But now that I was at work, the good feeling that writing gave me had dissipated in the sterile atmosphere. If I found it hard to concentrate on work during the week, it was even harder on a Saturday, when the place was a ghost town. There wasn’t even the barrage of boring, work-related e-mails to distract me.
In the void, my thoughts drifted to Sexy Boy. He was in Alaska, thank God, or I might be tempted to call, to flirt, to see if we could reprise our going-nowhere New Year’s Eve, even though secretly I would want it to be going somewhere.
So when the e-mail from Jake appeared, no wonder I jumped on it with just a little too much enthusiasm. I’d responded almost immediately after he sent it, and then, to my surprise, there was another e-mail from him ten minutes later.
But, no! I had five hundred files to edit by Tuesday! I was on the verge of getting fired! So I made a heroic effort. I tried to imagine that somewhere, someone’s life depended on how quickly I could edit a method page. If I could edit a method page in one minute or less, a starving family in India would have food for a week!
This method returns a non null value.
Hmm. Did “non null” require a hyphen? Yes, maybe. There. I was done with that page! The family now had food on their table, and Rodney Rolands was awarding me a special Medal of Honor in front of the entire company.
Damn it. I really wanted to check my Breakup Babe e-mail account. But, no! I would wait a full ten minutes! If I could only edit for ten minutes more, without stopping, Jake Gyllenhaal would get a starring role in the movie adaptation of my book and we would fall madly in love during the filming! But only if I edited for ten minutes straight! I plunged ahead, into the depths of boredom.
The Add method appends a Scope object to this collection.
I wondered what Jake looked like. The other Jake. With a name like Jake, he had to be cute. Right?
The Insert method inserts an element into the collection at the specified index.
He was single, right? He had to be single. He wouldn’t be writing me two e-mails within twenty minutes if he wasn’t single, right? I tried to recollect some of the comments he’d posted on my blog. Oh yes, he was the one who’d advised me to tear up the birthday card from Loser! Someone who’d definitely been through the wringer himself. But what was his status now?
The AddRange method adds an array to the collection.
Not that I should even be thinking about such things. He lived in Portland! Besides, what kind of loser with no life sent two e-mails within twenty minutes to a complete stranger?
The Clear method removes an array from the collection.
On the other hand, Portland was only three hours away. If we did have a steamy romance, I wouldn’t have to get on a plane to visit him. Two more minutes and I could check my e-mail! But I couldn’t get my hopes up. He wouldn’t have sent another e-mail so quickly.
But, in fact, he had.
From: Jake R.
To: Breakup Babe
Big trouble, eh? I’m sorry to hear that. But you’re going to be a famous writer, aren’t you, and the blog is going to get you there. So whatever “trouble” you’re in right now, I’m sure it’s temporary. I don’t want to pry, but feel free to unload on me if you want.
Oh God, the temptation was too much. Of course I wanted to unload. Not that I hadn’t already unloaded on all of my friends and family. I would spend five minutes on the e-mail, then go back to work for another full hour.
To: Jake R.
From: Breakup Babe
Yes, well, as it turns out Loser and Loserette found the blog. They have now reported me to HR for various crimes against humanity. God knows if yours truly will have a job next week. So here I am at the office on a Saturday, trying to prove my worthiness. Not that it will help. What’s your excuse for being glued to your computer screen?
We exchanged several more e-mails that day, and continued our e-mail exchange the following week. We wrote each other at least three times a day. He commiserated with me about my work situation and ranted about how unfair it was. He himself worked in the IT department in the Portland office of Nike. He was also starting a small software company with a friend of his, which is what put him in front of the computer for such long hours every day. Jake was also recently divorced with a five-year-old daughter whom he saw on weekends. I knew that the phrase “recently divorced” was not exactly the highest recommendation for a guy but, hell, this was probably just a harmless flirtation, right?
