by Celia Hayes
“Babe,” he tries one more time with an understanding tone. “I just can’t. I’m sorry too, believe me.” He takes one of her hands and then the other and holds them, and Madeleine almost seems to be about to give in. She looks so defenceless, with her red eyes and her half open mouth… “Madeleine, I want you to know that you are very special to me, and you always will be. I’m sure that pretty soon you’ll be able to laugh about all this and wonder how the hell we ever ended up arguing about it in the first place,” he jokes, trying to break the tension.
“Dave,” she replies, still seemingly in some sort of trance, “I want you to know that you’re a son of a bitch, and you always will be. And I’m sure that pretty soon I am going to look back on all of this and wonder why the hell it took me so long.”
“To do what?” he starts to ask, but before he has finished, she slaps his face violently and one minute later, all that’s left of Madeleine in that office is a tissue covered in mascara in the trash can and the echo of her steps as she marches away down the corridor.
Dave stands for a few moments staring helplessly at the door she left open while members of staff come and go in silence outside his office. He got exactly what he wanted: he won’t be seeing her any more, she’s out of his life and – all in all – without any serious consequences. Something is still bothering him though. He can’t say what it is exactly, at least not immediately. He starts rubbing his smarting cheek but even the gentle pressure from his fingers is enough to set the pain off again, and he finally understands why he’s still perplexed: he can easily accept the end of a relatively long relationship, but he really hadn’t been expecting to not feel anything at all about it. He already knew he wasn’t in love, but he had never realised how indifferent he actually was.
He tries to pull himself together after that unexpected revelation, closes the door and goes back to his desk, collapsing in his chair as though he were a tired warrior after a hard battle, and at that moment he remembers Brian, picks up his phone, dials his friend’s number and waits for him to answer.
“Are you having an interesting day?” asks Brian immediately, as though he had been waiting for the call.
“I’d rather talk about something else,” replies Dave, already thinking of the thousand things he has to organise: missed meetings, orders, deliveries, analyses, proofreading… He’s holding the phone between his shoulder and ear while simultaneously typing on his computer keyboard. He needs to organise all the notes he’s taken into the various different files which are all on his desktop now.
“No, please, don’t spare me any details – I want to hear exactly what happened.”
“Brian, I’m busy. Why did you call me earlier?” Dave asks abruptly. “I’m presuming there actually was a reason?”
“Let me think… Err, no.”
“Well, in that case…”
“Did I really hear Madeleine’s voice earlier?” Brian asks, trying for a last minute confession.
Dave doesn’t reply, which makes Brian realise without a doubt how things actually went.
“Aw, man, I wish I’d seen that little scene,” says Brian before bursting into laughter.
“Hey, screw you, dude!”
“In less than a month you’ll be surrounded by the most beautiful women in the country anyway. Aren’t you happy?” he asks ecstatically while he tries to imagine his friend’s frowning face.
“And that’s just where you’re wrong,” Dave corrects him, “I won’t be surrounded by anyone at all.”
“And how exactly are you planning on doing that? You do remember that you’ve been invited to the opening ceremony of San Francisco Fashion Week, don’t you?”
“Of course I remember, but I won’t be handling the event myself! I’ll just have to make sure that things proceed smoothly. I’ve already found a substitute for the occasions when there actually needs to be someone there in person. That way, I won’t have to meet any women – formally or otherwise.”
“And who is this person who’s going to substitute for you?”
“The only woman you’re going to see me with for the next three months. I selected her very carefully and after taking into account all possible complications. She’ll be the shield that will protect me from the outside world for as long as I need to live a quiet life. Perfect, right?”
“I’m not sure… Anyway, why did you choose a woman? You were supposed to steer clear of them and now you’ve hired one full-time instead? I don’t follow your logic.”
“Well, that’s because she’s not like other women – she’s Sam.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Sam Preston started as a trainee and is now Margaret’s assistant. She’s the absolute opposite of what I consider feminine. She doesn’t talk, doesn’t argue and doesn’t ask questions. And best of all, she’s a simple girl without any expectations. I am totally safe around her.”
“If you say so.”
“You sound like my idea doesn’t convince you.”
“All I’m saying is that she’s still a woman…”
“And you’re saying that because you’ve never seen her.”
“Why? Is she that ugly?”
“No, she’s not ugly at all!” he mumbles, struggling to find the right words, “She’s just… just boring, and she never wears anything sexier than jogging pants and fleeces… You know what I mean? And even her appearance…”
“What about it? Ah, okay, I get it. You’ve chose Auntie Fester as your secretary and you think that will stop you from sinning. Jeez, man, you’re really serious about getting that hundred bucks off me!”
“Hey, I never said that she was repulsive. She’s just not the type of woman I would normally take out to dinner. Having her around will reduce my external contacts to the absolute minimum and will make it practically impossible for my body to have any kind of reaction towards the other sex, at least until my life is back under my own control.” He leans back in his chair, taking his hands off the keyboard for a moment. “I’m actually really looking forward to this break from women,” he says, turning serious. “I’ve already argued with Simone, Madeleine doesn’t want to see me any more, and my answering machine is full of unanswered messages. Finally I’ll be able to relax and concentrate on work for a change.”
