by Cat Carmine
Actually, that’s probably not a bad plan.
“What’s on the agenda today?” I ask Keagan as he follows me into my office. I glare down at the oak desk as I set my coffee down. I really need to see about replacing that monstrosity.
“Full schedule,” says Keagan. “That’s why I got you the extra-large cappuccino instead of the usual large.” He consults the tablet he’s been carrying and starts reading off a list of the day’s agenda items.
Eventually, I wave my hand at him to get him to stop. “I get it. I’m going to be chained to this desk all day, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much. But you said you wanted to meet with all the department heads this week.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
“You did. And if you say it, I make it happen.”
“I like that about you.”
“Thank you.” He grins. “Now, I should warn you, the head of accounting is scheduled to be here at two o’clock.”
“Okay…?”
“You still haven’t reviewed the quarterly outlook.”
Shit. Right.
“I’ll do that first thing this morning.”
“Good. Because otherwise, the Viper might slither her way back in. I can’t promise I’m going to be able to protect you.”
I grin and take another slug of my coffee. “Got it. I appreciate the efforts. Thanks, Keagan.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
Boss. Now there’s a word that sounds foreign to my ears. I shake my head as he leaves my office, then rifle through the stack of file folders on my desk to find the quarterly outlook. I swear the folders have multiplied again since yesterday, but I finally locate the one I’m looking for and settle in to browse through it.
I expect it to be fairly routine, but the numbers I find inside shock me. I hadn’t exactly expected a publishing company to be rolling in huge profits, but I didn’t expect it to be bleeding money quite this badly. I skim through page after page but I can’t come to any other conclusion.
This company is on the verge of going under.
By the time I’m done, I sit back in my chair in shock. I stare out the window while I think, the striking Empire State Building barely even registering on my consciousness. Why would my father put me here, when the company is so close to bankruptcy?
My stomach twists as I consider the possibility that maybe I was right — maybe he’s putting me here to fail. On purpose.
I wouldn’t put it past the old bastard, quite frankly.
Keagan pops his head back in my office, interrupting my train of thought.
“I’m so sorry — the Viper just called me. Are you done with that report yet?”
I look down at the pages, still open on my desk in front of me. I don’t want to let Keagan know what I’ve found; I don’t need him worrying about being out of a job in a couple of months. So instead, I shake my head.
“I’m sorry. Tell Diana I’m going to give the report directly to Antonio when I meet with him this afternoon. In fact, better yet, I’ll tell her myself.”
Keagan grins and nods. “I’ll put her through to you. Godspeed.”
That night, I meet my father at his Park Avenue suite. My parents ostensibly live in Westchester, but ninety percent of the time, my father is in Manhattan at his pied a terre, and my mother is in the Catskills at our family’s summer home.
It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. My parents are married in name only. I don’t know why they don’t bother getting a divorce — after all, Lacy and I are all grown up, and in this day and age, it’s not like it would hurt my father’s reputation to not have a wife by his side. My mother only attends a very select few events with him at this point, anyway, so why not cut the cord completely?
Of course, I would never actually ask either of them any of that. We grew up in the kind of house where no one talked about their feelings. Ever. We didn’t show affection, either. We lived like roommates, I guess, or maybe like soldiers under my father’s regime. We fell in line. We didn’t complain.
And there wasn’t much to complain about, when you get right down to it. We had a fancy house. The best clothes and toys. We took expensive vacations, too. I probably saw more of the world’s must-sees by the time I was ten than most people see in a lifetime. It’s the only part of my childhood that I look back on fondly, and it’s probably why I spent my post-college years traveling around Europe and Southeast Asia.
In fact, I’ve been back in New York City a full year, and that’s probably the longest I’ve stayed anywhere. Not since my Harvard days, at least. It’s a new feeling, waking up in the same city every day, the same loft apartment, staring at the same exposed brick walls. I still haven’t decided whether I like it or not — but now that I’m working at Good Grant Books, I guess I’m committed.
You know, assuming the company doesn’t tank in the next two months.
That’s what I’m here to talk to my father about tonight. I don’t know if I’ll get a straight answer out of him, but I figure it’s worth a shot.
I get the concierge to call up to Dad’s suite. Even after a year, I still haven’t been here often enough that they know I’m his son, which I guess is kind of sad, when you think about it.
I ride the elevator up to the eighteenth floor, and his housekeeper, Ariana, lets me in. I eye the short dress she’s wearing and the way she shimmies away to let him know I’m here, and I wonder, not for the first time, if keeping house is the only thing she does for him.
I meet my father in his dining room.
“You’ll stay for dinner, Tyler?” he says, instead of hello. There’s a copy of the Wall Street Journal spread out in front of him, and he barely looks up.
I look at the china laid out on the table, at the crystal wine glasses. A bit of overkill, if you ask me, but I nod. “Sure.”
He gestures to the seat across from him, his attention still focused on his newspaper.
I slide into the chair, and we sit in silence for a moment. I scan my phone, scrolling through a couple of emails while I wait for him to finish, until I realize he’s just going to sit there and read the whole thing.
“So, work’s going well,” I announce, just to break the silence.
