Just Another Day at the Office
Leila
Thus far, I’ve managed to avoid Mr. Kidman, so today’s a good day.
Good might be a bit liberal a phrase, but it hasn’t been completely soul-crushing, so at least it’s a step in the right direction.
I’m having trouble concentrating, though. Annabeth is right: I do need someone in my life.
My last boyfriend, Chad—a jerk’s name if ever there was one—kind of did a number on me. Between his near-constant cheating and the way he would always find something wrong in anything I did, it’s been a bit difficult for me to find a measure of confidence in myself.
That’s why they do it.
That’s why men treat women like crap—it’s probably why women treat men like crap, too. It’s just a way to make the other person feel like less so that you can feel like more.
Even knowing this, knowing that Chad was just a coward, it doesn’t change anything. The damage is done, and I don’t even know where to start with finding a guy to get to know, to start dating. I’ve all but given up on finding anything resembling real love, but at this point, I’d be satisfied with a reasonable knockoff.
“Tyler!” that grating voice calls behind me.
“Mr. Kidman,” I say, turning around, “I’m really not in the mood.”
“Well, I think we both know that I am,” he says, and licks his lips.
It’s not an attractive gesture.
“But listen, I did want to tell you that you’ve been doing great work around here, and if you’d like to knock off early one of these days, I’d be happy to approve it.”
“What’s the catch?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you’re a pathetic letch and you’d never say something like that unless there was some disturbing euphemism to accompany it.”
That’s what I want to say.
What I really say is, “You’d just approve it? No special favors or anything?”
“Not unless you’d like to show your gratitude by coming back to my office, and—you know what? I’m not really in the mood for this today, either,” he says. “My wife’s been on my case all week, asking me when I’m going to retire, and I don’t have anything to tell her. Anyway,” he breathes, “just thought I’d let you know that. Oh,” he says, “and if you see your friend Annabeth around, would you tell her that I know she’s been skipping out and her ass is about an inch from the chopping block.”
“I’ll let her know,” I say, smiling.
I’m not thrilled with what he said about Annabeth, but that was the closest thing to a mutually respectful conversation I’ve had with the man.
“One more thing…”
My joy may have been premature.
“I’ve been talking with the partners, and we think there might be a future for you here. I don’t know if you’ve received any other offers, but I do hope that you’ll consider staying on. We’ve really appreciated all the hard work you’ve been putting in.”
This is too good to be true, I’m sure, but my day just got a whole lot better.
“Thank you, sir,” I tell him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You know there’s always a position open under me,” he says. “Huh. Look at that, I guess I am in the mood. Anyway,” he laughs, “keep up the good work.”
All right, he kind of marred it at the end there, but all in all, I’d say it was a pretty uplifting exchange.
Rackham Morris, one of the partners, passes me in the hall, and right now, I’m not even bothered by the fact that he completely ignores my existence. Nothing is going to get me down today.
“Tyler!”
Why do I always tell myself that nothing is going to get me down? I know better than to jinx it like that.
“Yes?” I ask, turning to face Atkinson.
“Yeah,” he says, “I’m going to need your help with a few projects. Are you busy?”
Come to think of it, I think I see a way out of this.
“Actually,” I tell him, “I’m just on my way out for the day, but Annabeth should be around here somewhere.”
That should keep him busy for a while, as I happen to know that Annabeth is at Reginald’s for a ridiculously extended lunch break.
I pop over to Mr. Kidman’s office to ask him if he needs anything else. He tells me to go and spread my wild oats. Yeah, he also tells me to take pictures of the oats-sowing, and I’m pretty sure he’s using the wrong expression given my gender, but it’s close enough to a nice moment that I walk back out of his office with a spring in my step.
I pull out my phone.
“Hey,” I write, “still at Reginald’s?”
I get to the elevator and wait in the lobby for a response before I do anything else.
“No,” Annabeth’s return message reads, “but if you’re up for skipping out, I’m getting some drinks with some guys down at the bar.”
With Annabeth, there is only one bar in New York. “I’ll see you there in 20 minutes.”
A minute or two later, I’m in a cab, telling the driver to step on it. He sighs and rolls his eyes at the cliché, but damn it, I’m having a wonderful day.
When the cab pulls up, I spot Annabeth standing outside the door, sucking down a cigarette.
She drops it when I step out of the cab.
“Ho-ly shit, girl!” she says. “I never thought you’d actually blow off work to come get drinks with me.”
I would tell her that I was actually offered an early day, but what’s the point?
“I had to see what you were up to one of these times, didn’t I?” I ask.
“Ooh, ooh,” she says, “you have got to meet these guys I’ve been talking with in there. I have a feeling your dry spell is about to experience unseasonable precipitation.”
