A Previous Engagement

by Stephanie Haddad

  The last face I expected to see when I opened my eyes was my mother’s, and yet, there she was. She was smiling at me, leaning over to brush her lips against my forehead, as though we’d been transported through time to a sick day home from school.

  “Mom?” I let my eyes refocus. She offered a glass of gingerale with the straw pointed at my mouth. I took a sip, sending the bubbles rushing through my digestive tract and into my aching, empty stomach. Already, I felt comforted by the sugar and carbonation. “What are you doing here?”

  “Kendra called. I got here as soon as I could. It’s a good thing too. You left your keys in the front door,” she smoothed on hand over my head, pushing the stray hairs out of my face. Then she felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “You must’ve been really sick.”

  I nodded, struck dumb by the lack of judgment from my harshest critic.

  “Well then, let’s get you healthy again.” Mom left the glass on the coffee table, next to a stack of magazines she’d brought me, and crossed the room to close the curtains on the darkening sky. I must’ve slept the rest of the day away, but I did feel better.

  As my mother banged around in the kitchen, I marveled at her. It had been a long time since she’d taken care of me and I couldn’t believe how naturally she fell into her old role. When it really mattered, when I really needed her… she appeared, just like when I scraped my knee or caught a cold as a child. Within moments, a mug of steaming soup and a tray of plain crackers showed up in front of me.

  “Do you think you can eat?” she asked, setting me up with napkins and a trash barrel—just in case. “You need some calories in you if you’re gonna be back on your feet for this big presentation.”

  I did as I was told, letting the warm soup fill me up one sip at a time. She sat next to me on the couch and flipped on the TV. I couldn’t remember the last time we sat completely idle like that, just being together. Having my mother close by, scanning the guide for something to watch, I felt even more warmth than from the soup.

  “Hey Mom?” She turned to me and smiled. “Thanks. I’m really glad you came.”

  She patted my knee. “Of course, honey. I’m your mother.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I survived my twelve-hour stomach virus, thanks to my mother’s care, but the illness was only a temporary escape from my other problems. Somehow, though, being sick seemed to carve out new space in my brain for more important details and memories.

  It started when I slept that night, dreaming a mixed bag of thoughts about my mother and uncomfortable work scenarios. In one dream, Mom was taking on Mary head-to-head, trying to write me a sick note for a missed afternoon of meetings. In another, she packed the break-room fridge with chicken soup and turkey sandwiches so I would never vomit up a cheese stick again. As my subconscious rambled on and on, a tiny bit of my conscious brain recognized that my strained relationship with my mother had left a bigger hole in my heart than I’d realized. Despite the bizarre dreams, it felt really peaceful to see her as a positive force again.

  Somewhere in the middle of a dream where Christian and Savannah were hogging all the toys in my childhood sandbox, I shot up in bed. A white hot panic took hold of me, my heart pounding.

  Finn!

  I hadn’t fed him in—God, I didn’t know when I’d last fed him. I sprung from my bed toward the front hallway, where I’d specifically placed his bowl so I wouldn’t forget about him. Yet, every day I walked by his bowl on my way to work, too preoccupied to notice him. By the time I got home every night, I usually had tunnel vision for a quick dinner and my own bed.

  Poor Finn. I hadn’t so much as looked at him in days, so consumed was I by this stupid, stupid presentation. I couldn’t even remember to feed a fish and people expected me to have kids someday?

  “He’s only a fish, only a fish,” I repeated as I entered the hallway. Still, as I flipped on the light, I prayed that I wouldn’t find him floating upside-down. I was afraid to look. If I’d killed him, Lucy would kill me for sure. More importantly, I’d have a hard time forgiving myself.

  Finn was still alive, apparently impervious to my chronic neglect. Half of the water in his bowl had evaporated, leaving him a shallow two inches to swim in. he hovered in one place, his mouth opening and closing in a calmingly rhythmic pattern. I let the relief I felt translate into actions and carried the bowl to the kitchen. I ran the tap until the water reached room temperature and filled his bowl again. Instantly, he darted around, exploring each restored inch of his fishy territory. As soon as I sprinkled the food into the water, he gobbled it up. His increased activity reassured me, so I gave him an extra flake or two.

