by Ariella Papa
“When did you talk to him?”
“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”
“You didn’t tell me. Did he ask about me?”
“In a roundabout way. I told him to give up his infatuation with you for once and for all.”
“Really, c’mon!”
“No, relax, I’m sure he’s in love with you, the same as ever.” I know it’s wrong, but it’s nice to think that someone out there likes you, especially if you aren’t hot for them. It means that somewhere out there you have an advantage over someone.
I only wanted to have one drink with Adam and Joe, because I think it’s wrong to get drunk with your co-workers or date them. Of course I wind up loopy sitting between them in the back of a cab heading to a going-away party for one of their friends in finance. I am leaning a little too close to Joe, a sexy Latino whom I am super attracted to, while Adam tries to take my hand. I can’t feel my nose.
“It’s cool hanging out, being one of the guys.”
“Eve, you’re too pretty to be one of the guys,” Joe says, throwing his arm around me. I will not hook up with him. We work together. I won’t. I borrow his phone to call in Tabitha for backup.
She shows up at the farewell party. Her date was a bust, and she’s almost as drunk as I am. We have no idea who the party is for and we spend the night telling everyone bon voyage. The boys laugh at us and dance with us and I might almost kiss Joe at one point, but it’s all kind of a haze.
Finally, the DJ tells us it’s the last dance. Tabitha and I bid good-night to the boys. We all kiss. I start laughing and saying “the New York Kiss” over and over. I get the “pity the drunk girl” look from everyone, which makes me laugh even more. I have to pee—it was definitely a bad idea to drink so much with work people. Tabitha says she wants to stop at Krispy Kreme before we go home. It’s open late tonight.
“Shit,” I say to Tabitha in the cab, “you know I meant to tell them about my story this week, but I never got the nerve up to do it. We should start our own magazine. We could self-publish, we could do it for people like us. That would be cool, but it would take a while. I guess in the meantime, I should try to make the best of this. I guess I’ll talk to them about it next week. Always, another week. But seriously, Tabitha, maybe we should think about that magazine. It could be awesome. I don’t want pipe dreams.” I look over at her in the cab, but she has already fallen asleep. Although, we’re only ten blocks to my place, I have the taxi driver go up the F.D.R. and drop her off at her place first.
No Krispy Kreme tonight.
I get home just as Roseanne does. She is fiddling with the keys in the front door. I realize that she is totally smashed, so for safety’s sake I tell her sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep in the cranny (I can’t have her falling off her sleep loft). She holds on to the walls in the apartment and asks me to come in so we can replay the evening’s events with her. She really just wants to know if I think she shouldn’t have “New York Kissed” Pete.
“His lips were really soft, just like his voice.” Whatever. She has her eyes closed and her face is kind of scrunched. I hope she is going to be okay. “Eve, will you put the trash can near the bed?”
When I come back with the pail from the bathroom, she is already out. I roll her onto her side. I promise myself when I shut the light off for bed that I will talk to Herb about my article this week.
It takes me until Wednesday to get the courage up to e-mail Herb about having a talk.
Hi, Herb,
If you have some time soon, I would like to talk. Thanks.
—Eve
I spell check the e-mail at least four times. I hesitate. I get it out at the end of the day.
His reply is waiting for me when I get in on Thursday.
sure, stop by. lets takl.
So I am sitting in his office, which smells of incense, and he is nodding. I tell him about how much I think I have to contribute to the magazine and how important it is to have different voices represented (without implying that all of the writers on the magazine are too much like him).
“You see, this article—” I point to the copy of my story about the surgeon who turns to biking “—is totally fabricated, but it’s an example of my work. I have a degree in journalism and I wrote quite a few stories when I was an editor for our college paper. I put a few in this folder for you to read.”
I can’t really gauge Herb’s reaction. In meetings he says the first thing that comes to his mind, but now he is not saying a word. I am wondering if I have something in my teeth.