“If you say so…”
“I do!” He replies confidently, and he’s about to go on, but someone knocks at his door and interrupts him. “Hold on, someone’s at the door,” he says and puts him on hold, moving the handset away from his ear for a moment. “Come in.”
“It’s Sam, can I come in?”
“Dave? Dave? Are you still there?”
Dave lifts his eyes to take a casual look at her, then lowers them again to his monitor to try and process the visual information he has just received. Then he looks again at the door of his office – which is on the third floor of a building located on one of the busiest roads in Union Square – and finds he is unable to look away for a few moments.
“Dave?” shouts Brian again down the phone line. “Dave, answer me, goddamnit!”
Chapter 12
The Good Girl’s Guide to Dirty Messaging
I’ll be honest, I’ve had better days.
I was two hours late to work, and when I got there I was out of breath. Is there anything more demoralising than being in your boss’s office without having had a chance to change your clothes from the previous night and with very obvious symptoms of a terrible hangover only to find that he’s in an even worse state than you are?
I don’t know, maybe it’s worse to know that you’re not the cause of his messy appearance, which is presumably a consequence of the recent visit he received from Ms Hunt, whom I just saw walking down the corridor in a very expensive yellow outfit with a co-ordinated handbag. Here we are in his office: me – someone who’s not exactly a shining example of elegance and efficiency – and, on the other side, him, who has just shamelessly been getting it on with Madeleine behind the cl
osed blinds of his office windows. I am guessing she stopped by for a quick chat before going back to whatever it is that models do.
The disastrous comparison between the morning appearance of Madeleine and my own makes me immediately decide to abandon the plan to convert fat into muscle that I’d scheduled for the coming month: the feeling of manifest inferiority is just too much. Terry was right, I can’t compete, so there’s no point even trying. Even if I actually did manage to lose ten pounds in three weeks – which, let’s face it, is highly unlikely – I would still lack all the rest: posture, self-confidence, charm, fame and money. How could I have been stupid enough to lie to myself again? Seriously, how can someone be so ridiculously naïve?
“Good morning, Dave,” I say, flashing him an embarrassed smile and trying to force myself into believing that starting from today he’s only going to be Dave ‘it was a wonderful dream but still just a dream’ Callaghan for me.
He stares at me for quite a long time with an astonished look on his face and then says, “Sam.” He puts the phone back to his ear, says, “I’ll call you later, Brian, something came up, bye,” and hangs up.
“They told me that you were looking for me,” I say in confusion, unsuccessfully trying to imagine the reason why he might have summoned me.
“Do you know what time it is?” he asks me, frowning.
If he was looking somewhat lost a moment ago his face is now absolutely sullen.
“Er, yeah, look…”
“Because as far as I’m aware, the office hours haven’t changed,” he continues. I try to reply but he holds up his finger and cuts me off with an authoritarian, “Don’t say anything,” and then calls his assistant editor on the intercom.
She answers with an apathetic “Yes, Dave.”
“Good morning, Jane. Do you happen to know what time Sam Preston is supposed to start work?” he asks, as though it were a perfectly normal question. I raise my eyes up to the ceiling in annoyance and pray for a sudden bolt of summer lightning to strike me before I can start swearing. Does he really think this stupid little pantomime is necessary?
“She starts at eight,” Jane answers efficiently, seemingly not noticing anything strange about his question.
“Does she now?” replies Dave, then glares at me and holds his hands out sarcastically. I look somewhere else.
“Do you need anything else?”
“No, thank you, Jane,” he says, his eyes never leaving me. “So what’s your excuse, then?”
“I had a… problem this morning,” I mumble, “and…”
“Couldn’t you have called to let us know about it?”
“Well, yes, I should have, I know,” I admit. “But when I realised what time it was, I didn’t want to waste any more time and…”
It’s horrible. He keeps staring at me with blazing eyes while I mumble one stupid excuse after another. What the hell is the matter with him anyway? He has never behaved like this before. And anyway this must be only the fourth – or maybe fifth, tops – time I’ve been late in the last three years! “Dave, believe me, I’m sorry,” I say eventually, almost without breathing, “it really wasn’t intentional. Something unexpected came up, but it won’t happen again.” For the first time since I entered the room, I dare to look him in the face. “I promise,” I say, and try to calm him down with a timid smile. There’s no response. “Err… Dave?” I ask, trying to get his attention, but I realise he’s more interested in my clothes at the moment. Okay, this time he really is going to send me to work in obituaries with Nicholas. I knew I should have changed, but I didn’t want to end up being even later than I already was. I didn’t hear the alarm go off and I had to swallow my coffee down in a single gulp and then run to catch the bus, and I even managed to trip over Miss Murple’s damn handbag on my way in. The damn woman retired at least six years ago, by the way, so why the hell did she have to choose today to come in and say hi?
