Читать книгу Slightly Settled - Wendy Markham, Wendy Markham - Страница 9

“You know, Tracey, you’re really lucky that he didn’t turn out to be some serial killer.”

That’s my friend Buckley O’Hanlon, referring, over lunch on Wednesday, to Jeff S-n and my initiation into the sordid world of one-night stands.

We managed to find a table for two in the crowded upstairs dining area of one of those Korean grocer/salad bar/Chinese buffet/deli/florist places that are unique to Manhattan.

Buckley’s doing some in-house freelance work in my office building, just as he was when we first met last spring—back in the bad old days when I was fifty pounds heavier and assumed he was gay.

Even though I know Buckley’s totally right about the risk I took going off with a complete stranger, I roll my eyes and tell him, “Of course he wasn’t a serial killer. He’s a trader.”

Yeah. Or a broker.

“So? Didn’t you ever read American Psycho?” Buckley sips his Snapple, then takes a bite of his turkey wrap.

“No, I never read it. But I saw the movie.” And now that I think of it, why didn’t that pop into my horny little head when I decided it was perfectly safe to dart into the night with a good-looking Wall Street guy? Scary, what a few pink cocktails and three celibate months can do to a gal.

“The movie was stupid. The book was better.”

As far as Buckley’s concerned, the book is always better. He likes to refer to himself as a literary geek, but trust me, there’s nothing geeky about him. He’s a copywriter, and he’s been writing a novel in his spare time. Of which, might I add, there isn’t much, now that he’s in a relationship.

Do I sound catty? Sorry.

It’s just that he gained a girlfriend right around the time I lost a boyfriend. Which is a real shame, because something tells me that Buckley and I have the potential to be more than friends. He’s cute and smart and funny—totally my type. Except for that pesky he-has-a-girlfriend thing.

“I don’t like the idea of you out drinking and getting picked up by strange men, Tracey,” Buckley informed me, frowning.

“I’m a big girl, Buckley. Not as big a girl as I used to be, mind you, but big enough to take care of myself. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Yes, I do. I can’t help it.”

I smile. “How sweet are you?”

He smiles back. “I’m the sweetest.”

“I’m serious. You are.”

“And I’m serious. Stay away from strange men.”

When Will dumped me, I cried on Buckley’s shoulder, and he promised me that, someday, I’ll be grateful to Will. He swore I’d want to thank him for dumping me, because it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.

I’m still waiting for that day to arrive, and I can’t help but feel like it might come sooner if I could replace Will with someone new. Someone better. Like, oh, I don’t know…Buckley.

“So how’s Sonja?” I ask, because it seems polite. And because it will change the subject from my one-night stand, which I’m not entirely comfortable discussing with someone as wholesome as Buckley, who has probably never had a one-night stand in his life.

“Sonja’s fine,” Buckley says.

I peer at him over my blah bundle of sprouts, aka the 200-Calorie Fat-Free Veggie Wrap. Lawn clippings in an envelope would be tastier.

“Are you sure?” I ask him.

“Sure about what?”

“That Sonja’s fine?”

“Yup. She’s fine.” He pokes an errant tomato back into his sandwich.

“Your mouth is saying yup, but your eyes are saying something’s wrong, Buckley. Oh, and you have a glob of honey mayonnaise on your cheek.”

He reaches for a napkin, then sweeps it across his face. He totally misses.

I take it from him and dab his cheek, asking, “What’s up?”

He sighs. “Sonja wants us to move in together.”

My heart sinks.

I smile brightly.

“So…that’s romantic,” I tell him.

He shakes his head.

“It isn’t romantic?”

“No. It’s stupid. We both have leases. We both have great places. We both live alone. There’s no reason to move in together already. We’ve only been going out a few months.”

Gotta love sensible Buckley. Why rush things? After all, you never know when somebody better might come along. Or when you might notice that somebody who came along a while ago just might be better. Psst, somebody whose initials are T. S. and is sitting right across from you at this very moment.