Wrong. When he told me he loved to backpack and ski, my interest ratcheted up several notches. When he sent me his picture, it peaked. He was no Jake Gyllenhaal, but he certainly lived up to what my image of a Jake should be: dark-haired, lean, handsome. Add to that his well-written, witty e-mails with nary a spelling or grammar error to activate my innate snob, and we had a romance in the making. But both of us held off that week from making the obvious statement (clearly, we were developing a more than friendly interest in each other) and asking the obvious question, were we going to do anything about it?
The obvious question got answered after the second summons from HR.
Two weeks after my first meeting with Lyle and Wendii, she called me. I’d almost convinced myself by then that nothing bad was going to happen to me. If they were going to fire me, wouldn’t they have done it right away? Wouldn’t they have hustled me out with an armed security guard to ensure I didn’t smash any servers or steal any proprietary information? I heard that’s what happened to people who got fired. Maybe the investigation had died a quiet death.
I was in the middle of composing an e-mail to Jake when she called.
“Rachel, this is Wendii Rogers,” said the professional, overly polished voice. As if I couldn’t see her name on my caller ID: WendiiR. My heart was beating so fast I could barely speak.
“Yeah,” I managed to say.
“We’ve decided to proceed with the investigation, so I need you to be here for a meeting at 3 P.M. next Thursday, in conference room 1783 in the Rolands HR Building. Will that work for you?”
As if she cared whether it worked for me. No, I’m sorry, I can’t make it that day, I’m getting a pedicure! Whoops, no can do, I have lunch with Steven Spielberg to discuss Breakup Babe the movie that day! Oh, SORRY, Wendii, I’m scheduled for my regular electroshock treatments that day!
“Yes, okay,” I said. The same cringing, simpering employee I’d become during my first meeting with Wendii and Lyle.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll send you a meeting request.”
I hung up the phone and stared at my computer screen, where I’d been going on to Jake about my recent attempts at writing my book and how I’d finally gotten in the habit of writing every day.
I erased everything I’d written. Then wrote, simply, my hands pounding the keyboard, “I just got a call from HR. They want to meet with me next week.” Sent it.
Then I quickly threw on my running clothes. One thing about all this stress, it was getting me in shape again. Months after Loser had dumped me while we were running, I’d finally started keeping my running clothes at work again. In the last week, I’d gone running or worked out nearly every day. So far I’d avoided running the route Loser and I had taken that June day, but today I ran it and didn’t feel a thing—except to realize how ironic it was that, in some ways, I was getting over him, and in other ways, he was more a part of my life than ever.
Was that my fault? I asked myself, as my feet struck the pavement. For writing the blog and keeping the story alive? Despite all my blog had given me, was it worth it? As I ran past featureless strip malls and Empire buildings, I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to that question. So I ran faster, until all I could think about was how much my legs hurt.
When I got back to my office, I found an e-mail from Jake in response to the one I’d sent just before I left. His note was even more abrupt than mine.
“Call me. 835-675-2190.”
I grabbed the phone. Started to dial his number, then stopped. Wh
at was I doing? We’d never talked on the phone before! What if it was awkward in person? Oh, fuck it. If it was awkward, so what? My heart, which had just started to recover from my run, sped up again as I dialed. He picked up after the first ring.
“This is Jake.” He sounded businesslike. Bored. The way I did when I answered the phone at work. His voice was lower than I’d expected. But the thing that shocked me was that he had an accent. An English accent. I’d had no fucking idea. Jake seemed like such an American name. How had I possibly missed the fact that he was British? Ever since I was eleven years old and had traveled around England with my parents, I’d been in love with English accents.
“Hi, Jake,” I said, even more nervous now. “It’s Rachel.” My voice cracked strangely. I cleared my throat.
“Oh,” he said, and the bored tone vaporized. “Hi. How are you doing?” His voice, so male, so British, wormed its way into my torso, creating a warm trail on its way down.
“Oh, I’m doing okay.” I tried to sound nonchalant, but it was hard when I was breathing like an emphysema patient. “I just went for a run, so I’m feeling a little better.” That was a stupid thing to say, but at least it offered an excuse for the heavy breathing.
