by Hazel Kelly
“We’re clapping for you, Gemma!”
I looked towards the voice and found Jimmy, who was near the head of the table.
“We’re clapping for you,” he repeated.
“All right, all right,” Alex said. “Everybody sit down.”
I was so confused I could barely remember what I was doing there.
“Gemma, you remember Jimmy,” Alex said, pointing to his colleague. After that, he introduced everyone one by one, not that I retained a single name.
“Do you always clap before board meetings?” I asked, realizing how stupid the question sounded only after I said it.
“No,” Alex said, pulling out an empty seat at the head of the table. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
“You’ve certainly made all of us more comfortable!” Jimmy said.
I looked to Alex for further explanation.
“They think you saved all their jobs,” he said, glaring at Jimmy like he didn’t want any more outbursts.
I furrowed my brow at him. “What?”
“I told you,” he said quietly. “I was going to sell.”
Holy shit. He’d meant all that stuff? Had I really made that big an impression on him? “And now you’re not?”
He shook his head. “Now I’m not.”
I could see in his eyes that I didn’t have nothing to do with it.
“Now, since you obviously need no further introduction,” he said, shooting Jimmy another look. “Why don’t you tell everyone the reasoning behind your initiative and how it’s been going?”
“Sure,” I said, setting my folder down in front of me.
There was a collective creak as everyone leaned forward in their chairs. Well, everyone except Alex. He leaned back, as if he were not only giving me space but admiring me, too.
And all of a sudden I remembered how it felt to have his support, how much it once meant to me. And it felt real. Like that, at least, hadn’t been faked.
And as I spoke, my confidence grew, and when it came time to field questions, I came up with even more answers than I thought I had. Good answers. Answers that made me feel like I did deserve to be there, like I had earned it. Like I had value to this company, to these people.
But despite what a professional triumph it was, it was, at best, bittersweet.
Because I still hadn’t forgiven him for lying to my face. Or for cheating me out of all those good feelings he’d awoken in me.
Even worse, I wasn’t sure I could.
F O R T Y O N E
- Alex -
“I made extra meatballs and kept some sauce to the side,” my mom said, setting a heaping plate of spaghetti in front of me. “So you can take them home and have them for lunch tomorrow.”
“You really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble,” I said, wishing she would conserve her energy instead of spoiling me. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to help?”
“Here,” she said, plopping a bottle of red and an opener on the table in front of me. “You can help by opening that.”
“Please sit down.”
“I’m sitting, I’m sitting,” she said, grabbing two wine glasses and heading over.
“I’m embarrassed by all this fuss.”
She laid a hand on the table. “Don’t be. I’ve been waiting a long time for this day.”
I rolled my eyes. Everyone had been treating me like a goddamn hero all week, and I was sick to death of it. All it did was highlight how severely I’d let my employees fear for their jobs. “It’s not a big deal.”
She laid a napkin in her lap and watched as I filled our glasses. “Maybe not to you,” she said. “But I could drop dead any minute—”
I flinched at her blunt language, offended by her nonchalance in the face of such a real issue.
“And there’s nothing I want more than to know your future is secure.”
“My future was secure anyway,” I said, sliding the bottle to the side as a waft of steaming oregano filled my nose. “I don’t even need to work.”
“Everybody needs to work.”
“Mom—”
She lifted a palm. “I don’t care what anyone says. We all need something that gets us out of bed every day.”
I contemplated whether it was worth arguing.
“Retirement is a silent killer,” she said. “The amount of people I’ve seen drop dead from having nothing to do—”
“Can we change the subject?”
Her eyes smiled at me. “A toast,” she said, raising her glass.
“To what?”
“To you finally coming to your senses.”
I groaned.
“I’m so proud of you for doing the right thing,” she said. “Not only for yourself, but for all those fine people that have supported you from the beginning.”
I took a sip of wine and let the peppery flavor coat my tongue.
“Be honest. Admit you knew in your heart that you would’ve come to regret selling.”
“I admit nothing,” I said, just to be difficult, though the truth was I’d been sleeping much better since my decision to stay and grow the business.
“Your father would be proud of you.”
“Leave him out of this,” I said. “We’re having such a nice time.”
She nodded at my plate. “Go ahead and start. Since when do you need an invitation?”
I sighed. The truth was, my appetite had been crap since the day Gemma came into the office. She’d been so dazzling in front of everyone, so confident. And her passion was contagious.
Thanks to her, the team was more excited than they’d been in years, and everyone was so full of ideas it was like she’d found the crank at everyone’s back and wound them all up.
But despite how much she came alive when she was presenting her initiative, she barely made eye contact with me while she was talking. And afterwards, instead of staying to enjoy the celebratory atmosphere, she just left. Like we were strangers. It was the worst fucking feeling in the world.
So no matter how many times friends and family reassured me that I’d done the right thing, it was difficult to believe them when I felt so wrong on the inside.
