32AA Read online

  “Now, Emma, I have another lovely surprise for you. I wasn’t going to tell you, but I’m just so happy!” Peri shrieks with excitement and I have to hold the telephone slightly away from my ear.

  “I’m just so delighted! You’ll never guess who’s coming. Go on, see if you can guess.”

  Guilty for trying to avoid Peri and her demon brood, I realize that if I try to get out of this, she will be hurt. And I really don’t want to hurt her. She’s only ten years older than me and has always made such an effort to be friendly and include me in Dad’s life (older sister syndrome—thank God not mother syndrome). Especially since the twins were born.

  I wonder, again, how Dad could have married two such different women, from two different continents. One (my mother) a top, radical, feminist barrister in London. The other (Peri) a receptionist from New Jersey. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a receptionist, because it’s a very worthwhile job. Not that there’s anything wrong with New Jersey, either (after all, Jon Bon Jovi lives there, so that’s good, isn’t it?). I’m very glad I got the chance to live in New Jersey with Dad. My mother (ever one for equal rights) made sure I spent equal time living with Dad. Although it has to be said that he was barely married to my mother long enough for the ink to dry on the marriage certificate (she was back in London before she even realized that she’d brought rather more back from the States with her than she’d bargained for—me).

  I realize that Peri’s side of the phone line has gone unusually quiet as she waits for me to guess the identity of the mystery guest. Oh, God, I hope it’s not Uncle Derek. Or Norbert.

  “Er, Uncle Derek? Norbert?” I pray I’m wrong. Uncle Derek, Dad’s partner, apparently a complete whiz with a scalpel and a pair of implants, has a disconcerting habit of talking to my breasts instead of to me. And although I’m sure his interest is purely professional, I can’t quite rid myself of the idea that Uncle Derek enjoys his work more than is usual. How would he feel if I spoke to his penis?

  And Norbert, a junior partner (also a breast man), is a complete bore. He’s convinced he’s irresistible to the entire female population. But why does he feel the need to point out the smallness of my breasts whenever I meet him? I don’t ask men how long their penises are, then recommend penis extensions if they’re anything under eight inches.

  “Guess again,” Peri grunts with her gusty laughter. And then, “Emma, just give me a moment, will you? The boys are smashing eggs on the kitchen floor…Joe Junior, raw egg is not good for you…”

  As Peri rescues my half brother from near death by salmonella, I suddenly remember the envelope I’m holding. It says E. on the envelope. It’s for me! From Adam! Everything’s fine, just like I thought. It’s got to be part of my birthday surprise. Maybe it’s a magical mystery tour, you know, “Meet me at the café on the corner and all will be revealed.”

  I rip it open and pull out the neatly folded sheet of paper, scrabbling at it with excitement. And then my heart sinks into my feet as I read it.

  Breakfast meeting with important client. See you later, A.

  What meeting? Which client? As Adam’s assistant, I keep his office diary and I would have remembered, Breakfast meeting with important client. See you later, A. Especially today of all days. And it doesn’t even say Love, A., with kisses. You’d think he’d remember to add a few X’s to the bottom of the note, wouldn’t you?

  I can’t help the very bad feeling that’s congealing in the pit of my stomach. Am I obsessing? I think I am obsessing. I take a deep breath and try not to assume the worst, but it’s hard. I always assume the worst, because that’s usually the real deal, so I’m just preparing myself in advance for disappointment.

  Rachel says it’s my English half coming out and she is one smart cookie. She has a doctorate in biochemistry, or genetic engineering, or something scientifically brilliant. Anyway, she’s scarily clever, and if she says that my English half is insecure and that it worries compulsively, then I figure it must be right.

  “Darling, I have to go,” Peri splutters down the phone. “Oh God, Joe Junior just puked on the kitchen floor. Does salmonella show that quickly? I don’t think it does, but you can’t be too careful. I’d better call the pediatrician, just to make sure. See you on Thursday. Oh, and happy birthday again.”

  I hang up the receiver as the panic attack starts to build, moving up from my stomach to my throat. What if Adam’s getting tired of me? Breathe, breathe, in-out, in-out.

  Oh, God. What’s if he’s having an affair?

