Slightly Settled Page 4

  Back when I had Will—and supposedly a future with him, even if it was all in my deluded head—it didn’t seem to matter as much.

  Now that I’m on my own, I can’t help feeling that I’d feel much better about myself if I had a “real” career.

  Yeah, and you’d probably feel much better about yourself if you hadn’t had that one-night stand with a full-grown Star Wars fanatic, too.

  Let’s face it: I might be skinny, and I might be bringing in a regular paycheck with benefits…but things could definitely be better. Much better.

  I find Mike leaning over my chair to check out the proposal I’m typing for him on the computer screen.

  He’s a smallish, wiry guy, and I don’t like to stand next to him because he’s a few inches shorter than I am and we probably weigh about the same. I’m not secure enough, despite the weight loss, to feel comfortable around guys who make me feel large and gawky even now.

  “How’s it coming, Chief?” he asks cheerfully. Mike has this cute thing where he calls everyone “Chief.”

  “Pretty good. I caught a couple of typos for you.”

  “Thanks. You’re the best.”

  I smile. They weren’t typos, really. He’s a crummy speller, but I never want to embarrass him. He’s such a sweetie.

  “Hey, I like your tie,” I tell him. For somebody who seems clueless about some things—like getting his hair cut when it needs it—he’s got great taste in ties.

  “Thanks. You want some caramel popcorn? I just got a huge barrel of it from some magazine,” he says. “It’s in my office.”

  At this time of year, the agency people get loads of corporate Christmas gifts from magazines and television networks. You wouldn’t believe the caliber of some of the gifts. Last week Mike got a crystal Tiffany ice bucket and a hundred-dollar bottle of champagne from one place.

  Too bad he didn’t offer to share that.

  I pass on the popcorn. It sounds good, but I’ve got to be careful. At this time of year, it would be easy to slip up and gain a few—or twenty—pounds back.

  “Listen, Chief,” Mike asks, “would you mind going down to accounts payable before the end of the day to get me that cash advance for my trip to Philly tomorrow?”

  “Not at all.”

  That’s another great thing about Mike. He doesn’t give orders. He asks me to do things. Getting his cash from AP is part of my job, but he makes it seem as though I’m going out of my way for him. He really makes being a secretary bearable for somebody who has bigger aspirations.

  Someday, I hope, I’ll be a copywriter like Buckley. But until I am, working as a secretary at Blaire Barnett is pleasantly painless. I even get to sit in a cubicle instead of in the secretaries’ bay, where I was when I worked for Jake.

  I head toward the elevator bank. I reach it just as a junior account executive does. Her real name is Susan, but Yvonne calls her Miss Prim, and I have to admit, the shoe fits. She’s always buttoned up in a tailored suit with pearls and pumps, her hair pulled severely back in a clip, and I’ve never seen her smile at anybody who isn’t an executive.

  “Hi,” I say, since we’re both going to stand here waiting for the down elevator, which is bound to take a few minutes. The elevators in this building are notoriously slow.

  “Hi.” She studies her sensible pumps.

  You just wouldn’t catch her picking up a total stranger and having sex with him in some godforsaken borough.

  “These elevators take forever, don’t they?” I feel compelled to say.

  She merely presses the lit Down button again, as though she can’t stand another moment trapped here with lowly me.

  It irks me that she won’t make eye contact, much less conversation, with a mere secretary. I want to tell her that I have an English degree and a future in copywriting. I want to tell her to let her hair down and live a little; or at the very least, unfasten her top button, for God’s sake.

  I wonder what she’s going to wear to the Christmas party. Somehow, I can’t quite picture her in anything remotely festive.

  Again, my mind flits to that article chock-full of Don’ts.

  The hell with the article, and with Miss Prim, too, I think, as I step into the elevator with her.

  I’m going to wear my red dress, and I’m going to get there when it starts, and I’m going to have a helluva good time.

  Just watch me.

  “Hold the elevator!” a voice calls.

  I half expect Susan to reach for the Door Close button, but she doesn’t. Nor does she hit Door Open as they begin to slide closed, even though the button is like, two inches from her claw.

