Everything's Better With Kimberly

by Lucy Eden

  “Adam, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you at work?” She sounded like she was crying. My heart sped up.

  “I came to find out why you weren’t at work and why you weren’t returning any of my messages. Are you okay? Let me in.” The intercom went dead. I waited a few minutes and rang the bell again.

  “Adam, you should go.”

  What? What the fuck was going on? What the hell could have happened in the last eight hours and why won’t she open the damn door?

  “Kimberly, I’m not leaving until I talk to you — face to face — and it’s freezing out here, so please open the door.” I stared at the intercom for a minute then I turned and sat down on her stoop. A few minutes of ignoring Eric’s frantic text messages and calls followed before Kimberly opened the door.

  She was wearing the same t-shirt and pajama bottoms she wore the night we first kissed. Her hair was in a bun on top of her head and she wore slippers that looked like those ugly lambskin boots women always wear in the winter. They looked cute on her, though. She wasn’t crying but her eyes were red and a little puffy. I guessed she’d washed her face before she came to the door.

  I pushed myself inside and shut the door behind me to keep in the heat. Tiny goose pimples were already forming on Kimberly’s bare arms and I massaged them away. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her into me. The realization hit me as I held her in my arms just how scared and worried I was when I couldn’t reach her. Once I’d calmed down I also realized that she wasn’t hugging me back. I took her by the shoulders and held her away from me to look in her eyes.

  “Kimberly, what’s wrong? Is it about Barbados?”

  She didn’t answer me but her eyes were now brimming with tears. Her face crumpled as the first tear fell. I pulled her into me again, mostly because the sight of her upset killed me.

  “It’s gonna be okay. The groundbreaking won’t be for months, maybe a year. We’ll figure it out once we’re in Barbados. We’ll make it work.”

  She mumbled something against my chest but it was muffled by my coat.

  “What?”

  She pushed away from me and said through tears, “I’m not going to Barbados.” That’s what I thought she said the first time but I couldn’t have heard her correctly.

  “What do you mean? Yes, you are. Matthew and Vittoria chose my design based on our presentation that you managed. Of course, you’re going.”

  She backed away from me shaking her head.

  “Kimberly, what are you saying? What happened?”

  She walked over a small bench near the front door, sat down and pulled a small square pillow into her lap. I followed her but the bench was too small for me to sit with her so I crouched at her feet so we were eye level. I reached for her hands but she clutched the pillow. My heart squeezed. She sniffled, cleared her throat and started talking.

  “My boss called me into her office first thing in the morning. She asked me if anything happened in Barbados that she should know about. Of course, I told her no and that the presentation went perfectly. She agreed because she received two separate emails from Vittoria and Matthew telling her what a stellar job I did on the proposal and how impressed they were with my work, but…” Her voice trailed off and she got choked up again. My chest constricted.

  She continued when she regained some of her composure. “They were very clear that they did not want me on the project management team in Barbados.” She sobbed into the pillow and I sank to the floor, hoping the earth would open up and swallow me whole. “She also got an email from HR. They were reviewing my file and were asking her for a more current employee review. So, that can’t be good.”

  “Kimberly.” Her name fell from my lips like a croak. I cleared my throat. “Kimberly, did they say why?” She stopped sniffling and her eyes met mine. Her angry glare made me recoil.

  “They didn’t have to. Cynthia had figured it out before she called me into her office. She was just trying to give me a chance to tell her myself. She suspected that this might happen so she had her PA warn me about you and I didn’t listen.”

  I flashed back to Kimberly wearing these exact pajamas telling me the same thing in Barbados.

  “I was warned to stay away from you and I should’ve listened.”

  “She can’t fire you.”

  “Yes, she can, but she didn’t. Not yet anyway. She was just really disappointed in…” She broke down again.

  I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around her again. “Why are you home?”

  “Well,” she sniffed and looked up trying to blink back tears. “I couldn’t stop crying in Cynthia’s office and they were already starting team meetings to work out the logistics for the project… and it would look strange if I wasn’t in any of those meetings because…Cynthia thought it would be best if I took the rest of the day to ‘get myself together’ and wait until we got more information from Matthew and Vittoria. They’ll be in the office tomorrow so…” She buried her face in her hands again.

  “Kimberly, I’m so sorry. We’ll figure this out. There has to be a good explanation for this that doesn’t involve our relationship. Matthew and Vittoria loved you. They would be stupid to fire you over this. You’re too brilliant. I read your proposal today. It was so great.”

  She sat up and looked at me. “I sent you that proposal before we left for Barbados.”

  “Yeah.” I gave her a half smile, “Apparently, I’m very bad at checking my email. It’s a real problem.”

  Her eyes still brimmed with tears but I could see the ghost of a smile forming on her lips. It felt like an answered prayer. She stood and took a few steps away from me.

  “Well, writing great proposals isn’t helpful if your boss thinks you’re going to sleep with every architect she sends you to work with.”

  I rose and followed her. I touched her shoulder and turned her to face me.

  “That’s not what happened.”

  “Isn’t that exactly what happened? This is exactly what I told you would happen on the balcony. I knew it was wrong and I did it anyway.”