  I wonder if it’s too early to call Tish or Rachel? Think I’ll call Tish. Rachel will only tell me to stop being pathetic and needy. Okay, it’s now seven thirty. Tish will be having breakfast in Rufus’s Organic Deli on Washington, in a bid to finally make Rufus notice her and fall madly in love with her after three years of breakfasts in his deli. So I speed dial her cell phone.

  Friend Tish (shared an apartment with her for four years until I moved in with Adam three months ago) sings “Happy Birthday to You” to me.

  “Tish, Ithinkadamforgotmybirthday,” I gasp into the receiver. “He was gone before I woke up. He left me a note. Do you think he’s trying to subliminally send me messages that he wants to finish with me, or do you think he’s just nervous about proposing?” I can’t quite bring myself to utter my suspicions about an Adam–another woman affair.

  “Honey, slow down. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  I spend the next ten minutes going through my angst, and Tish spends the following ten minutes telling me that I’m overreacting and that everything will be fine, there must be a logical explanation for his apparent amnesia. I feel a bit better. I really do. At least I think I do…

  “Wear the Donna Karan pantsuit,” Tish tells me. “It will give you confidence. It absolutely screams ‘I am a capable, intelligent woman who is totally going to be a great account manager.’ Stylish, discreet, yet not boring. Wear the four-inch Manolo Blahniks and take the Prada briefcase Rachel bought you last Christmas. And don’t overdo the makeup. Keep it simple.”

  “This is great,” I tell her. And it is. Tish always knows what to wear for whatever occasion. It’s that designer eye of hers again—totally infallible.

  “So, how’s it going with Rufus?”

  “Oh, same as usual,” she tells me cheerfully, and I know that means she barely said hello, just gave him her order and sank into tongue-tied embarrassment.

  Tish, at thirty-five, is a young Sophia Loren (and will look gorgeous as an older Sophia Loren when she’s seventy). Men line up in droves at the door of her Interior Design store in Hoboken, but does she ever date them?

  No. For the last three years she has pined over Rufus O’Leary, a big, brooding Irishman. Rufus is a nice guy, but he’s not exactly the type to spout poetry at you and sweep you off your feet (more the type to spout organic bean sprouts and offer you today’s special menu). Alas, the poetry and feet-sweeping are exactly what Tish is waiting for.

  “Well, I’ve got to go,” she says, and what she really means is, “Oh, here comes Rufus I must get out before he speaks to me and I make an idiot of myself.”

  I haven’t told her yet that Sylvester and David have invited Rufus to the party (Rufus does, after all, provide the restaurant with the most wonderful organic produce). I feel guilty about this, but Sylvester made me promise not to tell Tish. He says that if we tell her, she’ll only obsess and be nervous for longer, and there’s no point needlessly torturing her. Besides which, by the time we’ve managed to pour a couple of glasses of Chardonnay into her, she’ll be more relaxed and confident enough to finally speak to him.

  I wonder why Adam’s so off sex…

  Oh shit. 8 A.M. already. But I don’t care. You see, I accidentally found Adam’s latest Visa statement. When I say “accidentally,” I mean that I found it while sneakily rummaging through the contents of his bedside table in my quest to find evidence of an affair. And there it is—on his statement! A twenty-five-thousand-dollar purch
ase at Tiffany’s. Twenty-five thousand dollars.

  From Tiffany’s!

  My engagement ring! Y-e-s!

  4:30 P.M.

  I am hiding in the ladies’ bathroom.

  It is a very nice bathroom, with art deco mirrors, lots of silk ivy plants and beautiful terra-cotta tiles everywhere, but the aesthetics fail to impress me.

  I am gripping the cold marble counter and concentrating furiously on the artfully arranged faux flora, because if I don’t, I will cry, and the after-cry look is not a good one for me. Squinty eyes and blotchy red skin are what crying does for me.

  I wonder if I can hide in here until everyone else has gone home?

  2

  Bad to Worse

  TO DO

  Hide in ladies’ bathroom. Forever.

  It happened on Fifth Avenue.

  I should have known it was a sign of bad things to come!

  A group of workmen on coffee break whistle and call after me as I saunter past on my way to work, and of course I am so delighted (because even workmen usually ignore me) that I preen and hold up my head as I attempt a seductive sashay.

