Читать книгу Slightly Settled - Wendy Markham, Wendy Markham - Страница 11

Monday morning, I wear a frumpy navy rayon dress that’s two sizes too big for me, no makeup and sunglasses.

The sky hangs low and gray over Manhattan, but I don’t give a damn. I’m in disguise. At least, in the lobby and in the elevator, where I stand in the back silently facing straight ahead while the crowd chatters about the office party.

Is it my imagination, or are people nudge-nudge, wink-winking about me?

It has to be my imagination. I’m no stranger to paranoia. Just because I flirted—

Oh, all right, made out with—

—some guy at the office party, well, that doesn’t mean anybody noticed. Or that if they noticed, they care.

Insert Kinks’ guitar riff here. Duh…duh-duh…duh-duh-duh-duh-duh. Paranoia, Self-Destroya…

I find myself wishing I had called in sick today. Or, um, you know…quit.

On my floor, Lydia greets me as usual from beneath a green-and-silver garland of tinsel. She doesn’t even do a double take before chirping, “Morning, Tracey” and going back to her Newsday.

Mental Note: Disguise not 100 percent foolproof.

I have to take off the glasses anyway when I get to my desk. Luckily, it’s barely nine o’clock and the place is deserted. It’s also got that Monday-morning chill after a weekend with the heat turned down.

I’m shivering as I head for the kitchenette—also deserted—and grab coffee from the community pot. Normally I drink it with skim milk and an Equal, but I hear somebody coming and duck out the opposite door sloshing black coffee all over my hand. Ouch, dammit!

This is ridiculous. I can’t go sneaking around all day like I’m starring in The Mole.

Why, oh why, was I such an all-out Don’t on Saturday night? Why didn’t I stop and consider the consequences?

Back at my cubicle, I set my coffee on my desk and take several deep breaths. I can’t stop shaking, and it’s not just because it’s cold in here. I feel a panic attack coming on.

Needing a distraction, I turn on my computer and sip some coffee while it whirs into action, and then I log on to the Internet and see that I’ve got a bunch of e-mails. One is from Buckley, asking if I want to have lunch today; one is from Kate, asking how the Christmas party was; three are from my sister-in-law Sara, all of them forwarded jokes as old as my screen name. But she and Joey are new to e-mail, so lame forwards are still a novelty to them.

“Hey, what happened to you on Saturday night, girlfriend?” Latisha calls from somewhere behind me, in her loudest yoo-hoo voice.

“Shh!” I wave my arms at her, almost knocking over my coffee.

“Here,” she says, handing over my camera. “I figured you were going to lose this at the club, the way you were—”

“Carrying on?” I supply when she hesitates.

“That’s one way to put it.” She smirks. “Anyway, I brought it home safely for you.”

“Thanks.” I didn’t even realize until now that I didn’t have it. “But why didn’t you bring me home safely? You guys abandoned me.”

“We didn’t abandon you. We told you we were leaving,” Brenda pipes up, materializing behind Latisha. “Three times. You didn’t hear us. You were too busy kissing that guy.”

I cringe.

The two of them park themselves on my desk, wearing expectant expressions.

“Well?” Latisha asks. “Did you go home with him?”

“No!” I act totally outraged, as though the thought never would have entered my chaste mind. “Do you guys really think I’m that sleazy?”

They look at each other. Obviously, they do.

“You were kind of all over each other,” Brenda says with a shrug. “I was a little surprised.”

I rub my eyes with my hand, utterly humiliated. “Oh, Lord, do you think anyone else saw?”

Yvonne pops her bubblegum-colored bouffant over a filing cabinet. “It was hard to miss, honey.”

Not honey as in You Poor Misunderstood Thing. Yvonne might be my grandmother’s age, but there isn’t a maternal bone in her weedy former Rockette body; her honey is brash and laced with sarcasm.

I bury my face in my hands, fighting off panic, doing my best not to hyperventilate.

Brenda pats my back. “Look on the bright side, Tracey. You met a nice guy. Did you give him your number?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not?” Latisha demands.

“He didn’t ask.” Talk about humiliating. I add hastily, “And anyway, I don’t want him to call me. I just want to forget the whole thing.”

“Why?” Brenda asks. “I thought he was a good guy.”

“Hot, too,” Latisha says approvingly.

“He had tight buns,” Yvonne puts in.

Eeewww. Tight buns?

Like I said, she’s my grandmother’s age. That’s hip slang for her. But the phrase has me picturing some unappealing loser in snug-fitting beige polyester slacks—which, if nothing else, is enough to take the edge off the panic.

“Morning, Chief.” Mike pokes his head around the edge of my cube. “Ladies.”

They greet him and disperse, leaving me alone with my boss standing over me. My thoughts whirl back to the party.

“So I heard you met my roommate.”

“Hmm?” I reply absently, trying to remember whether Mike left early. I wring my icy hands in my lap. God, I hope so. Or could he have still been around while I was sucking face with Jack at the bar?