by Jane Porter
So I throw on some jeans, much baggier, more comfortable jeans than I wore last night, a favorite oversize men’s shirt in a great shade of blue (of course it was Jean-Marc’s), and the cowboy boots I can’t give up even though I’m not in Hicktown anymore. The truth is, I like wearing my cowboy boots; I like that they’re not hip, not fashionable, not pretty. I like the pointy toes, the low stacked heels, the battered, faded brown leather. I also like the fact that Jean-Marc hated them and now I get to wear them. When I wear my boots, I feel tough and interesting and far more together.
Cow Hollow, like most neighborhoods in San Francisco, has its own little center of business, plenty of corner coffeehouses, cool restaurants tucked into the ground floors of various renovated houses.
I head for one of those hole-in-the-wall restaurants, buy a Saturday morning paper on the way, and with the sun shining and the sky a wispy Northern California blue, I feel almost human.
A real person.
And the real-person sensation stays as I order coffee, juice, scrambled eggs. The real person reads the paper, savors a second cup of coffee, and suddenly feels so good about herself that she smiles, thinking that life’s not so awful, that maybe, just maybe, everything’s going to be okay.
“Can I borrow your sports page?”
It takes me a second to register that I’m hearing a voice, and that the voice is talking to me.
Looking up, I see Gorgeous Guy sitting at a table across from me. He’s leaning on the table, elbows braced, looking rough-and-tumble in a way you don’t often see in this city.
For starters, he’s big. Tall. He’s got shoulders. And from what I can see of his right -thigh—tight, hard quads—he must have tight, hard legs.
He’s wearing a denim shirt open over a white T-shirt and a pair of well-washed, well-worn Levi’s.
“You want what?” I ask, unable to focus on anything but his legs. I had no idea I was so damn visual, and for a moment I think this is what it must feel like to be Tom Lehman.
“The sports section.”
I nod to show that something has finally registered, and quickly riffle through the paper. Fortunately, with Jamie for a brother, a rabid sports fan since his terrible twos, I know where to locate the sports page. “Here.”
I’m blushing as I give it to him, and I’ve no idea why I’m blushing, or adjusting my collar, of brushing the tip of my ponytail. But I know that the moment I adjust something, touch something like my ear, my hair, my mouth, I’m attracted. I’m sending out some physical, biological signal. I don’t know the specifics, but I’m transmitting “you male, me female,” hormones engaged. I’m sure my cousin who works at the Bronx Zoo could do a better job explaining this.
“Just for a minute,” he adds.
“No hurry.” And there isn’t. I’ve got no plans for the rest of the day, and so I just stare. His teeth are straight and white, and I swear, he’s a bona fide Gap model.
Why wasn’t I out with him last night? I would have been charming. I would have been eager, happy, funny. Candy-floss appletini? Why not? Al Unser Jr. behind the steering wheel? Bring it on. Hours between courses? Who needs to eat when your heart’s in your throat and everything in you is wishing for happily-ever-afters?
He’s far too good-looking for me. Far too sexy. Far too everything. But after last night, when I felt like a slab of meat in cold storage, I welcome the wash of heat.
“Damn,” he says, and shakes his head. He’s frowning now, and he closes the paper.
I take the paper back. “Didn’t like what you saw?”
“Nope. They lost.”
They? “Your team?”
“My high school.”
The guy’s at least thirty. Maybe even thirty-five. Yes, he’s gorgeous, but he’s not a kid, and I can’t see him still trying to follow his high school team. I open my mouth to ask a question, but he’s already standing and heading for the door.
I watch him walk out, the tail of his blue denim shirt flapping, and as the café door shuts behind him, I feel a moment of utter loss.
We could have been so good together.
My coffee isn’t as tasty as it was, and I don’t feel quite as buoyant as I did. I slowly return to my apartment, open and close the door, and head into the kitchen, tossing the newspaper and my keys onto the little table beneath the window.
