Diary of a Working Girl

by Daniella Brodsky

  And there are other things, too. He never wears underwear outside of the office.

  “It’s utterly excessive,” he says.

  He does have a point. Why take the trouble to put them on, wash them (they are the bulk of laundry loads anyway), when they’ll only wind up on the floor for the better portion of the evening? He believes smoking is one of the most enjoyable pastimes.

  “All of the greats die young,” he says in the face of cancer and emphysema.

  Seth, I’m sure, displays equally meritorious qualities.

  My plan starts off smoothly enough and we meet at the copy room at 6 p.m. Seth is sarcastic and dry in the humor department, which I rather like. But when we arrive at the little bistro he’s selected for dinner, I can’t help but compare it to the posh eateries I’ve dined in with Liam (now Bemelman’s Bar and Butter and Industry Food have been added to the mix), and even though I don’t normally like that type of slick guy, Liam has changed my entire opinion of this genre of men, and I realize that, prior to this Liam experience, I had built my opinion about an entire portion of the population around a stereotype.

  When we order salads for appetizers, I remember the decadent oysters that Liam and I shared and can barely bring myself to lift my fork to my mouth. When Seth orders his steak well done, I nearly hide under the table in embarrassment. When the dessert menus are handed to us, Seth says, “I couldn’t eat another thing.” Here I ache for a warm chocolate cake in bed.

  The conversation floats along somehow, but I can’t remember anything that either of us has said, because only my body is here. My spirit is facedown on my coffee table. Liam on top, doing things I’ve only before seen on the Spice Channel. Therefore, it’s probably no shock that despite my best intentions, when the taxi pulls up to my apartment and Seth goes to kiss me, I can’t bring myself to reciprocate. I turn to offer my cheek, give a quick thank you, and scooch out of the cab without so much as glancing back in his direction.

  I know I’ll be sorry for taking this career opportunity so lightly. But right in the middle of my first real love affair the conflict, the forbidden nature of our relationship, only fuels my fire for Liam. I’m throwing the world away for Liam. What could be more romantic than sacrificing everything for true love? It’s a novel in itself—a love story, in which, the path to passion leaves a trail of devastation in its wake. It’s us against the world. In the end, I’ll be broke, jobless, and without a chance of success. But at my all-time low, Liam will be there to save me.

  He’ll pooh-pooh such frivolities as a career and say. “All that matters is that we’re together.”

  When I’m down, he’ll pick me up, showing me that what we have is more important than any stupid article. We’ll jet off to Provence and enjoy the simple things in life: the rich warmth of the season’s first tapped wine barrel, debating its legs and tannins as we swirl huge glasses by their stems and roll our tongues like experts; a walk in the meadow; a windy car ride to the coast, my hair picking up along the breeze. The sweet smell of grass and fresh baked baguettes will waft in through our open windows at night, where we’ll lie, naked and spent after making love in ancient nooks and crannies. I’ll never miss this Cosmo story.

  It’s suddenly obvious: the only reason my career was so important to me in the past is because without it, my life would have been empty. How could I have known what I do now? There’s no article, no book deal, no byline at all, that could make me feel the way I do now. The choice is that there’s no choice to make. Everything’s coming up Liam.

  Eleven

  Sexy Scents, Sangria,

  and Samantha Smells

  Something Rotten

  On my third weekend as a nine-to-fiver, I don’t fret over the fact that I will not be seeing Liam. After the way we squandered last weekend on my bed, in my tub, on my couch, and on the kitchen floor, I have a lot of magazine writing to catch up on. It works perfectly because I’m busy and so is he—setting things up for Beautiful. The nobody’s-ever-heard-of-them publications I still have regular assignments with have been leaving me messages about missed deadlines for the first time ever, and it has been hard for me to take these seriously, since they feel like a part of a life I no longer lead.