  “I wish I could give you cheesecake or something,” I said, pressing my nose to the glass to watch him. “Maybe fish food tastes like cheesecake to you. Is it good?” I sighed, watching his fins curl and swirl in the water. “I’m sorry I almost killed you. Again. I just have to live through this and get that promotion. Things will get easier from here, I promise. Thanks for sticking with me.”

  I relocated Finn to someplace where he’d be harder to overlook—my bedroom. Once I was satisfied he was alive and well, I dozed off again for a few last hours of sleep before another busy day. The key was not to think too much about my cruelty to animals or my all-consuming selfishness.

  ****

  Another Coffee Wednesday disaster was brewing, no pun intended. While my mother’s nursing skills had cured me, I still entered Tosca’s with a raging migraine and some residual nausea. I suspected only some of it was due to my violent stomach bug. Somehow in the last few weeks, seeing Christian had begun to have a different effect on me. One I could not explain, but one that did not bring me any comfort. Since my nighttime encounter with Marcy back in April, everything felt strained on his end, and now since Savannah, I felt the strain on both sides of our relationship.

  I sometimes felt like the bond between us was starting to fray, but I couldn’t explain it. He greeted me with the same smile, hug and kiss on the cheek, but it was all different. He was edgier, more reserved. We didn’t joke around anymore, we didn’t confide in each other. I felt like I had to be someone else, posing as Tessa Monroe—in her body, with her friends, at her job. Invasion of the body snatchers and what have you.

  “Christian,” I said his name stiffly, not sure what tone to use anymore. “We should… talk.”

  “Okay, shoot.” He sounded relaxed, but I could see his eyes locked on mine, his jaw set in anticipation.

  “Have you noticed that things are a bit weird between us lately?” Oh God, that’s how you say it, Tessa? Way to be blunt and direct. Marty Bensen, why don’t you just take over my entire life? “I’m trying to figure out where we went wrong.”

  I took a deep breath, watching for his reaction. He did such a good job covering up his initial shock, I almost missed it. In a second, it was replaced by the calm, cool demeanor that had been my companion every Coffee Wednesday since Savannah arrived on the scene. I would have almost preferred to face the raging anger I received for trying to careen down the staircase at Kendra’s. Even if it was unpleasant, at least it was real.

  “It got weird…” I added lamely.

  “Well,” he crossed his arms over his pinstriped shirt, his eyes narrowed, zeroing in. “You set the tone here. I’ve been tiptoeing around you since I started seeing Savannah. I thought you supported us—hell, you set us up! And then the second we start dating, you want nothing to do with us.”

  “What are you talking about?” I heard the words, felt the truth in them, but certainly wasn’t going to fess up to something so cataclysmically not good-friend behavior. I liked them both, I liked them together, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

  And yet there was a problem. In the pit of my stomach, I felt a nameless twinge at the very thought of them together. I wanted something like what they had for myself. Was this jealousy? Regret? Either way, I couldn’t easily tackle them with Christian already in self-defense mode.

  “Wel
l, let’s see. You rarely return my phone calls,” he held out his hand, ticking off the counts against me one finger at a time. “You keep coming up with excuses to back out of our plans.”

  “I told you, I have—”

  “Work. I know, Tessie. I know. But what about Friday dinner last week? We waited for you but you never turned up. I ordered an entire Hawaiian pizza just for you and where were you?”

  “The office.”

  “Exactly. Work, work, work. Tessie, this isn’t healthy. Let Savannah share some of the burden. She can take on some of the little stuff, give you more time to concentrate on—”

  “And let her take my job away from me too?” The voice sounded like mine, the buzzing of my vocal chords told me the voice was mine, but my brain and my mouth had not conferred before the words broke free. When my tear ducts jumped on board, it was all over. A Tessa Monroe waterfall.

