Citizen Girl (13 page)

‘Hi! Good morning, I was just waiting for Joe —’

‘Nope, let’s not.’ I scamper after him. ‘Fuck, I’m getting a blister.’ He sucks his finger. ‘I let Joe go on Friday.’

‘Oh … I’m so sorry —’

‘Don’t be. Had to get your fancy salary from somewhere,’ he grins. ‘Besides, that soft stuff was dragging us under. Stacey,’ he calls while we’re still a few empty desks away. ‘I want Girl right here, in our area. Can you get her set up? And do something about the coffee – it’s fucking McDonald’s hot.’

‘Sorry, I’ll call Angel,’ she says, pushing up the sleeves on her large cardigan, ‘And I’ll call Joe to —’

‘Joe’s gone,’ Guy says curtly, grabbing a pile of mail off her desk and leaning it against his chest to flip through. One eyebrow darts up behind Stacey’s glasses.

‘Would it be better if I was assigned to a cluster?’ I ask tentatively, gazing at the honeycomb pattern of desks humming with activity at the front of the office. ‘So I can have total immersion?’

‘Girl, I like the way you think. No, I want you close to me. I want to hear your thoughts before you even have them!’ He claps me on the back with the mail. ‘Okay, Stacey, have IT get her hooked up with a computer and phone, pronto.’

Stacey nods, already speaking into her headpiece about setting up filing cabinets and ‘a gray desk chair, not one of the uncomfortable ones’. She reaches a Post-it pad
over to me. ‘Go ahead and write down your info so I can put in an order for business cards.’

I savor writing my new title, Director of Rebranding Knowledge Acquisition.

If Doris could see me now.

Girl, Congratulations on your new job! That is so wonderful! Zeldy and I couldn’t be happier for you! Sorry about the time crunch, but the sledgehammers are rented for Sunday! Please swing by the party – come as your favorite power tool!

Having frittered away three weeks with delusions of real-estate grandeur, just seventy-two hours remain before my home is returned to its original incarnation as a walk-in closet. And just half my lunch hour remains before my first real meeting with Guy to shake him down for input on this conference I’ve been planning. Finally resigned that my new salary still won’t afford me a Doris Day duplex, I hunch into a dirty phone booth –
got
to get a cell – on the corner of Twenty-Third and Eighth to clarify the coordinates of my absolutely positively last-hope apartment listing.

‘Hello?’ a male voice grunts.

‘Hi, can I speak with …’ I scan to the bottom of my crossed-out list for the landlord’s name, ‘Steve?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Is this Steve?’

‘Yeah.’ I can hear the beer breath.

‘Oh, okay, great. I’m trying to see the one-bedroom sublet you listed this morning in the
Voice
?’

‘How tall are you?’

‘Sorry? The thing is that I think the paper got the address wrong.’

‘Four thirteen West Twenty-third.’

‘Okay, gotcha,’ I say, crossing out 431. ‘And it’s still available?’

‘If you want it you better come now.’

‘Okay.’

‘Ever done any nude modeling?’

‘Um …’

‘Just come alone.’

Hemhawhemhaw. I put the receiver back and strain to see down the street to 413, a former tenement spruced up with flower boxes and a rainbow flag.

I dial my voicemail. ‘Hi, if I’ve turned up dead, I was going to see an apartment at Four thirteen West Twenty-third, three C, a man named Steve.’

I spot a pair of officers emerging from the Krispy Kreme. ‘Excuse me!’ I wave as they blow on their coffee. ‘Sorry to bother you, but I have to go see an apartment up there.’ I point to the third floor. ‘And the man sounded super-sketchy. Is there any way one of you could accompany me? I promise it’ll take all of five minutes.’

‘We’re not a babysitting service, sweetheart. If he sounds sketchy, skip it.’

‘I can’t! It’ll be really fast. You could even wait down here and just make sure I come back out. Please?’

‘Call a friend.’ They stuff themselves back into their patrol car. I look up at the bank clock: twenty-three minutes till my meeting with Guy. My eyes land on the
kiosk across from the phone booth, where a magazine tricked out to look like a Monopoly board asks, ‘Got game?’

I dial information and am connected to the closest thing to a rape whistle, working just a few short blocks away.

‘YGames. How may I direct your call?’

‘Buster, please,’ I say, my heart revving, as I give him a final opportunity to earn my number.

‘I’m sorry, I’m new here. Do you have a last name?’

