of the group shifted uncomfortably in their chairs. Should I quit now? I wanted to. I desperately wanted to. But the truth was I’d been putting out my feelers for months and the industry was in a lockdown. No one was hiring.
“I understand completely,” I said. With the last shred of dignity I had in my body, I looked right at her. There was a painful silence during which Roslyn and I stared at each other. No one muttered a word. William, the guy to my right, shuffled some papers. Alexa cleared her throat.
In my mind, a montage of photos from my career at Harper Frankwell flashed before me—first as an eager intern rising quickly to assistant and then account exec and so on. It seemed I was a natural at the job, and I adored it. I loved writing press releases, creatively shading words and drawing out sentences to make our clients appear more worldly or accomplished or cutting edge. I loved pitching those clients to the press, subtly hounding producers and editors until the victorious moment when they caved and agreed to cover us. It seemed right to everyone, including myself, that I was heading straight for a vice presidency. I’d been told by Jack Varner, my old boss, that it was a formality, merely a matter of months. But then Jack found God, or something approximating God, and followed that deity to California where he was now training to become an instructor of Bikram yoga. In came Roslyn and out went my thoughts of professional glory.
In the boardroom now, Roslyn and I still stared at each other. I could feel a bead of sweat collect under the waistband of my pants. I could feel the glances that the team members shot from one of us to the other.
Finally, Roslyn dropped her eyes to the pad of paper in front of her. She crossed something out, probably my future, and called the meeting to an end.
Evan waited for me outside the doorway.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said as we walked down the hall. He gave me a thump on the arm worthy of a linebacker.
In the PR world, which is populated by so many women and gay men, Evan was the token straight guy. The token straight guy who happened to have thick yellow-blond hair, mint-green eyes and dimples that creased his cheeks when he smiled. The linebacker pats were for the best, I knew. I couldn’t be tempted by someone who thought of me only as buddy material.
“Seriously, don’t listen to her bullshit,” Evan said. “Just do your normal stellar job, and maybe this will be the campaign that gets you the VP.”
“Right,” I said. I prayed he was correct. I prayed that Roslyn’s threats were really just tough love maneuvers designed to motivate me.
We reached Evan’s office, the one he got when he was named VP. The wall behind his desk was covered with an eclectic combination of Renee Magritte prints, Notre Dame football posters and framed handbills from the band, Hello Dave.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen those guys.” I pointed to a Hello Dave poster announcing a show at the Aragon.
Before Chris and I got married, Evan and I used to see Hello Dave together. We would drink way too much and dance until way too late. The music made my heart thump with happiness; it made my body feel light and free. The music seemed to separate me from myself in the most wonderful way. It made me bold enough to bat my eyes and drop some not so subtle hints, hoping Evan would make a pass. He never did. The next morning, we’d huddle around the pretzel tin in the company kitchen, deconstructing the set list, the people we’d run into, the women who’d given Evan their numbers. But then, I met Chris and my crush on Evan disappeared. Eventually, I stopped attending Hello Dave shows.
“They’ve got a gig this Saturday,” Evan said, sounding excited. “Yeah, it’s at Park West. You’ve got to come.”
“Maybe.” But I knew I wouldn’t go. My crush had returned sometime in the past year—residing back in my subconscious—and thinking about Hello Dave reminded me how hot and bothered Evan could make me. No need to torture myself, and besides, Chris and I were supposed to have dinner with my mother in Barrington.
“Oh, c’mon. For old time’s sake.” He smiled, and those dimples pleated his smooth golden skin.
“Who’re you bringing?”
“Shelly.”
“A new one?”
“Yep, and she’s hot. God, you should see her. You wouldn’t frickin’ believe how hot this girl is.” This was how Evan talked to me—again, like a fellow linebacker.
Strangely, many people in my life seemed to think I was a man, or asexual in some way. This now included Evan, and even my husband. We had gone from having sex at least twice a week prewedding to, if I was very lucky, twice a month postwedding.
“Who loves ya, girl?” Evan said as I neared the door.
I answered as usual. A listless, “You do.” Because Evan didn’t really love me, except as a close friend. That was enough, I knew logically—I was married, after all—but this little ritual often depressed me.
“You got it,” he said.
“Billy, honey, how did the new business meeting go?”
My mother knew entirely too much about my life. I’d mentioned once that such meetings usually took place on Monday mornings, and now here she was calling me, at precisely 11:00 on Monday.
“Not so great.” I put on my headset and clicked on the Internet. If I gave my mother’s daily phone calls my undivided attention, I’d never get any work done.
“What happened?” she asked. “Didn’t Roslyn like your stud finder ideas?”
Damn, had I told her about the Grenier’s campaign? That would add an extra ten minutes to this call.
“You should ask Dustin or Hadley about it,” she continued. “They probably know about those tools.”
This immediately saddened me. It was true that Dustin and Hadley knew something about hardware, but it was also true that they both avoided our mother, claiming busyness and time changes. My mom was only mentioning their names now to see if I’d spoken to them, to learn about the two daughters she didn’t know very well anymore.
“I got an e-mail from Hadley last week,” I said.
My eyes shot to the black-framed photo next to my computer monitor. In the picture, my mom and I, the short women in the family, are flanked by Dustin and Hadley, who rise over us, looking like twins. It was taken in San Francisco, right after Dustin moved there and a few months before Hadley was transferred to the London office of the investment bank she worked for. That was four years ago. I’d seen Dustin three times since then—once at her wedding, once at mine and once when I was out West for business. I’d only seen Hadley the one time at Dustin’s wedding. Hadley and her husband, Nigel, hadn’t been able to make it to mine. There was no great rift, no great drama, except for the little fact of what had happened twenty-five years ago—our father took off. None of us had seen him again. None of us had been the same since. It had wounded us each separately and we’d never been able to truly help one another. And so over time, Dustin and Hadley had drifted farther and farther away.
“What was in the e-mail?” my mother asked, her voice forlorn.
“Hadley is really crazy right now,” I said, hoping to assuage the melancholy in her voice. “The bank might be bought out, and so she’s in meetings all the time.”
