On the Verge (27 page)

I practically scream when Rob opens the door. He’s alone and smiling, so I know Sherman told him I was in here. He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m at his computer; from his vantage point, he can’t see where I’m looking.

“Ms. Vitali.” He starts adjusting the closed blinds. My hand is still hovering over the mouse. I should just close the file, but I’m frozen. My heart is racing.

“Hi,” I say, trying to keep my voice level.

“Are you trying to steal my job?”

“No.” I think it comes out too defensive. He leans over the desk and kisses me. He grabs my hand and walks around the desk, kneeling before me.

“You look like a dark-haired Goldilocks. Who’s been sitting in my chair?” He is trying to be cute, but, I can’t relax. “Do you think I can get you to call me Papa Bear? What’s going on?”

“Just stopping by, you know.”

“I thought you were still upset about that job. I’ve missed you.”

“Me, too. I’m not mad or anything, I’m fine.”

“Good, I locked the door. I have a half hour and I intend to use it.” I am not sure how I feel about being scheduled in. I am still blocking his view of the screen. He doesn’t kiss me right away, he looks at me for a little while, plays with my hair. “You’re really pretty, Ms. Vitali.”

I should tell him. I should turn around and point to the screen and say, “I know you’re some kind of corporate grim reaper,” but I want to just forget it and kiss him. I can’t help liking him when he’s kneeling in front of me in his office, staring at me with those sexy eyes. We start kissing. Thank God the door is locked because for a little while I forget where I am. His hands are moving up under my shirt and we are both in his chair pushing it back. Sherman is a very distant thought.

Rob realizes as he is kissing my neck. In all the excitement, I forgot to keep blocking the screen. It takes me only a second to figure out why he’s stopped.

He is disheveled when he pulls away. He looks back and forth from me to the computer, like I’m some kind of awful traitor. My
lipstick is smeared all over his mouth. He sits back on the floor and stares at me, waiting for me to say something.

“I was just leaving you a note, I swear I wasn’t snooping.”

“Eve, this isn’t cool. I mean all that information is totally confidential. There are maybe five people in the company who know we are going to do something like this. Did you see the
Bicycle Boy
list?”

“So there is one? Am I on it?”

“Eve, c’mon.”

“Why aren’t I on it, because of you?”

“No, Eve. We always need assistants.”

“Well, that’s comforting. I may hate my job, but I love the job security.” He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me. I want to wipe his mouth off and forget about everything but the kissing parts, but, I can’t. “So who is it? Who’s getting fired?”

“Eve—” he’s shaking his head “—we can’t do this. I was spoken to about it—”

“What? You were talked to about me?”

“You need to relax.” He is up now; I don’t mention the lipstick.

“What, is our half hour window over?”

He doesn’t answer me and I hate being ignored. He stops at the door and looks at me. “I have a meeting I can’t miss, Eve. I’ll call you later.” I hate the way he talked down to me. I wish he would come back and we could give it another go to make everything seem normal. He might be thinking that, too, but he’s late for a meeting and so he shuts the door behind him and leaves me sitting in his chair, still disheveled with the stupid file still open.

I hate everyone.

Except Roseanne. She makes me ribolita for dinner—it’s my grandmother’s recipe. She doesn’t ask me why I’m being so quiet, she just gives me a second helping. Roseanne will be a wonderful grandmother someday.

Rob calls me that night. He’s still at the office. The conversation is a little tense, especially when he tells me he is going to another conference early tomorrow. He’ll be out of town for a week and he doesn’t seem to realize that means he won’t be around for Valentine’s Day.

“Eve, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You were snooping around my office and that’s not cool. I have a million things to do and I have to go home and pack. I’ll call you from Jacksonville, okay?” Again, he’s talking to me like I’m someone he needs to be patient with. Whatever.

We have no heat on one of the coldest days in the past two years. I’m trying to sleep through it, but I wake up in the middle of the night to Roseanne standing over my bed with all her blankets.

“I think my pee just froze on the way into the toilet. There’s a draft in the window. My body temperature is rapidly dropping. I have to get up in three hours.”

“Climb in,” I say, rolling over in my bed. She gets in and scrunches up to me. I miss having someone sleep in my bed. It’s kind of cozy. I need to work it out with Rob.

