“But times are tough.”
Wait a second, I thought, did she just say “but”? My brain came to a screeching halt and then started racing backward, sideways, every direction to figure out where this “but” had come from.
“Right now we need visionaries who can help us lead this company. We need people who can make things happen, people who aren’t afraid to take risks. And . . .” And? And? “And we don’t feel that’s your area of strength right now.”
My mouth fell open. I couldn’t believe it. There would be no raise, no assistant. Some slacker in spandex was going to get the promotion that I had earned. I would be stuck in this stupid job I was perfect at forever. The day couldn’t get any worse.
“Unfortunately, with the economy the way it is,” she continued, “we can’t afford to keep people on just because they’re good at their job.”
And there it was. Worse. Much, much worse.
My ears started to buzz. The tastefully decorated room began to spin. The big boss stopped talking, reached into her top drawer, and pulled out a manila envelope. It had my name on it in big block letters. This was real. This was really happening. I wasn’t only being passed over, I was being fired. “I think you’ll find that we’ve been more than generous, because we like you, Cassie, and we really do appreciate everything you’ve done here. And, of course, we’ll be happy to provide you with glowing references.”
I somehow managed to take the envelope, but I couldn’t make my mouth move or push air through my lips to form actual words. I wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. I was not going to be a star Web producer. I wasn’t even a star associate producer. I wasn’t a star anything. Not only would I not be able to check another item off my list, I’d have to uncheck something. This was the worst thing that had happened to me. Ever.
That it had happened early in the morning so I could go downstairs and pack up my desk in solitude was at least some consolation. Pitying looks from a bunch of thirty-year-olds in bike shorts would have pushed me right over the edge. As it was, each thing I picked up and put in my sad little cardboard box made me wince. Half-used notebooks. A purple mechanical pencil tagged by a piece of tape with my name on it. Magazine articles I had cut out and organized in a three-ring binder. Hair elastics. Each was a checkmark being erased. I sniffed back tears.
Then I caught sight of something that made me see how ridiculous I was being: my beautiful two-carat diamond ring. I stood still for a moment and looked at that ring as it played with the light breaking in through the blinds. I am something, I thought. I am engaged. That’s more than something. That’s the most important something. I sent a quick goodbye e-mail to my best office friend, Deb, dropped the manila envelope in my box, and walked out of the office with my head high.
Thank God I have Jeff, I repeated in my head over and over on the cab ride home. Thank God. Thank God. The more I thought it, the stronger I felt. My box of notebooks and hair elastics resting in my lap was no longer a symbol of failure—it was merely a box of things. So Jeff wasn’t exactly the most sensitive guy sometimes. He was a busy lawyer, overworked and under tremendous pressure to perform. All I needed was to have him put his arms around me, and everything would be fine. Better than fine. Perfect. Everything was going to be perfect. This was a minor setback. A temporary glitch. A learning experience. A window opening to another turning into a door, or however that saying went.
I certainly didn’t need that stupid job, I told myself. Jeff never thought much of it, and clearly, he was right. I’d find something better in no time. It wasn’t like I was some hard-nosed career gal, anyway. I’d use the extra time to plan the wedding, get a good jump on things. Item 1: Delete boss from guest list.
The more I thought about the wedding and Jeff, the more I realized nothing had changed at all. Everything that mattered was still on track. I was engaged, in love. Not the kind of all-encompassing love I’d imagined as a child, but a real, steady love. The kind of love a girl can rely on. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff. His very name grounded me. What did girls without fiancés do in times of crisis? I wondered. I didn’t even want to think about it. Jeff was the most important thing in my plan—in my life. My mother was right. That one thing was worth all other checkmarks combined.
I tried to keep this thought with me as I pulled an eviction notice off the door of my apartment. It said that Jeff and I had thirty days to vacate. I shook my head in disbelief that things had gotten this far over one neighbor’s complaints of imaginary music coming from our apartment in the middle of the day. Sure, Jeff loved his Brahms and Mozart, especially when he was feeling frisky after a shared bottle of wine, but we always kept the volume to a reasonable level. And we both had day jobs, so unless the stereo was possessed, none of it made sense. Several times we’d explained this to the building manager, who said we seemed like a responsible couple and apologized—he was only doing his job. When two more warning letters followed, Jeff had called the management company and straightened it out. We’d laughed it off before, but this formal eviction notice didn’t seem funny at all.
