Entry-Level Mistress

by Sabrina Darby

  “Ok, are you PMS-ing or something?”

  “No, I’m epiphanizing.”

  “Ah, that’s OK then,” Leanna said, laughing, “You can share your wisdom later, after you’ve tagged Craig’s installation.”

  I laughed, picked up the can of red spray paint, and shook the thing idly. I wasn’t skilled at graffiti, by any stretch, but I drew on my best calligraphy and started a stylized version of “Emily was here”.

  I stepped back, watched Leanna shake a can and let loose on the screen. Not such a bad idea on Craig’s part after all. I moved my hips to the drummer’s beat, finally relaxing into the night. My old clothes, my old scene, but a newer Emily.

  • • •

  “Is that Daniel?” Leanna asked a few minutes later, grabbing me and whirling me around. I followed my friend’s pointed finger, caught his familiar form as he stepped up the stairs.

  “He came,” I said, shocked.

  “Uh, yeah, and it looks like he’s leaving.”

  Leanna’s words galvanized me into action, and I reached into my purse for my phone even as I slipped through the crowd.

  Had he not seen me? Had he just not liked the scene? And what was he doing here in the first place?

  I stumbled out into the heavy, humid night air. There was a line to my left, a crowd of college kids and even what looked like high school kids trying to get in. To my right, Daniel was walking down the street, away from me.

  I ran after him, fast in my flat, fashion sneakers.

  “Daniel!”

  He stopped. I skidded to a halt, too, watched the tension as his shoulders lifted and lowered before he turned. He had probably hoped to slip away before I had any idea he had come. What was going on?

  “Why are you leaving?”

  “Not my scene,” he said coldly. His tone sliced through me but I ignored the stupid pain. I couldn’t react until I had more information and whatever was going on here required a light touch.

  “Of course it isn’t,” I said, laughing, shaking my head. “But you knew that before you came. Why did you come? I thought—”

  “You helped me make my decision at lunch.” Pleasure at his words washed over me despite the coiled tension. “There was only the matter of numbers to finalize.” He paused. “But I should have known better than to come out of pity.”

  The pleasure dissipated instantly. So did the light touch.

  “Pity? You’re joking, right?” In the orange glow of streetlamps, I tried to scry his expression, but it was like he’d turned to stone.

  “You’re a little kid, Emily. Playing at life. Getting excited about crap music—”

  “This isn’t even the band yet!” I threw my hands up in exasperation.

  “With people who don’t have any potential to reach any higher.” That was condescending. But when he fell silent, I didn’t have any words ready. I didn’t even know what we were arguing about. Except, it felt like he wasn’t just trying to leave this club or this moment. There was something else going on here.

  “What about me?” I took a stab in the dark. “Do you think I have potential? You said I did, at my apartment. We were already having sex, so you didn’t have to lie to get me in to bed.”

  He took on that distinct expression of a guy faced with an idea from a woman he had never considered. Relief filled me. I moved on.

  “I’m not a kid.”

  It was only the smallest movement of his lips but I caught it. So that was it. Then he took a deep breath, the stone of his façade cracking. I took a breath too, bracing myself.

  “What you said earlier today, about me being a cradle robber—”

  “It was a joke!” I interrupted, laughing.

  “But there’s truth to it.”

  “Daniel, we’ve known this since the beginning. I’m old enough to drink, remember?” Exasperation laced my words. He’d done an absolutely sweet thing by showing up here tonight and then he was ruining it with this stupidity, fighting about something even he couldn’t really care about. But maybe that’s what this was all about. Maybe he didn’t want to do something nice for me.

  “The age difference … You’re so young.”

  Despite the rationalizations I was making in my mind. He was infuriating me.

  “Why am I too young?” I demanded. “Was Tatiana too young?”

  “Tatiana?”

  “I met her, you know, last week. She didn’t know who I was, of course, but it was at this party Leanna invited me to. She was drunk and fighting.”

