Sad Desk Salad (18 page)

Standing there on the landing I am struck by the contrast between myself and my friends: I’m driving myself bonkers searching for something that doesn’t even exist in the physical world while they are actually living. How did I get so disconnected? Chick Habit, and all its attendant stresses and woes, is still just a website.

Then something else hits me: If Caleb isn’t connected to the hate blogger, I’m back to square one. I feel despair creep over me. It’s so much easier to parse something nefarious when you can understand the person and his or her motives. What if this is simply random Internet terrorism? Something that could happen again and again, for no reason at all?

I realize I need to find Jane immediately and patch things up. I can’t afford to cock up any more of my real-life relationships. I scan the crowd but I can’t see her anywhere, though I do see Julia and that skinny girl, what’s her name, still standing near the booze table, deep in conversation.

I push my way over to them. “Sorry to interrupt, but have you seen Jane?”

“I think she’s out on the stoop,” Julia says. What’s-her-name just stares at me. “Is she okay? She looked pretty upset when she was on her way out there.”

“I should check on her,” I tell Julia, nearly sprinting past her.

I run through the darkened main room, which is almost entirely empty, and throw open the heavy door. Sure enough, Jane’s outside on the stoop, talking to an acquaintance from college, Anna. I don’t know Anna that well, but she and Jane have been close since they played on an intramural soccer league together in college. Jane’s smoking a Camel Light. She only lights up when she’s had a few, so I know she’s pretty drunk. I’m hoping this means she is in a forgiving mood.

“Thank God you’re still here!” I say, testing the waters.

Jane regards me coolly. “Yep, still here.”

Ouch. So maybe not so forgiving. I turn to Anna. “Hey, Anna, good to see you.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Anna says cautiously. From the look on her face I suspect that I’ve just walked into a major bitch session about yours truly.

Since their conversation clearly can’t continue, Anna stubs out her cigarette and says to Jane, “Catch you later, J.” She pushes open the heavy door and disappears back into the party.

Neither Jane nor I says anything for a few minutes. I desperately want to beg for her forgiveness immediately, but I’m too nervous. She might still be pissed, and I don’t want to get another lecture, not now. Finally, Jane blows smoke out of the side of her mouth and says, “So, did you fuck up your life or what?” I exhale with relief. At least Jane’s still speaking to me!

“I didn’t. You were so right. I need to get a grip.”

“Damn straight I was right.”

“I’m so sorry, Jane.” She’s still got her face in a tight little grimace.

“Please tell me that you didn’t touch him, even a little.”

“I didn’t!” I hesitate and then add, “I did, however, read his e-mail.”

“Whaaaaaat?!?” She drops the cigarette from her fingers and she raises her eyebrows nearly off her face.

I explain to Jane about the smiley-face tattoo and the locked folder and the ordinary, not-scandalous photo of me, ending with, “So I realized that I was losing my mind, truly, and hightailed it outta there.”

“I’m glad,” Jane says, her tone still firm. “But I really do hope this is a wake-up call.”

“It really is. I’m going to go back home right now and have an honest, serious talk with Peter.”

“I’m not just talking about Peter.” Her concern face is back on.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re obsessed with this job in a really unhealthy way. You don’t eat properly, you don’t go outside. You wear that tragic muumuu all the time. You are neglecting people you love. I know that Chick Habit has been good for your career, and I’ve tried to be supportive because I love reading the site, but I think after all this hate-blog, Rebecca West nonsense dies down you should seriously reevaluate what it is you’re doing.”

“Wow, Jane, tell me how you really feel.” My head is spinning. How long has Jane felt this way?

“I’m just telling you what I’m seeing. It never seemed this bad before and I thought you would adjust eventually. But after this week, I don’t think it’s right for you.” She says this gently. Her tone is completely different than it was during our first confrontation.

“Well, Jane, it’s not like I have a whole lot of other options in this business right now. And before this week everything was going pretty okay.” I say this bitterly, not because I’m mad at Jane for being honest or because I think she’s wrong, but because I really have no idea what to do—about the job, about Peter, about any of it.

“I’m not telling you to call up Moira tomorrow and quit your job. I just think you should think about your situation.”