  I wedge my shoulder between the doors to hold them for whoever is rushing toward the elevator, heels tapping hurriedly along the floor, accompanied by an odd jingling sound.

  When I see who it is, I almost wish I’d let the doors close.

  “Hi, Mary,” I say, as she steps on board with a huge, panting sigh of relief.

  “Hi, Tracey,” she trills. “Hi, Sue.”

  I get the impression Susan doesn’t appreciate being called Sue.

  Mary Kohl doesn’t seem to get this impression, or any impressions at all. She’s too busy plucking an oversized round jingle bell from the crevice between her oversized round boobs. The bell is suspended around her jowly neck on a red cord and festooned with sprigs of plastic holly.

  If I were sharing this elevator with anybody but wenchy Susan, I might be inclined to turn and share an eye-roll with them. Mary, who is an administrative assistant in our department, is easily the most annoying human being of all time. In fact, if this elevator happens to get stuck between floors, as elevators in this building have been known to do, I’m going to find myself wishing I carried cyanide capsules in my pockets like the astronauts do.

  Mary presses her floor with a chubby forefinger, and the doors slide closed with the finality of clanking steel bars on death row.

  “Did we all sign up for Secret Snowflake?” Mary wants to know.

  She wants to know this in the chirpiest voice ever. Think Baby Bop on helium.

  I sort of smile and shake my head.

  Susan plays deaf and dumb.

  “Uh-oh.” Mary shakes her head sadly, her jingle bell jangling noisily from boob to boob. “Didn’t everyone hear that Secret Snowflake is mandatory this year?”

  I murmur something about it being news to me, although I knew damn well. Who could miss the bright red memo Mary sent out on December first? She signed it with her name spelled Merry, and requested that we all use this spelling for the duration of the season.

  “You’re kidding! Didn’t you get the memo?”

  “I guess not,” I tell Mary, as Helen Keller pointedly ignores both of us.

  “Not only is Secret Snowflake mandatory, but I’m matching up the names on Monday,” Mary informs us. “So you’ll both need to sign up by the end of today. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I agree, because mandatory is mandatory.

  “Great! Sue?”

  “What the fuck is a Secret Snowflake?” Susan barks, just before the elevator bumps to a stop.

  “Oh, it’s really fun. It’s where the whole department picks names and we all—”

  Too late.

  Susan has fled. This wasn’t even her floor. A bike messenger steps on board.

  “Happy holidays!” Mary chirps at him.

  He glares at her, clearly wondering who died and made her Mrs. Claus.

  Unfazed, Mary turns to me and breezily resumes her Secret Snowflake monologue. “Anyhoo, we all pick names and then buy a gift for our Secret Snowflake each day for a whole week. The following week, we have the luncheon and find out who our Snowflake was. It’s just a blast.”

  I smile and nod at Mary, thinking she really needs…what? A life? Some serious counseling? To be smacked upside of the head?

  Um, how about all of the above?

  Okay, maybe I’m just being mean. Maybe the whole New York attitude has gotten to me at last and I’m t
oo jaded. Maybe I could use a little of Mary’s childlike Christmas spirit. Maybe we all could.

  I look at her, taking in the jingle bell, the mistletoe earrings, the sprig of holly tucked into her graying bun.

  The woman is a freak. That’s all there is to it.

  “Going to the party on Saturday, Tracey?” she asks.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” I say truthfully. “How about you?”

  “Oh, I’ll be there with bells on!”

  Right.

  I find myself picturing her hitched to Santa’s sleigh. On, Dasher, On, Dancer, On, Mary. Er, Merry.

  The thing is, I might be jaded, but I’ll take that any day over terminally cute and festive, and not just at this time of year.

  Mary decorates her cubicle—and her person—seasonally. I heard she actually showed up decked out as a leprechaun last Saint Patrick’s Day, and in a witch costume on Halloween. Mercifully, I wasn’t here for either of those events. I was, however, forced to participate when she organized a Thanksgiving feast last month, where we all had to bring something. I brought canned cranberry sauce. The crummy Key Food store brand kind. Mary brought pies she made from scratch using sugar pumpkins she grew on her fire escape.

