by Allison Parr
“Hey, bring me a Hawaiian,” Keith yelled during intermission. Halftime, whatever. When he realized he’d received the last slice, he offered it to me. “You get enough?”
“Thanks.” I was surprised and pleased by his solicitousness. “But I’m good.”
Abe plopped down beside me. “It’s trafe.”
Oh, shit. I hadn’t even thought of that. I was such a bad Jew.
“Ham and cheese isn’t kosher,” Abe explained when Keith kept staring at him blankly. “And Rachael’s Jewish.”
“Is that right?” Ryan looked directly at me for the first time in ages.
“Yeah.” Abe leaned back into the couch. His tall, heavily muscled frame took up half the space. “She’s adopting me. We’re going to have Rosh Hashanah with her family.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed, and his head tilted very slowly. “I want to talk to you for a minute.” He rose to his feet and heading toward the back of the apartment.
When I didn’t follow, the other guys looked my way. “What?” He couldn’t just drag me around like a rag-doll.
Mike shrugged philosophically. “Just good manners to hear a guy out.”
With a scowl, I got up. Ryan had left the door to the side room open, and when I stepped in, he slammed it behind him.
“Seriously?” His calmness vanished, leaving the fury I’d seen when he’d first entered the apartment. “What are you doing? You’re inviting Abe for your holidays? What do you want?”
My pulse jumped. “I don’t want anything!”
“He’s twenty-one years old. You’re not going to take advantage of him. Is that your game? Is that why you were really in Malcolm’s bedroom the other day?” With each question, he hemmed me in against the wall. Anger sharpened the planes of his face.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I backed up until I stood flush against the wall. I was acutely aware of how his T-shirt stretched taunt over his broad shoulders, and of the restrained tension in his powerful arms.
“Right. You’re not trying to catch a rich boyfriend.” Disbelief colored his voice. “Why the hell would a girl who doesn’t like ball spend an afternoon watching a game if she doesn’t want something out of it?”
For God’s sake. “You’re disgusting. And give me some credit. If I was trying to catch a football player, I wouldn’t exactly admit that I thought you were a total cretin, would I?”
He cocked his head. “You’re just digging yourself in deeper. So then what are you doing here?”
“I forgot my scarf. What part of that is too complicated for your thick skull? Or do you have so little experience with women that you just assume we’re all incapable of anything but panting over you?”
His unkind laugh matched the gleam in his eyes. “Oh, trust me, sweetheart. You don’t want to go there.”
He was too tall, too broad, and I kept taking quick gasps and still not managing to catch enough oxygen. I breathed in the heady combination of cedar and soap and masculinity, and it unnerved me as much as my erratically beating heart. “Get away from me.”
When he only smiled, I shoved him as hard as I could. His chest felt like marble. He caught my wrists, holding them high until I stood on my tiptoes, teetering toward him. I felt overheated and dazed, and his eyes lidded halfway. The air between us shimmered.
He only had to tilt his head down and he could kiss me. I caught my breath.
And he let his out in a long, deflated sigh, thrusting my arms away. I rocked back on my heels, shoulders banging against the wall. He shook his head. “You’re pathetic. Get your scarf and go.”
“The game’s not over yet.”
He cocked his head, and I got the feeling I was being weighed and judged. “Fine. Tell me the score and you can stay.”
I bit my lip, and he walked out of the room.
The rest of the guys didn’t seem to notice anything odd at my conveniently recalled “meeting.” Ryan held the door open, insultingly attentive, as though I might try to stay if he didn’t usher me out. Chin high, I stepped over the threshold. I turned back, struggling for something to say, unable to find words under the weight of that blue stare. Then, eyes still locked with mine, Ryan closed the door in my face.
As I walked down the stairs, I wrapped my arms around my stomach. My face fell and my guts were knotted and tight. Ryan had been right. I was pathetic. I’d wanted him to kiss me.