We arrange the covers so that only the very tops of our heads are exposed to the elements. Roseanne cannot stop whining and moaning. “This is the worst, ever!”

“C’mon, it’s cozy! Besides, at least we have a home. Just think, one day we’ll look back on this like our starving artist phase. We’ll remember it fondly.”

“Starving artist? More like poor low-level functionaries. I beeped that fix-it guy Frank today. Twice. He never called me back. Can you please call Yakimoto?”

When I agree, Roseanne rolls over and goes to sleep. I can’t help but feel used.

It’s very hard to get a hold of Yakimoto in the morning. First one of her kids, who seems unimpressed when I mention that I am the Little Nell lady, gives me the number to a restaurant. Some guy who doesn’t speak English answers, and after a lot of confusion, which is exacerbated by the fact that I don’t want to talk too loud, I get her.

“Hi, Mrs. Yakimoto. It’s Eve. Listen, our heat isn’t working. I would call my dad, but we don’t have keys to the basement. Roseanne beeped Frank yesterday, but he never called back. Do you think you can call him?”

“I will give you his number at his shop. You girls should just try calling him again. Be really as cute and nice as you can be. You can do it.”

“Well, okay. So, what’s this restaurant you’re at?” Every time I call Mrs. Yakimoto, I try to be as friendly and interested in her as possible. I think she likes me.

“Well, I opened a restaurant. It’s a theme restaurant close to the mall out here. It’s a lot of work and very expensive. You should get a man to take you here.”

“Well, you’re quite the entrepreneur, Mrs. Yakimoto.” I can tell she’s thrilled. It never hurts to butter up the landlady.

I call Roseanne back and give her the news. We have decided that I will always deal with Yakimoto and she will always call Frank (I think it has a lot to do with her being cuter and nicer). I also share with her Yakimoto’s advice for getting optimum results from Frank.

“So, basically she wants us to prostitute ourselves to get the heat fixed. Heat, which we are, by law, entitled to. Heat, for which we pay.”

“They’re making you file, huh?”

“Yes. Oh, my God! I think it’s sexist. The office assistant is out and I am the lowest on the totem pole. There is nothing I hate more than filing. My suit is filthy, at least they could have told me this is what I’d be doing.” Roseanne is never happy when she has to file.

“What are you doing tonight? Tabitha’s friend Nicole got us tickets to an indie flick and the reception.”

“I’ll be too busy showering the dust off and freezing in the apartment.”

“Well, don’t suffer in silence.”

“I’ll try not to. See you later.”

I jump at the phone when it rings the next day. It’s only my sister warning me not to be suckered into the consumerist holiday. As usual I patiently explain to her that I am not the enemy, I do not encompass the evils of corporate America, nor, despite appearances, am I “the man.” She informs me that she
loves
Chuck. I remind her of how greeting card that word is. (I’m not exactly in the best of moods. Last night, even though Tabitha assured me that the film swept Sundance, it sucked. The after party wasn’t so bad. We got drunk on vodka drinks because Stoli was the sponsor and I watched Tabitha dance into the night with the director’s grandfather.)

“Boy, Eve, you’re bitter about men. That Todd guy looked so cute.”

“Monica, Todd is in fucking India, for all I know. We are just friends. We were never seeing each other. I don’t know where you got your info.”

“Well, I read the Eve Vitali fan letter, of course.” Sometimes, I have got to give my sister credit, she may be Ms. Social Redistribution or whatever, but she can be a real smart-ass. I toy with the idea of telling her about Rob, but I can’t just tell my sister about a guy without her bugging me about my sex life and defining
for me (again) power issues between men and women. She would go nuts with the power issues between Rob and me. My sister tells me how she wants to scrap this whole Women’s Studies thing, “how practical is it?” and maybe go to some holistic medical school out west with Chuck.

“Okay, Monica, my suggestion, which you probably won’t accept, is that you wait to tell our parents this new plan.” I can hear Monica stirring with this, I know she is ready to unleash the fires of the underappreciated older child, but lucky for me my other line beeps. “Oh, Monica, I’ll have to call you back, I need to take this call.” I switch over before she can tell me how I always take our parents’ side.

“Eve, this is Isabelle Chambers. I’m sorry, I haven’t been able to return any of your calls. We’ve been busy going over candidates for a lot of positions.”

