Emily's Reasons Why Not (6 page)

David and I go to New York for the week end to meet with my guy from, the
Hollywood Reporter
. Ahhh, holding hands and drinking champagne in first class on the plane is heaven.

We check into the Carlyle Hotel on the Upper East Side. It is romantic and incredible, filled with tapestries, paisley prints, and antique furniture. Our room has a huge claw tub for two. I call down for room service and the hotel guy calls me Mrs. Jenkins. Mrs. Jenkins, I think out loud.

Mrs. David Jenkins.

We see a play on Broadway and then dance at the Rainbow Room. Flawless. Flawless. Flawless. Yet all the while denying any sort of contact with each other to the outside world. I don’t care. I am blissfully happy. I have set up the lunch meeting with my contact from the
Hollywood Reporter
for David and me on Monday. It’s all going to work out beautifully.

My real problem is that my boss and mentor, Avery, the woman who brought me into the fold, promoted me, championed me, hates David. Really hates him. I became aware of her loathing during a meeting before I left for New York when I overheard her talking to David’s boss. She called him a, what was it? “Cocksucker.”

You know what? A lot of people at the company hate David. He’s not making any friends. Since the merger, we have a new CEO and
she
really doesn’t like David.

It has been almost two months and David still thinks I, we, shouldn’t tell anybody about our relationship. Perhaps he will change his mind after we get our media strategy plan implemented. Yet I can’t help but think, just ever so slightly, that he is screwing me in more ways than one. That I may be running the risk of throwing away my career for a guy whose days are numbered and who won’t admit he’s my boyfriend … Yet everyone knows that we’re having an affair.

What is wrong with me? It’s as if I am watching a plane start to sputter, lose engine power, and plummet toward the
ground. My career is about to take a downward spiral. I can feel it.

Reason #6:
If what you’re doing for your boyfriend can get you fired, stop doing him
.

“Shit, I had doubts then.” I shake my head at Dr. D. “I was smart, but I couldn’t help how I felt. How did I fall for someone in the office?”

“We’re getting to that,” Dr. D. says.

“Frankly, I think I got sick and tired of people thinking I was the happy corporate hooker. It got on my nerves.”

Home from NYC, back in the office, Avery came into my office waving the
Hollywood Reporter
in my face. She slammed the door behind her. Perhaps now is not the time to come out about our love.

“How in the HELL did they get this story about David? Someone had to plant it, it fucking has our entire pilot schedule leaked. Jesus, Emily, it has your fingerprints all over it. The guy is an asshole. He’s making you look like a novice idiot. This story could cost both of us our jobs. Do you realize that? You can’t get press on the president without running it by me so I can run it by Joyce. This is a mess. Just tell me you didn’t do it.”

To lie or not to lie?

“I did it. I am so sorry. But I didn’t think … it’s a positive story for the company. A puff piece. David really needed some good press for a change.”

“My dear, there are things you don’t know, one of which is that he is FUCKING using you. Why don’t you see that? This is an absolute nightmare.” She finishes by throwing the
Hollywood Reporter
in my face and storming out of my office. Using me for what?

Reason #7:
If your friends, mentors, and co-workers think your boyfriend has ulterior motives, he probably does
.

As Avery left my office, I sank in my chair of delusion and thought to myself … it’s no problem if I get fired. Soon enough I will be with the man I love and we will tell everyone how happy we are, be a power couple, start our own company, live at the beach, sip Starbucks on a Sunday while watching our beautiful children swing graciously on Santa Monica beach while Sam chases seagulls in the background. My life will soon be complete.

I am on the slippery slope of metal health and denial.

David stands in the doorway of my office. “I’m sorry, Em, I’ll talk to Avery and she’ll calm down. I’ll tell her I trusted you to do the story and that I asked you to do it confidentially. It’ll blow over.”

I lift my head off my desk and look at my perfect power man. “Dinner?” I ask. “I’ll bring pizza and we can have a carpet picnic.”