“So you don’t love her?” I ask, trying to sound casual. I’ve never let on to Buckley that I could be attracted to him.

“I don’t know. I mean…I really think I do.”

Oh.

He really thinks he does.

There goes any hope for Buckley ever falling for me. Everyone knows that when a man admits aloud to the merest possibility of being in love, it’s only a matter of time before he finds himself standing in the bridal registry at Michael C. Fina on a Sunday afternoon when the Giants are playing at home.

“Buckley, if you love her—”

“I think I love her,” he amends.

“If you think you love her, what’s the problem?” Shut up, Tracey.

Yet I babble on. Either Sonja’s spirit has been astral-projected into my body, or I’ve taken up the cause for oppressed would-be live-in girlfriends everywhere.

“I mean, Buckley, it’s not like you’re not dating other people.”

Say…for example, me.

“And Sonja’s great. She’s smart, pretty, fun…”

Somebody stop me.

But I can’t help myself.

“After all, you’re together all the time anyway. Why pay two rents?”

It’s as though I’m talking to Will, back when I wanted to move in with him and he wanted to move to another part of the state without leaving a phone number.

“I guess,” he says thoughtfully.

“Look, Buckley, if you’ve got a good thing going, you shouldn’t be afraid to take the next step. I mean, look at Billy and Kate. They moved in together less than two months after they met, and now they’re looking at engagement rings.”

“They are?”

“She is,” I admit. “But she’s thinking they’re going to be engaged at Christmas. She said she wants a June wedding.”

“A June wedding. I wouldn’t expect anything less from our little magnolia,” Buckley says, shaking his head.

“Do you think Sonja wants a June wedding?” I can’t help asking.

I brace myself for a look of horror, or at least dismay, but there is only resignation.

Buckley sighs. “Do you know a female who doesn’t?”

“Well, I don’t.”

“You don’t?”

“Uh-uh. I want a fall wedding.”

At least, that’s what I secretly hoped for when I was with Will. I had the whole thing planned out in my head—what I’d wear, who would stand up, the flowers, the menu, the pumpkin cake with cream-cheese frosting….

“A fall wedding would be nice,” Buckley says. He adds hastily, “Not next fall.”

He’s so sweet, I think, watching him pop the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth. So different from Will and Jeff S-n. Buckley’s genuine. He’s a really good friend. And when he’s not brooding over Sonja, he’s one of the funniest people I know.

I wonder, not for the first time, what would have happened if Will had dumped me before I met Buckley.

He was attracted to me back then. I mean, he kissed me—which was how I figured out that he definitely isn’t gay. And it was a great kiss. So great that I still think about it sometimes.

Okay, all the time.

Maybe that’s just because it was the last time somebody kissed me that way.

Or maybe it’s because I could easily fall in love with my good friend Buckley.

But even if he were available, it’s too soon. I’m still not over Will. According to Kate, She magazine and pop psychology 101, any relationship I have right now would be strictly rebound.

Buckley crumples his sandwich wrapper into a ball and drains the last of his Snapple. “Ready to go back to work?”

“Nah. Let’s play hooky for the rest of the afternoon.”

“Seriously?” He looks intrigued.

“Nope. I was kidding. I’m in the middle of helping Mike with a New Business presentation. And then Brenda and Latisha and I are going to try to meet and figure out if we can organize a bachelorette party for Yvonne sometime in the next few weeks.”

“When’s she getting married?”

“Over Christmas. She and Thor are eloping to Vegas.”

Thor is Yvonne’s Swedish pen pal. When she met him a few months ago, they got engaged. She swears this is merely a green-card marriage, but we think she’s in love. When she’s with him, she’s all girly. As girly, that is, as a tough old broad like Yvonne can be.

“Okay, I guess I’ve got to get back to the office, then,” Buckley says reluctantly.

“Same here.”

We push back our chairs and carry our garbage to the can as a pair of hovering corporate drones descend on our vacant table. “But wouldn’t it be fun to blow off work and go ice-skating or something?” Buckley muses.