  I have to say, with the help of a well-padded bra, this Donna Karan suit boldly gives me curves where no other suit has given me curves before.

  Looking good, baby, I think to myself.

  I am hot!

  So I slip immediately into daydream mode, imagining that men everywhere will be so enraptured by this goddesslike vision, madness and mayhem will ensue. Fender benders and innocent pedestrian injuries all down Fifth Avenue as men ogle me instead of watching the traffic.

  And then, because I am so busy recreating myself in Aphrodite’s image (and, it has to be said, imagining how great the Tiffany’s ring will look on my finger), I step into a manhole cover and poof, just like that, off comes the heel of my Manolo. This is a sure sign of impending disaster.

  I love these shoes.

  I have nurtured and protected these shoes for three whole years. I keep them in their box, complete with shoe stands, so that they don’t lose their shape. They were a rare personal Christmas gift from my mother. She usually buys me politically correct gifts, like sponsoring children in third world countries in my name—which is completely admirable and much more worthy than an expensive pair of shoes. But I still love these shoes.

  And I cannot afford to buy another pair. Well, not yet, anyway. Unless my promotion comes with a good pay raise.

  I should have worn my sneakers to walk the ten blocks to work, then changed in the lobby like I usually do. But today I made an exception because it’s my birthday. Plus, the sneakers look terrible with the Donna Karan suit.

  At this point (after the humiliation of a group of high school students on a school trip sniggering at my demise), I should just turn around and go home to bed to eat Häagen-Dazs ice cream, and play air guitar along with Jimmy Page. Instead (spurred on by the promise of a Tiffany’s box) I push boldly forward and make an emergency stop at Payless Shoes. Result: a pair of very nice sling backs with mock snakeskin finish for the bargain price of twenty bucks—black, of course.

  When I finally arrive at work (amazingly, I am only twenty minutes late) Bud, the security guard, opens the door for me and tells me “not to worry,” that “these things happen.” And Angie, the bulldog receptionist from the Deepest Pit of Hell, is not nasty to me. She isn’t actually nice, either, but she doesn’t say a word about my lateness. Not a snide remark about how some of us manage to get out of bed with the alarm. She just raises an evil eyebrow (her resemblance to Cruella De Vil is uncanny—funny I’d never noticed that before) and gives me a pitiful smile.

  This in itself is usually enough to set all my internal alarm bells ringing. But when everyone else in my department gives me the same pitiful smile, accompanied by gentle inquiries about how I feel, and telling me not to worry, that “these things happen,” I just assume that it’s because I’m thirty.

  I smugly imagine that they all fear I am about to have some sort of midlife crisis, on account of the fact that they are all in their twenties and haven’t yet had the liberating experience of looking the big Three-O squarely in the face. Bloody cowards. Their time will come.

  But the oddest thing about today is Adam, conspicuous by his absence. Apart from a couple of meetings in his office diary, there’s nothing to suggest that he’ll be out all day, and by three in the afternoon I am starting to panic. My fertile imagination takes full control of my brain, as I conjure up all kinds of horrific scenarios, each one more bloody than the last.

  Maybe he was mugged (oh, no! My ring). Maybe he choked on his coddled egg during his early breakfast meeting, and because I wasn’t there, no one knew how to perform the Heimlich maneuver. Oh, no! Suffocated by a coddled egg, how awful! Or he could have been the innocent victim of a gangland-style drive-by shooting. I imagine his crumpled body, broken and bleeding on the sidewalk as he gasps my name. Or maybe he was hit by a cab, because the driver was distracted by my morning goddess impression on Fifth Avenue…

  Oh God, I can just see it now. Me, pale and wan (but obviously in a beautiful kind of way) in the ER, being comforted by a George Clooney lookalike as he tells me that Adam, despite grievous horrible wounds to his poor body, confessed his love for me shortly before wheezing his last breath…

  And it would all be my fault for distracting the cabdrivers in such a shameful way!

  But I don’t guess the most obvious reason for his inexplicable absence.

  He is avoiding me.

  When he finally saunters into the office (the picture of good health, not a hair out of place or bandage to be seen), he barely looks at me as he passes my cubicle and asks me to step into his office. So I do. Butterfly wings flapping madly in my stomach.

