Mixed Signals (8 page)

B
ecause participants can't submit pictures to the contest until the website is fixed and its security is enhanced, the radio station extends it. For two weeks, Branigan and Smyth sandwich calls from women who want to go out with Nico between listeners who want to talk sports. According to the show's website, the contest has close to 140,000 entries. Crazy considering most of the audience is male.

By the time the show is ready to announce the winner, #WinA-DateW /Nico is trending on Twitter in Boston. On the morning of the announcement, Ben, Renee, and I are sitting in his cube listening to the show. A few rows over, Ryan and Tyler are snacking on foul-smelling sausages and eggs from the cafeteria, waiting to see pictures of the winner.

Branigan has been milking the interest in the contest since I started listening at six this morning. Now, he concludes his interview with a hockey player. “Okay, we know you've all been waiting to find out who the lucky lady is who has won a date with Nico,” he says. “We'll tell you right after this commercial break. Stay tuned.”

This is really happening. For six years, Nico has dated no one but me. Now he's going on a date with a listener.
I reach for the slinky on Ben's desk and extend it between my hands, compress it and then repeat. The sound of the metal rings collapsing on each other comforts me but annoys Renee. She grabs the toy from me. “Don't worry, honey,” she says. “It's just a PR stunt. Nothing will come of it.”

I'm not so sure of that. The winner will be a woman who willingly listens to Nico's show, unlike me, who tuned in under duress. If she listens to sports talk, she'll probably love watching games with him. I usually sat on the couch next to him, reading. Only when he jumped to his feet, cheering for a play, would I glance at the television. I imagine that whoever the winner is, she'll be jumping right beside him. Damn, she's more likely to be his soul mate than I ever was.

The commercial ends. “First, I want to thank all the young ladies who participated in our contest,” Branigan says. “The response was overwhelming.”

Smyth pipes in. “Who would have thought so many women would be interested in a date with Nico. The guy's a schmuck.”

Ben elbows me.

“Exactly right,” Renee mumbles.

“So it took us several days to go through all the pictures, but Smyth and I have studied them all carefully,” Branigan says.

“Some more carefully than others,” Smyth adds. He and Branigan both laugh.

“Nico hasn't seen any of the pictures,” Branigan says. “We didn't want our decision influenced by his preferences, because frankly we know better than he does.”

I'm sure Branigan means that as a jab at me, and give the radio the finger.

“Maybe you shouldn't be listening, Jillian,” Ben suggests.

Listening to the show is like looking at an accident I pass on the highway. I know that it's going to upset me, but I can't help myself. “I'm okay.”

“Our sponsor, Vincenzio's Cucina, has generously donated dinner for Nico and the winner.”

It's like Nico is slamming my heart with a sledgehammer. Why there, of all places? Won't the memory of the night we got engaged bother him?

“And the winner is—drum roll, please,” Smyth says. “Bonnie Carmichael.”

“Ms. Carmichael is a yoga instructor and sent photos of herself in some very interesting positions,” Branigan says. “Our intern, Zachary, is in the process of posting them to our website.”

“Not the good ones,” Smyth says. “We would get in trouble for that. Big trouble.”

“How is it even possible to spread your legs like that?” Branigan asks.

“She's obviously very flexible,” Smyth answers.

“So Nico is looking at her pictures now,” Branigan says. “What do you think, you lucky dog?”

Nico's hoarse voice comes over the airway. “I'm blessed,” he says.

The pictures go up a few minutes later. I know because the sales guys whistle like construction workers. “I want a piece of that!” Ryan shouts.

“She is hot, don't-get-too-close-or-you'll-get-scorched hot,” another says.

Do not look
, my rational voice warns. She's probably beautiful.

Branigan has horrible taste. She might be hideous
, says the voice that always gets me in trouble.

I take a deep breath, navigate to the radio station's website, and click on the link for the morning show. Across the page, in big bold letters, the type reads Nico's Date. Under it is a full body shot of a lean woman dressed in nothing but a leotard. She has a heart-shaped face with a flawless complexion. Her thick, long blond hair flows over her left shoulder. Just above her right breast, there's a tattoo of a shamrock. She's sitting with her muscular tanned legs fully extended out to each side of her body. There is a one sentence caption under the picture: “Tune in Monday to find out if Nico scores.”

Damn, I should have listened to my rational voice. My eyes well up
.
Ben enters my cube. He looks at the screen. I can tell by how quickly he turns away from it, feigning no interest, that he's already seen the photograph. “That picture's been photoshopped, and her rack, definitely not real,” he says.

I click off the page.

“Hey,” he says, noticing my watery eyes. “It's going to be okay.” He places his hand on my back and moves it in small circles. His kindness makes it harder to fight back my tears. “You're going to end up with someone so much better than Nico.”

“Sure,” I say.

* * *

The last thing I feel like doing after work is partying with my coworkers, but our new owners are hosting an event for us at the Time Machine, a restaurant down the street. Stacy warned us that not attending would be like committing career suicide, so I have to suck it up for an hour or so.

Renee and I wait until everyone else has left the office before we make our way over. “Try to forget about Nico and have a good time,” Renee says as she pulls open the door to the restaurant.

“Okay,” I say, but it will be hard to forget about him here, because it's one of the places he loved to go with me.

Stepping inside is an instant sensory overload. Machines ding and beep, colored lights flash. Waiters and waitresses race around the crowded room carrying trays with onion rings, french fries, and buffalo wings, all emitting strong aromas. The idea behind the restaurant is that while you're there, you go back to when you were a kid, so there are all sorts of video games you can play while you eat and drink.

A new woman in Human Resources, the one who replaced the HR temp Ben slept with the night of the holiday party, greets us and gives us free drink tickets. “Have fun,” she says.

