Forgotten

by Catherine McKenzie

  I hesitate as my mind strays to the things I planned on doing tonight. Eating an entire can of Pringles. Watching Bull Durham for the zillionth time. Falling asleep at 10 P.M. feeling sick to my stomach.

  “I guess we’re going to a party.”

  Stephanie raises her hands toward the roof. “Woop, woop!”

  We arrive at the convention center six hours later. It’s all lit up, and there’s a line of cabs and Lincoln Town Cars disgorging some suspiciously young-looking people dressed in pastels and tuxedos.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Dominic mutters to me, eyeing a couple who look about fourteen.

  “What’s that?” Stephanie says. She looks fresh and pretty in a ballet-slipper-pink satin gown that resembles Marilyn Monroe’s dress in Some Like It Hot.

  “I was just wondering if we were going to get carded,” Dominic says. He’s looking . . . well . . . dashing, really, in a black suit with a light-blue tie and a matching pocket square.

  I shake out the black cocktail dress I bought this afternoon. It cost way too much money, but the shop was about to close and I was desperate. It’s sleeveless with a high neck, a green sash around the waist, and a pleated bell skirt with pockets sewn into the seams. I twisted my hair up and made my eyes smoky to complete the look.

  “Let’s get inside before we freeze,” Dominic says.

  We walk through the crowd. The air is thick with aftershave and the kind of perfume teenage girls think makes them appealing.

  “Is there anyone over thirty here?” I ask.

  “Yes, us,” Stephanie replies.

  “Right, of course.”

  “You could at least try to have a good time, you know.”

  “You’re right. Engaging good-time programming now.”

  Dominic’s eyebrows rise. “Oh God, you’re not a Trekkie, are you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Stephanie walks up to a pretty teenage girl sitting at a card table outside the main ballroom. She pays the entrance fee and returns with a string of bright yellow raffle tickets.

  “What are these for?” I ask.

  “Drinks, of course.”

  Dominic shudders next to me. “I just had the worst case of déjà vu.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. It involved waiting in line for more raffle tickets while my buzz died.”

  “Okay, that’s it!” Stephanie says loudly enough to catch the attention of several other partygoers. “I’ve about had it with the both of you. Nobody else came up with any better ideas for tonight, and it’s not like I forced you to come here.”

  “Well . . . ,” I say.

  “What?”

  “I was forced to come here.”

  Dominic shoves his fist into his mouth.

  “Shit. What’s wrong with you guys?”

  Dominic coughs.

  “What now?” Stephanie asks.

  “My fiancée cheated on me.”

  Stephanie looks annoyed. “Why did you say that?”

  “You asked what was wrong. That’s what’s wrong.”

  “My boyfriend cheated on me,” I say.

  “But not with your best friend.”

  “Yeah, just while I was missing.”

  “Four weeks before my wedding.”

  “With my mortal enemy.”

  “In our bed.”

  I pause. “Okay, you win.”

  “Enough!” Stephanie shouts. She points at Dominic with a stabbing gesture. “You, go use those drink tickets.” She points at me. “You, go find us a table.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  “I. Am. Going. To. The. Bathroom,” she says with as much dignity as she can muster. “Capisce?”

  “Yes,” we say in unison.

  “Good.”

  We disperse on our separate missions. In the ballroom, there are thousands of little white lights on the ceiling and soft panels of pastel fabric covering the walls. Baskets of flowers hang from hooks all around the room, emitting a perennial-garden scent. There’s a series of moving strobe lights at the edge of the stage. Behind them, a thirty-something cover band is doing a great rendition of Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” Large round tables covered in white tablecloths and candles fill the area between the walls and the dance floor. It’s full of pretty young things busting a move.

  I walk along the edge of the room, searching for an empty table. A group of awkward boys are leaning against the wall, gazing at three maybe-eighteen-year-old girls. The girls have that queen-bee confidence, all blond highlights, flipping hair and dresses that are a little too short. These geeky boys don’t stand a chance (even they know that), but they can’t help harboring some small, Sixteen Candles hope that one of the girls will have a soft spot for a boy who might invent the next iPod.