For a split second I picture a life with him. Gorgeous Guy.
Isn’t there some ancient Asian philosophy that says you are often confronted by the same problem over and over until you’ve mastered it? If not, there should be.
The whole reason I picked this apartment was because it looked perfect for a couple. Even though I was still reeling from the divorce, in the back of my mind I was already keeping my options open.
I saw the apartment’s possibilities. Yes, the crown was thick and glossy white, and the living room’s large bay window overlooked a sunny street, but I also saw the big bedroom (big enough for trading up to a king-size bed if need be), the fireplace for romantic evenings, the space in the kitchen beneath the window, where a cute table would go.
I saw it all.
The good-looking guy sprawled on the sectional sofa I’d soon buy. The weekends, when he’d be reading the paper or idly flipping through the TV channels, watching three different football games simultaneously. I saw me preparing extravagant Sunday brunches, dazzling him with my culinary skills, slipping him incredibly tasty food while I slipped into something sexy. (I do have all that lingerie that’s never been worn.)
This idea of me, this vision for my future, is what made me sign a year lease on an apartment that I couldn’t afford and that wasn’t all that convenient. I could have gotten apartments for far less—newer, more modern apartments that came with parking—but this apartment had charm. This apartment had style. This apartment shouted, She’s worthy!
And so the movers left my boxes in my newly leased apartment, which has twenty-three steps to the front door, and the smallest, narrowest toilet-in-a-closet I’d ever seen. But I’m not complaining, because I don’t cook or eat in the bathroom; I do that in the kitchen, and the kitchen might not be ideally laid out, but it is spacious and has new appliances and, of course, room for that table beneath the window.
Now you know everything about me. I’m not just impulsive and romantic; I’m dumb and broke, too.
Dumb, because once again I signed on for something reason and responsibility should have told me I couldn’t afford.
Broke because when Jean-Marc and I divorced, I asked for nothing since I came with nothing, and it seemed wrong to ask for a piece of his house or his bank account when he’d never wanted me in the first place.
That thought alone stops me, and sinking onto the back of my sofa, I stare blankly at my fireplace’s pink marble surround. Why didn’t I know that Jean-Marc didn’t want me?
Why couldn’t I tell how he really felt about me? Surely there were signs. Symptoms.
I rack my brain yet again, trying to discern what must have been there, true, obvious. But before the wedding we seemed so happy. We didn’t fight. We took trips together. Jean-Marc spent more time at home with me than he did in his campus office.
There was a distinct lack of sex, but I thought... I thought... what?
The phone rings.
Panic floods me. I tense. Every muscle knots, locks. Who is it? I don’t know, and therefore I can’t answer.
I wait through the six rings until my answering, machine picks up. But when the machine picks up, the caller hangs up.
I stare at the phone, hating it. It could have been a good call. Could have been someone I wanted to talk to.
I should have gotten caller ID, like the saleslady at Pac Bell suggested when I first moved in. All I had to do was buy a new phone.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go to Circuit City and buy a phone with caller ID, because if I’m going to date, I need to know who is on the other line.
And then I’ll go to the gym.<
br />
On Monday morning, I’m back at work, sitting in an early morning team meeting. Olivia is briefing us on a new event we’ll be coordinating—the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Beckett School in Hillsborough. The Beckett School is one of the most prestigious academies for boys—impossible to get into, and yet an education at Beckett ensures lifelong success, if not due to personal achievement, then due to the extremely loyal network of alumni.
Olivia is enthusiastic. Even though her African-American Georgia-born father, Terrell Dempsey, would never have been allowed within a hundred feet of socially restrictive Beckett, Olivia embraces old money. But to be fair, she also embraces new money. To Olivia, money is opportunity.
Olivia is one of the reasons City Events is so successful. Olivia isn’t just an event planner; Olivia is the company’s top account executive. She’s not afraid to go after business, not afraid to ask for what she wants. She’s smart. Tough. Teflon coated. She’s learned to separate herself from her work, learned that rejection isn’t personal, and that just because someone says no now, it doesn’t mean they’ll say no later.
