A Previous Engagement

by Stephanie Haddad

  “Christian had a photo shoot, Kendra’s not feeling well,” I answered shortly. Was it not enough for her that I was here? I checked myself, remembering how important it had once been to have my mother approve of anything I did, and let it go.

  Christian was supposed to come with me, but after our abruptly ended Coffee Wednesday, I texted him that dinner was canceled. I was such a gigantic liar, on both sides of the issue, the guilt was already consuming me. In reality, I just couldn’t handle everything from all points of my life in one room. I mean, the only one missing would’ve been Marty.

  “Oh, well that’s too bad.” Satisfied, she set about gathering plates and serving the spaghetti. Lucy brought out the salad, I poured the wine, and my dad expertly drizzled sauce on each pasta plate in a dance perfected throughout the years.

  We sat down together in our usual spots, my father and mother on opposite ends of the oblong table, my sister and I across from one another on the sides. My mother had set out the fancy dishes, the candles, and a gorgeous fresh bouquet of daisies, a springtime favorite at my house. As children, my sister and I often received daisies from my father for no reason at all. He said his girls were as beautiful as flowers, and he wanted to bring home the prettiest bouquet he could find to be sure we still were. In my apartment now, I displayed a fine collection of gorgeous garden shots throughout my home, all photographed by one Christian Douglas. He said it was his favorite flower to photograph because of the way the petals were distinctly separate but connected, the way they laid side by side but interlaced over and under. Daisies, he said, reminded him of us.

  I did not want to think about these things anymore, since my throat was starting to feel uncomfortably thick, so I braved conversation. “Lucy, how’re my little nieces?” I tried to love my sister’s cats as such, because I knew she’d gladly die for the little critters, but I liked cats almost as much as I liked dogs.

  “Good,” she grinned broadly, finishing a mouthful of spaghetti. “Meg’s still untangled, which is lucky since she’s still hunting in those stupid bushes. And Beth thinks my new planter boxes are a good place to hide dead mice. Otherwise, not much to report.” As one of those cat people, Lucy was also a disappointment to my mother. Cat people and dog people so rarely see eye to eye. In reality, which I could safely observe as neither a cat nor a dog person, they have a lot of similar neuroses that get them there.

  “How’s work?” Lucy ventured, the usual sure-fire way to get me talking at the table. I appreciated her trying to help me overcome the uncomfortable vibe emanating from my mother’s end of the table. My father watched us back and forth with a pleased expression on his face.

  “It’s good,” I answered curtly. “New project.”

  The last words hung in the air too long, and I tried to pretend I couldn’t read my father’s and sister’s bewildered expressions. They were waiting for more. By not providing my usual one-hour diatribe about the awesome things I planned to do, it became obvious something was wrong. I tried to cover it up with more mindless blabber.

  “It’s hard work, you know. I’m working on a new publication with a team of people, but I mostly spend the time editing and prepping my presentation. This will mean big things for the company, and hopefully for me if it all goes well.” I couldn’t inject my usual fervor into the words. I talked a big game, but I didn’t feel a single ounce of pride in my work for the first time. Ever. It was like a switch had flipped and I couldn’t be bothered anymore. I felt empty inside.

  What the hell was going on?

  My mother tried to save the family from the boring lecture on investment packages she anticipated was next to come from my mouth. “I don’t know how this happened to me.”

  We all turned to her with the same blank expression. “What, Mom?” Lucy bravely asked. I braced myself for the inevitable explosion.

  “I have one daughter obsessed with cats who’s that way and one daughter who’s so busy working that she’s never going to give me any grandchildren,” she turned to me. “Why does it have to be this way, Tessa? You’re my only hope, thanks to your sister.”