“Me on ice skates? Are you kidding?”

“You grew up near Buffalo. You must have learned how to skate.”

I shake my head.

“Really? I’ll have to teach you.”

An image flits into my mind as we make our way through a sea of office workers, down the stairs, through the deli and onto the street.

I see myself in one of those short, cute pleated skating skirts and a fuzzy white sweater. Buckley is in one of those clingy skating jumpsuits they wear at the Olympics, yet he looks incredibly masculine in it.

I know, I know, but it’s a fantasy.

So, anyway, we’re gliding around the ice in front of 30 Rock. Classical music is playing, a gentle snow is falling—big, lazy flakes—and there’s not a soul on the rink but us.

Fantasy, people! It’s a fantasy.

He lifts me in his arms a few times, and we effortlessly do some fancy moves. Complicated stuff. Then he kisses me, and it’s totally passionate, and he says…

“Do I have anything stuck between my teeth? Trace?”

Thud. I land on Third Avenue, where a jackhammer is rattling and taxis are honking and Buckley’s in my face with his teeth bared, revealing a lovely hunk of chewed-up lettuce.

“There’s something green between your front teeth,” I advise him, sighing inwardly as I reach into my bag for a cigarette.

So much for fantasies.

Mike Middleford, my new boss, is nothing like sexist, philandering, narcissistic Jake.

For one thing, Mike treats me with respect. He asks my advice on PowerPoint presentations—poor guy isn’t very literate—and he doesn’t mind if I’m a few minutes late in the morning or if I sneak out for a few cigarette breaks.

For another, he’s totally in love with his girlfriend, Dianne. Whenever she calls, I’m suppose to hunt him down to come to the phone, unless he’s in the men’s room or a meeting. It’s refreshing to see a guy light up when he hears that his girlfriend is on the phone. Dianne calls a lot, and she sounds really sweet. She always greets me by name and makes an effort to chat before she asks for Mike.

Like today, she says, “Hi, Tracey, how’s it going? Are you psyched for the company Christmas party Saturday night?”

“Yeah, it sounds like it’ll be fun.” Blaire Barnett had rented out Space, an entire three-floor nightclub in Chelsea, for the party. “Are you coming with Mike?”

“Nah. He wants me to, but I wouldn’t know anybody.”

Wow. She must feel really secure about her relationship. If Will was going to a party and I had the option of going with him, there’s no way I’d opt out.

Then again, Mike goes out of his way to make sure he doesn’t miss her calls. Will lied and told me that the pay phone in his summer cast house didn’t take incoming calls. And, duh, I believed him.

“Are you bringing a date?” Dianne asks.

“Me? Nah. I’m not seeing anyone right now. My boyfriend and I broke up in September.”

Why, I wonder, do I feel compelled to tell people about Will? I’m always bringing it up. To elevator men, cabdrivers, dressing-room attendants in clothing stores…it’s like no matter who I’m talking to, I manage to find a reason to announce that I’m recovering from a breakup.

“That’s too bad,” Dianne says.

“Yeah, it’s hard. But I’m sure I’ll find somebody new sooner or later.” Buckley flits into and out of my mind. So does Jeff S-n. How depressing.

“I wish I knew somebody we could fix you up with, but I’m drawing a blank,” Dianne says. “Mike has a roommate, but he’s a real asshole.”

“That’s okay.” I’m not desperate enough to consider a blind date…yet.

“It stinks being alone around the holidays, though,” Dianne comments. “You get cheated out of boyfriend presents, jewelry, baubles…”

Baubles?

“I never thought of it that way.” I find myself thinking, wistfully, All those years with Will, and nary a bauble to show for it.

“Then there’s New Year’s Eve….”

“Right.” I hadn’t thought of that either. Gee, thanks, Dianne, for enlightening me.

She sighs. “Oh, well.”

Yeah. Easy for her to say.

