toward my head. “I gotta go,” Gen says, her voice suddenly brusque. “We’ll talk soon.”
At dinner I see Eva approach a stylish couple sitting a few tables over. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but they’re all nodding and smiling. I see Eva hand them each what looks like a business card. Eva has cards? I get up and hobble over to Ted, who’s currently sandwiched between Precious Finger and Zeitgeist. Precious Finger has ordered fries and mayo again and seems to be angling for a replay of last night’s action with Zeitgeist, but he’s having none of it and saves his lechy grin for our leggy waitress. “Eva has cards?” I whisper in Ted’s ear.
“What?”
“Eva has business cards? Did you get her cards already?”
“What are you talking about, Sara?” Maybe Ted’s the one who needs to wear a helmet and live in a house with no sharp edges. “I saw Eva giving those people cards and I wanted to know if you ordered her business cards.” I speak very, very slowly.
“They’re your cards,” he says. “She needed something with the Snap address and number so I gave her a stack of your cards so she can invite the right people to tomorrow’s roundtable.”
“Of course. The roundtable.”
“You don’t mind, do you? I’ll order her cards Monday.”
“Monday,” I repeat after Ted.
“Are you all right? You don’t look so good. Maybe you should go home and take it easy.”
“We still have the gig.”
“Eva and I can handle the gig.”
“But she’s staying at my place.”
“I can give her your spare key,” Ted says as he pulls his keys out of his briefcase that looks like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag and dangles them in front of me.
I’m hypnotized—not by the dangling but by thoughts of a bath, my bed and a pair of ugly panties. “Only if you’re sure,” I say.
As amusing as it would be to watch Precious Finger chase Zeitgeist and Big Thing chase Precious Finger and the boring ones try without success to find some semblance of rhythm at tonight’s gig, I’ve seen it before.
I didn’t hear Eva come in last night and this morning it’s my turn to wake her with coffee and Advil. She groans and reaches for her glasses. There are makeup smears on the pillowcase and she’s not wearing her flannelette granny nightie, but a tight Snap T-shirt and a lacy black thong.
“Nice shirt,” I say.
Eva covers her chest with her hands. “I found it in the Swag Shack,” she says. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not a bit. Help yourself,” I say. I’m quite sure the particular Snap shirt she’s wearing is one of the originals. There are only a few left and they’re in the locked archive room, not the Swag Shack. Then again, we did reissue them for our tenth anniversary and there’s a pile of those in the Swag Shack. I shake my head. It’s a T-shirt. I am ridiculous.
Precious Finger is the last to arrive for breakfast. Her nose is runny and she looks like she’s been crying. I want to tell her that Zeitgeist isn’t worth it, but decide not to. If I say that she’ll start bawling and then we’ll be in the bathroom and she’ll tell me about riding his skinny stub and how she’s never felt like this before and knows he feels the same, but he’s scared. He’s married, with two kids and he lives in Chicago, but it’s not impossible. They have so much in common: they both work in advertising, they both love Depeche Mode, they both eat their fries with mayonnaise. I could be brutal and tell her that Zeitgeist is a prick and he only fucked her because he was drunk and she was there, but she’ll say that I don’t know him the way she does, that I couldn’t possibly understand their connection. But she’d still want to be my friend and she’d call me and want to visit and stay at my place and talk about Zeitgeist. Sometimes it’s better to hand someone a tissue and say nothing. But I have no tissues, so I bury my face in a menu even though I already know I’m having the eggs Benedict.
I lead the tour of Snap headquarters and the Bootcampers are suitably impressed. Eva’s DOs begin to arrive for the roundtable and out of the corner of my eye I spot a girl who looks familiar: long dark hair, pretty. She’s wearing a pleated miniskirt with a fitted boy’s suit jacket that’s been tailored and carefully deconstructed. She’s wearing flat suede ankle boots and slouchy fuzzy socks. She’s a DO. I lead the Bootcampers past her and I catch a glimpse of a tiny diamond stud in her nose. The girl gives me the biggest grin. It’s Parrot Girl without her parrot. Eva has invited Parrot Girl to the roundtable. I hate Parrot Girl. I call over to Eva and ask to speak to her in my office. I usher the Bootcampers into the boardroom for what I call an informal mixer to chat with the DOs who have already arrived.
“You invited Parrot Girl to the roundtable?”
“Excuse me?”
“The fucking Parrot Girl, Eva.”
“Parrot Girl’s not here.”
“The girl in the boy’s suit jacket—that’s Parrot Girl.”
“No!”
“It’s her, Eva.”
“I saw her at the gig last night, after you left. She had a great look, and gosh, I guess I didn’t notice.” Eva’s voice is warbly. She sounds like she’s going to cry and I know I have no tissues. “Please don’t be mad, Sara. I’ll ask her to leave.”
I sigh and fall into my fuchsia velvet chair, my anger deflated. “No, that will just make it worse. We’ll do the roundtable, we’ll keep it brief, we won’t ask her any specific questions. Then before she leaves take her picture with the Polaroid—take Polaroids of all the DOs so it doesn’t look weird—and put it on your desk so you don’t forget what Parrot Girl looks like ever again. Now, I’m going to talk to Ted and fill him in.”
“Let me tell him, Sara. I’m the one who messed up, it’s my responsibility.”
“Okay, but make it quick, and don’t make him mad.”
“I promise,” Eva says and scurries off. I swivel in my chair and think about the whereabouts of Parrot Girl’s parrot. Is it home? Alone? Does Parrot Girl have a roommate? Does she live with her parents? Does she have more than one parrot—maybe different colors for her different outfits? A gaggle, a herd, a flock, a gang of parrots would be good. I could get them and bring them here. No one would notice me gone, not with Miss Eva and Mushroom-Head-Dick Ted busy fellating the Bootcampers and the Bootcampers going down on the roundtable DOs in one naked orgy of trend and style bullshit. Precious Finger would like that; maybe she could get Zeitgeist to fuck her again.
There would be plenty of time to get Parrot Girl’s gang of parrots here. I could lure them into the taxi with bits of some flavored nacho chips that I have about a trillion mini-bags of in my office that some PR company sent me last week. The chips are disgusting and my fingers are coated orange and smell like vomit after I eat them, which I frequently do simply because they’re there.
I would get the parrot gang in the taxi with the disgusting flavored nacho chips then march them into my office, right past the orgy in the glass-walled conference