  “What ‘way’ am I, Mom?” Lucy stiffened in her chair, her face pinched like she’d swallowed the lemon zest in her ice water. My father dropped his napkin into his spaghetti.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “Then say it out loud. I’m gay, Mom. G-A-Y. Gay,” Lucy was standing up now, her birthday sufficiently imploding on itself. “I like women. And it has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

  “All right now, girls,” my father attempted from his chair. “This isn’t the time—”

  As usual, my mother steamrolled him. “Joseph, you stay out of this. I’ll fight my own battles. I’m tired of everyone’s life being in shambles. Once you both figure out that it’s time to settle down and have children, I’ll be able to move on with my life.”

  “Don’t hold your breath, Mom,” Lucy said, gripping the table cloth with two white-knuckled hands. “You don’t just wake up un-gay one morning and think, ‘I’d like to go find a nice man and settle down, pop out some babies.’ It’s not going to happen. And Tess has better things to do than make grandchildren for you to ruin like you’ve done to us! Right, Tess?”

  All eyes on me, now was the time to attack with my usual anti-Mom vigor. I spent a decade defending my career against my judgmental mother. I’d shouted any number of things at her, blaming her poor work-life balance as a mother for most of my major problems. My mother’s split focus was largely responsible for many of mine and Lucy’s shortcomings, in our opinion.

  That day, her anger and resentment was as heated as a lukewarm bath. It hung in the air around me, encircling my limbs and chest, touching upon parts of my body. Her emotions were directed at me, but not at me. Her eyes were sad, guarded. Her jaw was tight, but trembling. I saw my mother’s frustration in herself and all her failings as a mother for the very first time.

  Instead of screaming, I slowly stood up and walked toward her. She stepped back, but I caught her in a hug, my arms encircling her stiffened shoulders.

  “Mom, I know things were hard on you,” I squeezed her, sensing her tension ebbing. “But it’s not your fault. None of it is. Lucy is gay for Lucy, not in protest. And I work because I want to. We both love you, Mom. You need to learn to love us the way we are.”

  It felt very Hallmark-generated, that moment between us. I’d lived a long life of screaming to no avail; it just perpetuated the cycle. At my words, as cheesy as they were, my mother’s anger evaporated.

  “Oh Tessa,” she sighed into my hair, hugging me back now. When her tears dampened the shoulder of my sweater, I realized it was the first time I’d ever seen my mother cry. “Of course I love you girls, just the way you are. I just want you to be happy.”

  “Then just be supportive, Mom. That’s all we need.” I swallowed my own tears and just held her for a few more minutes.

  Lucy’s expression morphed from irate to a muddled look of sympathy and suspicion. Obviously, the sudden end to the argument had left her a bit jumbled emotionally, but I could see that she wanted this resolution as desperately as I did. My mother moved to hug her, and Lucy let her. It was awkward, but it was a start. My father, however, had his eyes riveted in my direction. He was studying me, no doubt trying to work out exactly what was happening to his eldest, and most emotionally delicate, daughter.

  The truth was, not even I had an answer for him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As I enjoyed another weekend at the office, I started to put all the pieces together. I’d been fighting the loneliness, the feelings of incompetence, and the constant urge to vomit for weeks. Ever since my damned promotion.

  I knew the life of an Assistant VP would be no cakewalk, but I hadn’t expected it to take such a huge toll on me. This project sure wasn’t expected, for one. My workload could crush the average human being. I’d planned to surpass the average human being in this regard, but with all these muddled t
houghts clouding my head it was no wonder I’d been failing miserably.

  I needed a fresh start, a new beginning. The old Tessie was gone; this new one could handle anything and everything that Prime Investing, Inc. put into her path. Just you wait and see, Marty Bensen, you creepy, sketchy man. Tessa Monroe could handle whatever you threw at her.

  These things were easy to say to myself in the mirror, dressed in my fancy new clothes and sporting a drop-dead gorgeous new haircut. I’d spent a good chunk of my Saturday afternoon self-indulging, trying to pick myself up out of the rut I’d fallen into. New clothes, new hair, freshly painted fingernails and toenails, a soothing massage, that designer bag I’d been dreaming about… I splurged on all of it. In the moment, it felt great. When I got home, turned on the light and faced my echoing apartment, I started to fall apart again.