“Dave?” I say again, hoping that he will manage to stop looking at my neckline this time. He shakes his head, as if trying to rid himself of some very important thought.
“What?” he mumbles. “Oh, yeah…” He starts rapidly moving pieces of paper, folders and pens about and then he orders me to sit down. I obey immediately, hoping that he’s not going to fire me. “Right,” he mutters after a few more moments, “as I told you already, we ought to get down to scheduling the interviews we want to do during fashion week.”
“During San Francisco Fashion Week,” I correct him instinctively.
“Yes,” he replies, lifting his eyes up from the folders that he’s trying to pile up by his keyboard just long enough to give me an irritated scowl. “And…”
“And?” I say, to try and encourage him from this new worrying silence.
Dave doesn’t answer immediately but starts massaging his face, seemingly undecided on what to do. He looks exhausted. I’d pay any amount of money to understand how a man can get himself into such a state. God alone knows what the problem can be – maybe his little escapade with Madeleine this morning has short-circuited his brain or something.
I’m starting to feel pretty disheartened.
“As I was saying…” he says, holding out a list to me. “Here is the official programme of the event and the complete timetable for all the runway shows, interviews, parties, presentations and press conferences.” I take the piece of paper for a closer look.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“First of all…” he begins, sitting up straight on his chair and folding his arms, “you should make sure that all the interviewees are actually available for the interviews. I want a complete photographic report and at least a couple of comments from the organisers, so you’ll have to make an appointment with them.”
I take a pencil from his desk and start to make some notes. Dave starts telling me what to write, and things seem to go back to something resembling normality. I feel more confident now that we’re back to our usual fake camaraderie and empty work small talk.
“Okay. So Sam…”
“Yes?”
“Is everything clear for now?”
“Yes, of course,” I nod, and he continues as if the previous awkward moment had never happened and continues to reel off names, times, people, and places, and I keep writing everything down. In the meantime, I try very hard not to think of those pictures of Miss Goddamn Universe that I printed out, but unfortunately don’t seem to be able to. She’s all I can think about, but I try to hide it from him. I wonder just how long I’m going to have to pretend not to have any feelings for him, and the thought provokes an unintentional sigh from me, as I tilt my head slightly to the side. It’s a casual gesture, just like when I blow the lock of hair that falls over my eye out of the way so that I can remain concentrating on the schedule. I don’t even notice the slight variation in Dave’s voice.
It didn’t seem to be anything important, really, and I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it if all of a sudden he hadn’t suddenly snapped, “Sam, why the hell are you all dressed up like that?”
“Li… Like what?” I say, raising my head and staring at him with my eyes open wide.
“Do you really think that is an appropriate way to dress to the office?” He is really scolding me, and I’m reacting like a teenager: I blush, go quiet and feel like I’m getting smaller and smaller in my chair, not knowing where to look.
“I… didn’t…” Can I just faint or disappear or something?
Something in my expression must make him understand I can’t take much more, so he manages to rein in his outburst and not add anything else. He relaxes, then mutters, “So have you taken note of everything?” as though trying to pretend that nothing has happened.
I nod.
“Ok…” he mumbles, “you can go back to your desk then. I’m busy now. You’re going to need to organise everything in the next couple of days, tops. Can you manage that?”
I nod again and try my best to appear normal, but I can’t look him in the
face any more. Dave notices and changes his tone – you’d almost think that he felt guilty, even though he doesn’t come out and say it. He breathes heavily and indicates the door to me with his eyes. “If you have any problems, ask Jane for some help. So I’ll see you on Thursday, ok?”
“Ok,” I answer and when I stand up I have the impression that my skirt is too shirt, my neckline too low and my hair too damn big. I slouch away to the door aware that he’s watching my back – or at least, I hope it’s my back.
When I get to my cubicle, what I’d really like to do is be left alone to have a bit of a cry, but unfortunately Terry is there. She’s sitting in my chair and is frenetically typing something on my keyboard. She’s going through my files and images as though this was her desk. All the frustration and upset I’ve been holding in suddenly explodes.
“Terry, that is my desk!”
She raises her head and gives me a bored look, but when she notices that I’m wearing a small black dress instead of my usual jeans she opens her mouth in surprise.
“Yes, I know,” I say, before she has time to say anything, “I’m wearing an evening dress. Yes, I know it’s too small for me and that I look like a stuffed chicken, and yes, I have a lot of hair and, yes, these are army boots. Yes, that means that this morning I was in a rush and I had to put on yesterday’s clothes. Are you happy now? Can you go back to your own desk? I need to be left alone for twenty minutes so I can work through my despair, and I can’t do it if you’re around.”
I’m trying to be as honest as I can. Terry looks confused by my reaction and gets to her feet awkwardly, like a robot, allowing me to finally take a seat at my computer and sigh deeply in relief.