The Night I Got Lucky (12 page)

“But Bil y, it doesn’t matter if she’s rich or poor, you fired her for legitimate reasons.”

I sniffled. “That’s just the thing. I didn’t like her, but I don’t know that she needed to be fired. I think I just liked the power trip I got from being a VP. It was a convenience to get rid of her.”

“That’s not true,” Chris said. I grimaced at how good and honorable he apparently thought I was. It made me ashamed.

“I rationalized the decision,” I said. “I wanted her out, and so I came up with reasons why she should go. And because she’d gotten in a bit of trouble before it was easy to convince everyone. But I didn’t do the right thing. I certainly wasn’t thinking of the company. I was thinking of me.” I dropped my head in my hands.

“Move over,” Chris said, nudging me gently with his knee. He slid onto the big chair, pul ing me onto his lap, embracing me. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt the serene comfort of him.

This was what I’d missed.

“Al right,” Chris said. “Now let’s figure out what you can do about it.”

We talked for an hour. And despite how badly I felt about Alexa, I felt wonderful with Chris. This was what a husband and wife should be like. This was what I’d assumed we would be like when we were married. Why there had been so precious little of this, I couldn’t say, but I loved the closeness now. I loved him.

We decided I would speak to Roslyn the next day. I would admit I’d made a mistake and try to get Alexa her job back. By the time Chris led me to bed, I was exhausted, but I was calm with my decision. I murmured thanks and fel asleep.

“Absolutely not,” Roslyn said.

My calm from last night evaporated as if the air had been sucked from the room.

We were sitting in Roslyn’s office, a cool space decorated with black and white prints of chil y winter landscapes.

“Why?” I said, trying to stop my legs from jiggling up and down. “Why can’t we rehire her, if I admit I made a mistake?”

Roslyn shook her head and gazed at me, clearly disappointed. “Remember when you brought up the topic of letting Alexa go, and I told you it had to be your responsibility?”

I nodded and chewed anxiously on the inside of my lip.

“Wel , that remains true. Once you’re in management, you have to make some tough decisions, and you have to stick by them.”

“Of course. I know that, and I agree, but I think just this once—”

“Can’t do it, Bil y.”

“But why?” My anxiety was replaced by desperation. If I couldn’t somehow reverse what I’d done, Alexa’s family would suffer. I wouldn’t be able to shake the thought of that bleak apartment from my mind.

“When you let Alexa go, did you read the HR manual?” Roslyn asked.

I nodded, although I’d real y only skimmed it, too set on sacking Alexa ASAP.

“So then you’l probably recal ,” Roslyn said, leaning forward on her desk, “that once someone is terminated, they cannot be rehired. Laid off, yes, we might be able to bring them back, but not if they were terminated for cause.”

I sagged in the chair. I had rushed forward to something I wanted—getting Alexa out of my little world—without knowing or paying attention to the consequences. “There’s nothing I can do?”

She shook her head. Then her face brightened. “But on a better topic, how’s the budget going for Odette’s book?”

I held back a sigh. Budgets, budgets, budgets. The new staple of my work life. How I hated them. “Just fine,” I said.

“Great!” Rosalyn was chipper now that we’d dealt with the unpleasantries. “Wel , see if you can get the numbers up. We’ve got to make some money off of her. And don’t forget we’ve got an officers’ meeting this afternoon.”

That made me sit a little tal er. I wasn’t sure what went on in such meetings, yet they sounded official, exciting. Evan had told me otherwise, but I always believed he’d made them sound painful because he knew how badly I wanted to attend. And now I would. My first officers’ meeting.

“I’l be there,” I said.

Having your toenails pulled out with tweezers.

Listening to a Ted Nugent song for eternity.

Bleeding from the eyes.

Being run over by a lawn mower.

Watching a four-day Three Stooges marathon.

I sat in the boardroom making a list of things that might be more painful than the meeting itself.

Evan hadn’t been patronizing me or trying to make me feel better when he’d said officers’ meetings were boring. In fact, the word “boring” itself was a rip-roaring riotous party compared to what this meeting real y was—monotonous and brainless.

