The Night I Got Lucky (9 page)

“Oops, baby dol , I just heard a knock on my door, so that wil be Claudia. I’ve got to run, but I’m coming home Monday. I’l cal you, okay? Kisses!”

And she was gone.

I stared at the phone, realizing that I hadn’t even gotten to tel her about my promotion. I looked up then, just as Chris slid in front of me a frittata so big it could have fed an army barrack.

“Thanks, hon,” I said weakly and picked up my fork.

The rest of the week raced by as I tried to master my job. I made notes from Evan’s budget lesson and kept them minimized on my new computer as I tackled other, bigger accounts.

The work was as slow and painful as a trip to the DMV. There real y was no magic formula, just my own somewhat subjective determinations on how much it should cost to get a baby clothes manufacturer—or an interior designer or a pharmaceutical company—the publicity they needed. My new chair had been delivered, thank God, because I was in my office and on my ass al the time now. Before, I had excuses to leave frequently—visiting the printer to okay the press kits, meeting with a reporter from the
Trib
—but now such tasks were handled by lower members of the team. I was there to simply oversee it al .

And then there were the personnel issues that had become part of my life. Someone or another was always sticking their head in my office, asking for a chat. Sometimes these talks were truly about work issues—did I have any thoughts on how to get a psychologist on
Oprah?
Did I know anyone at
Cosmo
who we could approach about a story? Could I help them with a pitch or a press release? I relished those discussions, because they al owed me to use my old skil s, my creative thinking. But more often than not, people wanted to talk about how irritated they were with the new assistant or how they were redoing their bathroom at home and could I find it in my heart to give them Friday off without docking their vacation days?

At first, it was interesting that people saw me as a go-to figure. I liked helping them sort through problems, and I liked the new deference my coworkers gave me. There was a respect in their words, a shy smile on their faces when they said, “Hi, Bil y, got a second?”

Eventual y, though, I realized that although they could have approached Roslyn or Evan or one of the other VPs, they were trying me out, hoping for the benevolence of someone slightly newer to the job. And the respect they gave me, wel I assumed it came with the position, sort of like my new chair, but then I had a talk with Lizbeth on Friday afternoon. She’d been so chatty and kind when I realized I was a VP, but the rest of the week she was skittish with me, wary. I’d noticed it, but didn’t have the time to worry or wonder until that Friday when she came into my office.

“Hi,” she said, tentatively standing. I recal ed my first day as VP when she’d immediately slouched on my visitor’s chair.

“Hi,” I said, raising my eyes away from yet another budget. “What’s up?”

Keeping her head down, she moved quickly past my desk, and her hands slipped through some papers on my credenza. “I’m just looking for the Teaken Furniture file.”

“Oh, I think it’s there.” I swung around in my new chair. It was easy now that the chair fit like a glove, and I had no phone book beneath my feet. But as I did so, Lizbeth shied away like a fawn too close to the highway.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. Thanks for looking. But you know I can do that. It’s my job, and I
am
performing. I do everything I was hired to do.”

I blinked a few times. “Lizbeth, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I real y like working for you.”

I frowned. “Can you close the door and sit down, please?”

She did so quietly. Instead of slouching in a chair like that first day, she sat straight, knees together, hands clasped on her legs. Her eyes were downcast, and her body language reminded me of a geisha I’d seen on a PBS documentary.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re acting strange.”

Her eyes shot up to meet my face, then back down again. “Just doing my job.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, enough. Tel me what’s going on.”

She began to chew on one of her glossed lips, and I could see the pink coming off onto her white teeth. “Bil y, it’s just that I’ve wanted to do PR since col ege, okay? I had to work as a secretary at an accounting firm and then an ad agency before I got hired here. I love it. I real y do.” She looked up at me with plaintive eyes. “I can’t afford to lose this job.”

“Lizbeth, what makes you think you’re going to lose your job?” I leaned forward on my desk.

“Wel , Alexa got fired, and everyone’s been talking, wondering who’s next.”

I sat back, deflated. Alexa. So that was why everyone was so deferential. “Lizbeth, you’re not going to get fired.”

“I’m not?”

“No. No one is.”

