The Cinderella Pact

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Lisa heard a rumor from someone in Food that a few years back, when Lori was in Manhattan to meet with Corporate, she and Mr. Stanton stayed out past his bedtime of eight p.m. to take in a Big Band swingathon and that later she unzipped his pants in an alley and . . . Well, I’m sure it’s not true. I can’t imagine Lori doing that. Correction, I don’t want to imagine Lori doing that, especially in an alleyway with an octogenarian.

  “Don’t you know?” Lori is saying.

  “I . . .” I don’t know what to say.

  “That Belinda Apple doesn’t exist?”

  I freeze. Simply freeze when Lori says this. She is staring at me, but I am unable to stare back because my entire life is flashing before my eyes.

  Somehow I find inner strength, possibly hidden in the criminal core of my id, to ask with an eerily calm voice, “What do you mean Belinda Apple doesn’t exist?”

  “I mean that everything about her is made up. She’s a fraud. We, Sass! magazine, have as our ethics columnist a woman who is a total, complete, one-hundred-percent hoax.” Lori sighs deeply, and not even her regular Botox injections can prevent the wrinkles creasing her face. “Can you imagine what the flak’s going to be when this gets out? Star is going to have a freaking orgy. Nola, this is the absolute worst. You have to help us find out who she is.”

  Oh my God, Lori doesn’t know, I realize, trying to maintain a straight face. Relief is washing me like a cool breeze so that my body temperature drops and instead of feeling sweaty I feel clammy. She doesn’t know that I am the real Belinda Apple.

  And then a new concern. “Is this what the meeting was about?”

  “Of course. Though it’s been hanging over my head for over a week. You don’t know the stress this so-called Belinda Apple has caused. I’ve had to triple my Zoloft.” Lori is actually confiding in me as though we’re buddies, and I don’t know whether to play along or keep her at arm’s length.

  “How did you find out?” I ask boldly.

  “Due diligence. After the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times, Mr. Stanton demanded an internal investigation into our employees. We were doing fine until we discovered that there never was a British magazine called Go Fab! That’s where Belinda allegedly worked before coming here.”

  “I see. Well, maybe there was a Go Fab! once but it’s now defunct,” I say optimistically. “You know how that happens.”

  “No, no. We have ways of checking these things. Personally, I think these frauds are all over the publishing world thanks to laptops and cell phones. They should be abolished.”

  “Good point,” I say, lying through my teeth. If it weren’t for my cell phone and laptop, I would have no secret identity as Belinda Apple. Then again, that kind of proves Lori’s point, doesn’t it?

  “So . . .” I venture delicately, “do you have any other evidence that Belinda doesn’t exist?”

  Lori begins pacing back and forth in front of a blackboard on which the word MISREPRESENTATION is scrawled with a line through it. “Not much, aside from the fact that there’s no listing for a Belinda Apple anywhere in London. I just can’t believe it. I just can’t believe I was so . . . careless. I know I’m going to get fired over this, I just know it.” With this, Lori buries her head in her hands as though she is about to cry. I begin to feel sorry for her, which is ridiculous, as everyone knows Lori is a vampire.

  It is my first experience seeing Lori in some other state besides cracking the whip, and I am conflicted. Here she is, vulnerable, weak, and scared, and it is all I can do to pat her on the shoulder. Anyone else I would throw my arms around and hug.

  “Don’t worry, Lori,” I say, trying my best. “Maybe Belinda is legit. Have you asked her?”

  Lori lifts her head. As I expected, her eyes are dry. “No! Mr. Stanton and the lawyers don’t want us to contact her until we’ve built our case. They want to handle this delicately. If she wasn’t the biggest draw at this magazine, she would have been canned already, I can tell you that.”

  Her hands work into tiny balls. “I don’t care if she’s our precious columnist. If I ever find who’s behind this, I will have her head on a stick. Make a chump of Lori DiGrigio? I think not. She’ll wish she never heard my name when I’m done with her.”

  Did I mention that my knees were shaking?