Renee takes our jackets to the coat check while I scan the crowd, looking for our coworkers. Cheering breaks out in the back of the room, and then an electronic voice comes over the speaker: “Team three wins.” I turn my head toward the commotion and immediately see Lucas's blue cap in the crowd. Next to him, Tyler and Ryan high-five each other.

Just beyond them, Ellie has Ben pinned in the back corner of the bar. He sees us and waves his arms high above his head. His frantic movements remind me of someone shipwrecked trying to get the attention of the search crew in a helicopter flying overhead. I imagine Ellie bending Ben's ear about ideas she has for the new website. She rarely stops thinking about work. I'm sure that she even forwarded her work phone to her cell phone before she left the office this evening.

“Looks like Ben needs to be rescued,” Renee says.

We navigate our way through the dense crowd, brushing shoulders with many other people here to start their weekend. “I was getting worried that you weren't coming,” Ben says. “Let me get you a drink.” He pushes his way past Ellie and heads toward the bartender.

“Ben was just telling me the two of you are going to Renee's twenty-fifth anniversary party together,” Ellie says.

Renee's face turns bright red. At first I think she's embarrassed because she didn't invite Ellie, but then she rips off her long black cardigan, grabs a menu, and fans herself. “It's like a hundred degrees in here,” she says.

Ellie and I look at each other because it's cold, like the air conditioner is on instead of the heat. Hot flashes. They can hit you anytime, anyplace. That's what I've learned from watching Renee over the past few months.

“I don't know if I'm going,” I say.

“Going where?” Ben hands me a glass of red wine and Renee, white.

“To my party,” Renee answers.

“You're going,” he says. “You're my dance partner.”

“We'll see,” I say.

“You should go,” Ellie says. “You two had a great time dancing together at the holiday party.”

Ben casts a sideways glance at me. My cheeks redden thinking about how I behaved that night. Damn Ellie for bringing that up. She called me the day after the party. Her voice was a mixture of disgust and judgment.
What the hell were you thinking, grinding with him like that? What if Nico saw?

Now, I wish he had, not just because it would have hurt him, but because it would have given him a reason to leave, one that I would understand.

The group of coworkers who were playing games stream toward us. Lucas and Ryan edge their way into our circle. Ryan bumps Ellie's arm, causing her to spill beer on her shirt. She goes to the bar to get a napkin. He stares at me with a smirk. His dark brown eyes, which are set too close together, are already bloodshot. I'd bet anything he's already burned through the three free-drink tickets Human Resources gave us on the way in.

“So, Jill, did you see the woman who won a date with Nico?” he asks. “She is one hot little dish.”

I tighten my grip on the glass in my hand, causing the wine to slosh back and forth along its sides. For a split second, I imagine tossing it at Ryan, watching the red liquid drip down his face onto his gray sweatshirt.

“I don't know,” Ben says. “She looks like Miss Piggy to me.”

“A strong resemblance,” Lucas says. The two clank glasses.

I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. “What did you guys do?”

“We didn't do anything,” Ben says. Lucas laughs and the two clank their beer mugs again.

I take my cell phone from my purse and navigate to the radio station's website. Instead of Bonnie's picture, there's now a photograph of Miss Piggy lying on a pink exercise mat with her open legs high in the air above her head. The picture is funny, but I don't want to encourage Lucas and Ben, so I try to stifle my laugh. It comes out as a snort, which causes them both to burst out laughing.

“Nico already blamed this on me. If he figures out a way to prove it, we could all be in big trouble.”

Ben wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me toward him. “You didn't do it, so relax.”

Ellie returns, looking pointedly at Ben's arm around me. “Jill, let's go to the ladies' room.” She takes my glass and places it on the table.

When we get to the restroom, she asks, “What's going on with you and Ben?”

“Nothing.”

Whenever she's excited, two curved lines that look like parentheses appear between her eyebrows. They're there now. “He's definitely into you,” she says. “Told me to convince you to go to the party with him.”

A toilet flushes.

“That's because he doesn't want me sitting home feeling sorry for myself.” I tell her how he asked me to go to dinner with him because he thought I was spending too much time at work.

A stall door swings open, and Renee steps out. “Ben's had a thing for you since you started,” she says. “Haven't you ever noticed the way he looks at you?”

How does he look at me?
“No!”

“Oh, I've noticed,” Ellie says.

Maybe at the Christmas party he looked at me a certain way, but other than that, he hardly notices me.

“And I had nothing to do with those flowers and chocolates on Valentine's Day,” Renee says. “All his idea.”

“We're friends. He's trying to cheer me up.” That has to be the reason he gave me a gift.

As Renee washes her hands, she checks out her flushed reflection in the mirror. “Be careful around him,” she says. “You're vulnerable right now, and he doesn't always use the best judgment.”

Other than when she's having hot flashes, Renee looks and acts young, so I often forget that she is twenty years older than me and has two teenage kids. Right now, though, the way she's looking at me and the concern on her face definitely remind me that she's a mother. She rips a paper towel out of the dispenser. “I don't want you to do anything you'll regret.” She touches my hand on her way past me. I can feel that hers is still wet.

“You should definitely hook up with him. Let him cheer you up,” Ellie says, and laughs.

Even though the thought crossed my mind, I shake my head.

“You know what they say: The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Ellie persists.

“What happens the next day when we have to work together?”

“You can always find a new job,” she answers.

* * *

When I return from the restroom, Ben is standing by himself watching two men shoot basketballs. The game they're playing continuously spits balls at them. They have two minutes to get as many as they can through the net. Ben motions with his head for me to join him. Ellie nudges me in his direction. “Be crazy. Go for it,” she says.