On the Verge (13 page)

“Okay. Let’s look for droppings.” Roseanne’s new pre-Letterman pastime is the rodent patrol. She forces me to look around the kitchen on my hands and knees for curious particles that may or may not be rat dung. I find nothing, but she insists that a piece of dirt is a dropping. I try to reassure her, but it doesn’t work. Luckily it’s 11:35 and I can coax her over to the television. She sighs, sitting on the couch. She isn’t quite ready to give up on the rat thing, but Letterman lulls her into a calm. I make my escape right before the first commercial break. Before I fall asleep, I note that she stomps into the kitchen twice and flings the light on. I will not be roused and brought into this war.

At about 3:30 a.m. the phone rings. I scramble to get it, disoriented. It’s a drunk Tabitha. “I hope you’re happy.”

“Oh, Tabitha, what is it? It’s late.” My heart is beating so fast. I think I was dreaming Adrian was a samurai.

“I went out with Johann. I had to eat lots of gross German food, but some good wine. He doesn’t know of any jobs, but he’ll take Roseanne’s résumé.”

“Great, Tabitha, thanks.” I think I might fall asleep on the phone. I’m not even going to tell her about Roseanne’s job. I’ll save that reprimand for tomorrow. “I’m going back to sleep now.”

“Well, he definitely lost some hair since we last went out, but he still wears leopard bikinis.” Of course.

“Well, Tabitha, at least it wasn’t a complete bust—you got a November notch on your hooking-up post.”

“My heart belongs to Jaques.” I’m really going back to bed. I cannot deal with another lament about the Frenchman. “Besides, I’m not sure if Johann counts, since we already hooked up last March. Of course I had also hooked up with Romolo in March. Can the same guy count for two months? Can I hold over a guy if there’s more than one in a month?”

“Tabitha, the regulations are definitely something we can discuss tomorrow.”

“Yeah, okay, good night.”

As usual the days seem to fly by and drag at the same time. For a while, I can’t help feeling that I have all of this time. My nights seem so full. I let Roseanne drag me to a couple of step classes and I try to run each night on the treadmill for fifteen minutes. I’m a baby about exercise. I hate it. Roseanne keeps telling me about the hard New York bodies she sees and she’s got a point, but I just can’t get into going to the sweaty, yucky gym. Tabitha laughs at me in the mornings when I tell her how much pain I’m in. She says she would go to a spa if she cared about “that stuff.”

“Well, not everyone has your trust fund, Tabitha.” As usual, she ignores any talk of money.

On Friday, I decide to blow off the whole gym thing and go out with Adam and Joe from marketing for some drinks. I try to coax both Tabitha and Roseanne to come out. Neither is very compliant.

“Thanks to you, I’m going out with Johann. He’s taking me to some ridiculously expensive hot spot that has yet to find its way into our illustrious mag. I want to get while the getting’s good.”

“As I’m confident you will.”

“Well, I was certain you’d be raquetballing or something tonight.”

“Touché. I can’t go to the gym. I draw my line at the weekend.”

“Okay fine, give me a call tomorrow.” I sigh. “Well, if you must leave me a voice mail tonight. If you go somewhere good.”

Roseanne is dissing, too. She is compelled to work out, even on this most sacred night of the week. Of course Friday means
nothing to her now, but give her a week of working and I know she will abandon this fervor.

“Roseanne, it’s Friday night. Can’t you just exercise now and get it over with?”

“Eve, until I am making money, I don’t want to be spending money.”

“Never mind the small fortune we spent on the gym. I’ll buy you a drink.”

“That’s only going to last so long, Eve, but I do appreciate it. Really.”

“Roseanne, come on, there’s going to be boys there. Don’t you want some loving?”

“I’ll pass thanks. Speaking of loving, I looked up Pete Twist today.”

“Shit! What’s his story?” Pete’s a guy who used to live on our dorm floor. Roseanne had the biggest crush on him. He’s real quiet. We were both better friends with Todd, his roommate, whom I suspect had a huge crush on me.

“You know he’s in New York, right?”

“No, how did you know?”

“Todd told me. Pete is bartending and trying to be an actor.” I can’t believe Todd called her and he never calls me. “He’s on the Lower East Side.”

“Cool. Are we going to see him?”