  “Yes, that would be Tatiana,” he said with a tight smile.

  “Don’t be stupid, Daniel,” I said, shaking my head. “You have any number of reasons not to be with me. And only one to be.”

  I looked from his face to his lips, knowing he was waiting to know what that one reason was.

  I stepped forward, reached up to curve my hand behind his neck, to draw his face down to mine as I stood on my toes. He followed my lead and I directed all of my frustration into the kiss.

  The touch of lips to lips was electric. I studied the shape of his with my mouth, my tongue. I drank in every color, texture and temperature of him. When he held me close, his hands stroking me through my clothes, I finally relaxed against him and took the pleasure simply for pleasure and not as a battle I needed desperately to win. It was the calm after the storm.

  “Why don’t you take me home, Daniel?” I whispered against his skin. “We can celebrate your decision.” He was swaying. He wanted to say yes, like I wanted him to. I just needed to keep him in this space, keep the tone light, tease him out of this obsession with the difference in our age. I lifted myself on tiptoe, raked my teeth lightly over his earlobe and then said, “But you’d better make your choice quick. I don’t have much time to spare … I’m not getting any younger.”

  His laughter shot through me like an aphrodisiac. And like that, the fight was over and nobody was trying to run away. The tension that wound through my body dissipated. I slipped down to my heels, leaned against him, his left arm around me as we both pulled out our phones: he to text his driver, and I to let Leanna know the change in plans. We had at least one more night.

  Chapter 10

  Thin, early light snuck around the thick, wooden slats of the window shades. Between that and the crazy chirping of the birds, I judged it to be around five. Daniel shifted, lifted his arm and I scooted closer, into the space he had created for me, my head resting against his shoulder.

  “I need to go,” I whispered.

  “What color is your hair really?”

  I laughed, surprised.

  “Purple.”

  “I’m not entirely certain purple is a natural human color.”

  I giggled again, my arm tightening around his chest before my hand started drifting.

  “It’s brown. Just slightly lighter than … um … ” I gestured down my body, toward my thighs.

  “I’d love to see that.” He shifted onto his side, ran his finger along the under curve of my breast.

  “I should go.”

  “What you really should do is leave clothes here.”

  I laughed. “That’s good for the future, but what about today?”

  He rolled onto his back and let me get up. I stood, moved about the room, gathering the pieces of last night’s ensemble.

  While he drove me home, I stared at his profile, trying to understand him. The tension of the night before was gone. This morning he was warm and considerate. He wanted me to leave my stuff at his place, as if I were actually his girlfriend. And maybe I was. The pleasure of that symbolic request stayed with me throughout the morning, even after he was long gone. As I showered and dressed, packed my purse and did a cursory cleaning of my bedroom.

  Then it was time to go to work.

  When my father called as I was walking up the steps from the subway, I flipped the phone open before I remembered I was avoiding his calls.

  “What, you don’t call your old man anymore?”

  Des
pite my guilt, I laughed at my dad’s phrasing. The thought of Mark Anderson as an old man, even after all these hard years, was ridiculous.

  “I’ve been busy. I hope you got the Father’s Day card.”

  “Too busy for me? That sounds exciting. But I thought the fellowship didn’t start until August.”

  “It doesn’t.” I hesitated, felt caught in a lie though I hadn’t actually lied yet. “I … I took a marketing job for the summer. Wanted to get some money in the bank. Just in case. Maybe I’ll move to New York.”

  “Look at you.” I could hear him laughing and it rankled, awakening the teenager in me that still wanted to break away and grow up. “Talking about getting money in the bank.”

  “I’m on my own now, dad,” I said softly, just shy of reminding him that he hadn’t been able to help support me since he went to jail. Then that thought made me feel guilty because jail hadn’t been my dad’s fault and here I was sleeping with the enemy.

  The enemy I couldn’t bring myself to blame completely anymore, for whom I kept trying to find excuses.