She let out a breath and grinned a little. “Wel , that’s good.” Then her smiled disappeared. “But then why…”

“Why what?”

“Why did Alexa have to go? I mean, I thought she was real y good at what she did, and she was always taking time to explain things to me when no one else would.”

“She did?” That shocked me. I assumed Alexa had pushed her work off on everyone else, just like she’d done with me.

“Oh, yeah, she would stay late and tel me what the team was working on, and why we were going after one type of media and not another. She was great, you know?”

I grimaced.

Lizbeth caught it. “Wel , maybe not. I mean, clearly she did something wrong.”

She was groveling again, and I held up a hand. “Lizbeth, it’s okay. I promise you—no one else is going to lose their job.”

She left, practical y bowing on her way out. I got up and shut the door, then sat quietly, thinking that Alexa hadn’t real y done anything wrong, except piss off the wrong person. Me. I’d used my new position to get what I wanted, making the good of the team the excuse, not real y caring whether my truth was reality. And now I’d gained an unwanted respect as the company hatchet man.

My intercom buzzed. “Bil y?” Evan’s voice rang through my office.

I pushed it. “Hi,” I said softly.

“What’s wrong?”

I sighed. “Nothing.”

“Wel , I’m leaving, but I just wanted to remind you about the Hel o Dave show tomorrow night. You coming?”

“Chris and I are going to my mom’s.” But then I remembered that my mother wouldn’t be home from Milan until Monday. “Actual y, Evan, I think we might be able to make it.”

“Excel ent. It’s been a while since you’ve seen them, and it’s been a long week. You need to cut loose.”

He was absolutely right. I needed some good loud music in a good loud bar with a good strong drink. “We’l see you tomorrow night.”

O
n Saturday night, I was the only one getting ready for the Hel o Dave show. Chris had gone to work that morning, with promises to be back by 5:00, but the office had sucked him in and refused to spit him back out. None of this was unusual. Chris nearly always worked Saturdays, and he often stayed until an ungodly hour. But what
was
unusual was the way he handled it. Instead of “crying swamp” in a crabby, quick phone cal , he sent a vase of yel ow lilies to the house.
Sorry about the show, Treetop,
the card said.
You go, and I’ll make it up
to you later.
It made my eyes wel .

I took forever to get ready, just like the old days when hitting the bars every Saturday night was vital rather than optional. I straightened my hair with an iron and flipped up the ends, admiring the dark sheen it now had. I made up my eyes dark and smoky, then emulated Lizbeth and applied lip gloss with a trowel. I dressed in black pants, strappy sandals and a flimsy aqua top I’d bought for my honeymoon. I threw my dark jean jacket over the ensemble and tossed my tiny Gucci bag over my shoulder. I put my nose in the lilies one last time, inhaling their perfume, thinking how lucky I was to have Chris, and then, smiling to myself, I was out on Dearborn hailing a cab.

At the Park West, Evan, who knew everyone in town, had put us on the guest list, so I picked up my free ticket and slapped an al -access sticker on my thigh. He was waiting at the bar inside the main doors, and he waved a hand over his head. People pushed their way around him, everyone trying to secure drinks while the opening band was stil on, but Evan looked unruffled. He stil did this every Saturday. Meanwhile, the crowd daunted me. The smel of cigarette smoke permeated the air. The women who elbowed me were so young, yet their expressions world-weary.

When I reached Evan, he gave me a tight hug, then looked behind me. “Where’s Chris?”

“Duty cal s. Making the world safe for democracy.”

“I’m glad I’m not a lawyer.”

“Me, too. Where’s your date?”

He gave a sheepish look.

“You broke up with her already?”

“Had to be done. Guess it’s just me and you tonight.”

I was shoved from behind, and my hands flew up to protect myself. They landed on Evan’s chest. A very firm, broad chest, I couldn’t help noticing. “Sorry,” I muttered.

He held my arm and stared down at me. “I’m not.”

I chuckled uneasily. “How about a drink?”

Evan turned to the bar and with one movement, he was at the front, conferring with the bartender.

“Here you go,” Evan said, putting a drink in my hand a moment later. The glass was icy cold.

“What’s in it?”

“Stoli orange.”