  This is what happens next.

  “Please sit down, Emmeline,” he says from his leather swivel chair, placing clasped hands on his huge, mahogany desk. And then he smiles, and his perfectly white teeth (regularly touched up with his bleaching kit) contrast healthily with his tan (hours on the tanning bed at his gym). He is truly one of the most handsome men I’ve ever set eyes on. And while I am inwardly rejoicing that all his body parts are intact and imagining what beautiful children we will have, he clears his throat several times and fiddles with a paper clip.

  He doesn’t say, “Happy birthday.” He doesn’t say, “Congratulations, you got the job.” No Tiffany’s box magically appears on his desk, either. I know we’re at work and have to maintain a professional distance, but he’s even more “me boss you secretary” than usual.

  And then I’m scared, really scared, that the feeling of impending doom that I’ve had since I got out of bed this morning is for real, and not just me obsessing.

  “I didn’t get it, did I?” I ask in a small voice, willing him to contradict me. But he doesn’t. After long, agonizing seconds, he looks at me for the first time. But he still can’t meet my eyes.

  “No,” he says, finally. “You, er, didn’t. Not this time.”

  And then he looks back down at the paper clip, and he is obviously nervous, which is odd. Unnatural. He is usually the epitome of comfort in his own environment.

  I swallow the lump of disappointment and try to be calm and reasonable. But I deserve that job. I worked so hard to prove myself and I thought I’d succeeded.

  “Why not?” I ask, clutching the seat of my chair, which is much lower down than Adam’s, so I have to look up at him to get this bad news.

  “I’d be great with my own accounts—you know how much input I gave to the Kitty Krunch and Perfect Pantyhose campaigns,” I say, pleased that my voice is more assertive than I feel. And then, “Who did get it, then?”

  “It was felt that Lou Russo should be appointed. On this occasion. But not by me, of course,” Adam stresses, then gives a guilty little laugh.

  This is the icing on the cake. I must be hallucinating. I would rather Angie of the Cruella eyebrows beat me to a job than Lou Russo.

  “He only s
pent last summer here for work experience. How could they choose him instead of me? Don’t you remember how useless he was?” I know I sound whiny and a bit bitchy, but I can’t help it.

  Lou Russo is twenty-two years old and probably needs to shave once a week, max. He is also a nasty little boy who made my life last summer a living hell. Because he was given the title of Trainee Junior Account Manager, working for Johnny Cray (my boss before Adam), and also because he was a soon-to-be Ivy League graduate (paid for by Daddy’s money), he took great delight in thinking up all manner of meaningless, menial tasks for me, the Brainless Secretary, to do.

  My favorite was the constant request for coffee. He sat much closer to the coffee cubicle than me, but he found it amusing to watch me trot back and forth when I really had better things to do. The thing I couldn’t figure out was why he wanted to watch me trot back and forth—my cleavage is definitely not of the bouncing variety.

  “But how come he got it instead of me? I’m experienced—I’ve been working on your accounts for five months now, and I come up with great ideas. Why would William Cougan pass me over? What did he say to you?” I know I’m babbling, but I can’t seem to switch off my mouth.

  “Oh, you know, usual reasons,” Adam mumbles. “Lou has a good degree from a prestigious school.”

  He then proceeds to mutilate another paper clip and I am confused, because I know that Lou got a very mediocre degree, because, apart from the fact that Tracey the secretary in Human Resources told me so, Lou is a very mediocre person with no imagination.

  “I have a degree, too,” I tell him. “In fact, I have two degrees. I graduated with honors. Last month. You came to my graduation, remember?”

  I originally studied English Literature in London.

  Now, a degree in English literature is all very well. If you want me to explain Shakespeare’s use of imagery or if you want a reasonably accurate translation of Chaucer, I’m your woman. But English literature degrees don’t seem to hold much sway in this company. Which is precisely why I put myself to the trouble of taking another degree—this time in business studies. At a great deal of inconvenience to myself and my loved ones, because it meant nighttime classes. Plus, I paid for it myself, which meant less cash donations for Human Rights and World Peace. And obviously excluded the possibility of Manolo Blahnik shoes.