‘No.’ No, I do not. What I have is one last apartment, a possible grisly death, a very attractive/attracted? boy, with
seemingly
good intentions, albeit questionable friends, and a penchant for fucking-up the follow-through. ‘No, he’s in the design department.’

‘Please hold.’

I blow a slow stream of air out my pursed lips as techno music thumps through the line.

‘Yeeeeaaallllo?’ Unwarranted swoon.

‘Hi. Buster?’

‘Yep, how can I help you?’

‘Hi, it’s G —’

‘Hi.’ I hear him whip his feet off his desk. ‘Hi!’

‘Hey, how are you?’ I steady my voice.

‘Really enjoying the tee shirt.’

Warranted chagrin. ‘Yeah, sorry about that. Listen, I’m sure you’re busy, but you’re also around the corner and I’m kind of in a bind.’

‘Yes?’

Is this a dating thing or a sex thing and if it’s a sex
thing, do we get equal booty call rights or am I signing on as your beck-and-call girl?

‘G?’

‘Right, so I’m being evicted, and I
have
to move this Saturday, and I finally found an apartment, but the thing is the landlord sounds like a total perv. Only everything else I’ve seen is either already taken, or uninhabitable, or both. But I also don’t want to end up in a snuff film and I have to be back at the office by two, but he said —’

‘Okay, okay, I’m grabbing my coat. I’d been envisioning Antigua at sunset, but looking at a perv’s apartment’s good, too. What’s the address?’

I hang up, giddy.

Minutes later, I’m warmed by the sight of Buster jogging effortlessly down the avenue. ‘Thank you so much!’ I call as he slows, his face flushed from running in the cold.

‘Not a problem.’ He kisses my cheek, his lips lingering a moment against my skin. ‘I’m glad you called.’

‘Oh good, I’m glad you’re glad.’

He laughs. ‘Good. Well, that’s cleared up.’

Fighting the impulse to throw down in front of Krispy Kreme, I pull myself away to press the buzzer. The door clicks open into an old tile hallway that’s been aggressively polished by some optimistic soul. Upstairs, Landlord Steve, a portly man in a stained tank top, awaits us, his face falling when he sees Buster.

‘My husband,’ I announce.

‘Whatever,’ he grunts. He gestures a hairy arm into the apartment and I wriggle past, drawn like a lemming by
the bales of sunshine. Buster stands guard in the living room while I swing through. There’s a real galley kitchen, a roach-free bathroom, and a separate bedroom – with a video camera on a tripod facing a naked mattress.

‘So?’ Steve looks me up and down as I slump deeper into my coat. ‘You like toys?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll give you my number. You should call me. I’m subletting to raise some capital for a new Vivid Video series.’

‘
Honey!
Come take a look at the kitchen,’ Buster pulls me in while Steve stays back to dial my bank. Buster holds a cupboard open and gestures to sugar, non-dairy creamer, and a crate of lube. ‘Does that come with the apartment?’ he asks, our faces close.

Steve sticks his head around the fridge, his smoker’s wheeze audible. ‘Check’s good. Rent starts Monday.’

‘I’m changing the locks.’

‘Whatever.’

One last search for duct-taped women and we’re back on the street. ‘Thank you so much.’

Buster beams. ‘My pleasure. Hope I haven’t thwarted your
E! True Hollywood Story
.’

‘It’ll always be my road not taken,’ I shrug.

He glances back up the avenue. ‘So, you’ll be right around the corner from me. There’s a great wine bar where we go after work.’

‘I’d love to —’ I catch sight of the bank clock. ‘Shit, I have about two minutes to get back for a meeting with my boss.’ I throw my hand out for a cab.

‘You got a job? So much happens when you don’t keep in touch.’ He pulls off his hat, leaving his hair rumpled like a kid just up from a nap.

‘Yeah, I’m the new Director of Rebranding Knowledge Acquisition at My Company, Inc.’ I reach up to smooth his bangs. ‘You know, you’re funny when you’re not surrounded by sex and violence.’

‘Ah, sex and violence.’ Buster sighs nostalgically. ‘Just wait till you see what I’m building up to on our third date!’

‘Pestilence?’

‘Listen, seriously, if you need help moving, my roommates and I can totally give you a hand,’ he says, pulling his hat back on.

‘Really? That would be great.’ I wave my arm afresh at the oncoming traffic. ‘Wait. The ones I met at the game?’

‘Yeah. They can be assholes sometimes, but they’re good guys.’

‘Good, because I’m out of tee shirts.’

