“Oh no, had to grow up sooner or later and get a real job.”
“Really? What’re you doing?”
He looked around the room cautiously and whispered, “Investment banking.”
We laughed conspiratorially.
“Can’t say that word too loudly in this place.” I smiled.
What the hell had I been thinking? I dropped sweet sincere James for Nick the Dick? I could feel my heart racing. It was fate—it must be. Nick was clearly the “temp,” a harmless distraction until I was ready for James, otherwise known as “The One.” Suddenly the chaos of my life made perfect, divine, joyous sense. We chatted some more—such a subtle, sophisticated sense of humor he had! And those sparkling brown eyes!
We would live in SoHo, no scratch that—the West Village, far west, near the Hudson. In a charming little town house with red shutters, a spiral staircase, and a beautiful garden in the back where I would grow herbs and James would barbecue. We’d take our time decorating the place together. There would be weekend trips to Vermont for antiquing, dinners at Tartine around the corner, summers at our beach house in Bellport (still fabulous, but not so “sceney”). After all, we were low-key, with an elegant understated sense of style. Definitely not one of those plastic Upper East Side couples dripping designer labels and angling for a Patrick McMullen shot in Hamptons magazine. No, James and I would be—
“Lena?” James was talking to me. For God’s sake, I thought to myself, pay attention to the conversation or he’s going to think you’re totally spacey!
“Yes?” I said brightly.
“I want to introduce you to Madeleine.”
Madeleine? My perfect Village town house had just been invaded by a willowy redhead with a Fendi bag. Home wrecker.
“Great to meet you, Lena.” She slipped her hand around James’s shoulder, and smiled at me warmly. Well, of course she was happy—she was dating my husband!
“Hey, I love your skirt,” Madeleine said, as if she actually meant it. The sincerity of these two was really beginning to annoy me.
“Madeleine’s a fashion designer. She just opened a shop on Crosby Street.” Was he actually beaming with pride? It was beginning to make sense to me now—James had found “The One,” a discovery that had left him so giddy that he had enough leftover glee to happily embrace any former flames with nothing but goodwill.
“Yeah,” Madeleine said. “You should stop by sometime.”
“Oh definitely,” I said between gritted teeth. This needed to end—now. I found myself getting out of my chair and, I’m sure, overexplaining how I really would love to chat more, but had to get home and…stick my head in the oven.
I elbowed my way through the crowd, searching for the sweet relief of an exit.
Once outside, I hailed a cab and headed home, mentally licking my wounds. Another night, another chance lost, I continued to pity myself. The city had won its hand.
The next morning, I had a ten-o’clock “progress meeting” with Nadine about the Sienna Skye segment. When I got to the conference room, however, I was surprised to find her already seated, chatting away with Chase Bolton.
Chase, or “Cheese,” Bolton as he was more widely known, was a self-styled media mogul in waiting, a runt Rupert Murdoch if you will, who was biding his time answering phones for a VP until he had snagged his rightful corner office. Cheese had been my intern the previous summer, but after just one week of memorizing my Rolodex and vigilantly working his smarmy way up the ass of half the higher-ups, he had been whisked off to become an assistant in the executive suite.
“Hello, Lena,” Nadine said, clearly disappointed that I had interrupted their conversation. Cheese gave me a cocky half smile and eyebrow-raise—a look that I’m sure he had rehearsed repeatedly in his bathroom mirror.
“Okay, so back to work,” Nadine said, but of course offered no explanation as to why Chase was present. She looked at me briefly and then at Cheese, letting her gaze linger. He gave her his best half smile, but with a wink this time.
Oh…my…God. Were they flirting? The very idea made me sick to my stomach. Was Nadine attracted to sleazy Cheese? Sure, Nadine and I had our issues, but as a human being, as a woman, I wanted to grab her by her Claire’s Boutique earrings and shake some sense into her—he’s practically twelve years old! His feet barely graze the floor when he sits down! He wears his sweaters tucked in with pleated pants! He listens to Tony Robbins tapes! Don’t do this!
“So,” Nadine chirped in her blissful delusion. “The Skye segment is coming along pretty well….” I relaxed a little, sensing that at least this wasn’t going to be one of her hour-long bitch sessions.
“And there’s been a really interesting development.” She paused dramatically. Nadine loved to pause dramatically.
“Sienna has agreed to let us film her—” another pause, and then in one breath “—while she shops for her People’s Choice Awards dress.” Nadine leaned back as if the weight of her announcement had left her exhausted. Cheese slammed his hand on his knee, in the most masculine form of giddy approval that he could muster.
I spoke up just to pierce their shared bubble of joy. “Great, so I’ll start rewriting the lead and I’ll notify the crew for the shoot.”
Nadine turned to me with her silly grin still pasted on her face. “Oh, Lena actually there’s been a slight change in the lineup.” She loved to use sports talk. She thought it made her sassy.
I knew it. She was going to pawn off sleazy Cheese on me to help with the segment, so she could indulge her latent schoolgirl hang-ups. I started to formulate my diplomatic yet inarguable defense as to why this could never ever happen. And then…
“I’m putting Chase in the producer spot for the second half of the Skye segment.” She shared a look with Cheese. I think the word “nausea” would have best summed up my feelings at this point.
“Nadine,” I tried, in vain, to sound composed. “I’ve spent the last two months on this story and I really think it’s best if I see it through.” I was appalled at my sudden inability to argue and humiliated by the dawning realization that I was now groveling for permission to continue work on a Sienna Skye profile. This had to be some kind of professional nadir.
“Lena, it’s part of my job to match my staff to their strengths and…” She glanced at the ceiling searching for just the right inflated language to explicate her lofty sense of professional mandate. She continued, “While you can be quite the worker bee, you’re more of a serious Sally and this segment needs someone with the right…” Eyes to ceiling, searching, searching…
“Je ne sais pas!” Cheese exclaimed, now perched on the edge of his seat.
“Yes!” Nadine exhaled with a postcoitalesque finality.
“Quoi,” I seethed.
“What?” Nadine asked, distracted. Her eyes were still locked on her little lover.
“Quoi! It’s Je ne sais QUOI!”
The