I was halfway through the document—what was this nonsense about the complainant having recorded evidence?—when I was practically knocked backward by a thunderous clanging from the other side of our apartment door. It stopped, and the hall was quiet again. Then clanging again, though softer this time.
I put my key in the lock and turned, but the tumblers didn’t catch. It was already unlocked. I froze. My heart started to race; adrenaline was flowing. Someone was inside. Robbed on the same day we were being evicted? The odds had to be astronomical. I scanned the eviction notice again. Didn’t it say something about the building manager accessing the apartment only with the current tenants’ prior permission? There it was, third paragraph, clear as day. Mr. Davidson was a nice man, but how dare he enter our apartment without our okay. It was bad enough that he had let this ridiculous charge escalate into an eviction. I fumed, dialing Jeff’s office on my cell phone. Wait till he hears about this, I thought with smug satisfaction. By the time he gets through with the management company, we’ll own the building.
No answer at Jeff’s office. I’d have to handle this myself.
As I turned the doorknob and opened the door, I was greeted with a third clang. It sounded like it was coming from the living room, or the bedroom, maybe. Sheesh. What was the guy doing in there, anyway? Renovating? I was past the bathroom before I realized that it wasn’t random clanging I was hearing. It was symbols crashing together toward the crescendo of Jeff’s favorite aria. I followed the sound to the living room, and sure enough, his overpriced, state-of-the-art, wall-mounted CD player was on, with the speakers set to full volume. “Jeff,” I called out, feeling guilty about blaming poor Mr. Davidson. If there was an answer, I couldn’t hear it over the rising whine of violins. I reached out to turn the CD off, but something stopped me. My stomach tightened. A tingle shot up my spine. “Jeff?” I whispered.
I walked slowly, so slowly, toward the bedroom.
The music was so loud in the bedroom—Jeff had installed the tiny ceiling-mounted speakers himself—that they didn’t realize I was there. But I saw them.
Jeff and Lauren in our bed, pale gray three-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton twisting around their naked bodies, their legs wrapped around each other, arms flailing with the music as though they were conducting their own personal symphony. Lauren the anorexic cellist. Lauren who’d dumped him three years ago for her bisexual psychoanalyst. Lauren who’d left him with a full set of emotional baggage, from trust issues to the occasional bout of performance anxiety. Lauren whose name he couldn’t mention without a disgusted snarl forming in the corner of his mouth. Lauren and Jeff. Lauren and Jeff.
The box slipped from under my arm, suddenly so heavy with all those tiny uncheckmarks, and smacked against the hardwood floor. Despite the music, I swear I heard the box sigh, its contents shifting into a more comfortable state.
“Oh, God,” said Lauren, eyes wide and mouth o
pen.
“Oh, shit,” said Jeff, much more appropriately, I thought, given the context.
The music paused for a breath before reaching its climax. I didn’t say anything. No one moved. The climax came. Boom, boom, boom. (In retrospect, I had to admit that it was impressive the man upstairs had tolerated us this long.) The sound shook Jeff and Lauren into action, as though it would provide cover as they searched for clothing that had been tossed around the floor. The room became a blizzard of naked flesh. I stood perfectly still, the eye of the storm, though I was anything but calm. My entire body trembled. My chest hurt. My mind was simultaneously full of every thought possible and completely blank. Wood instruments, strings, horns, cymbals—the orchestra carried the weight of the moment up into the air and smashed it against the walls. The dresser shook. Jeff’s beloved Japanese knickknacks rattled on the shelf above the bed. It was the perfect soundtrack to a life falling to pieces.