  I didn’t like where this conversation was headed. “No. We fell in love. We fell in love, Kimberly. I wouldn’t give a fuck if I never designed another building if it meant I couldn’t be with you.”

  “Well, at least you have that choice. Wolfe wants you to keep doing the work that you love.” She turned her back on me again.

  “I didn’t want this.”

  “And still, you got it.” She tossed her last comment over her shoulder and crossed her arms before walking toward her kitchen. There was a center island with a black marble countertop and I could see a medium sized cardboard box that I knew was from me.

  It was a basket of zucchini with a big card that read “WE DID IT!” It was supposed to be funny, and yesterday, it would have been hilarious. Today it felt like a cruel taunt. I wondered if she’d opened it. I hoped she hadn’t.

  “Kimberly,” I called to her retreating figure. I took off my coat, kicked off my boots and followed her. When I reached the box, I saw that the tape had been cut and the flaps were open.

  Shit.

  She spotted me eyeing the box.

  “Thanks for the gift, by the way,” she deadpanned and glared at me.

  “I’m sorry. It was supposed to be a joke.”

  “No, I get it. It was so funny.” She rolled her eyes at the word so. “And the fact that you tried to deliver this to my office? Hilarious.”

  “I said I was sorry. If I had known—”

  “Adam, I think you should go.”

  “No.”

  She furrowed her brow and tilted her head. “What do you mean, no?”

  “I’m not leaving until we’ve worked this out.”

  “Work what out, Adam? How do you think you can fix this?”

  “I thought we promised each other that we would face this together? We’d make it work no matter what.” She crossed her arms and looked away. It was in that moment I realized we didn’t promis
e. I promised.

  I stepped in front of her.

  “Do you love me?”

  “What?”

  “Answer me. Do you love me?”

  “Why are you asking me this now? I’ve already said—”

  “No, you never said it. You said you were falling for me and your aunt said that you were in love with me. You’ve never said it.” I could tell by her face that she was thinking. The instant I saw her expression change, I knew she realized that I was right. She looked at me with tears in her eyes but didn’t say a word. Her silence spoke volumes. She didn’t love me. I’d only thought she did. I felt sick. I clenched and unclenched my fists. I swallowed a giant lump in my throat. I turned to leave.

  “Do you trust me?” she called to me across the island.

  “What?” I don’t know why I said that. I knew exactly what she was talking about. The week in Barbados felt like I was living in someone’s fairy tale. I’d used my brother’s wealth and possessions to sweep Kimberly off of her feet. Seeing her giant house and going back to my shitty little apartment was a bitter dose of reality.

  “You heard me.” I just turned and stared at her unable to speak. “What was all that shit last night about the house and not being able to give me things?”

  “I…I just…”

  “You don’t trust me.” I sat in one of the bar stools at the island and her eyes still searched my face for a response.

  “Of course, I trust you. I just got caught off guard for a second. I thought we moved past it. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

  “Adam, it is a very big deal. You freaked out about my house last night. You practically accused me of being a gold digger—”

  “Hey! I never said—”

  “How am I supposed to feel?” She glared at me waiting for a response. I could only shake my head. “Adam, I may not have a job tomorrow and I jeopardized everything I’ve worked so hard for, for a man who thinks I’m some kind of spoiled, shallow princess who’s just using—”

  “Whoa! Stop. Kimberly, you don’t understand…”

  “Make me understand, please.”

  “I don’t…I don’t fucking know, okay. That’s the truth.” That was the truth. “I’m fucked up, Kimberly. I do and say dumb shit without thinking about how it affects other people because I’ve never had to before I met you. I don’t trust myself not to fuck this up. All I know is that when I couldn’t get in touch with you, I felt like I was going crazy. I couldn’t tell you one thing that happened at work today because you were all I could think about. Whatever this is, we can fix it together, just please don’t shut me out again.”

  Her eyes went wide and she took a small step back.

  “What? What did I say?”

  She was slowly shaking her head and blinking.

  “Kimberly?”

  “You don’t trust me, Adam, and you never will. This isn’t about me. This is about your mother.”

  “What? My mother has nothing to do with us.”

  “You will always be looking for an excuse for this not to work because you haven’t dealt with your issues with her.”

  “Okay, you are doing some major fucking deflecting right now. I thought your mom was the shrink, not you. You left me twice in Barbados, remember that? You fucking ignored me all day until I had to come banging on your door like a crazed stalker. Now, you can’t even tell me whether or not you love me. Maybe you don’t want this to work and you’re using my mother, who is in recovery by the way—in case you want to say something shitty about that—as an excuse. I’m not your fucking ex, Kimberly. I would never do what he did. Don’t let your fear fuck this up for us.”

  She was wearing a familiar look of shock I recognized from our first fight, and I was starting to hate those pajamas.

  “My fear, Adam? My fear or do you mean my anxiety disorder? Don’t let my anxiety disorder fuck this up for us?” She was glaring at me and I knew I fucked up. I knew where she was going and she was dead wrong.

  “Kimberly. Stop. You know that’s not what I fucking meant.”

