“I know, Mom, I will. Love you. Bye now.”
“Bye, baby doll. And don’t forget to talk to that therapist about work, too. I think you’re angry.”
My mother was right. I did have some anger socked away. It had started small, somewhere in my rib cage. I’d trapped it there for a while, ignoring that tiny but festering wound, because I didn’t want to be one of those people who hadn’t a single good thing to say about their life. Yet that pocket of anger had grown over the past few years, despite my best intentions. I expected certain rewards from my life, I had worked to achieve certain milestones, and yet I’d missed the meeting when recognition and happiness were passed out.
The vice presidency was one issue. I’d earned it.
My mother was another. I loved the woman so much. She had raised three girls on her own, for years taking in stride the ridicule of a small Illinois town that gleefully watched as her rich husband escaped to the glitz of the west coast; a town that somehow enjoyed the carnage my father left in his wake. Much later, she finally moved to another suburb and found some peace with Jan, but he’d suffered a stroke while standing at the barbeque on a warm September day. Now she was alone again. Alone, and way too invested in my life. She needed one of her own.
On the other end of the parental spectrum was my father. I’d never gotten over him leaving. At seven, I was the youngest, and for some reason I’d always assumed it was his disappointment in me that had pushed him to flee. I wanted desperately to get over that notion. To be done with him.
My husband was the remaining piece of the anger puzzle. My clichéd attempts at seduction were too painful to recount—feel free to insert stereotypical woman wearing lingerie waiting with cold dinner image—and so I’d given up trying to entice him, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. With us. With me. We were roommates now. Roommates who occasionally, very occasionally, scratched an itch.
When I was in one of these black moods, there were two things that would help—throwing myself into work or hitting a bar and seeing some good, loud live music. The Hello Dave show was coming up, but Chris didn’t like seeing bands as much as I did, and we’d committed long ago to visiting my mom. I hated to disappoint her. So work would have to be it.
I went and spoke to Roslyn about my press release. When I came back, I opened the computer file that read Odette Lamden. Odette was a local chef who occasionally went on the news shows as their cooking expert. Odette’s restaurant, Comfort Food, was one of my favorites, because it served just that—comfort food, stuff like mac and cheese (with four cheeses), overly buttered mashed potatoes, bread pudding, gooey with caramel, and fudge sundaes as big as your head. I’d met Odette on a TV set one day when I’d gone to visit a publicist who’d enlisted us to handle extra work. Two days later, Odette hired me, or I should say hired Harper Frankwell, to publicize her cookbook, also called Comfort Food. Her own publisher had done little to promote it, and she wanted to get the word out there. It was the type of client I loved—someone who needed help with a product I truly liked.
But Roslyn had been less than thrilled. “It’s not even ten thousand dollars worth of work,” she’d said, scrunching her mouth disapprovingly. This was Roslyn’s main complaint with me, and why she asserted I wasn’t ready for a vice presidency—I wasn’t pulling in any big fish, and I was wasting the firm’s time on the small stuff. “It could turn into something big,” I said.
“Doubtful,” Roslyn answered.
“I think we owe it to the community to help certain people once in a while. People who can’t afford big campaigns.”
“We owe it to this company to make money, don’t we?” Roslyn looked down at her desk, my cue to leave.
I understood her protests, but I believed in the smaller clients I brought in. There was something rewarding about helping shed a little media light on products and people you believed in. And Odette and I had such fun working on her cookbook. I’d stop by the restaurant after she closed early on Sunday nights, and we’d huddle in her colorful office, eating leftovers and brainstorming about how to get her on Oprah. Odette, a forty-five-year-old black woman, whose family originally hailed from New Orleans, had become a friend as well as a client during this process. I wanted to get her book the best possible PR, no matter what Roslyn said.
But I wouldn’t think about Roslyn now. I wanted to work on a press release for Comfort Food, one that would land Odette interviews with newspapers and spots on radio shows. I started writing. Sick of the Atkins Diet? How about the South Beach Diet? Tired of eating boiled chicken breasts and dressing-less salad? Renowned Chicago chef, Odette Lambden, owner of the acclaimed restaurant, Comfort Food, introduces a cookbook to soothe us all.
Once I’d begun, I barely noticed the beige walls of my cubicle that had seemed tighter and more constricting lately. I ignored the ring of my phone, the beep from the bottom of the computer announcing an instant message. Instead, I tapped away at the keyboard, waxing poetic about Odette’s book. I reread sentences, mulled over words and dialed up certain sections. This was what I loved about my job—generating excitement about a product or person, the imaginative use of words to reflect a given tone. The ability to create.
I was just rereading the press release for grammatical errors, feeling pleased with myself, content with my job, when Alexa appeared, leaning on the frame of my cube.
“Hey, Billy,” she said. Alexa always said, “hey,” never “hello” or “hi.” She looked like a prep school princess, but she didn’t always talk like one.
Alexa was one of those timeless women who could have passed for any age between twenty and thirty. Although I assumed she was twenty-seven or so, about five years younger than me, she possessed a haughtiness and a coolness that made her seem older. I supposed it was this confidence that had swept Alexa through the ranks at Harper Frankwell; unfortunately, with her cutthroat attitude and with her nipping on my heels, I couldn’t appreciate it. My fear was that she would make vice president before I did, causing me to die of shame and jealousy.
My contented mood waned. “Hey,” I said back, drawing out the word.
Alexa gave me her patented you-are-such-a-fool smirk. “What are you going to do about the stud finder headlines?”
“What am I going to do?” This was a team project, after all, and she was on the damned team.
“Well, Roslyn seemed to want you to handle it, so I just want to respect that and ask you where you’re going to start.” She smirked again.
“It’s supposed to be a team thing, Alexa. And let’s make sure we take credit for our work, okay?”
I usually got along great with other women, but since the day Alexa had started, wearing her black cashmere twinsets and high, patent leather pumps, she had irked me. Her arrogant condescension got old quick. I’d tried to show her who was boss, so to speak, but I wasn’t really her boss—just ahead of her in the food chain—and Alexa couldn’t be shamed into submission. If anything the pressure made her more confident. If I had liked her even a little, I might have grudgingly approved of her don’t-mess-with-me attitude.
“Oh, I’m not suggesting that you handle this project on your own,” she said, laughing a little. “God, no.”
See what I mean?
“What then?” I said, my voice flattening.
“Well…” She trailed off and crossed her arms. She was wearing the sleeveless part of one of her usual black cashmere twinsets. Since it was May, the cardigan would be thrown over her chair, waiting for the moment when the booming air-conditioning system kicked in, but meanwhile her movements showed off lean, sculpted arms. Alexa and I were around the same height—five-four—and we were both relatively thin, but her body was more toned, her skin more smooth, her black hair as shiny and pencil straight as my sisters’.
“I know this project is important for you, Billy,” she said, the condescension as thick as fog.
I