  Lori emerges from her seething rant and focuses her beady eyes on me. “You’ve got to spy on Belinda, Devlin. Find out if she’s working for another publication. Or if she’s in jail. Or that there’s some other reason why she’s not using her real name. I want to know everything.”

  “Uh-huh,” I manage.

  “After all, this scandal wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for you,” she says, craftily turning the blame onto me. “One might say you were the catalyst.”

  I am not about to let her get away with that. I must stand up to her, or she will trample me with her size-five El Vaquero python boots. “In what way was I the catalyst?”

  “Well, you were on her résumé as a recommendation, weren’t you?”

  Heat is rising up my neck remembering how Lori essentially threw my application in the trash, thereby leading me to this farce in the first place. “Was it? You never called me.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I certainly did call you and, as I recall, you raved about her. You even got me Belinda’s new phone number when the one on her résumé turned out to be defective.”

  “Lori,” I say firmly, “that is a total lie, and you know it.”

  “You didn’t get me her phone number?”

  “I did that, yes . . .”

  “Then let’s not bicker over details. By the way, it doesn’t matter what I think. Mr. Stanton already knows you were the one who recommended her. If I were you I’d think very seriously about how you’re going to explain that. Mr. Stanton is not going to let this matter go by the wayside. He’s outraged.”

  Chapter Six

  I spend the rest of the afternoon in a daze. Mostly my brain mulls over the cornucopia of punishments for my deception—whether I’ll be sued and then fired or fired and then sued. Or criminally prosecuted. The possibilities are endless, though I resolve to take whatever punishment I have coming in brave, Martha Stewart style. I, too, will crochet a shawl in prison.

  In the Sass! women’s room, I Scotch tape the rip in my pants. Then I turn on Belinda’s cell phone and find there are thirty messages, including a bunch from the Charlotte Dawson Agency (CDA), the agent I finally found to represent Belinda. I am particularly alarmed because Charlotte never, ever calls.

  I am so shocked to see CDA over and over that I nearly drop the phone into the toilet. Though I don’t, because then the toilet would get backed up and the plumbers would pull out Belinda’s cell, Lori would call Verizon and find I’ve been paying the phone’s bills, and that would be the end of that.

  It is much worse in the editorial department, where every five minutes someone is stopping by my desk to gossip.

  “Did you have any idea? It’s the most shocking thing that’s ever happened here. I bet this bogus Belinda Apple is getting paid a pretty penny, too,” Lisa says.

  Though she’s my best friend at the magazine, Lisa is a bit sheltered, seeing as how she works in Books and rarely pays attention to the outside world. She is easily titillated and, therefore, great to take to any movie starring Vince Vaughn.

  “Who do you think Belinda really is?” she asks.

  “Probably a mole from Star,” suggests Joel.

  Lisa gapes. “That’s awful. What kind of fellow reporter would run such a scam? I’ll tell you who, a person who has no respect for other people, that’s who. Not to mention a person without an ounce of ethics.”

  “I don’t know,” I pipe up. “Maybe she couldn’t get hired elsewhere and she had to fake her résumé.”

  “Ridiculous.” Lisa folds her arms. “Unless she’s a felon or something.”

  My only wish is to go home, to pull the covers over my head, and not come out until everyone has forgo
tten Belinda Apple. And I’d do that, too, if I only had a car.

  Which I don’t. It has been towed upon order of the East Brunswick police to hell, otherwise known as a junkyard in South River. My brand-new copy of Who Moved My Fat? lying on the front seat, destroyed before I traveled one leg of the “exciting weight-loss journey that is”—was—“guaranteed to change my life forever.”

  “That’s sad,” says Lisa, as we stand in the parking lot and survey the patch of brown grass below us where my car once lay, albeit in flames. “Although, you know, maybe it’s a good thing. How old was that heap?”

  “Twenty-five years. It was my dad’s.”

  “Aww, so it had sentimental value.”

  “Has,” I correct. “Has. It’s still alive. Somewhere in South River.”

  “Though it’s probably crushed by now. I think they do that right away. You know, scrunch it down really small.”

  I start to cry, the image of my Audi Fox holding all my coming-of-age memories squished into a tuna can.

