I come home in a daze. My mind feels like it has been put through a blender. I have no idea what to do. Or what to think. My mind is going around in circles. It is Tristan. My boss is Tristan. How can that be? What the hell is Tristan doing running this company? What the hell is my boss doing hiking along in the Californian wilderness? Tristan said that he was a skiing instructor – a ski bum. He said that he rafted in the summer – a river rat. How can a river rat and a ski bum run a multi-national corporation?

“How was work?” Maggie Mae asks without looking away from some reality television program she’s watching. I’m a sucker for reality TV too – together we enjoy all the favorites. Real Housewives of New Jersey and Atlanta are my true guilty pleasures.

“You’ll love this one,” she says. “It’s about these five girls from Alaska who’ve had enough of dating men in Alaska. So they’ve gone down to Miami to see what else is out there. Apparently it’s been out for a while; I don’t know how we’ve missed it.”

“Sounds good,” I mumble and stumble into my room. I can’t deal with other people’s problems right now. I have plenty of my own reality. Too much, actually.

Maggie Mae must’ve sensed that something wrong. I am in the middle of pulling off my pencil skirt, which is now suffocating me when I hear her standing in the doorway.

“What’s up? Is something wrong?” she asks.

I can’t turn around. My eyes are welling up with tears. My shoulders collapse, and I burst out into tears using my skirt as a tissue.

“Okay, okay, okay, Annabelle.” She puts her arms around me. “Let’s not ruin my skirt over this.”

Shit! I can’t believe I did that. This is her $100 skirt! “I’m so sorry, I forgot,” I mumble through my tears.

“It’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay,” she says. The tone of her voice is so calm and steadfast that I have no choice but to believe her.

She helps me get out of my clothes and put on a set of sweats: a pair of comfy black tights and my favorite USC sweatshirt.

In the kitchen, she hands me a glass of Smart Water – my favorite, even though it’s ridiculously expensive and I only buy it on special occasions. I drink the whole glass and feel a bit better. At least no new tears are rolling down my cheeks.

“So, can you tell me what’s going on?” she asks. “If you lost your job, it’s going to be okay.”

Wow, I must’ve really freaked her out. No, this news isn’t that bad. Or perhaps it is equally bad, just about something else. I have no way of evaluating the degree of badness right now.

“No, it’s not about my job,” I say. “Well, that’s not entirely true.”

I have no idea of how to go about trying to explain what has happened. I only briefly told Maggie Mae what had happened with Tristan. Or whatever his name is.

I had said that we parted, that I would probably never hear from him again, but I didn’t exactly tell her how disappointed I was.

“Do we have any wine?” I ask. I’m not a big drinker, but I need a drink to go into all of this in detail and not start bawling again.

“No, we don’t,” Maggie Mae says, opening the refrigerator. “Damn it, we don’t have any alcohol at all.”

“Would you mind going out?” I ask.

The bar on the corner is dingy and quiet. The seats are made of worn leather and, judging from the lines on their faces, the clientele is leathery as well. For some reason, it’s one of Maggie Mae’s favorite places, and she often goes here for her dates. I never liked it here much, but tonight it feels just right.

I order a Bloody Mary and tell Maggie Mae everything that happened. She listens carefully, nodding the whole time.

“So let me get this straight,” she finally says. She finishes her margarita and waves to the bartender for another. “You slept with this wonderful guy who you thought was just a hiker and a ski bum or whatever, basically a guy with no money.”

I nod.

“And you had a great time, and then he had to go because of work and you thought he was blowing you off. And then you got this new job for which you didn’t even apply and discovered that he actually heads the company?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumble.

“And this is bad news why?”

“Well, the way you just summed it up…it’s true and not true,” I say.

“What’s not true?” she asks licking the rim of her second margarita.

She opens her blue eyes wide, and I lose my train of thought. Something is still wrong with the whole story, but now I can’t really remember.

“You just don’t get it,” I finally say. “He lied to me.”

“Oh, please.” She rolls her eyes. “He didn’t lie to you. He just didn’t tell you everything.”

“What about the whole thing with his job? He’s clearly not a skiing and rafting instructor.”

“Eh, okay,” she gives in. “But so what? He was probably there to get away from work. God knows why people like you and him go out there into the wilderness and feel the need to get lost there.”

“I don’t feel the need to get lost in the wilderness,” I say. “I wasn’t lost. I was there hiking. Thinking.”

“Okay, fine. To each his or her own. Well, maybe that’s what he was doing there too. Thinking.”

Maggie Mae goes on and on arguing that this whole thing that happened isn’t actually a tragedy at all.

“Don’t you see how exciting this is? This is probably why you even got called in for that job since you never sent in an application.”

She’s right, of course. Now it all makes perfect sense.

“But why did he want me to work there? Wasn’t he worried that I would find out?” I ask.

“Maybe he wanted you to.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. I hadn’t considered that before. “You think this was some sort of ploy to get me to forgive him? Forgive him for what?”

“Exactly.” Maggie Mae smiles in her mischievous way. The smile that can make men everywhere swoon.

Lying in bed later that night, I try to convince myself that what Maggie Mae said is true. I want to believe that I now have some sort of upper hand over Tristan, or whatever his name is, in this so-called relationship. But I don’t feel like I do. Maggie Mae said that I should feel empowered somehow, but I don’t feel like that at all. Instead, I feel lost. Like I no longer belong there.

But what can I do? I have to go back to work. Quitting isn’t an option. The job pays more than any other job that I’ve ever had. And next week, it will start paying even more. I have way too much debt, and this is my only way out.

I have to face him. I have to make him admit that he had lied, or at least acknowledge me as the girl from the lake.

Will you do that, Tristan? I whisper into the darkness.

The Tristan that I had met would, but would you? Whatever your name is. I’m not so sure.

The following morning, I wake up with an unfamiliar amount of inner strength. Who the hell does Gatsby think he is lying to me like that? Playing these games with me? Does he do this to all the girls that he meets? Does he expect me just to roll over and let him make a fool of me?