I wish I could be smart like that. Not to mention a lot more Teflon. I still can’t say what I want, what I need. I don’t ask. Instead I’ve hoped that being good, being just, being fair would reward me.
I’m not so sure anymore.
“How did you get the account?” Sara, the fourth person on Olivia’s team, asks, Olivia’s team consisting of Olivia, Josh, Sara, and me.
Olivia nods at Josh. “Josh’s connections.”
We all look at Josh. He shifts uncomfortably. “My dad went there,” he said after a moment.
“Josh did, too.” Olivia’s sitting on the edge of her desk, and we’re facing her like kids in a schoolroom. “He’s third generation.”
We’re all still staring at Josh. Tuition to Beckett is around seventeen thousand a year. And we’re all thinking approximately the same thing: does that mean Josh’s family is loaded? And if so, why is Josh working here? A job at City Events is creative and diverse, but it doesn’t pay. You don’t really start making anything until you’re a director, like Olivia or Tessa.
Speaking of Tessa, I saw her summon her staff together earlier this morning for their weekly meeting, and I prayed she’d had a brainstorm over the weekend about how to save the ailing Leather & Lace Ball. Somebody needs to save the ball—
“Holly?”
The sharp edge in Olivia’s voice brings me back, and from the expectant faces facing me, I know I’ve missed whatever they’ve been discussing.
“You have anything to contribute?” Olivia asks, and as I look at them—blonde, pixielike Sara; silent, gender-neutral Josh; vivacious, exotic Olivia—I see us all fast-forwarded into the future; I see a story that hasn’t yet been written, but the ending is the same. We all will age. We’ll all get sick. None of us shall live forever.
And I know I must do something about the Leather & Lace Ball. Not because I’m heroic, but because I’m afraid. When I’m ill and dying, preferably when I’m old and ill and dying, I don’t want to be alone. I hope someone will be there for me the way David was there for Tony.
“I’m good,” I say, and I am, because I know I’m going to get involved with the ball, and I know it must be kept quiet. Olivia and Tessa are at odds lately, and I don’t know why, but I’m not going to go there. This isn’t about Olivia or Tessa. It’s not even about David. It’s just me.
Back at my desk, I get on the phone, call the Beckett School’s administrative office to request their alumni database. Planning an anniversary celebration for a school is a lot like planning a reunion. Putting on the actual event is easy. No one needs to be sold on the school. It’s more a matter of letting everyone know the where and when, and the more advance notice, the better.
Olivia and Sara head out at lunchtime for an appointment with the Palace Hotel off Union Square. Sara was in charge of a wedding being held at the Palace Hotel on Valentine’s Day, but the wedding, although still six and a half months away, is way over budget, and the father of the bride is panicking, and the bride is covered in hives, and Olivia is stepping in to see if she can’t get a handle on the costs before the bride’s hives turn into full-fledged eczema.
With Sara and Olivia gone, I’ve got a good opportunity to speak with Tessa. She’s in her own office—she and Olivia and David having the only private offices with doors and windows—and I approach, knock gingerly on her open door.
She looks up, her red hair cut in a spiky bob, her short bangs dyed a magenta hue, and as she looks up, she runs one hand wildly through the spikes. “Yeah?”
She knows I work for the other team.
“Do you have a minute?”
“No, actually.” She folds her arms in front of her, and she looks at me long and level. “Besides, your director won’t want you in here.”
“She’s not here.”
“I’m not interested in any complaints ‘bout her.”
“I’m not here to complain. I love working with Olivia.”
“Then...?”
Tessa makes me feel like a beetle-bug, and I’m afraid she’s going to jump up and squish me any second. “I wanted to offer you my help.”
“I don’t need help.”
“David says—”
“David was out of line.”
