THIRTEEN
By Friday I’ve lost five pounds—five!—and Cam and I have settled into our routine of morning runs and nightly dinners. True to his word, he’s kept his music off so my ears haven’t bled all week. He also designed an eating plan for me focused on lean protein and veggies and ransacked my pantry and fridge in search of food he deemed inappropriate for my new diet. He took what he found to the local homeless shelter in a cardboard box.
An embarrassingly big cardboard box.
Then we went grocery shopping together, and I found myself the object of so much envy from other women I thought they’d all get together and make a voodoo doll of me to stick pins into. Their jealousy was palpable, and all I was doing was walking next to him. They probably thought I was his housekeeper, but the looks I got . . . yikes.
The looks he got gave me a glimpse into how his ego had inflated to its Godzilla dimensions. Those women looked at him like he was the juiciest filet in the butcher’s case. Like they wanted to rip off all his clothes and mount him, right there in the organic vegetable aisle. Like he wasn’t even an actual person, really, just a big ol’ piece of tasty man meat they wanted to sink their teeth into.
I was embarrassed for my own gender.
He took it all in stride, though. It was hard to tell if he was absorbing the admiration or deflecting it, because in public his smiles were more brittle than when we were alone together. He clearly enjoyed the attention, but my female intuition told me he wasn’t as easy with it as he seemed.
Or maybe that was my overactive imagination again. Either way, neither of us mentioned all those hungry eyes at the grocery store when we got home.
I’m standing in the kitchen in the office Friday morning, making myself another cup of coffee, when a male voice says behind me, “What a pretty dress.”
I whirl around so fast I almost topple over but steady myself against the counter before I can fall flat on my face. Two feet away stands Michael, wearing a charcoal-gray suit with a pocket square, looking like a movie star.
He smiles at me. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a dress. Is it new?”
I glance down at myself. “Oh. This? Um.”
I struggle to think of some excuse for this dress that doesn’t involve the embarrassing truth that I dug through my closet last night looking for something he might like on the off chance we’d run into each other and this was the only thing I came up with. It’s blue, which I remembered is his favorite color. Also, due to some ingenious quirk of design, it performs the minor miracle of making my childbearing hips look slimmer.
I open my mouth to answer and hear Cam’s mischievous brogue in my head. Tell him you have a date.
“I have a date,” I blurt so loudly Michael blinks.
“Oh?” His gaze flickers over me, up and down, head to toe, assessing. “Well, whoever he is, I envy him.”
My fingers curl so hard into the Formica counter I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. I attempt a coquettish laugh but end up sounding like I’m trying to expel a hair ball.
Michael must sense my impending mental break, because he cocks his head, his smile growing wider. “Do you mind?” he motions to the coffee maker directly behind me.
“Oh! Of course, sorry!” I leap out of the way and stand to the side, where I can admire his beauty from a safe distance.
Michael wordlessly holds out the mug of coffee I left on the machine. I take it with shaking hands, avoiding his eyes because all my nerve endings are pulsing with lust and I’m afraid he’ll be able to see it if we make eye contact.
He smells crisp and clean, like fresh linen. Like new one-hundred-dollar bills.
Busying himself with brewing his own cup of coffee, he says casually, “I reviewed your application for the associate editor position.”
I stop breathing. It’s a good thing I don’t have a mouthful of liquid because it would be all over his elegant suit right about now.
He glances at me from beneath thick black lashes. His blue eyes sparkle. A dimple flashes in his cheek. “Sonnets?”
Instantly, my face blazes with the heat of a thousand suns.
On the application was an area that asked for any additional information not included on your résumé that would be pertinent to your job performance. Special skills, relevant hobbies, any experience outside your formal education or work history that might give you an edge. On a whim, I’d listed the only thing I thought might fit, this being the publishing industry and all.
I write sonnets as a hobby. Classically structured, Shakespearean-style sonnets, because I am a pathetic human being with a nonexistent love life who will someday die alone surrounded by my cats.
Looking at my shoes, I mumble, “Um. Yeah.”
“It’s all right,” says Michael with a laugh. “Don’t be embarrassed. I think it’s quite charming.”
Charming? Did the man of my dreams just describe me as charming? I’m not sure what a heart attack feels like, but it’s probably close to this.
