EMIT (THE EMIT SAGA) (8 page)

“These all need to be photocopied. This group has to be done today and when you’re finished bring them to me. I’m in the room to the left of Maria’s. If you have any time left, you can start this second pile.”

All morning I copied and thought mostly about Daniel, but
the Reed mess always brought me back to reality.

D
ad came downstairs around lunchtime and asked me to join him in his office. Sonia, his secretary, ordered us sandwiches. While we ate, he talked about a big case he was working on. I wasn’t really listening, but did hear that he was going to Paris on Monday.

After lunch,
I went back to photocopying and felt like I was being watched. When I heard a noise behind me, I turned around. There was a tall guy with glasses and curly brown hair leaning against the wall.

“Hi, can I help you?” I asked.

“Do you have a lot to do?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ll be here for a
while, sorry,” I apologized. “I still have all of that.” I motioned to the piles on the table.

“
Wow, no problem. You’ll be here for weeks,” he said chuckling. “I’m Jared by the way. Are you new?”

“Yeah. Today’s
my first day. I’m Paige.” I didn’t volunteer my last name because of the nepotism factor, but Jared hadn’t shared his last name either.

“Oh… you’re
a real newbie. You poor thing,” he chuckled. “This is my third summer interning. It’s not all bad, just be careful, there are some crazy people that work here.” I wasn’t sure if he was serious or just kidding. I wondered if he was one of them.

Jared had a large bandage wrapped around his left hand.

“What happened to you?” I asked motioning to his hand.

“Oh…I had a fight with a copy machine. Be careful they’re quite temperamental and they fight back,” he joked.

Everything that came out of his mouth was really funny. He must keep his co-workers very entertained when he wasn’t annoying them.

“
If you need any insight on anything, come find me.” Jared whistled as he walked away. Dad said I was the only high school intern, so Jared had to be in college or law school.

I
went to find Dad, so we could walk home together.

“Are you leaving soon?” I asked.

“I have a few things to finish up. I’ll see you at home.”

As I turned to leave,
Maria said she’d call when the office needed me again.

The entire walk home
, I worried about the Reed not knowing what to do.

Mom was in the kitchen, busy cooking dinner
and it smelled great. Whenever Mom had time, she loved to experiment and Dad and I were her guinea pigs. Usually, she wasn’t happy with a cookbook recipe so she’d find another one online and then combine the two. Mom loved spices and she’d double or triple the amounts with mixed results.

The kitchen walls were painted pale green and the cabinets were white. In the back of the kitchen, there was an oak cabinet filled with colorful pottery.

“Hi honey. How was your day?” she asked when she saw me standing in the doorway.

“
It was okay.”

“What did you do?”

“I just photocopied.” I plopped in a chair at the round table that my parents found at a garage sale in Long Island years ago. It had been painted white, so they stripped it in Grammy’s garage and refinished it.

“That’s good. Sweetie, get me some cilantro
, please.”

I jumped up and went to the
herb garden container on the windowsill.

“Are you okay?” Mom asked. “You’re very quiet.”

“I’m fine just tired. I’m going upstairs to change.”

In my room, I
struggled with calling Reed. I didn’t want to call his cell. At his party, he said his cell was broken, but what if he got it fixed and he was with his friends? I also didn’t want to text anything since Dad always said to be careful what you email or text people. I guess it was the lawyer in him.

I
found the student registry and called his house. Chad answered.

“Hi, Chad. It’s Paige. Is Reed home?” I asked nervously.

“He’s out. Did you try his cell?”

“He said it was broken.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ll leave him a note that you called.”

“Thanks, Bye,” I said and hurried off the phone.

Glancing on my wall, I saw a post from Daphne. It said, “I’m happy for you two” written half-an-hour ago. I’m going to kill her.

Dad got in an hour after me and said he knew we were having Indian food from the aroma in the hallway. During dinner, the house phone rang and
it was Daphne, but I didn’t answer. I wanted to talk to her privately not in front of my parents. When I called her back, she suggested a walk and I agreed. I’d wait to tell her how mad I was in person.

When I saw her approaching, I must have looked annoyed because the first thing she said was, “Are you okay?”

“No. Why did you post that comment about Reed?” I asked coldly.

"Oh, you aren't together?" she asked.

“Don’t you think I’d tell you if I was dating him? Why didn’t you check with me first?”

Looking at me incredulously, she said, “I did. I tried all day. I saw the post this morning then called you like six times. I texted,
emailed and left voice messages, but I didn’t hear back from you. When I saw Eden’s post, I thought it was true. I called your house phone tonight hoping you’d tell me about it.”

“I was at work
all day and there’s no messages from you on my phone.” This was crazy.

Daphne checked her phone and said, “Look.
The six calls and here are the texts. Let me find the email.”

“This is ridiculous! I have t
o go to the phone store.” Frustrated, I threw my phone in my bag. “So what do I do about Reed? I just want to be friends.”

Daphne was looking at me and shaking her head. “Girls i
n school would die to date him. Just go out with him. He really likes you and we could double date if Evan ever asks me out,” she added smiling. I was right she did like Evan.

Daphne started talking about Evan forgetting about my problem entirely.
“Evan was flirting with me, but he might like Josie.”

“I
don’t know about that. I think Josie likes Reed.

Daphne
cheered up hearing that. “Really?”

“I’m pretty sure. She couldn’t keep her eyes off him.”

“That would be good for you. Deidre said that she’s coming to our school in the fall.”

“Maybe Reed
will fall for her and leave me alone. I shouldn’t have hugged him goodbye."

"You hugged him?"
She looked at me awkwardly.

