smile brightens my face as my eyes start to open. This is the first time in what feels like a very long time. For the first time finally, I’m happy to shrug myself out of the cozy embrace of sleep. At long last, waking up to a new day feels good. Wrapped in layer after layer of high thread-count bedsheets, my toes wiggle as I make playful kicks to free myself from the soft tangle.
I sigh contentedly and stretch through the billows of the big bed. Golden sunlight streams through muslin drapes that float over the wall of glass. The room is bathed in the warm morning glow. How can I survive another six weeks of bliss like this?
Rubbing my eyes I lean out of bed, feet first, exploring for the soft bedroom slippers I’ve gotten used to wearing. My big toe feels for the fuzz of the slippers and I slip right into them. I move. Stretching I stride with purpose for the door and take the decadent silk robe from its hook.
The silk slips across and around my skin and I let my eyes close for a moment. Now this is how a girl should wake up.
All that’s missing from my so far perfect day is a huge hunk to wrap me, fold me in big, strong arms and hold me tight — or better still to wake me with a long, soft, tempting kiss, and a low voice to tell me that my breakfast is ready. Or maybe you’d like something hot, baby, right where you are? Mmm. Still in a dreamy state, with an over-active imagination.
On the plus side, I can make my own breakfast. Even with a kitchen full of organic, gourmet ingredients, I figure I can treat myself to a thick slice of toast with peanut butter and jelly first thing in the morning. While I wait for the toast, I slide over to the espresso machine.
“Perfection,” I murmur, smiling. The settings I tinkered with yesterday turned out just right. Roasted Vietnamese beans automatically set to prepare a cup of coffee before I wake up, so just as the the toaster makes a ding! to accompany the aroma of freshly-toasted bread, I don’t have to wait even a precious morning moment for my coffee.
The big question at this point, of course, is what sort of morning I’ll let this be. Go all the way with pampering, or get my poise on, sit on the armchair, ankles resting on the chaise, with today’s issue of the New York Times in hand?
No, I decide with a smile to myself, a bath. I sip on my perfect coffee. Bubble bath number fifty-four.
Hey, if you could see that bath, you’d do it every morning too. And most evenings, as well. Why not? It’s there for a reason.
A hint of last night’s scented candles lingers on in the bathroom. French vanilla, honeysuckle, and another one with a name in Greek that I can’t read.
So as I pour expensive product into the running tub, reading the labels off the fancy European bottles that only have tiny English text at the bottom, I think about maximizing decadence. I could bring the newspaper into the bath. Hmm. Might get a little wet.
As things do. In the bath.
Standing over the tub, my mind drifting away to other daydreams and fantasies for the rest of the day, my phone rings and all my dreams fall out of the air with a thud.
It can only be her.
“Bath will have to wait,” I mumble grumpily, affecting my words with all the dry vocal fry that I can muster. Forgetting the slippers, I stub my toe on the edge of a door in the dash to my phone on the kitchen counter. “Hello?”
“Alexa,” the voice on the other end goes. Yes, it’s Helen. You can’t miss the crisp way she forms every syllable, the way she assumes a position of power and leverage over every person she speaks to. My stepsister knows how to be a luxurious, fancy girl. Me? I can really only pretend.
“How’s it going, Helen?” I pipe back in the cheeriest voice I can muster. As I wiggle my toe to try and work out the throbbing a shiver runs down my spine. Flashbacks of retail jobs where feigned chirpiness was a work requirement swim unwelcome into and across my mind.
“How’s my 6th Avenue apartment going, more like, Alexa,” she says with what I can only describe as the most passive aggressive glint of a sly auditory smirk. I can hear her enjoyment as she reminds me that all of this is borrowed. Temporary.
“Now, Alexa, I don’t mean to be a boor,” does anybody even say that? “but you haven’t sent me an update about the dry cleaning. You know, the dresses I sent out before my trip? They’re very delicate and normally I inspect my clothes thoroughly as soon as I get them back. Since I’m away, you’re going to have to do it for me. Oh, wait, never mind. I don’t think you’d be able to catch the sort of details I would be looking for. Very well. All you need to do is pick them up. But, ASAP, Alexa.”
Believe me, it is very, very hard for me to resist rolling my eyes here. I’m glad this is just a phone call — my first week housesitting for my stepsister, she insisted on video FaceTime calls. I had to walk around the apartment, proving to her that I hadn’t burned the place down or wrecked her immaculate kitchen.
“I was just on my way to pick it up,” I reply quickly, with the rehearsed perkiness that comes to me every time I get one of these calls. “They open at ten, so I’ll be the first customer there. You won’t have to worry.”