“So…is Mike there?”

“He’s around somewhere.” If he’s not out shopping for diamond earrings or on the other line booking the presidential suite at the Sherry Netherland for December 31st. “I’ll go get him.”

I find Mike by the copier, trying to help my friend Brenda clear a jam. He bolts the second I tell him I’ve got Dianne on hold.

Brenda shakes her head. “Look at him drop everything and run. I hope she knows how lucky she is.”

“Look at you. You’ve got Paulie.” It’s all I can do not to pronounce her husband’s name the way she does—“Po-aw-lie.” Sometimes her accent is contagious.

“The honeymoon is over, Trace. I’ve been married four months, and already Paulie is telling me I’ve got to stop calling his cell during the day while he’s at work.”

“Well, Brenda, he’s a cop. It’s probably distracting when he’s chasing some crack fiend down an alley and his phone rings, and it’s you asking him to pick up some fresh mozzarell’ on the way home.”

We laugh, and I help her clear the jam—not without cursing the damned machine and whoever invented four freaking places for paper to get wedged. As we work on clearing it, we chat about the bachelorette party we’re going to plan for Yvonne, and then about the upcoming Christmas party.

“Paulie’s having a bunch of guys over to watch the fight that night,” Brenda says, gingerly running one of her raspberry-colored talons along the paper output slot. “So I’ve got to clear out of there before six-thirty.”

“You want to come over to my place before we go to the party? It doesn’t start till eight.”

“By the time I take the PATH in and get a cab over to the club, it’ll be past seven-thirty anyway, so let’s just meet there.”

I tug on a piece of paper that’s stuck between the rollers. “I don’t know, Brenda. We probably shouldn’t get to the party right when it’s starting.”

“Why not?”

The paper tears. I curse under my breath, then tell Brenda about the article in She magazine while I pick out bits of torn paper.

“So getting to the company Christmas party on time is a major Don’t?” she asks, incredulous. She removes her hand from the copy machine and inspects one of her nails for damage. “You’d think being punctual would be a good thing.”

“Not in this case. ‘Don’t—’ and I quote ‘—be the first one to arrive. Don’t be the last to leave.’ End quote. Hey, hold this compartment open for me, will you, Bren?”

She reluctantly obliges, and I continue to pull scraps of paper from the roller. Brenda’s a fanatic about preserving her weekly manicure; my nails are always a mess. I think I’m the only woman in New York with unpolished, unfiled fingertips. But I can think of better ways to spend the weekly fifteen bucks my friends dole out in nail salons.

Then again, glossy scarlet nails would be dazzling with my red trollop dress.

Mental Note: See if manicurist has available slot after lip-wax appointment at salon tomorrow.

“So what other Don’ts are there?” Brenda wants to know.

“Let’s see…I told you about the ‘Don’t dress provocatively’ one, right? Then there was ‘Don’t drink too much.’ You’re supposed to nurse white-wine spritzers and alternate them with plain seltzer throughout the evening.”

“Oh, Madonna,” Brenda says with a Carmella Soprano eye-roll and my grandmother’s old-country accent.

The Jersey Italian in Brenda’s blood always comes out when she’s peeved. One minute, she’s a lady, the next, she’s flipping someone off with an Ah, fongool.

“Spritzers? That’s bullshit, Tracey. We should do shots. It’s girls’ night out. What else did the article say?”

“Don’t smoke. Don’t gossip. Don’t flirt. Don’t dance. Don’t—”

“Geez, who the hell wrote this article? The president of Bob Jones University?”

I shrug, peering into the copy machine to make sure all the paper has been removed. “Okay, all clear. Press Start.”

She does.

The machine whirs.

Lights flash.

Nothing.

We lean over to look at the little screen on top.

Paper Jam.

“Forget it,” Brenda says, picking up the stack of originals from the tray. “I’m going down to seven to make my copies. And Tracey, forget about that stupid article. Let’s just go have a great time.”

