Diary of a Working Girl (19 page)

I know this is the most childish of games we play with ourselves, but the idea of a man being jealous of another fictional man who might be showering you with fictional attention is the most fabulous idea. And even though there will be no sending of anyone on anyone else’s way, the idea that he even thinks to say this allows me to put myself under the sort of mental manipulation that I will dissect through telephone conversations for weeks to come, whereby this statement must obviously mean he wants to be exclusive with me. I’ll have Joanne in a constant state of stage two non-listening in no time.

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And as we start walking back to my apartment, I relax a bit, because I’ve just bought at least another twenty minutes of fantasy time.

Well, I’m sure here you’re wondering what happens next.

Will she be a diva and just go for it?

Is the combination of multicolored cocktail consumption and the temptation of a breathtaking British man—who has basically just had sex via chocolate with yours truly, understands bad dating show jokes on the first try,
and
boasts the nearly nonexistent duo of claw-foot tub ownership and Cocoa Pebbles addiction (aw!), and apparently surgeon-worthy quickness of hand (as evidenced by cocktail jungle manipulation)—going to send her straight on to what the birds and bees have been whispering into her ear all evening, as was her Mr. Right Now mission anyway?

Or is this hopeless romantic, well, hopeless, and saving herself for a possible future Liam encounter, despite the fact that she knows someone like Liam will just further complicate her current predicament?

I

As I lie here in bed,wearing nothing but the blankets around me, all warm and tingly, smiling from ear to ear, I’ll tell you what you’re dying to know.

The best thing about our walk is that we barely spoke at all. He was holding my hand and lightly tracing his thumb back and forth across the back of mine, and that very block that I’d walked along a million times before seemed shiny and new and brilliant (“When did they plant those baby trees?” and “Isn’t that coffee shop with the cane chairs just the
cutest
?”) Every building was magnificent and regal; every light took on a warm glow.

Cars must have passed, but I had no recognition of them at all.

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Even as I recount now, I see empty, carless streets—a scene whose every yellow painted line, whose every awning, lamppost, and NO

PARKING sign existed solely for our benefit. Normally, I’d find silence a bad thing and make a fool of myself, attempting to fill the void with useless chitchat surrounding meaningless topics. (Why don’t they make crustless bread if that’s the posh way to eat sandwiches? is one I keep for such occasions.) But this was infinitely nicer. If a camera was following us, it would doubtless have stopped at our feet, which were perfectly in step, and then lingered up by our hands, which were so warm and probably emitting a halo of green light—a manifestation of feeling, and then zeroing in, finally, at the space between us, which was getting smaller and smaller as we continued south.

When our stride was interrupted at the northern corner of Union Square by a red streetlight, we slowly turned our heads toward each other. He looked at me, smiling without actually moving his mouth at all and then, as of their own accord, his lids slowly descended, snuggling his beautiful eyes beneath feathery skin and lashes. That rarely achieved, age-sixteen-potency wave of warmth and chill overtook me, starting at my chest and moving slowly down. And he moved his face close to mine. First, his lips hovered just millimeters away. I could feel them, soft curves and moist warmth, although he hadn’t yet allowed them to actually touch my own. His breath was audible—such a strikingly personal sound—

and I could feel my back, lungs already shaking in anticipation. Soft as a feather floating to the ground, finally we touched in an explo-sion of Magic Kingdom proportions. Neither moved for what couldn’t possibly have been less than twenty-seven years.

When I was sure I would tumble down, right there at the corner, our lips parted and, ravenously, we searched inside each other’s 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:05 AM Page 145

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mouths, while his hands made their way at once around the back of my neck, on my cheek apples, at the lengths of my hair.

Although his collection of Park Avenue ladies probably hadn’t prepared him for such forwardness, I just couldn’t help myself from at least feeling, if only over the pants, that stellar ass I’d been doo-dling on all available paper scraps all day. (“What could you possibly need all of these for?” John asked when I’d inquired after an extra notepad for the third time.) Liam’s butt was like one piece of Godiva chocolate daring me from a plate within arm’s length for hours—I had to have it. I felt him smile mid-kiss in acknowledg-ment, so I gather it was just fine by him.

