I wondered if it was from “This” or “That.”
Nicholas hung up his phone and frowned at me. “I knew it wouldn’t last. I’ve gotta head back to the office.”
“Oh that sucks.” Of course, if he had to work late, there was less time for him to have sex with someone else later, except maybe Lucy the Librarian within the confines of one of their offices. Or maybe he didn’t really have to go back to the office but all of my blog talk had bored him so intensely that he was happy for any polite excuse to be free of me. Snap out of it, Kim.
Nicholas shrugged. “The glamorous life of an associate. But it was nice talking to you, Kim! Don’t be a stranger.”
“You either. Don’t work too hard.”
“Tell that to him,” he said, gesturing towards Rob. With one last smile and a light tap on my shoulder, Nicholas walked away. As I answered another co-worker’s question about where I had bought my peep-toe bright red patent leather pumps, I saw him make his round of goodbyes and walk out of the bar.
Even though I was pleased that my banter with Nicholas had finally progressed beyond telling him that Rob was in a meeting or running late, I hoped I hadn’t gone too far with the blog talk. It wouldn’t be the first time. Served him right for asking, although he probably knew I wasn’t prepared to converse with him about anything work-related. I looked inside my half empty glass. Rather than come out and chug almost two drinks, I should have used the time to read. I was too buzzed to concentrate on a book now and was positive I was incapable of writing a coherent review.
I grabbed my coat and walked over to Rob to say goodbye.
“You’re leaving before my big announcement?” Rob asked, his shoulders dropping.
I pretended not to notice his disappointment. Rob had a “thing” for making announcements. I wasn’t sure if the content of the speech mattered to him as much as the pleasure he seemed to derive from hearing his own voice against a backdrop of silence while he had everyone’s rapt attention. “Are we all getting six figure bonuses? And by ‘we all’, I mean secretaries included?”
Rob smirked at me. “Yeah, right.”
“Am I getting fired?”
“Not if you stay for my announcement.”
I glared at him.
“No, you’re not getting canned.”
“Then what is the announcement about this time?” I bet he hadn’t even written it yet.
Rob took a sip of his beer and looked down at the dirty floor. Looking back at me with a sheepish expression, he said, “I’m not quite sure yet.”
Aha! I thought so. “Then I am going to excuse myself and you can repeat your brilliant announcement to me tomorrow.” Insert kiss ass comment here. “And I’m sure it will be brilliant.”
Rob gestured with his hand towards the entrance of the bar. “You’re excused.”
After I said my goodbyes to the rest of the squad, I walked out onto chilly 3rd Avenue. As I zipped up my jacket, it occurred to me that Nicholas had conveniently neglected to answer my question as to whether he had a date later. I walked back inside the first set of doors, removed my phone from my bag and texted Jonathan. I was as horny as a 15-year-old boy at a strip club.
CHAPTER 2
I ROLLED OFF OF JONATHAN and onto my back. Since I was almost always on top when I slept with him, I wondered if all of his pot smoking made him incapable of doing the work. When we dated in high school, cheap beer, not weed, was his drug of choice.
“So what’s going on with you?” he asked, reaching one of his lean arms over to grab a cigarette from his midnight blue IKEA dresser.
I quickly got out of his bed. The smell of cigarettes made me sick. “When are you gonna quit smoking?”
“Hey, I don’t complain when you text me for a booty call so no complaining about the smoking.”
“Screwing me is not bad for your health!”
“That’s arguable,” Jonathan laughed as he scratched his unruly head of dark hair.
I swatted him with my pants before putting them back on. “Time for a haircut, Middleton!” Although I vaguely remembered being madly in lust with Jonathan when we were high school sweethearts from the ages of 16-18, we had been just friends for the past ten years. And friends with benefits off and on for the past two. I hadn’t dated anyone I liked in a while, was uncomfortable taking home strangers from bars, and Jonathan was either too lazy or stoned to make the effort. We fell into bed occasionally out of convenience and, that night, out of mere sexual frustration on my part.
