Draw Me In

by Megan Squires

  There was a veil of water coating Ian’s eyes, and when he opened his mouth to speak, his voice cracked with emotion. “What about kids?” It was all he said. “Like, can she still have them?”

  Dr. Torkleson looked to me for approval. Ian was asking for some pretty personal information, and I was sure there was some type of confidentiality agreement in effect that would keep the doctor from divulging it. I reiterated the question to make it my own. “This doesn’t affect my ability to get pregnant, right?” I obviously had no immediate plans of even glancing at my biological clock, but I knew down the line there were certain things I would want out of life. Children definitely fit into that scenario.

  “It depends, but no, it shouldn’t. Most cysts are harmless and benign, though incredibly uncomfortable if they rupture. The likelihood of conceiving and carrying a child to full term is quite high, so I’m not at all worried in your case.”

  “Oh, that’s great news,” Ian breathed, closing his eyes as his tight shoulders loosened in relief. He’d talked about being an uncle since the first year we lived together, so I was certain some of the relief had to do with his future plans as well.

  “I’m sending in a nurse to begin the discharge process,” Dr. Torkleson said, switching his gaze between Ian and myself, one eye a little lazier than the other. “In the meantime, do you have any more questions I can answer?”

  “Work—” Ian started, but I took over his train of thought.

  “Will I be able to go into work on Monday?”

  While he scratched at some file folded over the metal bar at the edge of my bed, he answered, “Yes. Just try to take it easy. You’ll notice a huge improvement tomorrow, and even more on Sunday. By Monday, you should be close to feeling like your old self again.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Joshua chimed in, lifting a hand to rest it on his father’s shoulder. The white coat rustled under his fingers. “I appreciate you getting her in so fast.”

  “My pleasure,” Dr. Torkleson replied, then transferred his attention to me. “You’re lucky to have such good friends to look out for you. From what I hear, you were unconscious for quite a while.”

  “Yes,” I smiled. My lips cracked at the corners, the dehydration making them all sandpaper and rough, patchy skin. “I’m very lucky. Thank you again, Dr. Torkleson.”

  “Of course.”

  After he left the room—if you could even call it one—Ian turned to face me. I could detect the salty line of dried tears streaking down his cheeks and my heart hurt because he’d obviously been so rattled by what we just experienced. Sometimes being the sick one was easier than playing the bystander. I’d been so disoriented with the sudden onslaught of pain, I didn’t even have time to process the fear that should have accompanied it. Ian didn’t appear so lucky, and even Joshua still looked a little stunned from the whole ordeal.

  “Don’t do that to me again.” He shoved at my side, two-thirds anger, one-third relief. “Promise?”

  “I’ll try, but no guarantees.”

  With a soundless laugh, Ian said, “Glad to hear you plan on going into work on Monday. I was pretty certain the thought of working for Leo made you vomit.”

  “The thought of that doesn’t make me sick, no. Nervous? Yes. Out of my league? Totally. But nothing about Leo or being in his presence is sickening, that’s for sure.”

  “Now you’re sounding more like the Jules I know and love.” Ian lifted my jeans and tank from their folded position on the chair next to the cot and slid them my way. I untied the gown from my neck and took the clothes he offered. “And the doctor said you’ll be good as new by Monday. Sounds like the perfect start for a new chapter in your new life, Love.”

  I nodded, hoping he was right.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t.

  I wasn’t as good as new on Monday. In fact, I was as bad as old. Seriously, I thought I’d gotten over the worry that I’d do something mortifying in Leo’s presence again, but my morning had been riddled with embarrassing mishaps that caused me to blush with fever. Fortunately, I was the only one to witness them.

  Twice I tumbled out of my jeans as I tried to wriggle my way into their impossibly skinny legs, ending up in a tangled mess on my bedroom floor. Then, once I decided upon a leopard print wrap-around dress instead, I’d somehow tied it up all wrong and as I sat eating my cereal at the counter and catching up on the Wall Street Journal headlines, a boob decided to join me, just falling out there like it ain’t no thing. Even the turtleneck sweater I’d assumed was a safe alternative tried to strangle me, and I could hardly roll down the collar without cutting off all circulation to my brain.

