The Kissing List

by Stephanie Reents

  “Oh, Vi,” Anna says, “get on with it already.”

  When Dom comes back, she hands him the stack of photocopies. Each song (including the original) is paper clipped and organized alphabetically by title.

  “You’re a good worker, Vita,” he says.

  She doesn’t know whether to wilt or blossom.

  That night, Vita is reorganizing her closet when her phone rings.

  “Vita?” a male voice asks.

  She wonders whether it’s Eric, a guy from college whom she recently bumped into at the gym. They weren’t friends before, but now the fact that they’re alumni of the same school and living in the same twelve-block radius seems like reason enough to buddy.

  “Hello,” she says.

  “It’s Ted.”

  “Ted?” she says while thinking, Ted! “How did you get my number?”

  “One of the girls in HR sold it to me.”

  “What?” she squeals. She’s pretty sure it’s against company policy to give out private information.

  “Just joking. We’re friends, and Deborah, that’s her name, knows that I’m …” he trails off. “Anyway, I’m doing a really big deal.”

  “That’s really super,” she says. “Are you still at work?”

  “Yep, but I think it might make the front section of the Journal.”

  “Wow,” she says. “Yay!”

  There’s silence, then they both start to speak at once.

  “What?” she says.

  “Never mind,” Ted says. “I should get back to work.”

  “Well, don’t work too late.” This sounds like something her mother would say. “Ted?”

  “Yes?” he asks.

  “Um, well, good-bye.”

  “Good night, Vita.”

  The following Tuesday, Vita has a job interview with a trade publication that puts out newsletters with titles like “The Secondary Loan Market” and “Derivatives Today.” She is still working for Dom, though to call it work is a stretch. He occasionally waves her into his office to take dictation.

  “Let’s see.” He moves around to a second chair on her side of the desk. He steeples his hands. His fingernails are lovely ovals. “Pursuant to the employee policy manual updated and revised September 1, 2008, performance reviews shall be executed …”

  She appreciates that he’s aware of the power dynamic involved in keeping the desk between them. Professors who barricaded themselves behind their navy blue book-towered desks used to irk her. Since she doesn’t know shorthand, she abbreviates: Purs. Emp man updtd & rvsd … “Can you please repeat the date?”

  He raises an eyebrow, repeats the date, forges ahead. Her hand cramps into a parenthesis by the end. “Knock ’em dead at the interview,” he says before dismissing her. “Be yourself, and you’ll wow them. Just don’t let them hire you on the spot.”

  Interviewing is just another form of temping, of auditioning different professional identities. Using this method, she has already ruled out public relations (too airy) and publishing (too grim). The managing editor, a guy named Leo, shows her into his office. After the usual rigmarole in which Vita answers questions about her experience (all from the college newspaper, but valuable nonetheless) and asks questions about the company (she’s done her homework) and Leo’s experience (people love to talk about themselves), Leo says there’s one more thing. “We like to see how people work under pressure. Are you up for reporting a story?”

  The hypothetical is this: rumors are flying about a big M and A deal, and Vita’s job is to nail down the details. Leo gives her a list of sources (who are actually other reporters) and shows her to a desk. She pulls down the skirt of her little knit suit (Banana Republic, $55), a friendlier shade of green than the Jones New York number, which feels risky because it is not two sizes too big for her. Her bare knees feel naked, but she doesn’t do nylons. Once settled, she begins dialing numbers.

  “Is this off the record?” asks a source after she’s finished her spiel.

  “Yes,” she answers a bit too hastily, because when another source says, “I can only confirm your story if you tell me where you got your information,” she is caught in a quandary. Anonymous sources seem no better than gossips. If you’re not willing to stand by your word, how reliable can you be? After a split second, she outs her first source, gets the confirmation she needs, and then begins the painstaking process of writing the story. The thing that prevents her from being a faster typist is not hand-eye coordination, but slow cognitive function. She’d type as fast as a bullet train if her brain processed information faster. But alas. Historians ruminate.

