Fairy Tale Fail (8 page)

I knew you could do it.
-Don

It figured that the first
time he would deliberately talk to me was about something I didn't
even plan to do. I didn't reply to him, and instead went back to
work. And I felt
great.

***

One indication that work had
started
not
feeling like work was when I would look at the time and not
even realize that hours had gone by. Today was one of those days.
Our office had a yearly Regional Executive Committee Meeting coming
up, and certain department heads were required to attend. My boss
Herman was definitely going, as well as three other people from our
team, so he asked me to coordinate travel arrangements for
everyone.

This meeting was a big deal. If you
were there, you would meet the big shots of the firm not just from
Manila but the other Asian offices, and only people of a certain
rank were invited. Herman told me that he had a shortlist in mind
from our team already, and that I should coordinate with the
conference's secretariat about hotel and flight arrangements for
two men and two women for four days and three nights. Plus, it was
going to be hosted in Bangkok so I went over the program and the
social event schedule like I was looking through a Lonely Planet
book. It didn't feel like work at all.

When I last checked the time, it was
just after one PM. And then I heard Lucas knock on my desk, and
suddenly it was three forty-five.

"Huh?" I said, disoriented for about a
second.

It was a Friday, casual
day, and on his shirt was a robot with a
sumbrero
on its head. His tattoo was
a bit more visible, and for the first time I noticed that it looked
like a Chinese character, but not quite.

"You feel like celebrating?" Lucas
said, leaning against the wall of my cubicle, which went up to his
waist. "Have dinner with me tonight?"

Celebrating? I assumed he meant the
promotion. Last time I checked my email I waded through half a
dozen invites for dinner and drinks to celebrate, but didn't reply
to any of them. So technically, I had no plans tonight.

"Sure," I said. "Where?"

"My friend's birthday at this bar in
Greenbelt. I think he'll pay for the first two drinks."

"Is there a dress code?" I said,
pointing to his shirt. "I'm sorry but I didn't wear a cute robot
shirt today."

"I'm sure they'll let you in," he
grinned.

"Okay then," I said. I may
have become friendly with Rock Star but that didn't diminish the
cool factor of
Rock Star asking me out to
dinner.

Five minutes later, my
worlds collided. Three-fifty PM was when Don used to drop by and
invite me to coffee. I looked forward to that particular
minute
each day, and
didn't realize until this moment – when he actually did show up
again – that it stopped being a big deal. It became just like any
other minute to me.

He sauntered over to the same cubicle
wall that Lucas was leaning on and awkwardly looked at us both.
"Hi, Ellie," he said.

Lucas stopped talking and I could see
a hint of evil in his tiny smile. "Don," he said, shaking the guy's
hand, "It's been a while."

Don's eyes darted from him to me.
"Yeah, Lucas."

I never had the chance to see the two
of them together, and I couldn't help but make notes. Don was
taller. Lucas was, if I had to be honest, more good-looking, but he
had admirers all over the office so we knew that already. Don had a
bigger, more muscular bod, but Lucas looked lean and athletic.
Lucas was older by maybe three years, and it seemed to translate as
being more comfortable in his own skin.

I blinked and looked
pointedly at Lucas, who was
not
leaving. "Hi, Don," I said slowly. "What's
up?"

"Did you get my email?" Don didn't
expect to have an audience while saying this, and looked slightly
annoyed.

"Um, yeah." And I quickly looked at my
monitor to check. "Yeah, I did. Thanks. Sorry I wasn't able to
reply, was really busy today."

"Oh, okay." He paused, looked at
Lucas, who was politely there but not budging from his spot. "Do
you have plans tonight? I wanted to ask you about your
promotion."

"Tonight?"

Truthfully, my instinct was to say
yes. It didn't matter that I had made other plans just moments ago.
I didn't know that Don was going to come over at three-fifty, like
I was part of his day again, and ask me to dinner. I had been
waiting for something like this to happen in over a year, and it
was here. If Lucas hadn't been standing there I would have said yes
to Don and canceled on Lucas with the most fervent of
apologies.

But Lucas was there, and I was sure he
knew that I suddenly wanted to have dinner with Don
instead.

"We're having dinner," he said to Don,
oh so casually.

I was sheepish. "Yeah, we are. How
about next week?"

This was confusing my
ex-boyfriend, and I didn't know how to correct it without making me
or Lucas look like a jackass, so I didn't explain
why
we were having
dinner.

"Sure, next week is fine. I'm going to
the Regional ExCom in Bangkok so I'll probably be busy on the
weekdays. How about Friday? Let's eat someplace nice."

"Yes, Friday. Sounds good."

Don took it like a man and nodded,
knocking his knuckles on my cubicle wall before he left. I gave him
a flimsy wave goodbye.

"What was that about?" I hissed to
Lucas. "Don was about to talk to me."

"You're seeing him next
week," Lucas pointed out. "He's
still
going to talk to
you."

"Yeah, well, not if you scare him
off."

He smiled at me and I saw the hint of
evil again, and yeah, he knew exactly what he was doing. But then
he switched gears and said, surprised, "You got
promoted?"

"It was in the memo this
morning!"

"Those things are too long. But
congrats. See? My timing was perfect."

I rolled my eyes. "What did you come
to me to celebrate then if you didn't know?"

"Merit increase? I
read
that
part."
He was unaffected by all of this, amused even. "Friday night? Do I
need a reason?"