I look up at him, thrilled by the warmth in his eyes, but my thrill quickly turns to horror when he says, “Recite me one.”
My blood ceases to circulate through my veins.
“Oh, come on,” he urges gently, seeing the look on my face. “I want to hear one of your sonnets, Joellen. Please?”
Oh God. OhGodohGodohGod. My mouth is a desert. My palms start to sweat. I feel a case of the runs coming on, but Michael Maddox is standing two feet away, looking at me with expectation after uttering the word please. I’m doomed to obey him, no matter how much I’d prefer to suffer a massive stroke and die on the spot.
I moisten my lips. My voice comes out as a whisper, barely discernible over my thundering heart. “Please don’t laugh.”
His expression turns deadly serious. “I promise I won’t.”
“Okay.” I inhale a deep breath I hope will give me courage, which utterly fails. “This is called ‘Ode to Old Chicks.’”
Michael’s brows shoot up.
“I said don’t laugh!”
He lifts a hand, shaking his head. “I swear on my mother’s grave I’m not laughing. You have my word. Please continue.”
After a moment of inspecting his face, I see no hint of amusement, so I swallow my fright and begin.
When Life’s midcrisis has begun
And the bloom is off the rose,
We women of a certain age are glum,
Ignored by men for those
Young girls of perky breast and thigh
And coy, long-lashed flirtations.
But such pleasures—such delights!—are nigh
For men desiring new sensations,
For we mature ladies (still full of life)
Are seasoned by our complications.
We bring to love a certain spice
Unknown to less experienced maidens.
So look not, you men, to the young for their easy charms,
But satisfy your deeper yearnings in an older woman’s arms.
In the wake of my recitation of “Ode to Old Chicks,” Michael’s face goes through a series of remarkable transformations. I don’t know how many emotions cross his face, but the final one it settles on is indecipherable and, therefore, terrifying.
“What a fascinating sonnet,” he says, his voice tight, his eyes blazing blue fire. “And how interesting you chose that particular one to share with me.”
My stomach drops. I’ve made a colossal, unintentional, but nonetheless unforgivable error.
My boss thinks I’ve just propositioned him. I’m going to be fired for sexual harassment.
My career is over. I might as well go visit the animal shelter now and adopt the rest of my cats.
My hand over my mouth and my eyes saucer wide, I breathe out in horror. “It—no—that’s the most recent one I wrote. I didn’t mean anything by it . . .”
Michael’s blistering gaze drops to my mouth. He murmurs, “No? Pity.” He reaches out and brushes his knuckle over the slope of my cheek.
The earth stops spinning on its axis. I become aware of all the cells in my body, of every singing nerve, my ragged breathing, the tremor skittering over my skin. We stand there and stare at each other as a powerful magnetism wipes my mind blank.
My mind is frozen, but my body is all sensation, all pounding heartbeat and flying pulse, the faint press of his knuckle on my skin the center of my universe.
His lips part. He leans closer.
Holy shit. He’s going to kiss me.
“Mr. Maddox, I need to speak—”
Portia barges into the kitchen, heels clicking, a file under her arm. She sees us and skids to a stop.
Michael spins away and resumes fixing himself a cup of coffee as if nothing has happened, while I stand rooted to the spot, mortified and strangely guilty, unable to speak or move.
Ice forms in long, crackling fingers on the floor and wall around the spot where Portia stands. She stares at me, her gaze hard, her posture rigid, her expression accusatory, then she turns her icy glare to Michael’s back. “Excuse me, sir,” she says stiffly. “Your secretary told me you were in here. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Michael turns around with a mug in his hand, a casual smile on his handsome face. “You weren’t interrupting. Joellen and I were just discussing her application. She’s very eager to get the job.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. If people could spontaneously combust, Portia would be splattered all over the walls and floor right now in little frozen pieces.
She cuts her freezing gaze to me. Her lips thin and her nostrils flare, and I’m afraid she might physically attack me.
“I see,” she says softly, burning holes into my head with her eyes.
This is a disaster of Hindenburg proportions. It’s clear what Portia thinks Michael meant by eager and what she thinks I’m up to.
With one knuckle brush, I’ve become the office harlot, sleeping my way to a promotion I wouldn’t otherwise deserve.