  “Well, what did you fucking mean? Because this is me. I’m not going to change. You love me now, but maybe one day you’ll decide you don’t want to be with someone you’ll have to carry out of a bathroom.” She was talking about that night in Barbados, but I also knew she had taken another swipe at my mother. I could feel myself shaking with anger.

  “Fuck you.”

  Her look of shock merged with a quiet fury and she tilted her head as if she couldn’t have heard me correctly.

  “Get. Out.” She was seething. “Get the hell out of my giant house.”

  “I’m going.” I stomped towards the front door before turning to face her. I wanted to think of something, some perfect thing to say to turn this around, but I was too angry.

  She didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about. All the shit with my parents happened years ago. I got over it. Our relationship was happening in the present and she’s using the personal shit I told her, because I fucking trusted her, as an excuse to push me away.

  Again.

  She glared at me with her eyebrows raised as if she was waiting for me to say something. I drew in a breath, blew it out and turned to leave again.

  “Don’t forget your fucking zucchini.”

  twenty four

  Kimberly

  It was 3:47 am and ten minutes had passed since the last time I checked. My fight with Adam was running through my head in a loop.

  I knew I was right, but I still felt guilty. He was so sensitive about his mother, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Now that I had some distance and I wasn’t as angry I wondered if I might have overreacted to everything, like I did in Barbados. The basket of zucchini was such an Adam thing to send and any other day it really would have been funny. I almost wished it was still downstairs. Today was just an avalanche of awful and maybe I just got overwhelmed and buckled under the pressure. Maybe Adam was right too. Maybe I was using my ex as an excuse to push him away.

  Why couldn’t I just tell him I loved him? I loved him so much it scared me to think about it, much less say it out loud, but I knew he needed to hear it. Was it possible that there was a good reason for my not being chosen for the project management team and if I got fired, so what? I could start applying for law schools like I planned. I just wished I could talk to him about it. He always knew the right thing to say to make me feel better and I was finally ready to listen.

  I picked up my phone and looked at it for a few minutes before I opened my text app and clicked on Adam’s name. The first thing I saw was our silly bathroom selfie. I laughed at Adam’s cross-eyed blue steel and tears pricked the back of my eyes. Then I scrolled through his messages again.

  Yesterday 11:03 am

  Mr. Price: Hey beautiful. How’s your morning going? Thinking about you.

  Yesterday 2:34 pm

  Mr. Price: Hey Princess. I haven’t heard from you all day. Is everything ok? Miss you.

  Yesterday 2:48 pm

  Mr. Price: ok, I’ve tried to call a couple of times and you’re not answering and you’re not at the office. I know you went home. Please let me know your ok or I’m coming over.

  Mr. Price: *you’re

  I felt terrible. This was such a big win for him. He’d worked just as hard as I did, if not more. Instead of celebrating, he spent his whole day worried about me and I spent my whole day blaming him for something that wasn’t even his fault. I was so proud of him and I didn’t even tell him. I decided not to call him. He was probably asleep anyway without me to wake him up in the middle of the night.

  Since I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon I decided to lay out my clothes for tomorrow. If I was going to get fired I at least wanted to look good. It was a toss-up between a navy blue Tracey Reese wrap dress and a purple Stella McCartney sheath.

  For some reason I couldn’t pinpoint, Cynthia’s disappointment was still affecting me. She selected me from the intern pool because she mu
st have seen something special in me. She trusted me to represent her department in a professional manner. Not only did I feel like I let her down, I’d let down every woman who was working her ass off to be taken seriously in the corporate world. Maybe I deserved to be fired. Tears welled in eyes again and I grabbed my phone.

  I stared at the screen completely unsure of what to type. I wanted to tell him that I needed him, that I was sorry, and that I did love him. I wanted to tell him that I was happy for him and that he deserved to go to Barbados. I wanted to say the zucchini were funny. I wanted to thank him for leaving work on what must have been a crazy day just to check on me. I wanted to tell him anything that would bring him back to me.

  Instead, I typed the hammer emoji and my finger hovered over the green arrow button. I deleted it. Then I typed it again before deleting it again. I put my phone down. I’d tortured Adam enough for one day, maybe enough for a lifetime.

  I finally decided the wrap dress would be a more suitable choice for all of the binge eating I was planning to do tomorrow after work and for the foreseeable future, so I hung it on the back of my closet door. Then I figured if I couldn’t have Adam, I could have the next best thing.

  I dragged my pillow—the one that still smelled like soap, cedar and vanilla, not the satin one—, my comforter and my laptop into the bathroom. I put on Over the Top, the Sylvester Stallone arm wrestling movie we watched the night before the presentation, turned off the light and cried myself to sleep.

  Cynthia called me into her office first thing in morning. I’d worn my Tracey Reese wrap dress with my House No. 3028 nude pumps in brownie. I did the rare full face and went full curl. I looked good. I felt good and was ready for whatever the day had in store for me.

  The first thing Cynthia did when she saw me was look me up and down and nod appreciatively.

  “You look great.” She smiled.

  “Thank you.” I returned her smile and she motioned for me to sit. I took one of the seats and she walked around to the front of her desk and leaned on the edge so we were only a couple of feet apart.