Slightly Single Read online

  I smile at Latisha. “Thanks for helping me.”

  “No problem.” She wags a finger at me in her sassy, don’t-give-me-any-crap way. “Now get into Jake’s office and see what that ol’ pain in the butt wants so you can come to lunch with us. We’re going for Mexican. Chips. Guac. Margaritas.”

  I brighten. “Margaritas? At lunch?”

  “Hell, it’s Friday.”

  Yeah, it’s Friday. Will’s leaving in less than forty-eight hours. Sunday at this time, he’ll be on a train somewhere north of Albany.

  “I definitely need a drink,” I tell Latisha. “A strong one.”

  “Tell me about it. In case you haven’t been paying attention, my boys are in a major slump.”

  Her boys would be the New York Yankees. She’s an obsessed fan. Has team memorabilia displayed all over her cube. The highlight of her life, according to Latisha and everyone who knows her, was a few years ago when her boss, Rita Sellers, gave her a couple of box seats for a World Series Game at the last minute. I know Rita, who is second in command in our account group, and there’s no way she did that out of the goodness of her heart. According to Brenda, there was practically a typhoon that night, the seats were out in the open, and Rita came down with some kind of stomach bug. Otherwise, Latisha would never have gotten those tickets.

  As it was, she got to share the box with the mayor and with two of the Backstreet Boys. She got their autographs for her daughter, Keera, who was ten at the time. The Backstreet Boys’ autographs—not the mayor’s.

  “Are you going to the game tonight?” I ask Latisha. “Maybe you can bring the team some luck.”

  “I wish I was going. They’re playing in Seattle.”

  “Oh.” Damn! I just got a paper cut on the edge of Jake’s memo. I stick my finger in my mouth and taste blood. Terrific.

  Oblivious to my latest work-related injury, Latisha is saying, “But me and Anton will be in the bleachers on Sunday afternoon when they’re back home.”

  Anton is Latisha’s boyfriend. I’ve only met him once and he seemed nice, but from what I’ve heard from Brenda and Yvonne, he’s got skank written all over him. It’s obviously a dead-end relationship, but Latisha doesn’t seem to mind that it’s not going anywhere. She says she’ll get out when something better comes along, and that so far, nothing has.

  “I know where I’ll be on Sunday afternoon,” I tell her. “Crying in my bed.”

  “’Cause Will’s leaving?” She shakes her head. “He’ll be back in a few months, right?”

  “Yeah.” I straighten the sheets of memo that have been faxed and pick up the confirmation sheet the machine has just spit out. “But a lot can happen in a few months, Latisha.”

  “If you’re that worried, girl, you’d better get your ass on that train with him.”

  I never told her that I attempted to bring up that very subject with Will a few weeks ago, and that he was so thrown by it that he avoided me for a few days afterward. He claimed he was just busy packing, but how complicated can it be to throw some shorts and T-shirts into a few boxes and ship them upstate?

  “I can’t go with him, Latisha,” I say now, as though that’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. “I mean, what am I supposed to do? Pick up and leave my life for the entire summer?”

  “That’s what I’d do if Anton ever tried to leave town without me.”

  “What about Keera?”

  “I’d bring her,” Latisha says. “It would do her good to get away from her friends on the block. I don’t like what I’m hearing out of their mouths lately. I don’t trust any of them, and I don’t want her goin’ the way of my sister Je’Naye.”

  Okay, so my troubles pale next to Latisha’s. She’s a single mother trying to raise an adolescent daughter in a rundown neighborhood where her teenaged sister was shot in a drug-related drive-by shooting a few years ago.

  I sigh. “We both need a margarita, Latisha. Maybe a couple of margaritas. Let me go find out what’s up with Jake and I’ll meet you guys downstairs.”

  “You got it.” She heads off down the hall, shaking her butt in her distinct walk. The way she dresses, you’d think she was built like Jennifer Lopez. She’s shorter and heavier than I am, but you don’t see her wearing black tunics. Today she’s got on a low-cut red V-neck shirt tucked into a beige skirt that hugs her hips and thighs.