I head back to my cubicle, still thinking about the article. It’s easy for someone like Brenda to blow off the advice. She’s content to stay a secretary, and, anyway, she plans to quit to stay home when she has a baby—which is planned for next year. So for her, this isn’t a career; it’s a job.

But if I’m going to work my way into a copywriting position, I’ll have to watch my step. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong impression of me at this party. I don’t want them to lump me together with the other secretaries.

Okay, I know that sounds snobby. And it’s not that I don’t adore my friends. But sometimes, it kind of bothers me that I’m—I don’t know…one of them.

Back when I had Will—and supposedly a future with him, even if it was all in my deluded head—it didn’t seem to matter as much.

Now that I’m on my own, I can’t help feeling that I’d feel much better about myself if I had a “real” career.

Yeah, and you’d probably feel much better about yourself if you hadn’t had that one-night stand with a full-grown Star Wars fanatic, too.

Let’s face it: I might be skinny, and I might be bringing in a regular paycheck with benefits…but things could definitely be better. Much better.

I find Mike leaning over my chair to check out the proposal I’m typing for him on the computer screen.

He’s a smallish, wiry guy, and I don’t like to stand next to him because he’s a few inches shorter than I am and we probably weigh about the same. I’m not secure enough, despite the weight loss, to feel comfortable around guys who make me feel large and gawky even now.

“How’s it coming, Chief?” he asks cheerfully. Mike has this cute thing where he calls everyone “Chief.”

“Pretty good. I caught a couple of typos for you.”

“Thanks. You’re the best.”

I smile. They weren’t typos, really. He’s a crummy speller, but I never want to embarrass him. He’s such a sweetie.

“Hey, I like your tie,” I tell him. For somebody who seems clueless about some things—like getting his hair cut when it needs it—he’s got great taste in ties.

“Thanks. You want some caramel popcorn? I just got a huge barrel of it from some magazine,” he says. “It’s in my office.”

At this time of year, the agency people get loads of corporate Christmas gifts from magazines and television networks. You wouldn’t believe the caliber of some of the gifts. Last week Mike got a crystal Tiffany ice bucket and a hundred-dollar bottle of champagne from one place.

Too bad he didn’t offer to share that.

I pass on the popcorn. It sounds good, but I’ve got to be careful. At this time of year, it would be easy to slip up and gain a few—or twenty—pounds back.

“Listen, Chief,” Mike asks, “would you mind going down to accounts payable before the end of the day to get me that cash advance for my trip to Philly tomorrow?”

“Not at all.”

That’s another great thing about Mike. He doesn’t give orders. He asks me to do things. Getting his cash from AP is part of my job, but he makes it seem as though I’m going out of my way for him. He really makes being a secretary bearable for somebody who has bigger aspirations.

Someday, I hope, I’ll be a copywriter like Buckley. But until I am, working as a secretary at Blaire Barnett is pleasantly painless. I even get to sit in a cubicle instead of in the secretaries’ bay, where I was when I worked for Jake.

I head toward the elevator bank. I reach it just as a junior account executive does. Her real name is Susan, but Yvonne calls her Miss Prim, and I have to admit, the shoe fits. She’s always buttoned up in a tailored suit with pearls and pumps, her hair pulled severely back in a clip, and I’ve never seen her smile at anybody who isn’t an executive.

“Hi,” I say, since we’re both going to stand here waiting for the down elevator, which is bound to take a few minutes. The elevators in this building are notoriously slow.

“Hi.” She studies her sensible pumps.

You just wouldn’t catch her picking up a total stranger and having sex with him in some godforsaken borough.

“These elevators take forever, don’t they?” I feel compelled to say.

She merely presses the lit Down button again, as though she can’t stand another moment trapped here with lowly me.

It irks me that she won’t make eye contact, much less conversation, with a mere secretary. I want to tell her that I have an English degree and a future in copywriting. I want to tell her to let her hair down and live a little; or at the very least, unfasten her top button, for God’s sake.