My father grunts. He turns the page and still doesn’t look up.
“You know, except for the fact that the company is going bankrupt.”
That gets his attention. He stares at me across the table, his bushy eyebrows raised. “Oh?” is all he says.
“I looked at the numbers today. The quarterly outlook is dismal, and when I reviewed the reporting from the last year, it was pretty obvious. The company’s hemorrhaging money.”
My father is still staring at me, and I wonder if maybe I’ve made a mistake in coming here. I’m worried that he’s going to insist on firing people, and even though I think something needs to be done, I don’t favor my father’s usual method of culling the herd.
But instead, he does something that shocks me even more. He folds his newspaper closed, looks up at me, and says, “So, what are you going to do about it?”
The question surprises me so much that I don’t have an answer for him. He continues to stare at me from across the table, his large hands folded in front of his empty plate.
“I’m still considering the problem,” I say finally. “I’ve been meeting with the different department heads this week. Trying to get a feel for where the pain points might be.”
My father nods, and I know that was an acceptable answer. “Keep me posted,” he says. “I’d like to hear what you come up with.”
“Sure.” I almost smile. I can’t remember the last time my father entrusted me with something. I can’t say I was too enthusiastic about working at Good Grant Books when he first told me about it, but maybe I could actually make a difference there. Maybe I could actually turn things around.
Ariana appears with an opened bottle of red wine. She pours our glasses, then sashays back into the kitchen to put the fini
shing touches on dinner. My father holds his glass up in salute, and I do the same thing.
The first sip of wine only reminds me of Emma, though, and of last night, and of spilling her drink, and of everything that came after. Suddenly, the wine tastes bitter on my tongue.
I think my earlier instinct was right — I should swear off women for the next little while. Concentrate entirely on my new role and on turning the company around and on — maybe, possibly — impressing my father in the process.
I just need to put Emma Holloway completely out of my mind first.
Seven
“Emma, seriously. Enough moping.”
My roommate Lucy sets a giant plate of some kind of fudgey-looking cookies down in front of me, and I groan. “Are you trying to torture me?”
“No. I’m trying to cheer you up. I work in butter and chocolate, remember?”
I grimace at her, but I can’t resist breaking off half a cookie and nibbling on it. It’s like heaven on my tongue. Chewy, chocolatey, fat-bomb heaven.
“Now, what’s going on?” Lucy asks, sliding into the seat across the dining room table from me. “You’ve been moping around since the launch, and I don’t get it. Your book’s selling like hot cakes.”
“I know.” She’s right. I should be thrilled with how the book is doing. And I am. Really. Solange has been keeping me updated every day and sending me clippings of glowing reviews, from readers and critics alike. Two days ago, my book even cracked the bestseller list. It’s a dream come true.
And yet …
“And yet you look like someone just kicked your puppy,” Lucy says. “Come on. What’s going on?”
“Nothing, honestly. I guess it’s just the low after the book launch high, you know? I spent so long working on that damn book, and now it’s just … over.”
Okay, I made up that answer on the spot, but I guess there’s some truth to it. I did live and breathe that book for almost a year, and I seem to have way too much free time now that it’s over.
But the real, unvarnished truth is that I’ve felt like this ever since I talked to Tyler the other day. I keep replaying the way his voice had changed at the end of our call. He actually sounded kind of … hurt. I guess it took me by surprise.
He texted me his address as promised, but I had yet to summon the guts to go over there and drop off the shirt. I want to find a way to apologize when I do, but I haven’t thought of a good way to do it yet. I’ve considered including a thank-you card with the shirt — which is what I’d normally do — but it doesn’t seem personal enough, somehow. So until I figure that out, I’m hanging on to the shirt.
And okay, I might have worn it to bed a couple of times. Not that I’d ever admit that to anyone on earth. It’s just a comfortable shirt, okay? Somehow, it always seems to feel soft and warm, the same way it did when Tyler first shrugged it off.
“You need something to take your mind off everything,” Lucy announces. “You need to let loose.”
I try to smile. “I am letting loose,” I say, pointedly waving around the cookie I’ve been nibbling on. “How much looser do you expect me to be?”
Lucy rolls her eyes. “You know, most people would be thrilled to be roommates with a baking blogger. Free baked goods and all.”
“I’m thrilled to have you,” I insist. “I’m just not so sure I can handle all the sugar.”
“Well, you’re going to have to get used to it.” Lucy grins. She’s got one of those gorgeous wide smiles that lights up her whole face. She’s also got a curvy figure, a perfect hourglass that I can’t help but envy. When she eats cookies, they settle in all the right places. Not me. When I eat cookies, they travel directly to my inner thighs.
Lucy and I met about a year ago at a networking event for women in social media. We hit it off right away. She runs a baking blog, and we really bonded over the challenges of working from home and trying to make new friends and having serious Instagram-envy. I had been living with my sister Rori at the time, but when she decided to move in with her boyfriend Wes, I’d invited Lucy to move into her room. So far, we get along great, except for the fact that Lucy is the queen of delectable baked goods and my own apartment has become a source of constant temptation. Every day, my resolve weakens a little more.