* * *
On Monday morning, I hopped on the R train into Manhattan. I’d applied for dozens of jobs after college, but when I didn’t even receive a cursory “Sorry, no thanks” from any of them, I’d ended up applying to dozens of internships, and finally landing one at Penelope Books. An imprint of Maples&Co, one of the Big Seven publishing houses, Penelope put out a lot of light-hearted women’s fiction and YA, with a dose of memoir added to the mix. Gretchen Sterowski started the imprint back in ’95, when she’d been hired away from another of the publishing houses. Penelope, like all of Maple&Co’s imprints, was housed in a twenty-story neo-Gothic building Midtown.
I spent three days a week at my unpaid internship, while I temped on Tuesday and Thursday. That money paid my rent, but not my MetroCard and groceries, and my scanty savings dwindled at an alarming pace. If I couldn’t turn this internship into a job or snag a real one, I’d be back home in three months.
Well, my parents would be pleased. They kept sending me articles about law school even as they paid lip service to my pursuit of the arts. And my best friend Kate had half-begged me to come home, but that was because she wanted entertainment. Working as a middle-school teacher apparently wasn’t the social contact she craved.
But I’d stay here forever, given the chance. I loved everything about it, even saying hello to Christophe the security guard, riding the elaborately decorated and constantly malfunctioning elevator, and entering the offices stacked mile-high with books. I passed Gretchen’s office door, holding my coffee in one hand and my bagel in the other, and I felt exceedingly grown up. I’d liked AmeriCorps, but a very different part of me loved dressing up for work and looking down at Broadway from the ninth floor. “Morning, Gretchen.”
“Good morning.” At fifty-six, Gretchen wore her short hair naturally salt-and-peppered, had a short, round body and matching cheeks, and had one of the sharpest minds I’d ever encountered. She juggled this job along with three children and a commute from Jersey. Now, she smiled from behind small glasses. “How was your weekend?”
Bewildering. “Good. I bought a ticket for my high school reunion at Thanksgiving. How was yours?” I’d learned to keep my answers brief. Gretchen cared about her employees, but she only engaged in real conversation when she needed a break from her own work.
“Good.” The one word answer was my cue to smile and walk on by. I entered the office I shared with one of the other interns and Marie, an associate editor. Books spilled off shelves onto the floor, while posters of covers plastered the walls.
Marie swiveled her chair around, her jean clad legs casually crossed tailor style. She gestured to a recycling bucket filled with mail. “Morning. Your presents are here.”
I smiled wryly. Twice a day, huge piles of mail arrived—manuscripts, galleys, final copies of books. Not to mention bills, advertisements, correspondences with international offices, and the occasional office supply. I plunked down on the carpet, armed with a letter opener, exacto-knife, and pen.
I had hardly made a dent when I heard the clicking of designer heels in the hall, and Laurel McKenzie breezed in and dropped her Parisian purse on her chair. Like me, Laurel wanted to work in publishing, but she could always fall back and work at her father’s financial empire if no job appeared. “Guess what I did this weekend.”
Marie smiled tolerantly. “What?”
“I went on a date to the Ivory Room!” Laurel leaned against her desk, too filled with energy or caffeine to start helping me with the packages. “He was gorgeous. Couldn’t keep the conversation off Wall Street for more than five seconds,
but so good looking. And Rachael, you would have loved it. They had those, you know, those things. I wouldn’t eat them since spinach always gets stuck in my teeth, but I know how you love Greek food.”
“Spanokopita?”
“Yeah! Those.”
I smiled. Laurel was a trip-and-a-half with her obliviousness to the recession, but we got along.
We took our lunch break at a small pizzeria on 7th Ave, where I learned more about Laurel’s date than strictly necessary. “What about you?” she asked as we finished off our meal. “How was your weekend?”
I decided against the unabridged version. Laurel would’ve been impressed, because celebrities impressed her, but it felt too private and I’d acted too badly with Ryan. “I saw John again.”