All of a sudden I am very, very tired. I don’t have the energy to argue with Jane, and I certainly don’t have the energy to contemplate leaving Chick Habit and finding another job. We stand there in silence for a bit, not looking at each other. I can hear Jane sighing a foot away from me.

“Can we just go home now?” I ask.

Jane says, “Yes, we can just go home now. Do you have the number of the car service?”

“I do.” I take my phone out of my canvas bag and turn it on. Immediately I see that I have four messages waiting for me, but I ignore those for the time being and call the car. “Five minutes,” the dispatcher tells me, and just three minutes later a beat-up Town Car arrives.

Jane must be exhausted, too, because she falls asleep immediately upon sitting down in the big backseat of the car. I tell the driver that there will be two stops, Jane’s place and then mine. Against the background of muted techno music I listen to my voice mail, bracing myself for Peter’s sad disapproval.

The first voice coming out of my iPhone is not Peter’s deep one but Moira’s jaunty Irish brogue. “Love, where are you? I have news about tomorrow! It’s about nine
P.M
. Call me or IM me when you get this.”

The second message is from my mother. “Hi, Alex. I just wanted to hear your little voice. If you can give me a call tomorrow, I’d love to catch up.” I feel guilty for not calling her, but I don’t know how I’d explain the madness of the past few days.

The third message is also from Moira. “Alex, seriously, call me. It’s eleven. You know how to reach me.”

The fourth message is Moira again, the brightness in her voice replaced by total annoyance. “Alex, if you would deign to return my phone call, I would tell you that you need to be camera-ready at six thirty tomorrow morning. That’s when the
Today
show is sending a car to pick you up. Be prepared to talk Rebecca West by seven fifteen. This is huge for Chick Habit. You’d better be ready.”

Despite my exhaustion I have an immediate surge of conflicting reactions. The first is: Squeee! I’m going to be on the
Today
show! This is a lifelong dream of mine. As much as I roll my eyes at the dog-grooming tips and missing-white-woman news stories, I do have a sincere love for Natalie, Savannah, and the rest of the crew.

My second thought is: The hate blogger is going to lose her mind when she sees me on TV. Is this going to hasten the release of whatever it is she has on me?

Which brings me to my third and most distressing thought: When the Rebecca West story was just on our humble website, I could pretend it wasn’t that big a deal. If it’s on national television, it might actually ruin her life for real.

All of these thoughts are roiling in my brain as the car pulls up to Jane’s apartment. She wakes up just as the car stops.

“Hey,” I say, deciding not to bother her with the latest turn. Jane’s made it pretty clear that she’s had enough of my drama for the day.

“Hi,” Jane says, rubbing her eyes and smearing her mascara.

“I know I was a total pain in the ass today, and I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. I love you, you know? I just want what’s best for you.”

I nod. “Good night.” We hug and she gets out of the car.

It is only after Jane leaves that it sinks in that Peter hasn’t called me tonight. Or if he has, he realized my phone was off and he didn’t leave a message. I can’t say I blame him, since I’ve been such a deadbeat about calling him back this week. But I’m scared about going home, because I don’t know how he’s going to react when I stumble home far past midnight, and not even for the first time this week. I also don’t know how to broach the subject of the Omnitown report. I know I might not like what I hear, but I need to find out what’s going on so we can move forward.

The car pulls up to the curb outside my apartment. The driver tells me it’s going to be $22, which is when I realize how far away from home I really was. I hand him a ten and a twenty and tell him to keep the change. As anxious as I am about facing Peter, I’m here at the door and I have no place else to go. I open our squat door as quietly as I can, in case he’s still asleep, but I see him sitting up on the couch reading in a T-shirt and boxer briefs as soon as I step into the light. There’s a pillow and a blanket next to him. He puts down what appears to be the Omnitown report and looks at me.

“You’re finally home.” There’s a mixture of relief and frustration in his voice, but his face is impassive. I can’t read it, which is rare; I can usually tell what Peter’s feeling from his expression. I decide to launch into extreme apology mode and hope that his blankness is just exhaustion.