  “New Tessa,” I said to my reflection. “Enough of that already. It’s Monday morning, a fresh start, a new you. You are going to get your shit together and stop moping. This job is hard…” I trailed off, acutely aware of how ridiculous this exercise was.

  No, I reasoned with myself, this is good for you.

  “This job is hard,” I picked up again. “Harder than you thought. But that’s okay. It’s time to concentrate on you, on what you really want. If you want to be a VP, no more Marty and no more bullshit, it’s time to step up and make this publication your bitch. Got it?”

  No one answered, so my two selves just stared at each other for a minute. I looked—really looked—at myself then, and saw the tiny lines forming around my green eyes and at the corners of my mouth. I saw the white, pearly teeth prepared to flash my best presentation smile. I saw my auburn hair, now cropped above my shoulders and allowed to flow freely into its natural smooth wave.

  I also saw the freckles dusting my cheeks and nose, marring the porcelain tone of my skin. I’d once counted them all on a particularly boring day while stuck at home with the flu. I was eleven then, and tallied a whopping thirty-six freckles. By now, I probably had more, but I had no desire to find out. I refocused my vision, blurring the freckles into just a background pattern, and stared straight through my reflection’s eyes.

  “I can do this,” I promised myself, ignoring the sudden clenching of my stomach. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  I waited a moment, checked that my earrings were in, my shoes matched, my hair pinned securely. I switched off the light, grabbed my keys and purse, and headed for the door. Another Monday morning at the job I’d worked for eight years. A job that was going to give me exactly what I wanted if I could just wait it out, fight onward, claim it for myself. Prime was the place I needed to be, Vice President Tessa Monroe was what I wanted to see on my door, and come hell or high water, I was going to get it there.

  It’s what I’ve always wanted. Isn’t it?

  ****

  Unfortunately, Jake Tisdale did not share my ambition. In the weeks since our first copy-related debacle, I’d taken a liking to him. In some ways, he reminded me of a young, misguided version of myself. He just needed someone to take him under her wing, show him the ropes, blah blah blah. I elected myself to that position and set about grooming him for bigger things within Prime and the marketing world at large.

  Here we were, two peas in a pod: Jake, a finance major who found himself writing marketing copy for a living, and me, a marketing major who had stumbled into the unknown world of finance and investment jargon. It made sense that we join forces to achieve the best in ourselves, and since I’d already started on my career path, I took it upon myself to get Jake where I was.

  “So what’s the point of this again?” Jake’s attention span, however, was nothing like my own. Nor, it seemed, was his level of personal motivation.

  “You’re a young, savvy finance major, right?” I decided to try a new tactic, on this third attempt at explaining the task at hand. “I want you to imagine you’re a new investor, around your age, who knows nothing of finance and investing.”

  “But I do know about that stuff.”

  “Right, but our readers won’t.”

  “Who’s reading this, again? Why?” He clicked and unclicked his pen on each word, rattling my nerves with every sound. Three or four more clicks and I’d be breaking the pen in half.

  “Young people who want to invest. I want you to create a quick and easy ‘Top Five’ list. If this goes well, it could be a permanent column for you.”

  “Top Five what?”

  “Anything. Five hottest stocks to buy, five trading tips for twenty-somethings, five reasons you need a 401k. We’ll call it ‘Jake’s Hottest Fives’ or something catchy. It’s the perfect way to put that finance brain to work—your own column. Anything you want.”

  Jake leaned back in his chair, hands interlaced behind his head. He threw his elbows out to the sides and stretched for several seconds. Then he yawned, loud and sustained, like a foghorn. At least he wasn’t clicking the damn pen anymore. With him occupied, I slid my hand across the table and removed the instrument of torture from his reach. He didn’t notice.

  “Anything I want.” He sighed, thought for a moment, and then sat up abruptly. “How about best five action films of the year?”

  I raised my eyebrows at him, not willing to dignify his childishness with a response. I’d straighten him out, eventually, although it seemed to take much longer than it should. I used to be able to stun interns silent and motionless with the tiniest glare. Maybe I was losing my touch.