While they scrambled to get dressed (with Jeff chanting “shit, shit, shit” almost in time with the music), I ran through my options. At that moment I was livid—would have stormed out without a word if I could have gotten my feet to move—but what about tomorrow or a week from now? How would I feel then? If this had been part of my plan, I might have had some idea of how to react properly. In the absence of a plan, I reasoned, best not to do anything rash.
A strange sense of calm settled over me. Maybe this isn’t as bad as it seems, I ventured. I can get past this. We can get past this. People who love each other can get past this. Maybe getting through this horrible thing will make our relationship better than ever. Maybe surviving an affair is something everyone needs to go through. Maybe I should have added it to my plan from the beginning. I never said I couldn’t revise the plan, did I? No, I didn’t. Revisions are good. Every good plan involves some degree of flexibility. What great document hasn’t been amended? The Constitution, the Bill of Rights. Yes, surviving an affair is definitely checkmark-worthy, I decided. As I considered the ramifications of this alteration on Phases Two, Three, and so on (you must always consider the ramifications of alterations on future plan items), Lauren streaked past me, apparently having given up on finding her bra and left shoe.
Then everything went quiet. The CD was over. The front door clicked shut behind Lauren, and we were alone—me, Jeff, and the box. He looked frantically from bed to walls to window to floor to bed again, as though searching for words. I looked at him but didn’t speak. If I was going to forgive him, he was going to have to do all the work.
“Oh, God, Cass, I am so sorry.” His voice cracked. He stared at the floorboards, but I sensed that tears were coming, that the groveling was about to begin. I straightened my back and looked at him, determined to accept his contrition with the utmost dignity and grace. He is lucky to have me, I thought. He is lucky I have enough vision to see beyond this moment, that I understand that our future is so much bigger than this.
“You can’t know how sorry I am,” he continued, taking a breath and pulling himself together. “You’re great, Cassie. Really, really great. You don’t deserve this. And I love you, I do. But—”
“But?” Blood pounded in my ears, inner alarm bells sounding the alert. “Did you just say ‘but’?” I wanted so much to sound mad, indignant, though I’m pretty sure I sounded confused, because that’s how I felt.
“But.” He cleared his throat, picked at the seam of his shirt. “But I’m not in love with you.”
This wasn’t happening. Not happening. Not twice in one day. You’re great, but . . . I love you, but . . . Life is perfect, but . . . I could taste salt in the back of my throat. It took all my concentration to hold the tears back. My life was crumbling; that didn’t mean I had to.
“Tell me one thing,” I said finally, breaking the silence. “Was it something I did?”
“God, Cass.” Jeff dropped his head into his hands. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Just be honest with me.” The words came out like a squeak, as though a mouse had spoken them. And that was when it hit me: I was losing him, and I was very, very afraid.
He lifted his head and looked at me. “You didn’t do anything. Really. I mean, let’s face it, you’re perfect.” The words sounded good, so why did I feel like I’d been slapped in the face?
“Is that a bad thing?”
“No, of course not.” He shook his head. “I guess I’m just not looking for perfection.”
“Clearly.” All the stories he’d told me about Lauren made that fact obvious.
“I know this won’t make sense to you, but I need to be with someone who doesn’t have it all figured out. I need someone who doesn’t make it so easy.”
You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me, I thought. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen,” I blurted out, not so much at Jeff as at the world. “It’s supposed to be you and me. Jeff and Cassie. Not Jeff and Lauren. Not you and some stick-thin, neurotic cellist. It’s supposed to be me in cream Vera Wang and you in pale gray pinstripes. It’s supposed to be a partnership for you and a corner office for me. It’s supposed to be a house on the water and a boy and a girl and Christmases at your parents’ cabin and Sunday brunches with Sam and Trish and group vacations to Puerto Vallarta every winter . . .” My unlived future came pouring out of me, blending eventually into chest-heaving sobs. Jeff didn’t say a word, only sat looking stunned and too scared to speak until I reached the end of my fairy tale.
“I know that’s what you wanted,” he said. “But I don’t think I ever really did.”
“So why . . .” I lifted my hand and rubbed my thumb against the diamond’s surface.
