How to Look Happy (4 page)

I quickly minimize my screen and unlock the door with a strange mix of dread, fury, indignation, and residual tequila churning in my stomach. I don’t say anything as I pull the door wide enough to let Jeremy in, and I’m surprised, as I close the door behind him, that he doesn’t lash out at me immediately. I turn to find him already sitting on the sofa, his head of thick, dark curls in his hands.

Feeling shaky, I choose not to sit on the sofa beside him, instead sinking into one of a pair of white Ikea club chairs that flank my dark wood coffee table.

I wait him out, and finally Jeremy lifts his head, pinching the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb and squeezing his eyes shut, something he does when he’s upset. “What the hell was that, Jenny?” he asks in a quiet voice. “Do you have
any
idea what you’ve done to me at work?”

I don’t say anything, and he continues. “If you wanted to get me back, congratulations.”

My eyes have narrowed into slits. When it’s apparent that he’s finished and waiting on me to speak, I answer with a false composure that almost rivals his. In seven years of dating, breaking up, and dating again, the two of us haven’t had many real fights. Passive-aggressiveness has always been more our thing. “Oh, yeah,” I say. “Congratulations to me. My fiancé announces to me and several of my closest friends that he’s in love with another woman,
and
I get to ruin my career over it. It’s my lucky day.”

The timbre of my voice escalates on the last sentence, destroying our manufactured calm.

“You’re blaming this on
me
?” he bellows. “I did not have a damn thing to do with that Facebook situation…fuck-up…whatever you want to call it. What on earth were you thinking?”

I stare at him, shaking my head. “Thinking? I wasn’t
thinking
, Jeremy. I was drunk. Very, very drunk.” I stand up suddenly and begin pacing the room, my head swooning at the sudden rush of blood. I glance over at him. “Did you even read the first part of my status? Did you see that I caught Candace making out with Emory Brewster during
my
presentation appointment? I tried to reach you all night to tell you about it—I left you like ten messages. Little did I know that you were too busy boning your soul mate to bother with my little problems.”

The pent-up frustrations of years of being disappointed by this man come streaming out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I hate that I’m crying in front him, but I know it can’t be helped. It’s probably why I’ve been dragging my feet on shopping for a wedding dress. I think I’ve known all along our wedding wasn’t going to happen.

At that, a picture of my mother flashes into my head. My mother, who’s been so excited to
finally
have a real role in wedding planning. She’s married off all four of my brothers, standing patiently aside and watching the mothers of the brides have all the fun while she scrounges together the most impressive rehearsal dinners she can afford on my parents’ joint real estate agency income. The thought squeezes my heart in a whole new wave of torment. My mom not only inspired my love of houses, she’s also the source of all of my creative and artistic genes. My dad has a head for business, a dry humor, and the drawing skills of a second grader with ADHD.

The reminder of his indiscretions softens Jeremy’s temper somewhat. “I wasn’t boning my—” He stops, pinches his nose again, and looks away from me, toward the dining room. “I am sorry I dumped that on you when you’d already had a bad day. I should have picked my moment better.”

I give him an exasperated look and swipe at my cheeks with the back of my hand. “There’s not a good moment for that, Jerm,” I spit out. “Seven years we’ve been together. Seven years I’ve wasted on somebody who’s scared to death of commitment and who
lies
to me and says he’s ‘working late’ when really he’s out with someone else.” I make quotation marks in the air with my fingers and then, running out of steam, plop down on the big square ottoman in front of my fireplace. My head feels like an elephant is sitting on it, and I bury my face in my hands. Through my fingers, I mutter, “I am such a cliché.”

He laughs—a real, non-sarcastic chuckle—surprising me. I lift my throbbing head to stare at him.

“You’re not a cliché, Jen. Hardly,” he says. “Seven years and I still haven’t figured out the first damn thing about you.”

I turn that over in my brain as he continues. “You and I both know this was never going to work,” he says. “We were complacent, but we weren’t happy.”