My voice strangled, I say, “I’ll just be getting back to work now.”
I slink away, tail between my legs, skirting Portia with my gaze on the ground. As soon as I’m out of the kitchen, I break into a breathless run, headed back to my desk where I plan to spend the rest of the day designing myself various size scarlet As to wear on my clothing.
If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.
A few minutes before five o’clock, my desk phone rings.
“Joellen Bixby speaking.”
“Joellen, it’s Michael.”
My heart slams against my rib cage. I look around surreptitiously, as if Portia might be lurking around the corner of my cubicle, then sink into my chair and cover the phone’s mouthpiece with my hand. Why I suddenly feel like I’m in a spy movie, I don’t know.
“Um. Hello, sir.”
He sighs, and even that sounds beautiful. “Please, stop with the sir. Everyone calls me sir. It makes me feel like my grandfather.”
“Sorry. Habit. You being the CEO and all.”
Michael clears his throat. “Yes. About that.” There’s a short pause, then he exhales in a gust. “I’m sorry for what happened in the kitchen. That was inappropriate of me. I hope you can accept my sincere apologies. I clearly made you uncomfortable, and it was absolutely out of line—”
“I wasn’t uncomfortable.”
Silence.
Strangely emboldened by his lack of response, I drop my voice to a whisper. “I mean, I was, but in a good way.”
Another exhale, this one longer and slower.
“You’re not saying anything.”
“I’m relieved.” His voice drops an octave. “And . . . really happy to hear that.”
I hold the phone away from my face and scream silently, kicking my feet up and down and bouncing in my chair like a lunatic. When I put the phone back to my ear, I dredge up every ounce of courage I have and ask him the $64,000 question.
“Why?”
After a nerve-wracking pause, his response is even lower than before. “You know exactly why, Joellen.”
My panties are curling off me like burning paper. My glasses are fogging like they did the first time I read Fifty Shades of Grey. My heart is in danger of exploding inside my chest.
I whisper, “No, I don’t. Tell me.” Who is this person? This bold, flirty person? A body snatcher has apparently consumed me.
I hear some rustling, the squeak of a chair, what sounds like footsteps echoing off tile. “What are you doing?”
“Pacing.”
He’s pacing. And his voice is rough. And he’s happy that I wasn’t uncomfortable in a bad way, but won’t answer when I ask why.
“Michael,” I whisper.
“Yes, Joellen?”
“What’s happening?”
More rustling. He might be sitting down. I imagine him in his office, staring at the floor, looking all sorts of beautiful and tormented.
He begins haltingly, like he’s forcing the words out against his will. “You know . . . that I’m . . . getting divorced.”
“Yes.”
“And . . . also that . . . I’m the CEO of this company.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re . . . my employee . . . who has recently applied for a promotion.”
I can’t answer because euphoria has frozen my tongue, but my heart is screaming YES! YES! YES!
“So this is . . . complicated.”
I shoot to my feet, blind to anyone or anything around me, a death grip on the phone, my soul about to rip itself from my body. I listen for what he might say next with the terrified focus of someone waiting for the verdict from a jury in her murder trial.
“Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” My voice is shaky, but I don’t care. A nuclear bomb could go off in Lower Manhattan and I wouldn’t care.
Sounding miserable, Michael sighs again. “I’m sorry. I’m putting you in a terrible position. I’m being an idiot. I never should have opened my mouth.”
Too late. He’s opened Pandora’s box now, and all the devilish little creatures are running amok, screaming in glee throughout my reproductive organs. “You were going to kiss me, weren’t you.”
It’s a statement, not a question, because now I’m sure it’s true. I might have been able to convince myself it was my imagination before this conversation, but things have drastically changed.
“I should go.”
“Michael. Tell me.”
There’s a long, cavernous silence, then Michael whispers, “Yes.”
He hangs up.
I lift my arms in the air, throw back my head, and let out a victory whoop so loud everyone in the cubicle maze stops what they’re doing and stares.
From behind me comes Shasta’s irritated voice. “Bitch, what the hell is wrong with you? People are busy doing nothing around here—be quiet!”
I start laughing and can’t stop.
Michael Maddox was going to kiss me.
I can’t wait to get home to tell Cam.