  It’s like she’s embraced her inner preschool teacher, corporate decorum be damned. Reportedly, upper management thinks she’s fun and boosts morale. The rest of us think she’s a pain in the ass, but the rest of us don’t count. We just have to make like pilgrims and Secret Snowflakes, and come February, she’ll probably have us all making construction paper hearts and tramping through the woods to cut down cherry trees.

  The elevator stops at my floor.

  “Don’t forget to sign up before you leave tonight,” Mary calls after me as I step out into the empty corridor.

  I suppose I should be looking forward to the whole Secret Snowflake thing. At least somebody will be buying me Christmas presents. Not that a shrink-wrapped drugstore coffee mug filled with hard candies in shiny red wrappers can compete with boyfriend baubles.

  From someone other than Will, that is—he was as stingy with his baubles as he was with his affection.

  As I wave my card key in front of the sensor beside the locked glass doors leading to the floor reception area, I find myself wondering what it would be like to be showered with gifts from somebody who is head over heels in love with me.

  Will I ever find out?

  Wah. I want to find out. I want baubles and happily-ever-after, dammit.

  “Hi, Tracey,” Lydia, the hugely pregnant receptionist, says from her desk, where she’s reading today’s Newsday. “Going to the office party?”

  “Definitely. Are you?”

  She laughs. “If I’m not in labor. Are you bringing a date?”

  “Nope.”

  Is it my imagination, or is that pity in her mascara-fringed eyes?

  Look, I know I’m not supposed to go through life obsessed with finding Mr. Right. I’m not supposed to feel inadequate because I’m single; I’m not supposed to need a man.

  I’m supposed to be an independent woman who can stand on her own; a woman with a promising career and cultural interests and plenty of good friends.

  I’m supposed to be like Murphy Brown, Mary Richards, Elaine Benes. I’m suppose to make it after all—a hat-tossing single woman in the city, confident and savvy and solo. Or does that just happen on television sitcoms? Old, outdated television sitcoms?

  As I make my way down the hall toward accounts payable, I decide there is a certain irony in the fact that I’m spending my nights watching Nick at Nite and TV Land reruns about women who actually have lives. Fulfilling lives that are too busy for endless speculation about how and when and where to meet a soul mate.

  In real life, I don’t know many—okay, any—willingly single women. Everyone I know, aside from Raphael’s lesbian friends, either has a man or wants a man.

  Is that so wrong?

  Well, maybe I’ll meet somebody any second now. Maybe I’ll round the next corner just past the water fountain and I’ll crash into the perfect man. Maybe he’ll steady me by holding my arms just above my elbows, and we’ll look into each other’s eyes, and…

  Kismet.

  What? It happens.

  It happens all the time.

  Well, it does.

  Okay, it happens all the time in Sandra Bullock movies, and sometimes it happens in real life, too.

  I find myself holding my breath as I approach the corner, wondering if this is more than a fantasy—if maybe it’s a premonition.

  I decide that if I round the corner and crash into a man—any man—that it’s fate. As long as he’s single and reasonably attractive.

  Okay, here I go.

  This could be it.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and turn the corner.

  Open my eyes.

  Empty.

  The long carpeted hallway stretches ahead, empty as my love life.

  Oh, well. Deep down, I knew it would be.

  Deep down, I don’t believe in kismet after all.

  4

  “Where is everyone?” Seated beside me on a bar stool, Brenda lifts the hand that’s not holding a blood-orange martini to check her watch.

  The four of us have been here at Space for a half hour and a round and a half of cocktails. We’re sitting at the curved stainless-steel bar beneath a vast black “sky” dotted with tiny white lights that are supposed to be constellations. The bartenders are wearing silver jumpsuits. Mirrors line every surface, making the place look infinitely expansive—and reflecting me in all my slinky red glory.

  I’m not looking at my own reflection. Well, not most of the time. The thing is, when I do happen to catch my eye, I can’t seem to get over that this is really me. It’s enough to banish any lingering doubts about being the only woman in the place baring a little cleavage and a lot of thigh.

