So she does remember. “Shoot,” I say, trying to sound amicable.
“I don’t understand why you got so upset,” she says. Even with her high pitch, there’s a slight air of authority in her voice, a throwback to the old Julia.
“Are you serious?” I ask, trying to keep my temper from flaring even as I feel the vein in my forehead start to bulge the way it does when I’m about to blow a fuse. “Your memory may not be one hundred percent, but there’s no way that you could have forgotten that I haven’t seen Nathan in a decade because you made me promise not to. And now you’ve decided that I can talk to him again? Because the two of you are suddenly as thick as thieves? I’m sorry, but there’s obviously something going on there, and you cannot possibly expect me to be comfortable with it.”
“Marissa, you know I would never do anything to hurt you,” she says, looking wounded. “It’s just that if this accident has taught me anything, it’s to let bygones be bygones. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be in contact with Nathan. And he’s been so helpful to me since I moved back . . .”
“What do you mean? How often do you guys see each other, anyway? And when did you start e-mailing?” I sound paranoid but I can’t help myself. I want to know why he and Julia are in touch—and, yes, if it’s more than a friendship. It occurs to me that I should have asked him yesterday when I saw him, given that he doesn’t have a brain injury and is therefore in a much better position to give me the straight story. If only I hadn’t freaked out and ran like that, I lament.
“Ugh, can we please talk about it some other time?” she asks. “This is really giving me a headache, and the last thing I need right now is another migraine.”
“But you brought it up—”
“Marissa, please.” Julia sits gingerly on the edge of the overstuffed chair. She squeezes her eyes tight and rubs her forehead.
Unlike Julia’s last attack, this one seems staged. But having never suffered a migraine in my life, I instantly doubt my hunch. She was hit by a car, for Pete’s sake. Headaches are her daily life.
“Okay, sorry,” I concede. “I better go. It just sucks to leave things like this when I’m flying back tonight.”
“Oh,” she says, getting up from the chair to sit next to me on the bed. “I forgot about that. Are you sure you have to go?”
“If I want to keep my job, then yes,” I tell her, although Naomi would probably be immensely proud of me if I called in to say I was taking more time off. The truth is, I’m itching to get back to the rhythm of regular life, where ex-boyfriends don’t magically surface and the people I love don’t scream at me for not knowing my way around the kitchen.
Yet in spite of all that’s transpired over the past week, I have an inescapable urge to patch things up before I go.
“So are we going to be okay?” I ask Julia quietly.
“We’re okay,” she says and hooks pinkies with me—something we haven’t done since high school. “Don’t worry, I’ll call you later this week and we can talk more about this. And the minute I get the go-ahead from my doctor, you know I’ll be on a plane to see you.” All signs of her headache gone, she squeezes me so hard I’m worried she might fracture my collarbone.
For that split second, I’m willing to forget everything that’s happened and simply be grateful to feel my friend’s arms around me.
Twelve
It’s seven a.m., Monday, December sixth, and it’s seventeen degrees in Central Park. It’s going to be a sunny day today, but brisk, only getting up to a high of twenty-four . . .”
I groan and hit the snooze button on my alarm clock without opening my eyes. Flipping onto my back, I stick my hand out and feel the right half of my bed. There is a dent, but no Dave.
“Morning!” he says, as if on cue, walking through the bedroom door. He sits next to me, his weight yanking down the few inches of duvet I have covered my face with. “I brought you a muffin and some coffee.”
I mumble thank you and reach for the mug of just-barely-milky coffee that he’s holding. No doubt Dave, who is freshly showered and dressed, has already run several miles, had breakfast, and fired off a dozen e-mails before my alarm went off. Unlike me, he is a morning person, and if he weren’t so cute, I’d find him ridiculously annoying.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” he asks.
“Ugh. Major brainstorming meeting this morning, followed by a frantic afternoon of playing catch-up, then a post-work press event at some hotel bar.” I sigh and add, “Where I’m going to do shots until my stomach bleeds.”