Still lying on the bed, one arm extended behind his head, Jonathan took a drag with his free hand. “How’s Black is the New Purple going these days?”
“Pastel is the New Black is going very well, thank you.” I chuckled. Jonathan never remembered the title of my blog but at least he always managed to ask about it.
“Did you hear about Hannah Marshak?” He sat up and tapped his cigarette into an ashtray.
“Ugh. What about her?” Hannah was bitch central in my high school class. Well, at least to me and Bridget. She had more personalities than Sally Field in the movie Sybil and some of our class probably thought she was cotton candy sweet.
“She wrote a book.”
I felt my face drain of color as I remembered Hannah suggesting in front of my entire 8th grade Home Economics class that I should have an expert look at my Coach bag because the leather strap looked too dark to be authentic and she would feel so terrible if my mother had spent money on a fake. Hannah came off looking like a Good Samaritan while I looked like the poor little girl with the knock-off bag. I considered donating the bag to Goodwill but Bridget said that would be playing right into Hannah’s hands and talked me out of it. “She what?”
“She wrote a novel. Some crap about a chick in Paris.” Jonathan took another deep drag of his cigarette. “It’s being published.”
My throat burned as if I’d chain smoked a pack of Jonathan’s Marlboro Reds and I was afraid I was going to regurgitate Prosecco all over his dirty wood floor. “I gotta go.”
“You alright?” Even though the effects of weed had seemingly rendered Jonathan paralyzed in his relaxed position on the bed, I could hear a hint of emotion in his voice.
“I’m fine,” I lied. After squeezing my feet into my shoes, I walked around to Jonathan’s side of the bed and kissed his stubbly cheek. “As always, thanks for the good time.”
“You can leave the money on the counter.”
“Fuck you.”
***
As soon as I got home, I called Bridget.
“Wow. Two actual phone calls in one day. How did drinks go? Did you and Mr. Strong go at it in the bathroom stall?”
“In my dreams. You’re never going to believe what Jonathan told me.”
After a brief hesitation, Bridget asked, “When did you talk to Jonathan?”
“At his apartment earlier.”
“I thought you had drinks with work people?”
“I did. I went to Jonathan’s afterward.” I paced my studio apartment, still reeling from the news.
“Oh. Why?”
“Frustrated. Like I knew I would be. Jonathan is easy and available and after years of practice, he knows how to push my buttons. But this is not why I called!”
Sounding meek, Bridget asked, “Why did you call?”
I was dying to tell her about Hannah but she didn’t sound right. “You okay, Bridge?”
I heard her take a drag of a cigarette. “I’m fine.”
“Ugh, between you and Jonathan, second hand smoke is gonna kill me.”
“Jonathan’s still smoking too?”
“Yes. The smoking is one thing, but he’s kind of gross in general these days. I don’t think he’s gotten a hair cut in six months.”
“Last time I saw Jonathan, his hair was cut close to his head, practically shaved.”
“I guess you haven’t seen him in a while. Now he looks like the straggly kitchen mop I had before I finally discovered the genius that is the Swiffer.�
��
Bridget let out a belly laugh. “I remember that mop. It looked like Bob Marley!”
“I made sure not to run my hands through it.” Clarifying my statement, I added, “Jonathan’s hair, not the mop. But back to you, for someone who recycles and eats practically all organic, the smoking is a bit ironic, don’t you think?”
“I’m celibate, Kim. Let me have my nicotine.” I heard her take another drag.
“Whatever. No one is forcing you to allow one bad experience to turn you into a nun. Not all guys have crabs.”
Bridget exhaled loudly. “Have you ever had crabs, Kim?”
She knew the answer to that question. “No.” I’d never even had a yeast infection.
“I didn’t think so. Let me tell you, it’s not pleasant.”
“I can only imagine. Anyway, back to the reason for my call.”
“Which obviously wasn’t to tell me about the size of Nicholas’ penis.”
I pictured Nicholas naked. Although he was short, I had a feeling he was not short changed where it mattered. “No. It’s about Hannah Marshak.”
