Читать книгу Confessions Of An Ex-Girlfriend - Lynda Curnyn - Страница 10

“Getting married is the easy part.”

—Virginia McGovern, mother of Emma Carter

Confession: My mother’s wisdom is starting to make sense to me (God help me).

T he next day was my planned lunch date with my mother, who was still under the lovely-though-absolutely untrue assumption that her only daughter was on the sure path to happily-ever-after with her own dream man. Though I hadn’t yet decided how I was going to handle the Derrick subject, I headed off to the restaurant she’d chosen near my office, armed with catalogs and travel brochures filled with all sorts of ideas for how to pull off this wedding she was dreaming of.

She was already there and seated at a table in the back when I arrived, and suddenly I realized where I might have gotten that five-minute-early arrival technique. Was I more like my mother than I realized? I wondered with sudden horror.

“Emma!” she exclaimed as I approached the table. She got up and gathered me into a warm, apricot-scented embrace. When we pulled back from each other, I realized that taking after my mother wouldn’t be so bad after all, at least in the looks department. Though she was fifty-nine years old, she was still a beautiful woman, with wavy chestnut-brown hair framing her high-cheekboned face. Other than the fact that she had the same hazel eyes as mine—though hers seemed more definitely green—no one would have guessed we were mother and daughter. How had I wound up with straight mousy-brown hair and no cheekbones to speak of? Maybe these things skipped a generation.

“How are you, sweetie?” she said, studying my face once we sat down across from each other.

“Good, good,” I said, immediately hiding my face in the menu to disguise any glimmer of unhappiness that might betray me. “Tired. Work is nuts, as usual.”

“Sometimes it’s nice to take a break in the middle of the day. I was just reading this new book, A Mental Space of One’s Own, and it talks about how we can renew our creative energies just by taking as little as fifteen minutes each day to meditate.”

“They won’t allow us to burn incense in the office, unfortunately.”

“Oh, Emma, you don’t have to—” She stopped, probably realizing she was going to get nowhere with me, as usual. “Why do you always have to be so difficult?”

“I’m sorry, I—” Then I caught sight of the ring, a large deep blue stone that sparkled magnificently on her left hand. “Oh, is that it? I mean, is that the ring Clark gave you?”

She beamed and held out her hand. “Isn’t it absolutely perfect? We decided to stay away from diamonds after— Well, you know, I’m starting to think they’re bad luck after the first two… Anyway, when Clark gave me this sapphire, he told me that the ancients believed it to be the truest blue in the world, a reflection of the heavens above. He wanted me to have it as a symbol of his faith, his sincerity.” Then she blushed. “You know Clark. Always thinking like a poet.”

The look on my mother’s face was positively beatific. I began to suspect that maybe this was the real thing. Until her next words.

“Clark and I have decided to take a vow of celibacy.”

“What?” Now my mother’s sex life, or lack thereof, was a subject I strictly avoided. But I couldn’t help asking, “Forever?”

“Oh, no. Of course not!” Then she glanced around and leaned close, confiding, “It’s only been a week, and Clark’s having a hard enough time as it is. Just the other night—”

“Okay, okay,” I said, interrupting her, not wanting her to get into any details I couldn’t bear hearing. Over the years, my mother’s intermittent single status often put me in the position of confidante, given that I was the only other close female in her life for long periods. But despite that, there were some lines mother and daughter could never cross. “Let me guess. Until the wedding night?”

“Yes! So you’ve heard of couples doing this?”

“Yeah. I think we did a story on it once in Bridal Best. Something about recapturing the romance of an old-fashioned wedding night.”

“Exactly. I knew you would have heard of it. Clark thought I was crazy at first, but you know how agreeable he is.”

“Can I bring you ladies something to drink as a starter?” the waiter said, when he finally showed up at our table.

My mother looked up and beamed him such a smile he almost blushed. “We’re ready to order our meals, I think,” she told him. Then looking over at me, she asked, “Have you decided, Emma?”

No, but that wasn’t about to stop my mother, who’s had this thing for time-efficient behavior ever since she read Twelve Time-Saving Strategies That Might Just Lengthen Your Life. “You order first. I’ll be ready in a minute,” I said, my eyes roaming frantically over the menu.

“I’ll have the grilled chicken salad, dressing on the side and a sparkling water,” she said. Then, looking up at me, she continued, “The salads here are really good, Emma.”

Now this is the kind of statement my mother makes that immediately sends me into paranoid speculation. Clearly I had gained weight, and my mother was subtly guiding me back from the brink of bulging midsections and mornings spent obsessing in front of my closet in search of an outfit to disguise my sudden change of dress size. If there was one thing I could count on my mother for, it was a careful monitoring of weight fluctuation. If I relied on my own eyes, which tended to deceive me during periods of my life when I felt a pressing need to gorge myself at any opportunity, I worried I would wake up one day requiring a crane to get me out of bed. “I’ll have the Cobb salad and an iced tea,” I said, handing my menu to the waiter, who gave a quick nod and scurried off.

“So have you told Derrick about the wedding yet?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said, then quickly moving on, “Told Jade, too. She’s thrilled to pieces for you.”

My mother stopped, staring at me hard for a moment. “And you aren’t so thrilled, I take it?”

Here it comes. Confession time. “It’s not that I’m not happy…” I began.

“You don’t trust it,” my mother said. “I was worried about this happening.”

Whew. I was actually going to be saved by psychobabble. I felt my mother about to take over from here, explaining away her reasons for running to the altar for the third time.

“I know for much of my life I’ve looked like I’ve had my head in the sand, and in truth I probably have,” she acknowledged.

She was looking at me in earnest now, and I saw a burning need in her eyes to make things make sense to me. “It hasn’t been so bad for you…” I said, attempting to erase whatever anxieties she might still be having about the zigzagging course her life had taken thus far.

“It has been bad at times. And I think it was because I simply refused to see what was in front in me. But I look at Clark and I see everything. His warmth. His compassion. His kind, kind heart.” Her eyes misted. “But I also see his flaws. For example, I know he sometimes gets so wrapped up with his work or with his students that he tunes out my needs. And he sometimes has a hard time adjusting to change—and you know my life is nothing but change, it seems.” Then she smiled. “And he snores. Loud.”

