Just One Week (Just One Song) (3 page)

Marcia is sitting in my desk chair when I walk into my office, staring at the empty cardboard box in the middle of my desk.

Her eyes are red and I know she’s been crying. She was probably in here when HR dropped of the box that would have surely let her know what my meeting with Devan was really about.

I don’t bother closing my door when I walk in. I simply walk to the windows of my office and stare out over the city trying to figure out what in the hell has just happened.

“I’m sorry.” Marcia’s a good friend, but her words bring me no comfort. I don’t respond. I can’t think.

We sit in silence for several minutes. The only sound I hear is the occasional sniffing coming from Marcia’s direction. I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as possible to prevent my own from bubbling up and spilling over.

I will not give Devan, or anyone in this office, the satisfaction of seeing me broken.

Finally, I turn back to my desk and force the world’s most pathetic attempt at a smile toward Marcia.

“It’s fine,” I say and begin throwing picture frames from my desk and the shelf behind it into the box. I don’t notice if the glass breaks as I start throwing everything in, and I’m not sure I care.

“It’s not fine,” Marcia says and slowly begins adding more personal items into my box. “I had no idea this was going to happen, but I can’t believe she just did this to you. This place is going to suck without you.”

We’re quiet for several more minutes until I’ve gone through every drawer in my desk and shelves and removed anything I can think of that’s mine. For a second, I hold the stapler in my hand, thinking of Milton from the Office Space.
Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler.

I click it once and watch the perfectly folded staple fall to my desk. It feels good in a strange way, like one of those stress balls people use when they get upset. The weight of the stapler in my hand and the pressure from closing and opening it feels oddly comforting. I click it again, and then again. Before I know it, the only sound in the room is me clicking away on the stupid stapler, mis-firing folded staples all over the room. They bounce off my desk and onto the floor, pinging off my metal pen holder cup and off my phone.

A laugh pours out of me before I can stop it. It’s not the friendly laugh you share with a good friend. It’s a psycho sounding laughter, probably from the adrenaline rushing through my veins and the fact that Devan just crushed my dreams under her Louboutin high-heeled shoe like I’m an insignificant ant on the street.

I’m losing my mind. It has to be the only option as I stand in my office with Marcia staring at me and all I can think about is Office Space quotes while I hold my own red Streamline stapler in my hands.

Screw them. I toss the stapler into my box and then feel Marcia’s hand on my forearm.

She just looks at me, while my eyes are wide and I’m still crackling. It’s not even a laugh anymore. I think I sound more like a hyena hunting down prey as I stand in my office just … going completely insane.

Seeing the concern etched all over her face finally sobers me. I close my mouth and we just look at each other. Me wondering if she’s going to say anything; her probably wondering if I’m going to set the building on fire.

I slowly take a deep breath in, blowing it out loudly and slowly. “I’m okay.”

Marcia gives me a look. I’m pretty sure she’s thinking, ‘Are you sure, because you were just acting like a complete lunatic.’

“Is there anything I can do?” she finally asks.

Shaking my head, I look at the window behind her, avoiding her direct gaze in favor of hundreds of cold, glass buildings so I don’t have another panic attack.

“No.” I reach to pick up my box. There’s no point in sticking around here any longer than I have to.

Marcia walks me out of the office. We both stare straight ahead as we walk down our floor, heading toward the elevator. I almost want to look around and see why it’s so quiet, but I can vaguely see people watching us out of the corner of my eye. The office isn’t quiet because everyone is gone.

The office is dead silent because every single person who works here has congregated on our floor and are watching me, mouths wide open, carry my stupid brown box. If they didn’t know I was fired by the sounds of my maniacal laughter several minutes ago, they certainly do now.

And they’ve all come to watch me go.

Fantastic.

I refuse to look at any of them as Marcia and I wait silently by the elevators, step in, descend the thirty floors to the street, and walk through the building’s lobby.

“I’ll make some phone calls while you’re gone to see if I can find any jobs you’d be interested in,” she says, finally breaking our silence.

I nod, but I don’t look at her. My adrenaline is crashing and I’m beginning to have the urge to cry. If I look at Marcia, I’ll lose it completely.

Her hand is warm and comforting on my shoulder. She doesn’t hug me or make any move to say anything else as we stand on the corner. Her free hand raises to hail a cab. I know this is something I’m completely capable of doing myself, but somehow, I’m completely frozen.

Dozens of people rush by us on the sidewalk. Traffic flies by, horns honking, cabbies screaming out the window, and people chattering on their cell phones. Businessmen, models, tourists with their cameras hanging around their necks. They all walk by us, moving on with their day with their own agendas and their own thoughts; no one noticing that my life is simply crashing down around me.

I exhale loudly once a cab pulls over to the curb and watch Marcia open the door for me.

She smiles at me sadly as I push my box into the backseat of the cab and then turn back to her.