“Can’t, gotta work. Maybe this weekend,” David says. Can’t? Gotta work? Since when has working become more important than romantic interludes with me? Can’t we work
together? Or perhaps his work with me is done. I feel him pulling away. Not that I know for sure. I try to stay calm, but I know something is amiss. Perhaps it is the way he looked at me, or rather, looked past me. The way the eye contact tries to convince me, but is empty. Maybe it’s the tone of his voice. Or maybe I just instinctively know. I know. I always freakin’ know. Yet I am still trying to believe everything is going to be super-duper.

Josh is coming over for dinner. Pizza with Josh substituting for the man of my dreams. See the pattern beginning?

“Why is David behaving so strangely? I called him three times today and he didn’t call me back. Why isn’t he returning my calls?” I question Josh, who is paying the pizza guy at my apartment. “He’s pulling away. I can feel it.”

“Em, there’s something I need to tell you.” Josh takes a slice of pizza out of the box.

“Please let it be that you’re straight and you want to save me from this dating hell.”

“I am leaving the company to work for MGM as the new vice president of features.”

Great! It’s not David that’s leaving me. It’s Josh. He’s leaving me in the office without a buffer, confidant. I was once a well-liked, well-respected up-and-comer. My boss called me a up-and-comer. I had supporters. Now my only supporter is about to go to MGM.

“NO! Absolutely not. You can’t leave me alone in the office.”

“Congratulations might be nice. This is a great career
move for me. Plus, you very well could be fired by next week and this way I can give you a job.”

I should be happy for him. I shouldn’t make it all about me. But I need him. And
this is
all about me. The slope is getting slipperier.

“You know I love you, Josh, and I am happy that you got a big, bloated job, but my life is falling apart here. Can you help me for one second?”

“Have a drink and a slice, Kitten. It’s all going to be fine.”

Josh hands me a slice and a glass of wine.

After two bottles of wine, Josh tucks me into bed and lies next to me. “Will you stay over? ‘Cause I am having the shittiest day.”

Josh lies down and puts my head on his shoulder. “Oh, how did it go from blissful, perfect dances, perfect forearms, perfect power plan to ‘putter, putter’?”

“Maybe I am overreacting.”

“Sure, Kitten, anything you say,” Josh says, petting my head until I fall asleep.

Tuesday through Friday I do not see David. I stand looking at myself in the mirror of my office. He is NOT dumping me. Relax. Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. David is not dumping me.

I call Grace from the office … get her machine.

I leave a message that goes something like, “David and I were supposed to have dinner twice this week and he canceled. I am going to die. Slowly, but definitely die. Call me. Hurry. It’s getting ugly.”

Two weeks with no David. Three calls, ALL returning my calls, on my home machine, when he knows I am at work. One canceled lunch. Feeling fucked.

Friday-morning meeting. Ten o’clock A.M. Take my normal seat to the right of David, who sits at the head of the table. Play footsie with him. Run my shoe up his pant leg—he kicks me in the shin.

“OW!” Everyone at the conference table looks at me.

On the brighter side, I am not fired, yet, and I hired a nice new assistant from Ohio who now has become my only ally in the office. I had to do something with Josh gone. Thus, I am paying to have a new confidant. She listens to the gossip and reports back to me. She’s loyal, young, and eager.

I am a mentor. A bad, dysfunctional one, but nevertheless, a mentor.

My protégée, JJ, short for Jenny Jacobson, is on the go. She has befriended the other assistants in the office and gotten into the hip pocket of David’s assistant only to discover …

“He has another girlfriend,” JJ says, kind of cringing like a dog about to be hit.

At what point did he start sleeping with another woman? Uggggghhhhhh! Why does the thought of him kissing another woman make me want to hurl myself out of the building? I should want to hurl HIM out of the building.

I throw my head down onto my desk …“Am I unattractive?” I ask. “Really, am I?”

“No, no, you’re very pretty,” she says, trying to make me feel better. “Really.”

“There’s no real hope for the normal ones in L.A. JJ, I think it would be smart if you went back to Ohio now. Before you start to round up to thirty. Who is she?” I ask. “Just the facts. Be gentle.”

I lay with my head on my desk, like a beaten dog, repeating into my headset what I had learned to Reilly.

“A one-hundred-and-five-pound, five-foot-nine—actress—with beautiful brown hair to the middle of her back. A daytime working soap opera goddess.” I try not to shout into the phone.

“No-talent slut,” Reilly says. “She’s not even on prime time.”