She holds her hand above her head for a high five, but I can’t reward her for that comment. “You know I love you,” I tell her, “but can we not do the double-entendre thing. We’ve talked about this and decided that neither one of us is any good at it.”
“Oh, fine,” she says, lowering her hand. It goes back up when she announces, “Girl, you gonna get laid!”
I laugh and do my best to give her a high five that doesn’t completely embarrass both of us, but that’s really not why I’m here.
“Don’t get me wrong,” I tell her, “from what I remember of it, sex is pretty nice, but I’m really not looking for something like that right now.”
She nods awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess you’re—”
“Oh, who am I kidding? I’m an apple tree that needs to be plucked.”
“I thought we just agreed—”
“I know, I know. We really are terrible at that, aren’t we?”
“You said it.”
Annabeth finishes up her cigarette and we walk into Club Allen, the worst-named bar in New York and the only place in this world that Annabeth would rather be than Bali. Come to think of it, I’m not sure that’s she’s ever been to Bali, but I do remember her talking a lot about it.
Huh.
We’re 20 feet from the bar when I spot the group that Annabeth was talking about. It has to be them. They’re the only ones who look like escaped convicts.
Annabeth bounces over to them and gives them all hugs. I’m pretty sure she said they just met, but whatever. She’s rather friendly that way.
She points to me, obviously telling them something, but it’s too loud for me to hear what she’s saying, so I walk closer to the group.
“…I mean a long time,” she says. “Leila, we were just talking about you! Come have a seat. Rick here is going to buy you a drink. What do you want?”
Drunk in the middle of the day: is this my life now?
“I guess I don’t have to go back to work today. I’ll have a tequila sunrise,” I answer, eliciting a cheer for some reason.
The one that must be Rick—my clever deduction is due to the fact that he’s the one leaning over the bar, ordering my drink—has dark, shoulder-length hair, and there’s a tribal armband only partially hidden under his shirtsleeve.
He’s really not my type. I’m more into the clean-cut gentleman, but now that I think of it, the only “clean-cut gentleman” I ever dated was Chad.
What the hell? I’ll see if there’s something to this Rick guy other than the tattoos and the somewhat unsettling look that he’s giving me as he hands over my drink.
Boy, he is really staring me down.
All right, maybe Rick’s not the guy, but I do feel like letting loose and maybe doing something stupid.
“So, what do you guys do?” I ask, scanning each of the four men in turn, looking for anyone who doesn’t look like they’d kill me in my sleep.
“Finance,” they all answer at once.
That explains it.
“We’re in finance, too,” Annabeth says.
“No, we’re not,” I rebut. The tone catches the guys off guard. “I mean, we’re in brokerage, but that’s hardly the…” I trail off, realizing just how full of crap I am. If Annabeth and I aren’t in finance, what are we?
Annabeth just smiles and touches my arm.
“Will you guys excuse us for a minute?”
Four men with blank faces nod, startlingly in unison.
We get about 10 feet away from the bar when Annabeth turns on her heel and asks, “What’s your deal? Those guys are totally into us.”
“I don’t know,” I hedge. “I guess they’re just not my type.”
“Yeah?” she asks. “What is your type, then?”
I shrug.
“I think I know what the problem is.”
“Yeah?”
If she has any ideas, I’m more than open to hear them.
“You’re scared,” she says. “It’s been so long since you’ve gotten yourself some strange that you don’t know what to do when it’s sitting right in front of you.”
“Strange is a pretty good way to describe it,” I say, looking over at Annabeth’s brood, not one of them speaking or showing any kind of emotion whatsoever. They’re just sitting there, staring off into what I’m nearly certain is nothing.
“You need to loosen up,” she says. “Now, drink that shit down and I’m going to order us some shots.”
“I didn’t really bring that much—”
“You’re a pretty girl in a bar,” Annabeth interrupts. “The last thing in the world you have to do is buy your own drink. There’s not a man in here that wouldn’t rather see you drunk, so chug that down and let’s get it started.”
“Get what started, though?” I ask, my adventurousness almost completely dissolved already.
“A nice, pleasant, one-hour relationship,” she says. “You need to get someone to clear out the cobwebs.”
“Cobwebs?”
“Right,” she says, “the rule. But you know what I mean. Just take a breath, will you? I’ll tell you what. Go over there and I’ll help you build some confidence.”
“They’re really not—”
“I’m not saying you have to marry any of them,” she says. “Just sit on the stool, drink whatever they buy you—I know you worry about roofies, but I promise, I’ll watch all your drinks, okay? Besides,” she says as she’s walking away, “something happens and we’re going over to your place.”
“What?”
She’s already back at the bar.
In response to something Annabeth is telling them, one of the men gives up his seat and motions for me to take it. Timidly, I walk over and sit down.
