by Hope Lyda
Why is it that at twenty-six I felt strongly independent and near a finish line of some sort, and now I feel tired, behind schedule, and far from “in the running”? Where was the in-between where you live out your fantasy of being young, vibrant, and on track for fulfilling the American woman dream?
My fellow Emerson High School graduates had three kids and two husbands by now. They probably saw thirty-one as their procreation finish line. The end of a strong showing in the baby-and-life category. Me…I was just hoping for a beginning of some kind. Not the kid thing necessarily, but a different kind of birth. Mine.
While I wasn’t thrilled to be forced to wear nylons and sit upright, I was relieved to be at work. The weekend had been quite emotional. To have projects in front of me and tasks at hand felt controlled and safe. Blaine was back from a weekend trip somewhere and feeling a bit haggard. He kept popping out to ask me questions rather than using the intercom. I think he was watching for Cecilia to get in. He kept adjusting his tie and going to the watercooler.
“I can let you know when she gets here,” I said on his fourth time by my cubicle.
He seemed startled and then looked a bit shamed. “Yes, actually, that’d be helpful.” He smiled sheepishly and took a swig of water. Man, he was adorable. I’m not a woman who fawns over men easily or frequently, but he was so endearing sometimes. Maybe it was because he looked embarrassed just then and didn’t try to cover it up. As he headed back to his office, he said, “Just don’t be obvious about it.”
Funny too.
An email from Rachel came through with a little “ping.” The Pavlov effect kicked in and I clicked on the envelope.
To: Company
From: Rachel for Cecilia
Re: Cecilia’s schedule
It has come to my attention that there has been some confusion about Cecilia’s schedule. She is not slated to return from the Texas situation until later this month. Please route any questions or communications through me. I’m sorry for any inconvenience the earlier lack of information has caused.
“Ping.” Two immediate emails from Blaine came through. He was eager to distribute more memos and to schedule more conference calls with some of Cecilia’s previous clients. This time I walked the short distance to Blaine’s doorway and stood there until he noticed.
“Yes, Libby?”
“I’m glad you figured out just how efficient technology can be,” I said.
He returned in kind. “Amazing stuff, this email, but may I remind you that I won’t always be the new guy to make fun of.”
“I guess I had better enjoy it while I can. Anything else on the docket for Cecilia’s accounts. I mean…our new accounts?”
“About that, Libby. I probably shouldn’t hesitate about this because Ken has given me the go-ahead, but I’d rather we not refer to these folks as anything other than Cecilia’s clients. I’m not clear yet how much she knows. In fact, I was going to feel her out today if she came in. I really hate working on anything that is not on the up-and-up with everyone involved.”
“Cecilia’s accounts. Got it. I appreciate your stand on that.”
“You’re pretty loyal to her, aren’t you?”
I swallowed hard. “What is that called when the kidnapped person becomes supportive of their captor?”
Blaine laughed and looked genuinely relaxed for the first time in a couple weeks.
I surprised myself by saying, “For some reason, I want to protect her.”
He nodded. “I can see that. I don’t blame you. She is good at what she does and has a big reputation in the industry.”
“Oh, I’ll bet.”
“Her competitors do respect her…and fear her a little too. That’s why I really want this transition to be done properly. And once we get these accounts on our shoulders, she’ll have more time to bring in the bigger clients. It’s what she is good at. I’m sure that’s part of Ken’s vision.”
I liked his version of Cecilia’s future, but I thought he was being a bit too optimistic about her fate. I smiled as I realized Blaine had been nervous about Cecilia all this time out of niceness and not corporate pettiness. He was a rare breed.
Rachel walked behind me and whispered in passing, “Code Blue.”
“I will get those letters out for you to sign this afternoon,” I said hurriedly and turned from Blaine’s doorway so that I could follow Rachel to our secret meeting place. When we reached the main floor lobby, she went right and I went left. After turning several corners we reached the night janitor’s closet just seconds apart. I tapped twice on the door and she opened it from the inside.
“How obvious is it that we both liked Harriet the Spy as grade-schoolers?”
“Very,” she said, barely cracking a smile. “Truth is, I haven’t heard from her, Libby. I sent that email around saying she was detained in Texas completely as a cover. I’m really worried about her.”
“You really are worried about her.”
“I just said that.”
“I know. But you are really worried about her. What brought this on?”
“Look, I know she treats me terribly, but this is about more than Cecilia.” Rachel whispered but became impassioned by her line of reasoning. “What are we all striving for in this company? To get promotions. To be respected. To be professional women who have it all…only to have it taken from us because we have passed age fifty? I mean, this is ticking me off a little. What does Blaine have that Cecilia doesn’t?”
“Well, this is a first impression, but integrity, work ethic, scruples…”
“Okay, so he isn’t the bad guy. But you know what I mean about Cecilia. There is just something worth protecting in her.”
Rachel was stating everything I had wanted to express to Blaine minutes before. Yet hearing it from her made me want to play devil’s advocate. “Are you forgetting about ironing the drapes? What about when she had you hem her pants during that conference…you were under that table for two hours before they took a break.”