The first time I’d gone out with John, he’d wowed me with literary quotes, a degree from Yale, and rectangular glasses. On the second date, he’d taken me to see Spring Awakening. On the third, to his apartment. I’d practically swooned every time I’d seen him in his tan coat and polished loafers. Well-educated, well-dressed, employed and interested in me—what wasn’t to like? It had been my first week in the city and I’d been determined to make myself into the kind of person who easily slipped into relationships. The next day, I’d spilled the entire story to Laurel. I’d stupidly wanted to impress her, and dating an ad-agency executive seemed very Sex and the City.
Now, Laurel leaned forward with vicarious interest. “What? Where?”
“I was temping in the building he works in. He asked me out for a drink.” I shook my head. “It was so awkward.”
“Did you say yes?”
I set down my slice. “He has a girlfriend. Remember?”
She waved a hand, leaning back in her chair. “Well, didn’t he say they were open?”
“He did.” I regarded my curved stick of pizza crust morosely before chomping down on one end. The problem was that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the whole open-relationship thing, because I had thought that we were starting an exclusive relationship.
Well, I never claimed to be people-smart.
“And to be honest, I just so want to make out with someone, and it would be so easy to call him up.” Ryan’s fault. Awful, nasty Ryan, who was so gorgeous that he’d ramped my horniness into full drive, and such a jerk that I certainly couldn’t do anything about it with him.
“Well.” Laurel shrugged, as though it was reason enough for infidelity. “John is hot.” I’d shown her a picture from his company website. We were not Facebook friends. “And it’s not like you’d be cheating or whatever. So why don’t you just use him for a little harmless sex?”
I bit back a nervous giggle. I had never used someone for sex in my life. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“I mean it, Rachael. When was the last time you hooked-up with anyone? John, right? That’s two months. I didn’t even like my date on Saturday, but I still slept with him.”
I examined my nails. I was used to way longer dry spells than two months. This was just depressing.
When lunch ended, Laurel took off. “I already cleared it with Gretchen.” Her eyes danced. “I told her I have a dentist appointment, but it’s really for a mani-pedi. But nails are like teeth, right?”
If a job opened up and it went to Laurel instead of me, I would cry.
Back in the office, a new pile of mail waited. With a groan, I sank to the floor and started dragging my exacto-knife through packing tape. I stacked books and sorted mail. I pulled off shrink-wrap and dated letters.
I ripped one of the envelopes open, sliding out a nicely done manuscript. I started to toss it to the side. Even though our website clearly stated “No unsolicited manuscripts” and “no unagented work” we still received more than our share. Writers were supposed to go through agents, and then the agents sub us, and then we publish. But sometimes people thought that maybe they’re different, and skip the agent, sending their manuscript straight to us.
And then we threw them out.
Yet this one, as I tossed it aside, fell open. A color picture filled up half a page, and I couldn’t help glancing over. I was a sucker for Renaissance paintings, and this one had dudes in armor and plumed hats. They stood outside a tent strung up between several trees, filled with women kneeling down before them. One of the men held his arms apart as though taken aback, while the other, wrapped in a regal red cloak, looked on.
There was a box below the painting, titled “A Royal Blunder.”
Anyone else catch Queen Sisygambis’ embarrassing mistake this week? As the known world knows, Alexander just won the Battle of Issus, and now King Darius III is on the lamb and A.’s captured the Persian royal family. When Alexander paid a visit to the hostage ladies with his bff Hephaestion in tow, the queen-mother collapsed in obeisance to plead for her family’s life—only she knelt in front of the wrong man!
Your bad, Queen S.
But Alexander didn’t mind. In fact, our source (Diodorus 17.37.5–6) reports A. even said: “Never mind, mother. For actually he too is Alexander.” Oh, la. We always thought they were close as brothers, but maybe it’s more than that.
