Bigger (The Nicky Beets series) (10 page)

We gossiped in hushed tones about what our boss might be up to,
particularly when it was apparent more than half an hour later that neither
Brad nor Robin had simply gone to the restroom.

When we’d exhausted that topic, I quizzed Roxanne about Carl. After all,
Carl was tall and handsome, with an athletic build.

“You could just make like Robin and get hammered and sleep with him,” I
giggled while sipping red wine.

“It’s unfortunate, actually,” Rox decided. “He’s a really good looking
guy, but it’s like the minute he opens his mouth I want to punch him in it.”

“So wear earplugs! Or tape his mouth shut!” I joked.

“Much as I need to get laid, even I won’t stoop that low. I
do
have standards, you slut,” she said
facetiously. “Besides, we work in the same office. Hello, awkward much?”

“Seriously,” I agreed. “Imagine Robin and Brad next week. Holy
shitballs.”

The rest of the evening was largely uneventful, although fueled with much
alcohol. At dinner, we enjoyed filet mignon with standard banquet fare –
vegetables, mashed potatoes, rolls, salad. I let myself eat and drink as much
as I wanted. Then, the lights were dimmed and most of the employees gathered on
the dance floor while a DJ played pop music and stuff you usually hear at
weddings -- “YMCA” and “The Macarena.” Chuck even danced with me during a
couple of the slow songs – he has a mortal fear of being seen dancing to
fast songs.

Mostly, we entertained ourselves by watching my drunk colleagues dance
together, and I slowly savored a piece of flourless chocolate cake and a glass
of Moet Chandon. Just as Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” started playing, I saw
Robin walk through the double-doored entrance to the hall. Her hair was
slightly mussed and she had a glazed, slow look on her face. She paused to take
in the scene, then hooked her thumbs into the low neckline of her strapless
dress and hiked it a little higher over her bosom. Then she walked carefully in
her red stilettos toward the bar for another drink I was pretty sure she didn’t
need. Roxanne and I exchanged raised-eyebrow looks.

Perhaps a minute later, Brad walked through the doors with his hands in
his pockets. His tuxedo tie was undone and the top two buttons of his shirt
were open. Spying his male cronies, he swerved to their table and sat down to
much back-thumping and uproarious laughter. Soon, Brad’s table was tossing back
shots of tequila. Once sufficiently inebriated, Brad and most of his friends
headed toward the exit, probably to a strip club, if I’d learned anything about
the men in my office in the last three years. I looked around for Robin but
didn’t see her.

As the evening wound down, Chuck and I said goodbye to Roxanne and
wandered drunkenly to our room, where we stripped out of our uncomfortable dress
clothes. Wearing only boxer shorts, Chuck fell gratefully onto the soft down
duvet covering the bed, and not thirty seconds later he was snoring softly. I
ran a hot bath in the gleaming marble bathroom’s soaker tub and groaned in pain
and pleasure as I submerged my aching feet into the basin.

My head still buzzing with champagne, I lounged in the warm water with my
eyes closed and reflected on the evening. It’d been ages since I’d felt as
attractive as I had that night. I shook my head at the thought of Carl not
remembering me at all, and smiled when remembering Chuck’s chivalrous reaction
to the way boneheaded Carl had been disrespectful to me at the office. Chuck
had looked so handsome that night in his tuxedo. I’d seen a few women checking
him out approvingly. When I caught them looking, they’d half-smile and turn
away. I could only speculate about what they thought of him and me as a couple,
but even the thought of their gossip couldn’t bring down my mood. Yes, I was a
large woman. But my body was changing, and would continue doing so until I was
back where I’d been, happily wearing my size eight jeans. Thankfully, my man
loved me even in my fat jeans. Other women could try to come between us, but
they’d never succeed.

The Monday morning following the party arrived too soon, and plenty of us
were yawning on our way into the office. I wore my pinstriped pants, which were
now fitting me the way they should, rather than in the hip-hugging,
whiskered-crotched way pants fit a person who is wearing trousers that are too
small for her; the way they had during my infamous television debut. I topped
the pants with a black v-neck sweater and a soft turquoise scarf. I’d put on a
little makeup and taken the time to run some styling cream through my curls so
my hair wouldn’t frizz into a pom-pom the moment the San Francisco fog touched
it. It was a good first baby-step to improving my professional image at the
office, even though I was still wearing my trusty flat shoes, which were
thick-soled and admittedly ugly.