“I know,” Rachel shook her head with disbelief. “Crazy. But Cecilia is in trouble, and I don’t know what she’s going to do. I’m afraid she’ll respond irrationally. I wish the lunatic would at least check in.”
“She hasn’t called at all?”
“I don’t know how much you should know. You are Blaine’s assistant. I don’t want you to feel obligated or morally bound to tell him.”
“If it sounds like something I would need to divulge, I will stop you.”
“I called the hotel in Dallas to confirm that their wireless Internet service was working.” Rachel looked at me and paused.
“Nothing I need to run and tell Blaine yet. Go on,” I coaxed her from my perch on an upside down gray bucket that featured the poison symbol.
“They said Cecilia never checked in. They had the reservation I booked, but she never showed.”
“But she called me from there when she was tracking you down…”
“She could have called from the center of the universe. We’d never know.”
Something stuck in my head and my thoughts couldn’t quite get around it or through it. “Cecilia mentioned the word ‘center’ during our conversation, and when I questioned what she meant, she rephrased it, saying the hotel had a business center.”
Rachel’s face went pale, which was startling to see on this tan-skinned beauty. “Oh, no. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Well, we both know what Cecilia was up to when she disappeared in the past. It wasn’t for management training or racial sensitivity seminars.”
“Go on,” Rachel encouraged me along. Neither of us wanted to actually say it.
“Rehab.”
Rachel slapped her forehead with her hand, causing her entire head to slam against the door. The clash of body and metal echoed, and we held our breath until we were sure nobody was going to open the door and expose our clandestine conference.
I continued, this time standing to pace back and forth in the conf
ines of our closet. “How long. What is typical?”
Rachel looked upward to count off the past times Cecilia disappeared. “If she goes somewhere for plastic surgery procedures, she usually reappears in four weeks. Her rounds at the Center for Sustenance Over Substance, aka SOS camp, are for three weeks.”
“Okay, so we at least have three weeks.”
“To what?”
“Stall for her. This is no time for her to disappear. She’ll lose her job for sure.”
“I sent that email.” Rachel grabbed a set of rubber gloves and tried them on.
“It was too vague. We need to imply that there is more going on. We need to buy her time and make her look good.”
Rachel looked up from her rubberized, yellow hands. “I cannot negate an entire reign of terror. Don’t set the bar too high.”
“We can make her absence logical rather than suspicious. Build up the Texas story or imply she is working on something of a classified nature.”
“That last part would be true.”
“Exactly. So classified it is downright secretive.” I nodded, pleased with our progress. We could pull this off without having to make up elaborate stories. Nobody would have to know that Cecilia took random vacations whenever she needed to. “Does she really have a drug problem?”
“Back in the sixties and seventies, yes. Now she returns more to stabilize…”
“And harmonize.” I finished the phrase. I had heard Cecilia use this mantra numerous times while berating an employee or a customer service agent. “Remember that week she demanded we all go vegetarian during her detox food purge…”
Rachel’s eyes lit up and she finished the story, “And then one day after lunch we found her in the men’s room with Philip in a headlock, and she was yelling, ‘You reek of leg of lamb, you traitor.’”
“Good times.”
Only Rachel could understand this twisted sentiment. “It ain’t over till the mean lady swings. These industrial cleaners are going straight to my head. Give me a ten-second lead before you exit.”
I gave her a full minute. Unlike my sensitive friend, I was enjoying the scents of pine and ammonia. A nice reminder not to judge Cecilia’s past too harshly. While I sat in the closet, on a bucket, I had an overpowering urge to go tell Blaine everything—not as his employee, but as a confidant. I shook off the thought as I stood up to leave. Blaine’s intoxicating smile was obviously going straight to my head.
The empty apartment greeted me—the front door moaned, the fridge hummed, and the floorboards creaked. Not ready to face only mechanical conversation, I picked up the phone and put it back down several times. I wanted to call Ariel to see if she’d mention her outing with Ferris, but I was afraid she wouldn’t and then what would I do? Bring it up? Or fall into the tunnel of distorted questioning and self-loathing? Probably the latter. I hung up again.
Tired of the pressure of my pants’ waistline against my nonexistent waistline, I decided to change into shorts and a T-shirt. Why pretend I was going to go anywhere else this evening? I looked around at my bedroom, which was in complete disarray. Cleaning could be my redemption tonight, but I knew it wouldn’t be. I felt very alone these days. Being single had never actually bothered me before, not the way it seemed to trigger dark fears in women like Marsha and even Ariel, to some extent.
Ariel. I walked over to the phone again and hesitated. Then it rang, startling me. Maybe I was in sync with Ariel. Surely it’d be her. I picked up.
“Are you alone?” A muffled voice croaked on the other end of the phone.
A strange pervert or a funny friend? While I was deciding whether to respond to the voice, it rose up again with more command.
“Either you are or you aren’t! Don’t go moronic on me when I need you most.”
I was afraid to say the name, but my mind was already thinking it. Cecilia. My voice surprised me with its attitude. “There is a place you can reach me during normal business hours. You might remember that place with desks and cubicles and paper shredders.” I wasn’t going to let her push me around on my own time.
“That place is all I can think of.”