The light switched from green to red and back again ten, maybe twenty times.

WALK. DON’T WALK. WALK. DON’T WALK.

We didn’t care.

A solitary honk.

Again, we didn’t care.

When we parted and lips and tongues reluctantly returned to rightful owners, he lingered for a moment, his lids still low, as if his mind couldn’t quite let go just then.

I was a
femme fatale dangereuse
. Ahhh. The power in my left pinky alone could transform a man into a pillar of salt. Now that was something.

And when finally, his sparkly blue eyes were revealed, he whispered, “Woah. You are amazing, Lane. I could stand here and do this forever. Breathtaking.”

I really couldn’t have imagined it better myself.

For once, I was glad my building had no doorman, because the things we managed to do standing upright in front of 555 West Thirteenth Street would surely have been grounds for eviction.

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Who knows how long we would have been at it if Mrs. Kramer from the third floor hadn’t returned from walking her Chihuahua and let out a big “Ahem!” to prompt us to move out of the way.

So
. . . if I were a Girl Scout, and they had a patch for self-control, I would have used a big plastic safety needle to sew mine on proudly. Saying good-bye at my door after we’d gotten the pan all warmed up like that was one difficult feat, let me tell you. But, since I am not a Girl Scout, and I am not supposed to be liking Liam this much, and should not, by all rights, be smiling this much in my bed, fantasizing about the butt under the pants of a man who does not work at my company and is not allowed to be my M&M, I, for one brief second, taste regret. I should have just gone for it.

Any girl in her right mind would have gotten it over with. Out of the way. Just cleared the path to achieve the real goals.

But then the dreamy effects of the cocktails. The wonderful movie of memories I get to play in my mind. Common sense is, once again, a quality lost on me.

I

Executive assistant-y duties are becoming second nature to me by the following week. I’m finding my way through the ins and outs. It turns out Seth is a wonder at converting currencies, and even though I have pushed our date off for next week, I somehow still manage to delegate this responsibility to him. In just one hour he brings the sheets back to me at our established meeting place—

the copy room—and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m so efficient! (.) Tiffany and I have lunched more than once, and although we work not twenty feet from each other, we mainly communicate through instant messages, talking about this one and that one—I absolutely love office gossip! Who knew I’d been missing out on such a precious pastime for so long? And John, sweet as he is, is a bit 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:05 AM Page 147

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of a gossipmonger himself. I’m not sure what his motivation is, but he’s taken to e-mailing me all sorts of links of wild animals on the Internet and writing the words: “Tom’s Boar,” “Tom’s Tarantula,”

“Tom’s Barracuda” to identify a boar, a tarantula, even a barracuda who happens to remind him of our boss’s girlfriend. I feel badly for Tom, since he’s so nice and all, but I can’t help thinking there must be some redeeming quality in her if he is in love with her.

How important is a bad haircut, bad nails, bad attitude, and bad manners anyway?

Tom himself hadn’t one bad thing about him, as far as I could see. When I get in each morning he’s already on the phone with Europe, I imagine making deals or wheelin’ and dealin’ or something. But he acknowledges my arrival with a friendly wave all the same. My “To Do” pile is always in the same wire basket next to the entrance to my cubey. Each task is always clearly marked with instructions, which uniformly include the words “please” and “thank you.” The work is easy and nobody’s staring over my shoulder all day. I get the job done and so I’m left alone. If every boss was this logical the entire boss-joke genre would probably just fade away.