  Flustered and frustrated, I tromped over to my closet and shoved back the accordion doors. I wasn’t sure how I’d missed it earlier, but a modest, black scoop-neck dress was draped in front of the other clothes, its hanger hooked in the opposite direction. A Post-It note with Ian’s familiar scribble read, “Wear Me!” I felt like Alice in Wonderland with her explicitly written instructions.

  “Thank you, Ian,” I whispered, relieved to have someone select my wardrobe for me because I certainly wasn’t having any luck. I almost didn’t even survive getting ready. Surviving the day was going to earn me an award. I made a mental note to stop by the teacher’s supply store after work because this girl needed to stock up on her gold stars.

  After dressing without any other major incidences, I checked the clock to see if I had time for a quick errand before showing up for my first day of work at Carducci Enterprises.

  Work. Wow. My first day of work. Though I supposed that’s what I’d been doing at the coffeehouse these past few years, none of that ever felt professional. This was real. Or at least it was as close to a real job as I’d ever had.

  I wasn’t even certain what I would be doing. Ian and Leo met up once this weekend to go over preliminary images from the shoot while I was in a comatose-like state of rest. Whatever the doctor had prescribed delivered enough punch to knock out a small elephant. Maybe even a small herd of elephants, because I assumed they traveled in herds. Unless they were Dumbo, in which case they flew, and then it might be a flock of elephants. Whatever it was, that drug had completely leveled me.

  All Ian told me when he returned later that night was to show up in Leo’s office at 9:00 am on Monday. That was all the information I had, so I went with it and began my short hike to their building over on 22nd street.

  On my way, I dipped into Bean There, Drank That.

  “Well,” Cara, my shift manager called out from behind the counter. “If it isn’t our long-lost Julie!”

  I reddened at her introduction as all patrons swiveled their heads up to see what the fuss was about.

  “Hey Cara.” There wasn’t a line, so I walked straight up to the bar and dropped my hands onto the surface. “Machine fixed?”

  “Yes, amazingly, it is.” She wrote an order onto a to-go cup with a black felt-tip pen and shoved her blonde bangs off her forehead with the back of her hand. “So I hear you’re abandoning post, huh?”

  “Rick told you.” Rick was Cara’s husband and the owner of the shop. I’d emailed him this weekend, giving him my two weeks notice, and feeling absolutely horrible that I had to do it over the Internet and not in person. But the drugs and the pain were still present in my system, and the thought of hauling my booty down the block to deliver the news made me weak just upon thinking it.

  “Yes, dear, he did.” Cara couldn’t have been more than five years older than me, but it seemed appropriate for her to call me dear. Some people could get away with it. I tried calling a salesclerk at Neiman Marcus dah-ling once, and she eyeball slapped me with the look of death. I was not one of those that could get away with it. Apparently even verbiage belonged to different classes.

  “So I break your coffee machine, and then quit in an email. How lame does that make me?”

  “A little lame,” she teased, wiping her hands down her apron. “But seriously, Julie. You didn’t break the machine. It had been
on the fritz for a while and I kept telling Rick it needed to be replaced. You were just the unfortunate bystander who happened to be there when it took its final breath.” She dumped a scoopful of ice into the cup and poured two shots over the top. “Well, you and Leo Carducci.”

  My eyes shot up. “How do you know who he is?”

  “Leo?” I nodded. Cara shrugged her shoulders as though what she was about to say was obvious information. “He came in here a few months ago looking for you. Left his card. I thought Rick gave it to you.”

  “No.” What was she saying? Suddenly I felt like the one who was an English language learner. No entiendo nada. “I never got a card.”

  “Yeah, he said to tell you about an exhibit at The Frame showcasing the work of local talent inspired by Michelangelo’s David.” Cara cocked her head to the side, so far that her cheek almost touched her shoulder. “None of this rings a bell?”

