The Night I Got Lucky (11 page)

“How about lunch?” Evan said. “I was thinking RL.”

Although Evan and I frequently had lunch together, it was usual y at Subway or the salad place downstairs. RL, on the other hand, the very chic Ralph Lauren café, was Evan’s official first date spot.

“We don’t need anything fancy,” I said.

“I want to treat you.”

“Why?”

He uncrossed the leg and moved until he was standing in front of my desk. He leaned forward, hands on the desk, and a lock of blond hair fel across his eyes. “Why do you think, Bil y?”

The sound of my name coming from his mouth made me shiver. I could remember vividly the feel of his breath in my ear Saturday night. “I’m not sure. Why don’t you spel it out for me?” I couldn’t help it. I leaned forward too, and now our faces were only a few inches apart.

We stared into each other’s eyes. I found it hard to get air in my chest. I had a crazy desire to press into his lips.

Final y, he spoke. “Because of your promotion. We never got to celebrate.” His words were mundane, but his voice husky, as if imparting an erotic secret.

“Uh-huh,” I said, my lungs stil struggling to work.

“Wel ?” Evan said. He smiled with one side of his face, the dimple there denting his skin adorably.

I made myself sit back in my chair. Once the nearness of him was gone, I was left feeling cold and sil y. “I think I’d better pass.”

“Why?”

I murmured excuses about meetings and projects, but the truth was plain—I couldn’t trust myself around Evan.

As I ate a carry-out Caesar salad, Lizbeth came into my office. She was more comfortable around me since our talk last week, yet stil not truly relaxed. As a result, I tried hard to be engaging and kind, but managerial and bosslike. This attitude also helped to convince myself that I real y was a VP.

“What’s up today?” I said through a bite of salad.

“Some papers for you to sign. Oh, and the HR department wants to know if you got the signed severance agreement from Alexa.”

I swal owed hard on a rough piece of lettuce. The guilt of firing Alexa was stil eating at me. I’d gotten a taste of power, and she was the first one in my line of fire. “You haven’t seen anything come through the mail?”

Lizbeth shook her head. “Let’s hope she doesn’t sue the company. Roslyn would be
so
pissed.”

“Is that a possibility?”

“That’s what HR said.”

I pushed my salad away, feeling queasy. I’d wrongful y fired a col eague—just because I could—I’d given her a pittance of a severance, and now I might have landed the company in litigation. “Maybe I can help her get a job,” I mused aloud. But even as I said it, I knew it would be tough. I’d been keeping an eye on the city’s PR firms for over a year, and the industry was as dry as ash.

“Whatever you want to do,” Lizbeth said. “Here’s her info if you want to cal her.” She handed me a sheet listing Alexa’s name, address and other identifying information.

I looked it over, staring at Alexa’s address. She lived on West Division. Probably in one of those new loft condos. Of course, Alexa might have a hard time affording the new loft condo with her ten days of severance pay. The guilt rose higher in my chest.

“I’l work on it,” I told Lizbeth.

I immediately cal ed HR and asked if I could get Alexa a longer severance. No go, the HR director told me. It was the company’s policy not to change a severance once set, especial y if the employee had been terminated for cause as Alexa had. She reminded me that we needed the signed severance agreement.

My guilt felt like it was scraping away my insides.

I sat silently at my desk until I knew what to do. After work, I’d stop by Alexa’s place, and bring her flowers or something suitably apologetic. I’d tel her I was sorry for the way things had gone down, and I’d tel her that I would help her in any way I could. And then I’d get her to put pen to paper.

I pul ed my salad toward me and at the same time pushed Alexa from my mind. It would be al right, I told myself. For both of us.

At six o’clock, I sat in the back of a cab traveling west on Division. In my lap was an enormous fern. I’d spent an inordinate amount of time at the florist, debating hydrangeas versus orchids, tulips versus sunflowers. Nothing seemed right. Final y, I settled on a huge fern in a yel ow ceramic holder. The flowers had seemed too romantic, but the fern, I’d decided, had a hail-fel ow-wel -met effect and said,
I’m sorry I fired you and gave you a shitty severance, but you’ll be just fine.