“All right,” Annabeth says, “who wants to buy this beautiful woman a vodka?”
My stomach churns.
“Not vodka,” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes. I’ve been getting that a lot lately.
“Fine, who wants to buy this beautiful woman a shot of bourbon?”
Rick raises his hand like he’s in junior high.
Maybe these guys aren’t so scary after all. Maybe they’re just idiots.
That’s better somehow, right?
“All right,” Annabeth continues, “so Rick, what do you think of my friend here?”
He blushes and looks away.
Yep. Not scary: idiot.
“I don’t know,” he says.
“Go on,” Annabeth says. “Tell her what you like about her.”
“Well,” he says, “she’s got—”
“Don’t tell me, tell her,” Annabeth interrupts.
This has to be the most uncomfortable moment of my life.
“You’re very pretty,” he says. “You’re tall, but not too tall. I like the way your hair catches the light.”
His friends are laughing at him, but this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
“Okay, you three,” Annabeth says, pointing to everyone but Rick and I, “you’re coming with me.”
“I don’t—” I start, but Annabeth puts a finger to my bottom lip.
“You’ll be fine,” she says. “I’ll be right over there.”
She doesn’t indicate where “there” is, but I suppose I’ll live.
“Now,” she says to Rick, “go on.”
She leads the other three away, and my shot arrives.
I down it without prompting, and Rick starts again.
“I don’t know,” he says. “This is kind of uncomfortable.”
It is uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, but I haven’t really had a man talk to me in so long that I tell him to, “Keep going.”
He sighs. “Well,” he says, “your hair reminds me of picking up chestnuts when I was a kid. I know that sounds weird, but—”
“It’s okay,” I smile. “Go on.”
“Your eyes,” he says, “I don’t know, they’re like, really blue.”
Okay, so he’s no poet.
“One more over here!” I call to the bartender.
The barkeep brings me another shot and I down it.
Bourbon just might be my drink. I haven’t felt the need to vomit once.
“Go ahead,” I say.
“This is too weird,” he says. “We just met, and I’m sitting here going on like I’m Wilhelm Shakespeare.”
“You’re really not,” I tell him.
Really, he’s not. “Wilhelm” Shakespeare would probably know his own name.
“Why don’t we just sit here and talk,” I say. “Where are you from?”
After the initial fear, pity, and revulsion, Rick and I actually start to hit it off.
He’s into foreign films, I’m into foreign films. Of course, he’s more Godzilla and kung fu while I’m more Amélie and 8 ½, but it’s something. He likes horse racing, and I like horses running free without someone kicking them to make them go faster.
All right, so it’s not a match made in Elysium, but I guess I could see myself spending a little time with him. Probably not more than the hour Annabeth suggested, but I’ve got to get back into the swing of things one way or another.
After I’ve had drink number four, I’m starting to feel tipsy again and decide that if I’m going to make a move, I’d better do it before I’m too drunk to remember anything, so I put my hand on his thigh.
His eyes grow wide and he stares at my hand as if it’s some alien object, the likes of which he’s never encountered before, and I ask, “Would you like to get out of here and go somewhere we can,” I blow a strand of hair out of my face, trying to come off coquettish, but landing somewhere closer to clumsy, “talk?”
“Sure,” he says, far too eagerly, and he’s off his stool, walking toward the door before I’ve really given a serious thought to standing.
You would think that someone in finance would have a little more poise, or some sort of—what’s the word?—instinct, but this is my frog. I’m not expecting a prince.
Do I really want to sleep with a man that I’m not attracted to, though? If I wanted to do that, I’d see what Dane was up to. At least I know he’s been with a woman before.
I cringe and wait to see if Rick comes back, but he’s out the door and hailing a cab.
He must be waiting for me, and I don’t want to be rude, so I think I’ll just go out there and tell him—and now he’s getting in a cab and the cab is pulling away from the curb.
Well, there’s half an hour of my life wasted. I guess, on the bright side, I could have wasted what I’m sure wouldn’t be more than another three and a half minutes with him and then another hour, clutching my knees and rocking back and forth in the shower.
I look out on the dance floor and spot Annabeth.
She’s grinding with her three finance goblins. Best not to disturb whatever strange ritual this is, but I really don’t want to leave here empty-handed.
My options this time of day in this ridiculous hole are pretty limited, though. It seems like Rick was one of the better specimens available.
What a frightening thought.
So, I ask the bartender if he’ll pour me a shot of something strong enough to forget what a waste of time my life is, and when he reaches for payment, I just point to Annabeth, who, seeing the smile on my face, waves at me.
It’s close enough a gesture for the bartender to put the drink on Annabeth’s tab, and after one shot of what I’m fairly certain is kerosene and a quick trip to the ladies’ room to vomit later, I’m in a cab, trying to figure out where my life went so wrong.