Cheating on Myself (10 page)

“Fine,” I grumbled. “Judge me. But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Why are you justifying it to me, then?”

She kind of had a point.

* * *

“
You need to feel the energy of your partner, extending up into your hand and through your power center. Let it energize you. Can you feel it empowering your creativity?” I looked around at the select group of coworkers who were huddled together in the Conference Room. We were smack-dab in the middle of yet another on-site offsite, which was being held in the conference room on the twelfth floor James had temporarily renamed “The Giving Tree.”

We’d been talking about bonding and spirit and creative juices all day, but I knew they were just buttering us up to give us bad news. Lily had told me layoffs were finally imminent, and that meant James had been pouring all of his resources into building up everyone’s spirit and teamwork, so the people who remained after the bloodbath would be more positive about our shit-bag company.

Even though none of us would ever call our wonderful employer by that name aloud, we were all thinking it deep down. No amount of Care Bear-inspired cheer could get people excited during a time of bad sales.

I held my hand against Gina Kriesel’s back, pretending to listen to the motivator guiding our session. I felt nothing but nerves as I sat there in the conference room, wondering if I’d be part of the group that would be laid off. Lily swore she had no idea if I was on the list or not. I didn’t report to her, and she only knew which of her own direct reports was on the chopping block. I’d noticed James looking at me with increasing frequency in the last few days, and I had been the one who had found him with his hands and lips on his boss’s neck a few weeks after his wedding. He’d sort of had it out for me since then.

After a game of sharing circle, where we all had to reveal a secret about ourselves—mine, obviously, was a lie—we all were sent back to our desks. When I arrived at my cube, I found a green folder sitting passive-aggressively on the seat of my rolling chair. My name was typed on a peel and stick label affixed to the bottom right corner.

“You’re fucking kidding me,” I heard Gina mutter from two cubes down.

I opened my folder and found a letter that informed me I was to report to Conference Room B at three o’clock. There was no other information contained in the folder. I walked past Jennifer Hutchins’ cube, and noticed she’d sat down at her desk and was not obsessing over a letter or a folder. This was not a good sign. I stepped into Gina’s cube, and saw she had a red folder. Her folder also contained a letter, directing her to Conference Room C at two o’clock. She had also been given a package of coupons for Centrex products, as well as a dollar-off coupon for the frozen yogurt place in the skyway, a free pizza voucher from Papa John’s, and a fifty-percent off one-day U-Haul rental.

I continued down the hall toward Lily’s office. “What does this green folder mean?” I pulled the folder out of my sweater, where I’d hidden it from my coworkers’ prying eyes. Carrying it around felt like wearing a scarlet letter.

“Oh, thank God,” she said, looking harried and horrible. “Green is better than red.”

“What does it mean?”

“You’re being cut back to eighty percent.”

“Cut back?”

“Instead of laying off fifteen-percent of the staff, they’re only laying off ten-percent, then cutting costs further by reducing a chunk of employees to eighty-percent employees. You’ll still get your benefits and everything.” She chewed on her lower lip. “And you’ll get more details at three.”

“I don’t want more details at three,” I said. “I want more details from you.”

“You get to take one day off every week.”

“And they pay me twenty percent less?”

“Yes.” Lily pushed a fresh latte across her desk toward me. “James just brought this for me. You want it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I can’t afford lattes anymore.”

Sullenly, I left Lily’s office with my charity latte and green folder in hand. She called after me, but I hustled off and into the elevator before she could catch up. I rode the elevator down twelve flights and stepped outside into the pleasantly-warm October afternoon. Nicollet Mall was crowded with people shopping at the last Thursday farmer’s market of the season. Everyone looked so jolly, carting their pumpkins and squash down the sidewalks. I was busy eyeing up a bakery stand when I felt a hand on my back.

I turned, and Erik’s face stared back at me with a mixture of hope, fear, and… happiness?

“Hi, Stella,” he said, trying a smile.

“Hi.” Even though we’d been exchanging casual emails for a few days, it still felt weird and sudden and alarming to run into Erik like this. I wasn’t ready to see him. I was feeling hurt and angry and frustrated about work, and I was planning to look blissful and happy when I saw him again. I clutched the green folder to my chest, hoping he wouldn’t ask about it. “I’m just getting lunch.”