“You snore, too, Mom.”

“Oh, Em, I’m quiet compared to him.” She laughed before growing serious again. “But the one thing I know for sure is that I love him in a way I’ve never loved anyone else. I would do anything for him. Go anywhere to be by his side. Tend to him if he were ill, God forbid. And I know—this time I know for sure—that he would do the same for me.”

Her words rang through me, clanging in ways I wasn’t ready to hear. The question rose, unbidden, of whether Derrick and I were really the soulmates I dreamed we were if we were so unwilling to give even a little of our lives to each other. But I quickly swallowed this doubt down around the lump in my throat. And, fortunately, the waiter took that moment to come by with our salads.

Once he was gone, Mom said, “Does any of this make sense to you?”

I saw in her face how much she needed my acceptance of this latest turn of events in her life, and though for various reasons I wasn’t ready to swallow it whole, I was ready to start seeing her hopes and dreams in a more sympathetic light. “I understand. And I’m happy for you, Mom. In fact, I’ve got a stack of ideas with me on just how we can make wedding number three the charm.” Then I laughed, not able to end things without some kind of ironic touch. “Because you know as well as I do, Mom, it isn’t really about who you marry. It’s how you marry.”

And with that, we dug into lunch, as well as the stack of wedding-day dreams I had packed into my tote bag. Things were pretty much on an even keel after that, which is why I didn’t understand the lump of emotion that emerged once our salad plates had been cleared away and we sat poring over the last few pictures of brides gazing thoughtfully into the camera as they stepped beneath various archways and gazebos that could be rented and transported to the location of your choice.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt something inside of me go slack. And before I knew what I was saying, I had told my mother everything. About Derrick’s disastrous departure and my newfound misery. And after we shed some tears and angsted together over the “whys” behind the breakup—my mother is especially good at this type of relationship analysis, having submerged herself in self-help books as each relationship ended in her own life—we indulged in giant slices of Mad Mocha Mud Cake for dessert. Even ate it with heaping clumps of vanilla ice cream on the side.

“You know what you really need,” Mom said, when we’d finally emerged from our dessert dishes. I stared at her, sensing some significant bit of wisdom would be forthcoming.

“Highlights.”

Confession: There are some ailments only good hair can cure.

Though agreeing with my mother is not my strong suit, I had to admit, she was right—I had relationship hair. Long brown locks that spoke of Saturday nights at home, wrapped in Derrick’s sweatshirt and boxers while we watched videos and stuffed ourselves full of whatever goodies we had managed to find at the bodega on the corner. In order to remedy the situation, I did what I had done in the Pre-Derrick Period when dye jobs were a regular part of my regiment. That night I called Sebastian, my erstwhile hairdresser.

“Emma, what a surprise!” he said, a hint of censure in his tone, when I got him on the phone. This is the problem when you first befriend the person who ultimately becomes responsible for your hair. They expect you to adhere to the boundaries of friendship, even when all you need is a few blond streaks. And since I hadn’t spoken to Sebastian in more than six months, I had to smooth things over by inviting him out for drinks.

“Oh, I don’t drink anymore, Emma. Tea, perhaps?” he said, naming some veggie joint on West 3rd Street and suggesting we meet there the following evening.

The nondrinking stance should have forewarned me, but I was so focused on my forthcoming transformation, I missed the signs. So as I headed down to West 3rd Street after work the next day, I looked forward to catching up with Sebastian and swapping zany stories of New York men and other strange creatures. When Sebastian and I first met, he was dating a college friend of mine, Keith. And though Keith and Sebastian lasted no longer than a semester, it was enough to seal the bond between Sebastian and me. I held his hand through the breakup, downed some serious drinks with him and bitched about the sad state of the male species, excluding Sebastian, of course. And when all was said and done, Sebastian started dyeing my hair.

It was a difficult relationship from the start, though my hair never suffered. Sebastian took me through every shade of blond, a few hues of red, and even a rich chocolate-brown—which, coming from his magic hands, even seemed a bit dangerous and exciting. He was an artist, but like all artists, he was temperamental. He insisted his friends didn’t have to pay, then complained he was being taken advantage of. It got to the point where I was forced to surreptitiously leave money on his countertop as I left his apartment after a color session, like a lover leaving secret gifts for his inamorata. And he was alternatively open, then secretive, about his love life, so I never knew when it was a good time to ask how things were going between him and whatever luscious boy—and they were always gorgeous—he had in his life.

“Emma,” he called, waving lazily at me as I detangled myself from the velvet drape hanging between the juice bar and the dining area where Sebastian sat, presiding over his surroundings like the queen that he was. Somehow Sebastian had managed to find a place that matched his unique look—a mixture of wholesomeness and exoticism. Amid gilt-framed pictures of various plants and herbs and swaths of rich fabric hanging from the windows and walls, Sebastian, with his lush golden curls and Asian eyes set in a cherub’s face, looked at home.

Once I reached his table, he enfolded me in a hug—a departure from the practice of kissing both cheeks he had instituted the last few times I saw him.

“Sit, sit! Isn’t this place fabulous?” Sebastian insisted, studying my face with a mixture of reverence and concern. Whenever I was with Sebastian, the same insecurities came over me that I felt when ever I was in the presence of a beautiful woman—that my eyebrows needed shaping, my lipstick updating. In short, I felt woefully sub-par in the femininity department.

“How are you?” he asked once we were sitting across from each other, giant scarlet menus—in some textured fabric that was clearly impractical for a food environment—before us.

“Good, good. How are you?” I said, peering at him over the top of the menu. “You look…relaxed.”

“Do I? Oh! I have so much to tell you.”

“Can I take your order?”

Turning away from my menu, I was confronted with a pierced belly button and low-slung jeans. The waitress, a lanky girl whose bored expression spoke of her utter indifference to our needs, stood beside our table poised and waiting. She looked exhausted and I noticed a faded ink stamp on the back of her hand, probably from some East Village club. Had it not been for her softly spoken question, I might have thought she was going to lie down on the bench beside us.

“Darjeeling for me,” Sebastian said, naming some substance I assume was tea.

Noticing a woeful lack of caffeinated beverages on the menu, I ordered chamomile, deciding that if I wasn’t going to get a jolt, I might as well go to the other extreme.