  “That’s a good line.” Leo is reading her article while she fiddles with the bottom button of her jacket. “ ‘This merger will result in a Taj Mahal in the building sector.’ A little hyperbolic, but I like your creativity.”

  Vita smiles hopefully.

  “You did fuck up in one major way.”

  “I did?” Her mouth goes dry.

  “Reynolds told me that you gave up your anonymous source.” He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. This is either melodramatic or weary. “You never out a friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just assumed … I don’t know … that an anonymous source isn’t super reliable, and you can’t build a story around one? That was our policy at school.”

  “This is the real world,” Leo continues, “and in the real world people’s asses are on the line all the time, but especially when they pass on information you shouldn’t have. Let me tell you …” He pauses, looking down at her résumé. “Vita, anyone who’s anyone around here has only gotten there by cultivating reliable inside sources. By being discreet. By being a good friend.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says again. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Who?”

  “My inside source?”

  For a split second he stares at her. Then he laughs. It sounds like barking. “You’re funny.”

  She smiles, as though she’s a person capable of telling jokes when in truth the story has sucked her into its vortex, its hold so tight she has momentarily forgotten that it’s fabricated. Plus: she can’t stand making mistakes, even fictional ones. Plus: this is a job interview. Criminy.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Leo says, standing and offering his hand.

  “Thanks,” she says, thinking she needs to cultivate a firmer grip. “I know I made a mistake, but I think I’d make a great reporter.”

  Later that night when Mel staggers through the door, Vita has a Caprese salad waiting, a bottle of chardonnay missing one modest glass chilling in the refrigerator. Buying wine still gives her a little thrill.

  Mel kicks off her shoes and falls on the futon they both pitched in to buy so that their small apartment could accommodate out-of-town guests. A disadvantage of having a real job is late hours. She pinches the top of her nose between her thumb and finger.

  “Tough day?”

  “You don’t want to know.” Mel does something in marketing that Vita has no interest in understanding. Does this signal something objectionable about Mel? About Vita? About their friendship? “It was majorly bad. How was yours?”

  “I had an interview.” She tries not to sound depressed, even though she is beginning to think that soon her desire to update her wardrobe will make her cave in like a mine shaft or a cheaply built tract house. She pours Mel a jelly jar of wine. “Voilà.”

  “Sweetheart,” Mel says, “was it bad?”

  “Honey,” Vita jokes back, “I fucked up majorly.”

  They clink their glasses.

  “Well, I heard about a job you couldn’t fuck up,” Mel says.

  Vita perks up. She can’t help herself, even though she and Mel have been through this routine a couple times before. “Really?”

  “This guy is looking for a professional girlfriend.”

  Vita laughs. “What? A hooker?”

  “No!” Mel says. “Are you kidding?”

  “You want me to sell myself
? Make my status as a commodity explicit? There’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, I support the legalization of prostitution …”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Mel takes a sip of her wine. “This guy is a European businessman, and he, like, needs a professional plus-one.”

  “I think that’s called an escort.” Is Mel for real?

  “It’s not like that. It’s more like when I have a date with someone who skeeves me out, and you come along to make things easier. To keep it on the up-and-up. It’s like a professional good friend.”

  Vita realizes she is fiddling with her zipper. “And I’d get paid for this?”

  “You’d get compensated.”

  “Compensated? You really know how to wrangle with the English language.”

  “Oy. Conjunction, junction, what’s your function?” Mel sings in her high little-girl’s voice. “Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Conjunction, junction, how’s that function?”

  “Stop it,” Vita giggles. “That’s totally irrelevant.”

  “Oy, Vita, I’m just teasing.” She nudges Vita with her stockinged foot. “I just thought, you know, you’re an adventurous girl, and this sounds like an adventure.”

  “Ixnay,” she says. “It sounds like too much work.”

  “Work?! Give me a break. You’d just have to be your own charming little self.”

  “Very funny,” Vita repeats again, which is like saying knock it off, only a lot nicer. She moves toward the refrigerator, only five steps from the couch. “Caprese salad?” She mangles the Italian.