“Well, Eve, I really can appreciate your interest in writing.” This sounds like the beginning of a rejection letter. “Right now, we just hired Lacey. Hopefully, she will help with the workload.” He stops. Maybe he’s waiting for me to tell him that Lacey has no idea that you can use paper to write, too. I stare at him. I am not going to speak.
“So what does that mean for me?” Damn! I suck. I can never stick to my guns.
“I’m not sure. You’ve been here for how long?”
“Almost nine months. Long enough to have a baby.” I have no idea where that came from, even though, yes, I said it. He thinks I’m an asshole. There is no doubt.
“Maybe it’s time we gave you a raise.” A raise? That’s great, what about writing? Shit.
“Well, that’s great, but what about the writing?” I will stand firm. I will not falter. I am roaring. He sits back again in his chair. His silences are killing me.
“Well, we usually don’t do this, because frankly, our writing is so important to us. I guess if you wanted, if you weren’t too busy with…your other…stuff, you could attend the Feed Meet every now and then. We could see how that works.”
“Great, that would be great.” Oh, boy, invite me to the meeting. Even the fucking intern, Brian, gets to go to the Feed Meet. Whatever. “And will you read my stories?”
“I’ll try. Sometimes I get a little crazed.” He smiles at me.
“Well, thanks, Herb—” I then remind him “—and thanks for the raise.”
“You’re welcome.” He believes he is doing me a favor. “And it’s every Wednesday at—”
“One. Yeah, I know.” He looks surprised, as if the Feed Meet was a national secret. “It’s in your schedule.”
“Oh, right.”
Fast forward to Bloomingdale’s, two hours later. Tabitha and I are, as usual, shopping in the underwear section.
“I mean, he doesn’t even realize I keep his schedule and when he finds a new appointment, a meeting, it’s because I put it there. Can you believe it?”
“Yes. I’m telling you the Big C has no idea how I make her life work. Right down to how many tomatoes are on her whole-grain sandwich. They know my order at the deli! It’s ridiculous. I’m telling you, Eve, I can do about six more months tops as an admin, then I swear I never want to answer another phone again. What do you think of these?” She is holding up a pair of cream-colored lace panties.
“They’re fine, but you have a zillion underwear. I thought you were shopping for going out clothes.”
“You’re right. I saw a top here that I think you’ll like.”
“So what do you think of the Feed Meet?” I’m putting on this retro dress with a low cut bodice, and calling to Tabitha, who is in the next dressing room trying on another pair of black pants.
“I think it’s cool that he let you in on his secret society, although, I know it’s probably going to be more of the same shit you get at your staff meeting. Now, there’s pressure to perform. Let me see that dress.”
“No, Tabitha, it’s too tight. What do you mean, pressure?”
“Let me see it. I’m coming over. Pressure because you talked to him—I’m opening the door—about writing. Give him a story. Eve, that looks so good on you. You must, must get it. How are these pants?”
“Nice, but you have a zillion pairs of black pants. I guess you’re right about the story. I feel like this just delayed my inertia. Really I can’t get
another going out dress, I need everyday clothes. And we have to get back—we’ve been lunching for an hour and a half.” She just shakes her head and I know I’m about to spend too much money on an impractical dress.
“So how much of a raise are you going to get?” We are getting on the elevators. Tabitha is coming to my floor to pick up a sweater that I borrowed. She bought the pants, five pairs of underwear and a strapless bra. I, of course, got the dress.
“I’ll probably make twenty an hour. Every little bit helps to pay for all the shit you make me buy. I don’t even have a bra to wear with this. Let me see the one you just got.” I get it out of her bag, before she can tell me I don’t need a bra with the dress. It’s huge. “Tabitha, you have the biggest boobs. One boob is bigger than my head.” Since we’re alone in the elevator, I put one cup over my head. Tabitha laughs, crouching over like she is trying not to pee and the door opens and I am staring at Robert King and a bunch of good old boys in suits. Robert King smirks at me.