“So, tell me, tell me, tell me. How’re things? Derrick?” Sebastian asked, settling into the cushions surrounding his seat.

“Things are fine. Derrick’s…gone.”

“Gone? As in…?”

“Got a job offer, moved to the West Coast.”

“Oh, dear.” Sebastian’s pretty little nose scrunched up in sympathy.

“Yeah, well, I guess you can’t say he didn’t warn me.”

“That’s the trouble with ambitious, creative, gorgeous men. They’ve always got something better to do than you.”

Picking up my glass of water, I clinked it into Sebastian’s. “Here’s to slackers.”

“Slackers with trust funds,” Sebastian replied, picking up his glass to drink. “Men without money are no fun.”

“It’s true,” I agreed. “I’ve been thinking of going upscale in the man department. I’ve got the boobs, all I need is the dye job. What do you say, Sebastian? Are you up for it?” I laughed, trying not to sound too desperate. I needed to be blonder, and Sebastian was the only one I trusted to take me to that next level.

“Oh, Emma. I’ve discovered that hair color—even good color—can’t solve all your problems.”

Now this is where I began to realize that Sebastian had changed in some elemental way. Fear began to invade me. “Do tell,” I replied, trying for a light tone.

“Remember John? Impossible John?”

“Are you guys back together?” I asked with disbelief. John was the man who had tormented Sebastian for the better part of three years. A struggling actor, John was notorious for pledging his undying love to Sebastian just moments before he ran off with some buff production assistant or wardrobe boy from whatever set he was currently working on.

“No, no. Never, in fact,” he said, puckering his lips as the waitress placed our tea before us and slithered away once more. “John has been permanently replaced.” He began fishing around in the shiny tote he had with him. Pulling out his wallet, he flipped to the photo section and handed it to me.

I was shocked to find myself looking at a photo of an Indian woman dressed in traditional robes, a bindi firmly in place on her forehead, a gentle smile on her lips. Not only was she female—an unimaginable possibility as a new partner for Sebastian—but she was alarmingly unfettered by the kind of female things that normally gave Sebastian pleasure—like lipstick, cleavage and a well-groomed brow.

“Meet the woman who saved my life,” he said, smiling.

I stared at him, perplexed. “I don’t get it.”

“Emma, I have undergone the most amazing transformation.”

“You haven’t gone straight, have you?”

“God forbid!” he cried, shaking his head. “No, it’s nothing like that. This is my guru!”

“Guru?”

He smiled pleasantly, as one might at a small child in serious need of enlightenment. “Let me start at the beginning. I ran into John a couple of months ago, and you would not believe what he looked like. Completely bald, for one thing.”

“John?” I said, remembering how much he had always treasured his long dark locks.

“I know, I know,” Sebastian said, looking sad for a moment, as if the loss of that beautiful head of hair might still hurt, despite whatever revelations about life he had recently been given. Getting hold of himself once more, he continued, “He had this look of serenity about him. It had almost changed his face—he was even more gorgeous, if you can imagine that!” His eyes widened at the thought. “I asked him how he’d been, and he began telling me that he was following a new path in his life. When I questioned him further, he told me he was practicing a form of Hinduism—and was training to be a healer.”

“Wow. Who would have thought,” I said, gulping chamomile and suddenly wishing it were something else…like a martini. I had a sinking feeling about my hair prospects, especially when I suddenly noticed that Sebastian had let his eyebrows grow in. Not a good sign in a man I once worshiped for his beauty regime.

“Next thing you know, he was inviting me to a meeting,” Sebastian said, lifting his teacup and holding it between his hands in front of him. “I will confess that when I first agreed to attend, I had sex on the brain. You know that no matter what happened between John and me, we never had trouble in that department. But from the moment I stepped through the doors of the Holistic Center for Life Healing, I was a new man. Within weeks, I was on the path, and now I’m close to being certified as a healer myself. I’ve even planned a trip to India in the fall, to meet the guru. I can’t wait to go.”

I felt contrite. He did look happy. Who was I to mar his happiness with my own selfish desires? “That’s wonderful, Sebastian.”

“I knew you’d understand, Emma. In fact, I’ve been meaning to call you and invite you to a meeting. I think you, especially, could really benefit from it.” He put down his tea, then reached across and grabbed both my hands in his.

I will admit, I felt something like a soothing strength in those fingers. Of course, unable to acknowledge such things, I made one last halfhearted, half-humorous, plea.

“So I guess this means a few ash-blond highlights are out of the question, huh?”

“Oh, Emma,” he smiled beatifically at me, releasing my hands. “That world seems so removed from me now.” Then he winked. “Besides, you know I always saw you as a golden blonde.”

Confession: I get in touch with my inner career woman—and discover she is out to lunch.

The next day as I was poring over some old notes in an attempt to put together a piece on current trends in floral arrangements, Marcy Keller, the production assistant and resident office gossip, slipped into my cubicle.

“What’s up, Emma?” she said, sitting down in my guest chair.

I immediately went on red alert. The only reason Marcy Keller would ever sit down in my guest chair to chat would be a) because she had some juicy bit of gossip she had already shared with everyone in the office and I was her last resort or, b) she had some juicy bit of gossip about me that she was coyly trying to verify.

A shiver went through me. They knew. They knew about my recent, brutal breakup. But how?

“So what brings you to this corner of the world, Marcy?” I asked with trepidation.

She looked up and leaned close, her eyes narrowing to slits behind the big square black frames she wore on her sharp little hook of a nose. “Sandra quit,” she hissed at me. Then, smoothing her short, dark brown hair behind her ears, she leaned back, folded her arms over her painfully thin frame and watched her words take their effect.

Relief swept through me, followed by a realization. Sandra was one of the three reigning senior features editors at Bridal Best and had just given up one of the few management positions a contributing editor like myself could aspire to. Now I understood why I had been chosen to receive this particular bit of gossip. Since I was the contributing editor with four years’ experience under my belt and the most seniority, I was the most likely candidate to apply. So Marcy had come on a verification mission. I decided not to give her the satisfaction.

“Sandra quit?” I began, leaning back in my chair. “That’s wild.” I paused, pondering this for a moment to increase the dramatic tension. “Huh. And I thought she’d be a lifer. What has she been here, five, six years?”