“Really? Well, I know the guy who designed the gold-colored Nikes; I can probably get you a good deal if you want a pair.”
“Thanks.” I laughed. Relaxed a little. “How are you doing?” I wished I could travel through the phone line from Seattle to Portland and pop out in his office. He sounded so…friendly.
“Oh, you know, work,” he said. “At least mine is more harmless than yours these days. I hope they don’t fire you, but you know if they do, you’ll be famous, right?”
“I will?”
“Yeah. It’s kind of trendy. Haven’t you heard about that woman who just got fired because of her blog? She worked for Yahoo, wrote stuff about her job on her blog, and then got fired. It just happened last week, and Monday she was on the Today show.”
This fact, ridiculous as it was, cheered me up. I had a momentary vision of myself on the Today show talking about how and why I’d started my blog. The publishing houses would be throwing themselves at my feet!
“Well, that’s good to know,” I said.
“Anyway, I wanted to talk because I had…this idea.” He lowered his voice a little.
“Yeah?” There was a slight huskiness to his voice that, combined with his British accent, was irresistible.
“Well, I imagine you’re a bit down right now. So I was thinking, well…I was wondering if maybe you’d like to meet. I could easily make it up to Seattle this weekend. Help take your mind off things, you know.” He trailed off, sounding suddenly shy. Then, before I could respond, he jumped back in. “But I don’t have to,” he said, “I mean, I don’t expect—”
“No!” I interrupted him. “Of course I want you to!”
“I wouldn’t have to stay with you,” he added. “I think they have hotels in Seattle. Don’t they?”
“Yeah, a few.” I laughed, relieved that he’d suggested that. Who knew what the chemistry would be like when we saw each other in person? Although with that accent, he could be a toothless troll and I’d probably still want to have sex with him. Then I thought of something.
“Don’t you—well, what about your daughter? Don’t you have her on weekends?” I felt strange bringing it up. I’d never dated anyone with a kid before. Not that I was against it. In general, I felt more comfortable around kids than adults. Still, it was a little strange.
“Well, yes, normally, but next weekend my ex has her for the whole weekend. They’re going off for a bonding weekend at the beach—or some such thing.” There was a tone in his voice I couldn’t quite decipher.
The few bizarre details he’d supplied about his ex-wife over e-mail had made me very curious about their relationship. He’d written me, in droll detail, the story of how, after a five-year marriage during which she went from 200 to 350 pounds, he divorced her because she had become distant after the birth of their daughter. It didn’t help their sex life that she was obese, but, he claimed, he’d been ready to stand by her, “thick and thin.” Right after the divorce, though, she’d gotten onto a reality TV show called Beauty and the Beast, where a group of overweight women compete and undergo plastic surgery to see who can look the best at the end of six months. She’d won $100,000 and been featured on the cover of People magazine. “You might have seen her,” he wrote, in his usual witty style. “She wore an expression of vague shock that bingeing on Big Macs and milk shakes could make her a celebrity. Doesn’t she know, though, this is America?!”
I couldn’t help but wonder that he still held a torch for her, especially now that she was a gorgeous quasi celebrity. But I decided this wasn’t the time to worry about the ex-wife. So all I said was, “Sounds like a good plan.”
“Listen,” said Jake, “I have to run to a meeting right now. I’ll be in touch about the details. Probably I’ll just drive up tomorrow night, if that’s all right with you, and leave on Sunday sometime. I just want to say this, though. You don’t deserve what’s happening to you right now.”
I felt ridiculously grateful to this appealing male voice on the other end of the phone.
“Thanks,” I said. “Thanks for being so nice to me.” My voice was small. I sounded like a five-year-old suddenly.
“Oh, now that you deserve,” he said. “What are you going to do tonight?”
“I don’t know. Flee the country maybe?”
“All right. Just as long as you’re back in time for my arrival.”
“Of course.”
