Love, Accidentally (5 page)

Ilsa slipped into the dress, freshened her makeup, then drove to the bar and parked down the block, waiting for Grif to pull up next to her so they could walk in together. She was checking her reflection in the rearview mirror when her cell phone rang.

“Hey, babe,” Grif said. “Listen, I’m going to be another twenty minutes or so. I’m sorry. The traffic’s horrible. There’s an accident up ahead; I just heard it over the radio.”

“You’re kidding me,” she said flatly.

“I’ll text Elise and let her know,” he said. “Just hang tight and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Fine—no!” she said. “Don’t text her. I’m not going to wait. I’ll meet you inside.”

She didn’t want to delay another minute; she’d been anticipating this for too long already. She took a deep breath, opened her car door, and walked down the sidewalk. As soon as she entered the bar, she spotted Elise, sitting alone in a small booth. She was slender, and wore a black skirt and a simple cream-colored top with a V-neck. Ilsa took in her sleek, dark hair, almond-shaped eyes, and full lips, which naturally curved up into a slight smile.

She was beautiful.

Elise caught her eye and mouthed, “Ilsa?”

“Hi.” Ilsa walked over and slid into the booth across from Elise. “Sorry I’m a little late. Grif got held up, but he’ll be here soon.”

“Oh, okay,” Elise said. They stared at each other for a beat too long. Did Elise notice it, too—how different they looked? No one could accuse Grif of having a type, Ilsa thought.

“Would you like a—”

“Should we get—”

They laughed uncomfortably as their words overlapped.

“Go ahead,” Elise said.

“I was just going to ask if you wanted a drink,” Ilsa said.

“God, yes,” Elise replied, and the way she said it made Ilsa laugh again, a true laugh this time. She hadn’t realized Elise might be anxious, too.

“What would you like?” Ilsa asked as she started out of the booth.

“Let me,” Elise said. “Please.”

“Um, sure. A margarita on the rocks, no salt?”

“Coming up,” Elise said.

Ilsa toyed with her napkin until Elise returned. Even though she’d been taken aback by Elise’s beauty—photos didn’t do her justice—she felt better than she’d expected. Anticipating this night had been far worse than experiencing it was, she realized.

“A toast,” Elise said, handing Ilsa her drink. “To your engagement with Grif.”

“Oh!” Ilsa said. She was so startled she almost forgot to take a sip of her drink. “Thank you.”

“He’s a great guy,” Elise said. “And even though I don’t talk to him that much, I can tell how happy he is.”

Ilsa didn’t know what she’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. She’d thought Elise might work reminders into the conversation that she’d been in the picture first and had known Grif the longest. But instead, she seemed to be going out of her way to make Ilsa feel comfortable. Ilsa’s fingers released their death grip on the napkin.

“I was kind of nervous to meet you,” she blurted. Her confession was a split-second decision; she didn’t want to chat with Elise about banal topics like the weather and traffic. She wanted to get to know the woman who had been so important to Grif, to take her measure, and she sensed the way to make it happen would be to reveal something of herself first.

“Really? I was a little nervous, too,” Elise said. “Why were you?”

“I guess because you and Grif were together so long,” Ilsa told her.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Elise said. She took another sip of her drink.

“So why were you nervous?” Ilsa asked.

“A bunch of different reasons,” Elise said. “I haven’t seen Grif since we broke up. And I know he’s moved on—that you’re the reason he’s moved on. I wanted to like you, even though it feels kind of weird for us to meet.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Ilsa said. “But not as weird as I expected.”

Elise nodded slowly. “Yeah. . . . So, Grif said you’re a veterinarian?”

“That’s how we met, actually,” Ilsa said. “He was walking his dog and it got hurt. . . . I just happened to be nearby. And you’re a graphic artist, right?”

“Yup. I love it—mostly because I can work anywhere,” Elise said. “It more than makes up for the fact that a few of my clients are completely nuts, including the one I’m meeting with tomorrow.”

“Same here,” Ilsa said. “Yesterday I had to argue with a woman who didn’t want us to shave her show poodle’s stomach to do surgery. She finally ended up bringing in her groomer to do it. And she stood over him the whole time, criticizing him. I was tempted to give her some of the anesthesia I was using on her dog.”