We were on the topic of whether to have carbonated mineral water put in the pop machine. Lester, a VP from accounting, pointed out in a speech as long as a state of the union address, that the pop machine was real y just for soda and we’d already compromised that sacred concept by adding regular water. Another man, clearly Lester’s nemesis, argued that Lester was promoting a prejudiced attitude toward water, and that surely water of al kinds should be al owed the same rights as soda and permitted to mingle in the same areas.

“And you’re missing a big point,” the nemesis said. “We make money on that machine. The sparkling water wil sel as fast as hotcakes.”

Lester huffed and puffed about the importance of tradition and doing things the way they’ve always been done. I scribbled on my pad,
Sell as fast as hotcakes.
What did that mean anyway? What were hotcakes, and did they real y sel so quickly? Maybe we should put those in the machine.

Lost in tedium, I began to write other sayings that didn’t make sense.

Colder than a witch’s tit.
A witch was a mammal, wasn’t she? And therefore, why would her breast be colder than anyone else’s?

Snug as a bug in a rug.
Never understood this. Is the bug supposed to be rol ed up in a rug, or just happy to be lol ing in carpet fibers?

Clean as a whistle.
Whistles were coated with saliva with every use, and therefore wouldn’t exactly qualify as clean.

I felt someone’s eyes on me and looked over to see Evan staring at my legs. I’d worn a light blue, pleated skirt that was rather schoolgirl and saucy. Apparently, Evan agreed. He raised his eyebrows and gave me a salacious smile. Feeling bored and bold, I crossed my legs, and the skirt rode a little higher. Evan’s mouth fel slightly open, his gaze never leaving me. That gaze carried with it a certain power, whol y different from the power I’d felt when I fired Alexa. This power was sexual, ragged—the intensity thril ed me, yet scared me too.
This
power was great enough to carry me away with it, right when my marriage had gotten back to the place I wanted.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I said, standing up.

Everyone in the boardroom looked at me with surprise. I thought I saw Evan grinning.

“Ladies’ room,” I said.

More stunned looks. Evidently, no one in the history of Harper Frankwel had ever left an officers’ meeting to use the restroom. I considered sinking back into my seat fast, but between the boredom and Evan’s eyes, I had to escape.

“Ladies’ room,” I said again, before I scooted toward the door.

By the time the meeting ended
two goddamned hours later,
no one seemed to remember my departure from the room or the way I’d snuck back in. I barely had time to do any work before I had to leave to meet my mom, but with my excitement to see her I couldn’t have cared less. I headed for the parking lot.

As I steered my car onto the highway, my cel phone bleated from inside my purse. I reached over to the passenger seat and answered it.

“How’s traffic?” Chris said.

“Same as five minutes ago. What’s with you?” I had talked to Chris three times at work today, and once since I’d pul ed out of the lot.

“I just wish I could go with you.”

I laughed. “Since when?” Chris had never had such a keen interest in seeing my mom.

“I want to be with you.” There was a plaintive note in his voice.

“Chris, you were with me last night and the night before that, and this morning.”

“I want to be with you al the time.”

Internal y, I repeated,
since when?
Why, exactly, had Chris come back to me so quickly, when for years he’d distanced himself ? I hadn’t wanted to ponder that question—I just wanted to be happy with the new closeness we’d found—but Chris’s near desperation baffled me. Even in our happiest days, we’d never been the couple who lived hand-in-hand.

“I’l see you when I get home,” I said.

“Baby dol !” My mother swept into the bar at Milrose Brewery and pul ed me into a hug.

I squeezed her tight, inhaling a new light, floral perfume. Over her shoulder, I could see other patrons at the bar checking her out. And for good reason. Her black hair was pul ed elegantly into a chignon, and she had on huge dark sunglasses and a tangerine wrap around her shoulders that made her look more Parisian-urban than Barrington-suburban.

“Are we eating?” She pul ed away and glanced around, as if the maitre d’ might materialize and whisk her to a corner table.

“I’l tel them we’re ready.”

A few minutes later, my mother and I were tucked away in the loft section of the barnlike restaurant. “Mmm,” my mother said, perusing the menu. “What to get, what to get.”

“Tel me about Italy,” I said.