  “I know,” Lisa says, snapping her fingers. “That new guy in Tech Assistance could give you a lift home. He lives in Princeton. Chip.”

  I put this together. “Would that be Computer Chip?”

  “Know him?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Lisa frowns, not getting the joke. “Anyway, I do. He unfroze my computer last week. He’s a real sweetheart. Let me see if he’s still around. You stay here.” And she runs off.

  When she’s gone I’m left with nothing to do besides stare at the burned patch of grass on which I wish were my fantasy car, a Capri blue Mercedes SLK convertible. At $185,000 this is a luxury item I will never own, but that I crave nonetheless, in the same way that diabetics must crave Milky Ways, I think. Or that teenage boys crave Pamela Anderson.

  My Mercedes SLK dream is one of my few fantasies that does not require me to become Cinderella. No man is involved, or adorable tow-headed children. There is no party to attend looking smashing in a sequined gown where I am heralded for my runaway success debut novel or a wedding with an aisle where I will walk dressed in white, a long train with the letter A embossed on it. (That Sarah Ferguson divorce really messed with my head.)

  No, it’s just me, my long brown hair flowing in the breeze as I shift into fifth, cruising down the Jersey Shore. I run my hands over the buttery leather—color: sand. I have no problems, no fears. No one to answer to but perhaps the collection agents on my tail, angry that I have not made one payment on the $185,000 I owe on this Mercedes SLK in Capri blue. And because it is a fantasy, for once I don’t care.

  Daydreaming is something I do regularly and, may I say, I do well. I have daydreamed all my life. I can’t remember not daydreaming. In fourth grade I could tell you the names I had given the leaves on the tree outside our classroom window. Or the fairies and elves that lived in its roots. My grade point average hovered at a C- in fourth grade.

  It is the refuge of worrywarts, daydreaming. That and mindless eating. Best done in combination for full effect.

  It would be nice if Computer Chip drove a Capri blue Mercedes SLK convertible, but he doesn’t. He drives a black Toyota pickup and is wearing a denim shirt rolled up to the elbows when he pulls up next to me and leans out his window.

  “Need a ride?” He is not bad-looking for a geek. He has blond tousled hair and tanned skin and looks more like a surfer than a nerd who likes to hole up in his room, drooling over the latest issue of MacWorld. I find it refreshing to meet people who are not their stereotypes, like coming across a professional cheerleader who’s a feminist. Though, to be honest, I’ve never met one of those. I really don’t think they exist.

  “You must be Computer Chip,” I say.

  “Is that a joke?”

  “Not a very good one, I guess.” I pull open the door and climb in, astutely observing that he is without a wedding ring and that this could be the start of a whirlwind romance thanks to my exploded car, but I have no expectations. Expectations hurt.

  We go through the usual introductions and he asks me where to. I say Park Place in Princeton, if that’s not too far.

  “Tough day?”

  “Do I look that bad?”

  “Well, you’re standing in the parking lot in a hot black suit on a humid June evening, kind of dazed and daydreaming and you don’t seem to have a car. You tell me.” Chip talks in a slow drawl, somewhere between Texan cowboy and Californian dude, that puts a person immediately at ease.

  “You wanna know the truth?” I begin. “I’m in hot water.”

  “Yeah?” He leans back, revealing a pair of strong thighs under faded jeans. Friday is dress-down day in the office, but I’ve never dressed down that far. “So, how hot is this water?”

  “Boiling. For one thing, my car caught on fire and blew up.”

  “That’s too bad. What was the car?”

  “Audi. Fox.”

  “Must be ancient.” He shifts and I take in that his arm is extremely muscled for a man who spends his hours hunched over a keyboard. Again, not that I’m judging on stereotypes or anything.

  “It’s twenty-five years old. It was my dad’s.”

  “What are you going to get to replace it?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug, having not thought about it. “A Honda, I guess.”

  “Sounds nice and boring.”

  “There’s the pot calling the kettle black. You’re driving a Toyota.”

  “They make good trucks.”

  “Honda makes good cars.”