  The enemy who had suggested I leave clothes at his house.

  “Listen, honey, I might have some news.”

  “What’s the news?” That old clenching tensed my stomach and tightened the muscles of my shoulders. It was the same constant apprehension in which I’d lived my teen years as every day some new disaster seemed to strike, from a new court date to a scathing article in the newspapers. I wanted to hang up on my father before he could say anything else. I wanted to hide my head deep in the sand. What else was going to fall?

  “I’d rather tell you in person. I was thinking I’d come up for a few days next week, maybe go to the Pops, or drive down the cape?”

  “I don’t know yet,” I hedged. What I really didn’t know was what Daniel was doing, and if I’d be invited along. How had Daniel become associated with freedom, with a relief from the tensions of my childhood? And what on earth was I doing choosing to spend time with him over my father? A father who had news that, good or bad, was something I’d need to know. Of course, my dad’s visit also meant I’d end up spending a few nights on the futon. “Sure, I mean.”

  “Great,” he sounded happier, ready to make plans. I’d always been his baby, daddy’s girl, even when he went to jail. Even when I was rebellious. Even when my mom had tried to turn me against him, to suggest my dad had never been trustworthy. But there was something different now. My secrets, my new life. I was finally an adult too. Something I’d wanted for so many years and now, I finally had. But the taste was bittersweet.

  And beneath it, remained that apprehension. What else would fall?

  Chapter 11

  June rolled to a close and I passed through in a rush of unthinking giddiness. I didn’t want to think. I ignored everything that pointed to coming disaster, the way that my co-workers, especially James, avoided talking to me except when strictly necessary. Whether they were scared of my connection to their boss or derisive of it, it didn’t matter to me. Not when, interspersed with the numerous, time-intensive yet basic tasks I was assigned, there were stolen kisses, embraces, promises. In the evenings, on the weekends, I lived for the circle of Daniel’s arms and the naked length of his body against mine. The few hours when he had an evening dinner meeting or a weekend lunch appointment, I spared a rare visit back to my own apartment. Dealing with the menial tasks of paying bills and doing laundry, I would glance at my unfinished artwork, the sketches for the sculpture project, which now felt so bulky and unpoetic. The art with which I was obsessed was the one created in each living moment.

  I rejected my mother’s request to visit Arizona for the fourth of July. I likely would have said no anyway—when I’d left for college I’d been happy to put the craziness of my stepfather and their hippy, commune lifestyle behind—but my decision had more to do with embracing the present than rejecting the past.

  It was exciting to be in Boston, and exciting to be part of Hartmann Enterprises. Daniel had made his decision and Janine’s nephew, after much negotiating, had accepted an offer. Hartmann Enterprises was moving into space. That changed everything on the third floor as the conversation expanded from round, futuristic and global to universal. And now incorporated many jokes about The Jetsons. Above all, there was a focus there that had been missing earlier.

  The decision also changed things between Daniel and me. Though he was busier, he seemed to want me by his side more, even inviting me to dinner with him and Julian, whose careful observation had warmed into a friendlier relationship. On the days that Daniel didn’t have meetings, I spent lunchtime reading a book while he worked or listening to him talk through plans. Plans that seemed top secret, as if I were the last person in the world with whom he should be sharing them. He trusted me. Or maybe he was testing me, just as he had that first day he had invited me up to his office, had me wait there for him in the empty room.

  But why test me? Even if I never did anything to hurt him, even if I never whispered a word of his plans to my father, or anyone else who could endanger them, in six weeks I would be going off, parting ways. In six weeks it would all be over.

  That thought alternately made me want to run away now, or spend every waking moment with him. When Leanna announced her plan to go to Manhattan for July 4th and invited me along, I held back. This time I didn’t have the excuse of a disliked stepfather. I hesitated to give an answer because I was waiting for Daniel, even though he hadn’t mentioned any unusual plans.