I stand there for a moment and feel nothing. I’m very good at moments like this. I go numb, all cool and empty and hollow as if I never had feelings and nothing could ever hurt me, touch me; and I stay there until I can shrug. “If you say so.”
But I don’t leave.
I should, but I don’t.
The Hospice Foundation depends on the ball. David says the ball is the foundation’s primary source of income, and I believe him, and maybe this is why Jean-Marc fell out of love with me. I get stubborn at all the wrong times, for all the wrong reasons.
Tessa’s dark red eyebrows flatten. “If you’re done...?”
I feel really stupid, but I’m good being stupid. I hang on doggedly; I hang on and don’t let go. “Olivia doesn’t want me involved with the ball. I’m coming to you behind her back, and she wouldn’t like me coming to you. But this ball means everything to David, and I respect David. A lot.”
“Olivia would fire you if she found out.”
The cold feeling’s back, but so is a hotter emotion, one I can’t name. The hot threatens to swallow the cold. “David signs the paychecks.”
She leans back in her chair, eyes me for a moment. “So what do you want to do?”
“Whatever needs to be done that I could help do—away from the office, of course.”
“You don’t want Olivia to find out?”
“I don’t want to be fired.”
She puts her feet up on her desk. “We only have a quarter of our tables sold. We don’t have any high-end sponsors. I’m working on sponsorship, and the rest of my team is trying to approach various companies about buying tables, but...” She shrugs, and it’s the shrug that says she’s losing faith.
The event’s been done to death.
“Let me try the media,” I say, and Tessa smiles. I know she’s thinking that this is San Francisco, not Fresno, but she doesn’t say it. “I’ll see if there isn’t a way to generate some excitement that way,” I add, trying to sound convincing.
“Go for it.” And she’s still smiling, but she’s less antagonistic. “You’ll be our media queen, only stealth.” She reaches for her iced mocha, shakes the cup, rattling the ice. “So keep me posted. Let me know how it goes.”
It was a bold offer on my part, but it doesn’t take me long to discover that being media queen (even stealth) has more lows than highs.
During the next week I make endless phone calls that go nowhere, leave messages that never get returned. I turn to Outlook Express, which isn’t as effective as a personal call, send a flurry of e-mails, introducing myself, asking for a moment of so-and-so’s time. Half the e-mails get ignored. The other half come back
with a “thanks but no thanks, not newsworthy, not groundbreaking, not interesting,” the underlying message being that people already know about the Leather & Lace Ball, and people don’t care.
I stare at my computer screen, reading the latest one-line rebuff. At least it’s not as curt as the last.
I rub my eyes, tired. It’s a little after five, and with Olivia leaving just after lunch today, heading down to L.A. to see her boyfriend, I’ve been trying to make some headway on the media list I’d been given.
Maybe people don’t care about the ball anymore, but once upon a time they cared. Once upon a time the ball was fun. Intriguing. A novelty.
Why can’t it be fun, intriguing, a novelty, again?
Maybe the mistake wasn’t in continuing the ball for ten years but in allowing the ball just to endlessly repeat itself without offering anything new or unique.
I can’t really blame people for not wanting to attend again. If you’ve been there, done that, why persist unless you can (a) guarantee a great time or (b) discover something new?
Is it too late for the ball to reinvent itself? Too late for City Events to put a twist on the ball, come up with something new? Or would dramatically changing the ball at the eleventh hour smack of desperation?
My phone rings, and I reach for it. “Holly Bishop.”
“Tom Lehman.”
Oh, no.
“You haven’t returned any of my calls,” he says.
“It’s been frantic around here.”
“The market’s been worse.”
I’m sure it was. I hunch my shoulders, attempting to stretch. “Bad week?”
“You didn’t return my calls.”
“I’m sorry.”
“How sorry?”
Not that sorry. I grit my teeth. Close my eyes. Be strong, Holly. Just get rid of him. Tell him you’re not interested. Tell him good-bye and be done with it.
I don’t, which gives him a chance to talk next. “What are you doing tonight?”