Lucy snaps her fingers. “I just had the best idea. We should go out dancing.”
“Dancing?” I wrinkle my nose.
“Yes! Come on. It’ll be fun. It’ll take your mind off the book. And who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone.” She winks, and I know she’s just being playful, but the thought fills me with dread. I don’t want to meet anyone.
I already did, a voice whispers.
I silence the voice and force myself to smile at Lucy. “Sure. That sounds great. Let’s do it.”
Lucy claps her hands together. “Perfect. Friday? We can invite Rori, maybe my friend Tess?”
“That sounds great. Girls night.”
“Girls night!”
I shove the rest of the cookie into my mouth and try to look excited.
That Friday, I find myself crammed against the stainless steel bar of a place called Carbon. Lucy had insisted we get dressed up, so although I’d much rather be home, snuggled in bed in a certain shirt, I’m wearing a short black dress and high black heels and silver earrings that dangle all the way down to my shoulders.
I survey the room. It’s packed in here, and hot. As soon as we walked in, I wanted to turn around and leave. Now that I’m already on my second martini, I’m finally starting to loosen up. I’m determined to at least sort of enjoy myself.
“So are we going to go dance, or what?” Lucy demands.
I stare at her, no longer quite so sure about enjoying this. “Dance?”
Lucy looks at me like I’m crazy, then gestures out to the dance floor. “Yes, dance. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
“I thought we were here to drink.”
“I distinctly remember suggesting we go dancing.”
“I assumed that was a euphemism.”
Lucy puts her hands on her hips. Her dark hair is hanging down over her shoulders, and her wide smile is covered in a flattering, bright red lipstick. She turns to face Rori.
“Can you believe this?” She demands, looking to my sister for back-up.
Rori throws her hands up and shrugs. “I’ve learned to pick my battles with Emma.”
“But come on. We came out to go dancing. That means we actually have to, you know, dance.”
Rori laughs. “Come on, Em, suck back that drink. I don’t think Lucy is going to let you get away with this one.”
With a glare at my sister, I finish off the drink. I could pretend to be irritated, but the truth is, now that I’ve had a couple of cocktails, I’m starting to think that maybe Lucy was right. Maybe this is exactly what I need — a night to let loose and forget about everything.
Forget about him.
Ugh. No. Don’t even think about that. I set my glass down on the bar and face Rori, Lucy, and Tess.
“Well? Let’s do this.”
So we dance. We dance hard. We ignore every guy who tries to hit on us, and every time the DJ plays something too slow and sexy, we either bust out our most exaggeratedly bad dance moves, or we head to the bar for another cocktail.
After one too many rounds, the songs start to blur together. So do the drinks. At one point I go to the bathroom, and when I sit on the toilet, I feel like the entire stall is spinning around me. I think it might be time to call it a night.
It’s times like these that I wish I had a boyfriend, or at least someone to go home to. Climbing into bed by yourself when you’re drunk is pretty much the worst, most loneliest thing in the world. I envy my sister, going home to Wes, a man who clearly loves her more than life itself, and even Lucy, whose boyfriend Lou might be kind of dull and sell insurance, but at least has a warm body.
“Emma!” Someone is pounding on the stall door. “Did you fall in?” I hear snorting and laught
er from the bathroom, and I finish up and come out to find Rori, Lucy, and Tess all waiting for me.
“I think it might be time to call it a night,” I announce as I wash my hands.
“Noooo!”
I nod. “Yes. Sorry, ladies. One more drink and you’re going to have to peel me off the floor.”
“One more drink!” Lucy starts chanting. “One more drink!”
Rori and Tess pick up the chant and the next thing I know, I’m peer pressured back to the bar, clinking glasses with the girls as I down a very ill-advised cosmopolitan.
Everything after that is a blur. More dancing. A lost earring. Another drink? Rori throwing in the towel and taking a cab back to her apartment. Dancing. Possibly me yelling at the bouncer about something? Standing outside on the sidewalk. More dancing? Freezing. Trying to find a cab. Saying goodbye to Tess. Me and Lucy, arm in arm, traipsing down the sidewalk.
“I’m lonely,” I confess in a slur.
“But you’re so pretty,” she slurs back.
“No, you’re pretty.” I hug her. “And you have Lou.”
“I do have Lou. But you’ll find someone. You wrote a book about it, remember?”
I stare at her, and then dissolve into giggles. “I wrote a book about dating, and I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
Lucy blinks a couple of times, then throws her head back and cackles. “Oh my God, you did, didn’t you?”
“I totally did!” I wipe my eyes. I don’t know if the tears are from laughing or from abject sorrow, and I’m too drunk to care.
“But you’ll find someone,” Lucy insists again. “You’re only alone right now because you have high standards. You’re just waiting for the right guy.”
“Yeah!” I say, latching onto her idea. “That’s right!”
“Yeah!” She hiccups.
“You’re so lucky that you already found yours. It’s because you’re pretty.”
“Yeah,” Lucy says again, but she looks down at the sidewalk. When she looks up again, her smile is back. “Lou’s great, right? He’s great.” She sounds like she’s trying to reassure herself.