‘Gotcha. And I meant what I said the other night, about wanting to get to know you.’ A cab pulls up, Buster opens the door, and I step between him and the car, feeling the charge of his proximity. ‘I mean, I still don’t have your number. But I understand. Just’cause you’re willing to give a porn king your social security, I shouldn’t expect …’

‘It’s yours.’ I scramble for a temporary business card, surrendering to the current.

*

Emulating Guy’s breakneck pace I fly through the busy office, swipe my conference binder from my desk, and dash into his unlit den, slip-sliding to a flailing halt when I realize the floor is covered in a carefully laid-out grid of labeled manila folders.

‘Girl, urgh,’ Stacey winces from where she kneels on the other side next to a box filled with loose papers.

‘Sorry,’ I cringe, stepping off the manila that banana-peeled me. ‘Where’s Guy?’

‘He’s gone.’ She tiptoes between the folders to straighten the mess I’ve made.

‘I missed him?’ I ask as she tugs papers out from under my forgotten heel.

‘You didn’t miss him.’ She pushes an errant chunk of hair out of her face. ‘He left right after you. Last-minute off-site.’

‘You’re kidding. I really need at least
one
meeting before Friday to make sure I’m on the right track with this conference. Can’t you see if there’s anywhere at all to fit me in?’

I follow as she grudgingly returns to her desk to scan his schedule. ‘Not going to happen.’

‘Nothing?’ My heart sinks. ‘Really? Not even ten minutes when I could brief him?’ She shakes her head. ‘I mean it just seems a little crazy. I haven’t really proven myself yet. What if my idea of a conference is getting everyone on the floor to play Jello Twister?’

Stacey rolls her cramping neck. ‘You can always try to catch him …’ I follow her gaze back to his crowded floor. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he just trusts you, okay?’ She sighs again. Trying on the idea of being trusted, I chew
the end of my baby pencil, courtesy of the Department of Unemployment. Stacey grimaces at it. ‘And by the way, the supply closet is the door past the ladies’ room.’

‘Oh, thanks. Where do I get the key and who should I sign stuff out with?’

She looks back from his doorway like I’ve asked for permission to pee. ‘Just help yourself.’

‘Oh, okay. Great.’ I watch as she steps wearily back inside. ‘Hey, Stacey?’ I call. ‘I’m sorry about messing up your files. How about getting a drink tonight? Bella Russe has some fun wine specials.’

‘I don’t drink.’

My cheeks reddening, I back down the aisle. ‘Okay, well, maybe another night – for coffee!’

With one less wedding party to be in and an entire conference riding on my sole judgment, I open the unlocked door into a whole supply room. There are shelves and shelves
and shelves
of Post-its, a wall of envelopes, and pens in every color and width, as if Tutankhamun was prepared for burial by Staples. Okay, I’m in a real office with real supplies, and soon to be in a real apartment – and Guy trusts me.

I begin systematically to extract all the red folders, a color Doris deemed strident, embracing the control I’ve been given to design a conference I, to date, would only have been allowed to make copies for.

On the morning of the big day, I lean in towards the Marriott ladies’ room mirror to pat concealer into the dark circles under my eyes. Stepping back, I give my
new, actually lined, Seline Saybrook-inspired suit the once-over. Stacey pops her head in, glasses sliding down her nose.

‘People are arriving and I have to get back to the office,’ she says. ‘Need anything else?’

‘I’m all set, thanks.’ I follow her out into the garish faux-imperial décor of the hotel’s meeting-room floor. My stomach jumps with anticipation as I see the arriving crowds. ‘Thank you
so
much for everything, Stacey. And have a great weekend.’

She pulls on her quilted coat and tugs her eternally laden satchel onto her shoulder. ‘Sure,’ she mutters, rooting for her ringing cell.

‘Seriously,’ I touch her arm, my eyes moist as I recall myself juggling a hundred thankless tasks for Doris. ‘I can’t tell you what it means to have had your help. I’ve always been the one running around for everyone else and the fact that you made time to support this conference, while balancing everything you already do for Guy just, really … means so much to me.’

She nods distractedly while glancing at the number blinking on the back of her phone. ‘He must just be leaving the investor meeting now.’

I check the time. ‘You’re kidding. He’s on in ten minutes.’

She snaps the cell open to answer it as she races for the elevators.

‘Okay, well, thanks again!’ With another glance at my watch and a prayer for Guy’s alacrity, I turn back to begin the day.