  At the first sign of tears, he dropped the act, his shoulders sinking back down to their usual resting spot, his jaw relaxing. Christian dug into the pocket of his jeans and extracted a linty tissue, which he used to dab at the tears on my cheeks. “You’re my best friend. I need to know what’s going on.”

  I looked through his lenses into those blue eyes, my vision blurred by the tears, and thought about all the ways I could organize my jumbled thoughts. Something was eating away at my insides, something I couldn’t explain. It wasn’t just about work, or my friends, or perfect Savannah, or even Marty Bensen. It was all of it and it was none.

  “I just—I can’t—Oh, Christian, I—” But the tears gripped my vocal chords and I couldn’t get anything else out. I sobbed uncontrollably, afraid to look at him. I crumpled onto the table, soaking up the tears in the sleeves of my shirt and took shelter in the darkness I found there. Metal chair legs scraped across the tile just before Christian’s arms were around me. He lifted my head up from the table and onto his shoulder. I pressed my face against his shirt, no doubt leaving tear and mascara stains behind, and cried it out. He held me there until it passed, gently rubbing my back, his chin resting on the top of my head. I felt warm, safe, loved.

  And amid all those tears of pain and anger, I felt one thing above all else: happiness.

  ****

  Marty Bensen, on the other hand, was not the cuddling type.

  “Monroe,” he said, once our entrees arrived. “I’m impressed with your dedication. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Bensen.”

  “Call me Marty, please. Can I call you Tessa?”

  “Sure, Marty.” I spooned a large amount of mashed potatoes into my mouth so I would be excused from talking for a bit. My business dinner with Marty was not going very well, and I would have preferred many things to this. Taking Lucy’s cats to the vet or changing Riley’s diaper when he had explosive diarrhea.

  “I must say, Tess, that I always find women who assert themselves to be very attractive.”

  A tea party with Hitler. Jet-skiing in molten lava. The dentist.

  “You have a rare gift for commanding attention.” He was still talking, his voice thick from the alfredo sauce he was inhaling. I decided in that instant that I much preferred it when he called me Monroe, given that his breathy pronunciation of my first name made me quite ill. I let him go on.

  “I just couldn’t help noticing, now that we’re working so closely together, that you and I seem to have made a special connection. Am I imagining it? I think there’s something powerful between us.”

  Your beer gut? At least, that was my initial response, which I later regretted not speaking aloud. In the interest of being diplomatic, and keeping my job, I decided to brush it off casually. “I think we have a great working relationship.” I stressed the key word in that sentence, hoping that noticing subtleties was among Marty’s talents.

  “I thought so,” he grinned, alfredo sauce dripping down his chin. It was true; this man had the social skills of Tarzan, without all that jungle charm. “I’m glad you agree.”

  “Listen, Marty, could we focus on the presentation for now? I’m eager to talk about my plans and see what you think. I’d really like to go over it together to ensure everything goes smoothly.” If subtle cues wouldn’t do the trick, at least I could distract him.

  “Sure, sure,” he said, a key of annoyance in his voice. Before coming to the restaurant, I’d psyched myself up by deciding I’d read too much into his invitation. Of course it would be professional, I thought, even Marty’s not that inappropriate. I launched into my description of Prime of Your Life’s first issue, noted his split attention, and concluded that yes, in fact, Marty was that inappropriate.

  “So we’re working to assemble content for future issues that will hit a full spectrum of expertise. This demographic is diverse in its understanding of financial investing, so we need to capture readers who have no experience as well as those who are already active traders,” I was saying, trying to ignore Marty’s open-mouth chewing. I reached for my giant handbag and extracted a manila folder. “I brought a list of the topics I’m suggesting for the next five issues.”

  “That’s nice,” Marty said rudely, glaring at his empty plate.

  “With all due respect, Marty, I was under the impression this meeting was for professional purposes only. Is there another reason you’ve asked me here tonight?” Might as well make him spit it out.