“Seven and a half,” Marcy said, glee in her voice at the scandal created by such a long-term employee’s leaving. “I heard that she and Patricia had it out.”

Now I knew she was embellishing. Our editor-in-chief was soft-spoken, poised, and probably the least likely person to start a brawl at Bridal Best, the magazine that was her life’s blood. Which made me wonder about this battle she’d allegedly had with Sandra, who wasn’t exactly a brute, though she had been rumored to have a temper. “Huh. That’s hard to imagine.”

“Yeah, well, you know Sandra. She can be a bitch when things aren’t going her way. And they haven’t been, ever since her husband left her.”

“Her husband left her?” I asked, suddenly sucked in, in spite of myself.

Marcy rolled her eyes behind her square frames. “That was six months ago. God, Emma, where have you been?”

I snapped my gaping mouth shut. “Well, usually I’m too busy with work to pay attention to the gossip,” I replied, deciding now was probably the perfect time to put Marcy in her place.

Marcy swallowed hard and began backpedaling. “Yes, you do work a lot. I’ve even seen you here late a few times,” she said, changing tactics when she realized ridicule wasn’t going to get her anywhere with me.

“Yeah, well. Once in a while. When I’m on a deadline,” I replied, embarrassed that someone might think me one of The Devoted, some of whom had given up their lives, their dreams and, apparently, in the case of Sandra, their husbands, for the sake of getting out a monthly magazine on how to make happily-ever-after a reality.

“No, you work hard,” she protested, gazing at me steadily and making me notice for the first time that her eyes were actually gray behind those thick black cakes of liner. “I read your piece ‘The Cinderella Syndrome: Finding the Perfect Wedding Day Shoe.’ It was amazing.”

Now she had me. “Ah, well, thanks. I kinda liked working on that piece.”

“I just loved the way you captured the anxiety of finding a shoe that’s both comfortable and captivating. And the fairy-tale angle was very clever. What was that line you opened with?”

Leaning back in my chair with something close to an embarrassing pride curling my lip, I quoted, “‘Now that you’ve found a Prince Charming who’s your perfect fit, it’s time to get serious about the shoe you step into to take that long—and potentially painful—walk down the aisle.’”

“Yes, yes!” Marcy said, sitting up higher in her chair. “That was awesome.”

“Thanks, Marcy. Gosh, I hadn’t even realized you read the magazine.”

“Are you kidding?” Marcy leaned back in her chair once more. “You’re good, Emma. Really good. How long have you been here now? Three and a half years?”

“Four years and two months next week.”

“Wow.” She beamed at me, then her eyes narrowed speculatively. “You know, you’d be a shoo-in for the senior features position.”

“That’s nice of you to say, but—”

“I mean, you’ve got the most seniority of all the contributing editors.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean—”

“And everybody knows you’re the best writer we have on the staff,” she finished, throwing in the pièce de résistance with a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes.

“They do?”

“Oh, Emma. You don’t have to be so modest with me. I mean, I just assumed you’d be going for that promotion. You are the strongest candidate, after all.”

I leaned forward in my chair. “Well, now that you mention it, I had thought of talking to Caroline about opportunities within the company.” It was true that I had recently had vague thoughts about talking with my boss regarding my future. But in my fantasies I always imagined entering her office with a prepared speech, then arbitrarily breaking into a rant about how no one recognized what a huge talent I was. It was this that always kept me from initiating any sort of dialogue with Caroline on the subject. But now it seemed—according to Marcy anyway—that everyone was quite impressed with me.

“You should talk to her.”

“Hmm. Maybe I’ll talk to her some time next week. I mean, I’ve got this piece to finish and another one to proof—”

“I wouldn’t put it off too long,” Marcy cautioned. Then she stood, leaning in close for the final kill. “I mean, you don’t want someone else to move in first.”

She had a point. “Yeah, that’s true.” I looked up at her, trying to find some glimmer of camaraderie on her face, and discovered something there that resembled sympathy and goodwill, but I was too far gone to discriminate at the moment. “I’ll do it. First thing Monday morning. Then maybe she can advise me on how to approach Patricia.” Though the thought of approaching the editor-in-chief regarding the position put a pit in my stomach. I doubted Patricia even knew I existed. But it was necessary if I was really going to go through with this.

And it looked like I was, judging from the triumphant smile on Marcy’s face as she made some hasty excuse and rushed out of my cubicle, more than likely to find someone worthy of her latest bit of news—that Emma Carter, disenchanted editor on the verge of career despair, had just put herself on the block for the highest promotion a girl with no giddiness over marriage and all its may hem could ever hope to aspire to at Bridal Best.

Oh God. What had I done?

I immediately sought out Rebecca, hoping that she at least might be able to offer some insight on this latest development.

“Hey,” I said, sliding into her guest chair.

“Hi,” she said, slowly pulling herself away from her computer screen, where she’d been typing furiously.

“I’m not interrupting, am I?” I asked, suddenly aware that she seemed so focused on what she was doing, I was more of an obstruction than an office buddy at the moment.

“No, no. Just wanted to tie this article up before lunch,” she said, saving her file and turning to me.

Finish an article before lunch? When had Rebecca become so efficient? Not having the time to ponder such matters, I started in, “Did you hear about Sandra?”

“Oh, yeah. Marcy already made the rounds,” Rebecca said, rolling her eyes.

“I’m thinking of going for it.”

She hesitated for the briefest moment, but long enough for me to see the surprise on her face.

“You don’t think I should?” I said, suddenly becoming defensive. Just what was it about me that Rebecca thought wasn’t senior features editor material yet? And who was she to judge, having signed on only a year and a half ago?

“No, no. That’s not it.” Then she smiled. “You should go for it. If that’s what you really want.”

“Of course it’s what I want! I mean, what am I going to do? Sit around here for another four years, making the same schlocky salary? After all, it’s not like these opportunities happen every day. It took Sandra seven and a half years to up and leave that position open.”

“That’s true.” Then she sighed. “Things haven’t been the same for her since her husband left.”

“Gosh, I just heard about that office shocker. They only got married two years ago. Didn’t that throw you for a loop?”

“Yeah,” Rebecca replied, “I always thought she and Roger had the perfect marriage.”