Elise laughed. “It probably would have been a favor to both of them.”

There was a brief silence. Ilsa saw Elise glance down and suddenly focus on something as her expression grew serious. She followed her gaze and realized Elise was staring at her engagement ring. Ilsa blurted out a question that surprised even her: “Do you mind if I ask—are you dating anyone?”

“Not seriously,” Elise said, but then she smiled. “There’s this guy . . . It’s kind of funny, actually. Our grandmothers are friends and they’re trying to set us up. We’ve talked on the phone, and I think we might actually go out to dinner next time he comes to San Francisco. My grandma keeps threatening to needlepoint me a pillow that says, ‘I told you so.’ She doesn’t actually needlepoint, but she said she’ll hire someone to do it so she can rub it in.”

“She sounds funny.”

“She is,” Elise said. “Grif always said—” She cut herself off and took a sip of her white wine.

“It’s okay,” Ilsa said. “What did Grif say about your grandma?”

But she never heard the answer. Something made her look up just as the door of the bar swung open. She slid out of the booth as Grif hurried toward her, and in that moment she registered something: Grif wasn’t glancing over at Elise, even though he hadn’t seen her in months—since the day of their breakup. His eyes were locked on Ilsa.

She felt that flutter in her chest, the one she’d experienced the first time she met him, and every single time she’d seen him since then. She’d been so busy comparing herself to Corrine, telling herself she wasn’t her sister, that she’d forgotten the most important thing of all: Grif wasn’t Bruce.

“Sorry,” he whispered against her ear. “Are you okay?” She squeezed his hand and smiled up at him, then turned around to include Elise.

“Hey, you,” Elise said. She stood up, and there was an awkward pause as she and Grif stepped toward each other, hesitated, and then Grif leaned down and kissed her cheek. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

“You, too,” she said. “You look great.”

“Sorry I kept you guys waiting,” Grif said. “Man, do I need a beer. Can I get you another round?”

Elise hesitated. “Actually, I need to get going in a bit. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.”

“Are you sure?” Grif asked.

Ilsa looked at Elise as she and Grif chatted for a few more minutes, wondering if she was leaving so soon because it was painful for her to see Grif with someone else. Grif’s arm was draped across the booth behind Ilsa, and normally she would’ve snuggled closer to him, or put her hand on his leg, but she didn’t.

“It was wonderful meeting you,” Ilsa said when Elise picked up her purse to go. “Really.”

She stood up and impulsively gave Elise a quick hug, then watched as Grif did the same. Were those tears in Elise’s eyes? Ilsa wondered. She couldn’t be sure; Elise was already turning around and slipping through the door that Grif had entered just moments before.

As Elise disappeared, so too did Ilsa’s visions of all the moments Grif had already shared with his old girlfriend. Instead, Ilsa began to glimpse the moments ahead of them, the ones that had yet to unfold: the way she’d look into his eyes as they said their wedding vows; the house they’d buy together someday; the walks they’d take around their neighborhood with a baby in a carrier against Grif’s chest, Fabio strutting proudly alongside them. She would be by his side when
their
children got married, and she’d never stop loving the way it felt to wake up and feel his body wrapped around hers.

She suddenly remembered how she’d passed an elderly couple on the sidewalk the other day and had turned to stare after them, not focusing on the woman’s back bent by osteoporosis, or the man’s frail shoulders and thick cane, but narrowing her gaze to fix on the image of their joined hands. She wanted that with Grif. She wanted it so much.

“Are you okay?” Grif asked again.

She nodded and leaned forward to kiss him. “Yeah,” she said. “We’re okay.”

The Opposite Of Me

A smart, funny, and poignant novel about the desire to have it all, the relationships that define us, and the complicated, irreplaceable bonds of sisterhood.

