by Celia Hayes
Come on, Sam, did you take a good look at her?
And I can’t tear my eyes from the screen…
“Oh God…” I moan, suddenly paralysed.
“What’s up?” Terry asks, her eyes opening wide. “Sam? Sam, are you ok?”
“I’m gonna puke,” I mumble, covering my mouth with a hand.
There’s no time to waste if I don’t want to make the biggest fool of myself ever. “Come with me, hurry up!” she says, while grabbing both our bags and dragging me away from the table.
We walk through the bar holding hands and reach the queue outside the women’s toilets, which are positioned in a private area by the DJ’s console, managing to avoid the hordes of young girls crowding in rapture about their idol.
There are at least five people before me, all of whom look annoyed by how long they’ve had to wait. One quick look is enough, though, to understand who really needs to go first and so I find myself locked in the cubicle before I even realise it, and in the space of a few seconds I manage to vomit up a cheeseburger, a whole portion of fries, two Caipiroskas, a Martini, four olives and half a basket of potato chips, not in that order.
I am sure that the woman I just saw on TV never had to go through anything like this.
I can’t help but compare myself to her and wonder where I went wrong, and my life suddenly looks absolutely miserable – I don’t have a boyfriend, my salary is a joke, I’m on the plump side, my eyes aren’t blue and I don’t have long legs. What makes it even worse, though, is that I am still hoping that one day all this is going to change for the better. I linger on my illusions to avoid having to finally face the reality, which is that I’ve fallen for a man who will never be interested in me, who doesn’t really think much of me and who doesn’t want a woman like me to walk hand in hand with and lie on a rug in the park eating sandwiches with. He wants a very different kind of woman, in fact – one who likes dressing up and flying to Paris in a private jet in the middle of the night just to see Bizet’s Carmen from the front row before rolling around under silken sheets in some fancy hotel on the Seine where he rips off her negligee which is so tiny I wouldn’t fit in it even after plastic surgery.
I struggle to get back on my feet. My stomach is churning like a broken washing machine and I slump against the wall. I’m in pieces. Over the past three years I’ve done everything I could to make him notice me, but I wasn’t even able to get him to assign me a simple job reporting on a stupid pageant. Three years, and all I get for my troubles is seeing my prince charming hugging the wicked witch by her bustier. I’m being totally pathetic, I know, but I can’t take it any longer and I burst into tears.
Is my love life really that bad? Apparently so, and this has been one of the biggest blunders I can remember. Of all the men in the world, I decided to fall for the one who was furthest out of my league. And if that wasn’t enough, he also happens to be my boss. I’m a walking cliché. The worst part is that I can’t even avoid him, because I can’t afford to lose my job, so I just have to put up with being in his presence and pretend that everything is okay and that I don’t have any feelings for him. I have to hide the excitement I feel every time I see him and the drowning feeling that comes over me when he walks past me without even acknowledging my existence.
“Sam,” says Terry mockingly, as she knocks at the toilet door. “You want me to call an exorcist?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” I try to reassure her while I do my best to get myself back together. “I’m already feeling better.”
Like hell I am. I obviously don’t feel any better at all, but I pretend it’s true, at least, until the taxi we take drops me off at the front door of my place. Or, to be more precise, the front door of my parents’ place, because I don’t even have my own apartment to fill with cats and frozen TV dinners. On the other hand, it does save me from the embarrassment of not having anyone to ask to come on up for one more drink. It’s not much of a consolation, but it’s something, I suppose.
“You gonna be able to get up tomorrow?” Terry asks me as the car pulls up at the kerb on a street in Western Addition. She even holds the car door open to help me get out.
“I’ll manage,” I mumble sleepily, handing some money to her for my part of the journey.
“Okay, but if you’re still not feeling great tomorrow, take a sick day. You can’t run the risk of getting ill because next week you have to interview Mr Murphy,” she reminds me, noticing my total absence of reaction. “You remember the interview with Mr Murphy, right?”
“Sure, I could I forget it?” I reply waving goodbye with little enthusiasm. She waves back, and that’ll have to do this evening as I don’t see any handsome prince waiting to kiss me goodnight. I open the front door and hope that I don’t fall down the stairs.
The good thing about living on your own is that you don’t have to give explanations to anyone when you come home late. You can slam the door, throw your shoes on the sofa, and sing out loud under the shower without anyone appearing in their slippers outside your door to remind you that it’s 2 a.m. I live at my parents’ though, so I open the door trying desperately not to make too much noise, then tiptoe up the stairs and open my bedroom door very slowly, praying that it won’t creak. Once it’s shut again, I can breathe normally. I sit on the chair by my desk for a moment with my hands in my hair.
Given how late it is, the best thing would be to just go straight to bed. Putting on my pyjamas – the ones covered with little blue teddy bears – is the only intelligent thing to do, but I decide to give myself the coup de grâce instead. I switch my laptop on and Google the name of the model I saw with Dave. “Madeleine Hunt…” I mumble, while scrolling through the numerous images that appear on the page. On impulse, I print out one of the pictures taken for an article on Ralph Lauren’s autumn and winter collection and spend the next ten minutes desperately looking for a defect in her, but she’s absolutely flawless. She’s a model, she’s a millionaire and she’s even thin; she has all the attributes a woman could dream of. The only qualities left over for me are clumsy, masochistic and overweight. I realise that it would take a miracle for me to become like her, so I give up. There’s no point to all of this, and I can’t go on tormenting myself. I’ve had enough – I should at least try and accept my defeat with dignity.