"Give me a break. It meant nothing.
So what should I do, so he doesn’t hate me?” Looking for some, any kind of advice.

“Oh, just go out with him,” Daphne said, sounding annoyed.

“You go out with him,” I said angrily.

“
I used to like Reed,” Daphne admitted. “Now, I like Evan.”

“What? You never told me that you liked Reed,” I said, surprised at the news.

Daphne stared at me uncomfortably and finally spoke. “I didn’t tell you because I felt stupid. He was dating Carla and then he was after you. I really didn’t want to be sloppy thirds.”

“That doesn’t make sense. I never went out with
him.” We were best friends yet she never told me about her feelings for Reed. I should talk since I said nothing at all about Daniel.

Daphne
shrugged her shoulders. “Whatever. I don’t know what you can do. Reed posted it on Facebook and now he’s going to look like a fool when you dump him. Forget about being friends. That’s never going to happen.”

Feeling absolutely miserable
, I knew that Daphne was right. This wouldn’t end well. “It’s like he’s trying to force me to date him,” I rambled.

Why didn’t I like Reed? He was nice, popular, and cute. I wondered if it was because he had dated Carla, the antithesis of me
, for over a year. Carla was Spanish and very loud and gregarious. She was the girl version of Reed as far as athletics were concerned. The difference was that Reed was nice and she was a horror. She played sports year round and was adept at a lot of them. She was a gifted athlete, but was a miserable human being. Playing on some varsity teams her freshman year, then all varsity teams since then, the coaches treated her like the second coming. Her head was so swollen from all the accolades that she treated everybody in school who wasn’t a teammate with contempt. In school, she only conversed with her teammates, girls on other Varsity teams or her absolute favorite, the boys. No one else mattered. Since I was only on the JV tennis team, I didn’t exist to Carla.

Daphne was on Carla’s softball team and said that the coaches continually stroked her ego and kowtowed to her. One day, Daphne overheard Carla telling the coach that she was too tired to go to practice. She didn’t come that whole week and when she returned, she left early every day. She came and went as she pleased and her teammates were sick of the preferential treatment. All that mattered to the athletic department was that the team won
.

In gym class, if someone couldn’t do something up to her standards, she rolled her eyes, smirked and laughed out loud. She was never reprimanded because she made sure the teachers weren’t nearby to hear her.
Carla knew how to play the game. In the presence of teachers and grown-ups she was the politest, sweetest girl and had the entire faculty fooled. No one in school complained about her because the teachers never believed that she was a bully.

In the halls, whenever Reed said hi to me, she gave me venomous glares. When they broke up last year and she found out that he asked me out, she became even more unbearable. How could Reed have ever dated her?

After discussing Reed ad-nauseam, I couldn’t talk about him anymore. “He caused this mess so if we can’t be friends it’s all his fault,” I said angrily. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later.”

I
called Lily as I walked home and it went to voicemail. Where was she?

As I entered the apartment,
Lily called so I ran to my bedroom.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

“Sorry, my phone died and I forgot to bring my charger to work today. What’s up?”

I
told her about Reed and she wasn’t sure what to do either.

“I don’t get it. Why would anybody do that? He’s going to look ridiculous when it gets around that you aren’t dating.”

“I know. Why hasn’t he called me back? He’s supposedly my boyfriend,” I joked.

M
aybe he tried, but with my phone acting crazy his calls didn’t go through. If he couldn’t reach me, maybe he’d leave me alone.

“Just call
him again and get it over with. Try his cell this time. You’ll drive yourself crazy worrying about it.”

All of a sudden
, I realized I forgot to tell Lily the most important news of all. “Oh my God Lily, I have to tell you something. I met that blond guy today. His name is Daniel.”

She was actually speechless for a moment.
“Are you kidding? That’s amazing!”

“
I know. I got so tongue-tied that I couldn’t think straight,” I admitted. “At least, I know he lives in my neighborhood, so maybe I’ll see him again.”

Lily laughed and said, “If you don’t, you can always stalk 72nd Street.”

“Thanks, maybe I will.”




When I opened my eyes, it was ten o’clock.
I couldn’t believe I slept so long.

After
I ate some yogurt and strawberries, Amber and I headed out to the park. I knew Mom or Dad had already taken her out, but I hoped to bump into Daniel. I looked all around and even strolled by the Bowling Greens. With no success and feeling pathetic, I went home.

As I entered my building, my
cell rang and it was Reed. I didn’t want to have the conversation in the lobby or the elevator, so I ignored the call. When I had called him, I was angry and brave, but now I didn’t know what to say.

After Daphne’s, not to mention Lily’s, dire predictions, I needed some more time. Maybe I could just hide out until he went to Canada and it would all blow over.

Tired of thinking about Reed, I went for a jog and as I entered the park on 79th Street, to go to the reservoir, I passed Daniel jogging out of the park. I stopped, but he didn’t notice me.

After my run, I showered and went to the library. Then, I hid in
my bedroom for the rest of the day, read poems and tried not to think about Reed. I refused to look at Facebook, afraid of what people were saying.

L
ord George Byron’s biography described a troubled and tortured soul, which I found very disturbing. Although he was a handsome man from a wealthy family, he had a clubfoot and an alcoholic mother. Due to sexual abuse by his nanny, he grew up to be a wanton adult and his contemporaries condemned him on moral grounds. He supposedly had an affair with his married half-sister and there were rumors of an incestuous relationship with his daughter. Because of the accusations, he left England to escape the scandal. By his own account, he had slept with about two hundred women in his time in Venice alone. Supposedly, women were always throwing themselves at him.