“You’ve met him?”

“Uh-huh. Sandra had Nash and me over to dinner about a year ago. She went to Sarah Lawrence, too, graduated a few years ahead of me. I guess she figured we had a lot in common. It was a fun evening. Sandra’s really down to earth, once you get to know her.”

“Yeah…” Now this bit of news really threw me. I never would have envisioned Sandra and Rebecca as pals. Again my suspicions about Rebecca were aroused. Just how entrenched in this loony little world was she, anyway?

I found out, moments later, when I heard her next words.

“I think you should go for the senior features editor position, Emma,” she began, “if you feel that’s the direction you want to take.” Then she looked down briefly at her hands clasped in her lap, before meeting my eyes again. “But to be fair, I think you should know that I’ve already applied for the position myself.”

Confession: My inner career woman has left the building.

“Who does she think she is?” Alyssa asked, her brow furrowed in indignation as she stared at me across the table in the dimly lit restaurant. We had met for dinner at Bar Six, one of our favorite haunts in the West Village. Jade was joining us, too, though she had yet to arrive. We sat in the bar section, so that Jade could smoke once she got here, and drank cosmopolitans while I filled Alyssa in on the gory details of my newfound competition with, of all people, Rebecca.

“She hasn’t even put in the time,” I complained. “Of course, she has put in the time with good old Sandra. Sandra probably primed her on how to get the position without even trying.” I took another slug of my drink, hoping to dull my senses and ease the irritating ache between my eyeballs. “Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?”

“What kind of thing is happening to you now?” Jade asked, arriving just in time to hear me gripe. She quickly swooped down to embrace each of us in greeting, before sliding into the third chair.

“Rebecca is competing with Emma for a senior features editor position at Bridal Best,” Alyssa informed her.

Jade’s gaze swung to me, assessing. “You’re going for a senior features editor position?”

“Yes,” I hissed at her. On the defensive, I argued, “Why is that so hard to believe? I’ve been writing and editing for the magazine for the past four years—and quite brilliantly, I might add. Just the other day my boss commended me on a piece I wrote about undergarments to wear with your gown. It was positively brilliant—I mean, for a piece on underwear. I even had this great inspiration for the title—‘The Bride Beneath.’”

I sat back, breathing hard, as I contemplated Jade’s carefully blank expression.

“Sounds…clever,” she said, lighting a cigarette as the waiter approached to take our order. He was young and gorgeous, as the waiters at Bar Six tend to be, with a vaguely Mediterranean look about him. I watched Jade give him the complete once-over as I retreated into myself to sulk.

I knew what was going through Jade’s mind. She was thinking about the fact that I had suddenly pledged my heart and soul, staked my entire self-worth, on a career that up until a few weeks ago, I couldn’t care less about. But she was wrong. She didn’t know that during the Derrick Years, my role at Bridal Best had taken on epic proportions. It had become my whole raison d’être. No one knew—besides Derrick, of course. Derrick, who had always admired the fact that I was one of the lucky few who had actually gotten a day job writing, while he had done everything from waiting tables to walking dogs in order to make a few bucks while practicing his “art.” Derrick, who admired me so much, he hadn’t even called yet to let me know he’d settled into his life without me.

When I tuned in again, I heard Alyssa calmly laying out the reasons why I was eminently more qualified for the senior features editor position than Rebecca was. Good ol’ Alyssa. I could always count on her to stand by me while I harbored my illusions. Jade, on the other hand, was a bit trickier.

“Okay, okay,” Jade was saying now. “I see your point.” The waiter came back, carefully placing a cosmopolitan before her while she took in his forearm, his hands. Then she glanced up at us with a look that said, “Look who’s coming for dinner.” Once the waiter had safely escaped her perusal for the moment, she lifted her glass. “So if we’re going to get behind this promotion thing, let’s do it right.” When we had lifted our glasses, too, she said, “To Emma’s next incarnation—as Leader of the Stepford Editors.”

We froze, glasses in midair. Alyssa cracked an exasperated smile. “Jade!”

“Okay, okay. Forget it. Let’s move on to a toast I can really get behind,” she said, sending a last cutting glance in my direction. “To our waiter. For being just luscious enough to keep alive that lingering hope that I will have sex again.”

We clinked, Alyssa laughing and me relieved that we had moved on to topics that didn’t have anything to do with my sudden touchiness over my next career move. Though Jade wouldn’t allow me to delude myself, she knew when to back off.

“So what’s going on with you?” Alyssa said to Jade. “Emma told me you met a great guy. Ted, was it?”

“Ted.” Jade sighed. Then, sipping her drink, she shrugged. “I guess Emma didn’t get to the part where Ted disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“What happened?” Alyssa asked.

“What else? He didn’t call.” She stamped out her cigarette, then gave another shrug.

Though she carefully tried to mask it, I saw something in Jade’s eyes which made me think this particular failure somehow got her where she lived. I wondered why. Then figured it was probably because Ted had been the first guy she’d ever dated who had disappeared into that giant vacuum of Men Who Never Call. It was the kind of void that left a woman aching not with heartbreak, but a resounding why? which tended to turn against her rather than him, with responses like “Maybe I’m too fat too boring too broke too confident too insecure too aggressive too passive too happy too depressed….” But this thought was followed by the realization that this was not Jade’s normal line of thinking but mine. Still, even the strongest could waver in the face of the silent-but-deadly blow-off. Perhaps she needed another reminder that Ted Terrific was not so terrific anyway.

“I read somewhere once that muscle size is directly disproportionate to brain size,” I began. “Didn’t you mention that Ted was pretty thick in the muscle department?”

Jade gave a half smile. “All right, all right. I know what you’re trying to do. And no, I said that Ted was lean. Like a surfer. But that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?” Alyssa asked, and I could see she, too, was aware of some simmering unease in Jade.

“The point is, I thought we really had some kind of connection. I mean, we liked the same music. He was into the same clubs. And he even liked Simply Red. And you know how I feel about Simply Red.”

“Well, it was only one date,” said Alyssa, ever the logical one.

“One amazing date,” Jade argued. “And that doesn’t happen too often.”