“Thank you.” It sounds pathetic.
I
sound pathetic, and I hate it.

Without warning, she pulls me into a tight, motherly embrace. All I can do is breathe her in and hug her back. I love this woman and I hate that I’m not going to be working with her anymore.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” She pulls away from me with a sad smile. “Take the next few weeks and try to have some fun. Get drunk and forget about Devan and all this bullshit. You’ll find something else soon.”

I want to believe her promise, so I nod and play along like this isn’t the worst absolute news I could possibly hear. I look back at her once I’m sitting in the cab. The window is rolled down, probably airing the car out from the previous passenger, allowing me a second to lean my arms on the side of the door and give one last sad smile and wave to Marcia before we take off.

“Go have hot sex with the drummer boy and have him make you forget all this shit.” She winks at me and flashes me a large, genuine smile. “Take care of some of my fantasies for me.”

I laugh once. Sort of. It’s a cross between the sound a cat makes when it’s coughing up a hairball and a genuine laugh. The cab driver gives me a strange look.

By the time the cab pulls up to my apartment building twenty minutes later, I feel robotic.

The tears I fought when I first sat down in the cab have dried up. I don’t think I feel anything as I pay the cab driver, stumble out of the car, and use my key ring to enter my secured building, juggling my box of personal items.

When I step off the elevator down the hall from my apartment, I feel completely drained. All I want to do is take a bath, have a glass – or four – of wine, and not even think of packing for my trip to Los Angeles.

I don’t live in the best building in New York. It’s halfway between Central Park and the Garment District, and I leased it for the location alone. It’s definitely not pretty by any means and it lacks what a lot of higher scale places have, like a doorman, but it’s safe enough and my neighbors are quiet. It works for me though. Today, I notice that the hall is dark, the brick is crumbling, there’s a stale smell of some Asian food wafting through the door … and there’s a man sitting in the hallway outside my apartment.

Very few men in my life can overwhelm a crowded hallway like this man can. He’s sitting with his back up against my door, one leg straight out and the other bent. He stretches across almost the entire hallway and he’s bobbing his head to music, I assume, based on how his fingers are tapping out a beat on his bent knee and straight thigh.

The man is just magnificent. He’s sexy as hell and my heart instantly starts racing. Why is he here?

Chase doesn’t notice me until my shadow falls over him. Slowly, he looks up and the back of his head rests against my door as his eyes slowly trail up the length of my body. Normally this move would make me feel all sorts of wonderful, but I’ve had a really shitty day and I’ve been avoiding Chase for months.

He flashes me his easy-going, slightly crooked smile. He has a thick head of short, light brown hair.

“You have hair.” I close my eyes and realize it’s about the dumbest thing I could possibly say. He’s always had it shaved completely off, his bald head slick and smooth to my touch.

“You okay? You look like shit.”

Six months ago, I would have laughed at Chase for criticizing my appearance. Mostly because I would have known he was joking. Today, I can imagine what he sees. Lime green heels that don’t exactly match my outfit, but they were the only extra pair I had in my desk drawer. My skirt and silk shirt are both wrinkled, my hair is probably wild and stringy from me nervously running my fingers through it in the cab ride home, and I’m sure my nose is red and my mascara is smeared from the tears I finally allowed to fall once I was safely seated in the taxi cab.

“Nice to see you, too. What are you doing here?” I juggle my box and rest it on my hip.

He blinks and his smile disappears. I figure he sees the scowl on my face and realizes I’m not exactly in the mood to play today.

“If you let me in, I’ll tell you.” He asks, but as he’s doing it, his muscular frame uncurls from the floor and he quickly stands up next to me. With outstretched hands, he silently asks to take my box from me.

I frown for a split second before handing it over. Since he’s here he might as well make himself useful. I pause before putting my key in the lock to my apartment and watch him, wondering if he’s going to ask me why I haven’t returned any of his calls over the last six months. Or why I ignored the fact that he sent me flowers on my birthday a month ago. But he stays just as still as me, a strange, blank look on his face.

Finally, when I realize he isn’t going to say anything, I wave him, and the box I can’t wait to trash, inside my apartment.

“What is this?” Chase’s dark gray eyes drop to the contents of my uncovered box from hell and then he looks at me, wide-eyed and angry. “You lost your job?”

I nod and close the door once he’s inside, setting my five locks firmly into place.

“It’s been a pretty shitty day,” I admit, and he follows me into the kitchen. “Just set it over on the table, please.”

I offer a glass of wine to Chase and he shoots me a look that essentially says no man as manly as him would ever drink a glass of pink wine. Lucky for him, I have beer too, so I pop the top off a Heineken and slide it his way.

“Thanks,” he says after taking his first drink and settles up against the bar in my kitchen, elbows resting on the counter. “Wanna tell me what happened?”