by Renée Rosen
Erik was standing in the doorway of his apartment, directly across from the elevator. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
I was still too stunned to speak.
“Do you want to stay in?” He smiled and stepped into the hallway. “Get over here. I’ve missed you.” He reached for my arm and went to kiss me.
I pulled away. “Bridget?”
That smug look on his face vanished. The elevator doors behind me closed. “Ali, it’s not what you think.”
“Oh, please.” I laughed bitterly and pushed the call button. “It never is, is it?”
He reached for my hand. “I can explain.”
“Spare me.” I yanked my hand back and called again for the elevator. “You and I are done. Good night, Erik. Good night and good-bye.”
* * *
• • •
The next morning Erik was at my apartment. Someone must have left the downstairs door cracked because he was knocking, demanding I let him in, waking me from a sound sleep. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet.
“What are you doing here?” I looked at him through the sliver of an opening in the door, the chain lock pulled taut.
“I want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Will you just let me in?”
“Why? No strings attached, remember? You don’t owe me a thing.”
“Obviously, you’re upset.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I expected something like this from you. Honestly, I’m more upset with Bridget.” And that was true. She’d known about Erik and me. I had confided in her. She was supposed to have been my friend. I felt more betrayed by her than Erik.
“Please, just let me in. I can explain last night. It’s not what you think.”
His voice was loud and I didn’t want to disturb the whole building. I waited for a moment and reluctantly unlatched the door. “You’ve got five minutes,” I said, pinching my bathrobe closed.
When he came inside, we stared at each other, not saying a word. He looked bad, dark circles under his eyes, his hair unkempt, his face unshaved. He was still wearing the same clothes from the night before. It seemed as if he hadn’t slept at all.
“About Bridget—”
“What about her? I honestly don’t care if you’re seeing her. I just wish you hadn’t lied to me about it.”
“I didn’t lie about it. I’m not seeing her. I swear I’m not.” He sat on the sofa, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “I’m not seeing anyone but you.”
I could tell he was exhausted but I refused to go weak. “Then what was she doing at your place on a Saturday night?”
“It was for work.”
I laughed.
“I left some papers in Bill Guy’s office and I needed to work on them over the weekend. She’s his secretary. I asked her to go get them for me. I swear, that’s what it was.”
On a Saturday night? I didn’t believe him. “How were you able to reach her on the weekend?”
“I called her at home.”
“And why do you have Bridget’s number?” I sounded like I cared more than I did. Yes, I was angry that he’d played me, but at the same time, I was relieved—he’d given me an easy out. But it was the Bridget thing. I was still hoping for a feasible explanation.
He sighed and dragged his hands over his face. “I took her out—once. It was a long, long time ago. Long before I ever met you. It didn’t go anywhere. It’s been—”
I held up my hand to silence him. “You know what—I don’t care.”
“Would you just come over here, please?”
I was still standing; my hand remained on the knob. “It was fun while it lasted, but I can’t do this anymore. You need to go.” I opened the door and gestured for him to leave.
“What? Just like that?” He looked at me in disbelief. “You’re gonna throw all this away?”
“All what?”
“We’re good together.”
“No, we have good sex together. That was it and now it’s over.”
* * *
• • •
After Erik left, I threw on some clothes and went to Bridget’s apartment just a few blocks away on 73rd and Third Avenue. I wanted to confront her and get it over with and not drag our personal problems into the office.
When I rang her buzzer, a groggy voice croaked through the intercom system, letting me up. It was still early, not quite nine o’clock. I passed a man on the stairwell, still buttoning his shirt, his tie looped around his neck like a scarf. The hallway was dark with dated damask patterned wallpaper, old and yellowing, unglued at the seams. Someone on her floor was cooking bacon.
“Ali, what are you doing here? What’s wrong?” Bridget stood in the doorway, her bouffant deflated, mascara smeared, the belt on her bathrobe twisted.
“Can I come in?” I pushed past her without an answer. I vaguely noticed an empty bottle of Chablis, two wineglasses and a full ashtray on her coffee table. Her dress, the same one she was wearing when I saw her in Erik’s lobby, was bunched up on the sofa, her patent leather pumps kicked off, one near the couch, the other halfway across the room.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
“If you wanted Erik, you should have just said so.”
“What?” Her eyes opened wide, the sleepy residue gone.
“If you wanted him, you should have just told me. I would have stepped aside. You didn’t have to sneak around behind my back and lie about it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw you. I saw you at Erik’s last night.”
“Oh God.” She shook her head and rubbed her eye with the heel of her hand. “Jesus, no. I’m not seeing Erik. I swear it, I’m not. I had a date last night. He just left here.”
I thought about the man I’d passed in the stairwell. I glanced again at the wineglasses, the Chablis. “What were you doing at Erik’s then?”
Her face, already pasty white, turned the color of chalk as she shook her head and dropped onto her sofa, kicking one of her pumps out of the way.
I waited, expecting her to say something. Another moment passed. “Well?”