“Thank goodness, Alexa,” Helen says with an exaggerated sigh of relief. “You’re an angel. If only I could clone you and have you here in Bangkok with me. I’ve got this gorgeous high-rise place in Sukhumvit, overlooking some absolutely beautiful temples. But the catch is, the traffic’s utterly insane. There’s no way I’d be able to do my dry cleaning here, that’s for sure.”
“Mm-hmm, I hear you,” I nod along, reaching down to rub my sore toe.
““Another six weeks.” I can hear her pout. “Can I really live on the road, going hotel to hotel, living out of a suitcase like a vagabond for another six weeks?” Yes, poor you. I think it but with my lips pressed tight together.
“Anyhow, very pleased to hear you’re on the ball. Hope you’re doing wonderfully. Oh, and did you feed Tobias yet? I know I left you a note on his feeding schedule, but if you need me to send you an email, I can do that too.”
“No, no, he’s doing just fine,” I tell her. He is, too. I’m looking right at Tobias. In his little aquarium, swimming in and out of the elaborate ruined castle and shipwreck that Helen had commissioned for her pet fish’s watery home.
“You just never know with freshwater fish, after all.”
“Yes, of course,” I nod along again, watching Tobias’ mouth flap. Open and closed. I think about asking Helen if she’d like me to put him on the phone for her. But I resist.
“Well,” she says with brassy brightness, “In that case, time for me to leave you be! I’ve got a party tonight, but I just knew I wouldn’t feel good at all about my night if I didn’t get to check in with you.”
“Good, Helen. Good to talk to you.”
“Thanks so much, Alexa. You’re an angel, Alexa. Bye-bye!”
I have to slowly exhale the built-up tension from that call. Seriously, why does Helen have to do that thing of calling me by my name so much? It’s not like I’ll be forgetting it any time soon. I’m still hopping while I return to the bath to watch the bubbles thicken again as I get the water running.
The illusion’s gone, though. The silk robe, the rich-smelling coffee, the newspaper tucked under my arm… it just plain doesn’t feel as much fun anymore now. It’s all borrowed, and it’ll all be over when Helen comes back.
I’d put off thinking bout it. Now the realization brought me down. Just another month and a half before I had to have my old life put back together. Or, more like it, built a completely new life out of literally nothing.
I pout as I look towards the full-length mirror at the far end of the bathroom. Something is clearly bugging me.
Takes me a while before I finally get it.
Who on Earth names their fish Tobias, anyway?
My second cup of coffee of the day comes courtesy of Martin at Rare Roasts, my favorite cafe in town. If something’s on my mind, this is where I can be found. And when I have friends to meet, this is where I usually suggest.
Sonya, my best friend, has restless hands, always fidgeting, constantly reaching for her phone. I don’t find it rude or anything. She’s a journalist, so she’s always scrolling through Twitter or checking her emails or faux-flirting with people she has to work with.
It’s okay to wait for her to be done.
“Okay, babe, sorry, I’m done now!” she says, as if on cue. “I can tell from your face that you’ve got something you want to just blurt out, so go right ahead.”
“Nope,” I shake my head with a smile. “We have the rules for a reason. Last week I went on and on about Stefan, so this week it’s your turn. You start first.”
“Pass,” Sonya says.
“Pass? You’ve got nothing to complain about? Sonya, you work hundred hour weeks. I’m pretty sure you have nothing but complaints in your life. Except maybe a certain lifelong best friend named Alexa.”
I’m envious of her composure as she grins and shrugs. “Not today. Well, apart from the usual Big Apple paranoia, ‘you’re never more than a paycheck from the street.’ Besides, there’s a reason for it. But I’ll only tell you about it after you’re done bitching at me. Go, quick!”
Where do I even start? I tell her about the call this morning, just the most recent of many little ways Helen’s been exerting her influence on me. After that story, I dance around any mentions of my ex, but Sonya isn’t having it.
“And Stefan?”
“So what about Stefan?” I try to keep an even look. “I’m over it. It’s all in the past. Plus, living at Helen’s means I don’t have to worry about coming anywhere near him. I’m just so glad about that.”
My best friend, of course, knows me way better than anyone else does. What happens instead is I spend the next twenty minutes going over gripes and complaints from my thankfully now-ended relationship with Stefan, while Sonya nods and murmurs for me to go on while focusing wholly on her phone.
“So good to get that off your chest, right?” my best friend flashes a grin at me when I take a break to finish my latte.
“Okay, okay, you were right. You’re always right.”
“That much is obvious,” Sonya winks. “Ready for my go?”
I nod.
“Two tickets for the opening party at Club Exquisite. Technically I’m working, but with an open bar, an award-winning sushi chef serving omakase, and a veritable Who’s Who of the city’s social scene there… is it really work, or is it pleasure?”
