We agreed to meet at a place called Henry’s at seven-thirty. I liked the symmetry of it — seven-thirty on Mondays for coffee, seven-thirty on a Friday night for drinks. Henry’s was my suggestion. I arrived before Tess and sat watching the door, situated at what had become my favorite table after drinking there two other times. The table I liked was on the side of the room, the last in a string of small booths for two. Between the row of booths and the bar was a lounge area furnished with comfortable chairs and sofas. The opposite side of the room had floor to ceiling windows, and was lined with tall tables and stools to show off the patrons’ legs to passersby.
With Tess’s usual ownership of any room she entered — looked at, more than looking for — I wasn’t aware my location had registered on her radar when she stepped through the doorway. Her clothes were Friday casual, for Tess — skinny jeans, buttery navy blue leather pumps with three-inch heels, a short cream colored jacket that skimmed her hip bones, and a cotton shirt with a stiff collar the identical blue of her jeans. Without appearing to search faces for mine, she crossed the room and slid into the seat across from me. A server appeared immediately — one of the reasons Henry’s had so quickly become my preferred bar.
We ordered martinis. I asked for an extra olive, Tess did not. She’s obsessive about calories — every single one counts. Twenty-five calories in a pimento-stuffed olive, two or three olives per martini, it adds up, if you’re fond of martinis.
Until the drinks came, we talked about the upcoming product announcement. We continued talking about work after the drinks came. We discussed the new format for quarterly business reviews, the tedium of meetings during which a handful of people felt compelled to state the obvious simply to ensure their voices were heard and they were noted as active participants. Cautious, in case a competitor was drinking at a nearby table, we lowered our voices when we discussed the three-quarter sales forecast.
As the alcohol loosened our brains, we started dishing on co-workers. I’d eaten all my olives and was ready for a second drink by the time we exhausted the recent acts of stupidity and career suicide.
Tess moved her glass in a circular motion on the table, suddenly twitchy, looking away from my gaze. “Do you ever think about a different kind of life?” She turned her head and caught our server’s eye. She raised two fingers.
“Like what?”
“Something without the regimen. The sameness. I love the adrenaline rush, the pressure, the challenge of getting customers to say yes, but still…it’s the same, quarter in and quarter out. Lately, I think about doing something wildly different. Traveling around with nothing but a backpack…”
I absolutely could not picture Tess with a backpack, much less flopping down on the floor of a hostel with a bunch of other wanderers.
“Do you ever think about that? Living so that every day is a complete surprise? Living without expectations and having to make yourself into a virtual robot to succeed?”
Our drinks arrived. Tess ordered a side of deep fried artichoke hearts.
When the server left, Tess shrugged. “Or another kind of life altogether, one with the VP husband and the two cherubs?”
“Who needs that? You’re the VP.” I raised my glass.
She smiled, but it looked forced, or sad. “You never think about doing something crazy? Unconventional?”
“I guess my life is already unconventional.”
“Not really.” She sipped her drink.
The insult was sharp in my throat. “I had sex with Jared,” I said.
She smiled. “I saw that coming fifty miles away.”
“Did you? Interesting, because I didn’t.” That was a lie, but I was annoyed that she considered me predictable. “Things happened, and there we were. Might not be the best for my housing stability, but still…”
“You did it anyway. You’re quite the risk taker.” She sipped her drink. “Things happened, indeed.” She laughed softly.
“You took a lot of risks to get where you are so fast.”
“Not that kind of risk.” She rubbed her nose as if she had a furious itch. She sipped her drink, then rubbed her nose again. “Sometimes I close my eyes and see myself riding a conveyor belt into old age, my clothes no longer looking so awesome, trying too hard because now I’m a scrawny middle-aged woman instead of a slim up-and-coming woman. My hair color obviously fabricated by a salon, the gloss fading along with my estrogen. Soon, my makeup is too heavy on my skin, and…I don’t know.” She took a long swallow of her drink.
This was not the woman I’d thought I was working for. Was she having some sort of mid-life crisis? She wasn’t mid life, but maybe she was an over-achiever in that arena just like she was with her career and fitness accomplishments.
“Maybe I’m depleted because I worked all last weekend,” she said. “Maybe I need a vacation.”
“You should try one of those wilderness trips where you test your mettle. That would silence all those questioning voices fantasizing about living out of a backpack.”
“Unless it’s the baby gene ticking, ready to blow,” she said.
“Do you want a kid?”
“I never thought I did. But I’ve had these weird dreams, and you start to think, what if motherhood really is as awesome as they say it is.”
“That’s a huge risk. No way to verify. And it’s not the same for everyone.” I sucked an olive off the stick and chewed fast. “For some people, maybe it’s awesome, but there are a lot of things that can make it a nightmare. And you’re stuck with a kid for life. They take over your house, your job, your sex life, your social life, your brain. They own you. It’s like you’re swallowed alive.”
“That’s cynical.”
“Just realistic. It’s what I’ve observed. I didn’t grow up in the most idyllic circumstances. And now, I have enough trouble taking care of myself without signing up to manage someone else’s life for eighteen years. Or more.”