  I move a little closer so I can hear their loud whispers.

  “She’s looked at you twice, Ethan,” says a tall, thin boy-man. His tuxedo hangs loosely on his lanky frame, and his white shirt gapes away from his pencil neck.

  “Are you sure?” Ethan answers. He’s rounder than he should be and in the throes of a bad case of acne.

  “Totally. Look, she just did it again.”

  “Doesn’t she look kind of old?”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of cougars? Don’t be such a 404. Just ask her already.”

  Ethan peels himself off the wall and walks toward me with a shy smile on his face. He’s about my height, and his thick glasses magnify a pair of watery blue eyes.

  Oh shit, they were talking about me. I’m the potential cougar.

  “Hi, my name’s Ethan. Would you like to dance?”

  “Um . . . my, um . . . date was just getting me a drink.”

  A blush creeps up his face. “Oh, sorry.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  I try to give him a never-stop-going-for-it smile, but that’s a lot to convey in a look. As is maybe-you-should-wait-until-college-before-you-ask-another-girl-out.

  “Sorry to bother you, ma’am.”

  He shuffles back to his wall and his friends.

  Dominic joins me with a drink in each hand, something bubbly and pink. “Did you just crush that poor kid?”

  “Me crush him? He called me ma’am. And his friend referred to me as a cougar!”

  “Ouch.”

  “I know. Can you beat him up for me or something?”

  “You want me to beat up a member of the nerd herd?”

  I consider him. “It wouldn’t be your first time, would it?”

  “Now who’s being mean?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  “Why didn’t you dance with him?”

  “Seriously, Dominic? I could be his mom.”

  “I was going to say . . .”

  I whack him on the arm.

  “Hey! Don’t spill the drinks.”

  I take one of the glasses from him and taste it. It’s one part fruity punch and two parts Firewhiskey. It scorches the back of my throat and leaves me feeling short of breath.

  “You want to dance?” Dominic asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Stephanie’s orders.”

  “Well, in that case.”

  We leave our glasses on a table and push our way into the dancing throng. The band finishes a loud guitar song by Nickelback. Then the drummer kicks it up a notch and they launch into a pitch-perfect version of “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

  “Where is Steph, anyway?” I yell over the music.

  “No idea. You going to dance or what?”

  “Just as soon as you do.”

  “Watch out, honey.” Dominic raises his hand above his head, pushing it toward the ceiling, and bites his lower lip with his upper teeth. He swivels his hips in a way that is both geeky and sexy.

  I start laughing. He lowers his hand and beckons me with his index finger. I sashay toward him, letting the music and the drink work their magic. Around us, the kids
are jumping in unison and asking how long they have to sing this song. The floor is vibrating beneath our feet.

  Their energy is infectious. We jump and sing, just as I used to do when I was the right age to be at this kind of event. And like then, I feel happy and young and free. Maybe Stephanie knows what she’s doing, after all.

  The song ends, and the band transitions into Sam Phillips’s “Reflecting Light.” The crowd around us melds seamlessly into couples. Dominic pulls me toward him and slips his hands around my waist. They feel warm through the thin fabric of my dress.

  As I put my arms around his neck, it’s my turn for a case of déjà vu. It’s my senior prom, and I’m wearing a black dress and spinning slowly on the dance floor. Only then it was Bobby Jordan holding me close, and the alcohol on my breath was the Southern Comfort I stole from my mother’s liquor cabinet. Bobby and I had sex in his parents’ basement much later that night (such a cliché, right?), and broke up three weeks after that.

  I lean away from Dominic. “Do you think Stephanie’s trying to teach us a lesson?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know yet, but it feels like something.”

  He leans toward my ear. “Maybe she brought us here to forget. Isn’t that what New Year’s is all about?”