"You see what I gave up
for
no reason
?" I
balled up a used Post-It and threw it at him. "I've been waiting
for that for over a year! What if he misses me and still loves
me?"

I was only half joking.

"Then he can wait a few more days.
I'll see you later."

***

Lucas had just parked, and as I was
disengaging my seat belt he touched my hand as if to put me on
pause.

"Okay, wait," Lucas said. "Some of the
people there, I haven't seen in a while."

"And?"

"Because they're Patty's friends.
Well, not all, but some."

"Is
she
going to be there?"

"'I'm not sure."

Ah. I could see where this
was going. "So I gave up my long-awaited dinner with Don so I could
be your
prop
?"

"Settle down one second. Let's get
something straight here." Lucas unbuckled his own seat belt and
turned to face me. "I haven't seen them in a long time because I
knew Patty would be where they were, and I didn't want to see
Patty, so I avoided all of them."

I nodded.

"Well, now I know that I don't care
about that anymore. I'm done with it. And I thought you of all
people would understand how I feel and back me up a
bit."

"Of course," I said
immediately.

"Plus they'd give me less shit about
everything if I brought someone. Are you okay with
that?"

"What exactly do you need me to
do?"

He looked in the general direction of
Greenbelt with some hesitation, and then he exhaled. "Ellie, you
don't look at me like I'm someone you feel sorry for. Just keep
doing that."

I did get it. That look was a special
kind of pity that even my closest friends gave me. Friends of those
who've had their hearts broken want them to recover, but they want
it to happen right away, as if we could help it. As if we could
just glue ourselves back together. I could tell when they started
getting impatient, and yeah, that look was hard to see and be
around.

"So I get to be the cool one tonight,
and you're the pathetic one?" I teased. "Do we have to hold hands
and stuff? Would that convince your friends to leave you
alone?"

Lucas laughed, but I detected some
relief there. "Do you just imagine all the time that your life is a
romance story? I really did just invite my new friend Ellie to
dinner, because she's smart and likes traveling and is very into
pop culture and might fit in with my friends. All you have to do is
eat and enjoy yourself." He unlocked the doors and started to get
out of the car. "But if you feel like you need an excuse to take
advantage of me, just say so, I'm sure we can think of
something."

And then he slammed his car door shut
before I could protest. I caught up with him and instead followed
up with a solid (but harmless) thwack on the back of his
neck.

Chapter 12

It was almost like traveling, but the
food was free, and I didn't have to ride a plane.

Everyone at Lucas' friend
Mark's party was half a foot taller, years older, and leagues
cooler than me. Seriously.
Every single
person.

In a way, it explained why he seemed
oblivious to the adoration the office people had for him. In this
crowd he was almost ordinary. First of all, they were all thirty
and older. At twenty-nine, Lucas was already one of the youngest,
an idea that I found strange and disorienting at first.

I didn't know anyone there, except for
Sandra, and I realized that I didn't have to pretend to be cool. I
entered that bar and got a feeling strangely similar to landing at
a new airport – this was a fresh start. Every single person there
was a fresh start to me.

And suddenly that put me at
ease.

As Lucas showed me around
and introduced me to one group of strangers after another, I
actually felt good about myself. It was easy when they welcomed him
so warmly – they really did miss him, I could tell. Normally I
would have been shy and insecure, being young and unaccomplished in
the face of the lawyer, the doctor, the grad student, the
entrepreneur, but I didn't care. They were
his
friends, not mine, and they would
only find out my weaknesses if I told them.

"So how long have you known Lucas?"
was the favorite question of the night. After saying "a few months"
several times. We got bored with it.

"She was my
childhood
yaya
,"
Lucas said to George, the doctor.

"I met him at the MRT station
yesterday," I told Annie, the grad student.

"I met her in church," Lucas said to
Sheila, the lawyer, perfectly deadpan.

She was the only one who called him on
it. "Liar. You don't go to church!"

He was great at this, and I
bet he didn't even need me.
By the second
hour I was feeling comfortable enough to stay afloat even as Lucas
was taken aside by a bunch of people who wanted to catch up with
him. Birthday boy Mark and his wife Lisa immediately headed toward
me when Lucas left my side.

"You're not really his secretary,
right?" Lisa said, eyeing me curiously.

"I'm not," I said, laughing. "But we
work together."

"But really, how long have you known
each other?"

"We've been working together for
years, but I only really started hanging out with him recently. But
everyone has been asking me that."

"Well, we're all just concerned for
our boy," Mark said, lowering his voice a bit. "We just want to see
him happy."

Somehow it didn't appear to me that
Lucas was unhappy. Sure, he had been hurt, but he looked like he
had his life under control. Really, people should leave us
brokenhearted folk alone and stop trying to fix us. We healed on
our own time.

"And frankly, we're relieved to see
him with someone like you," Lisa added.

"Um, what does that mean?" I wondered
what kind of girls then Lucas said he went out with, the ones who
didn't last.

"You said you wouldn't be judgmental,"
Mark teased his wife.

"I'm sorry!" she said,
rolling her eyes. "But we've known Lucas a while. We know what he's
like. He got really burned by Patty and started dating girls who
were
different
. It
was like he got so screwed up that he thought maybe he should just
date the opposite of Patty. Ugh, I knew those wouldn't last from
the first time I met them."