“Very funny.”
“Who said I’m trying to be funny?” I ask, and Dave takes the coffee out of my hands, sets it on the table, then tackles me. “You are so rotten,” he says, tickling my sides as I squeal. He kisses me lightly, and then again, harder. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” I say, and pull him on top of me to show him exactly how much. But as Dave and I tangle between the sheets, I’m disturbed to find that I can’t fully get into it.
Because in the back of my mind, all I can see is Nathan’s face.
Determined not to let my quickie with Dave prevent me from getting to the office early, I take a super-fast shower, throw on a chocolatecolored wrap dress that somehow makes me look both thinner and more businesslike, slap a little makeup on, and head out the door. The crowded subway platform reminds me of why I usually wait until after nine to leave for work, and I end up letting a packed train go by. When I finally squeeze onto the next one, I make the mistake of turning my head one centimeter to the left, and my blush is wiped off by the ample bosom of the Amazonian woman standing next to me. This is why people move to North Carolina and Atlanta, I think, recalling a New York magazine story on the recent recession-induced mass exodus from the city.
Miraculously, I am the first person at work—or so I think. When I reach my office at the end of the hall (further evidence, as I’ve told Naomi a million times, that the minuscule, windowless space was once a broom closet), there is a blonde sitting in my chair, typing away on my keyboard.
“Um, hello?” I say tentatively, although I can feel my blood beginning to boil. I leave for a week and they move someone into my office?
I look around, and to my relief, my books and Annie Leibovitz Lavazza calendar and the Smurf figurines Dave got me for my last birthday are all exactly where I left them. So I haven’t been replaced. Then what, exactly, is this person doing at my desk?
The blonde spins around, a huge smile on her face. She stands up, and I see that she is immaculately dressed in a crisp white shirt, marble-size pink pearl earrings, and a black wool pencil skirt that shows off her long, tan legs. Suddenly my brown dress seems clingy and outdated, and I wish to God I would have slathered on some self-tanner after my shower.
“I’m Ashley! Your new assistant!” says the blonde, extending a manicured hand. Her unlined face leads me to believe that she is not a day over twenty-five.
What can I say? I hate her instantly.
“Hi, Ashley,” I say, trying to regain my composure. “Naomi told me you started, and I’m really happy that you’ll be working with us. But I didn’t think we’d be sharing my office?”
“Oh!” She laughs blithely. “We’re not sharing an office. Naomi told me to check on the status of the ‘weird weight loss’ story. I figured it wouldn’t be an issue.”
She adds, “I had to leave by nine last night so I thought I’d just come in early this morning to pick up where I left off.”
Ah, the old “last to leave, first to arrive” line. I said it many a time myself when I was an assistant, and while I would normally welcome a fellow workaholic with open arms, I can’t believe that she had the gall to use my computer without permission.
But when I open my mouth, it sounds like I’m working for Ashley, instead of the other way around. “Um, well, from now on, you can access that info from your own computer. I can show you how, if you need?” I say almost apologetically.
“Oh no,”
Ashley says, and I swear I detect the tiniest bit of sarcasm in her voice. “I’ve got it under control.”
This chick may not be my replacement, but she’d like to be, I realize. I’m about to tell her not to use my computer again when she says, “Well, I’ve got a busy day in front of me, so I’d better jet,” and pivots on her heels to leave. When she reaches the door, she turns around, tilts her head to the side, and looks at me with what can only be described as pity. “I heard about your friend, by the way. So sad. If you ever need to talk, I’m just down the hall.”
“Seriously?” I say, closing Naomi’s door behind me. It’s five o’clock and things have just now slowed down enough that I have a chance to talk to her.
Naomi takes her glasses off the bridge of her nose and rests them in her hair, which is fastened on top of her head with a pencil. “What?” she asks blankly.