“I am. We really need to talk, I just—”

“Shut up, Alex, seriously. Just shut up.” I freeze. Peter’s hardly ever spoken to me like this before. He doesn’t seem tired at all now.

“But I just want to explain—”

“I don’t want to hear your excuses right now. I’m so angry and confused that I don’t know what to say. We need to sit down and have a real talk about the way you’ve been acting these past few days but it’s three in the morning and as I’ve told you a million times already, this is a huge week for me at work.” His voice gets louder and louder throughout this speech until he’s shouting at me, nostrils flaring. This is the angriest I’ve ever seen him. I try to remember the last time he yelled at me like this, but I can’t. “Have you had a fucking lobotomy or something? What is
wrong
with you?”

I am so shocked at being yelled at that instead of confronting him about Tyson Collins I start babbling. “I know, I just . . . Work’s been crazy and there’s all this . . . stuff going on. I just wanted . . .” I’m starting to cry, and I see Peter’s face harden.

“You just nothing. You haven’t thought about me for a second in days and right now my priority is sleep, not listening to whatever it is you have to say.”

“Okay,” I say, resigning myself to another day of not telling Peter about the Becky West fiasco, which is about to reach the next level, and another day of pretending I didn’t read what I read at the kitchen table this morning.

“Good,” he says. He plumps the pillow angrily, lies down on the couch, and turns over so his back is toward me.

I go to the bathroom to clean off my makeup and put cold water on my hot, tearful face. Maybe Jane was right. Maybe losing my job would be good for me. Maybe I shouldn’t go on the
Today
show.

Then I look up at my newly clean face and wonder, Will they provide a makeup artist on set?

THURSDAY

Chapter Ten

My iPhone’s ring wakes me up. I don’t immediately see the phone, but the ringing is so close to my head, I realize that the cell must be somewhere in bed with me. My eyes are so dry from last night’s sedative-and-booze combo and a possibly perilous lack of sleep that I can only open them partway. I grope around for the phone and manage to pick it up and shove it against my ear.

“Hello?” I croak out.

“Where the fuck have you been, love?” Moira says. She’s the only person who can make the word “love” sound menacing.

“M-my phone accidentally got turned off in my purse,” I stammer, pleased that I can come up with a plausible excuse before I’ve ingested coffee.

“Did you get my messages?”

“Yes.”

“And will you be ready in thirty minutes when the car from
Today
arrives at your hovel?”

I pause for a second and collect my head. My dithering of the previous night seems to have dissolved in the early morning sun. It’s suddenly completely clear to me that the only choice is to push forward. I’ve already sacrificed so much to this job that to give up now—and possibly lose it—seems ludicrous. Even though this isn’t the way I wanted to end up on the
Today
show (ideally, I’d be appearing because of a serious ten-thousand-word article I had written that made people change the way they thought about women in politics), I shouldn’t pass up this chance. I can deal with Peter later.

“Yes,” I say, my voice steady with my new resolve.

“Good.” Moira’s voice relaxes immediately. “Molly is doing your first post of the day but after you’ve been on the telly you need to go right back home and fill your quota.”

“Of course,” I say, wondering how the hell I am going to get through another hungover day. This job is hard enough when I’ve had my eight hours and the strongest thing in my system from the night before is Sleepytime tea.

“Right, then. Take a shower and put on something presentable. Remember: Colorful V-necks are best. Avoid patterns. They’ll do your makeup so go in with a bare face. Sit up straight, and speak clearly.”

I remember now that Moira is a veteran of the morning talk show circuit from her days at the fusty lady mag. She was a celebrity correspondent and would comment on pressing famous-person issues like Reese Witherspoon’s new haircut and how quickly Jessica Alba lost her baby weight.

“Got it,” I tell Moira, grateful for her practical advice. “See you back online in a few hours.”

I hoist myself out of bed and notice immediately that Peter is not on the couch. In his place is a neatly folded blanket with a perfectly plumped pillow atop it. I’m more surprised that he folded the blanket than anything else; that he’s gone is not a shock. He occasionally leaves for work before six and he wants to avoid seeing me. I’m still angry and hurt when I think that he might be keeping pivotal job information from me, but I’m also feeling guilty about pushing him away.