I’d arrived on time, gym bag and healthy lunch in tow, and was sitting at
my desk checking e-mails when I heard papers rustling from Robin’s office. The
lights in her office weren’t on but some natural light was coming in through
the blinds covering the floor-to-ceiling window. I got up to investigate,
poking my head around the doorframe to peer in.

Robin sat hunched over a document, highlighter clenched in one hand. She
was wearing a green blazer with shoulder pads that were almost touching her
ears because of the way she was leaning over her desk. She was vigorously
editing a document with a highlighter and didn’t notice me right away.

I knocked on the doorframe. “Good morning.”

She looked up, surprised. Her hair was pinned into a chignon and she’d
chosen a dark purple lipstick that day.

“Oh, hi Nicole,” she said, then looked back down and ran her highlighter
over a word four times. I could see she intended to ignore me, which was
strange behavior for her on a Monday morning. Typically she enjoyed relating
the events of her weekend at length, and at high volume so no one missed out. I
guessed she was trying to avoid having to tell me about her shenanigans at the
company Christmas party, but I wasn’t about to let her off the hook so easily.

“Have fun at the party?” I asked.

Robin’s highlighter paused mid-stroke and she looked up at me without
moving her head. The expression on her face looked to be a mix of regret and
glee, if such a thing were possible.

“Yeah!” she said coyly. “Did you?”

“I did, indeed,” I answered, raising my eyebrows questioningly. “Anything
you’d care to share?”

Robin threw her head back and released her trademark resonant cackle. “I
guess it was kind of obvious.”

“Just a little!” I joked.

She shook her head with a rueful grin. “That was pretty much a huge
mistake.”

I didn’t answer immediately, but cocked my head inquiringly. Robin had
been pursuing Brad tirelessly for months, amid protests from myself and
Roxanne, who’d reminded her repeatedly that not only was he married; he also
had the personality of a bag of hammers.

“So you finally got him in your evil clutches, and now you’re telling me
it was a huge mistake? I’ve been trying to tell you that for months!” I
exclaimed.

“I know!” Robin threw her hands up. “You were right. He’s simply awful,
in every conceivable way.”

“Oh, God.” I had a feeling I was about to receive more information than I
probably wanted. I hurriedly shut the door behind me to prevent anyone else
from hearing what she was about to say.

“I mean, for starters, he’s awful in bed. Truly the worst I’ve ever had.
It’d be one thing if he had something to work with, but he got the short end of
the stick on that one, if you get my meaning,” she explained.

“Or you got the short end,” I laughed; I couldn’t help myself. Robin
cackled in answer. “Exactly!”

She went on to explain that following a decidedly unsatisfactory romp
under the sheets in the room Brad had secured for the evening, she’d agreed to
meet him later on in the ballroom – where the company party was being
held. This must have been the point at which I saw her stumble back into the
room, tugging her tiny dress into place. But Brad, upon returning to the party,
had joined up with his raucously drunk group of male friends for his attaboys
and slaps on the back, which I’d also witnessed. Around this point in the
evening, Brad & Co. had departed to continue their debauchery at a local
strip club. Robin, disgusted, caught a cab home. She hadn’t spoken with Brad
since, and said she didn’t care if she never did.

“And you know, to make matters worse, he
is
married,” she said. “I know you’ve said it a thousand times, but
I just had this … seriously misguided infatuation. I thought we were going to
fall in love like some kind of goddamned rom-com. Now I’m just some slut who
slept with a married guy with a small dick. What would even possess me to do
that, when my husband did the same thing to me?”

I was shaking my head. “Maybe in some way you felt like you were getting
back at him,” I suggested. She shrugged and shook her head.

 
I left Robin’s office
shortly after that, shutting the door behind me. Office gossip would be through
the roof today, and she was going to try to avoid the worst of it.