Jade had a point. If there was one thing I knew, it was that in a city this large, where any sort of interaction with the opposite sex is swallowed up by the rush of time or traffic or whatever it is that keeps people from their mating rituals, one meaningful evening with a man constituted a serious beginning to something. Which was why losing Derrick, after two years of sharing everything from soulful conversation to toothbrushes, was something just short of disaster.

“They’re all heartless bastards,” I chimed in.

“Yeah, well, if I ever hope to have sex again, I have to figure out how to keep one of those heartless bastards around long enough.”

“Maybe you’re focusing too hard on the end result, Jade,” Alyssa said. “Maybe you should take a more Zen-like approach to this whole dating thing.”

“Easy for you to say when you have a live-in boy toy,” Jade said, though it was hard to envision Richard as a boy toy in his dark suits and tasseled loafers. Don’t get me wrong—with his chiseled good looks and tall, athletic build he was quite delectable. But Richard was the kind of man women fantasized about marching down the aisle with, not swinging from a rope in the Tarzan room of the Fantasy Land Motel. Then again, Jade did like to say I lacked vision when it came to men.

“The grass is always greener,” Alyssa said, dropping her gaze.

“Oh?” Jade countered, warming to the subject. “Let’s see about that. It’s been six weeks and four days since I last had sex—and I’m not counting Carl, because I’m talking penetration here. When was the last time you and Richard did it? And if you say last night, I will be forced to be envious.”

Still regarding her glass, Alyssa replied, “Three months ago.”

“What?” Jade and I said in unison.

Alyssa looked up at us and sighed. “Well, that’s not exactly true. We did have sex about three weeks ago, but it was the kind of effort that’s better left unmentioned. All mechanics, no emotions. As if we’re just blowing off some steam after a hard day at work.”

“What’s going on with you guys?” Jade asked.

“I don’t know. Everything has just been…different between us the past few months. As if we’re only going through the motions of a relationship.”

“Maybe you’re just in a rut,” I said, desperate to find any reason why things had suddenly gone astray for the last two people in the world I was sure were Meant-to-Be. “I mean, isn’t Richard trying to make partner? He’s got to be under enormous pressure at work. And you’ve been working on that class action suit for quite some time….”

“Maybe.” Alyssa sighed. “But it’s like we don’t really even see each other anymore. I feel more like a roommate. The girl he shares the laundry hamper with.”

“You just gotta shake things up,” Jade said. “Do something to remind him that he’s living with a beautiful, intelligent woman who any guy would snatch up.” Then she arched her brows as sudden inspiration hit. “What you need is some serious competition to suddenly show up, give old Richard a run for his money.”

Alyssa immediately glanced at me with a guilty smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back, thinking of her vet and imagining how a man who probably spent a good deal of his day dodging dog feces was going to give Richard, a successful corporate lawyer who could probably eat him for lunch, a run for his money.

“What’s going on?” Jade asked, suspicious.

I looked at Alyssa, leaving the confession to her.

“Well…the truth is…I have met someone else.”

“You’re kidding,” Jade said, and I had a feeling she was wondering, as I had, how Alyssa always managed to keep the men coming, no matter what her circumstances. “Who? And most importantly, how?”

“You have to promise not to laugh.” Alyssa looked hard into Jade’s eyes.

“Laugh, nothing. If you’ve got some method I should know about, who am I to judge?”

“Okay. Well, I don’t know if this method would work for you, because it requires you to get a pet.” Alyssa paused, glancing at me for reassurance. “You see, Lulu hasn’t been feeling well lately, so I took her to the vet. And, well, the old vet retired, leaving his practice to a new, young…gorgeous…vet.”

“You’re sleeping with Lulu’s vet?”

“No!” Alyssa and I shouted in unison, the sound of my own anxious denial making me realize just how important it was for me that Alyssa didn’t do anything to jeopardize what she had with Richard.

“Then what? You’re sharing housebreaking tips? Flea baths? What?”

“Nothing is going on really,” Alyssa said. “It’s just…”

“She has a crush on him,” I said, butting in. “You know, puppy love.” Then I glanced at Alyssa. “Uh, no pun intended.”

“I don’t know if it’s just a crush,” Alyssa protested. “I mean, it’s just like you said you felt with Ted, Jade. I feel a real connection with him.”

“Yeah, well,” Jade said, “you can take that for what it’s worth, Alyssa.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” Alyssa began.

“Look, no apologies needed, Lys,” Jade countered. “There’s just one thing you need to think about, and think hard. Just how important is this cute little pooper scooper to you? Enough to risk losing Richard for?”

When Alyssa didn’t respond, I turned to gape at her. “Alyssa!”

“Hey,” Jade said, lighting a cigarette and leaning back in a sort of blasé-about-relationships pose she’d adopted ever since Michael had torn whatever romantic streak she’d formerly had out of her. “If it means that much to you, I say go for it.”

“Jade, don’t encourage—” I began, but Jade leaned forward then, confidingly.

“But whatever you do, please do it outside of his office. I can’t imagine all those wee wee pads and antiseptics making for much atmosphere.”

“Ha, ha,” Alyssa said, lifting her drink to her mouth to try to hide her smile.

A smile, I might add, which said she was planning on doing just what Jade suggested, and with a man whose only distinction so far was in making Lulu’s most recent bellyache go away.

I had to face facts. Alyssa and Richard were truly on the rocks. And Jade, who I saw light up as our handsome waiter returned, had gone from Girl Who Couldn’t Get Enough to Girl Who Couldn’t Get It At All.

Then there was me, of course, who didn’t have a hope in the world of convincing the man I loved that he’d just made the greatest mistake in the world by moving across the country away from me, especially considering the fact that the creep hadn’t even taken a moment to call yet, even to say hi.

The question that was stuck in the recesses of my mind, wedged in tight by anxiety, suddenly wafted up, unbidden.

What would become of us?

Confession: Things could definitely get worse.

