I say. Like that explains anything. I think I may be retarded today, but I know enough to know I can’t say that because this isn’t junior high when Ted and I called everything gay and retarded and we called each other gaylord and retard. You can’t say that unless you created South Park and you’re saying it through those animated kids that are surprisingly still funny, because you never know who’s gay or has a retard in their family.
Pleased with my self-censoring restraint, I walk Eva to the Swag Shack. It’s the Swag Shack because that’s what’s burned into the plank of wood above the door. It’s a room, the office Ted and I were going to give to the fancy financial executive we never got around to hiring. Instead, we beefed up our in-house accounting staff and none of them are fancy enough for an office. But we may have to rethink this because they keep complaining about the chaos and the noise and someone quits what seems like every second day, but is actually more like every five months according to Ted, and Ted would know because they report to him.
The Swag Shack is jammed with racks and shelves. There’s free stuff everywhere. I let Eva loose and tell her to grab what she wants and come back to my office when she’s done. I think she’s going to freak—her eyes are all buggy and glazed, her mouth twisted in wonder. I’ve seen this look before—on girls the first time they enter the Swag Shack, on guys who are fucking me right before they come and on drummers, particularly the ones who are good.
“Sara, oh, my goodness! I don’t know where to start,” Eva says. She hugs me and I pat her shoulder. “Thank you!”
“Take as long as you want,” I say and lope back to my office.
My eyes swim across the page. I’m in the boardroom proofing with Ted and our art director, Brian. My head is throbbing and I’m out of Advil. I’m sticky and sweaty and if there was ever any doubt earlier in the day that I was toxic and stinky, it’s gone. I want to crawl under the giant kidney-shaped table, but it’s glass-tinted, completely see-through—and people will notice. I force myself to read each word, take in every photo cutline, check the folio at the bottom of the pages. I find a missing word and I’m very proud.
I get to the DOs and DON’Ts page and there’s Parrot Girl, looking disaffected, slouchy and numb. It’s not too late to move her to a DO, but I don’t because that will just make me feel more toxic and retarded. I sign off on the issue, as do Ted and Brian, who scrams at once, pressed to make the final changes before deadline. My work here is done and all I can think about is my bed.
“Who’s the redhead?” Ted asks as we’re clearing off the boardroom table.
“What?”
“Her.” Ted points to Eva, who is sitting in my office. It’s nearly four. I’ve forgotten all about her. I am retarded today and an asshole and a very poor host.
“That’s Eva.” Ted follows me out of the boardroom and to my office where I introduce him to her. She’s changed into a pair of skinny madras plaid golf pants that I’m quite sure are men’s, and a purple blouse with a fussy bow at the neck. She’s pinned a gaudy rhinestone brooch in the shape of a lizard above her left breast. Scrunched up knee-highs peek out of her orthopedic shoes. She’s a DO and I can tell Ted knows it, too.
“Eva, I’m so, so sorry for leaving you this long. You should have just grabbed me from the boardroom.”
“Please don’t worry about me, Sara. I’ve kept myself busy. As a matter of fact, I just finished.” Eva bites her lower lip and casts her eyes down. “I hope you guys won’t be mad, but I kind of did something.”
Jesus. This can’t be good. What’d she do? Break something? Wreck something? Spill something on my velvet chair? This must be what Genevieve means when she says she can’t let baby Olivier out of her sight for a second.
“Come here,” Eva says. She brushes past Ted and he smiles in that goofy way that all men do when an attractive girl touches them by accident. I notice Ted adjust his pants as he follows Eva out. It’s subtle and Ted’s no perv, but still. I flash on Ted with a hard-on when we were seventeen, his purple penis and its big mushroom head. I’m dizzy and nauseous. I haven’t eaten since this morning and the picture of Ted’s mushroom-head dick isn’t helping. He was a virgin. I wasn’t. We were drunk. He actually begged, so we fucked and we never talked about it again. I wonder if Genevieve knows, but I doubt it because she tells me all about sex with Ted—at least she did until the baby—and I figure if she knew she probably wouldn’t tell me so much. As I walk behind Ted, who’s walking behind Eva, I contemplate which is worse: hearing from Gen about how turned on she gets sucking Ted’s cock when I know that it’s a weird mushroom-head cock or hearing Gen describe how Olivier peed in her face when she was changing him and about how baby balls disappear up inside their little baby-boy bodies and how babies get teeny-tiny erections. I wonder if Olivier has a mini mushroom-head penis like his dad. Incarcerate me in a giant garbage pail under the boardroom table and slap me around. Put me out of my misery, I’m a fucked-up sicko.
“Surprise!” Eva swings open the door to the Swag Shack and I’m agog. It’s clean, orderly. The body and beauty products are grouped together. The men’s and women’s wear have been separated and, from what I can tell, organized according to style and color. Gadgets and toys have assigned spaces. CDs and books are alphabetized. I am speechless.
“Who are you and what have you done with the Swag Shack? “ Ted says, shaking Eva by the shoulders. He can be such a cheese sometimes.
Eva blushes. “I hope you don’t mind. It just seemed like it would be so hard to find anything in here. I wanted to make it easier for you.”
I love her. I think I could, as my mother used to say, go gay. My mother didn’t believe a person could be born gay, but she didn’t think anyone would choose to be gay, either. Hence, her go gay theory. Much like being struck by a random bolt of lightning, she believed someone could be walking down the street and—poof! — they’d just go gay and that would be that. This could be somewhat embarrassing when I’d have my gay friends over and my mother would insist on asking them about their personal going-gay experience, but it was better than her being a bigoty homophobe like Ted’s nightmare all-Bible, all-the-time Catholic parents. I could totally go gay for Eva right now, but the sex would be trouble. I’d still have to have sex with men without bulbous mushroom-head penises. So maybe gay isn’t the best option for Eva and me. Maybe I’ll make her my assistant.
I’ve never had an assistant. Watching Ted burn through new assistants like Jack goes through his revolting protein bars has made me wary of both. The point of having an assistant as far as I can tell is to help you, but assistants from what I’ve seen are snaky whiners who spend more time trying to write some pathetic roman à clef than actually helping the bosses whom they so obviously hate. Eva doesn’t hate me. Eva loves me. And Eva’s smart and cute and she cleaned the Swag Shack.
Eva is my new assistant. It’s Tuesday morning and she’s at her desk tap-tapping away on her computer. She brought Fairmount bagels so everyone loves her already, except for one of the IT guys who’s allergic to wheat and gluten and sugar and everything else good. It’s a miracle he hasn’t killed himself.
I’m feeling much better, clean almost. I washed my hair this morning and my resolve to quit smoking is strong. Day one was a breeze—I couldn’t face a cigarette yesterday—and when I told Jack on the phone last night that I was done, he was pleased. He says I snore when I smoke too much. He smokes. He snores. I don’t make a big thing of it. Jack can really piss me off sometimes.
But Eva is perfect. We’re going out tonight to celebrate her new job at a new restaurant that has
