The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs (25 page)

But she won’t play me this time. I’m not going to tell her about The Dupont Circle Supper Club, and I’m not going to cancel. Rachel and I have already booked two seatings for The Dupont Circle Supper Club next weekend, and people continue to flood our in-box with more requests. We’re running what is arguably the most popular hot spot in town, and my parents can’t know anything about that. Another thing they can’t know anything about? The termination of my employment at NIRD, an event that will take place in approximately thirty minutes.

Correction: five minutes. I already hear the wheels of Mark’s briefcase squealing down the corridor. Great.

My hands start shaking. I need more time to … what? Prepare? What could I possibly say to change his mind? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least ten ways I could become a better employee. The question is whether I want to do any of those things. The answer is no.

Instead of stopping at my desk like he normally does, Mark breezes past me toward his office. “Give me five minutes,” he says without looking at me. “Then let’s talk.” He walks through his door and slams a book on his desk.

It appears my hopes for leniency were in vain.

I spend five minutes nervously stacking and restacking the piles of paper on my desk. I shoot a quick e-mail to my parents telling them I cannot get out of my trip next weekend and need to take a closer look at my calendar before I suggest any alternate dates. I swallow three Tums. Then I arise from my chair, smooth my brown woolen skirt, and creep toward Mark’s office. Mark looks up from his copy of the
Financial Times
as I knock on his door. He folds the paper into a crinkled mass and dumps it on the floor.

“Come in,” he says. “Close the door. Sit down.”

Three explicit commands in a row. This spells trouble. Mark is never this straightforward.

I wade through the mounds of old newspapers on Mark’s floor and sit on the only chair in his office not covered by piles of papers and stacks of economic journals. The chair is awkwardly located directly behind his computer monitor and positioned so that, when seated, I cannot see his face. All I can see is the gray plastic back of his computer screen, with all its vents and screws. I feel like I’m being fired by Darth Vader.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the latest on my CNBC interview,” Mark says from behind his computer screen.

There’s a
latest
? “No,” I say. “What happened?”

“The whole interview is making the rounds on YouTube.” Beneath the computer screen, I see his hand grab for the ecru handkerchief sticking out of his blazer pocket. “Honestly, Hannah, the whole situation is very embarrassing.”

“I’m—I’m sure it has nothing to do with you. People probably want to gawk at Erica Eckels’s breasts.”

At the word
breasts
, Mark’s goes silent for an uncomfortable period of time. Part of me wonders if he is embarrassed because he has never actually seen a female breast, but then I remember he wears a wedding ring and has two grown daughters, a fact that astonishes me daily. I can’t keep a boyfriend for much more than a year, and yet someone voluntarily made babies with Mark Henderson. The universe makes no sense at all.

“Yes, well, maybe that is the reason, but nevertheless, I am still
quite
displeased with how the interview went.”

“I know, and I promise nothing like that will ever happen in the future.”

Mark shifts in his chair. “Then you would agree that your performance lately has been lacking?”

“Yes,” I say, craning my neck to catch a glimpse of Mark. He does the same, but in the opposite direction, so that I am left talking to the back of his chair.

“Then the question is what we should do about this. What is your future at IRD? Do you
have
a future at IRD?” He pauses. I pick at the little balls of fuzz on my seat cushion and wait for him to continue. I wonder what he is looking at while he speaks to me. I picture him staring at big, fat currency symbols on his computer screen—dollars and pounds and wons and rupees.

“Well?” he says.

“Sorry?” Was there a question in there I was supposed to answer?

“What is your future at IRD?” Mark repeats. “Perhaps I should rephrase the question: do you
want
a future at IRD?”

“Um, I guess?”

My answer is neither true nor is it the first thing that comes to my mind. But I’m not quite sure how to tell my boss that, no, I don’t want a future here; I just want an income stream until I come up with a better plan. So, instead, I give the most equivocal answer I can muster.
I guess
isn’t yes and it isn’t no; it’s,
Does it really even matter
?

“Okay then,” Mark says. “Since you
do
want a future here, let’s establish some ground rules. I have always said one must be challenged to be satisfied with one’s work. And, given how talented I know you are, your behavior lately indicates I am not challenging you enough. So I will involve you more in the work I am doing, in particular having you take on more sophisticated research.”

Mark clears his throat. My stomach contracts violently. As it stands, I can barely maintain an interest level in the subjects Mark has assigned me. Increasing the complexity will not help.

“I also believe strongly in incentives,” Mark continues, “and so for my upcoming book, I am putting together an outline and would like you to draft a few chapters on the history of Federal Reserve intervention. And assuming you’ve done an adequate job, I will list you as a coauthor on the book. How does that sound?”

In a word: horrendous. I do not know what changed in the course of our conversation, but I entered this room terrified Mark might fire me, and now I am devastated he hasn’t. The thought of drafting full chapters on the Federal Reserve makes me want to set my hair on fire. I have no idea how this conversation spun so wildly out of control, to a place where getting fired is the preferable option. All I can do is stare at the back of Mark’s monitor, thankful he cannot see the dumbstruck expression planted on my face.

“Hannah?” Mark says from behind his computer screen.

“Sorry, um, it’s just … I’m having trouble seeing you from where I’m sitting,” I say, trying to buy myself time. I have no idea how to respond; I have been preoccupied with not letting the words
horrendous
and
awful
and
what the hell
fly out of my mouth.

I scoot my chair a few feet to the left. Mark’s floor is covered with old newspapers, photocopies of journal articles, and random bits of clothing, and so my chair now tilts backward, the front left leg bolstered by a pair of maroon argyle socks and what may or may not be an old pair of boxers.