  “Ah oui, ma chérie,” Mel says. “You are the world’s best roommate.”

  On Wednesday at five, Dom insists on taking her out for drinks “to thank you for your diligence.” She tries to say no politely, since she suspects she and Dom have said all there is to say to each other at work, but he won’t hear it. They go to the High Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel. “I’ll take my regular table,” Dom tells the waitress. He presses his hand into the small of Vita’s back and steers her through the gray suits crowding the bar. She would like to lengthen her stride to get to the table faster, but she is wearing a satin skirt with a purply abstract print (the basement sales rack, French Connection, $29) that is so straight, it restricts her movement. The back slit could be unbuttoned, but showing leg doesn’t seem professional.

  “What can I get you tonight?” the waitress asks.

  “The usual,” Dom says.

  “And for you?”

  “A gin and tonic?” Vita asks.

  “What kind of gin?”

  “Umm.” She knows nothing about liquor. Or wine. Or European politics. This is why she could never be a professional girlfriend. Mastering the basics would take her weeks.

  “Bombay Sapphire suit you?” Dom asks in his pleasingly low voice.

  “Perfect,” she fibs.

  The waitress reappears with a small bowl of pleasantly salty popcorn and a dish of warm cocktail nuts with a really good ratio of hazelnuts and Brazils to peanuts. Dom’s usual comes in a martini glass. They toast, and Vita does her best to look Dom in the eye and affect a sophisticated yet casual air, not that she knows how to pull this off. Dom, she learns, is a country western singer in his free time.

  “One of the few African Americans in the biz,” he says with a laugh. “The industry’s been dominated by rednecks, but we’re changing that.”

  “That’s cool,” Vita says. “Not the redneck part, but the way you’re challenging the conventions. Do you perform much?”

  “Here and there,” he says. “What about you, Vita? What’s life got in store for you?”

  “Well,” she says, “I’m from southern Illinois, but I went to school out here.” She doesn’t know why exactly, but she winds up telling him about her thesis on captivity narratives, the accounts that Europeans wrote after being captured by Native Americans. “They’re part of the conversion narrative tradition,” she says, aware of how earnest she sounds. “White people stray from God, and as punishment they’re captured by quote-unquote heathen Indians. Then out in the wilderness and among the savages, they rediscover God, and when they finally return to quote-unquote civilization, they write these tracts about the renewal of their faith.” How does anyone indicate italics without becoming repetitive?

  Her drink is gone, but there’s another one waiting. She usually doesn’t drink much, but the popcorn has made her very thirsty.

  “That’s fascinating,” Dom says. “You should write a book.”

  “I don’t know. Covering significantly new ground would require a lot more research …”

  “Or you should work at a magazine. I have some contacts, some people I could put you in touch with.”

  “That’s really nice.” This isn’t the first time one of her temporary bosses has tried to help her. She’s gotten lots of leads, lots of interviews, both real and informational, from people’s desires to see her settled. Her un- or underemployment makes everyone nervous. “I’d appreciate that.”

  After draining his second usual, Dom sweeps his hand across the windows. “Look at this, will you.”

  The view is beautiful, especially as the lights of the buildings become visible in the darkening hours: all those offices, all those windows, all those people working late, all the industry and productivity and commitment to capitalism.

  “You’re from Illinois, and I’m from Oklahoma.” Dom leans in, and his hand slides up her thigh. “We’re both a long way from home, and we’re not sure where our final destinations will be.”

  She doesn’t understand what Dom is saying until his lips are doing something on hers, and she feels obliged to do something back. Damply excited, whether from the kiss or its public nature or the fact that Dom is her boss, she isn’t sure.

  “Hmm,” Dom says. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  This disappoints.

  “I’m just a babe magnet.” She stops, thinks. “Wait, that’s not what I mean.” She giggles nervously. “I mean these lips …” She vaguely knows she is supposed to say “I’m glad you did” or “I feel the same way,” some gesture toward reciprocated affection.

  His thumb finds the knob of her hip and presses. She shivers. Before she can navigate her way to a complete thought, they are kissing again.