Bridget groaned. “Ugh. What about that piece of shit?”
I smiled slightly. Bridget hated Hannah as much as I did and was the only girl who stood by me, defending the authenticity of my Coach bag. “She wrote a book.”
“What? No way!”
“Yes way,” I said sadly.
“I’m sorry, K,” Bridget said softly.
I wrapped my hair into a ponytail holder and kicked off my shoes. “Why are you sorry?”
“I know you wanted to be a writer back in high school.”
“And you wanted to be an astronaut.”
Bridget laughed. “Yeah. But I doubt Neil Armstrong tossed his cookies after riding roller coasters like me.”
I walked over to my bed, pulled down the comforter and sat on the edge. “Writing blogs is about all this girl can handle.” When I wasn’t working, I was reading. When I wasn’t reading, I was blogging. And when I wasn’t doing either of those things, I was responding to emails from authors and publicists, maintaining my Facebook, Twitter and blog pages, corresponding with other bloggers about author blog tours and so many other tasks associated with running a successful site. “Between the day job and the blog, I barely have time to wipe my ass, much less write a book. But I bet Hannah’s book sucks!”
“Definitely,” Bridget eagerly agreed. “But she would never admit it. Just like when she insisted she was accepted to Brown University but chose to go to a state school out of loyalty to Plum and Marla who didn’t get in. Please. I’d really like to see that acceptance letter.”
I had to laugh. There really was no way Hannah had been accepted to an Ivy League school, but none of her minions dared to challenge her. “Maybe she’s lying about writing a book too?” Bridget suggested.
“Yeah. I bet her rich parents hired a ghost writer,” I said, although I doubted it.
“A what?”
“Never mind. I’m tired. Gonna pass out.”
“Jonathan wear you out?”
To brush my teeth or not brush my teeth, that was the question. I climbed into bed and cradled the phone in my neck. “It just feels like it’s been an unusually long day. Talk to you tomorrow, Bridge?”
“Of course. And no worries about the book. I’m sure it will crash and burn.”
I hung up and went to bed feeling slightly better.
CHAPTER 3
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I logged onto my computer at work and after making sure Rob hadn’t sent me anything urgent, I shared my review of Gladly Never After on Twitter and the Pastel is the New Black Facebook page. When all of the clocks in my immediate surroundings - computer, work phone, cell phone and watch, promised it was past 9:30, I called to wish my younger sister Erin a happy 25th birthday. She was currently unemployed, having been laid off from her position in Boston as an Assistant Buyer at Lord & Taylor, and didn’t wake up until at least 9.
When she picked up the phone with a froggy, “Hi,” I adopted my cheeriest voice and said, “Happy Birthday!”
“Thanks. You’re the first to call me.”
“Didn’t Gerry wish you a Happy Birthday?”
“Yeah, but he didn’t call. He said it to me in person this morning when he woke up next to me in bed. Duh!”
I rolled my eyes. Silly me. “Aha. Yeah, well, I hope you have a great day. Anything fun planned?” I looked towards Rob’s dark office. I knew he had an early meeting out of the office that morning but he would probably be in soon and I wanted to get in some reading time while I could.
“Gonna take it easy today. Maybe head to the gym later. Ger is taking me to Atlantic Fish Company for dinner.” Erin yawned and I pictured her stretching lazily in her bed.
“How’s the job search going?” Yes, it was her birthday and I probably could have refrained from being a nag, but the fact that she sat at home all day while I had to work irked me.
“It’s going. But I was actually thinking it probably makes no sense to get a new job since I’ll have to quit once I have a baby anyway.”
I sat up straighter in my chair. “You’re not even pregnant!” I knew I had said that very loudly when I heard a chuckle from Patti, the secretary who sat outside of the other partner’s office. Lowering my voice, I said, “Are you?” I felt a headache coming on and rubbed my brow.
“No. But it’s only a matter of time.”