  Then, suddenly, on the Thursday before the holiday weekend, it didn’t matter anymore. Shortly after ten, Lance called me into his office, his expression grim. I thought through the projects I’d completed all week, tried to think of a misstep I might have taken.

  He gestured for me to sit and, though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I sat.

  “You have talent,” Lance said, leaning against the front of his desk, shaking his head. I wanted to say thank you but his body language was saying something far different from his words. “I want to start entrusting you with more responsibility, involve you in the creative discussions, but at the same time … ” He paused, rubbing at his chin.

  “I’d like to be,” I said quietly. I hadn’t been as vocal during the morning meetings since the day Jillian had put me in my place. I knew this wasn’t my career but it was Jillian’s.

  “You started off well here,” Lance continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “And then your personal life became a distraction. Even though interoffice dating is against the rules, because it’s Hartmann you’re seeing— No please, it’s obvious to everyone.” I pressed my lips together, forced myself to just listen. “I don’t really know what he’s thinking but this is a new department and this sort of behavior ruins cohesiveness, teamwork and morale.”

  It was like I was eight again, being chastised. Even though I was embarrassed, even though the whole situation was awful, Lance had a point. To me it had all been a game. Although I did my best to complete the tasks given, work wasn’t serious to me at all.

  “If you quit, I can guarantee an excellent referral. I can call a few friends.”

  “Does Hartmann know we’re having this conversation?”

  “Are you playing that card, Emily?”

  “No!” I said quickly, appalled. “I just wanted to know. I understand. I never intended, imagined even—”

  “I did discuss this with Hartmann and I’m sure the two of you will make some decision. But think about it. You might need to make a choice here about what you want in your life, from your career. Take it from an old man who’s been here for a while. Daniel Hartmann, the man, is not a retirement fund.”

  Daniel was a serial dater; I knew this. From Vogue, Page Six, Cosmopolitan, The Wall Street Journal even. The night Angelika threw her glass of water on him in the Lilliputian Room in Manhattan everyone had heard her yell that he’d die alone. Yet women still seemed to think they could be the one to make him settle down. But Lance couldn’t know he had nothing t
o worry about where I was concerned. I wasn’t in this for the ring and the generous pre-nup. In fact, I came from a line of women who knew how to walk away from rich men. At best, I was in this for six more weeks of pleasure. At worst, if I found it in myself to drag up the old resentment, I was dating Daniel for the sole purpose of learning his weaknesses and bringing him down.

  But to the rest of the world, that looked different. I’d been acting as if I were in love.

  “Thank you for your concern,” I said simply, trying desperately to blink away the sting of embarrassed tears. Of tears from some other emotion I didn’t even know how to name. A sense of loss, maybe? Desperation? Whatever it was, I needed to escape from it.

  I left Lance’s office and went straight to the elevator bank. Pressed the up button. Waited, blinking. Lance was right.

  I heard Janine’s voice before the elevator doors even fully opened. Confident, strident, high-powered even though she was an executive assistant—a position I would never before this summer have imagined as being a position of power. I watched the woman hang up the phone as she looked up at me.

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “I need to speak with him. I’ll wait.”

  Janine looked as if she wanted to say something and then shrugged. We’d never become “friendly” but today she looked almost sympathetic toward me. I took a seat on one of the cream leather chairs, all too aware of that something that the woman hadn’t said.

  But I was going to quit. I was going to quit him and this whole mess too. I knew plenty about Daniel Hartmann, CEO of Hartmann Enterprises. Enough to do at least some damage to his plans if I were wily enough. But as I also knew about the man, I was never going to do anything with any of this information; I was lying to myself if I pretended otherwise. In the meantime, I was letting my real life pass me by. Perhaps even irrevocably.

  The glass doors opened, on a cloud of genial laughter, the sound of a meeting ending. Two men in suits walked out and behind them Daniel stood, holding the door, smiling. So handsome it made my chest ache. So familiar now. Mine to touch but not mine. A stranger still.