“Isn’t it kind of late for lunch?” He asked, looking at his watch.

“I eat when I’m hungry,” I snapped, eager to show him I didn’t play by the rules now that we were broken up. I was a new, spontaneous, self-directed woman.

“You look beautiful,” he said, as I reached for a muffin.

I deliberately chose a pumpkin muffin—which I’d never ordered in the history of our relationship—and handed it to the woman taking money.

“Thanks. You look good, too.” He didn’t. He looked stiff and old and unhappy. Was his chin fatter than the last time I’d seen him? It was probably impossible, but I was going to hope. I wanted him to look a little worse.

“Three dollars,” muffin girl said, and I reached for my wallet.

“I don’t have my purse,” I clutched the latte and my folder desperately. I’d left the office without my Centrex ID, without my purse, without my wallet. “I’m sorry, I’ll have to come back later.” I moved to put the muffin, with its one tiny bite, back on the table with the others.

Erik quickly pulled a ten out of his pocket and offered it to the woman. “Let me.” I thanked him, and we walked together down the crowded sidewalk. I picked at my muffin, wishing I could have picked the time and the place to see him again. I just had to make the most of it.

“So you’re dating…” Erik shuffled awkwardly beside me, and I had this sudden reminder of him as a twenty-three year old. I remembered the first date we’d gone on—he’d been all arms and legs and awkward self-confidence.

I’d been so won over by this scrawny, sure-of-himself guy. Even though he was only a year older than me, he’d treated me like an adult when I was fresh out of college, and that had made me feel important. We’d skipped the crazy, drunken first dates and gone straight to visits with Grandma and family dinners. I wonder if Erik knew how to do crazy, drunken first dates? I made a vow to have one of those of my own, just to prove I could do it.

“Anders and Lil signed me up for an internet dating service,” I said, stretching the truth. “There are some real winners out there.”

“Which site are you using?”

Oh, God, was Erik dating, too? What if I accidentally got matched with my ex-boyfriend? I’d heard about that happening—hopefully Anders had tweaked my profile to make me seem enough unlike me to prevent that from happening. “Why? Are you hoping we get matched?”

“Yeah, I was going to sign up just to find you and hope I could convince you to go out with me.”

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked, irritated. I looked at Erik and realized he was being serious. “Why would you do that?”

“I miss you, Stella. I want you back.”

In every novel and movie I’d ever read or seen, this is the line the heroine is waiting for. But instead of Erik’s words making me giddy or filling my head with cheesy guitar love ballads, my first instinct was to run away. “You don’t want me back.” I thought about my conversation with Anders just a few days earlier, and how I’d wished this was how Erik was feeling. Suddenly, confronted with his admission, I was disgusted. It just seemed so
sad
.

“Can I try again?” He looked at me with his deep brown eyes, pleading without looking like a baby. Erik was a guy who knew how to get what he wanted. He’d just fooled me enough times that I wasn’t going to fall for it so easily again. “I know we weren’t perfect, but we were happy. I was happy—weren’t you? Let’s try again.”

“You tried again. And again. And again.” I ran my hands across the small flowers on an autumn-blooming plant. “I’m happy now, Erik. Please, can you just let me move on?”

He grabbed for my hand. “Maybe if we do things differently?”

I looked at him, curious. Erik didn’t do things differently. “How…?” I could hear Lily’s and Anders’ voices ringing in my ears, but then I also thought about Pippa and Heidi and Cat—and even Laurel. Things would change between all of us, eventually. They were Erik’s family, and I was just an outsider. I couldn’t help but yearn for everything I’d given up. I could hang on to all of them for a while without Erik, but probably not forever. Erik was my link to
family
, the only family I’d had in recent memory, and leaving him meant leaving it all. “I have to go,” I said and turned back toward the office before I said something stupid.

I wasn’t a stupid woman. But faced with the offer of comfortable companionship of my ex-boyfriend, I suddenly felt like I had the capacity to be very, very foolish indeed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lily’s annual Halloween party was always held on the Saturday night closest to Halloween. Various people from work, college-remnant-friends, and a few people from her church gathered in Lily’s gorgeous downtown loft for an amazing party and far too many drinks.

