttered roll, but at least I had six check marks to show for it.
I decided to work through lunch, so I ran down to the deli on the first floor and returned at once with a prepackaged salad. If I was going to spend so many sedentary hours at my desk, I figured I should at least make up for it with a healthy meal. When I snapped the cover off the plastic bowl, I winced at the rancid odor it produced. Had the sprouts gone bad? Or maybe the tomatoes were moldy. Whatever it was, the salad was inedible. I set down my fork, feeling defeated. The worst part was, for a split second, I actually considered eating it anyway.
As I sat there, surrounded in festering funk from this putrid, pathetic excuse for a lunch, I had a realization. This was my rock bottom. I mean, it couldn’t possibly get any worse than this, right? From here, I had nowhere to go but up. Up the ladder, to bigger and better things. I made a vow that my next project would be on the road. I’d just have to start kissing up to Elizabeth so I could rebuild my reputation with these boring audits. Then, when they were finished and I’d proved my value to this organization, I’d get back to doing the thing I loved most: traveling.
I looked at the clock in the lower right corner of my computer screen: 2:10. Which meant, on the east coast of Australia, it was a little after four in the morning. My thoughts strayed to Carson, wondering where he was sleeping right now. From the research I’d done, there were tons of great hostels in Sydney. Cheap, centrally located accommodations. Maybe he was in one of them. Or maybe he’d sprung for a private hotel room on Bondi Beach.
Before I knew what I was doing, I had opened a browser window and loaded an interactive map of downtown Sydney. I traced an impromptu walking tour starting at Hyde Park, trailing through the Royal Botanic Gardens, and ending at Circular Quay. Did Carson know you could climb to the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge? They even offered a special night climb, with headlamps. I’ll bet the Opera House looks otherworldly from up there, glowing on the cove. Like the convention center at Victoria Harbour.
I miss him.
The office door swung open and in walked Seth and Owen, midconversation.
“She wants it, you can tell,” said Seth.
“You think?” Owen leaned against the wall and slipped his hands in the pockets of his khakis.
“Abso-fucking-lutely, dude.” Seth plopped down in his chair and spun around, knocking a pile of papers from the top of his ever-growing mountain onto the floor. He didn’t bother to pick them up. “Did you see the way she licked her lips when she dropped off the check? I say you bust out of here at four forty-five, head back to Friday’s, and grab her number. And maybe grab a quickie in the bathroom stall while you’re at it.”
Seth winked in my direction and a pain shot through my empty stomach. He wrinkled his nose and asked, “What’s that stench?”
“Oh.” I grabbed for the cover of my salad bowl, quickly popping it back on. “It’s this salad. There’s something rotten in it.”
“Nasty,” said Owen. “The whole room reeks now.”
“Well, fortunately, you have your own office to return to,” I said. Owen stood there, blinking blankly. Clearly he couldn’t take a hint. “Don’t you have to get back to work? Like, now?”
He sucked his teeth and tilted his chin in Seth’s direction. “Later, bro.”
Seth didn’t acknowledge his exit. He was already lounging back in his desk chair, surfing the Web, staring slack-jawed at his screen with cold, dead eyes. Low bass thumped from his speakers; it was a tune I’d gotten used to over the past week. He liked to watch these blooper reels of skateboarders suffering disfiguring injuries, set to techno music. Before this, I hadn’t realized how many of these videos existed. Apparently, there were enough to keep Seth distracted from his work for hours on end. Even days.
“Don’t you ever get tired of sitting around in this office?” I asked.
“What are you talking about?” he muttered, his eyes still fixed to his screen.
“I mean, don’t you have any desire to branch out? Maybe get a gig as a traveling consultant or something?”
He flashed me the same look of disgust he’d displayed when he first got a whiff of my salad. “Why would I want to travel?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because it sucks. Lumpy hotel mattresses. Shitty continental breakfasts. Jet lag. It’s all such a pain in the ass. I’d rather stay put in my full-service condo, with my ninety-inch TV and my thousand-thread-count
sheets.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t it have occurred to me that Poor Little Rich Boy had his very own luxury condo? Probably paid for outright by his doting dad. No wonder he didn’t want to travel anywhere. He already had the world in the palm of his hand.
The door swung open again. This time, it was Elizabeth. Doesn’t anybody ever knock?
She scrunched up her face in revulsion. Which, frankly, didn’t look much different from her usual expression. “What is that smell?” she asked.
“Sophie’s rotten salad,” Seth said without missing a beat.
“Well, for God’s sake, throw it away.”
I picked up my untouched, twelve-dollar takeout lunch and dumped it in the wastebasket beside my desk. The scent still lingered in the air.
“I come bearing bad news.” Elizabeth placed freshly printed task lists on our desks, mine in the center of a pristine blotter, Seth’s on top of a heap of junk. “The auditors are seeking a more aggressive timeline for our deliverables.”
“How aggressive?” I asked, perusing the list. It was twice as long as the one she’d given me just hours before. Suddenly, the six check marks I’d managed to make so far today didn’t seem like such a triumph.
“They want all the data delivered by this Friday.”
My jaw fell open. I looked over at Seth, who was clearly zoned out, most likely watching blooper videos on mute.
I laughed. “That’s impossible.”
“Well, you don’t have much of a choice,” she said. “Start with this list, and I’ll review to see if I’ve left anything out.” Elizabeth turned on the ball of her foot and strode out the door, leaving me stunned.
“Do you believe this?” I said, knowing full well Seth didn’t grasp the severity of this situation. Odds were, he wasn’t even paying attention, but I couldn’t stop myself from vocalizing my outrage.
He snickered. “Man, I know. Elizabeth’s so uptight. She needs to get laid, like, yesterday.”
“Are you serious?”
“What?” Seth finally took his eyes off the screen and peered at me over his pile of papers.
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