  “I never got any of that.” There was no bell ringing. Not even the soft chiming of those triangle instruments from band back in fourth grade. None of this sounded familiar. “Anything else?”

  “I just assumed you knew the guy. I mean, he’s in here at least twice a week.”

  “What?”

  No, he wasn’t. I’d worked at the coffeehouse four days a week since my sophomore year of college. What were the chances he would show up during the three days I didn’t happen to be on the schedule? It seemed too far-fetched to be true. Unicorns and Big Foot and the Abominable Snowman all at once.

  But it also made our accidental encounters seem not so accidental. Maybe it wasn’t luck that led him to the shop on the day that the espresso maker died. Maybe our days had finally just fallen into sync, some Law of Chance. This new information practically stunned me into speechless.

  “Sorry, Rick is terrible with messages.”

  “Though he did manage to give you the one saying I won’t be working here anymore.”

  Cara sighed and smiled simultaneously. “Yes, though I do wish he hadn’t. We’re going to miss you around here, you know?”

  For the first time since accepting the position at Leo’s firm, I felt the reminiscent pang of sadness hit me square in the chest. I was going to miss this place. It had been my home away from home and I’d grown to love my time here, as well as the colleagues that shared both the space and minutes with me. It would be hard to leave, but as I’d said earlier, I needed a bigger canvas. I hoped that’s what was waiting for me at Leo’s office. Well, that and a half-naked Leo that I could draw naughty pictures on...er, I mean, of.

  “I’m going to miss you guys, too. But you know I’ll be in all the time. I can’t go without my coffee fix for too long.” Pulling out my wallet from my black Kate Spade purse that had been a gift from Ian’s mother last Christmas, I threw four dollars onto the counter. They landed in a crumpled heap next to the register, sort of looking like a failed attempt at origami. “Speaking of, can I get a large, quad shot, iced Americano?”

  “Do you have plans to build an arc this afternoon, Jules? Because that is enough caffeine to accomplish that daunting task.”

  “It’s not for me.”

  “Oh,” she crooned, her head pulling up and down with her tone. “I thought that order sounded familiar. A little first day kiss ass gift?”

  “No, more like a little, ‘Sorry I ruined your coat and your pants and then turned you down but for some crazy reason beyond all scope of logic you still hired me,’ peace offering.”

  Cara’s eyes became as big as the saucers we used under our coffee mugs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear any of that other than the part where you said you turned him down. But clearly, I couldn’t possibly have even heard that right, because no one would do that. He asked you out and you seriously said no?”

  “He asked me to lunch and I said no. So it wasn’t like he even asked me on an official date or anything. Either way, I made a fool of myself, and I’m 99.99% certain I’ll make a fool of myself at least five more times before my day is over. That’s pretty much the track record I have with him.”

  “Now I don’t feel so bad that you’re leaving us.” Cara scribbled something on the large to-go cup and started up the espresso maker, packing down the sandy grinds and inserting them into machine. “You obviously just took the job because you felt guilty for denying him. Not because working for Carducci Enterprises is so much more prestigious than working for us.” Her smile was teasing and wide as she drizzled one shot after the other over the ice in Leo’s cup. “No hard feelings.”

  “No hard feelings,” I concurred, snaking my hand out to take the cup from her. I waved a good-bye that didn’t quite feel so much like a good-bye as it did a ‘See you later.’ Because even though I wouldn’t be standing in that familiar perch of my workstation any longer, I figured I’d be there every morning to retrieve Leo’s daily dose of energy in a cup. My time here wasn’t fully done, and I was grateful that we left things on a good note. As Cara said, no hard feelings.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Well, that was a steaming bunch of bull honky.

  I had hard feelings toward Cara as I stood opposite Leo, only a mahogany desk and a smirk so defined it could cut glass separating us.

  I had very hard feelings. The kind of I-want-to-gouge-your-eyes-out-with-a-teaspon-and-then-shove-coffee-filters-in-your-mouth-so-you-gag type of feelings. That was probably too graphic. I vowed to cut back on my viewing of late night horror flicks and limit myself to infomercials that fed me false promises of becoming skinnier, prettier, and an all around better human by purchasing products from their As Seen on TV websites (for a limited time only, of course).

