“I’m late, I’m late …” I hail a taxi and sigh relief as it careens over to my side of the street. A man about my age sprints over from the opposite sidewalk and lands in the backseat before the taxi has even stopped for me.
“Sorry, but I hailed it; that’s my taxi, which is why it came to my side of the street,” I say, opening the door, and shifting bag and coat to maneuver myself inside. God this skirt is difficult to sit in!
He fixes his jaw adamantly and doesn’t move from the seat he’s claimed.
“I’m sick of women thinking they run this city,” he says, calmly but resolutely, and reaches across me, yanking my door open. I’m stunned silent. The taxi driver must be, too. He shrugs for my benefit in his rearview and starts the meter.
In shock, I step back and they drive off, chatting like old friends. It takes twenty minutes to find another taxi, during which the sky opens and every drop of humidity ever gathered in the atmosphere pours down on umbrella-less me. I should have known better than to spend all that time crimping pretty 1940s waves in my hair.
I didn’t actually find this taxi. It found me. I’d given up, cursing my decision to move to this up-and-coming neighborhood just south of the Empire State Building, to an actual one bedroom, because I could finally afford to. Regrouping under an awning, I was wringing out my shawl when a taxi pulled up out of nowhere. As it saunters over to me now, screeching to a stop, I can see it’s one of these kooky cabs with teacup fairy lights strung along the back. The driver lowers the window, tipping his wildly-colored hat brim my way.
“Your carriage, my lady,” he says.
Inside, the cab smells god-awful. To compensate, I breathe through my mouth, filtering the air through my coat lapel. I try to calm myself by recounting the events of the past few days. “Do you think he’s going to propose?” Joanne had asked me two nights ago, over buffalo wings with extra celery and double blue cheese. Our PMS coincides.
“Well … “ I began, beaming. Yes, this is exactly what I’d thought. I was scared to think it out loud though, so I stalled for time.
“Oh! Or,” she covered her mouth as her eyebrows disappeared beneath her bangs. “He might break it off.” Her expression was thoughtful, as if working through something complex, like logic puzzles. “What’s it been? Seven months? That’s the make-or-break time. I just read that somewhere. Where was it?” Joanne wiped a sauce glob from her chin with the back of her hand.
I set my jaw. “That was my column for Cosmo. And if you must know, it’s eight months that’s make-or-break. Thank you very much. We’re already past that stage.”
“I’m—”
“Just trying to protect me. I know, I know. But do you have to go and put such negative energy into my space?”
“There’s no such thing as ‘negative energy,’” she said, ferociously snapping the end off a crisp celery stick.
Oh yeah? Then why the hell am I stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, now twenty minutes late? I try Tom. He’s not getting any reception, I guess, because it goes straight to voicemail.
I sit for another five minutes, bouncing my knee, incessantly redialing Tom’s cell. “Do you think you might be able to turn off onto Park?” I ask the driver—an ancient guy with a greasy ponytail and a Hawaiian shirt that makes his hat look tame.
“Sure thing, Doll, in about twenty minutes, which is how long it will take us to get to the corner.”
What did I expect? That he would flip on the jet wings and fly to the end of the street? If I’m honest with myself, I was expecting just such a miracle. I try to sound realistic, but this is (probably) my engagement I’m talking about here. Me, Miss Romance. It’s supposed to be all kinds of things—but certainly not a soggy, earringless, O-that-hasn’t-stayed-with-the-B mess, that I can’t even make it to.
There’re plenty of things that can be said about me, but giving up easily? Not a chance. I remember Tom joking once about “Lane Time,” as in, my suggesting we meet at six, and Tom saying, “Six o clock, or six Lane Time?”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means 6:30. Anything after that, I consider you late.”
I hmmphed him at the time, but I’m glad for the exchange as I pay the taxi driver and hoof it toward Union Square Café.
I’m not going to look down at my suede shoes. Sure, I was planning on weatherproofing them, but I was afraid the color would get wrecked. They looked so perfect, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sometimes in yoga, if you’ve got an injury, or just aren’t up for pretzeling yourself into one of the complicated positions, the instructor says, “Just close your eyes and picture yourself in the position.” I try that for my shoes. In my mind they are carefully weatherproofed. And they aren’t stretching out from all the moisture so that I have to scrunch my toes to keep them on. After all the months of fantastic luck and success I’ve enjoyed, it’s as if I’ve stepped into someone else’s shoes.
“Ouch! Watch where you’re going!” a bundled-up, sensible umbrella-protected girl with a smashed-in nose yells as we collide. I open my eyes as my elbow makes contact with the sidewalk. “Sorry!” I call out, though she’s fine and doesn’t reach out a hand for me or even ask if I’m okay. I wonder if her attitude has anything to do with how her nose became smashed in.