  “I thought it was about remembering. Isn’t that what ‘Auld Lang Syne’ means? All that stuff about old acquaintances.”

  “Maybe, but it shouldn’t be. It should be about starting fresh. Starting over.”

  “Are you going to tell me to ‘imagine the possibilities’ again?”

  “Hey, that was some good advice.”

  We twirl in silence for a moment, my chin resting on his shoulder. The band starts to play a song by Taylor Swift that I never caught the name of.

  “This really is kind of like high school, isn’t it?” Dominic says.

  “Only with alcohol.”

  “Thank God. That really was the only thing missing.”

  I start to laugh. “You must’ve been really popular in high school.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because only someone who was popular in high school could think the only thing missing was alcohol.”

  “Are you saying you weren’t popular in high school?”

  “Are you kidding me? Between the braces and the loud opinions, I was one step above those boys on the wall.”

  He looks down at me. “I can’t imagine it.”

  “Good.”

  He tightens his arms and pulls me close enough to smell his aftershave. Warmth flows through me—a mix of the alcohol, the pretty song, and the solidity of Dominic.

  When I look up again, he’s looking at me with a focused expression. Everything seems to slow down as Dominic lifts his hand and brushes my hair away from my eyes. We pause for a moment, and then we move toward each other. He stops right before his lips touch mine, when they’re close enough for me to feel his breath against my mouth. “You’re vibrating.”

  My mind feels unfocused. “What?”

  “I think your phone is ringing.”

  I reach into the pocket of my dress. My cell phone is jittering about. I take it out and hold it close to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Emma?”

  “Craig?”

  Dominic frowns and drops his arms. A chill spreads through me.

  “Emma, where are you? I can barely hear you.”

  “I’m . . . it’s a long story. Hold on a sec.”

  I raise a finger to let Dominic know I’ll be back in a minute and walk toward one of the side exits. In the quieter corridor, my ears have that loud-music ringing feeling they always have after a concert. My heart’s pounding and yet I feel oddly numb.

  “Emma, are you still there?”

  “I’m here. What do you want, Craig?”

  “It’s New Year’s.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I know. It’s just . . .”

  He goes silent. I can hear a loud jumble of voices, chamber music, and popping champagne corks through the phone. I have that sense of déjà vu again, only this time it’s Craig I’m dancing with and champagne I’ve been drinking.

  Oh no, he isn’t . . . he couldn’t . . .

  “Where are you, Craig?”

  He sighs heavily. “Damn, Emma.”

  And now I know for sure. He’s at our party. The party we always go to on New Year’s at the Turner Hotel, a black-tie event where we eat extravagant food and drink champagne until the world is all bubbly. And at midnight, we watch the ball drop and count down to our first kiss of the year.

  Ten, nine, eight . . .

  “Who are you at the party with?”

  “Emma.”

  “Goodbye, Craig.”

  “Please don’t hang up.”

  “What is it? What do you want to say?”

  “I just . . . I miss you.”

  I can’t believe he has the nerve to call me from our party, with Sophie probably waiting for him in the next room, her lips all moist and kissable. I can almost smell her perfume through the phone.

  “Emma? Are you still there?”

  “No.” I click off my phone, my hand shaking.

  Goddamnit!

  I kick my foot against the wall, then instantly regret it. High-heeled pointy shoes are not the right footwear for kicking concrete.

  The exit door clanks open behind me. It’s Dominic, his face full of an expression I can’t read. Resigned, maybe.

  “I’m sorry about that. I don’t know why he called.”

  “That guy sure has some sense of timing.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Stephanie’s looking for you.”

  I scan his face, trying to figure out what he wants me to say, what I want to say. All I come up with is that neither of us is ready for whatever it was we were about to do out there on the dance floor.

  And it’s this uncertainty that makes me reply, “We’d better get back in there, then.”

  Chapter 14: Back in the Saddle

  The Monday morning after New Year’s has me questioning why I ever wanted any part of my old life back.