I couldn’t see in front of me, due to the fern, but out the side window, I watched as the cab passed the entrance to the highway and continued west. Ashland went by in a blur, the hip shops and cafés of Wicker Park starting to show themselves. Of course, Alexa would live somewhere trendy. She was probably from a waspy family in Kenilworth but considered herself

“slumming” in the now-posh confines of Wicker Park. She began to annoy me again, if only in my head. I saw those cashmere twinsets and her smug grin. I remembered her uncanny ability to get me to do her work.

Suddenly, the fern seemed obscene. She had deserved to be fired, and she certainly didn’t need my help. She probably wouldn’t even want it.

I shoved the fern onto the seat next to me. It would look good in
my
house, next to Chris’s big chair. I wanted to tel the cabbie to turn around.

I had just leaned forward and angled my head through the fiberglass window to speak to the driver when I noticed that we’d passed Damen. The cab kept moving. The trendy stores of Wicker Park gave way to Hispanic grocery stores and rundown bars.

“Excuse me,” I said to the cabbie. “Have we gone too far?”

“Nope. Another eight blocks.”

I sat back and watched the neighborhood grow steadily more sketchy. The cars were no longer of the Lexus or Mercedes variety, but appeared to be taken from a
Starsky & Hutch
rerun. People ambled on the street and sat on front stoops as if there was nowhere in the world to go.

Final y, the cab pul ed to the curb and pointed across the street. “There’s your address.”

I checked it with the one I’d written down at the office. It was right. But how could this be? The building was cement block. The yard was made of dirt, with not a green bush or tree in sight. Some of the windows were boarded up. Others had sheets hanging in front of them.

“Want me to wait?” the cabbie said. “This isn’t such a hot neighborhood.”

“Thank you,” I said distractedly, stil staring at the building. “That would be great.”

I hefted the fern up the sidewalk, glancing around nervously. This had to be a massive mistake. There was no way Alexa lived here.

But there was her last name—
Villa
—right on the buzzer box for apartment 3A. I pushed it. Nothing. I pushed again, relief fil ing me. No one home! I should have had the damn fern delivered.

But then the door clicked, fol owed by a faint buzz. The box crackled and a voice said something that sounded like, “Come on,” but could have been, “Up yours.”

Inside, the hal way smel ed of cigarette smoke and spicy cooking. The doors to the apartments were made of cheap brown press board. I took the stairs as fast as possible, grateful for the Yel ow Cab waiting outside. I’d drop off the fern, then I’d get the hel out of here.

The fern was heavy as lead, and by the third landing, I was huffing like I’d just run the Chicago Marathon. I knocked tentatively on the door for 3A.

It was opened immediately by a girl of about nine or ten with black curly hair and dark, saucerlike eyes. She smiled at me shyly.

“Is Alexa here?” I asked, trying to catch my breath and shift the fern to my other hip.

She looked behind her, then gazed up at me again.

I repeated myself.

Again, no response, just a bashful grin. Behind her, I saw a living room, its stained brown carpeting littered with toys. An ancient couch in a gray plaid fabric sat before an old TV with rabbit-ear antennae.

Just then, someone stepped into the living room. Alexa. “Who is it, Lucia?”

She saw me, and her face grew cold. Her eyes narrowed. “What are
you
doing here?”

I stood frozen in the doorway. This was no hip loft condo, and Alexa wasn’t wearing cashmere. Instead, she had on tight blue workout pants, frayed at the hem, and a faded, black-and-white striped T-shirt that looked about ten years old. Was this her place? Was the girl her daughter?

“What are you doing here?” she repeated, her voice growing somewhat louder.

I thrust the fern forward. “This is for you.”

Now I couldn’t see her. Al I knew was that she wasn’t taking the fern. My arms began to quiver. I set it on the floor. “I wanted to see how you were,” I said.

“Little late for that.” She crossed her arms.

The girl giggled. A woman of about forty-five crossed the room, carrying a smal er child. She stopped and glanced at me, then said something in Spanish.

“No one,” Alexa answered in English, never taking her gaze from me.

I cleared my throat. “Alexa, look…”

Just then another woman came into the living room. She looked remarkably like a tired, older Alexa, with white streaks through her long black hair.

“Hola,”
she said to me.

“Hel o.”

She turned to Alexa and they spoke in rapid Spanish, but stil Alexa didn’t take her eyes from me.

