46
I wake up on Monday morning in our bed on Sixty-Third Street. It’s six, and I don’t need to be anywhere until ten, but I get up anyway to have coffee and gather my thoughts. I close the door to our room quietly so as not to wake Jack. His first patient is at nine, I think he said. But first, it’s push day. Or leg day. I forget.
I walk through our living area into the kitchen, and it’s all a little stark after having been at my parents’ house. “Clean lines” is what Jack said on repeat as we were looking to furnish this place. It’s pretty, but it’s a little ungrounding. I think of how Granny compared it to a prison. All this gray and white and chrome makes me wish there was something red to rest my eye on. It doesn’t help that we are on the fourteenth floor, which everyone knows is really the thirteenth floor. We are high up enough that the cars down below seem like toys. I sometimes feel like I’m floating, like I’m inside someone’s thought bubble.
I make my coffee and sit at the counter with my phone. I email my dad and ask if I can see photos of sketches from his new horizon series. This is pushy and presumptuous, as it’s possible he still hasn’t put anything on paper, but I do it anyway. I can’t remember the last time I asked my dad about his work, but I feel a little opening between us.
I check to see if I’ve missed a text from Wyatt, which is dumb. We just agreed to stay loosely in touch. No one sends daily cat videos.
Jack comes out of the bedroom dressed for the gym. “Man, it feels good to be home.”
“You said that yesterday,” I say.
“Well, it still does. Everything’s so damp at the beach.” He stops to kiss me on the forehead before mixing his pre-workout drink. He doesn’t have coffee because that pre-workout drink has as much caffeine as six cups, a thought that makes me slightly nauseated.
“I’m trying to figure out what to wear to my meeting this morning. Do I go casual because it’s summer or do I dress up to be appropriate for the gravity of the situation?”
“The decision’s been made; you could go in your pajamas if you want.”
He’s right, of course. Eleanor isn’t inviting me in to negotiate. Jack’s grabbing his gym bag and heading to the door. “I guess I’ll call you after?” I say.
“Yes, sorry.” Remembering himself, Jack comes back to give me a hug. “It’ll be fine. There’s tons of HR in the city.” He pulls away and gives me a smile. “You’ll be back to whipping people into shape in no time.”
He leaves, and the words “whipping people into shape” hang in the air. I’ve never really thought of my job that way. I like to think I’m setting the rules for a game they can win, using data to keep score. I smile, remembering the moment everyone in the flash mob finally got the steps right. They were so excited about it, and I admit it was a little infectious.
I’m humming “Dancing Queen” as I refill my coffee and get back in bed. I have half an hour before I need to get in the shower and put on whatever one wears to get fired. I scroll through my phone. Emails from companies who think I should buy more sweaters. Ninety-six people liked my Instagram post of the Old Sloop Inn lit up at night. “Possible wedding venue,” I said. I took that photo right before we walked into the restaurant. Wyatt must have been parking his car then, knowing full well that our dinner was being made possible by his celebrity.
I’m having a hard time knowing what is real. I survived losing Wyatt by believing that he was an addiction, that I was just boy crazy. But he wrote all those songs, with so many details of our relationship. He remembers it as clearly as I do. I need to look away from the possibility that what we had was real, because it could undo me. All of that laughing and touching is exactly the kind of freedom you’d feel if you threw yourself off a cliff. I don’t want to be broken again.
I put down my phone and pick it back up again.
I text him: Are you up?
Immediate reply: A little jet-lagged so yes. How’s life in the big city?
He used to say this, I remember, when we were apart during the school year. I’d smile when he asked it because it made me feel cool, like he thought maybe my city life was glamorous. I’m staring at those words now, uncomfortable with the way my body is leaning off the edge of that cliff.
Wyatt: Sam?
Me: Sorry, was just drying my hair. Life in the big city is pretty glamorous for an unemployed consultant
Wyatt: Did they fire you?
Me: I meet the firing squad at 10
Wyatt: I hope it goes well, but don’t beg for a job you don’t want. That’s not who you are
Me: Easy for you to say, you’re rich
Wyatt: Aren’t you the one marrying a doctor?
Me: Haha. Okay I need to get moving, I’ll text you later.
I don’t know why that conversation has made me feel better. “Don’t beg for a job you don’t want” is great advice, and I take it to heart. That isn’t who I am. I put my phone down and take in my bedroom. This is the space that Jack and I share. He loves the gray Roman shades on the windows and the matching club chairs at the foot of the bed. We both gravitated to the muted gray color scheme in the Pottery Barn catalog because it felt calm and sophisticated. But today it makes me feel like I’m in a military cafeteria.
I arrive at Human Corps ten minutes early. I walk through the lobby like I have a million times, but this time as I say good morning to Alvin behind the security desk, I’m preemptively embarrassed about the fact that I’ll probably be back down in thirty minutes carrying a telltale cardboard box. I’m in a casual dress and sandals, mainly because it’s ninety-eight degrees in midtown Manhattan, but looking down at my feet now, I realize I’ve never shown my toes here before.