“Ashley,” I hiss. “If it wasn’t bad enough that she logged on to my computer this morning and somehow managed to move every folder on my desktop to the wrong place, she has managed to convince three of my writers that she’s taking over for me!”
I add huffily, “And she’s too damn pretty!”
Naomi bursts out laughing, and for the first time all day, I laugh, too, realizing how ridiculous I sound. “Marissa, she’s twenty-three years old and has never worked in magazines before. She may be smart, but she has a lot to learn. Why does she intimidate you?” she asks, hitting the nail on the head.
“She doesn’t intimidate me,” I lie.
“Sure she doesn’t,” Naomi teases. “I bet if she fetched coffee, you’d love her.”
“You’re not wrong on that count.”
“Go get your coat,” Naomi says. “You’ve had a long day. Let’s make a super-quick stop at the press event, and then we’re going out for a drink.”
One drink is Naomi’s code for half a dozen. After downing a couple slim-tinis (which were so potent yet sweet that we decided the sole ingredients had to be diesel fuel and Splenda) in the ballroom where the press event is being held, we moved downstairs to the hotel’s lounge. There, Naomi overtipped the bartender for our chichi drinks, landing us a free second round in the process. “One more for the road,” she insisted, and though the room was already starting to spin a little, I didn’t put up a fight. It felt good to be out of focus.
“So what should I do about the Julia and Nathan debacle?” I ask, having spilled the whole saga to Naomi two cocktails ago. I’d already asked her what she thought several times, but I pressed on, convinced in my drunken haze that clarity was just one question away. “Don’t you think I should find out what the heck is going on between them?”
“If it’s going to keep eating away at you, then definitely,” she says, looking impressively sober. “I maintain that you should move on by whatever means possible. Even if that means going out of your comfort zone and contacting Nathan in order to get closure. I don’t think you’re going to be able to just ignore the situation and wait for it to magically resolve itself in your head.”
“I just can’t stop wondering what would have happened if I’d just stood up to her a decade ago,” I confess. “Would Nathan and I have ever worked out?”
Naomi gives me her best puhlease face. “Marissa, you know I love you, but your biggest problem is that you really have no idea how good your life is. I mean, you’re a star at work—”
“Am not.”
“As your boss, I’m telling you that you are,” Naomi says. “And Dave—well, let’s just say if the two of you broke up and he wanted to date me, I wouldn’t say no. Even if it meant it was the end of my marriage.”
“You love Brian, you lunatic,” I tell her, and look down at my dress to see if I have, as I suspect, spit on myself while talking. Affirmative. Note to self: No more hard liquor. “Besides, he’s a workaholic. You’d hate that.”
“Eh, Brian is no Dave,” she says, pursing her lips for emphasis. Then she laughs. “You know what I mean, though. He’s a catch, and you could do a lot worse than a guy with a little too much enthusiasm for work. And as for you and those damn ten pounds you’re always complaining about? I think you should just stop obsessing and start living. Not everyone is meant to look like Lynne,” she says, referring to the fact that our editor-in-chief, who is one of those annoying naturally thin types, could pass for the president of a pro-anorexia organization.
“It’s about twenty pounds at this point,” I say glumly, draining the last of my vodka orange.
“Whatever. I’m just saying: Own it.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“I’m thinking it means you sound so much like the therapist I dumped last year that I expect you to bill me a hundred fifty dollars for this session.”
“You know what?” Naomi says suddenly, looking excited.
“What?”
“I just had the greatest idea. I need a third coach for Take the Lead.”
“The running organization?” I ask warily. Even in my precarious state, I know that I am not interested in anything that involves me gasping for air and sweating buckets while my breasts, which defy all sports bras, repeatedly slap me in the face.
“Yes, the running organization,” she says with mock exasperation.
“But I don’t run.”