Twenty-nine-year-old Lindsey Rose has, for as long as she can remember, lived in the shadow of her ravishingly beautiful fraternal twin sister, Alex. Now that she is finally on the cusp of being named VP creative director of an elite New York advertising agency, Lindsey’s carefully constructed life implodes during the course of one devastating night. Humiliated, she flees the glitter of Manhattan and retreats to the time warp of her parents’ Maryland home. As her sister plans her lavish wedding to her Prince Charming, Lindsey struggles to maintain her identity as the smart, responsible twin while she furtively tries to piece her career back together. But things only get more complicated when a long-held family secret is unleashed that forces both sisters to reconsider who they are and who they are meant to be.

Read on for a look at Sarah Pekkanen’s

The Opposite of Me

Currently available from Washington Square Press

Excerpt from
The Opposite of Me
copyright © 2010 by Sarah Pekkanen

1

AS I PULLED
open the heavy glass door of Richards, Dunne & Krantz and walked down the long hallway toward the executive offices, I noticed a light was on up ahead.

Lights were never on this early. I quickened my step.

The light was on in
my
office, I realized as I drew closer. I’d gone home around 4:00
a.m.
to snatch a catnap and a shower, but I’d locked my office door. I’d checked it twice. Now someone was in there.

I broke into a run, my mind spinning in panic: Had I left my storyboard out in plain view? Could someone be sabotaging the advertising campaign I’d spent weeks agonizing over, the campaign my entire future hinged on?

I burst into my office just as the intruder reached for something on my desk.

“Lindsey! You scared me half out of my wits!” my assistant, Donna, scolded as she paused in the act of putting a steaming container of coffee on my desk.

“God, I’m sorry,” I said, mentally smacking myself. If I ever ended up computer dating—which, truth be told, it was probably going to come down to one of these days—I’d have to check the ever-popular “paranoid freak” box when I listed my personality traits. I’d better buy a barricade to hold back the bachelors of New York.

“I didn’t expect anyone else in this early,” I told Donna as my breathing slowed to normal. Note to self: Must remember to join a gym if a twenty-yard dash leaves me winded. Best not to think about how often I’ll actually
use
the gym if I’ve been reminding myself to join one for the past two years.

“It’s a big day,” Donna said, handing me the coffee.

“You’re amazing.” I closed my gritty eyes as I took a sip and felt the liquid miracle flood my veins. “I really needed this. I didn’t get much sleep.”

“You didn’t eat breakfast either, did you?” Donna asked, hands on her hips. She stood there, all of five feet tall, looking like a rosy-cheeked, doily-knitting grandma. One who wouldn’t hesitate to get up off her rocking chair and reach for her sawed-off shotgun if someone crossed her.

“I’ll have a big lunch,” I hedged, avoiding Donna’s eyes.

Even after five years, I still hadn’t gotten used to having an assistant, let alone one who was three decades older than me but earned a third of my salary. Donna and I both knew she wore the pants in our relationship, but the secret to our happiness was that we pretended otherwise. Kind of like my parents—Mom always deferred to Dad’s authority, after she mercilessly browbeat him into taking her point of view.

“I’m going to check in with the caterers now,” Donna said. “Should I hold your calls this morning?”

“Please,” I said. “Unless it’s an emergency. Or Walt from Creative—he’s freaking out about the font size on the dummy ad and I need to calm him down. Or Matt. I want to do another run-through with him this morning. And let’s see, who else, who else . . . Oh, anyone from Gloss Cosmetics, of course.

“Oh, God, they’re going to be here in”—I looked at my watch and the breath froze in my lungs—“two hours.”

“Hold on just a minute, missy,” Donna ordered in a voice that could only be described as trouser-wearing. She bustled to her desk and returned with a blueberry muffin in a little paper bag and two Advil.

“I knew you wouldn’t eat, so I got extra. And you’re getting a headache again, aren’t you?” she asked.

“It’s not so bad,” I lied, holding out my hand for the Advil and hoping Donna wouldn’t notice I’d bitten off all my fingernails. Again.

When Donna finally shut my door, I sank into my big leather chair and took another long, grateful sip of coffee. The early-morning sunlight streamed in through the windows behind me, glinting off the golden Clio Award on my desk. I ran a finger over it for luck, just like I did on every presentation day.

Then I stroked it a second time. Because this wasn’t an ordinary presentation day. So much more was riding on today than winning another multimillion-dollar account. If I nailed my pitch and added Gloss Cosmetics to our roster of clients . . . I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn’t finish the thought; I didn’t want to jinx myself.