“You sound almost…bitter.”
“If you want to talk about having babies, I’m the wrong person to ask. Why don’t you talk to Eileen? Or Stacy?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Okay. Fair enough,” I said.
Eileen and Stacy seemed to believe they were the first women on the planet to give birth, as if their little bundles of flesh came wrapped in skin made of eighteen karat gold. Running into one of them in the coffee shop required superhuman tongue-biting and gag control.
“So why did you sleep with Jared?”
“I told you he’s hot.”
“You also said you wouldn’t go near your roommate. And double that when your other roommate is trying to nail him.”
I shrugged.
“Are you two in a relationship now?”
I shook my head. “I just needed to blow off steam. But I think he’s assuming we are, so that’s a bit of a problem I’ll have to deal with.”
She smiled. “What if you need to blow off steam again?”
“I’m sure I will. But I don’t want to be hanging out together all the time, trying to sneak around behind Noreen’s back.”
“Maybe you two should get a place together.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want anything like that. I don’t want to have to cook for some guy and wash his jeans and prop up his ego.”
She laughed. “You are so cold.”
“Maybe. Sometimes. I guess I am.”
“You say what I’m thinking but would never say.”
I knew that. That’s why I said those things. Some people are born with a musical ear or a good head for math. Like I said, I was born with the ability to mirror other people back to themselves. It’s why people like me. They don’t realize they’re just falling in love with themselves. Narcissus — enraptured by his reflection in a pond rather than the woman who loved him. It’s fun, it makes me feel like I have a purpose, like I fit into the world and provide something people need. It’s why Jared was taken with me and w
hy Noreen felt we were best friends. It’s the reason Tess had so much respect for me in my job, and now treats me like her closest friend. Maybe I am her closest friend.
“I feel like I’m missing something — the cherubs and the type of husband who takes care of me. I never thought I wanted those things, not really, but I can’t stop thinking I might be missing something important. I feel like I should want it. Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded. “Absolutely.” I picked up a piece of lightly battered artichoke heart, dipped it in the aioli, and took a bite. I could eat those things all night.
“I need a change, that’s what I’m saying. And naturally I think that a major aspect of life is drifting out of reach, headed for the rapids, and maybe I should pursue that before it’s too late. I got the platinum education, the cherry-on-top job, the scramble to the highest rung of the ladder. Well, almost the highest. I have the satisfaction of helping a company be successful. But it’s the same damn thing week in and week out, year in and year out, and one day, I’m going to wake up old. You hear stories of people who live in one location for a year or two, then they go somewhere totally different — I mean totally — Thailand to Germany to Brazil, maybe. Alaska, LA, New York city. They try all kinds of different jobs — one year you’re a bartender, the next year work on a co-op farm.”
“It sounds very glamorous when you’re not doing it. Starting over all the time would get old after a while too. It can be stressful.”
“How do you know?”
“I have a good imagination.”
“Maybe you don’t do it forever,” she said.
“You’re burned out. When was the last time you took more than a weekend off?”
She lifted her drink to her lips, then returned it to the table. “I guess…three years ago?”
“Are you seeing anyone? Is he antsy for kids?”
“No. That’s probably why I haven’t had a vacation. No one to share it with me. I haven’t been with anyone for almost a year now.”
“That’s why the wilderness escape is what you need. It would get you out of your head. Find out what you’re made of. Rebuild your confidence and feeling of power. You can do horseback camping trips, rainforest treks, rafting. Or take a mule to the bottom of the grand canyon.”
“You’re way too excited about this.” She laughed, but she sounded nervous.
“The fear is what makes it life-changing.”
“Are you trying to get me killed?”
“You said you wanted something different. It’s a good way to experiment without walking away from your job and everything you’ve worked for.”
She sipped her martini. “So you don’t think it’s the biological clock?”
“I really don’t know.”
She looked at me as if she were trying to see inside my head. Good luck with that.
After a few minutes, she narrowed her eyes. She picked up her glass and took a sip of her drink. “You know, I keep feeling as if I’ve seen you before.”
“I don’t think so.”
“How would you know? I don’t mean that I met you, but I saw your photograph.”
I shrugged. There was a little wiggle in the pit of my stomach, but I ate an olive to make it settle down. I had nothing to worry about. Even if she remembered where she’d seen me, I was pretty sure she wasn’t one of those justice-must-be-done types. Seemed more like an I-mind-my-own-business type, unless pushed into it. Of course, that’s assuming she’d seen the photos posted online somewhere, and I had no indication they had been. Most likely it was the doppelgänger feeling everyone gets occasionally. It’s amazing the subtle qualities that make people think someone looks familiar — the sensation has nothing to do with actual physical appearance. It’s more of a sixth sense, a gesture or choice of words that strikes a chord from your past. And really, the person you’re looking at has no physical resemblance to the person you’re thinking of.