“What do you think? Coauthoring a book is quite a big deal. I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I’m honored, Mark. Absolutely. And on such a substantial topic.” I gesture wildly with my hands as I talk, hoping Mark will mistake my animation for genuine enthusiasm. “The Federal Reserve—wow.”

On the word
wow
, I throw my hands forward and lean back in my lopsided chair—a massive misjudgment that throws off my balance and sends me flying backward onto the floor. My head hits a pile of newspapers as my legs thrash above me in the air. I deeply regret my decision to wear a skirt today.

“Oh, dear,” Mark says as he rushes to my side of his desk. He approaches my chair and bends down to lift me up but jerks his head away when he realizes he is looking right at my crotch. He fumbles around like a blind person, feeling for my hands and in the process grazing my right breast, at which point he lets out a high-pitched yelp.

“What is going
on
in here?”

From my current location, I cannot see anything but the back of Mark’s head and the ceiling, but the voice sounds like Susan’s.

“Could someone please help me up?” I say as I flail on the floor.

Susan’s face appears above me, the whites of her eyes widening as she watches me squirm like an overturned beetle. She pushes Mark out of the way and extends her arm, and I grab on as she lifts me to my feet. I smooth my skirt and brush my hair off my face. Mark faces the wall, barefoot and unable to look at me.

“Thank you,” I say to Susan.

“You’re welcome,” she says, eyeing Mark and me suspiciously. Her expression reminds me of the one my mother had the time she caught Scott Kraut kissing me on my living room couch senior year of high school. Scott and I were going over lines for the school play, but my mom assumed we were up to the usual teenage mischief and gave me a look similar to the one Susan is giving now: arms crossed, lips pursed, an eyebrow raised. Which raises the question: does she think Mark and I were …? Oh,
gross
.

“I lost my balance,” I say, trying to explain. “My chair was resting on a pair of socks.”

“A pair of
socks
?” Susan raises one of her thin, black eyebrows and glances at Mark’s bare feet, then drags her eyes across Mark’s floor until she reaches the boxerlike article of clothing. “Is that
appropriate
?”

Great, now she thinks I was undressing him. I might throw up.

“Never mind,” I say. “Mark, thank you for the opportunity with the book. I look forward to working on it.”

I rush back to my desk, wondering how this day has already managed to surpass my most horrific expectation, and it’s only eight-thirty.

By lunchtime, I am still in a daze, as if I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into an alternate reality. On one side, I was a research assistant moments away from being fired, and on the other I am a research assistant with even more responsibility and less free time, whose boss has seen her crotch.

I cannot face Mark or Susan or anyone else in the lunchroom and decide to buy a sandwich and eat at my desk. In my current state, I am not fit for human interaction.

When I am about halfway through my gyro, my cell phone rings. I lick the tzatziki off my fingers and grab my phone, when I see the caller in question is Jacob. We haven’t spoken since our rendezvous two days ago.

“How’s my favorite think tanker?” he says.

I blot a trickle of gyro juice off my chin. “I’ve been better.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“Long story. Office drama.”

“Ah. Fun times.” He snickers. “Don’t worry. Whatever it is, it’ll blow over in a day or two.”

Considering I’ve been tasked with researching the history of Federal Reserve intervention, I somehow doubt this is true. “Here’s hoping,” I say.

“So … I was wondering … what are you up to next weekend?”

“Over Columbus Day?”

“Is that next weekend?” He pauses. “Then, yeah. Over Columbus Day.”

Given the near nonexistence of my social life, I cannot understand why everyone wants to spend time with me over the one weekend where I have other obligations.

I sigh into the phone. “I’m busy that weekend. Supper club duties.”

“Ah, got it. That’s too bad.”

Too bad? Surely we can work out an alternate plan. I glance at my calendar in Outlook. “What about this weekend?”

“As in tomorrow?”

I squeeze my phone between my ear and shoulder and wipe the grease from my fingers. “Or Sunday.”

Jacob goes silent for a few seconds on the other end, and I suddenly fear I’ve shown my hand too quickly. We just saw each other two days ago. I probably seem needy and overly eager.

“Sorry, I’m out of town this weekend, and I’m busy most of next week,” he finally says. “What about the week after Columbus Day?”

I scan my calendar and see I have nothing going on that week, nor do we have a supper club planned for that weekend. “Sure. Works for me. What day?”

“Maybe Wednesday night? Let me see how my work schedule is shaping up that week. This immigration debate is screwing up everything. We might need to wait until the weekend.”

“Oh. Okay.” I’d rather not wait two weeks to see him again, but I will if I have to.

“Great. I’ll give you a call in the next week or two, and we’ll work out a plan. I already have something in mind.”

“Oh?”

He laughs. “When the time is right, I’ll let you know. Until then … good luck with the work drama.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Although I think I’ll need more than luck.”

I hang up with Jacob and spot Rachel gliding down the hallway toward my desk, her silky, brown hair tied into an off-center chignon. As soon as she gets within five feet of me, Millie jumps out from a side hallway and latches onto Rachel’s side.

“Hey, ladies,” Millie says, smoothing the front of her characteristically tight red button-down top, which is tucked into a pair of skintight black pants.

Rachel and I wave passively, trying not to engage her, hoping she will go away. She doesn’t take the hint. She never does.

“What’s up?” she asks, taking a seat on the far side of my desk. “Hannah, I heard you talking on the phone. New boyfriend?”

Rachel and I exchange a look:
The Hemorrhoid
.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I say.

Millie rolls her eyes. “Whatever, it sounded to me like you were planning a hot date.”

“Not really.”

As I say this, I pretend to organize papers on my desk, as if to say,
I could not be less interested in this conversation. Please go away
.