This year, without Erik, I was planning to get pleasantly drunk and crash in Lily’s spare bedroom. Erik and I had always come to the party a little late, mingled for a short while, then left before things got out of hand. This year, I was going to be the person who got out of hand. I deserved to get sloppy drunk. I’d missed that phase of my twenties, and there was no time like the present to make up for lost time.

To prepare for my night of drunken debauchery, Anders and I did a couple of shots together while we got ready for the party, then jumped in the cab we’d called to take us downtown. I was excited to show off my costume—since I didn’t have to coordinate my costume with Erik, I finally got to try something new.

I knew I didn’t want to dress in anything slutty. The year before, Lily had worn a sexy cat costume and her boob accidentally slipped out when she tried to do a somersault late in the night. I don’t know why she was trying to do a somersault anyway (Erik and I had already gone home), but I knew her biggest regret was that she was wearing a costume that had failed her in the late-night hours. I had no control over what I might do after all the drinks I planned to have, so I wanted a costume that was full-coverage.

Lily opened the door when we got there and stared, horrified, at my costume. “You’re trying to meet men and you chose
that
for Halloween?” She was dressed as Stripper Nurse or something equally tasteless. “Are you a scarecrow?”

“I’m one of the Dog Hounds,” I said proudly. “Joe.”

“You look like a dude. An ugly dude.”

“I love it.” I was proud of the overalls I’d found at Goodwill, and thought I looked kinda cute in my cowboy hat. I’d ratted my hair into a poofy ball and slapped the hat right over the top. It was a good costume. Clever, I thought. Most of the men who would be at the party were either gay or married, so it wasn’t like I was worried about scaring off all the single men at the party with my sex-less costume. “We brought vodka,” I said, thrusting a bottle toward Lily.

“It’s half empty,” she said, leading me inside the apartment. “Did you guys drink this?”

“I’m a good influence,” Anders said, laughing, then set off in search of other people he knew.

“Is Chad here?” I asked Lily, looking around her apartment. Her loft was open-plan, the kind of space where the kitchen, dining room, and living room all blended into one. She’d painted the walls varying shades of gray, and had hired a fancy decorator to come in and infuse the place with pops of color. All of Lily’s furniture was from Room & Board, and much of the apartment was set up so it looked exactly like the Room & Board showrooms. It was mid-century modern with a romantic twist. Lily always had bunches of fresh flowers scattered around the room, creating a softness that her overly-designed space needed.

Lily grabbed me a wine glass, but I reached past her and grabbed a martini glass instead. “Chad
is
here. Do you want him to make you something?” Chad was a cocktail expert—he even hand-stuffed his olives with blue cheese before serving.

“Yes, please. I’ll take a Bombay martini, extra olives, please.”

“Hitting the hard stuff?”

“Yup.” I waved, noticing Cat and her husband, Travis, had just walked through the front door. They were dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Cat obviously recognized my costume, since she gave me an exaggerated thumbs-up. “I think I deserve a night of drunken irresponsibility after my week of winner dates.”

Lily called Chad over to order my drink, then pulled me aside to quietly ask, “Do I have any bra line spillage?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m going to turn around, casually, and I need you to take a quick peek to see if my back fat is spilling out around the edges of my bra line.”

“Lil, you don’t have any back fat.”

“When Chad hugged me earlier, I felt his hand linger near my shoulder blades, and then there was some definite squeezing. The bad kind.”

“He was just being affectionate.”

Lily wriggled uncomfortably in her skin-tight nurse costume. “Just check, okay?” She spun around, and I was forced to admire her enviably tight backside. I could never understand how someone who looked the way she did could ever grapple with self-consciousness. Chad pushed my drink across the kitchen island and winked.

“Your lines are clean,” I whispered.

Lily beamed at me. “Thanks. It’s just been a while since Chad and I have been together, and I want him to want me, you know?” I did know. And when Lily headed off in the direction of the front door, I thought about how, early in our relationship, I’d wished Erik would look at me like I was desirable or sexy. I’d forgotten to want that after a few years. It just never happened—we were too practical for passion—and I never really thought it was worth wishing for anymore. Well, now I did want someone to want me… but maybe not
immediately
. After all, I was dressed like a male rockabilly band member with fluffy hair. Anyone who was inclined to hit on me had pretty bad taste.