  I catch Myron, the mail-room guy, checking her out as she passes by him.

  “Mmm-mmm,” he says, shaking his head. He stops pushing his package-laden cart and turns his head to keep watching her. “Damn!”

  “Cool it, Myron,” she calls over her shoulder, but I know she’s loving it.

  “Girl, you are lookin’ fine.”

  “Mmm-hmm, and don’t I know it,” Latisha says smugly.

  I wish I had half her confidence. But somehow, I think that if I wore that clingy outfit Latisha has on, Myron would take one look and run screaming for cover.

  I round the corner into Jake’s office. Sure enough, there he is, sprawled behind the desk taking aim at the basket overhead. The place is big enough for a couch, a couple of chairs, and four wide windows looking out over Forty-second street. My cube barely has room for my desk, my chair, my computer, and a framed eight-by-ten head shot of Will.

  “What’s up, Tracey? Yesssss!!!!” Jake pumps his arms triumphantly as the ball sails through the hoop.

  “You wanted to see me before lunch,” I remind him.

  “Right. Two things.”

  “Do you need me to write them down?”

  “Nah.” He straightens in his seat and gestures for me to take the chair opposite.

  I do, glancing at the framed wedding photo of him with Laurie. If you ask me, she’s way better-looking than he is. She’s a pretty, skinny, sophisticated-looking brunette. He’s a round-faced, reddish-haired frat boy type, and his cheeks still bear remnants of what must have been a nasty case of acne a few decades ago. Not that looks are everything, but I can’t help wondering why Laurie married him.

  Then again, he can be charming when he wants to be. And he’s rich. Really rich. Apparently, he got a hot stock tip a few years ago, scraped together every cent he had, and it paid off big-time. Now he and Laurie live in a big apartment in one of those nice doormen buildings in the east fifties off Sutton Place, and like I said, they’re looking for a weekend house up in Westchester.

  I wonder if she’s happy. Laurie.

  I wonder how long their marriage will last.

  My stomach rumbles, and I wonder whether I should order the light sour cream and low-fat cheddar with my quesadilla, or go for full fat.

  “First, I need you to find out what I do to get out of paying this parking ticket,” Jake says, handing it to me across the desk.

  “Why?” I ask, glancing at it. “Was it a mistake? You weren’t illegally parked there?”

  “No, I was,” he says. “But there were no legal spots available. And nobody pays these things. Just make some calls, check around and find out what I have to do to plead innocent, or whatever, and let me know.”

  “Sure.” Guess he won’t be winning any Good Citizenship awards in the near future.

  “The other thing is…” He clears his throat, like this is something big.

  Oh, shit, now what am I going to be accomplice to? Next thing you know, I’ll be in the witness protection program and Will will never find me.

  “How are you with creative thinking, Tracey?”

  “Creative thinking?” I study him warily, wondering why he’s asking. Does he want an inventive way to dispose of a corpse?

  “It depends on what you mean by creative,” I say.

  “Okay, well, if you’re interested, I might have a fun little project for you. McMurray-White has come up with a new product, and it needs a name. So far, nothing they’ve come up with has clicked, and now they want our creative team to get on it. They’ve asked us for help brainstorming. But before I go any further, this is confidential.”

  “Def
initely,” I say, my mind whirling. This is far more exciting than my usual duties, like wrestling malfunctioning office equipment and scheduling his appointments with his personal trainer. An added bonus: It’s perfectly legal.

  “What we’re dealing with here is a revolutionary roll-on deodorant that lasts all week,” Jake says, leaning forward.

  “All week? Does it work?”

  “Supposedly. See what you can come up with, okay? Remember. Confidential.”

  “Sure.” This almost makes up for the parking ticket thing. Wait till everyone back home hears about this. Okay, maybe naming a new deodorant isn’t my dream claim to fame, but it’s definitely more glamorous than any opportunity you get back in Brookside.

  “That’s it,” Jake says, picking up his basketball and aiming again.

  “I can go?”

  “See ya,” he tells me, and lets the ball sail into the air. “Yesss!” he hisses when he scores again.