  My article in the Post came out yesterday and my mother has phoned each and every Long Island resident to make sure they know about it. And that felt really nice, since the pieces I write for magazines and papers she’s not familiar with have never scored more than a “so cute for you, honey,” and a possible mention to my dad, to which he’d respond, “huh?” But a name like the Post is big my-daughter’s-better-than-yours currency and my mother is not above using it. But what felt even better was when I walked into my cubey, hung up my coat, and saw my article hung in a delicate white driftwood frame.

  I called Tom directly.

  “Did you do this?” I asked, looking over at him through the glass and pointing to the frame.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Did you have my article framed?”

  “Must have been one of those number crunchers with a crush on you,” he said, trying to sound aloof. “I hear them talking about you all the time in the men’s room. The article is quite good, though. Congratulations. I’m impressed.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said, feeling pleased that Tom liked it.

  I am simultaneously filled with joy at the fact that I’ve had an article published in the Post, and angst-ridden at the fact that I cannot share this triumph with Liam, as he would doubtless wonder what I have been doing signing on with employment agencies. Thank god he only reads The Times and leaves the gossip rag scouring for his staff.

  I calm myself with the idea that I don’t need to share details about other parts of my life with Liam, because the only part of my life that matters is the part I share with him. I never talk about my friends. He doesn’t need to listen to details about conversations with my mother, the banalities of the day-to-day. Everything is trivial compared to our love.

  Did I mention that this week he told me he loves me? We were walking by the West Side Promenade. The sun was setting. A street vendor walked by hawking roses.

  “I’ll take them all,” he said.

  That dreamy Liam hunkered me down with forty-five roses, counting out each one individually as he pulled them from the white plastic tub and placed them into my hands. When the man walked away with his empty tub and thorns were sticking me all over (a detail I would never ruin the mood with), he ran his hand through my hair, resting it finally on my neck, stared into my eyes for a good minute or two, and said, “I am falling in love with you, Lane. I never thought I could love again, but you’ve broken me down. You’ve busted through all the walls I’ve built up.”

  I wept. I really did. It was such a surprise. Not the next logical step in a predictable, boring progression you’re counting down the minutes to. Instead it was a wonderful, spontaneous surprise.

  With a finger, he secured one of my salty tears and brought it to his lips. After savoring part of me becoming part of him, he said the words that sounded so familiar, I could swear I’d heard them before in a dream: “You complete me.” I couldn’t remember the dream details, but I know I heard it before, perhaps in another life.

  It is truly amazing how Liam is always coming out with the exact words I’d wished a man would say to me.

  Today, without Liam, I have to write a fragrance story. I enjoy smelling all of the different samples that have been mailed to me over the last week, imagining what Liam will say when I wear each one. He loves perfume.

  “You smell like sex,” he had said to me when I was wearing Frederic Malle’s Musc Ravageur. He’s never afraid to be raw like that. You wouldn’t believe some of the words he can manage with a straight face.

  Since my mood is pure desire, I decide to name the piece, “The Ten Sexiest Scents” and come up with cute phrases like “Eau de Ecstasy” and “Liquid Lingerie.”

 
It’s amazing how simply enjoyable these tasks are when you can incorporate the emotions of love you are experiencing into them. Liam is my muse.

  I have also put off writing the article about Lisa, and so I go through all of those notes and piece together a witty narrative about her life as connected to the beautiful clothing, shoes, and accessories in her fabulous closet. This is not exactly what the assignment originally was meant to be, but with these small publications you have the freedom to be creative as long as the final product is good. I wish I could say the same about the Cosmo piece, because if that were the case I would now be done with it, and could move on to concentrate on enjoying bliss with Liam. That would be one utterly sexy article, to say the least. You’d think Cosmo would jump at that kind of thing.

  But when I think of my now cutely decorated cubey and Tom and John (who is blossoming nicely into actual verbal communication with me), I think I would miss them. I’m almost sad I’ll only have a short time more at the company. It’s strange how things turn out, isn’t it? Feeling generally pleased and hopeful, and resolved that my fate with Liam trumps my career fate, the pressure has dissolved. The day flies by pleasantly. When I’m done polishing up the piece, I decide to pop an e-mail over to Lisa to thank her and let her know how things are coming along.