“Ali.” She tried but fell silent again and leaned forward, her bathrobe opening, exposing her bare knees. She reached for the Salems on her coffee table. The pack was empty and she crumpled it in her fist as if she were crushing walnuts.
I was still waiting for her explanation.
“Shit,” she said, looking around. “I had another pack. Did you see it?”
“Bridget?”
She sprinted off to the bedroom and came back with a pack of Pall Malls.
“Why were you at Erik’s?” I asked again.
She lit her cigarette, and on the exhale, she said, “This whole thing has gotten so out of control.”
“What whole thing?”
She took another puff off her cigarette but still wouldn’t look at me. “Do you remember when you first started at work?”
“Yeah?”
“Remember when Erik asked for your help? With Helen? And you said no? You wouldn’t do it?”
“Yeah.” A sick feeling was settling into my gut.
“Well . . .”
Oh no. This was worse than her seeing Erik behind my back. “Bridget, what did you do?”
She puffed on her Pall Mall.
“Bridget?”
“It was nothing. I swear. All I did was tell him what was going on around the office. Just stuff Helen was telling the staff—I swear that’s all it was.”
She still wouldn’t look at me so I knew it was more than that. I recalled the times she’d hovered around my desk, reading over my shoulder. I thought about the leaks to the advertisers, about flatplans and cover art that had found its way to Deems and Be
rlin. Each new realization set off more alarms inside my head until there was no other conclusion to reach. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Ali, no. C’mon.”
“You leaked the memo to Women’s Wear Daily.”
“It was a goof. I swear I didn’t know Erik was going to show it to anyone outside of Hearst.”
“So the memo and the cover leak. That was you.” I paused for a moment, expecting and hoping she’d deny it. When she didn’t, all I could do was ask, “Why would you do that?”
“It was Erik’s idea. I swear it was. He said he’d get me promoted, get me a raise. I needed the money.” Her tone seemed to suggest that the money justified her actions.
We were locked in a stare-down. She smoked her cigarette, something cold stirring behind her eyes. She didn’t understand the first thing about loyalty. She was always out for herself.
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked, lighting another cigarette off the one she was about to grind out.
“I can’t believe you’d do this to Helen. To all of us. Isn’t it hard enough for us women to get ahead? To be taken seriously and treated with respect? Erik came to you and you just said yes? Why? For a lousy raise? A stupid promotion? How could you be so shortsighted? Really, Bridget, what would you do with all this information if you were me?”
“Well, I wouldn’t think I’m so above it all. You’re the one sleeping with him.”
“But I never once betrayed Helen or the magazine. I kept my mouth shut.”
“Maybe you should have kept your legs shut, too.”
I was speechless. And hurt. She wasn’t my friend. Never had been. I turned without saying another word and walked out of her apartment. I was shaking as I held on to the banister and made my way to the first floor. Bridget had leveled me with that insult, and it didn’t matter that she slept around more than anyone I knew—I still felt ashamed. That good girl ideology was so ingrained in me.
But as the day wore on and I thought about it, I realized that I hadn’t done anything wrong. Having an affair didn’t make me a tramp. Sleeping with Erik without guilt or judgment had freed up something inside me. Helen had given me permission to pursue what I wanted, and as a result, I knew myself better—what I liked, what I didn’t. Most important, I had discovered what I deserved.
* * *
• • •
Finding out that Bridget had betrayed me, betrayed Helen and put everybody’s future in jeopardy was too much. By the time I got back to my apartment, I had turned callous toward her, just as I’d turned callous toward Erik.
I had to tell Helen what was going on. I knew it was going to cost Bridget her job and probably Erik’s, too, but they’d brought this on themselves, and my loyalty was with Helen. My pet peeve was being played a fool and I resented them both all the more for having put me in the position to expose what they’d done.
I wrestled with the whole matter most of the night, and the next day as I walked into work, I was still trying to figure out how I was going to break the news to Helen.
Her office door was closed when I arrived, but she was already in. I could see the sliver of light under her door and heard voices coming from within. I was disappointed. I’d been hoping I could have just gone in and gotten it over with.
I was feeling anxious, rehearsing how I would phrase it all to her. Eventually, I went down the hall to get coffee. There were only a handful of people already in the office, but even so, I sensed something different in the air. I passed Bill Guy in the hallway, and he barely responded when I said good morning. Bobbie and Penny were in the kitchen. Neither one of them said a word as they got their coffees and left. Even Margot, who loved nothing more than to gossip, wasn’t talking. I felt guilty then for being so suspicious of her all this time.
When I went back to my desk, Helen’s door opened and I saw one of the building’s security guards inside. The overhead light caught his badge, giving off a blinding glare. Erik Masterson was standing just to his side, with his head hung low.
Erik was pale, his hair a bit ruffled as if he’d been raking his hands through it. His eyes were empty and bleak as he paused and stared at me. I didn’t know what was happening until the guard, nudging him along, said, “C’mon, let’s go get your things.”