Sitting at my desk using my post-work free time to spell out L-I-A-M in writing utensils, I realize something amazing. There are no curved letters in his name! I am just realizing there are also no curved letters in my own name when it occurs to me that I probably shouldn’t be going out with Seth at all. Time has speedily arrived at the day before my second date with Mr. Right Now, and my heart, and all of my filthy thoughts, for that matter (which I conjure up at variously inappropriate times of the day) now all belong to Liam. Liam. Wondrous, probable sex-god Liam. He is standing before me, naked, nibbling at different bits of me, while I am bringing coffee to Tom, taking telephone messages, filing papers. On other occasions, he is standing me up against a wall in 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:05 AM Page 148

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some alleyway, ravaging me,
Nine and a Half Weeks
–style, ripping my skirt up out of the way.

I am having the best imaginary sex life. And it’s so good, I don’t even want to share it with my friends. I want to keep it all to myself. And I kind of have to, because the only people I could really share it with are irritatingly rational and have this awful habit of reprimanding me for doing the wrong thing.

When Joanne asks me how things are going, I say, “Oh, perfect.”

“Excuse me, I must have the wrong number,” she says, and proceeds to push in the buttons in a rather annoying fashion, “Hello?

Hello? I’m looking for my friend Lane, the one who feels it necessary to announce to me every detail of her life, including when she’s about to pee. Any idea where I might find her?”

And when I inform her I have absolutely no idea what she’s talking about, she ignores my blatant lies as if I haven’t even spoken.

“Oh, no. You’ve got it bad. The Mr. Right Now Backfire. I’ve seen this before. It is rare, but it happens.”

I could all but see her shaking her head, rolling her eyes, burying her face in an open palm. And so, I do the best thing I can think of—pretend.

“Really, Joanne, what the hell are you talking about?” The Backfire. Damn. Please don’t let it be the Backfire. Not happening to me. Not right now.

“Now, instead of spending your time fantasizing like a lunatic about someone at work before you get to know them—a path, which might, despite the ridiculous route, actually help your situation—you are spending your time fantasizing like a lunatic about someone who will not only
not
help you with your article, but will probably break your heart. He was supposed to be a Mr.

Right Now! Lane, what have we learned in the past!” (I am not 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:05 AM Page 149

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putting a question mark here because she is clearly not waiting for an answer.)

And so she goes on, “Did I not tell you just to sleep with him and get it over with! Then he could’ve just been an asshole and not called you the next day and you’d be on your way to finishing this article! Have I not taught you anything!” (Again statements posing as questions.)

The Backfire. The Backfire. I am a victim. My heart is racing with the severity of it. I swipe my desk surface clear of the writing utensil design of Mr. Right Now’s name. As if that might help. As if that might somehow prove Joanne wrong.

You know what? I realize, as I’m reconstructing Liam’s name with my writing utensils (I feel lonely without it), a horrible, awful, embarrassing fact: I don’t even know his last name.

“I bet you don’t even know his last name,” she quips.

“Sure I do.” It’s Backfire.

“Well, what is it then? Backfire?”

“I’m not having this conversation,” I say, growing annoyed and falling into a Liam panic mode, despite the fact I am surer than ever that after tomorrow I will obviously
never
have any interest in him other than a professional one.

I swallow a chuckle at the memory of Mrs. Kramer’s “Ahem!”

I’m totally getting used to the idea of saying good-bye to romantic Liam and hello to bossman Liam. I do wonder, though, how much room he’s got under his desk? Strictly professional. Definitely.

Maybe it’s one of those desks that are really more like a table with lots of room for all sorts of “meetings” one may opt to hold there. . . .

“Well, I’ll just say one thing, and then I won’t bring it up again, ever.”

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Right. Because they’ll be no need. Because I’m never going to think about him again, except as my boss,
Mr.
Backfire. Is there . . .

ahem . . . anything I can do to, er, I mean, for you, Mr. Backfire?

“Yes?” I ask, indignantly. If I could just, somehow, make this out to be all Joanne’s fault, maybe I can go through with sabotaging my career by throwing this assignment in the toilet and sleeping with a future boss. Then I could just go ahead and look forward to many bawdy evenings with one Mr. Liam Backfire. Right?