“Bitch!” she screams. I have half a mind to stick that umbrella where the sun doesn’t shine (presently anywhere). Care of adrenaline, I ignore the gash in my beautiful raincoat, which has gone deep enough to slice my arm, brush myself off and move along the empty, puddled sidewalk. I can’t help but yell, “Thanks for the help!” as I recoup my dignity.
It’s raining so hard people are clustered beneath awnings, waiting for the storm to pass. But I need to go. In two minutes I’ll be Lane Late. I’m getting close and it seems like the most important thing is to make it on time, as if I can rebalance everything negative if I do. I skirt the top of Union Square, dodging rivers of water, which are working papers, wrappers, and Starbucks cups down the drains; all the while I’m avoiding my shoes and trying to keep my spirits up. I’m about to get engaged! So it’s not perfect! I don’t get hung up on that sort of thing anymore. I realign my shoulders, trying to roll out the tension, and soldier on.
When I locate the austere awning of Union Square Café, my spirits lift. Okay, so it was a challenge to get here, but I’m here. With thirty-five seconds to spare. And that’s the main thing. Inside, at a table once branded as the backdrop of the most depressing of my life’s scenes, is Tom, ready to launch us into the next stage of our lives. To take back that treacherous experience with Liam and turn it into the start of the best phase of my life is a bold move, which seems just perfect at present.
I take a second to prepare myself, primping my reflection in the restaurant’s glass, when Joanne’s negative prediction crowds my thoughts. I won’t let it. I’m the master of my own fate. I even have a time zone named after me. I look up, ready to feel the splendor of the great sky, the heavens, the largess of it all. A bird calls, soaring overhead in the sudden break from the rain. The smile creeping up my lips halts as the force and heat of pigeon bowels are let loose on my cheek.
At that moment, the door to Union Square Café opens, care of a horrified tuxedoed host who hands me a cloth napkin, gagging slightly off to the side, and through the opening I catch a glimpse of Tom. He’s wearing one of the suits we bought the day of his makeover photo shoot. This is it! It must be! Otherwise, why here? Why all the ‘big night’ talk? Why this suit? I’m willing even to let the bird crap slide. “It’s good luck,” the host offers half-heartedly and waves me inside, holding the door open.
“Tom!” I call, over the host’s shoulder, ten times louder than I’d intended. When he smiles my chest goes tingly. He stands and I brace myself for the big moment. He takes a step and my heart jumps. But then he turns in the opposite direction as if it isn’t me he’s stood for. I wave for his attention. It’s clear he doesn’t see me. Tom’s looking just short of me; he starts talking
to someone. Suddenly it all clicks. I recognize those nails! It’s his ex-girlfriend, Whitney!
I shriek, and this time Tom hears me. He turns, waves me over, and smiles, but I can’t move.
He must be caught at something because I see him step back from Whitney the second he notices me. Her nails are purple and longer than ever and enabling her to make contact with Tom’s shoulder though Elastic Man couldn’t reach him at that proximity.
I make my way toward them, trying discreetly to clean my cheek with the napkin. I feel a hot puddle mush into the roots of my hair. The host gags again.
“You know you can just stop watching me,” I say.
He grimaces.
Across the room, Tom’s face contracts. I can’t tell if it’s concern, disgust, or pity drawing in his eyes and lips. I can’t help but feel I’ve stumbled down some rabbit hole onto hostile, unfamiliar ground.
As I brace myself to make a move, a terror breaks in the center of my chest. Liam might be here. So what if he is? I clear my throat and move forward, with each wearying step, feeling as if I’m leaving that old world farther behind.
To his credit, despite his stiffness, Tom grabs the back of my neck and kisses me passionately (no tongues) in front of Whitney and the world. I calm slightly.
“Lane, you remember Whitney,” he says, pulling me toward him. He’s trying to appear cool, but I know him—he’s not a fan of the awkward social situation.
“What’s that smell?” he asks, his nose creasing.
“Oh, gross,” Whitney says. “It smells like you know … “ We both lean in as her voice diminishes to a whisper and then halts— “pooh.”
“Pooh?” I can’t help parroting. Who is this woman? And where are Piglet and Tigger? Pooh? Is this the vocabulary of my engagement?
“Yes, I suppose I do smell pooh,” Tom says. He’s a kind man; I know that habit of his—embracing the vocabulary of his companion, even if they say something ridiculous, like lieberry instead of library. That’s just one of the reasons I love him. We share a look and my chest flutters. Maybe this is romantic. Despite the pooh. Tom needs to get rid of Whitney and then we’ll be fine. That’s all. I know this isn’t easy for him, so when she looks away, I give Tom the head-pointing eye bulge. He nods tightly, smiling genuinely. He’s going to take care of it. Thank god.