  I’m already out the door.

  Latisha, Brenda and Yvonne are waiting for me in front of the building, smoking. They aren’t the only ones—the entryway is jammed with white-collar cigarette-toting refugees from the smoke-free offices above. Yvonne is forever talking about the good old days when you could have an ashtray on your desk and puff away to your heart’s content, before the militant nonsmokers intervened.

  “It’s about time,” Brenda says, throwing down her cigarette butt and grinding it out with the impossibly pointy toe of her impossibly high-heeled white leather pump.

  “Sorry. I was in with Jake.” I light a Salem and inhale deeply as we head down the street.

  “What did he want?” Latisha asks. “Does he need you to pick up his dry cleaning again?”

  “Not this time.” I debate whether I should tell them about the parking ticket, and decide against it.

  Latisha and Yvonne are always telling me I need to stand up to Jake when he oversteps his boss-employee bounds. Brenda, who’s pretty much a doormat type, usually doesn’t jump on the band wagon.

  The thing is, most of the time I don’t mind running personal errands for Jake.

  Okay, I do mind. But not enough to confront him.

  “So Will is leaving this weekend, huh?” Brenda asks in a way that makes it clear the three of them were discussing the situation before I showed up.

  “Yeah, he’s outta here,” I say lightly, careful not to burn a stroller-pushing nanny with my cigarette as I brush past her on the crowded sidewalk.

  Lord, it’s sweltering out here—and crowded with sweat-soaked tourists, even though June has barely begun. I think about the long months ahead and decide that I’d rather spend the summer just about anywhere other than here. Even Brookside isn’t looking that bad at this point.

  “Are you going to see other people while you’re apart?” Latisha wants to know.

  “God, no!”

  But I have to admit, an image of Buckley pops into my head.

  “Is Will going to see other people?”

  “No!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes! Geez.”

  Latisha’s silent, but I catch the look she sends the others.

  I narrow my eyes at her as we stop on a corner for a Don’t Walk sign. “Why? You don’t think he’s going to be faithful?”

  “Show me a faithful man and I’ll show you a eunuch,” trumpets the thrice-divorced Yvonne.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I tell her. “Not all men cheat. My father doesn’t cheat on my mother.”

  “How do you know, hon?”

  “I just know.” And believe me, I do.

  My father is still head over heels for my mother even after thirty-plus years of marriage. Don’t ask me why. Sometimes it seems like all she ever does is nag him. And as I mentioned earlier, she’s overweight, mustachioed and fond of stretch pants, yet his pet name for her is Bella—Italian for “beautiful.” Proving love is blind. Which explains a lot of things—including the fact that Will is still with me.

  “She’s right,” Brenda says. “Paulie doesn’t cheat.”

  Paulie is her boyfriend, whom she’s been dating since they were in junior high. They’ve been engaged since the summer before they went to community college together, and now, three years later, the big event is coming up in July. It’s going to be held at a huge wedding hall out in Jersey, and we’re all invited, with dates.

  When I got the invitation a few weeks ago my first thought was that it was sweet of Brenda to add me to the invite list since we’d only known each other a few months.

  My second—and, might I add, completely asinine—thought was that Will would be able to come home to accompany me.

  Naturally, he said he couldn’t get away from the theater, especially on a weekend.

  I’m bringing Raphael in his place. I would just as soon have gone alone, but Latisha is bringing Anton and Yvonne is bringing Thor, her Swedish pen pal. She’s been corresponding with him since they were children, and they’re finally going to meet in person when he comes to New York on vacation next month.

  Anton the skanky homeboy; Thor the foreign pen pal who reportedly speaks five languages, none of them English; and Raphael, homosexuality’s answer to the Baywatch babes, only sluttier.

  Gotta love that dynamic trio.

  “Of course Paulie doesn’t cheat,” Latisha tells Brenda in an almost-sincere, comforting tone. “Not everybody cheats—not that I’d bet my life on Anton’s fidelity. But Yvonne’s right—a lot of men can’t be trusted. And maybe Tracey shouldn’t just sit around twiddling her thumbs while Will’s away.”