There came a pounding on the stairs. I turned to see two boys in their early teens charging up the stairway. I moved, just in time for them to push past me into the apartment, barely giving me a look.

“I suppose you’re looking for this,” Alexa said, striding across the room and lifting a white sheaf of papers from the counter. The severance agreement.

“Wel , ah…it would be nice if I could get that.”

Alexa crossed the room again, her walk slow and purposeful, until she was in the doorway near me. “Let’s go outside.”

We descended the stairs in silence. I was relieved beyond belief to see the cab stil waiting. I gave him a cheery wave, hoping to convince him to stay a little longer. Two men watched us from a stoop to our right.

“You got a pen?” Alexa said, not looking me in the face. There was a proud raise to her chin, but her eyes looked almost misty. That expression broke my heart.

“You know what, Alexa,” I said. “Just forget it. It’s too smal a severance, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for
everything.
And if you want to file suit against the company you should do that.”

I could hear the entire HR department screaming
Stop!
in my head. I ignored them and continued on. “I also wanted to see if I could help you get another job.”

She scoffed. “You fired me, and now you’re here to help me?”

I had to admit, it sounded ridiculous.

“I’m not going to sue Harper, and I am going to sign this,” she said, shaking the agreement. “You know why? Because I support that family in there. And even though this is a pathetic severance, I need the money
now.
”

“Was that your little girl?”

She crossed her arms. A breeze blew a stray hair from her face, and despite myself, I noticed how beautiful she was. “She’s my niece,” Alexa said. “There’s another niece and nephew in there, too, as wel as my stepsister and brother.”

“And was one of those women your mom?” The thought of Alexa stil living with her mother was inconceivable.

She nodded. “And my aunt.” She turned to me again. “I’m the breadwinner for this family. For al these people. That is, until you fired me.”

“So you’re not from Kenilworth?” I asked in a jokey tone. As soon as I said it, I wanted to ask the guys on the stoop for their handgun and shoot myself.

Alexa sighed and shook her head.

“Wel , seriously, what about those black cashmere sweaters?” I said.

“What about them?”

“How do you afford al of them if you’re supporting everyone here?”

“I bought three of them at TJ Maxx. I rotate.” She dipped her head, as if embarrassed by this, but it was me who felt like a monumental ass.

“Oh,” I said.

“Are you going to give me a pen?” Alexa gestured to my purse.

“Sure. Yeah, okay.” Flustered, I rummaged through it, scrabbling my fingers until I came up with an old Bic.

Alexa snatched it, signed the agreement and handed it to me. “Show’s over,” she said. “Time for you to go.”

As if on cue, the cabbie honked.

“Alexa, look,” I said. “I am truly sorry. If there’s anything I can do…”

She looked up the street. Her gaze was tired and sad. She moved to the front door and opened it with a key. “I think you’ve done enough,” she said. She stepped inside and slammed the door.

W
hen Chris got home from work that night, I was sitting in his big chair, only a smal lamp il uminating the room. I was distraught about Alexa.

“Honey, what are you doing?” Chris said. His voice was cheerful.

“Nothing.”

He switched on the overhead light, making me blink.

“What’s up?” He sat on the arm of the chair.

I looked at him, not sure where to start.

“What is it? Talk to me.”

Those words almost made me weep with relief. For the past two years, as Chris and I had grown steadily apart, I’d handled my emotional troubles on my own, wrestling in my mind in the dark of our bedroom, coming to my own decisions. But now here was my husband, attentive and wanting to talk. I didn’t care what had happened to suddenly bring him back. I didn’t care whether it was the frog or some freak shift in the universe. I was just happy he was there.

I reached out and touched his hand. “It’s Alexa.”

“I thought you got rid of her.”

“I did.” Now, I felt like weeping for a different reason. “I’ve destituted her whole family.”

“Is destituted a word?”

“Chris!”

“Sorry, hon, but this is sil y. You didn’t harm her family.”

“I think I did.”

“What happened?”

I told Chris about the severance agreement and my visit to her apartment. “I thought she was from money,” I said. “She always acted so superior and dressed the part. But according to her, she supports al these people, in this tiny apartment.” I looked around our place and thought of al the relative riches we had—granite countertops, marble bathroom, enough space to avoid each other for years if we wanted.