  “If we’re being frank with one another, as seems to be the case,” he said more forcefully, regaining some of the bullying demeanor I’d grown accustomed to these many years. “I’m curious whether this ‘special connection’ we have extends anywhere outside of the office. Particularly if you’re hoping to move up to VP anytime soon.”

  I ground my teeth together so my bottom jaw wouldn’t fall off. No amount of dreading can prepare you for a statement like that. I stuttered for a second, taken aback by the sheer disgustingness of the suggestion. This was my career, how dare he even suggest that I couldn’t get ahead without spreading my legs?

  “Mr. Bensen, I think we’re done here.”

  He blinked a few times. Did he really expect a different answer? Aside from the fact that this was completely inappropriate, all he had to do was look in a mirror to answer his own question. He wasn’t exactly charming, inside or out.

  Suddenly, he stood up, bumping into the table with his girth, and sending my water glass careening over onto the table. The contents of the glass exploded in my direction, drenching me, my brand new leather purse, and every business document I had with me. I jumped back, and bringing several tabletop items with me. “One wrong move, Monroe—”

  “I don’t think so.” I stood up, my sleeves sprinkling water drops in all directions. “You make one wrong move and I’ll report your ass to those Powers That Be you’re so afraid of.”

  “Good luck with that presentation tomorrow, Monroe. I certainly won’t be cheering for you.” His mouth snapped shut and he stormed from the restaurant, leaving me to cover the bill and apologize to nearby diners for the disturbance. As my mascara ran down my face for the second time that day, it was difficult to see where the positives of my life remained.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I needed a win and I needed one bad. It had been a rough forty-eight hours, one that this “new Tessa Monroe” should’ve been ashamed of. I’d vomited, cried all over Christian, pissed off my boss—although, granted, that was more his fault than mine—and now I was a nervous wreck. Kendra couldn’t help me, although she promised to salvage what she could of my new power suit when I dropped by after dinner.

  “Do I look like a dry cleaner?” She raised an eyebrow at me, turning over the damp fabric in her hands.

  “I need to wear it tomorrow for the presentation. There’s no time to get it properly dry-cleaned,” I sighed, sinking into her couch. The sweatpants Kendra lent me were too comfortable; I wanted to take a nice nap right there.

  “Just wear something else.” She plucked a mushroom from the front pocket and held it up between
her thumb and index finger. “Chicken marsala, Tess?”

  I groaned, trying to bury my face in a pillow. “There’s nothing else to wear. I bought that suit for tomorrow’s presentation. I’ve been wearing it all week for good luck.”

  “Eww! Did you barf in this?”

  “Can you help me or not?”

  “Maybe,” she chewed on her lip, examining the stains on my lapel. “You know, this is an all-time high for you.”

  I looked up from the throw pillow. “It could’ve happened to anyone.”

  “Oh, but it happened to you.” She shook her head at me, half amused and half intimidated by the mess of wine sauce, mushrooms, melted ice cubes, and possibly candle wax. Basically anything that had sat on top of that dinner table now decorated my gorgeous pinstripe suit. “It’s going to take a few days to get this cleaned, unless you want to smell like a candlelit Italian meal tomorrow. Are you positive you don’t have another suit? After eight years working in that fashion magazine you call an office, you must have something you can wear.”

  I thought of my “big-time” outfit right away. In fact, that suit had always brought me good luck, unlike the new pinstriped hotness Kendra was wringing out over the kitchen sink. I’d been wearing that to manufacture some good vibes for myself, but all it had done for me was contract a stomach flu, inspire a nervous breakdown over coffee, and prompt a sexual harassment lawsuit against my boss. That suit was a sham. The real good luck suit was the one I should be wearing. The one I would go home right that instant and lint-roll for—

  Crap. I left the jacket at Christian’s.

  When I turned up on his doorstep, wearing Kendra’s maternity sweatpants and a baggy Red Sox t-shirt Grant had worn far too many times, Christian was surprised. I’m not sure if it was surprise to see me standing there, or surprise at my attire. Either way, he wasn’t alone and I was clearly interrupting something.