  I arrive at the office at eight o’clock on the dot. Under my new knee-length, black wool coat, I’m wearing a crisp white blouse, a navy suit with a flirty pleated skirt, and a pair of knee-high boots made of soft black leather.

  The elevator doors ding open and I walk into the lobby. The quasi-twin receptionists have turned the page on Christmas—there’s not a trace of the tree, lights, or tinsel. It’s January 3 and back to business.

  I ask them if they know where my new office is. They don’t, but apparently Matt wants to see me. With a fluttery stomach, I hang my coat on one of the wood hangers in the visitors’ closet. The last time I hung a coat in here, I was a second-year law student looking for a summer job. I felt nervous and out of place that day too.

  I give the receptionists a bright (fake) smile and walk to Matt’s office. Almost no one is in yet. The air smells faintly of cleaning products, and I can hear the dim hum of the air-filtration system, a white noise that’s strangely calming. The air turns off at 8 P.M., its absence always a sign I’m working too late.

  I pass my old office. Sophie’s in already, sitting with her shoulders square to the corridor as she types away at something with meticulous precision. The perfect fit of her black blazer leaves me feeling dumpy, like I’m wearing last year’s suit. She reaches a manicured hand toward her coffee cup. I jump away from the glass wall and out of view. The longer I avoid her, the better.

  Matt’s sitting at his desk, his sleeves already rolled up to his elbows, deep into a pile of boring-looking documents. The sun rises across the wintry city behind him, reflecting off the tall, shiny buildings.

  I knock gently on his door. He looks up and gives me a welcoming smile. “There you are, Emma.”

  “Here I am.”

&
nbsp; “Come in, come in.”

  I take a seat in the black leather visitor’s chair that’s too low to the ground. Sitting in it always makes me feel ten years old.

  “All rested and settled and ready to get back to work?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Great. I put some files in your office, simple stuff really, but everyone has to start somewhere.” Matt’s face twists into an ironic expression. “Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

  I almost start to laugh. I’ve never seen Matt tongue-tied before.

  “Forget it. I am starting over. No need to pretend otherwise.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  “Where have you parked me?”

  “Yes, um, well, you know we couldn’t ask Sophie to move.”

  “Don’t worry, Matt. I get it. Anywhere will be fine.”

  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll figure out a way to make Sophie pay for all of it. The office, my files, Craig.

  “I thought you’d be best off in the office next to me.”

  My heart skips a beat. “I’m being put in the Ejector?”

  No one who’s ever worked in the office next to Matt has lasted at the firm for more than three months. It’s like being perched on a shiny red Eject button, hence the name.

  He smiles. “Are they still calling it that?”

  I try not to sound panicked. “When I last checked.”

  “You’ll have to give it a new name, then.”

  “Sure. The Phoenix, maybe.” Matt’s phone rings and I stand to leave. “Anyway, I should get to it.”

  He reaches for his phone. “I’ll come check on you later.”

  That sounds nice, right? Only I never needed checking on before.

  I leave Matt’s office, turn left, and walk into the Ejector. My old desk, made of teak and nicked in the left corner (I slammed my stapler against it after getting a particularly bad judgment a few years ago), is nestled against the window. My chocolate leather desk chair is tucked under it. Along the wall to the right of the door is my chaise longue, covered in a taupe chenille fabric that’s just right for a catnap. My law degree and a picture taken with Matt on the day I became a member of the bar are hanging on the wall above it. There’s a shiny new BlackBerry in a box in the middle of my desk. There’s even a tall ficus plant in the corner.

  So, unlike Pedro, TPC didn’t throw my stuff away when they learned I was missing. Someone—Matt, probably, via Nathalie—had it packed away, waiting. And it’s likely that same combo that’s taken the time to make me feel welcome. But even an Extreme Makeover can’t change the fact that I’m starting my career over at thirty-four and three quarters in a career-ending eighty square feet of space.