I wonder what she’s going to wear to the Christmas party. Somehow, I can’t quite picture her in anything remotely festive.

Again, my mind flits to that article chock-full of Don’ts.

The hell with the article, and with Miss Prim, too, I think, as I step into the elevator with her.

I’m going to wear my red dress, and I’m going to get there when it starts, and I’m going to have a helluva good time.

Just watch me.

“Hold the elevator!” a voice calls.

I half expect Susan to reach for the Door Close button, but she doesn’t. Nor does she hit Door Open as they begin to slide closed, even though the button is like, two inches from her claw.

I wedge my shoulder between the doors to hold them for whoever is rushing toward the elevator, heels tapping hurriedly along the floor, accompanied by an odd jingling sound.

When I see who it is, I almost wish I’d let the doors close.

“Hi, Mary,” I say, as she steps on board with a huge, panting sigh of relief.

“Hi, Tracey,” she trills. “Hi, Sue.”

I get the impression Susan doesn’t appreciate being called Sue.

Mary Kohl doesn’t seem to get this impression, or any impressions at all. She’s too busy plucking an oversized round jingle bell from the crevice between her oversized round boobs. The bell is suspended around her jowly neck on a red cord and festooned with sprigs of plastic holly.

If I were sharing this elevator with anybody but wenchy Susan, I might be inclined to turn and share an eye-roll with them. Mary, who is an administrative assistant in our department, is easily the most annoying human being of all time. In fact, if this elevator happens to get stuck between floors, as elevators in this building have been known to do, I’m going to find myself wishing I carried cyanide capsules in my pockets like the astronauts do.

Mary presses her floor with a chubby forefinger, and the doors slide closed with the finality of clanking steel bars on death row.

“Did we all sign up for Secret Snowflake?” Mary wants to know.

She wants to know this in the chirpiest voice ever. Think Baby Bop on helium.

I sort of smile and shake my head.

Susan plays deaf and dumb.

“Uh-oh.” Mary shakes her head sadly, her jingle bell jangling noisily from boob to boob. “Didn’t everyone hear that Secret Snowflake is mandatory this year?”

I murmur something about it being news to me, although I knew damn well. Who could miss the bright red memo Mary sent out on December first? She signed it with her name spelled Merry, and requested that we all use this spelling for the duration of the season.

“You’re kidding! Didn’t you get the memo?”

“I guess not,” I tell Mary, as Helen Keller pointedly ignores both of us.

“Not only is Secret Snowflake mandatory, but I’m matching up the names on Monday,” Mary informs us. “So you’ll both need to sign up by the end of today. Okay?”

“Okay,” I agree, because mandatory is mandatory.

“Great! Sue?”

“What the fuck is a Secret Snowflake?” Susan barks, just before the elevator bumps to a stop.

“Oh, it’s really fun. It’s where the whole department picks names and we all—”

Too late.

Susan has fled. This wasn’t even her floor. A bike messenger steps on board.

“Happy holidays!” Mary chirps at him.

He glares at her, clearly wondering who died and made her Mrs. Claus.

Unfazed, Mary turns to me and breezily resumes her Secret Snowflake monologue. “Anyhoo, we all pick names and then buy a gift for our Secret Snowflake each day for a whole week. The following week, we have the luncheon and find out who our Snowflake was. It’s just a blast.”

I smile and nod at Mary, thinking she really needs…what? A life? Some serious counseling? To be smacked upside of the head?

Um, how about all of the above?

Okay, maybe I’m just being mean. Maybe the whole New York attitude has gotten to me at last and I’m too jaded. Maybe I could use a little of Mary’s childlike Christmas spirit. Maybe we all could.

I look at her, taking in the jingle bell, the mistletoe earrings, the sprig of holly tucked into her graying bun.

The woman is a freak. That’s all there is to it.

“Going to the party on Saturday, Tracey?” she asks.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” I say truthfully. “How about you?”

“Oh, I’ll be there with bells on!”