So incomplete. So confused.
I wasn’t heartbroken, though. On the contrary, my heart was still full of love for her. But in light of her dismissal, I felt ignorant. Foolish. Embarrassed… Perhaps much like she felt when she discovered that I wasn’t who I’d pretended to be.
The fucking irony. When we were together, I truly thought she wanted me for me. So finding out she didn’t was proving a tough pill to swallow. Especially since I didn’t believe for a second that I was the liar or the cheat she seemed convinced I was.
If only I could make her understand the lengths I would go to make her happy. Surely, then, she’d come to her senses. Maybe even love me back.
But with every passing day in which she wouldn’t take my calls, I found it increasingly hard to believe that she wanted me to fight for her, much less that she’d ever return my love.
“I’m pleased with how these turned out, actually,” my mom said as if she’d been talking aloud to herself for some time.
I shoved a bite of meatball into my mouth. “Me too,” I said, inhaling sharply to keep from burning my tongue. “They’re absolutely delicious.” The warm flavors of my childhood lit up my mouth and offered me a brief moment of comfort.
“So you’re not disappointed?” she asked, raising her thin brows.
I cocked my head.
“About the Eddie thing?”
“What Eddie thing?”
She huffed. “Have you been listening to a word I said?”
“Yeah, of course. I just missed that last bit about Eddie.”
She scowled at me like she wasn’t buying it. “He’s going to take me to my dance lessons from now on.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“So you’re off the hook.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I really don’t mind taking you.
”
“No offense, honey, but I don’t know how many dances I have left, and it’s too long since I felt pretty.”
My expression fell.
“Oh, don’t take it personally. Christ. I thought you’d be pleased.”
“I am,” I said. “I’m glad you guys have hit it off.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Meaning…?”
“Well, you can’t be too picky at my age,” she said. “I mean, he has most of his original teeth, and he knows how to fix a creaky hinge.”
“Right.”
“That wasn’t a euphemism, in case you were wondering.”
“Jesus, Mom, I wasn’t.”
A cheeky smile lifted her eyes, and I got a fleeting glimpse of how she looked twenty years ago.
“Anyway, I had a word with the instructor, so if you’d like to come again with Gemma—”
“I wouldn’t.”
“No?” She furrowed her brow. “I thought you two enjoyed yourself that night.”
I set my fork on the edge of my plate and wiped my napkin across my lips. “We did that to appease you,” I said. “Not because double dating with pensioners is on my bucket list.”
“You don’t have to be rude.”
“Sorry.”
A flash of scorn twisted her lips.
“Please don’t be offended.”
She scoffed.
“What?”
“How could I not be offended?” she said. “All I want is to get to know this woman who’s so important to you.”
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like that will be happening any time soon.”
“Why?” She laid her fork down and reached for her wine. “I don’t understand.”
“That makes two of us. But all you need to know is that she’s over me.”
She squinted over her glass.
“Why are you making that face?”
“Because you’re full of shit.”
“Funny. She thinks that, too,” I said. “Perhaps you have more in common than I realized.”
“What do you mean, she thinks that, too?”
“I lied to her, Mom. She’s a woman of integrity, and I lied to her for weeks. So I blew it, okay?”
“Mmm.”
“That’s all you got for me, huh?”
“It’s not what I got that matters.”
I craned my neck forward.
“It’s what you’ve got that matters.”
“Yeah, I caught your insinuation, as subtle as it was. I just don’t know what you meant by it.”
“I mean that if you want to woo a woman of integrity, you have to be a man of integrity.”
My jaw hardened at the challenging tone in her voice.
“And maybe you get the girl and maybe you don’t,” she said. “But no princess of any merit was ever won over by a prince who wasn’t willing to slay a few dragons or wait a few thousand years.”
“Helpful.”
“You’re right. What am I saying? You should absolutely throw in the towel and forget about her. Plenty more fish in the sea.”
I shrank back with surprise.
“Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s what I want to hear, all right,” I grumbled. “But that doesn’t make it true.”
“Alex, honey, can I tell you what I really think?”
“I assume that’s a hypothetical question.”
She cocked her head. “The truth is, I don’t know if she’s the one. Only you know that.”
I swallowed.
“What I do know, though, is that if a man is lucky—and that’s a big if.”
“I’m listening.”
“If a man is lucky, at some point in his life, he’ll meet a woman who makes a prince out of him.”
I stared at her.
“And if she’s that woman, I promise you’ll regret it forever if you don’t rise to the occasion.”
F O R T Y T W O
- Gemma -
“That guy is totally checking you out,” Jeanie said, nodding over my shoulder.
I looked towards the bar. “Which guy?”
“The one on the end,” she said. “In the Cubs hat.”