After an evening that ended with Jade—egged on by Alyssa—successfully securing our waiter’s phone number, I woke up the next morning resolved to make myself a smash success at Bridal Best. Maybe it was Alyssa’s encouragement, or maybe it was a rebellion against Jade’s utter disbelief in my decision, but I wound up spending part of Sunday preparing a presentation to make to Caroline on Monday, and giving myself a French manicure that I hoped would somehow raise me to some new professional level. On Monday I donned the only thing in my closet resembling a suit—a pair of black trousers that didn’t look too faded against the one black blazer I owned, and a white shirt that looked less than my others like your standard T—and headed for the illustrious midtown office where my new destiny awaited me. My intention was to discuss my decision with Caroline and get her approval to move on to the next step: persuading the Powers-That-Be at Bridal Best that not only was I the best candidate for senior features editor they could hope to have, but that I was, in fact, of one mind with the editorial mantra “Give me marriage or give me death.”

Once I arrived, I walked with purpose to my cubicle. I kept my gaze focused forward to avoid seeing any raised eyebrows over my sudden upgrade in office attire. “Confidence,” Alyssa had said as she hugged me goodbye after dinner. “All you need to do is show them how sure you are of your ability to do the job.” But all I could do once I sat at my desk in order to practice my seemingly unrehearsed speech was think about Sandra and Rebecca, sitting over lunch while Sandra dictated the surefire route to senior features editor to her protégée. How could I compete against that kind of inside track? Everyone knew what an incestuous business this was. It was as if the most coveted positions were carefully kept open for those chosen few who managed to emulate their superiors so perfectly that the Powers-That-Be couldn’t help but strive to make the little mini versions of themselves grow up to be the new Powers-That-Be.

Now one could argue that Rebecca, with her perfect boyfriend and her perfect bob and her stylish little silk blouses and knee-length skirts, did not even remotely resemble Sandra, who tended more toward a disheveled, layered look. But I was certain now that a bond had formed between them from the moment Rebecca had joined the staff. At the time, Sandra had recently joined the Happily Married, and I imagined her taking one look at Rebecca, with her pedigree schooling and her upwardly mobile boyfriend, and seeing enough of herself and her happy little life to reach out. After all, it had been only mere months since Sandra had landed her own financially stable husband and Upper East Side Duplex, and I’m certain she couldn’t help but see a dinner party with Rebecca and her beau as nothing less than a prime opportunity to bring out the Lenox china she had obsessed over and ultimately registered for in the months before she marched off to her ill-fated marriage. And despite the fact that Sandra had now, for whatever reason, just joined the Disastrously Divorced category, I knew that ultimately she had shared something with Rebecca that night—something that would only grow now that Sandra had given up her role as Successful and Married and needed to hand the mantle on to someone else. Someone as polished, as poised, as perfect as Rebecca.

How was I going to compete with that? Me, with my scuffed pumps pulled from the bottom of the closet and phantom boy friend?

“Looking sharp,” came Marcy Keller’s voice as she popped her head around the wall of my cubicle and gave me a conspiratorial wink.

Feeling horribly grateful for the compliment, even coming from a woman more known for her calculation than her camaraderie, I actually smiled at her, which gave her just enough invitation to slide her spindly form into my guest chair.

“So you’re finally going to do it, huh?” she asked, in a kind of harsh whisper that suggested I was going to take a machine gun to my colleagues rather than go in to my superior to ask for a promotion.

“No better time than the present,” I replied with false bravado.

“I agree,” she said, nodding vigorously, eyebrows arched above her big black frames. “Especially since Rebecca has already put together her clips and her résumé and handed them in.”

“She has?”

“Of course.”

I glanced over the gaping “to be filed” box where I had stuffed everything of personal relevance, from bedraggled clips and old vacation memos to takeout menus for local eateries. “Do you think I should put together something before I go in to Caroline?”

Her gaze followed mine to the pile of papers, and I saw her eyes widen briefly. “Nah,” she replied, swatting her hand through the air in a gesture that suggested I was worrying for nothing. “That would take too long. You’re best off going in there and at least letting her know you are interested. Then, afterward, you could pull together something for when you go in to see Patricia.”

Suddenly I saw the benefits of befriending Marcy. She was a wealth of information on how to negotiate the politics of getting promoted. I hadn’t even thought of putting together my clips. I just assumed Patricia would have seen my work at one point or another. I mean, she is the editor-in-chief of this fine periodical.

“And I would probably try to include some clips outside of what you’ve done for Bridal Best,” Marcy continued, as if reading the unasked question that lingered in the back of my mind. “I think Rebecca included a bunch of stuff from that trade newspaper she used to work for.”

Panic began to invade me. Rebecca had other clips. What did I have, other than a few half-finished short stories and some self-deprecating poetry I had written during a previous post-breakup pity party? “Other clips?”

“You know, stuff you might have written freelance, or in a previous job,” Marcy continued, then sucked her cheeks in when realization struck. “Oh, that’s right. You’ve never had a previous job.”

She was right, other than my stint at waitressing and a run of office temp jobs that had resulted in nothing but callused feet and bad fiction. Even my illustrious career at Bridal Best was really a result of random luck and Caroline’s somewhat misguided belief in me.

“Have you ever done any freelance?” Marcy was asking now. She actually seemed really concerned for me, which I found oddly heartening. Maybe I’d had Marcy pegged all wrong.

“Not really,” I replied, my confidence slumping to an all-time low.

She studied me for a moment, as if trying to assign a promotability value to me and coming up short. Then she shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she said, standing up. “I mean, after all, Rebecca was working on a trade publication anyway.” Her nose wrinkled, as if the idea that anyone would work for an industry newspaper that languished on the desks of some back office somewhere, rather than a magazine being prominently displayed on the racks at your local newsstand, was somehow distasteful.

“I guess,” I replied, unconvinced.

Glancing at her watch, she said, “Well, duty calls. Knock ’em dead, Emma.” Then after skipping somewhat merrily out of my cube, she popped her head back in, “Oh, and good luck.”

You’ll need it. The implication she had not voiced sped through my mind nonetheless as I stared at her retreating back.

Confession: My life has become some sort of inside joke—and I’m the only one who doesn’t get it.