  He squints. “I see you in something more sporty. Like maybe a BMW 325i.”

  I gasp because the BMW 325i is in fact my backup fantasy car. “Yes, that would be nice, except that I’m an editor at Sass!, which means I can’t afford a BMW 325i. I can’t even afford to rotate its tires.”

  “Really?” He seems confused by this.

  “Besides. My dream car is a Mercedes SLK convertible in Capri blue. If I’m going to break the bank, that’s my sledgehammer.”

  He nods approvingly. “Now you’re talking.”

  “Correction. Now I’m hallucinating.”

  “Come on. You only live once. What if you die tomorrow? What if your last thought as you’re falling over a cliff is, I should have driven a Mercedes SLK convertible in Capri blue? By then it will be too late. Shame.” He shakes his head at the pity of it all.

  This Computer Chip is dangerous. Financially dangerous. He is echoing the same voice in the back of my head that has sent me into overdraft too many times. Do you know how many overpriced lamps and stereo components and pieces of jewelry I have bought because I might die tomorrow?

  “Anyway, it’s beside the point,” I say, trying to be frugal. “I’m about to be canned and I can’t be going out dropping two hundred grand on a car.”

  “You’re not going to be fired.”

  “Yes, I am. I can’t tell you why, but I have done something—with the best intentions, mind you—that is going to get me and my desk cleaned out faster than you can say ‘ethical standards. ’ ”

  “Hmm.” Chip is silent for a few minutes. “Then you might want to buy that Mercedes now, while the credit agency can confirm you still have a job.”

  This, I decide, is an excellent point. I like Chip. I especially like his thighs, which I chalk up as two more good reasons to stick with the Cinderella Pact.

  Chapter Seven

  Suze the nutritionist holds up a poster of the human gastrointestinal system colored in a nonthreatening peachy pink.

  “Gastric bypass reduces caloric intake in two ways. First, the stomach, which is normally the size of a fist, is divided and separated so that the space utilized is the size of a thumb. This limits the amount of food mass that it can hold. If a gastric bypass patient overfills the ‘pouch,’ as it is called, the patient runs the risk of vomiting, or even bursting the pouch.”

  Delightful, I think, scrawling the words Pouch Bursting and Vomit on the notebook Suze has provided as part of an introductory s
eminar: “Gastric Bypass: Miracle Answer or Helpful Tool?”

  This is Deb’s idea. Listening to tales of pouch bursting and vomit was the last thing Nancy and I wanted to do on a beautiful Saturday morning. But Deb practically begged us. Then she said she tried to get Paul, her husband, to come but he had to stay home with the kids, which meant she’d have to go alone and that scared her too much. When she started crying, her shoulders heaving in sobs, we agreed. Deb can get anything she wants by crying. She could be a professional tearjerker.

  What surprised Nancy and me was how quickly Deb seems to have made friends with the staff of the gastric bypass center. They know her by name and even know her kids’ names. Plus, it’s really weird. When we checked in for the seminar, the receptionist said, “Ready for next week, Deb?” and Deb gave her a meaningful look that caused the receptionist to bow her head over the keyboard.

  Something’s up. Maybe Deb is throwing a surprise party for us at the gastric bypass center. Hey. You never know.

  Nancy completely ignores Suze’s lecture, scrolling through her BlackBerry and answering old e-mails instead. Deb, on the other hand, is riveted, her posture straight, her face beaming like a repentant prostitute at a tent revival.

  “Secondly,” Suze continues, “the surgeon cuts the small intestine eighteen inches below the stomach and divides it. One branch of this surgically divided intestine is hooked up to the new pouch. This is called the gastrojejunostomy.”

  “That’s called butchering,” Nancy quips out of the side of her mouth.

  “The other branch is attached into the intestine to complete the circuit. This is known as distal anastomosis. The lower stomach, by the way, is retained to produce enzymes. This Y formation of the intestines is why the procedure, developed by a Doctor Roux, is called Roux-en-Y. It reduces calorie consumption by delaying when bile and enzymes mix with newly consumed food. The miracle of this is that the food enters the lower bowel only ten minutes after eating begins.”