I smile in return, waiting for him to speak.
“Whitney, Lane and I—”
She cuts him off just when I’m about to boil over with excitement—was he going to tell her we’re getting engaged? “Lane, you must come with me to the ladies room, and then we’ll all have a catch-up drink.” Oh god. This is not good. I shrug for Tom’s benefit, which I hope translates to help! I’m stuck. She’s yanking my arm. Short of hurling a torpedo, I’m not sure how I would escape her grip.
I don’t have to use the bathroom, and apparently neither does Whitney. Pinching with her claws, she pulls me before the big, gilt-framed vanity mirror, soft lights illuminating us like a renaissance painting. She speaks to me via my reflection, and the effect is off-putting—like she’s using magical powers. I’m caught off guard, intimidated, and apparently, frozen.
“You know Tom comes from a very important family,” she says to my reflection.
Do I? Whose family isn’t important? My mother and father are my whole world—not to mention all my nosy cousins and aunts, who’ve been calling me non-stop since my mother told them all, though she swore to me she wouldn’t, that Tom was going to ask me to marry him. Word is she reserved my dad’s Knights of Columbus hall already. Don’t ask. “Aha,” I say.
“Well, I’ve got it from a good source that they don’t want you to marry him. They need someone from an equally important family.”
I’m really starting to get pissed about her dissing my family. “You know my dad—”
“So, Tom asked me to break this to you. You know how he is about hurting people. He just can’t do it.”
“—once climbed up the highest tree on our block to save a cat.” I finish my sentence in shock, my eyes fixated on Whitney’s nails, her shellacked Farrah Fawcett waves. I can’t have heard her right.
As if she hadn’t heard me, she continues. “I’m so sorry to be the one to have to tell you this,” she says, her treacly tenderness sickening.
I flinch when she touches me. It can’t be true. She’s setting me up, obviously. In a flash I see the light: I don’t have to stay here! I run for the door. “Lane!” She’s yelling after me, but I don’t turn back.
I find Tom exactly where we left him, dismembering a cocktail napkin.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” I say. I feel Whitney trailing behind. There’s a horrific chill in the air.
“Lane, I…I love you too much to lie to you. It seemed to mean so much to them, and so I did follow their wishes. I was lonely and deluded by my parents’ pressures, and it seems incomprehensible to me now, but I did.” He looks at me until it seems he can’t anymore. “I don’t understand why you can’t forgive me for it.”
Whitney’s approaching. “You don’t understand?” I yell, though she’s nearly in earshot.
“No, I don’t. Everyone has their things, Lane.”
“Things?” Why do I keep mimicking him? It might have to do with the fact that I’m red hot with anger. I should have known! If it seems too good to be true, then it usually is, Joanne says in my head.
“Well, I guess that’s it, then,” I say, surprised at the calm authority in my voice. I can tell Tom is, too. It takes every shred of energy to will my feet toward the door.
“Lane,” he says, grabbing my arm.
“There’s nothing more to say, Tom.” There is. There’s plenty, but I won’t think of the words till I’m long gone from here, my dreams shattered in the exact same place once again. “Shit on here three times,” I mutter to myself and resolve to leave. Meaningful coincidence or not—anyone would agree I shouldn’t return to this restaurant any time soon.
Though I make my move, I can’t help but turn back to Tom one last time. In that look I see everything I love about him, all our memories, the ones we were supposed to go on to create. And then I see Whitney’s arm snake in around his elbow. Even now he seems to recoil. I can’t understand how things turned out this way. But I’m not going to stick around here and wait for it all to get worse.
I make my way through the door, as the host holds it for me, doing his best to stare at his shoes instead of the spectacle we’ve created. I dump the soiled napkin in his hand and leave without a word. And that’s when I walk right into Liam.
AUTHOR BIO
Daniella Brodsky is the author of the novels, The Velvet Rope Diaries, Princess of Park Avenue, and Diary of a Working Girl, now the People’s Choice-nominated motion picture, Beauty & the Briefcase, starring Hilary Duff. Her first young adult novel, One Trick Pony (Random House), was published in 2007. Brodsky has been featured on Good Day New York, The WB Morning News, NPR radio, and in The New York Times, The New York Post and The Hartford Courant. Her most recent work of fiction, Vivian Rising (Simon & Schuster) was published in August 2010. A native New Yorker, Brodsky lives in Canberra, Australia with her husband, where she is writing her next novel and teaching writing at the Australian National University.
www.daniellabrodsky.com
Diary of a Working Girl Page 29