Right.

I find myself picturing her hitched to Santa’s sleigh. On, Dasher, On, Dancer, On, Mary. Er, Merry.

The thing is, I might be jaded, but I’ll take that any day over terminally cute and festive, and not just at this time of year.

Mary decorates her cubicle—and her person—seasonally. I heard she actually showed up decked out as a leprechaun last Saint Patrick’s Day, and in a witch costume on Halloween. Mercifully, I wasn’t here for either of those events. I was, however, forced to participate when she organized a Thanksgiving feast last month, where we all had to bring something. I brought canned cranberry sauce. The crummy Key Food store brand kind. Mary brought pies she made from scratch using sugar pumpkins she grew on her fire escape.

It’s like she’s embraced her inner preschool teacher, corporate decorum be damned. Reportedly, upper management thinks she’s fun and boosts morale. The rest of us think she’s a pain in the ass, but the rest of us don’t count. We just have to make like pilgrims and Secret Snowflakes, and come February, she’ll probably have us all making construction paper hearts and tramping through the woods to cut down cherry trees.

The elevator stops at my floor.

“Don’t forget to sign up before you leave tonight,” Mary calls after me as I step out into the empty corridor.

I suppose I should be looking forward to the whole Secret Snowflake thing. At least somebody will be buying me Christmas presents. Not that a shrink-wrapped drugstore coffee mug filled with hard candies in shiny red wrappers can compete with boyfriend baubles.

From someone other than Will, that is—he was as stingy with his baubles as he was with his affection.

As I wave my card key in front of the sensor beside the locked glass doors leading to the floor reception area, I find myself wondering what it would be like to be showered with gifts from somebody who is head over heels in love with me.

Will I ever find out?

Wah. I want to find out. I want baubles and happily-ever-after, dammit.

“Hi, Tracey,” Lydia, the hugely pregnant receptionist, says from her desk, where she’s reading today’s Newsday. “Going to the office party?”

“Definitely. Are you?”

She laughs. “If I’m not in labor. Are you bringing a date?”

“Nope.”

Is it my imagination, or is that pity in her mascara-fringed eyes?

Look, I know I’m not supposed to go through life obsessed with finding Mr. Right. I’m not supposed to feel inadequate because I’m single; I’m not supposed to need a man.

I’m supposed to be an independent woman who can stand on her own; a woman with a promising career and cultural interests and plenty of good friends.

I’m supposed to be like Murphy Brown, Mary Richards, Elaine Benes. I’m suppose to make it after all—a hat-tossing single woman in the city, confident and savvy and solo. Or does that just happen on television sitcoms? Old, outdated television sitcoms?

As I make my way down the hall toward accounts payable, I decide there is a certain irony in the fact that I’m spending my nights watching Nick at Nite and TV Land reruns about women who actually have lives. Fulfilling lives that are too busy for endless speculation about how and when and where to meet a soul mate.

In real life, I don’t know many—okay, any—willingly single women. Everyone I know, aside from Raphael’s lesbian friends, either has a man or wants a man.

Is that so wrong?

Well, maybe I’ll meet somebody any second now. Maybe I’ll round the next corner just past the water fountain and I’ll crash into the perfect man. Maybe he’ll steady me by holding my arms just above my elbows, and we’ll look into each other’s eyes, and…

Kismet.

What? It happens.

It happens all the time.

Well, it does.

Okay, it happens all the time in Sandra Bullock movies, and sometimes it happens in real life, too.

I find myself holding my breath as I approach the corner, wondering if this is more than a fantasy—if maybe it’s a premonition.

I decide that if I round the corner and crash into a man—any man—that it’s fate. As long as he’s single and reasonably attractive.

Okay, here I go.

This could be it.

I squeeze my eyes shut and turn the corner.

Open my eyes.

Empty.

The long carpeted hallway stretches ahead, empty as my love life.

Oh, well. Deep down, I knew it would be.

Deep down, I don’t believe in kismet after all.