  So maybe I didn’t want to impede Cara’s vision or senselessly waste her coffee filters, but I did want to slap her silly. Or maybe it was Leo I wanted to slap, because that plastered grin was really taunting. If I drug my hand across it, could I wipe it away?

  “You drew a heart around my name?” he asked, cocking his head to the side at the same time he leaned his weight into the leather chair, bowing it backward to lift his feet onto the desk. He crossed his ankles one over the other and rotated the cup in one hand, his cool composure well played.

  “I told you, I didn’t do that.”

  “But you said you made my coffee.” He hadn’t lifted his eyes to look at me, and instead continued admiring the cartoon drawings scribbled on the side of his coffee cup. Cara might as well have etched Leo + Julie on the side of a tree in Central Park. She practically did everything but that on the side of his drink.

  “I was lying.” Pause. “To impress you.” Because lying to impress someone always ended so well. “I thought if I showed up on the first day bearing coffee that I personally brewed and handcrafted just for you, somehow I’d score some brownie points.”

  “Is that what you’re doing? Hoping to score—”

  “Brownie points,” I shot out. “I’m hoping to score brownie points. Not to score in general.”

  “Right. I assumed that.” Of course he had. I needed some of those coffee filters for my own mouth to keep the diarrhea of words trapped in. “If you had made this, what would you have written on the side?”

  “4S, Ice, Am.” I laid out the formula for his order in a methodic nature.

  Leo’s feet slipped from his desk and he slammed onto them as his chair sprung forward. It made me jump a little, which was embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as if it had made me pee a little. I’d done that once before when Rick dropped a box of ceramic mugs in the stockroom, and on a sliding scale, being a little jumpy was infinitely better than being a little pissy.

  “Well, that’s incredibly disappointing. I hired you because I was told of your exceptional creativity and innovative ideas. But that coffee cup sounds like neither of those things. I would’ve at least expected a drawing on the side of it.”

  “I don’t typically draw on the cups, just in the coffee.”

  “You confuse me with your of’s, in’s, and on’s. The whole naked man thing—I still hav
en’t quite figured out your deal with that.”

  Yeah, me neither.

  “Anyway.” Leo took a long, slow pull from his coffee. His Adam’s apple lifted with the swallow and I imagined the frigid liquid sliding down his throat felt a little like the burning of my insides as I watched him drink. “You should sit. I hear you had quite an eventful weekend.”

  “If rupturing ovarian cysts can be classified as events.” I always likened events to things like movies or concerts, and certainly no one would have purchased a ticket to witness anything that happened to me this weekend. Well, the drug-induced rendition of “Like a Prayer” sung out loudly in my bathroom, complete with hairbrush mic and yellow towel turban to simulate a blonde wig might have sold a ticket or two. This was New York, after all. You could get people to pay to watch all kinds of freaky things.

  “I’m sorry to hear about that. Sounds awful.” Leo’s blue eyes fell at the corners in empathy. Though he lacked the body parts necessary to even begin to sympathize with the pain, I could tell he was genuinely trying. “I’m sorry about your ovaries,” he continued, stuttering like the letters of his words had his tongue all tangled.

  “I apologize for discussing my reproductive organs with you on the first day.” I realized this wasn’t appropriate workspace conversation. I’m sure I violated all kinds of sexual harassment codes just by uttering the word ovary within the confines of his office. I readied for the lawsuit.

  “I don’t mind discussing your reproductive organs, Julie.” Oh my God. He just looked at my boobs. “I’m just glad you’re feeling better. Is there anything else you’d like to discuss before we get started?”

  Was that some sort of free pass to ask any question my feeble mind could conjure up? Because it seemed pretty all encompassing. What color was his underwear? No, too forward. Was he wearing any underwear? No, that was even more direct. When he replaced the toilet paper roll, did the paper go up and over, or under and out?