“I’m meeting him for a drink tonight after the gym.” Now it all makes sense. I can tell that means she doesn’t want me to come.

“What’s Todd up to?”

“He’s doing well. He still works for the same clothes company in Atlanta. He travels around a lot—to India mostly, sometimes Hong Kong. He actually checks the factories.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“I’ve had a lot of time on my hands.”

“You didn’t tell me. Did he ask about me?”

“In a roundabout way. I told him to give up his infatuation with you for once and for all.”

“Really, c’mon!”

“No, relax, I’m sure he’s in love with you, the same as ever.” I know it’s wrong, but it’s nice to think that someone out there likes you, especially if you aren’t hot for them. It means that somewhere out there you have an advantage over someone.

I only wanted to have one drink with Adam and Joe, because I think it’s wrong to get drunk with your co-workers or date them.
Of course I wind up loopy sitting between them in the back of a cab heading to a going-away party for one of their friends in finance. I am leaning a little too close to Joe, a sexy Latino whom I am super attracted to, while Adam tries to take my hand. I can’t feel my nose.

“It’s cool hanging out, being one of the guys.”

“Eve, you’re too pretty to be one of the guys,” Joe says, throwing his arm around me. I will not hook up with him. We work together. I won’t. I borrow his phone to call in Tabitha for backup.

She shows up at the farewell party. Her date was a bust, and she’s almost as drunk as I am. We have no idea who the party is for and we spend the night telling everyone bon voyage. The boys laugh at us and dance with us and I might almost kiss Joe at one point, but it’s all kind of a haze.

Finally, the DJ tells us it’s the last dance. Tabitha and I bid good-night to the boys. We all kiss. I start laughing and saying “the New York Kiss” over and over. I get the “pity the drunk girl” look from everyone, which makes me laugh even more. I have to pee—it was definitely a bad idea to drink so much with work people. Tabitha says she wants to stop at Krispy Kreme before we go home. It’s open late tonight.

“Shit,” I say to Tabitha in the cab, “you know I meant to tell them about my story this week, but I never got the nerve up to do it. We should start our own magazine. We could self-publish, we could do it for people like us. That would be cool, but it would take a while. I guess in the meantime, I should try to make the best of this. I guess I’ll talk to them about it next week. Always, another week. But seriously, Tabitha, maybe we should think about that magazine. It could be awesome. I don’t want pipe dreams.” I look over at her in the cab, but she has already fallen asleep. Although, we’re only ten blocks to my place, I have the taxi driver go up the F.D.R. and drop her off at her place first.

No Krispy Kreme tonight.

I get home just as Roseanne does. She is fiddling with the keys in the front door. I realize that she is totally smashed, so for safety’s sake I tell her sleep in my bed and I’ll sleep in the cranny (I can’t have her falling off her sleep loft). She holds on to the walls in the apartment and asks me to come in so we can replay the evening’s events with her. She really just wants to know if I think she shouldn’t have “New York Kissed” Pete.

“His lips were really soft, just like his voice.” Whatever. She has her eyes closed and her face is kind of scrunched. I hope she
is going to be okay. “Eve, will you put the trash can near the bed?”

When I come back with the pail from the bathroom, she is already out. I roll her onto her side. I promise myself when I shut the light off for bed that I will talk to Herb about my article this week.

It takes me until Wednesday to get the courage up to e-mail Herb about having a talk.

I spell check the e-mail at least four times. I hesitate. I get it out at the end of the day.

His reply is waiting for me when I get in on Thursday.

So I am sitting in his office, which smells of incense, and he is nodding. I tell him about how much I think I have to contribute to the magazine and how important it is to have different voices represented (without implying that all of the writers on the magazine are too much like him).

“You see, this article—” I point to the copy of my story about the surgeon who turns to biking “—is totally fabricated, but it’s an example of my work. I have a degree in journalism and I wrote quite a few stories when I was an editor for our college paper. I put a few in this folder for you to read.”

I can’t really gauge Herb’s reaction. In meetings he says the first thing that comes to his mind, but now he is not saying a word. I am wondering if I have something in my teeth.