She sounded sad. I cut the woman some slack. “I’m alone. What’s going on, Cecilia?” I walked over to the cupboard and reached for my last brown sugar toaster pastry and plopped down on the couch. I needed comfort food to face her.
“First, I need to ask you for a favor. This conversation must be completely off the record. Completely. Can you agree to that?”
I seemed to be having a lot of secret conversations lately. This one scared me the most. Cecilia did stretch her limited understanding of common courtesy by asking rather than commanding the favor. I continued to give her undeserved slack. “You are calling me as a…um, a friend, right? So why should it be considered anything other than off the record.”
“Blah, blah, blah. So we’re in agreement, yes?”
“Yes.” I kicked my coffee table out of frustration, but the pain just made me more mad.
“I know what my future looks like at Reed and Dunson. I’ve witnessed countless colleagues go through the exact same process of elimination. Pretty soon I will be asked to head up the humanitarian committee. That is the kiss of professional death.”
“We have a humanitarian committee?” I found this fascinating.
“A board actually. It gives the company major tax write-offs each year. But it is also a way to appease the employees they are writing off.”
I took another bite of pastry. “Who’s on this committee?”
“Did I not just say?” She sighed loudly. “Former high-powered executives who were willing to settle for figurehead roles on a pathetic board. You wouldn’t have heard of them…which was my original point.”
I heard some hollering in the background and apparently Cecilia did too.
“I have seven minutes left. Look at the stinkin’ clock, would you!”
“Watch it!” My ear throbbed, my patience waned.
“Libby. Listen to me. I’ve found my ticket back to the top. Not only do I have a knack for sniffing out opportunity, but I’m a genius. Normally I wouldn’t give you the chance to work with a project of this caliber, but I’m desperate.”
I don’t need to take this. “Feel free to exclude me, Cecilia. Come back to the office and deal with your own genius idea.” Rachel and I are running out of time and desire to cover for you anyway.
“What I’m about to tell you cannot involve anyone, Libby. Not Rachel, not Blaine—especially not Blaine—and certainly not Tara. This is a one-shot deal. A master plan to save my arse and to redeem your sorry state of career, I might add.”
A loud thud reverberated through the phone. Cecilia yelled, “If you throw the other shoe at me, I’m no longer selling cigarettes to you and your idiot friends. Got it?”
I tried to remember if I had any more aspirin in the bathroom cabinet. “I have a condition of my own, Cecilia. I’ll help you if you are up front with me. Where are you calling from?”
“I’m at the SOS again,” she said, quickly adding, “but on the urgent self-care wing, not the rehab unit.”
“Thank you. Now go on.”
“Well, just for old time’s sake, I decided to attend one of the circles.”
“Circles?” I reached for a blanket to cover my bare legs and hoped that somebody truly was timing this call.
“Purity circles. You talk about what you want your life to look like on the outside without drugs or alcohol. I got there a bit late, so I sat in the back row on one of those horrible blue plastic chairs next to this scruffy young man. Well, the meeting was a total mistake…totally touchy-feely and without any direction, so I started digging through my purse for my iPod.”
I laughed. “I don’t take you for an iPod person.”
She ignored this comment and forged ahead, her minutes quickly dwindling. “This scruffy guy looked over my shoulder as I scanned my artist list. I was about to berate the rude ragamuffin when I noticed his beautiful,
sensitive eyes under the disgraceful mop of hair.”
“Cecilia, so help me…if you called to tell me about your latest love conquest, I will not be a part of any plan. So stop right there.”
“Normally, I would have considered that direction as well. But when I saw those eyes, that smile, those very white, slightly crooked adorable teeth, I knew I had more than a good time sitting to my right. I had my ticket to the top. This is my genius, Libby. While most ordinaries would be tripping over their tongues and struggling to find a dull writing utensil and a piece of paper to mooch an autograph and thereby build their ‘guess who I met’ party repertoire, I understood exactly what I could offer this celebrity and what he could offer me in return.”
She had my attention. My mind scanned the many magazine covers I had seen on the newsstand in front of the Thriftway the other day. Who was recently busted for drugs or thrown from a multimillion dollar film project? “Who? Who?”
“They’re sending mean Rodney to force me off the phone. I’ll call you tomorrow at the office to outline my plan.”
“Why aren’t you using your cell phone?”
“The night guards confiscated it,” she said and then raised her voice for the benefit of those near her, “some blond brat from Orange County turned me in for talking after midnight. Wait until I write an article about this for Vanity Fair. This will be as hot a spot for recovery as Detroit in winter.”
“Who is it, Cecilia?”
“We have to act quickly. Don’t make any plans for the weekend.”
“Who is your ticket back to power, Cecilia?”
“Jude Shea,” she whispered with what I assumed were tightly pressed lips.
“My sister and I were just talking…”
The dial tone interrupted me, but I barely noticed. My hand went limp and the phone fell between the couch cushions. I could feel the rush of power transfer from Cecilia’s petty mind to my own. Seattle’s biggest hometown music hero-turned national superstar wasn’t stiffing his music company billions of dollars in record deals and concert revenues to live the high life in Belize…he was at the SOS attending purity circles and sitting on plastic chairs.