His words hang in the air like a wilting balloon.

“That’s no excuse for cheating on me,” I say after a long pause, fighting back a new round of tears and wondering if he’d cheated on me before or if this was the first time.

“And all of this”—he gestures between himself and me, I guess indicating our argument—“is no excuse for you sabotaging me on Facebook. Brianna is my employee. I could get fired for being with her, and now everybody’s going to know about it.”

I glare at him, incredulous. “It’s all about you, is it? In case you didn’t notice, I sabotaged
myself
on Facebook. And I do not remember doing it. So don’t think this was some big revenge plot. Besides, I’m not even Facebook friends with people at your office. I don’t see how they’d know about it.” I pause again, and neither of us says anything for at least a minute.

Abruptly he stands, and I glance up at him, surprised. His eyes are focused on my lap, and my eyes follow his back down to my hands, which are clasped tightly together above my knees.
He’s looking for the ring.
My stomach lurches with panic when I realize I’m not wearing it, and then I have a sudden flash of memory—at some point after getting home last night, I threw it across my bedroom. I frown, and when I look back up his expression mirrors mine.

“I think it’s best if I leave,” he says in a stony voice. “I have to get to work anyway, and I am
not
looking forward to it.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” I say, looking him square in the eyes and rising too. Feeling numb, I walk over to the door and yank it open. He stands and stares at me for several seconds, looking like he wants to say something, but then he walks past me and through the doorway without another word.

I slam it with a little extra force behind his retreating form, and then I stomp back over to the desk and wake up the laptop screen, cringing as I check to see who else is witness to the virtual wreckage of my life.

Passive Aggression

Friday morning, I enter the front door of Greenlee Designs with my chin jutted forward and my head held high. I can feel the eyes of every person in the studio boring into me as I deposit my bag into the lower left drawer of my desk and flip open my laptop.

Once I’ve logged in to my computer, I lift my head to see Ellie Kate watching me with pursed lips, her eyes filled with sympathy. Beyond her, Quinn’s expression is one of barely suppressed glee. Rachael doesn’t appear to be here yet. Carson is on the phone and thumbing through a catalog. Brice, Candace’s assistant and our design librarian, is busy shelving fabrics samples and isn’t paying any attention to me. A normal morning at the office. I sigh in relief, thinking maybe my Facebook post wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe Candace didn’t even hear about it.

I see no sign of Candace in the building. She’s the only person at the firm with her own office—a big, rectangular space with the only window in the studio apart from the floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows on the building’s front façade. Our firm is on South Main Street, a quaint, retro-looking downtown street with 1920s-style storefronts and trolley tracks running its length. The building, a former cotton warehouse, was converted in the early 2000s into commercial space at street level with condos above, and Greenlee Designs is tucked in beside a clothing boutique and a small, independent record studio. Candace tricked out our offices with sleek, mid-century modern furniture that mixes well with the exposed brick walls and original hardwood floors.

As I’m looking toward her office, Candace suddenly appears in its doorway. She has a slight frown on her face, and before I can look away, she turns on her heel and walks back into her office, as if she’s forgotten something. I glance at Ellie Kate, who shrugs.

I pull up my schedule and then open my file for the bakery project I’m working on. It’s the third location for a local chain, and it’s the most fun project I have going right now. The owner, Chick Emerson, has loads of personality and a new hair color almost every week. The shop is in an old, converted Midtown house, and we’re using a palette of frosting-hued pastels, including wood floors painted in a diagonal mint-green-and-white check. I have a meeting with Chick this afternoon to discuss lighting options. I’m immersed in my work, so I don’t notice Candace emerge from her office again until she’s standing beside my desk.

“Jen, darling,”—Candace calls everyone
darling
—“you might want to think about using a higher SPF. Too much sun wreaks havoc on the complexion.” She studies me coolly for a few seconds as I bristle inwardly. These “helpful” insults of hers make my blood boil, but at least she’s speaking to me.
Maybe everything will just go back to normal.
My brow furrows as I try to decide whether this is a good or a bad thing.