I leapt up and walked across the room to look at my pictures of my babies, another one of my superstitious rituals on big days. One of my walls was covered with simple but expensive black frames, each showcasing a different magazine ad: a dad in a red apron barbecuing hot dogs; a preppy couple sinking their bare toes into their new carpet; a young executive reclining in her first-class airline seat.
Blissfully
reclining.

I smiled, remembering that campaign. It had taken me two weeks and three focus groups to decide on the word
blissful
instead of
peaceful.
Yet my whole campaign was almost torpedoed at the last minute because the model I’d chosen had the exact same hairstyle as the airline owner’s ex-wife, who’d convinced him that true love didn’t require a prenup. If I hadn’t spotted a five-dollar tub of hair gel in the makeup artist’s case and begged the client for thirty more seconds, our agency would’ve lost a $2 million account on account of a chin-length bob. Clients were notoriously fickle, and the rule of thumb was, the richer the client, the crazier.

The one I was meeting today owned half of Manhattan.

I grabbed the mock-up of the magazine ad my creative team had put together for Gloss and scanned it for the millionth time, searching for nonexistent flaws. I’d spent three solid weeks agonizing over every detail of this campaign, which I’d get maybe ten minutes to present in our conference room in— I looked at my watch and my heart skipped a beat.

Unlike other ad shops, it was the culture of my agency to blur the division between the creative work and the business side of our accounts. If you wanted to succeed at Richards, Dunne & Krantz, you had to be able to do both. Of course, that also meant all the responsibility for this presentation was mine alone.

The worst part, the part that gnawed at my stomach and jolted me awake at 3:00
a.m
. on nights when I managed to fall asleep, was that all my work, all those marathon stale-pizza weekend sessions and midnight conference calls, might be for nothing. If the owner of Gloss rejected my ads—if something as simple as the perfume I was wearing or a splashy adjective in my copy rubbed him the wrong way—hundreds of thousands of dollars in commission for our agency would slip through my fingers like smoke. Once a Japanese tycoon who owned a chain of luxury hotels sat through a brilliant, two-months-in-the-making campaign presentation our agency’s president had personally overseen—I’m talking about the kind of creative vision that would’ve won awards, the kinds of commercials everyone would’ve buzzed about—and dismissed it with a grunt, which his assistant cheerfully translated as “He doesn’t like blue.” That was it; no chance to tweak the color of the ad copy, just a group of stunned advertising execs with the now-useless skill of saying,
“Konnichi-wa!”
being herded like sheep to the exit.

I gulped another Advil from the secret stash inside my desk drawer, the one Donna didn’t know about, and massaged the knot in my neck with one hand while I stared at the mock-up ad my team had created for Gloss.

After Gloss Cosmetics had approached our agency last month, hinting that they might jump from their current agency, our agency’s president—a forty-two-year-old marketing genius named Mason, who always wore red Converse sneakers, even with his tuxedo—called our top five creative teams into his office.

“Gloss wants to kick some Cover Girl ass,” Mason had said, swigging from a bottle of Lipton iced tea (they were a client) and tapping his Bic pen (ditto) against the top of his oak conference table. Mason was so loyal to our clients that he once walked out of a four-star restaurant because the chef wouldn’t substitute Kraft ranch for champagne-truffle dressing.

“Gloss’s strategy is accessible glamour,” Mason had continued. “Forget the Park Avenue princesses; we’re going after schoolteachers and factory girls and receptionists.” His eyes had roved around the table so he could impale each of us with his stare, and I swear he hadn’t blinked for close to two minutes. Mason reminded me of an alien, with his bald, lightbulb-shaped head and hooded eyes, and when he went into his blinkless trances I was convinced he was downloading data from his mother ship. My assistant, Donna, was certain he just needed a little more vitamin C; she kept badgering him to go after the Minute Maid account.

“What was the recall score of Gloss’s last commercial?” someone at the other end of the table had asked. It was Slutty Cheryl, boobs spilling out of her tight white shirt as she stretched to reach a Lipton from the stack in the middle of the conference table.