  Lisa,

  I want to thank you again for the wonderful morning I spent in your home. It was a pleasure to go through your life in such a personal manner and to celebrate your sartorial history as well. I am proud of the article I wrote about you. I hope you’ll be delighted, too. I also thought you would be happy to know that your career advice was very helpful, and I have since gotten a fantastic assignment from Cosmopolitan for which I have combined my love of men and my love of talking about myself. More to the point, I have been assigned to take a corporate position in the world of finance with the goal of meeting a man I will ultimately fall in love with. The only hitch is that I have two months to achieve this. Although the pressure is substantial, I am delighted at the challenge and really hope this will bring my career to a new level. I would love to catch up with you again once I’m done with this piece and tell you all about my experience. Your piece in For Her will be printed in the June issue. Thanks again for everything.

  Best,

  Lane

  Putting it down in words like that, I realize two things 1) I am lying through my teeth. I feel no pressure at all. I can barely bring myself to think about my Cosmo assignment. Failure at achieving the goal at this point seems to be the only possibility. I’ll have to console myself that I have something far more important—I have love. 2) Explaining my assignment to someone else, who I deem worldly and respectable, I realize it is the most ridiculous scenario I could have gotten myself into.

  I am a complete maniac. What the hell was I thinking? Was I so far gone that I really took a want-ad, a breakup and a pile of bills to be signs of my destiny?

  I crash my head into my keyboard making all manner of gibberish appear on-screen when I remember the half-heart formation of paper clips, the horoscope—all the “signs” I used to ruin my life.

  This is it. This is what they mean by the term temporary insanity. Where God, did you hide the rewind button?

  I could pop an e-mail over to Karen right now and have the whole thing done with. I’ll still get the finder’s fee and maybe just keep my Smith Barney job until the Beautiful position starts. And now that I know Liam so well, he would never dream of asking to see my clips, so it won’t even matter whether I’ve actually written for Cosmo or not.

  I go so far as to open a new e-mail and type in Karen’s address—one very slow keystroke at a time. But before I get to the “.com” something holds me back. My fingers freeze and, as of their own will, hit the backspace key until I’m staring into a blank field.

  I’ll do it tomorrow.

  I suddenly need a cocktail. Getting Chris’s answering machine annoys me to no end. What is the point of having friends if they aren’t there when you need them? I can’t try his cell because he is strictly anti-cell and refuses even to allow me to keep mine switched on when I’m with him, much less purchase one of his own. In a momentary lack of common sense I call my mother.

  By the time we’re through, I need something more along the lines of ten cocktails.

  “I told you this would happen!” My mother says when I reveal I’m not going to be able to complete the assignment. She really thinks the sole reason you give birth to children is so that you can always have someone so whom you can say I told you so. I know this because she informed me of that very thing once. She was trying to be cute when she said it, smiling and playfully batting at my arm because we were having one of those days of acting like schoolgirls—shopping and eating chocolate and drinking wine. But I knew she wasn’t kidding. It’s this winking thing she does when she’s embarrassed that gave her away.

  Besides, she only said she was kidding after my face turned sour and I began reciting a list of times that could actually prove this was my sole purpose in her life. “You said ‘I told you so’ when I broke up with Andy, Evan, Patrick, John, Kick. Timothy, Raoul, Jasons One through Three—”

  “I never even knew there was a third Jason!”

  Rather than return her joking smile, I continued, “When I fell off my bicycle; when I wanted to be Wonder Woman and jumped off the roof and twisted my ankle; when I wanted to be Mary Lou Retton and cut all of my hair off and then cried.”

  But this time I’m in no mood for reminiscing. Besides, I can only blame myself for calling her. I already know she wants me to chuck: this whole “article thingy” because she is a strong proponent of Liam. Her voice takes on a distinctive shrill every time his name comes up, and I can virtually see her Cheshire cat grin through the receiver.