As she continues to stand there, that hope begins to fade. Finally she says, “I’d like to talk to you about the Brewster project. Do you have a few minutes to come into my office?”

I swallow before answering, my mouth dry as sawdust. “Sure,” I say in a flat voice. I stand halfway and take a few seconds to click send on the email I’d been typing before trailing her to the back corner of the studio. My heart is beating rapidly, and this time I can feel the eyes of everybody in the office following me as I approach Candace’s door. I glance back and see Brice frozen in place, a lampshade in his hands. I wish I’d had a chance to gauge my coworkers’ take on the Emory Brewster and Facebook situations before facing Candace directly. I shouldn’t have called in sick yesterday.

I shouldn’t have done a lot of things I’ve done in the last two days.

I’m about to get fired. I’m about to get fired. Please don’t fire me.

My mouth is still dry as I step around the door frame into Candace’s office. She gestures for me to close the door, and as I reach back to do it I see Quinn and Carson deep in conversation and Ellie Kate biting her lip and bending over her desk. I shut the door with a loud click.

Candace doesn’t speak until I’ve crossed the room and am standing beside one of her two white leather Barcelona guest chairs.

She gestures toward them. “Sit, please.”

I don’t want to, but I comply.

She opens her mouth to speak and seems to choose her words carefully. “I…took some preliminary notes on Emory’s thoughts about the choices we presented him on Wednesday.” (
We
didn’t present him anything, I’m thinking, but feel it wise to keep my mouth shut.) “I think we should bring in Douglass to get an estimate on reconfiguring those bookshelves on the west wall, and I think a more modern line in the draperies will make the space less heavy.” She pauses. “I’d like you to contact Drummond’s and run some scenarios through for price estimates. And I’ll need you to get some new measurements on those east windows. Also, I’ve picked out a few options for re-covering the existing sofa and replacing the case pieces. Please call the Donghia rep and see if these fabrics are in stock.”

She hands me a thin manila file folder as I stare at her in numb silence.
She’s taking over my project?
She’s completely taking over my project, no discussion, no apologies for what I walked in on Wednesday night.

Not that I expect—or deserve—an apology after my Facebook post. Any leverage I’d gained from catching her cheating on her third husband with my client went out the window when I exposed said cheating on my Facebook wall. I open and close my mouth convulsively and then manage a minuscule nod.

“I—” I think about protesting, but I’m not sure what to say. This is Candace Greenlee, my boss and one of the city’s most respected designers—and someone who has the power to make or break my career. It doesn’t matter that I brought in nearly $800,000 in revenues last year. It doesn’t matter that my coworkers think I’m in line for an eventual partnership. It doesn’t even matter that Brewster wanted to hire
me
, not her.

“I…okay,” I stutter, wondering why she’s asking me to make these calls and not Brice.

“Can you also print that cocktail table and console for the file?”

She’s treating me like an assistant, I realize, and I stare at her dumbly for a moment as that sinks in. Not only is she lifting my project from me without so much as batting an eyelash, she’s forcing me to do her dirty work. These things she’s asking me to do, they’re not my job.

It hits me like a moving van loaded with Emory Brewster’s designer castoff furniture.
She knows about the Facebook status.
She knows, and this is her way of letting me know she knows.

She’s not going to fire me, but Candace Greenlee is going to make my work life a living hell.

*  *  *

That night I’m sitting in Carrie’s living room, sipping at a cup of green tea as she nurses a beer. It might be a while before I have the stomach for alcohol.

“What if you just call Brewster yourself, and pretend like nothing ever happened?” Carrie says.

“You mean finish the presentation I intended to give two days ago?” I ask, and she nods. “I’ve thought about that, but Candace has already ordered a new sofa fabric and gotten him to sign off on her plans. It’s nothing like my original design. If I go in and confuse the issue, we might lose his business altogether.”