  “I’m just kidding,” he muttered. “God.”

  “Tisdale, what the hell is your problem?” When I yelled, his chair rolled back several inches in surprise. “Get your head in the game or it’ll be on a platter on my desk tomorrow morning. I’m giving you the opportunity of your career, one you don’t deserve, quite frankly. Now, either thank me by spitting out the best damn Top Five column I’ve ever read, or I’ll reach up your ass and pull it out myself.”

  Oh my God. I’d finally done it. I’d become Marty Bensen.

  The rest of my Monday, in general, was a disaster. I tried to block it out, but Tuesday wasn’t much better, with Savannah following me around for nearly six hours like a needy toddler. The big wedding photography gig was coming up that Saturday and she wanted to dress to impress her ‘new beau,’ as she sickeningly referred to Christian. Honestly, they were so cute sometimes I wanted to vomit.

  “What should I wear, Tessa? It’s been a really long time since I’ve worked a wedding, or even gone to one. It’s an evening one, right? So a formal dress. Cocktail? Is black okay?” She said all of this between loud, crunchy bites of her salad—which, I learned, she was eating to make sure she fit into whatever she decided to where. When I didn’t answer, she turned to her pal Jeanine. Savannah knew everyone. “What do you think, Jeanie? Can people wear black to a wedding or is that too morbid?”

  We’d grabbed a quick bite between meetings in the break room, where I ate a lunch that consisted of stale coffee and a leftover donut from my last meeting with the design team. I also found a cheese stick I left in the office fridge the week before, which qualified as my daily protein. As I ate a disgusting combination of food without tasting anything, I tuned out the conversation and let Jeanine field all style-related queries. I wasn’t exactly in the mood, nor the mindset, to be discussing sequins and seed pearls, or whether shiny gold gladiator sandals would be acceptable at a spring wedding.

  I was trying to force my mind onto the last article I needed to write—something about commodity investments that bored me to tears—but other images kept butting in on my thoughts. Savannah in a wedding dress, walking down the aisle. Christian at the altar, beaming ear to ear. Kendra placing the bride and groom topper onto their wedding cake, a perfect replica of the happy couple. Christian holding his first born, brimming with pride, squeezing Savannah’s hand as she lay beautiful and barely fazed by natural childbirth. And me, watching them through the glass, all by myself.

  “Excuse me,” I mumbled, headin
g toward the bathroom. It was empty, thank God, so I locked myself into the nearest stall and threw up my makeshift lunch.

  When I threw up a second time, Savannah sent me home for the day, swearing up and down that I wouldn’t miss a thing.

  “I’ve got this, Tess. You need to get better for the presentation on Thursday. Go home.” She shoved some money into my hand and tossed me into the first cab to drive down Main Street. I called Kendra on the way, hoping for some anti-nausea remedy only Moms know about.

  “Gingerale?” she guessed. “Want me to come over and cure you? I can make Raoul take over for dinner service tonight. It’s about time he did me a favor.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. I don’t want you to catch this. You need to stay healthy and take care of my future niece or nephew. Got it?” She protested for a few more minutes, but saw my valid point and dropped it. I paid the cab driver and peeled myself out of the backseat. The bumpy cab ride refueled my nausea so it was a challenge to stumble up the front steps into my apartment.

  I barely made it to the bathroom for round three, which was equally as unpleasant as my first two bouts. I brushed my teeth, stripped down to a tank top and shorts, and dragged a pillow and blanket to the couch. No sooner had my butt hit the cushion, my cell phone rang.

  “Hey Christian,” I breathed into the phone, afraid the full volume of my voice would bring more lunch remnants up my esophagus.

  “Oh God, are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine. Kendra called you?”

  “Can I do anything? Bring you some gingerale?”

  I sighed. “I don’t want you to catch this either. It’s wedding season. Stay home.” I used all my last bits of strength to emphasize those words. Not long after we hung up, I passed out on the couch.