But Mr. H better watch out. Queen S knows what side her pita is pocketed on, and word is she has two granddaughters close in age to the 23-year-old conqueror, who has only taken one wife so far. D and S go on our list of princesses to watch.
Alexander the Great was exactly my age when he conquered Persia? I might need to re-adjust my life goals.
I flipped over to the next page. Formatted like the front page of a newspaper, a print of an engraving took center stage, titled “Weddings at Susa, Alexander to Stateira and Hephaestion to Drypetis.” In it, Alexander and his new wife lounged on a dais, Hephaestion and the second princess just to the side. Scores of other laurel-wreathed and linen-draped folk lounged in the fore and background. Above, a headline splayed in square, bold font: Royal Double Wedding of the Millennium!
I scanned the pages, admiring pictures of paintings, busts, carvings, and landscapes. There were maps and timelines. Gossip columns about Alexander’s three wives shared space with side-by-side comparisons of paintings and diagrams of battles. It was history, art-history, and humor, all in one.
“Hey, Marie. There’s an unsolicited here that’s actually pretty good.”
She swiveled in her chair. “Really?” She skipped through it, and smiled a bit. “It’s cute.”
That wasn’t very enthusiastic. But. I guess not everyone’s a total nerd, with a half-completed Classics minor. Still, I thought it was clever.
Which is why, instead of tossing it, I stuck it in my inbox. Just because.
Chapter Five
On Tuesday, I temped at a law firm on 8th Avenue. It was fascinating stuff, entering data into a massive spreadsheet that could conceivably eat the world. I’d temped there several times before, so I greeted the people I recognized, who all regarded me with blank expressions. After that, I kept to small smiles during my frequent visits to the coffee machine.
I probably should have avoided all the extra caffeine, since I had an interview that afternoon at the mid-sized Trophy Press for a publicist’s assistant position. I spent the entire day halfway to hyperventilating. “You’re intelligent,” I kept repeating under my breath while copy-and-pasting data into the spreadsheet. “You have a year’s experience in publishing. You are personable. You deserve this job.”
Drowning out those words, a silent, dark voice shrieked. No one will ever hire you and you’ll have to go home and you’re a failure. A total, utter failure. Why do you even try?
I’d arranged to leave the office early, so at three o’clock I ducked into the bathroom, and spent twenty minutes trying to make myself utterly professional. I wore my straight black pencil skirt over black tights, a black jacket, and a white blouse. Was this too conservative? Too boring? No, it was a cute suit. And I had bright square glass earrings. I smoothed my trembling hands over my skirt. I had actually ironed the night before.
And the real irony w
as, everyone I’d met in publishing wore jeans.
As a final touch, I brushed powder over my skin and dabbed on lip-gloss. Then I changed my mind and blotted it off, and then dabbed more on. “You’re intelligent,” I muttered as I left the building, heading for the subway. “You have experience.”
You’ll never get this.
I straightened my shoulders. I had a shot at this. I had excellent recommendations. I just had to ace this interview.
But everyone else in the world also has excellent recs, and they’ve more experience, and who are you kidding?
When I reached the subway, it was closed.
I stared at it in astonishment, the knot of anxiety and tension in my stomach convulsing. How could it be closed? New York didn’t close the subway. This wasn’t France. The metro didn’t go on strike.
“Excuse me,” I said, after I found my voice and a clump of officers. “Why is the subway closed? Is it just this station?”
The officer didn’t even look up. “The whole line. There’re protests going on at Grand Central.”
“But—but I have to get downtown.”
He shrugged. “Better take a cab. Subways aren’t going anywhere.”
I bit my lip. Now what was I supposed to do? I’d have to take a taxi, even though I didn’t really have the money to do that. And what with traffic—who knew how long it would take me to get there? Maybe there was a bus...
My shoulders slumped. How could I get a job if I couldn’t even get to an interview? This was a disaster. I was a disaster. I should have left earlier, should have checked the Metropolitan Transport Authority website, should have known what the hell I was doing with my life a year ago...