  This is not because my mother has done something so logical as to meet Liam and discern that he is a good person with high morals who treats me kindly. And it is also not because she possesses psychic qualities that enable her to see that Liam does in fact has the best intentions.

  I wish I could say it was that deep, or even respectable, for that matter. But it’s not.

  The reason my mother has founded the Liam fan club is that she has concluded, solely through my descriptions of what he looks like and sounds like (the G-rated version, of course), where he comes from, and what he does for a living, that he is not familiar with store-brand groceries. Which is to say that he is rich. And to her, this is as obvious a sign of the perfect man as a slot machine ringing and buzzing with coins raining all I over the place is a hint that you’ve won the jackpot. If she were to design a slot machine, rather than fruits or palm trees, she’d probably use little illustrations of men driving Mercedes, men steering yachts, men holding out Amex Black Cards, and men escorting women into Tiffany’s. It’s only because she thinks she was slighted marrying a factory man, but that’s no excuse.

  If a guy I am dating happens to, say, live in my building (which is a “sad place for a man to live; okay for you of course”), have a roommate, or work for a not-for-profit agency, in any of the arts, or do anything with his hands, and it doesn’t work out, she’ll say, “I knew it wasn’t meant to be. He just wasn’t right for you.” Just like that—whether he’d been given a commendation by the mayor for running into a burning building to save small children or spent his spare time teaching Braille to the blind.

  Don’t get the wrong idea about my mother. She isn’t scouring posh hotels with a metal detector, stopping at the bejeweled man fetching the loudest beep. She herself is no Joan Collins, riding around in limousines all day, fully coiffed and sipping sherry with one pinky out. In fact, quite the opposite; this is a woman who demands ice cubes for her glass of “mer-lot.”

  But the way she explains it is that being as I “will never make any real money of my own with my little writing thingies,” she is constantly worrying about my welfare—picturing me in tattered rags, begging for change for subway fare.

  “It makes me sic
k darling to think of you that way, sick as a dog.”

  Apparently, this worry is not so consuming that it gets in the way of her daily trips to the diner, her weekly hair appointments, or month-long time-share vacations to the Caribbean—during which her deep concern doesn’t move her to anything as excessive as a telephone call. But it does make for an unpleasant homecoming.

  “Oh, honey, let me see how skinny you’ve gotten from making no money and driving your mother into an early grave with worry, just so you can keep up with your writing thingies.” This, before we get to the baggage claim.

  “Just forget about this silly little assignment and make a go of it with Liam,” she is saying into the phone. “Billy, come down and get your dinner! Your father is going deaf, I swear. And did I tell you about the party your Aunt Anne is having next week for cousin Kelly’s college graduation? She’s making some crazy crunchy granola food. I told her to just order from Cluck Cluck Chicken. You know how they have those great mashed potatoes and the cucumber salad with the pretty ridges along the sides of the cucumber? And the barbecue sauce is divine. I even offered to make my pasta salad. You know the one with the Italian dressing and the broccoli that I made for your birthday last year? Did I ever give you that recipe? All you have to do is get that multicolored, twisty pasta—I think it’s spinach and carrot or something like that; otherwise they just dye it to have the different colors, but either way—and then you boil it up, al dente, drain it, defrost the broccoli, and just toss it all together with the whole bottle of dressing; you should use the Wishbone, it’s really tangy. And that’s it. So, do you think you can bring Liam to the party, then? Everyone’s dying to meet him.”

  Liam to the party. Liam to the party? Perhaps if I want him to go running and screaming all the way back to London I would ask him to go to the party. (I table this for a backup plan should I decide I really need to rid myself of him for this assignment.) My family, thinking he is royalty from whatever dreck my mother has been feeding them, would ply him with all sorts of questions about Prince William and balls at Buckingham Palace—too embarrassing to even think about.