  “I’m not going to be twiddling my thumbs,” I protest.

  “No? Then what are you going to do?” Yvonne asks.

  “Improve myself.”

  I confess, until this second, I hadn’t thought much about it. But the moment it pops out of my mouth, I decide it’s the best idea I’ve ever had. I’ll spend the summer on a self-improvement regimen.

  “Improve yourself?” Yvonne echoes. “In what way, hon?”

  “In every way. I’m going to lose weight. A lot of weight. I need to get into shape. And save money—maybe I can get a part-time job. I’ll have more time on my hands with Will gone.”

  “A part-time job? Like what?”

  “I don’t know…walking dogs. Or baby-sitting. And I’m finally going to get organized. And…and read classic literature…” I’m on a roll. Instant conviction.

  “Good for you, girl,” Latisha says, high-fiving my hand that isn’t holding a cigarette.

  “Yeah. I’m going to do everything I always say I should do. Except quit smoking,” I add hastily. If I quit smoking, I’d double my weight the first week. But the other stuff…

  I can do it.

  I know I can.

  For the first time in weeks, I find myself almost looking forward to the upcoming months. I’m going to reinvent myself. When Will comes back, he won’t even recognize the new me. I’ll be skinnier than a female Friend. Skinnier than Lara Flynn Boyle.

  Okay, maybe not that skinny. But I’ll look good. Damn good. I’ll even have a flattering new wardrobe and a chic haircut.

  Will, of course, will be totally into the dazzling new Tracey. Next thing you know, we’ll be living together. Then getting married…

  But I’m not doing this only for Will, I remind myself as we walk into the air-conditioned, dimly lit Mexican restaurant.

  I’m doing it for me. So that I’ll feel good about myself for a change.

  If it makes me irresistible to Will, I point out to my Will-obsessed side, that’s just an added bonus.

  After all, you should never change yourself just because of a guy—that advice courtesy of Dear Abby, countless magazine articles I’ve read over the years and Andrea Antonowski, my best friend back home—whose word I still tend to consider gospel since she’s never been without a boyfriend since we were in the sixth grade, and is now engaged to be married.

  In a healthy relationship, you will love and accept e
ach other just as you are.

  Which is what Will and I have, I remind myself.

  Otherwise, we wouldn’t still be together. Of course he accepts me just as I am. I guess I just don’t accept myself. I want to be better in every way.

  Okay, mainly I want to look better. If I can get a savings account, organize my closet and read a few classics along the way, great. But my main goal for the summer is to finally lose weight.

  So what’s wrong with that?

  “You should try that cabbage-soup diet,” Brenda tells me. “One of my bridesmaids is going to make a copy for me so that I can lose five pounds before the wedding.”

  “I need to lose ten times that,” I tell her, wedging myself between the hostess podium and a group of Japanese businessmen waiting for a table.

  Brenda says nothing to that, but I find myself wishing she would. You know, that she—or Latisha or Yvonne—would say, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you’re not that overweight, Tracey.”

  Even if it’s not true.

  I try not to feel wounded. After all, do I really want my friends to lie to make me feel better?

  Maybe.

  “You should do the protein diet,” Latisha says. “You like bacon and steak, right?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Those diets don’t work,” Yvonne puts in, waving her manicured talons in dismissal. “You have to exercise. That’s the key. Start working out every day. Join a gym. Get a personal trainer.”

  “Or join Weight Watchers,” Latisha recommends.

  “Personal trainer? Weight Watchers? Who am I, the Duchess of York? I’m broke, guys, remember? I can’t afford to pay to lose weight.”

  “Weight Watchers is cheap.”

  “Not free cheap. I need free cheap.”

  “Well, it doesn’t cost anything to starve yourself,” Brenda says. “Until you wind up in the anorexic ward of some hospital.”

  I think of Sofia, my college friend—the one who taught me how to smoke to lose weight. Obviously, it worked for her, since she was in and out of the Cleveland Clinic a few times. Meanwhile, here I am three years later, with a pack-a-day habit and more inches to pinch than ever before.