“Right, it’s late and I need to go to bed,” I scold myself while I crumple up the printout in my hands. I go over to the wastepaper basket to throw it away and right at that moment, in my dirty pullover, with puffy eyes and messy hair, I make a definitive decision. “That’s enough.” Enough dreams, enough pain, enough humiliation. And most of all, enough Dave. Because Dave isn’t just Dave – he’s a symbol of a thousand other stupid decisions I’ve made in my life which have prevented me from improving my situation. I want to grow, damn it, I really want to move on. I don’t care if I don’t reach my original goal, but I can’t waste any more time waiting and hoping that sooner or later someone – specifically him – will finally notice me. Tomorrow my new life starts, I’ve decided. A real life this time, with no false illusions and where I am just Sam: Sam ‘sorry but I’m busy at the moment’ Preston, and he’s just Dave, Dave ‘excuse me, what was your name again?’ Callaghan. I’ll pay him back with the same indifference he’s always shown me. I have to stop staring into the sunrise and start looking around me. And who knows? Maybe I’ll find that the sun has made me blind to other opportunities.
Let’s be constructive: there must be someone out there for me as well. Someone who might not put me at the centre of his universe, but someone I can at least share a two room apartment on the Milky Way with, right? Surely I’m entitled to a ground floor apartment near the Great Bear, aren’t I? I really want to try and believe in all this for once, and to imagine a different life for myself. I put my earplugs in and approach my bed clutching my mp3 player.
It’s very late, but some of the people in this city can’t sleep tonight, because they can’t stop trying to think of a wa
y to start their new lives. But 89.9 FM, Love Attitude is still here with you to talk straight to your heart. Enjoy our last song for tonight and we’ll see you again tomorrow, back on 89.9 FM. Close your eyes and let Love Attitude keep you company, the only station that transmits through the frequencies of your dreams.
Finally, I throw the picture of Madeleine Hunt in the trash and a little piece of my heart goes with it.
From now on, my motto is going to be ‘no more Dave’.
Chapter 7
From Here to Madeleine Hunt
“Would you like to come with me to the opening ceremony of San Francisco Fashion Week?”
How long does it take for a hangover to wear off? I’m not really an expert.
“Do you know what I’m talking about?” he continues, since my eyes can only stare at him emotionlessly. “There’ll be runway shows, conferences, VIPs…”
Should I splash some cold water on my face to try and wake up? It is actually quite a warm day.
“Sam, it’s about next year’s autumn and winter collections. I know, it’s not the Oscars night, but it is still pretty important. Think of all the people who are going to be there, and of all the celebrities who will be roaming the San Francisco streets.”
I massage my temples, close my eyes and take a deep breath. Then I open them again and… nothing. I’m apparently not hallucinating. Dave is standing in front of my desk, looking amazing in black jeans under a white shirt.
“What?” I ask him, astounded.
Is he actually asking me out? And if he is… have I said ‘yes’ yet? And if I haven’t, why the hell not? Oh, riiiiight – no more Dave. No more Dave. No more Dave.
“I know it’s probably still too early to plan it all out,” he mutters, scratching his head, “but I need you to let me know immediately. I’ve got a really busy month coming up, so I need to know if you can help me out with this.”
“How would I help you?”
“It’s nothing complicated really, just participating in the event would be enough. You need to make sure that the interviews go smoothly, and I need someone I can trust.”
Now it’s clearer. He wasn’t asking me out on a date, he was just trying to give me some extra work. He wants me to do his research, make phone calls, write messages and manage his agenda. But nothing that will actually help my career. Quite the contrary, in fact – this way I’ll end up writing the weather news in a couple of months.
“Can’t you get someone else to do it?” I ask, hoping he can come up with an alternative.
“Someone else?!” My reaction seems to surprise him, which doesn’t surprise me, since it’s the first time that I have actually stood up to him since they hired me. “Er, yeah… I suppose I could,” he says, trying to play for time and casting confused glances around. “The truth is, though, that I’d really prefer you to do it,” he confesses as though the planet’s destiny depended on my reply. He’s never looked at me like that before. “Sam, listen…” he says, trying again, “I know it’s not the best assignment ever. We’ll have to spend whole days together and you’ll have to come with me to all the runway shows. I wish I didn’t have to go either, but unfortunately I have to. But I can promise that we won’t attend more than two meetings, and that we’ll do the rest of the work from here. There’s also a dinner party of course, but that’s just a formality. You’ll be home by ten or eleven at the latest.”