“Oh, hi.” I say stepping back to let everyone on. Shit! If only I worked on this floor. Tabitha grabs her bra off my head and stuffs it back in the bag.
“I think red would be a much better color for you. It would set off your dark hair.” Robert King is smiling down at me.
“Thanks.” I mean, what else can you say to that, especially when half the board of Prescott Nelson is on the elevator?
“Can you get those in the supply room, too?”
“No, this is a special order.”
“I see.” He nods, starts talking to the old guys, who keep looking at me. Tabitha pulls me off the elevator when we reach my floor. As she is swiping her card, I turn to meet Robert King’s eyes. What a cutie.
“What was that all about?” I don’t want to get into it, so I shrug.
“Hey, I got connections.”
Wednesday’s Feed Meet gives new meaning to the words “waste of time.” We spend the first hour discussing the potential harm in letting your children of the opposite sex bathe together and the weather in San Francisco in November. This was the top secret meeting? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to come because Herb feared I would tell someone what a waste of time and lunch this is.
Finally, we get down to the writing. Let me say that I have never, not even in stupid college writing courses, experienced a group of more sensitive people. When Gary, one of the senior writers, finishes his piece on a trail in Montana, Lacey argues the use of several words. She wrote them all on a piece of paper while Gary was reading.
“Lacey, you haven’t been there. I spent months out there last year. I reached a clarity that you have to experience, which I was hoping true riders would through this article.” Oh, veiled references at Lacey’s being neither a cyclist nor a boy. I love a good fight and certainly an opportunity to diss Lacey.
“Well, I may not be an experienced cyclist, but I am an experienced writer, and those phrases don’t work.” Wow! “Go back to the top and read those sentences again.”
As Gary is reading, Lorraine is writing notes to me on her stack of schedules and assignments. I have been trying to distance myself from her, to sit among the writers, but they scowled at me when I walked in. I am an infiltrator. I only got halfhearted applause when Herb said I would be attending the meetings occasionally. He stressed occasionally. Lacey smirked. Whatever. Lorraine thinks this meeting is absolutely ridiculous, but she has to attend. She does busy work throughout the meeting and half listens to make sure everyone is meeting their assignment requirements.
Herb intercedes the battle between Lacey and Gary and everyone nods at his words. He smiles at them, like a dad, like a wise parent. He makes a stupid joke about Gary’s two months in Montana and what exactly he found. Everyone laughs. I wonder how I would feel if everyone laughed at every single stupid thing I said. The debate is resolved and the group claps for Gary’s piece.
I should probably comment, too, but I don’t think anyone would take too kindly to anything I said. I don’t ride, I haven’t written and I’m far from being a boy. After a while I start to feel like I’m at a very boring college lecture. I tune out and just clap at the appropriate moments. After two and a half long hours, the meeting is over.
I promise I’ll find a new job.
“I can’t believe I ever wanted to go to this meeting. In a word, it sucks. How big should I cut these?” I am cutting up potatoes for Roseanne, who is making fresh gnocchi.
“That’s fine, we’re not reinventing the wheel here.” I grab the cup off the fridge and hold it out to her. “I don’t have a dollar. I promise, I’ll put it in tonight.”
We made an agreement that every time she says something stupid that she gleaned from work she’ll put a dollar in a jar. From the moment she starting working, she came home using expressions like “marry them together,” “take it to bed,” and “give me the heads up.” She is trying to avoid turning into a corporate slug. She claims her job is awful. She gets in at eight and leaves at seven. They buy her breakfast and lunch, so she will be most productive. If Roseanne has kids, she will be supermom, because every night she comes home and makes an awesome meal. Then she waits an hour and heads to the gym. I hope all this energy doesn’t last, because I can’t handle all the guilt I feel about never going to the gym.
“They will applaud anything. Someone reads two sentences about a bike chain, everyone applauds.”