“Not if he’s hittin’ it with Candace,” David speaks up, and I glower at him.

“Helpful.” I sigh, long and loud. “I’m just going to focus on my other projects for now. I’ve got plenty of work on my plate. I’ll figure out how to nudge my way back in to Brewster’s account eventually. And I’ll land a project and a client that’s even better than Brewster.”

“There you go,” Carrie says. “That’s a good attitude.” She pauses. “Why do you think she didn’t just fire you, if she’s so clearly pissed about the Facebook post?”

I stand and pace the room as I answer her. I’ve thought about little else all afternoon. “Candace is all about appearances,” I say. “If she fires me for the post, it’s like an admission of guilt. If she keeps me on, though, she can play it off. Like, surely she wouldn’t keep working with me if I ratted her out for cheating with my client? And by taking over Brewster’s account, it gives my little ‘joke’ of a post even less credibility. All she has to do is act like he was never my client in the first place.”

“That makes sense, I guess. Puts you in a bit of a hard place though.”

I snort. “You think?” I sink back onto Carrie’s slipcovered sofa after snagging a cookie from a plate on the coffee table. In the six years I’ve known Carrie, I’ve only been here a couple of times when there wasn’t the smell of something fresh baked emanating from her kitchen. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Have you heard any more from Jeremy?” she asks to change the subject, and I frown.

“Yeah, he texted earlier. I told him to come by and get his stuff this weekend.”

I’ve been collecting Jeremy’s things from around my house for the past two days, to burn off nervous energy. After seven years together, this isn’t easy to do. There are touches of him in every room—his running clothes in my laundry hamper, his spare suits in my closet, his magazines on my kitchen counter, his toothbrush, hairbrush, and sinus pills in my medicine cabinet. Even Simon, who’s technically
his
dog. Since he works long hours and travels a lot, Jeremy started leaving Simon at my place during the week several years ago. Now Simon lives with me most of the time.

I’m not sure what to do about that, honestly. I love Simon. He feels like my dog now. I wonder idly if I have any legal claim over him.

There’s much less of my stuff at Jeremy’s place, and what’s there I’m not all that concerned about. We’ve never spent much time at his condo… To me it feels cold, too slick, and he hasn’t let me put my spin on it no matter how many times I’ve offered or tried. My design input is seen in precisely two items—his metal Navy barstools and the striped, grommet curtains I hung to frame the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He wouldn’t let me touch the bedroom—I think his exact words were, “I don’t want you putting a million pillows on the bed that I have to throw off every night. You’ve got your own house for that froufrou stuff. This is a man’s room.”

The comments induced an eye roll from me at the time, but now I wonder how I didn’t see them as a giant red flag. And I was planning to share my life with this man? He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “share.”

I shake my head and take a huge bite of oatmeal raisin gooey goodness. “Mmm, Carr. These are amazing. I think you’ve outdone yourself.”

David leans forward and grabs another cookie from the plate.

“Aren’t they? Maybe you can design Carr’s bakery one of these days.”

She smiles and leans over to kiss him on the cheek. “And you’ll lend your restaurant expertise to help me get it off the ground.”

I raise an eyebrow, smiling at their sweet interaction and trying not to feel jealous. Why didn’t I ever see how real this was or at least how false what Jeremy and I had was in comparison? Carrie and David are deep on a level Jerm and I never even saw, let alone touched.

“Sounds like you have this all planned out,” I say, staring at her curiously and feeling another little pinprick of jealousy that David knows this, and I don’t. I feel ashamed of myself for the thought. “But you love your job.”

“I’m not saying I’m going to do this next week,” Carrie says. “But a girl can dream.”

That night, as I’m getting into bed and contemplating a weekend ahead of me with no plans and no boyfriend—my first weekend without wedding planning to do, something I’m trying not to dwell on too much, especially since I still have to tell my parents (unless they saw it on Facebook)—Carrie’s words replay themselves in my head again and again.

“A girl can dream.”