“I understand.” I’m searching for the acceptance or rejection tone in her voice, but it’s level and flat.

“So, we decided to go with someone with a little more publication experience.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” Why am I thanking her? She does not deserve my thanks. I don’t want to believe it’s got anything to do with Rob.

“You’re welcome, Eve. I thought you were great and I’ll definitely keep you in mind for anything else that comes up.”

“Please do. Thanks a lot.” When I hang up, I realize that I’m not ever going to have another job. My destiny is to be an assistant at this desk.

“Stop being ridiculous, what about our magazine?” Tabitha must believe I really will be an assistant forever, because she would never bring up the magazine otherwise. “Honestly, Eve, I’ve been thinking about it. It isn’t a bad idea. We should start looking into it. I wonder if we could put it out ourselves or if we need a backer. I mean, I’m sure we need a backer, because we don’t have enough capital, but you never know.”

“What about your father?” I don’t know why I’m asking her this, she never talks about her father or her family, but she always gets money from somewhere, so maybe it’s her dad. I know it’s a sexist assumption, but maybe Tabitha will open up a little more.

“Yeah, I can probably get money from somewhere, I’m not sure if I have as much as we would need, but we can talk about it. More importantly, Vlad is dissing me on Valentine’s Day for some
wrestling match. I’m not sure about this one, of course, it might be Cold War child anxiety.”

“Remember that episode of
Silver Spoons
where he met Andropov? Terrifying.”

“Right. So, are you flying solo?”

“The King is dead. Actually, just pissed at me and I don’t even know what city he’s in. Planless for V-Day and it’s a Friday. So it’s even more disgusting.”

“Shall we have a girls night out? You get Roseanne, I’ll get Adrian.”

“Adrian? What about Anthony?”

“Too much drama. They’re done, just in time for the holiday. C’mon, we’ll go to that cheap soul food place in the East Village.”

“Fine, but can it just be a real girls night out?”

“Oh, right, the fight. You know, you can’t fight forever.”

“I don’t know, we probably can fight forever. And we’ll still be pissy on Friday. Besides that place is really small—we’re never getting reservations.”

“Okay, no Adrian. I’ll call for reservations now.” Sometimes, there’s no talking to Tabitha. She’s thriving on the hustle-bustle. At least I won’t have to see Adrian.

I keep hoping that Rob will come back in time for V-Day. I have the urge to be wrapped up in his loving arms. For some reason I think this out loud to Tabitha and she makes vomiting noises.

Valentine’s Day.
Roseanne and I arrive first at our Valentine’s Day fete, and, sure enough, the waiter is a doll. When we thank him for seating us he says, “My pleasure.” Roseanne is smitten with him, so she orders wine right away. We’re mostly through the bottle by the time Tabitha shows up. Tabitha immediately flags the waiter over for more wine.

There aren’t too many lovey-dovey couples to remind us of our solitude. There’s one couple in the corner, so we put Tabitha in the seat facing them, because she’s had sex most recently, so as Roseanne says, “She can deal.”

The food is delicious. We make a silent pact to get the waiter over as often as possible so we can gawk at him and hear him say, “My pleasure.” Roseanne asks him if he has a Valentine and the rest of us try to explain her, which makes Mr. Sexy Waiter giggle and Roseanne gets belligerent.

“Where are you from?” she asks the waiter.

“Texas.” Roseanne and I get excited because now we have a reason to keep him here. I wish I knew something about Texas, but I just want to look at him. We tell him Tabitha is from Texas. He asks Tabitha where she’s from and she looks annoyed.

“Can we get another bottle of wine?”

“My pleasure.” Tabitha turns to us, repeating, “My pleasure.”

“Tabitha, you guys were
paisan,
you should have talked to him.”

“I know, but who wants to talk about Texas?”

“Not you, obviously,” Roseanne says. “You were acting like you’d never even heard of it.”

“Well, I was overcome by his hotness.” I didn’t think that happened to Tabitha, I’ve never seen her seem so nervous. “Besides, I’ve blocked out Texas, it was a traumatic time.”

“Why?” Roseanne thinks she’s the only one who hasn’t heard about Tabitha’s family.

“Just childhood, I don’t know.” Tabitha picks at her mashed potatoes and doesn’t say anything. I know Roseanne isn’t satisfied with that, but I shake my head at her.