  “What time is it?” Yvonne asks.

  “Eight. And the party starts at eight. Are the four of us the only punctual people in the whole freaking—”

  “Nope,” Latisha cuts in, pointing across the cavernous room toward the door. “Look who’s here.”

  “Let me guess. Judy Jetson?” My quip strikes me as more amusing than it should, courtesy of the potent second drink I just sucked down.

  “Nope, Mary,” Latisha says, gesturing.

  “Madonna,” Brenda murmurs, wide-eyed.

  “Oh, so we’re talking Mary, Mother of God?” I swear, I’m cracking myself up.

  “No, Mary, the office freak. Look.”

  Still giggling, I set down my empty glass and turn to see that Mary—excuse me, Merry—has just made her entrance. Her roly-poly figure is encased in a bright red dress with white fake fur trim. Incredulous, I gape at the shiny black boots below and the Santa hat perched jauntily on her round head. All that’s missing is a sack full of toys slung on her back.

  “Now, that’s a real shame,” Yvonne says dryly, shaking her pink bouffant, an unlit cigarette in one hand and a martini glass in the other.

  Mary spots us and makes a beeline for the bar. “Hi, everyone!”

  I can’t resist. “Mrs. Claus, I presume?”

  She titters and warbles, “Oh, Tracey, you’re so funny. Um, Yvonne, you’re not allowed to smoke in here.”

  Yvonne rolls her eyes in the direction of the Little Dipper.

  “She knows,” I say. “She just likes to hold her cigarette. It’s a habit.”

  A habit Little Miss Merry Two-Shoes couldn’t possibly understand.

  A jumpsuited bartender materializes. “Can I get you something?”

  Mary orders a spritzer.

  That’s enough to make me order my third martini. I rationalize it by deciding that blood-orange martinis aren’t as potent as the regular kind, but basically, I’m about to get trashed.

  I’m just one big Office Party Don’t, but I can’t seem to help it. Blood-orange martinis are my new best friend.

  I’m not in the mood for spritzers, and I
’m sick of being one big Do all my life. Maybe it’s just my martini fog, but it seems to me that Don’ts have far more fun than Do’s do.

  Soon, thank God, Mary disappears and the place fills up. You don’t grasp just how huge an agency Blaire Barnett is until the whole company is in one place. I see plenty of faces I don’t recognize, and some that I do. The music throbs, and there are a few people out on the dance floor, most of them self-conscious-looking entry-level drones or grooving mail-room staff.

  “Who’s that guy? He’s cute!” Brenda says, nudging me and pointing at someone I’ve never seen before. He’s got blond hair, which is usually not my type. Not Brenda’s type, either, but look at her gaping.

  “You’re married, Bren. Remember?”

  She shrugs. “I’m not dead. I can look. And you should look. Maybe you’ll meet someone.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “You should start mingling.”

  “Maybe I will,” I say again, but I’m having a good time just hanging by the bar with my friends.

  Then again, it’s getting a little warm in here. The music seems to be abnormally loud, and I’m thinking I should switch to a spritzer after I finish this drink. The insert the pharmacy gave me with my happy pills says that I’m not supposed to overindulge in liquor.

  I spot a very familiar face approaching as Brenda and I pose for a picture Latisha is about to take with my camera.

  Yes, I brought my camera. Is that a Don’t? It’s not on the list, but it probably isn’t considered a Do. Especially when Latisha and I keep cracking ourselves up pretending to be private detectives furtively taking photos of Alec, a married account executive who looks a little too cozy at the bar with Mercedes, the buxom and boozy sixth-floor receptionist. Which is a borderline violation of She magazine’s Don’t Gossip rule.

  The familiar face stops in front of me, and its mouth says, “Hey, how’s it going, Chief?”

  “Hi, Mike!” Am I slurring? “Here, get in the picture with us!”

  “How about if I take it?” he offers, setting down his bottled Molson Ice and taking the camera from Latisha. She gets into the picture with me and Brenda and we all pose with our arms around each other, flashing big, cheesy smiles.