“I don’t know.” He looked away, ashamed maybe, and spoke to the floor. “You needed it to happen so bad.”
“But I thought . . . I thought.” I thought we were in love. I thought we were forever. I thought I was getting everything I’d dreamed about. I didn’t know what I thought anymore. My chest began to tighten, my breath quickening. Please, God, I pleaded in my head, don’t let me hyperventilate. Not now, not in front of him. I took a deep breath and let it out. I was deflated. There was no better word for it.
“It’s for the best, Cassie. Trust me.”
“How the fuck can this be for the best?” I shouted. “Please tell me, because I’d really like to know.”
“I’m sorry.” He lifted his eyes, and I saw instantly that it was over. There was nothing I could do. There would be no revision to the plan. I would not be a star Web producer. I would not be getting married. There would be no Vera Wang dress, no house on the water, no Mexican vacations with all our friends. What was left? I wondered. So much had been stripped away, I wasn’t even sure who I was anymore. All I knew was that there was nothing left for me in that room.
“I have to go now,” I said the way you end a conversation with a telemarketer, perfunctory, detached. And that’s how I felt. Detached from the moment, from my life as I’d known it, from the room in this stranger’s apartment. I was floating up and away, and there was nothing to grab hold of anymore, nothing to keep me grounded. I picked up my box of office supplies, stepped over Lauren’s wayward shoe, and walked out of the apartment. When I reached the sidewalk in front of the building, I stopped. I looked left, then right, then left again. For the first time in my life, I had absolutely no idea where I was going.
CHAPTER TWO
I’d never felt so completely lost. It was a dry Seattle day, but it might as well have been pouring down rain for the dark cloud that was following every aimless step I took. I must have wandered the streets for hours, my box of office supplies locked protectively under one arm and a blizzard of questions thrashing about in my head. Were there signs I didn’t see? Did Jeff ever love me? Was this all really my fault? What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? What are all those stupid love songs about, anyhow, all those tear-jerking movies? Wasn’t lo
ve supposed to conquer all? What was so great about love if it didn’t make everything perfect? I could have drowned under the weight of all those questions.
Nothing made sense anymore. Nothing was the way it should have been. I’d stuck to the plan, done all the things I was supposed to, and now everything was wrong, wrong, wrong. My life—the life I’d thought I had before being abruptly awakened into my current nightmare—was upside down, inside out.
My life was spilling out onto the road. Well, the remnants of it, anyway. Notebook, purple pencil, butterfly paper clips I’d bought with my own money—it all toppled out of the box that I’d apparently been squeezing tightly enough to rupture. Everything landed around my feet. I stopped, unsure what to do, only vaguely aware of a car screeching to a halt somewhere nearby. I poked at the notebook with a pointy leather toe, kicked lightly at a cluster of paper clips. Even office supplies know when they’ve outgrown their usefulness, I thought. I lifted the cardboard lid, retrieved the manila envelope, and rested what was left of the box gently on the ground. A car honked loudly. I looked up and saw with a start that I was in the middle of the street. I crossed quickly, and the car roared by, crushing the box under its right tires. There was a slight popping sound, and that was that.
I turned away from the cardboard carcass and found myself at the pier. I’d always loved it down there, especially in the summer, when the shops and restaurants came alive with tourists happily enjoying this Tom Hanks version of the city and tanned locals vying to see and be seen. Now it was empty and gray. I walked to the edge of the wharf. There was nothing before me but cold, dark sea. The end of the world as I knew it.
The reality of the situation began to really sink in. I didn’t have a fiancé. I didn’t have a place to live. I didn’t have a paycheck. I needed a cup of coffee.
I ducked into a coffee shop for a latte and my bearings. I didn’t even get to enjoy the first hot sip before my cell rang. Jeff! It had to be him, calling to take it all back, to tell me he was an idiot, out of his mind to give me up. I fumbled through my pocketbook for my phone and caught it at the last ring without checking the number on the display. That was my first mistake. The second was telling my mother what had happened.
The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Page 2