“Well, Eve, I really can appreciate your interest in writing.” This sounds like the beginning of a rejection letter. “Right now, we just hired Lacey. Hopefully, she will help with the workload.” He stops. Maybe he’s waiting for me to tell him that Lacey has no idea that you can use paper to write, too. I stare at him. I am not going to speak.

“So what does that mean for me?” Damn! I suck. I can never stick to my guns.

“I’m not sure. You’ve been here for how long?”

“Almost nine months. Long enough to have a baby.” I have
no idea where that came from, even though, yes, I said it. He thinks I’m an asshole. There is no doubt.

“Maybe it’s time we gave you a raise.” A raise? That’s great, what about writing? Shit.

“Well, that’s great, but what about the writing?” I will stand firm. I will not falter. I am roaring. He sits back again in his chair. His silences are killing me.

“Well, we usually don’t do this, because frankly, our writing is so important to us. I guess if you wanted, if you weren’t too busy with…your other…stuff, you could attend the Feed Meet every now and then. We could see how that works.”

“Great, that would be great.” Oh, boy, invite me to the meeting. Even the fucking intern, Brian, gets to go to the Feed Meet. Whatever. “And will you read my stories?”

“I’ll try. Sometimes I get a little crazed.” He smiles at me.

“Well, thanks, Herb—” I then remind him “—and thanks for the raise.”

“You’re welcome.” He believes he is doing me a favor. “And it’s every Wednesday at—”

“One. Yeah, I know.” He looks surprised, as if the Feed Meet was a national secret. “It’s in your schedule.”

“Oh, right.”

Fast forward to Bloomingdale’s, two hours later. Tabitha and I are, as usual, shopping in the underwear section.

“I mean, he doesn’t even realize I keep his schedule and when he finds a new appointment, a meeting, it’s because I put it there. Can you believe it?”

“Yes. I’m telling you the Big C has no idea how I make her life work. Right down to how many tomatoes are on her whole-grain sandwich. They know my order at the deli! It’s ridiculous. I’m telling you, Eve, I can do about six more months tops as an admin, then I swear I never want to answer another phone again. What do you think of these?” She is holding up a pair of cream-colored lace panties.

“They’re fine, but you have a zillion underwear. I thought you were shopping for going out clothes.”

“You’re right. I saw a top here that I think you’ll like.”

“So what do you think of the Feed Meet?” I’m putting on this retro dress with a low cut bodice, and calling to Tabitha, who is in the next dressing room trying on another pair of black pants.

“I think it’s cool that he let you in on his secret society, although, I know it’s probably going to be more of the same shit
you get at your staff meeting. Now, there’s pressure to perform. Let me see that dress.”

“No, Tabitha, it’s too tight. What do you mean, pressure?”

“Let me see it. I’m coming over. Pressure because you talked to him—I’m opening the door—about writing. Give him a story. Eve, that looks so good on you. You must, must get it. How are these pants?”

“Nice, but you have a zillion pairs of black pants. I guess you’re right about the story. I feel like this just delayed my inertia. Really I can’t get another going out dress, I need everyday clothes. And we have to get back—we’ve been lunching for an hour and a half.” She just shakes her head and I know I’m about to spend too much money on an impractical dress.

“So how much of a raise are you going to get?” We are getting on the elevators. Tabitha is coming to my floor to pick up a sweater that I borrowed. She bought the pants, five pairs of underwear and a strapless bra. I, of course, got the dress.

“I’ll probably make twenty an hour. Every little bit helps to pay for all the shit you make me buy. I don’t even have a bra to wear with this. Let me see the one you just got.” I get it out of her bag, before she can tell me I don’t need a bra with the dress. It’s huge. “Tabitha, you have the biggest boobs. One boob is bigger than my head.” Since we’re alone in the elevator, I put one cup over my head. Tabitha laughs, crouching over like she is trying not to pee and the door opens and I am staring at Robert King and a bunch of good old boys in suits. Robert King smirks at me.

“Oh, hi.” I say stepping back to let everyone on. Shit! If only I worked on this floor. Tabitha grabs her bra off my head and stuffs it back in the bag.

“I think red would be a much better color for you. It would set off your dark hair.” Robert King is smiling down at me.

“Thanks.” I mean, what else can you say to that, especially when half the board of Prescott Nelson is on the elevator?

“Can you get those in the supply room, too?”

“No, this is a special order.”