“Can I get that for you?” Matt, our assistant art director, had offered in a voice that sounded innocent if you didn’t know him well.

Matt was my best friend at the office. My only real friend, actually; this place made a sadists’ convention seem cozy and nurturing.

“I can reach it,” Cheryl had said bravely, tossing back her long chestnut hair and straining away as Matt shot me a wink. You’d think that after a few hundred meetings she’d have figured out an easier way to wet her whistle, but there she was, week after week, doing her best imitation of a Hooters girl angling for a tip. By the purest of coincidences, she always got thirsty right when she asked a question, so all eyes were on her.

“Cover Girl’s last commercial, the one with Queen Latifah, hit a thirty recall, and Gloss’s latest scored a twelve,” Mason had said without consulting any notes. He had a photographic memory, which was one reason why our clients put up with the sneakers.

I could see why Gloss was testing the waters at other agencies. Twelve wasn’t good.

The recall score is one of the most effective tools in advertising’s arsenal. It basically tells what percentage of people who watched your commercial actually remembered it. Cheryl, who’s a creative director like me, once oversaw a dog food commercial that scored a forty-one. She ordered dozens of balloons emblazoned with “Forty-One” and blanketed the office with them. Subtlety, like loose-fitting turtlenecks, isn’t in her repertoire. And I swear I’m not just saying that because I’ve never scored higher than a forty (but just for the record, I’ve hit that number three times. It’s an agency record).

“I want five creative teams on this,” Mason had said. “Have the campaigns ready for me three weeks from today. The best two will present to Gloss.”

As everyone stood up to leave, Mason had walked over to me while Cheryl took her time gathering her things and pretended not to eavesdrop.

“I need this account,” he’d said, his pale blue eyes latching onto mine.

“Is the budget that big?” I’d asked.

“No, they’re cheap fucks,” he’d said cheerfully. “Name the last three clients we signed.”

“Home health care plans, orthopedic mattresses, and adult protection pads,” I’d rattled off.

“Diapers,” he’d corrected. “Ugly trend. We’re becoming the incontinent old farts’ agency. We need the eighteen to thirty-five demographic. Get me this account, Lindsey.” His voice had dropped, and Cheryl had stopped shuffling papers. She and I had both leaned in closer to Mason.

“I don’t have to tell you what it would do for you,” Mason had said. “Think about the timing. We’re presenting to Gloss right around the time of the vote. You bring in this one on top of everything else you’ve done . . .” His voice had trailed off.

I knew what Mason was implying. It wasn’t a secret that our agency was about to decide on a new VP creative director. The VP title meant a salary hike and all the sweet side dishes that went along with it: a six-figure bonus, a fat 401(k) plan, and car service to the airport. It meant I’d be able to buy my sunny little one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side, which was about to go co-op. It meant first-class flights and obscene expense accounts.

It meant success, the only thing that had really ever mattered to me.

“I’m on it,” I’d said, scurrying out of the office and diving into the world of Gloss Cosmetics.

Now I was surfacing for the first time in three weeks.

I gulped more coffee and finished scanning my ad. Something as simple as a typo could mean professional death for me, but our ad was clean. This ad was my 3:00
a.m
. baby, born from the unholy alliance of too much caffeine, an entire bag of potato chips (but eaten in small handfuls, with the bag primly sealed up and put back in my pantry between handfuls), and my old reliable bedmate insomnia. Gloss wanted to steal a chunk of Cover Girl’s market, but they didn’t want to pay for celebrity models like Halle Berry and Keri Russell. I was giving them the best of both worlds.

Mason loved it; now I just needed to perfect my pitch to the owner and CEO of Gloss. I glanced at my watch again. Ninety-six minutes until their limo was due to pull up in front of our building. I’d be downstairs in seventy-six, waiting to greet them.

I pressed the intercom button. “Donna? Have the caterers arrived yet?”

“Don’t you think I would’ve told you if they hadn’t?” she snapped. She hates it when I second-guess her. “They bought red Concord grapes, though.”

“Shit!” I leapt up so quickly I knocked my coffee to the floor. I grabbed a handful of napkins from my top drawer and swabbed it up. “I’ll run out to the deli right now—”