A whole week with Dave. Lunch with Dave, dinner with Dave, work with Dave. Am I hallucinating? A whole week, all spent with him? If I manage to survive this without having a heart attack I guess I can consider myself immune to him. And if I do have one, I already know what Nicholas is going to write in my obituary: Sam Preston, struck down in her prime after being asked to work with her boss. She leaves behind her a cat, a goldfish and a complete collection of Grey’s Anatomy DVDs.
“Sam, trust me, I can’t put up with any of the others in here for more than a couple hours. Please don’t abandon me, you’re the only one I can work with.” Okay, that was the coup de grâce. And as if his words weren’t enough, he’s also making a sad puppy face. Damn it! I really wasn’t expecting anything like this. I get that it’s not a date, and that’s why I’m believing that it’s really happening, but a request like this is going to totally jeopardise my plans of becoming indifferent to him: how can I ever forget Dave if I have to follow him everywhere for a week? He can’t ask that of me, it’s not fair. I only just threw away the napkin he gave me two years ago to clean up the coke I’d spilt on my desk!
“So, Sam?” he says, holding out his hands for an answer.
“Okay.”
Complete surrender.
“Good,” he smiles.
I’d like to make him eat that dumb grin of his, damn it! How long did I manage to resist him, in the end? I check the time and… Great job, Sam, you stuck to your plan of steering clear of Dave for a whole six hours. That’s what I call progress – even better than that time you decided to become a vegetarian.
“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” I am forced to ask when I realise I haven’t been listening to what he’s telling me.
“I said,” he repeats, “that the Fashion Week starts in less than three weeks. We have more than enough time, but I want every single thing to be ready by then, starting with deciding which reporters are going to be at which conferences. And, by the way…” he adds as if he’d forgotten about it, “I’m not sure if we have a couple of free photographers, I should talk to George about it. Can you organise the shifts?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Great, please let me know ASAP. Do you have the organisers’ numbers?”
“I’ll go and look for them right now.”
“I’ll be going, then,” he says and disappears, already thinking about something else.
“Have a nice day, Dave,” I say to his back before he disappears behind the door.
“Yeah. No, wait. One more thing,” he comes back. “Listen… do you have a minute to do this…” He takes a parking ticket out of his wallet and gives it to me. “Could you pay this for me?” he asks, already knowing my answer.
“No problem,” I reply. ‘No problem’ seems to have become my philosophy nowadays.
“Great – what would I do without you?”
“I have no idea,” I answer, trying not to sound sarcastic and to remain polite for a few more minutes. I’m not sure I managed, but Dave doesn’t seem to care anyway, and a few seconds later he’s already off talking to Ben.
Three weeks… great, this is going to be damn hard work.
I immediately call Terry to ask her for some friendly advice.
“Hey Sam, what’s up? I hope you don’t have a problem doing the interview.”
“No, don’t worry, I’ll do it. But that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Cool,” she says, relaxing immediately. “So what happened?”
“Guess who just paid me a visit?” I ask, secretly trembling.
“Dave,” she answers, killing the surprise.
“Exactly – Dave,” I say. “But guess what he asked me, though,” I continue, starting to tremble again.
“To review some articles he wrote.”
“Okay, yeah, that. But what else?” I hiss down the phone while staring desperately at the ceiling.
“I don’t know, what else?”
“I love the way you can’t wait to hear what I’m about to say.”
“Come on, just spit it out,” she snorts. “What did Mr Tight-Ass Callaghan want from you?”
I hate her when she’s in this mood.
“He invited me to the opening ceremony of San Francisco Fashion Week,” I tell her proudly. I’ve been waiting to brag about something like this for so long!
“Are you kidding me?”
“Do you honestly think I would kid about something that serious?”
“Did he really ask you to go out with him?” she asks again in disbelief.
I’m not sure whether I should b
e offended by her tone or not. “Does that sound so impossible to you?”
“No, no! That wasn’t what I meant,” she says, mortified, as she tries to make up for her gaffe, “it’s just that… you know Dave, and you’ve seen the types of women he usually dates…”
“Yes, I’ve seen them,” I confirm in a low voice. “But this is nothing like a ‘first date’. It’s just work.” I recap everything Dave told me about the job I’m going to be doing with him.
“Right, I get it now,” she sighs in relief, like someone who has managed to sort out a chaotic situation.
“I guess I’m lucky to have friends who think so highly of me.”
Terry bursts out laughing and then murmurs, “Come on, Sam, you know what I mean.”
“Unfortunately I do, and I can’t even really say that you’re wrong.”
“Anyway, you’ll be going out and about with Dave Callaghan. How do you feel about it?” she asks.
“How am I supposed to feel?” I whisper, peering around to make sure that nobody can hear.
“It could be your chance to put a ring on his finger,” she teases me.
“With or without spiking his drink?”
“You idiot!”
“Look who’s talking! Anyway, seriously, help me get out of this situation. I need another very important event to attend, something I can’t really avoid. It must be something so important that I just can’t accept his job.”
“So something that forces you to not accept this job… That’s what you need…” she mumbles – not, however, coming up with anything useful.
“Don’t you have anything for me to do? I don’t know, an interview in Kazakhstan maybe? Maybe someone’s giving birth to quintuplets in Burundi and you want me to go and follow the story?”