After I got off the phone, I leaned back in my chair and shook my head a little, as if I needed to wake myself up. But, God, I felt so much better than I had an hour and half ago when WendiiR had placed her call. Because there were people out there—very cute boys, in fact—who thought I was a good person, and a cool person, and one who totally deserved not to get fired, cute boys who were coming to visit me this weekend.
I flipped the bird to the phone. “Fuck you, Wendii R,” I said. Then I got packed up and headed home for the night.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Friday, January 17, 2003
9:23 AM Breakup Babe
Things have been crazy around here, that’s for sure. Alas, there is a whole bunch of sh*t going down that I can’t tell you about. I know that sounds suspicious coming from the person who reveals the most intimate details of her personal life online. Trust me. I would tell you if I could!
Life is looking up in one regard: Boys! Yes, you’d think that when my life is falling to pieces, I might take it easy when it comes to the male of the species. But what’s a girl to do when an online flirtation suddenly heats up at a low point in her life, and a cute boy she’s never met proposes a visit?
If you’re me, you think about it for one nanosecond, then say, “Okay, sounds great!,” conveniently forgetting that you just resolved to take a less impulsive approach to dating.
But what do I have to lose, really? (Except, of course, if he turns out to be a serial killer, in which case I lose my life and a few limbs.) It’s not like I’m accepting a marriage proposal from him sight unseen or anything! We’re just going on a date, albeit an all-weekend date that requires him to drive three hours, but what’s the big deal?
There is one little fly in the ointment, however. This boy, who we shall call Long-Distance Boy, reads this blog. Yes, that’s how we met, and no, I won’t tell you any more!
So I’m sure you’ve figured out the problem by now. If he reads it, I can’t dish about him, now can I? Or can I? We’ll just have to play that one by ear. Because now that I’m addicted to selling my sex life for entertainment, I’m not sure that I’ll be able to stop. But I resolve to try—if he wants me to—and we all know how well I stick to my resolutions, don’t we?
Okay, you’re asking yourself, then what is this girl going to talk about if not about boys?
I’m trying to figure
that one out myself here.
I felt the most cheerful I had in weeks as I took a sip of my Americano and looked around at the 8:35 A.M. Victrola crowd. Maybe because of my own relatively perky mood, everyone else looked a little sharper too. Hottie Dad was dressed in an impeccable Italian suit, outclassing everyone in the place. The guy with the shaved head and the lightning bolt tattooed on his scalp was whispering and holding hands with a relatively normal-looking woman at a corner table. It was the first time I had ever seen him smile.
The cute barista was always a model of adorable funkiness and today was no exception. He wore a brown T-shirt that said “Hillbilly 5” on it and had a new short haircut that made him look cuter and more clean-cut than ever. When I’d walked in earlier, I’d flashed an alluring smile at him (a solid nine on the Dazzle-O-Meter) as he worked the espresso machine, but felt a pleasing lack of desperate neediness.
Perky as I felt, I worried if my readers felt cheated. I’d decided to keep blogging for my own sanity. I just couldn’t give it up. But I hadn’t been posting nearly as much as usual for fear of who might be reading the blog. I seriously doubted Lyle would have shared the URL with anyone, but how could I be sure? Though he hadn’t made eye contact with me at meetings lately, none of my other fellow employees treated me differently. Yet I knew that I had to stop writing about the Loser twins and Empire Corp. if I wanted to keep my job.
I’d tried to hold on to the sense of defiance that swept me the day after my meeting with Lyle and Wendii. But most of the time, I just felt scared. Scared of being judged. Scared of saying the wrong thing and getting fired. The fact that Jake read the blog was just another thing that made me uncertain about how to proceed.
So I’d been putting less energy into the blog and more into the writing class and the book. One of the first thoughts that had crossed my mind when things started to heat up with Jake was Breakup Babe meets boy via her blog. What a great ending for my book! At this point, though, the ending of the book seemed impossibly far away. Not quite as far away as it once had, now that I was well into writing the first chapter, but still far enough away that if I thought of the hundreds of thousands of words I’d have to write and revise in order to get to my ending, I got discouraged.
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