  “My place or yours?” he says, just as it’s rumored to be said in the movies, though Vita herself hasn’t ever seen this line delivered without irony.

  “Sure,” she says, as though he has asked her to bring him a cup of coffee or type a letter.

  He laughs—“We’ll go to my place”—hooks a hand around her waist, and reels her out into the street, where a cab waits. (Why is it they’re always there when it would be better if you had to work a little harder?) Vita’s need for fresh air unmet, she is still fuzzy as they head uptown. It’s only when her skirt is pushed up to her knees that she’s really regretting her rule against nylons—not that Dom’s kisses are clumsy. He is smooth, and she is flushed and eager, even greedy, but he is also her boss, and though she has not yet established a rule in this regard since she only joined the “real” world two months ago, she thinks fooling around with bosses is probably risky, unproductive, unprofessional, plus the possibility of being a temp girlfriend seems problematic. She pulls away, sees the fringe of the cabbie’s head, feels embarrassed.

  “Dom, I can’t do this. You’re my boss.”

  “I can fire you.” He yawns, exhaling a hint of green olives and something sharper.

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  Cupping her chin, he whispers, “You’re fired, darling,” and then begins to offer her generous, if not slightly distracted, severance. Still, after the cab draws in front of a brightly lit entrance somewhere on the Upper East Side, and a doorman opens up the door and good-evenings Dom, she blurts out, “I think I need to go home. I’m sorry.”

  “As you wish,” Dom mumbles.

  She thinks she hears hi
m add, “silly young thing.”

  The cab half-circles the block and speeds south. Though the traffic lights of the avenue turn green all the way downtown, she still has to dig out her emergency twenty from behind her license to pay the fare.

  The next morning Vita’s phone rings at 7:45, and she learns that Dom really has fired her, though her job specialist doesn’t say this. She says, “The temp supervisor mentioned that the VP of HR needs someone with more sophisticated secretarial skills. Did you hit a pothole taking dictation?”

  After exchanging a few pleasantries, her job specialist tells her not to fret, next week is another week, but what Vita hears is that there are no new placements. In light of this, she must refigure how much money she will have by the end of the week (minus taxes), since she did not temp every day that week. Then, while Mel is perfectly accessorizing a Calvin Klein suit that she would almost kill for (that she will have to kill for if she doesn’t find gainful employment soon), Vita calculates out how much money she will have by the end of the month (minus rent) if she screws up again—(instead of screwing?)—and only works three or four days a week. “That is totally effed up,” Mel says to her reflection. “You should, like, totally sue.”

  “I know,” Vita says halfheartedly. Afterward she dresses like her normal self (in jeans and a zippered black hoodie), practices typing pages from Cotton Mather sermons, reads her novel, still sheathed in Built to Last, and naps.

  That evening, it begins to rain. The street turns a darker shade of gray, and the sidewalks are umbrellaed over. It is five o’clock, that hour when people finish one thing and start another, not quite metamorphosing. More like changing outfits. Six o’clock will release another wave. Seven, yet another. And so on and so on throughout the night. Leo calls and offers her a job covering the secondary loan market. Ted calls and doesn’t quite ask her out.

  “I got a job offer at Corporate Investor Publications.”

  “No way!” Ted booms. “That’s great. Did you take it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?” he presses.

  What will she do? If nothing changes, on Monday and Tuesday she’ll temp at Condé Nast, where everyone is scary thin, interesting looking though not terribly attractive, and they want coffee all the time. At some companies, they have desks that are plainly meant for temps—they’re like Super 8 motels: just necessities and no indulgences—but at Condé Nast, hers will clearly belong to someone else. She’ll study a picture of two men, wondering which one of them works there. Hard to tell. They’re both young and impossibly hip, the way gay guys are. Their smiles are practiced, a little impish. This is something she needs to work on. In every picture, she looks a little different. On Wednesday, she’ll file. On Thursday and Friday, on the switchboard at Ralph Lauren’s corporate headquarters, she’ll find herself adopting the faux British accent that the other temps use: “Ralph Lauren, may I help you?”