Roseanne chimes in, “All the people I work with curse and complain about carpal tunnel syndrome. I found out I have to work the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. How much does that suck?”
My mother calls while we are eating. She sounds upset. My mother calls every other day and she always suspects I’m home when the machine picks up (sometimes, I am). It’s like she has a camera in my room, which wouldn’t be too bad because of the lack of booty I’m getting.
“What’s wrong, Mom?”
“Are you coming home for Thanksgiving?”
“Mom, didn’t we talk about this already? Of course, I am.”
“Monica isn’t coming home. She is feeding the hungry with what’s his name.”
“Oh, God! She is such a volunteer. Actually, what is his name?”
“Chuck. What kind of name is that for a thirty-eight-year-old?” Monica has deliberately misinformed my mom. She should really let me know these things before I slip up. “Eve, can you talk some sense into her?”
“Mom, I can’t make Monica do anything. She’ll get even more stubborn if I try. Just act like you don’t care and she’ll come home.”
“How can I not care? When you have kids, let’s see how you don’t care?”
“Okay, Mom, I’m not saying don’t care. I’m saying act like you don’t care.”
“Is Roseanne going home? She can come over, too.”
“I’ll ask her.”
“Is she there now?”
“No, Ma, I’ll call you and let you know.” I hold my finger to my lips so Roseanne won’t make a sound.
“Okay, honey, let me know as soon as you can, because I have to cook, love you, honey.”
“Yes, Mom, love you, too.” Roseanne is waiting for me to ask her about Thanksgiving. I was certain she wouldn’t want to come over. I mean it’s one thing to live at someone’s house for a month and another to celebrate the holidays with their extended family.
“Do you want to spend Thanksgiving with us?” I am hoping she’ll realize that it’s not such a good idea, that she ought to go see her family.
“Is it okay?” No!
“Yes.”
“Well—” she is acting like she is thinking about it, but I know her answer already “—I guess I’ll go.” Great. Suddenly a calm Wednesday night is thrown into commotion by an event two weeks away. Roseanne leaves her gnocchi and runs to the kitchen to look through her books (I take a few extra gnocchi—I cut the potatoes after all). She starts calling recipe ideas to me from the kitchen.
“I’ll make sweet potato and pumpkin pies. Someone else will probably make pumpkin.
Pecan, yes pecan. I hope no one is allergic to nuts. I’ll make some potato gratin and bruschetta. That’ll go over well with the Italians, right? Oh, and here—caramelized root vegetables. That’ll be great. Okay, I’ll write this down so you can tell your mom.” She winds up skipping the gym to go through some more recipe books. I eat the rest of her gnocchi and watch Fox.
“So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Tabitha asks the Sunday before.
“Not too much, going home. Roseanne is making a feast.”
“Roseanne is going home with you?” She is annoyed.
“Yeah, why?”
“Nothing.”
“When is your flight?” She says nothing. “Tabitha. You are going back to Texas for the holidays, right?” More silence. “Do you want to come home with us? I’m not sure you’ll have fun with my family.”
“Oh, but Roseanne will because she is making the turkey?”
“She isn’t making the turkey. Please come, I mean, you’re always invited. My mom would really love it.”
“No thanks.”
“Well, why? What are you going to do? You can’t be alone on the holidays.”
“I’ll find something to do, believe me. Have a great Thanksgiving.”
She hangs up before I can say anything else. Bring on the holidays.
I try calling Tabitha again Thanksgiving Day, before we leave to head to the ’burbs. We are sitting on the couch watching the Macy’s parade, although Macy’s is only about ten blocks away. It’s kind of cold and Roseanne is exhausted from all the cooking she did last night. We just can’t exert any energy—other than painting our nails, fielding the calls from Roseanne’s family, and watching the awful parade announcers. I get Tabitha’s machine when I call. I leave her a long message, begging her to come.
Roseanne holds out her hand to inspect the frosty purple polish she used. “Any minute I thought you were going to offer to digest her turkey for her.”