Before they cleared the doorway, Helen called me into her office. Richard Berlin, Dick Deems and Walter Meade were in there, along with a second security guard, his hat resting on the coffee table.
Helen reached for a cigarette and said, “Alice, would you ask Bridget to come down here?”
I swallowed hard, my head a little dazed as I went to Bridget’s desk. She had just arrived, her pocketbook still in hand. She saw the look on my face and removed her sunglasses, sliding them down her face. Her eyes were puffy, lined red, circles beneath them. She seemed to know what was coming. When I said Helen needed to see her, she brushed past me, deliberately banging into my shoulder.
Helen never told me how she found out, but I suspected that Walter Meade had something to do with it. Especially since he was the only member of her staff who’d been present for the firings. But Bridget didn’t know that. Neither did Erik. They thought it was me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It had been almost three weeks since Bridget and Erik were fired and aside from the initial gossip surrounding the viper, or vipers as it turned out, I was surprised by how little anyone spoke of them. The two were nothing more than footprints in the sand. Now everyone’s attention had shifted to the July issue.
It was June 23rd, the day before Helen’s Cosmo was scheduled to hit the stands. No one knew if this marked a new beginning or the scandalous end for the magazine. There was a halfhearted attempt around the office to appear normal, though everyone knew we could all be out of work soon. Margot and some other coworkers had already begun interviewing. The editors and writers were torn between looking for their next job and keeping things moving on the August issue.
Everyone at Hearst was watching us. You could almost feel the tension coming down the street from headquarters. Helen was wearing down the pile on her new carpet with all her pacing, occasionally breaking into a round of leg lifts or jogging in place. There were no tears, though. Just nervous energy.
“Why don’t you go home and try to relax?” I suggested, standing in the doorway of her office. It was early, not even five o’clock yet, but almost everyone else had left, finding it too maddening to sit around, waiting to learn their fate.
“Go on,” I said, hoping to assure her it was okay. “And try and eat something.” The past few weeks had taken their toll on her. She’d probably dropped five pounds that she couldn’t afford to lose. She nodded listlessly. I could see the sharp angles of her collarbone and sternum.
I helped her pack her briefcase, collecting the new articles she wanted to review and edit for the August and September issues. In spite of it all, she was still banking, or trying to, on the future of Cosmopolitan. When I snapped her briefcase shut, I looked over and saw she was tearing up.
“Mrs. Brown? Are you okay?” I hadn’t seen her cry in weeks.
She shook her head and scrunched up her shoulders. “I’m so tired.” She leaned against the side of her desk, as if her legs were about to give out. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired in all my life. And I’m scared. Just terrified. If July is a flop, all this”—she raised her hands, indicating her office, the magazine, her editorial career—“it all goes bye-bye.” She covered her mouth like she was about to scream. “Do you know that I’ve never failed at anything before? Not ever. I was valedictorian of my class. I don’t know how to fail.”
“You won’t fail at this, either,” I said, trying to be encouraging.
Her brow was furrowed, her eyes were misting up again and her chin began to crumble. “I wanted to do something big and important for women.”
“But you already have
.”
She shook her head and turned out her bottom lip. “I’m not talking about my book. I’m talking about Cosmopolitan. Women need this magazine. I don’t care about Betty Friedan. Or Gloria Steinem going undercover as a Playboy Bunny. Neither of them—or anyone else who calls themselves a feminist—is talking to women the way I can. Every girl out there needs to know that she’s not alone. I was alone. Even though I had my mother and my sister, I was still alone.” She crossed the room and threw herself onto the sofa and collapsed into a fit of tears.
“Mrs. Brown. Please. It’s going to be okay.” She’d displayed so much strength lately and to see her crumble again about broke my heart. I went and sat beside her, not sure how to console her. Her whole body was shaking as she went on weeping into a throw pillow. She was saying something now, hiccuping on her every word, so I couldn’t understand her. All I could think to do was rub soothing circles along her back like my mother used to do to me.
I was still rubbing her back, feeling her shoulder blades and ribs, when she turned and looked at me. She offered me a sad, faint smile as the tears ran sideways across her cheeks, heading toward her ears. “I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want to be just another old woman, forgotten, invisible to the rest of the world. This magazine has to succeed,” she said. “It just has to. Otherwise, why am I here? Editing this magazine, bringing this information to my girls—I really believe this is why I was put here on earth.”
* * *
• • •
After Helen had composed herself, I called David Brown and asked him to come pick her up. She was in no condition to get on the bus, and I knew she’d fight me if I tried putting her in a cab.
I left the building shortly after Helen, her words echoing inside my head: This is why I was put here on earth. It made me question why I was put here. Did I feel as passionately about my photography as she did about the magazine? I’d seen Helen go through hell, enduring all kinds of setbacks and disappointments. She’d put up with ridicule and had overcome one obstacle after another, and here I was too chicken to enroll in a photography class. I knew then that if I was going to claim my dream, I had to be as tough as Helen and I had to be willing to do whatever it took to succeed.