“Come in, come in,” Caroline invited, once I finally gathered up the courage to actually go in and make my now somewhat pathetic-seeming bid for the senior features editor position. Thank God, I had Caroline to practice on first, before having to make my case to Patricia. Ever since I had come to Bridal Best, Caroline had been my champion, lavishing praise on my early writing efforts and encouraging me to go for the contributing-editor position when it opened up. Now, as I headed into her sunlit, plant-filled office, the shelves overflowing with everything from the international dolls she collected to photos of her and Miles, her husband, and their three picture-perfect children, I was glad she was my manager. But as I seated myself before her, it suddenly occurred to me that the theory I had recently constructed of the solid bond formation between Sandra and Rebecca didn’t hold water when it came to Caroline and me. There was no way I was the miniversion of Caroline, with her warm, loving home in Connecticut strewn, I was sure, with the hand-made crafts she excelled at and smelling of the fresh-baked cookies she tucked into her children’s lunch bags before sending them off to posh private schools carefully chosen according to each gifted child’s unique talents. Even her husband, a general contractor who was ever ready to build a new wing onto their already sprawling home to accommodate the next adorable addition to the Jamison family, seemed from some male mold I had yet to encounter in my own life. Not that I had ever been invited to said happy home or met the husband and kids, but I had gathered much from Caroline’s softly spoken stories at the communal lunch room table of the joys of family life. Even now, she was radiantly pregnant with Perfect Baby Number Four beneath her floral and feminine maternity dress. Everyone was always faintly amazed at how she returned to the office baby after baby, ever ready to do her part for the greater good of Bridal Best.

“I’m glad you stopped by,” Caroline said now, once I had made myself comfortable in the chair parked next to her wide desk, which was a maze of carefully stacked papers. Somehow, no matter how busy Caroline was, she was always prepared to offer you a chair and an ear to discuss just about anything that was on your mind, whether righteous indignation at your piece getting bumped from an issue, or dismay of a more personal nature, should you dare to share it with it a superior. Not that I ever did. And I wouldn’t dare share my recent Derrick Disaster with anyone in the office now that I was allegedly making so much progress in my life that a pro motion seemed like the next, natural thing. After all, whoever heard of a disgruntled editor and new member of the Recently Dumped making senior features editor at the nation’s most comprehensive guide to happily-ever-after?

“Did you want to talk to me about something?” I asked now, worried suddenly that Caroline, in her gentle way, was about to inform me that she had realized how seriously lacking I was in most areas of my life and work.

“No, no. Nothing specific. It’s just we haven’t really spoken in a while, and I was wondering how things were going. You know, sometimes with all the flurry of deadline pressures and, well, life, we forget to take stock of things. How are you?”

“Good, good. Great, in fact,” I replied, striving for the tone of a woman in charge of her life and ready to tackle any professional challenge that came her way.

“Wonderful.” She smiled, her hand going to her softly rounded abdomen and caressing it gently.

“How’s everything with you? Feeling okay, with the baby and all?”

“Oh, yes.” She laughed. “I’m an expert at this baby thing by now. Miles always jokes that I’m going to be given my own monogrammed paper gown by the maternity ward.”

My glance fell on the photo of Miles smiling out at me with the strong white teeth and tanned skin of a man designed to make a woman happy. “I bet you and Miles are just as excited about this baby as you were with your first,” I said, suddenly realizing I had forgotten the name of her first baby and hoping I would be saved from an awkward moment in this all-important friendly banter. After all, I didn’t want my seeming indifference to the children she loved more than life itself to become glaringly apparent. It wasn’t that I didn’t care—her kids were actually quite adorable, at least in their photos. It was just that I couldn’t keep up with her output.

Fortunately Caroline saved me from disgrace. “Oh, we are excited. But my Sarah never lets us forget who is the oldest in the house. I swear the way she bosses her brother and sister around, I wouldn’t doubt she has a management position in her future.”

“Funny you should mention that,” I said, finding my segue and readying myself to take the plunge and launch into how I was verifiably the smartest, sanest and strongest candidate for a senior position with the magazine. Oh God.

“As you know—” I began, gripping the armrests in an attempt to take the tremble out of my fingers “—I was promoted to contributing editor two years ago.”

“Yes, and you’ve been doing a fine job,” Caroline said with a smile.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling a measure more confident and relaxing my grip. “During that time, I’ve been a solid contributor, often initiating ideas for articles and getting more involved in lay out. I even wrote a lot of the promotional copy on our most recent subscription contest.”

“Your copy was lovely, Emma, as always.”

“Thank you,” I replied once more and rather calmly, I thought, considering that my insides were shrieking I’m in, I’m in! “I think my writing skill, as well my strong knowledge of the magazine gained over the past four years,” I continued, “make me an excellent candidate for the open position of senior features editor.”

Caroline’s expression fell, eyebrows dropping down as surprise spread over her features. “Oh.”

Oh? My stomach plunged.

“Interesting,” she murmured, her brow becoming furrowed as she studied me.

Interesting? What did that mean, I wondered, my newly fostered hopes crumbling. “Um. I’m wondering. That is, I want—uh, what do I need to do to…uh, apply for the position?”

Finally she smiled, her trademark warmth returning and giving me a small shred of courage once more. “Well, the first thing you would need to do is talk to Pat, of course,” she said, her use of the editor-in-chief’s nickname a privilege allotted to management, apparently, as I had never heard anyone else refer to Patricia in this manner.

“And would you recommend pulling together clips for Patricia?” I said, hoping my question would show her how aware I was of the next steps in the promotion process.

“Good idea,” she replied. “You also might want to update your résumé, to give Pat some sense of your whole career.”

Gulp. I wondered how my stint at Good Grub and string of temp jobs was going to hold up against Rebecca’s experience as a trade editor and God-only-knew what other accomplishments. “Hmm. Yes. That is a good idea,” I agreed.

Caroline’s brow furrowed once more as she studied me. After a few painful moments she said finally, “As you go through your clips and update your résumé, Emma, take the time to take stock. It’s a good opportunity for you to see the work you’ve done, analyze your strengths and think about future directions.” Leaning back in her chair, she continued, “After all, it’s not every day we think about what we want to be doing over the next few years.”

Wasn’t that the truth? In fact, if I had thought about my future, I might have realized a few things: like the fact that there was no way in hell I would ever be able to compete against Rebecca, who seemed to be growing in accomplishments by the minute. I might have even figured out, for that matter, that I would be manless at thirty-one years old rather than married to Derrick, seeing as he had scheduled his departure from our relationship from day one. But I said none of this to Caroline as I stood up, murmured a few words of thanks and headed off, I was sure, to my next and imminent disaster.