I make my way to Eleanor’s office, nodding hello to cubicled people who likely know my fate already. I knock on her open door and she looks up and smiles. A smile is a good sign.
“Sam, come in.” She’s in a black wool suit, because maybe she doesn’t know about its being August outside. I take a seat across from her desk, which puts me a full inch lower than she is. Everything at Human Corps is by design, and I’m sure this is no exception. She leans forward and clangs her gold bangles on the desk. “This has been really stressful for me.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I don’t know why. Am I sorry about the flash mob or wasting company time or just having inflicted work stress on my boss?
“Well it’s been hell trying to explain this to management, how my best organizational consultant brought about sheer chaos.”
“Chaos” seems a bit extreme. The whole song is less than four minutes. “Their dance was actually very well choreographed.” I don’t know where these words came from but they are out, and I cannot grab them back.
“Is that a joke?” Eleanor is clenching her folded hands.
“No. I mean, it doesn’t matter now, but I was impressed with how well they all worked together. Which was what the client asked for.” This is not going well. She is perfectly still, staring at me. I need to go back to the general “I’m sorry,” but I’m just not feeling it.
“Do you want this job or not?”
It’s a great question, and all I know for sure is that I don’t want to look for another job and have to explain over and over about the flash mob. “I do,” I say.
She’s looking at the floor as if she’s trying to formulate the right words. She’s making this overly difficult, and I wonder if this is the first time she’s ever made a decision like this without a chart.
“You’re wearing sandals,” she says finally. “I’ve never seen you in sandals before.”
“Yes, I hope that’s okay. It’s ninety-eight degrees out, though it’s actually freezing in here.”
“It’s fine.” She shakes off whatever conclusion she was coming to about the state of my footwear and goes on. “Purcell and I have decided we want to give you another chance. I know, we are not about second chances for our clients’ employees, but we’re making an exception here because you have a history of being exceptionally diligent.”
“Thank you.” I feel a “but” coming.
“For your next few projects, you will not be client facing. You’ll be here sorting through the reports and data that you’re sent. The first one is an analysis of employee health care costs, so it’s all in black and white.”
I have a feeling of being let back in, like I was on the outside and the circle has opened back up to me. I think of the girls at the beach going to that party without me and how it was okay because I knew I belonged with Wyatt, sitting there on the cove looking at the water while he buried my feet to keep them from burning.
“Sam, why are you smiling? I feel like you’re not taking this seriously. You can keep your job, but we are course correcting. You shouldn’t be smiling.” If your job is micromanaging other people’s behavior, it’s hard to stop.
I realize that I need to end this meeting. I have been away for one week and it’s like I completely forgot the script. “Eleanor, I love this job and I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with you and to make a difference for our clients. Just tell me when this next project starts and I’ll be all over it.”
“That’s my girl.”
I walk out into the thick August air wondering how I’m supposed to feel. I still have a job. I just need to keep my head down for a couple of projects, and then they’ll let me out in the world again. With less engaging work, maybe I’ll even start making it to waltzing lessons. I feel no relief at all. Spreadsheets and waltzing lessons give me that itchy-sweater feeling all over.
I reach for my phone to text Wyatt, and as I start to type I realize how wrong that is. I text Jack instead, even though I know he’s with patients: They didn’t fire me, they’re just going to torture me with boring work for a bit.
An hour later, I’m reading an unsanctioned work of women’s fiction in bed when he texts back: Oh wow, I’m shocked but happy! I’ll see you later.
Jack comes home from work with a bouquet of lilies. “I’m so happy and relieved,” he says, wrapping me in his arms. “I know this whole wedding thing has been stressful. It was killing me to think you were going to lose your job over it.”
I hug him back but then let go. “Wait. Do you think the flash mob was about our wedding?”
“Well, sort of. Not directly, but you’ve been distracted. Like forgetting appointments, doodling in your little book. You’re not quite buttoned up, and I sort of assumed it was about the wedding.”
I have in my mind the image of someone in a very long dress with buttons that go all the way up to her neck. She looks regal and polished and she can’t quite breathe. I look down at my sandals and wonder if it’s okay to just undo the top button every once in a while, without your whole life falling apart.
“I’m still buttoned up,” I say. “Sometimes my mind wanders, but that’s just what minds do.”
“Mine doesn’t.”
I laugh and hug him again. “That’s my favorite thing about you,” I say into his neck.
“I want to hear all about your job drama. Let me change real quick and I’ll take you out for sushi.”
Jack goes in to change, and my phone buzzes. It’s Wyatt: So?
Me: They didn’t fire me but I don’t get to have any human contact until they think I’ve learned my lesson
Wyatt: Ouch
Me: It’s fine. This is what you get for farting in the elevator
Wyatt sends a string of laughing emojis, and, just like that, we have a new inside joke.