“I hate her. I hate him. What am I going to do?”

“Nothing. You’re going to do nothing. Just finish your day with dignity.”

I plot my strategy in the stall of the ladies’ room on the third floor. I will remain calm and professional. I will play hard to get and not return any of David’s calls. If and when he reaches out I will no longer be available to “help” him. I will grow into a powerful, self-reliant executive who is too busy to be bothered by a no-good, scummy boyfriend with a new girlfriend. Damn good strategy. As I sit plotting, I find myself privy to a nasty conversation between the anorexic casting director, Iris, and the VP of marketing, Julie, about some bimbo.

“She’s sleeping her way to the top,” skinny casting VP Iris says.

Poor girl, I think to myself, pulling my legs up so they can’t see me.

“She’s only in her job because she gives great blow jobs,” marketing VP Julie adds.

If I could only find this girl and warn her. There is no sleeping your way to the top, only the bottom. Someone in the stall next to me flushes, and I wish I could go down with the water.

Then as they are leaving, the marketing chick mumbles, “It’s too bad, because I think Emily could have had a great career here.”

Reason #8:
People will talk about how well you perform in bed versus how well you perform your job
.

Tears, hot, salty tears, burst from my eyes and pour down my cheeks.

Reason #9:
Crying at work is unacceptable
.

But I can’t help it. Overwhelmed. Alone. Tossed aside. My work discounted. My love unrequited. What am I going to do? I call for major backup … my mother, Bitsy, short for Elizabeth.

Two hours later I feel slightly better. Moms are great for reinforcement. My mom is particularly good at reminding me that I am perfect and the rest of the world is fucked, that men predominantely let you down, as my father did to her, yet someday I will meet my prince. She is also taking me to St. Croix for Valentine’s Day. Great, only ten months away.

With the girls drinking at Fowz’ … again. “All I know is that half the day I mope around, the other half I want to kill David, the rest I just fantasize that he is going to show up at my door and beg for forgiveness. Then I will forgive him, after torturing him. Really torturing him. It’s official; I have hit the bottom of the slope.”

Reilly nods understanding. “When you start fantasizing about what you’ll say or do when they come crawling back, you’ve hit bottom.”

Grace adds, “He’s never coming back.”

Drunk, laying on the hardwood floor next to Sam at home. Dial David. Hang up. Dial again. No answer.

At work I e-mail David, just a simple “Hello,” and get nothing back. One month of brief smiles in the hallway and all the while I drown myself in martinis with the girls. I am, however, maintaining the appearance of dignity and self-respect so as not to show that I am dying inside.

Grace is leaving to go out of town with some guy named Mark, who apparently went to college with us, but I don’t remember him. Reilly is going on a business trip tomorrow. Josh is superbusy discovering the world of his new job.

I am left with Sam … alone, Friday night, without my protective wall of love and friendship. I pour myself a glass of wine and am reduced to another Friday night of bad TV. Take a deep breath, in, out, in, out, and the phone rings … probably Grace making sure that I haven’t started the drive-bys on David’s house.

HOLY SHIT. It’s DAVID! He called. He wants to meet.

See, it’s all going to be okay. Just like in every movie, they come back. I have faith. He just needed to work his way through a bimbo to come back to the one he is supposed to be power-coupled with. It was one last fling. One last tryst. Right?

I have a sick feeling in my stomach.

I have totally mixed emotions. Here is my chance to tell him that he doesn’t deserve a woman like me. Tell him to piss off. Tell him … to “come on over”? How did that come out of my mouth? Have I gone off the deep end? Why am I letting him come over? Why can’t I say …

“GO FUCK YOURSELF!”

Why do I have no self-preservation when it comes to men?

Bath, shave, hydrating mask, finger- and toenail polish touchup, slather makeup, perfume, blow-dry, mist with Evian, squeeze into 501s and a tight white sweater—with apron—as to appear to be cooking. Wine, dinner, candles, fireplace—all going.

I open the door and we stand there gazing, he holds me in his arms, then he pushes me away.

“We have to talk,” he growls, only now it’s not sexy anymore.

Sitting in my office the next morning, all I can see is David from the night before telling me he was marrying the soap star.