“Oh, it was divine. You’ve been tel ing me for years that I should go, that I shouldn’t be afraid to do things on my own, and you were right! I made so many friends.” From her bag, which looked suspiciously Prada-esque, she whipped a smal , red leather album. “Here’s Claudia.” She pointed to a photo of a stylish woman around fifty with ash-blond hair swept off her face. “Here’s her husband, Thomas. What a dear.”

For the next twenty minutes, I heard about Claudia and Thomas, and their Milanese friends, Paola and Stefano, and every fashion show and party they’d attended the last two weeks. I was delighted for my mom. To see her so vivacious again, so lustful for her life, was heartwarming. But my own heart needed warming of the maternal kind. I wanted her to say,
now tell
me about you, baby doll.

When our entrées were delivered—rigatoni and chicken for me, halibut for my mother—I jumped in. “I got the vice presidency,” I said, blurting it out.

“What?” My mother clapped her hands. “Fantastic!” She waved the waiter over and ordered champagne, while I preened under her attention.

But I was barely into my story, when my mother interrupted. “You’l be needing some different clothes now that you’ve been promoted, am I right?” she asked.

“Oh, not real y, I—”

“Don’t be sil y. You have to dress the part. And I’ve got just the thing.” Out of her bag came another album, this one fil ed with designer sketches. “Look here, darling.” She pointed to a drawing of a woman in a yel ow suit with black lapels and wide shoulders.

“I think that’s a little much, Mom.”

“Nonsense. I’l get it for you. You deserve it! And there are others.”

Soon we had pushed our dinners away and were poring over sketches that now lined the table. I didn’t have the strength to fight her enthusiasm, and somehow, I agreed to have three suits made for me by an Italian designer cal ed Pravadel i. After an hour of this, my mother abruptly claimed jet lag and said she needed to get home. “I’m playing bridge tomorrow with Marjorie and Carol,” she said offhandedly.

“
Aunt
Marjorie and
Aunt
Carol?” My mother, like me, had two sisters, but they both lived on the North Shore, and they weren’t close, due in large part to the fact that the sisters had disapproved of my father so many years ago. I’d often told her that she should make up with them and get back in each other’s lives.

“Yes, you were right about that, too. No need to hold grudges.”

“That’s great, Mom.” My mother needed her sisters, her new friends, but I needed her too. And yet for some reason, I felt her slipping away.

When I got home, I slid my key into the lock, anticipating the cool, inky darkness of the condo. I would put on my red checked pajamas that had been washed to a soft sheen, I would make myself a cup of tea and I would read for a few quiet minutes in the big chair, under a soft pool of light. Later, I would slip into the bed, already warmed by Chris’s sleeping body. I nearly sighed with anticipation.

But our place was bathed in light, and there was Chris, wearing an apron over sweatpants and a T-shirt.

“Hi, sweetie,” he said. He crossed the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel, and kissed me.

“What are you doing up?”

“Making you crème brûlée.”

“Now?”

“Sure, what’s wrong with now?”

“It’s Tuesday night, and it’s practical y midnight.”

“Only the best for my wife. It’l be done in five minutes.” He spooned a fluffy concoction into smal white dishes. “So tel me about your mom. I want to hear everything.”

“She’s good. She’s great actual y.”

“And how about you? I know you’ve missed her. Was it nice to see her?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. I felt weary from these questions, al of them designed to let us talk for hours, when for the last few years we’d barely spoken for minutes at a time.

Chris switched on a mini blowtorch and went at the top of the desserts, turning them a golden brown. “Chris,” I said, over the loud, humming noise of the torch. “Thank you. This so sweet, but I can’t eat crème brûlée now.”

“What’s that?” He kept at his work.

“Honey, I just had pasta with my mom. I real y can’t eat anything else.”

“Voilà!” Chris said in a goofy way. He handed me a dish of crème brûlée piled high with red raspberries.

“Did you hear me?” I pined for my fantasy of the cool, silent apartment and me alone in it. It seemed I rarely had a second to myself anymore.

“What?” He picked up a dish for himself and dug into it with a spoon. “Mmm, it’s perfect. You’l love it.”

“Chris, thank you. I appreciate it, but I simply can’t eat it. I’m ful , and I want to go to bed.”

“Wel , in that case,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “I’l take you there.”

“No, Chris, not tonight.” I couldn’t believe the words coming from my mouth, but we’d had so much sex over the last week that I real y wanted a quiet evening.