“I understand.” I was proud of my restraint since I actually did not understand at all and wanted to suggest that the money she could make in the meantime could help pay for her child’s college education or at least designer baby clothes, considering my sister’s priorities. “Anyway, dinner at Atlantic Fish Company sounds fantastic. Get the lobster so I can live vicariously.” Atlantic Fish Company was where Gerry’s parents had hosted the rehearsal dinner the night before Erin and Gerry’s wedding.
“I probably will. Or maybe the surf and turf.”
I was happy we had moved on to a more agreeable topic of conversation. “Well, 25 was a great year. I’m sure it will bring all good things.” Actually, 25 had been kind of shitty. I spent most of it as an intern at an advertising firm running around fetching coffee and making copies. I still made copies, but Rob never asked me to make his coffee. And since I’d started my blog over a year ago, my lack of passion for my job didn’t bother me as much.
“I can’t believe I’m 25 already and been out of college for three years. Speaking of which, are you going to your high school reunion next month?”
“Yeah.” Bridget and I planned to go to the reunion only after getting wasted first. And I hoped to drag Jonathan too for some moral support. I didn’t hate high school so much as tolerate it as an unavoidable rite of passage. I had no desire to go back but there were some old friends I actually wanted to see. “Why?”
“Someone wrote on Hannah Marshak’s wall on Facebook that she was excited to see her at the reunion.”
There were so many things I wanted to say to this. Firstly, why were Erin and Hannah friends on Facebook? They weren’t in the same graduating class and, to my knowledge, didn’t even know each other. And secondly, in order for Erin to see what other people wrote on Hannah’s wall, she’d basically have to stalk her. That part didn’t really shock me. I opened my mouth to say all of these things but stopped short. It was her birthday after all. “Well, yes, I’m going to the reunion.” Fuck it. “How did you guys become friends on Facebook anyway?”
“I saw her listed under people I might know and I friended her. She accepted immediately! I seriously cannot wait to read her book.”
“Wait. You know about Hannah’s book too?” I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.
“Of course, I did,” Erin said enthusiastically. “What do you mean by ‘too’? Who else knew? Well, besides everyone of course.” I could picture Erin rolling her eyes as she said that last bit.
“Jonathan told me,” I mumbled.
“Jonathan? You s
till see that pothead?”
“Yes, I still see him. And he’s more than a pothead. He’s also a graphic designer.” A freelance graphic designer who worked from home and smoked dope all day, but since Erin disapproved of him I was more inclined to defend him.
“Anyhoo, you know I don’t read chick lit, but if Hannah wrote it, it’s probably great.”
Normally I would defend chick lit, especially since Erin read almost all historical romances which did not exactly qualify as The Great American Novel either, but I was more bothered by the second half of her statement. “The book will be great because Hannah wrote it? Based on what? She wasn’t even in honors English classes in high school and as far as I know, has no writing experience.” She wasn’t in honors English yet managed to get into Brown. Of course she did.
“Well, she majored in fashion design and spent a semester in Paris and her book is about a fashion designer in Paris. Why do you hate her so much? I noticed you guys aren’t Facebook friends.”
Raising my voice, I said, “I don’t hate her, Erin.”
“What? You still upset that she made fun of your last name?”
“It was your last name too.”
“Yeah, but I’m not really short.” Erin giggled.
“Okay, so I called to wish you a happy birthday and I did. I should get back to work.”
“C’mon Kim. I’m only teasing. It was so long ago. She’s a sweetie now. But anyway, thanks for the birthday wishes. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”
Although I doubted Hannah was a “sweetie” now, I didn’t bother to argue the point with Erin. “Sounds good, bye.” I hung up the phone right in time to see the back of Rob’s head as he came rushing around the corner and into his office. Before he closed his office door, he gave me a little wave.
Good morning to you too, Rob. I took a deep breath and exhaled deeply. I squeezed my shoulders in an attempt to give myself a mini-massage. I glanced at my computer and switched from the Facebook blog page to my personal page. In addition to a notification that my friend Caroline liked my status, I had a friend request. I clicked to see who it was and sucked in my breath.
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