His eyes were mostly hidden by the shadow of his cap, but it did appear that he was unusually conscious of our general direction as he spoke with his bearded friend. Unfortunately, every male on Earth seemed a painful reminder of Alex, as if I’d been cursed to see nothing but him in the eyes of every man I came across.
“He’s cute, don’t you think?” Her eyes strayed back over.
“Maybe you should go talk to him.”
She groaned.
“What?”
“We’re supposed to be celebrating, and you’re acting like a wet rag.”
“I am not.”
She dropped her chin and stared at me.
“Okay, maybe I’m not as cheery as you’d like, but I warned you before you dragged me out.”
She took a swig of her Coors and set it down. “Why don’t you read me the email again?”
“I know what you’re up to,” I said. “You’re trying to cheer me up.”
“Can you blame me?”
“I’m fine,” I said, sliding my butt back in the booth. “I don’t need cheering up. I need sleep.”
She pulled her best puppy dog eyes. “Last time, I swear.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I promise.”
I squinted at her.
“Hey,” she said, raising her palms. “It’s not every day my bestie gets a big deal endorsement. Excuse me for being excited about the free merch I’m about to score.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my phone out. “Fine, but I’m only doing it to shut you up.”
She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward.
I noticed that I didn’t have any missed calls from Alex, which was odd. Had he given up on me? I knew I’d been giving him nothing but the cold shoulder, but I still wanted him to fight for my forgiveness. Especially since I was starting to think I might be ready to grant it. I clicked the icon for my email and cleared my throat, “Dear Ms. Ryan,” I began.
Jeanie scooted closer to me in the booth. “Louder, please.”
I shot her a look.
“What? It’s noisy in here.”
“Dear Ms. Ryan,” I said again. “Congratulations on reaching 20,000 YouTube subscribers, which is no small feat in a category as competitive as personal fitness. We here at YoBuddha would like to send you a parcel of free merchandise, including workout clothes and a yoga mat for you to test. If you enjoy our products, we would be interested in discussing a mutually beneficial partnership in which we would both sponsor your video production and provide merchandise for you to gift your subscribers on special occasions. If you’re interested, please respond with your mailing address so we can get our best-selling items to you as soon as possible. Sincerely, Nina.”
Jeanie was beaming when I looked up. “Admit that feels good.”
“It’s better than a poke in the eye.”
“Well, I think it’s awesome. I might even subscribe to your channel now that I know what a big deal you are.”
My eyes grew wide. “You aren’t subscribed to my channel?”
“It’s not personal,” she said. “I just rarely lift anything besides a fork.”
“Or a beer,” I said as she took a swig.
“True,” she said, eyeing her flimsy bicep. “Now that you mention it, I should be ripped by now.”
I laughed. “If lifting beers got people ripped, my job would be infinitely more fun.”
“Speaking of which,” she said. “How are things going? I haven’t had a chance to say two words to you all week.”
“I know, sorry. I’ve just been so busy trying to roll out the new program. When I got involved, I had no idea they wanted me to go to all the gyms and explain it myself.”
“You are the woman for the job, though.”
“Somebo
dy thinks so anyway.”
“Are you enjoying it?”
“I am, yeah. It’s cool to see a whole new side of the business, ya know? I was so fixated on the Glenview location before that I forgot there was a much bigger organization working behind the scenes.”
“How much longer is the initial roll-out going to take?” she asked.
“Maybe two more weeks? After that things should be back to normal.”
“Whatever that means.”
I scoffed and took a swig of my beer.
“Any word from Alex on your progress or…?”
“Not really.”
She twisted her lips.
“That’s not a complaint, though,” I lied. “I’m the one who told him to leave me alone.”
“Yeah. I still don’t get why you did that.”
I scowled at her. “Yes you do.”
“If you say so.”
“C’mon, Jeanie. I need your support on this.”
“On what? Wrecking the first good relationship you’ve had with a man ever?”
I cocked my head.
“On walking away from the best sex of your life?”
“Jeanie—”
She held up her palms. “Those were your words, not mine.”
I cringed. “Did I really say that?”
“You sure did, and not just to me.”
I let my head fall back. “How hard were you listening through that wall?”
“Not hard.”
I squinted at her. “I don’t believe you.”
“You can believe whatever you want.”
“What the hell do you expect from me?” I asked. “You want me to say I fucked up? That I miss him?”
“Do you?”
I groaned.
“I can’t be there for you if you’re not honest with me.”
“I don’t see what difference it makes,” I said. “It’s not like there’s anything you can do about it.”
“Just admit you miss him,” she said. “Unless you don’t.”
I ran a hand through my hair.
“Just be honest once, and I swear I’ll never mention it again.”
“Fine.”
“Fine what?”
“I miss him, okay? I’ve been desperate to convince myself otherwise, but ever since we stopped…seeing each other or whatever we were doing…it feels like I’m looking at everything through dishwater-colored glasses.”