“And some soda?” I said hopeful y.

“A splash.”

I took a sip. The drink bit into my tongue, sharp with a hint of citrusy-sweet. “This is dangerous.”

Evan lifted his eyebrows and smiled crookedly.

Inside, the theater was buzzing. A largely ignored warm-up band sang earnestly, while people mil ed around, jockeying for position, waiting for the main act. Our access passes got us to the VIP area at the front of the stage, but it was stil packed. Evan put his arm around me and pul ed me toward the stage. That arm felt bigger than Chris’s, somehow more urgent, and, like the vodka, much more dangerous.

Soon, Hel o Dave took the stage, and the crowd surged, yel ing and clapping. Evan put that arm around me again, ostensibly to protect me. I let the crowd push me into him, breathing the light scent of his cologne. The lead singer yel ed thanks to the crowd, then immediately broke into “Golden,” a finger-snapping, hip-swaying song that reminded me of a sunny, summer afternoon.

Evan threw his head back and hol ered. It was something that had initial y attracted me to him—his absolute abandon in the face of live music. Chris was more of a step-clap, step-clap kind of guy, eyes firmly on the stage (although he was the sweetest of slow dancers, holding me tight, swaying perfectly to the music). But it was undeniable that Evan could
move,
and it was infectious. I took a gulp of my vodka—so I wouldn’t spil it, I told myself—then al owed myself to be taken away. I closed my eyes, and my body charted its own course with the music.

I felt beads of sweat along my hair-line and the smal of my back, but I kept dancing, swaying, and as I did, years melted away. I was no longer a thirty-two-year-old married woman who had steadily clawed her way to a position of power. I was young, I was free, I was somehow perfect at that moment.

At some point, Evan picked his way out of the crowd and back. “Drinks,” he mouthed, holding two more vodkas. That arm slipped around me again, and we moved together to the music. I hoped the band would play forever. I wanted to drink vodka and stand near the heat of Evan’s body and dance and dance and dance eternal y.

“We have to do this more often,” Evan said. He spoke into my ear so he could be heard above the music, and his breath sent a tingle down my neck, into my back.

I nodded, not trusting myself. My hips kept moving in time with his.

“You’ve been great!” yel ed the lead singer. “Thank you!” He bounded into the final song, “Biminy,” and the crowd became more frenzied.

Evan gulped the rest of his drink, then slipped behind me. He put a hand on my hip, a light hand, nothing insistent, but now our movements were perfectly in sync. I could feel that chest, those legs behind me, as if we were one person. “This is perfect,” he said in my ear. Again, that hot breath, that tingle down my spine.

He said something else, but the music became louder. I couldn’t make out his words. I could only feel the heat of his breath, his body behind mine. He muttered something else into my ear, and right then, I got the overwhelming urge to press my face into his. I tilted my cheek a fraction toward him. His mouth touched my jaw, his lips warm and soft on my skin. I began to turn into his lips, the air leaving my chest in one swoop. But I never reached them.

The music ended with a cymbal’s clash. The room went quiet for a second before the crowd broke into applause. It was that pocket of silence that broke the spel .

I took a step away, and clapped like crazy to hide how flustered I felt. Evan did the same. “Thank you,” I said to him, when the band left the stage. “This was amazing.”

And then, before he could say anything, I ran for the safety of a taxi.

I didn’t realize how sauced I was from the vodka until I was in my own kitchen, blinking at the half-light and feeling slightly stumbly. I didn’t want to go to bed yet. How could I climb under the sheets with my husband when I’d almost kissed another man a moment ago?

Food. That’s what I needed. Something to soak up the vodka, along with the memories of Evan’s body near mine. I opened the refrigerator and scanned the contents. Not a hel of a lot.

I picked up a lone pear and examined it. It looked a bit sad, and it certainly wouldn’t have the soaking-up properties I was searching for. As I bent lower to return it to the shelf, something touched my back.

“Oh!” I said, spinning around, crashing into the fridge.

And there was Chris. His hair was combed straight, and he wore a white button down shirt turned up at the cuffs. “Hi, Treetop,” he said.

“You scared me!”

He laughed. “That seems to be happening a lot this week.”