Roxanne was sitting at her desk, slowly applying lip gloss, when I returned
to my cubicle.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I was just talking with Robin about the company party,” I waggled my
eyebrows conspiratorially.

“Oooh, do tell,” she said.

“Well, it would seem that Brad is about as good in bed as we’d expect him
to be,” I explained, holding up my pinky finger and wiggling it for effect.
“Not to mention that afterward he ditched out on her and went to a strip club
with a bunch of the guys.”

“Why am I not surprised? He’s so predictable,” Rox rolled her eyes. “And
what about the fact that he’s
married
?”

“Well, yeah. That, too. She’s suddenly had an epiphany about the error of
her ways,” I said.

As we continued to gossip in whispered voices, none other than Brad
himself strode toward us and stopped near our cubicles. “Hey … good morning,”
he said. “I’m looking for Robin. Is she in?”

Rox looked at me wide-eyed. “She’s on a conference call,” I explained to
him. “Want me to have her find you when she’s done?”

“Um, no,” he shook his head. “I’ll catch up with her later.”

Rox made the universal hand motion for “gag me” as Brad turned and strode
back to his office. I stifled a laugh and dialed Robin’s extension.

“Brad’s looking for you,” I whispered into my handset.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said. “I’m in meetings all day if he asks.”

“Got it,” I replied.

I managed to deflect Brad for the rest of the day whenever he shuffled by
with what I’d come to think of as his trademark vapid facial expression –
his eyes devoid of emotion and his mouth hanging open slightly. Rox
disdainfully referred to him as “Mouth Breather” behind his back.

And Rox managed to deflect a couple of advances from Carl, who sidled up
to her desk a couple of times under the pretense of making small talk. She
greeted him with what I thought of as her dead-face expression – she slackens
all of the muscles in her face to ensure the person she’s speaking with knows
they bore her and should walk away,
tout
de suite
.

Carl was finally getting the picture after his second attempt at
chit-chat, and was turning to leave when he seemed to remember something.

“Oh!” he exclaimed. “How’s Robin doing?”

“Fine?” Roxanne replied suspiciously.

“Cool. That’s good. She was looking
fine
at the Christmas party. Tell her I said so, would you?”

What was this place becoming, an escort service? Carl turned, winked at
Rox over his shoulder, and left us frowning in bewilderment at his perfect butt
as he walked away.

Over the next two weeks, when I wasn’t working, I was frantically
ordering last-minute Christmas gifts off the Internet. Packages poured into the
office and I schlepped them the couple blocks to my car in the evenings,
storing them in the trunk while I went for run-walks at the junior high school track
or, alternately, sweat my ass off at yoga with Rox. There was definitely a
harried feeling in the air as everyone tried to complete their Christmas
shopping and not go insane at the same time – something I usually found
nearly impossible. Attendance in yoga was down, and fewer runners and walkers
were at the track in the evenings. They were probably busy or just avoiding the
weather. I’d vowed not use rain as an excuse and had found myself in the middle
of a few downpours, soaked to the bone.

When I arrived home in the evenings, I still had to throw together a
healthy meal for me and Chuck. Then there was cleanup, blogging, and finally
I’d manage to wrap a few gifts before falling into bed and slipping into a deep
dreamless sleep, exhausted. When I opened my eyes the next morning I felt as
though I’d laid my head on the pillow only seconds before.

Chuck was planning to fly out to Texas on Christmas Eve to spend the
holiday with his mom, and my plans were to meet my mom and Jim on Christmas Day
for what would hopefully be a short, sweet and painless gathering. We’d wanted to
celebrate the holidays together – I offered to go to Texas with him and
invited him to my mom’s house, but the suggestion seemed to perplex Chuck.
Like, why would we do that? We aren’t married. I chocked it up to more of his
dead-dad angst and decided to let it be, even though my feelings were hurt.

I dropped Chuck off at the airport so early it was still dark, and drove
the near-empty roads back home in complete silence. The pre-dawn hours on our
freeways were a special place to be on holidays, if you were used to only ever
creeping along at a snail’s pace. The white noise of my tires lulled me into a
trance as I drove back to the townhouse.