“I’m sold,” I smile at Sonya. “What I’m taking away from this is that you’re really excited to go to this event, but you’ll only do it if I go with.”
“Alexa, I don’t know how it is you’re so damn smart. Correct. You know how it is. I love schmoozing, but I also love having you around, and having an exit plan in case I start yawning a little too much when some financier tries to cajole me into sleeping with him on his boat.”
“You didn’t mind it so much last time,” I point out with a small giggle. “Remember when —”
“Don’t you start!”
I keep smiling.
“It’ll be good for you, promise,” Sonya pleads. “I decree, you must come out and you must have a great time. Who knows what kind of massive hottie scene you’ll bump into there? I hear that club’s going to be the new home to this city’s annual Most Eligible Bachelor party…”
The look I give Sonya is almost pitying. “Sonya, I already told you that you’ve sold me on this. I’d love to. Well… I would, at least, if I had something to wear. I’d just look out of place.”
“Go shopping today,” Sonya says.
“Unless you’re paying, I don’t think so.”
“Well, we journalists aren’t paid much, so I’m going to have to pass on that. You really think you don’t have anything to wear?”
I nod, trying to hide the growing sense of disappointment in me.
She sparkles. “You know what? I think you’re wrong, babe. Weren’t you just telling me about picking up Helen’s dry cleaning today? Borrow a little black dress. Knowing her, it will probably be Fendi.”
“Oh my God, look at us. Look at you, Alexa! You’re gorgeous,” Sonya says, posing for the twentieth selfie of our town car ride to Club Exquisite.
“Gosh, you’re really laying it on thick,” I wink at my best friend. “Are you sure you haven’t mysteriously traded lives with a middle-aged financier with a thing for boat sex?”
The throwback gets me an eye roll from Helen. “Six months, Alexa. That was six months ago. I’m never going to live it down, am I?”
“You’re the one who keeps reminding me,” I smile innocently.
“Oh, this is the place, stop here, please!” Sonya leans forward to inform the driver. She swings the door open and leaves, holding the door for me.
I make it a point to make big strides forward and out of the car, so I can see just how beautiful the pointed red heels I’ve, ahem, borrowed from Helen look.
“Are those like, Jimmy Choos or something?” Sonya whispers in my ear, her eyes pointed to my heels. I’m already a few inches taller than Sonya, but seeing she’s wearing flats tonight (“I have to, I’m working,”) and I’m wearing four inch heels, I positively tower over her.
Somehow, it’s incredibly easy to exude confidence when I’m dressed all chic like this. “These are Valentino, actually.”
Sonya makes a sound of envy that can only be described as partway between a sigh and a purr.
“We’re going to walk in like we own the place, okay? Just me and you, two girls out on the town, champagne flute in one hand, nibbles of sushi in the other,” Sonya briefs me.
I laugh. “I’ve been to fancy parties before, thanks for the pep talk, though.”
“Hey, I’m just keeping you on-target.”
“What would that target be?”
“Forgetting not just Stefan but every man in your life who’s ever done you wrong,” she winks at me. “By way of letting you meet someone so handsome your panties melt.”
“Did you have anyone particular in mind?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Hey, look, I can’t do all the work for you! Attraction is all about you and him, so if you find someone you like, well… you don’t need me holding your hand, babe!”
We walk towards the bar, and the bartender nods at us as Sonya and I figure out what we want to drink. She goes straight for a double rum and coke, while I take it easy with a gin and tonic.
“So much for champagne,” I joke at my best friend.
“Don’t worry about that, the waiters will pass with trays of Dom Perignon, trust me,” Sonya says, pretty much downing her drink in a single gulp. I stare at her in amazement.
“What? I’m working all night. Gotta get myself suitably smoothed out,” she says. “Anyway, two things to tell you right now. First is that I must bid thee farewell for the moment, because I just saw the club owner getting interviewed by a rival journalist and I don’t intend for him to write a better story than me.”
“And the second?” I ask Sonya, sipping my drink.
“Mega hottie staring at you from across the room. Slim-cut suit, open collar. Banging body. Don’t turn and look, jeez! You’ve got like, zero subtlety. Okay, time to go! Don’t wait up… and don’t misbehave too much, okay?”
She blows me a kiss while I watch her leave, shaking my head in amusement. Now all I’ve got to do is slowly reposition myself so I can see who Sonya meant.
As I start to scour the room for someone to match that description, immediately I see him. And of course he’s looking straight back.
My heart thuds as our eyes meet but I react with a smile, rather than the shyness I would normally resort to. Confidence courtesy of Fendi and Valentino, I’m pleased to report.
But then I see this hunk walk towards me, and all pretensions of confidence rapidly desert me, at least on the inside.
Oh my God, I’m just going to have to put on a brave face. Or maybe run.