“Honey, I barely qualify as a runner myself. But it doesn’t matter! Take the Lead is amazing. We teach underprivileged elementary school girls self-esteem and discipline while training them to run a five-K race. I think it would be really good for you. It would give you some perspective,” she adds.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demand.
“You know my answer to that question,” Naomi laughs. “Just think about it. I need to get someone on board by the end of next week. You’d only have to do it one afternoon a week for about an hour and a half.”
“Okay. I’ll think about it,” I assure her, although as soon as the words leave my mouth my mind has already wandered to the French silk ice cream in my freezer and the three-hundred-threadcount sheets that I am going to slip between when I get home, possibly with said ice cream in tow.
Despite my newfound fear of cabdrivers, I am too drunk to protest when Naomi puts me in the back of a taxi. She takes one look at me swaying in the backseat and makes me promise to swallow three Advil the minute I walk in my apartment. “Best hangover prevention in the book. Trust me,” she says, then instructs the driver to take the Brooklyn Bridge. I remark out loud that alcohol only seems to make her sharper, if it is possible, and she laughs and tells me to go to bed as soon as humanly possible.
That’s exactly what I would like to do. But I told Dave I would call him to let him know I got in okay, so I flop down on the sofa—my bed and its sleek sheets just fifty feet away, yet too ambitious a target—and grope around in my purse for my phone.
“Marissa? What are you doing calling me at this hour?”
Crap. I realize, too late, that I accidentally hit my mother’s number, which is next to Dave’s on my favorites list. Damn the iPhone and its tiny, tricky buttons.
“What’s wrong with your iPhone?” my mother asks. Oops. Must have said that out loud.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, although it sounds more like “Hamma.”
“Marissa Marie Rogers, are you drunk?” she demands.
“Nah,” I slur. “Why would you think thah?”
“Because it’s eleven o’clock at night and you’re calling me sounding like you just had major dental surgery.”
“I did have major dental surgery,” I tell her, slurring some more. “Just a few hours ago, in fact.” Then I start laughing hysterically, because this strikes me as the funniest thing I have ever said.
“Marissa,” my mother scolds me after I’ve finally caught my breath. “You know I’ve told you a million times that the fastest way to get fat is to overdo it on the sauce.” She pauses, and I hear her whispering something to Phil, something that involves the wo
rds “drunk” and “weight gain.”
“Really, Ma?” I say to her. I have never once called her Ma but it seems more manageable, somehow, than Mom. And given her remark, I am not even sure she deserves the full three letters. “What if I was calling you to tell you I’d just been attacked? Or that Dave and I just broke up? The first thing you can think of is how many calories I’ve just consumed?”
“What do you want from me, Marissa?” she asks shrilly.
I sigh, and suddenly feel like sleeping for the next week.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” I say, and hang up.
Thirteen
After nearly thirty-one years on the same planet with my mother, I should know it will be a very cold day in hell before she calls to apologize. Yet somehow, when my home phone rings the next morning, I assume it is her.
“Mom?” I ask, cradling the phone with both hands as though it will anchor me against the spinning room. Having spent the night on the sofa and woken up with a blood-alcohol level still borderline toxic, the day is not off to a stellar start.
“If that’s what you want to call me, that’s fine,” says Dave, instantly deflating the small balloon of hope I’d been holding on to.
“Oh. Hi.”
“Don’t sound so excited.”
“Sorry. I’m hung over.”
“I kind of figured you were having a crazy night when you didn’t call,” he says.
“Ugh. Sorry. I passed out when I got home. But, you’ll be happy to know, not before I managed to drunk dial my mother.”
“Ah, Susan.” Dave sighs. Although he is nothing less than a gentleman to her, he is far from my mother’s biggest fan. “How’d that go?”
“As well as can be expected,” I say, taking a quick peek in the mirror and immediately wishing I hadn’t. No amount of Laura Mercier spackle will be able to conceal these purple circles.
“So, not good, but not so bad that you didn’t think she’d call you this morning.” Dave laughs.
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