“Maybe a vacation. I’ll give it some thought.” She sat up straighter and tugged the sides of her jacket together as if she could settle her indecision by straightening her clothes. She sipped her drink and was quiet for several seconds that drifted casually at first, then turning into a minute or more. A minute is nothing until you find yourself wondering what’s passing through another person’s mind, trying to decide if you should move the conversation forward or shove it in another direction.
She licked her lips. “But I’m not really sure a vacation will fix things.” She glanced toward the bar and continued talking without looking at me. “I lost my temper with a pissed off customer. I was trying to explain how the extended service contract works. They had a fundamental misunderstanding, but they kept interrupting and talking over me. Steve Montgomery was in the meeting with me, and he really let me have it afterwards. I know he’s telling everyone about it, and I know the men are all nodding and mumbling about emotional, irrational women who can’t handle angry customers.” Her eyes were glassy and she continued to avoid looking at me.
“They’ll move on. They always do.”
“But they’ll remember.”
I didn’t disagree. She was too smart for patronizing bullshit. They would remember. The question was, could she overcome it?
She turned her face toward me and smiled. “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve had to rip off the overly emotional female label. I’ll figure it out.”
“You will,” I said.
We lifted our glasses and tapped the edges. We took, slow, luxurious swallows of cold vodka.
“Well, enough about me. Back to your roommate triangle.”
“There’s nothing to get back to.”
“It’s a little dangerous — doing what you did, under your circumstances.”
“It’ll work itself out.”
“What if he tells Noreen you hooked up?”
“I don’t think he’d do that.”
“You’re rather trusting, for someone so cynical.” She gave me a ghoulish smile, almost as if she hoped my trust was misplaced. “And someone who was so worried about her lack of housing options.”
“If it happens, I’ll figure out an alternative. There was no choice. When I want something, I go after it without a lot of analysis.”
She stared at me as if she was suddenly a little afraid of me. Maybe I’d said too much. Maybe she’d mirrored myself right back at me, and I’d started feeling all friendly and said too much. Like I said, martinis make me chatty, although usually it takes more than two.
Tess and I had the same issue — failure to control our impulses. But her lack of control, if it damaged her reputation, would bleed into my life. I needed a boss who would fight to the death for me — the confident woman who promised to look into getting me a salary increase long before it was time for annual reviews and the usual three percent. I hoped that woman returned soon.
18
The house was silent when Jared’s bare feet touched the cold tile floor at three-fifty a.m. He lit the candle on his bookcase, settled himself on his meditation cushion, wearing nothing but boxer shorts, and spent the next twenty minutes pretending to meditate. His concentration had deteriorated even further, he couldn’t inhale without smelling Alexandra’s skin. He couldn’t close his eyes without seeing her naked body. The only time thoughts of her settled to a simmer was when his stomach wove itself into knots over Noreen.
When he’d suggested to Alexandra that having roommates would help his Buddhist practice, he’d been telling the absolute truth, at the time. She’d seemed simultaneously offended and amused. Now, he couldn’t imagine a worse situation than the one he faced. He should talk to the class leader at the meditation center, but he was terrified he’d be advised to find a new place to live. Most of the guides were firmly rooted in the idea that meditation practice required the support of an insulated circle of like-minded seekers. Two woman who knocked on a man’s door at night craving sex were not seeking to live on a higher plane of existence.
He uncrossed hi
s legs, stood up, and blew on the candle flame. It wavered but didn’t go out. He blew harder. It leaned to the side, then sprang back up. He felt like spitting on it. He let out a huge puff of air and succeeded in extinguishing the flame while spraying liquid wax across the top of the bookcase.
He put on the clothes he’d laid on the chair the night before so he didn’t have to risk waking Noreen by rummaging around in drawers and the closet. He’d taken to showering and shaving at night as well. He would hold his bladder until he got to the coffee shop where he would order tea and catch up with the world on his tablet until the sun rose.
The door creaked as he opened it. He looked into the hallway. All the doors were closed. He went into the great room. The air smelled of something sweet. A single light under the hood of the stove burned in the kitchen. Food sizzled in a pan.
Noreen stepped out of the dark corner by the refrigerator. “You’re an early riser,” she said.
“I am.”
“I made breakfast for you. It’s not good to be out doing whatever it is you do all day without sustenance.”
Who used the word sustenance? He felt as if he were standing in the kitchen of a homestead in the nineteenth century. “I’m not…”
“Don’t tell me you’re not hungry. It’s called break-fast. You’re supposed to break the fast of the night. It’s not healthy to skip the first meal of the day and expect to function on a few cups of tea.”
“I don’t eat breakfast. I never have. It’s not that unusual. I think breakfast was a custom that developed when people performed hard physical labor all day.”
“Yoga requires a lot of exertion.”
“Please don’t assume you know what I need. And please stop cooking meals that I don’t want.”
“It smells so good. How can you resist?” She grinned. “Tofu bacon — I didn’t even know such a thing existed. You’re teaching me so much.” She broadened her grin. “I mixed it with some kwinoah, and…”
The Woman In the Mirror: (A Psychological Suspense Novel) (Alexandra Mallory Book 1) Page 10