I almost choke on my coffee. Liam is here—with flowers.
I can see him through the conference room window. He strides toward me, a big bouquet in his hands, every bit as hot as that night, six weeks ago, when I hooked up with him after the comedy show.
I never thought I’d see him again. We’d agreed it was just a one-night thing, and at the time, I was totally okay with that.
But in the weeks since then, I’ve been regretting not getting his number, or giving him mine. He was fun to talk to and good in bed, traits that are rare by themselves and a unicorn together. I’ve thought about trying to look him up, track him down. How many Liam Johnsons could there be in Manhattan?
Um, yeah. Quite a few. So I didn’t even go there. We’d agreed. And I didn’t want to be a stalker.
But now that he’s here, I’m remembering how hot he is: slightly ginger-y blond hair, dazzling blue-green eyes, and a killer hard-won gym bod. All packaged today in a gray suit, black button-down, and silver-and-blue tie.
And he brought me flowers.
He opens the conference room door, and I rise out of my seat, ready to run to him. In my whole life, no guy has ever shown up at my work with flowers. This is a grand gesture. He found me, he came to my workplace with flowers, and now he’s walked into the middle of a brainstorming session with my boss, Gennie, and two of my other female coworkers.
I think I just fell in love with Liam at second sight.
If this were a movie, I’d run into his arms and kiss him, but I hold back, because this isn’t the movies, and my boss is here.
“Oh my God, Liam,” I say. “How did you find me?”
Gennie turns to look at me.
Both of my coworkers turn to look at me.
Liam turns to look at me.
Wait a second.
Why wasn’t Liam looking at me?
I realize that Gennie has stood up. And taken two steps toward Liam. Confusion is written all over her face.
My coworkers don’t look confused. They look horrified.
I am very slowly—like slow-motion car wreck slowly—piecing this together.
Liam is not here with flowers for me.
He is here with flowers for my boss.
And I said that thing aloud. The thing about how did you find me? We all heard it. Liam. Gennie. Jasmine and Pilar.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Liam says. To Gennie. “Gennie, whatever you think, it’s not that.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” Gennie says. She doesn’t say what she will do. She just picks up her laptop and her iPad and her notebook, stacks them neatly. Gennie is always calm, always deliberate. She is calm and deliberate now as she takes her things and walks out of the conference room, Liam hurrying after her with the flowers, turning to give me a look that is both apologetic and chiding.
“Um,” Jasmine says. “I should—”
She and Pilar get up. Both move toward the door.
“Wait!” I call.
They reluctantly turn back.
“Help?”
They exchange a look. In their faces I see all the questions that any sane woman would have in this situation. Should their loyalty to Gennie trump everything? If they stay, will they be betraying her?
And if they go, won’t they miss out on the chance to find out what the hell is going on?
“I have to get back to work,” Jasmine says. Not a surprising decision. Jasmine is Gennie’s best work friend. She slips out of the conference room without a backward glance.
But Pilar hangs back. She gives me a sympathetic look.
“What did you do?” she whispers.
“I didn’t know he was her boyfriend,” I whisper back. Oh, God. I’m dead. I’m fired. I’m dead and fired and jobless and did I mention dead?
Also, I’m a terrible person who sleeps with other women’s boyfriends. But I’m not that person. I swear I’m not. I would never knowingly be that person.
Could I accidentally be that person? Apparently.
“I didn’t know.” My voice is a tiny, wispy thread.
“She can’t fire you if you didn’t know,” Pilar says.
I never said fired out loud, but apparently that is where both our minds have gone, which isn’t reassuring at all.
This is a terrible time to be flooded with passionate love for my job, but that’s what’s happening. I love, love, love my job. I love marketing and I love working for a really good marketing company and I love figuring out how to market goods and services to women, which is what our team specializes in. Gennie is a generous boss, fair and creative. Jasmine and Pilar are excellent colleagues. Besides, to survive in New York City, I need an income.
“How long have they been a couple?” I madly hope she will say less than six weeks.
“Two years.”
I shrink like a poked slug.
“But they broke up three months ago and only just got back together.” Pilar holds up hopeful crossed fingers.
Salvation.
“It was six weeks ago.”
Pilar nods. “That was when they were broken up.” Her eyebrows draw together. “But how did you not recognize him?”
“I’ve never met him.”
“Didn’t you meet him at the Christmas party?”
“I wasn’t at the Christmas party.” My voice is small again.
“You weren’t at the Christmas party?”
The Grand Plan Christmas party is not to be missed. But I did. I shake my head. “I had—other plans.”
I told myself that this year, at this job, I would finally do things differently. I wouldn’t hang back like a shy preschooler sussing out the playground vibe. I wouldn’t say no when I should say yes, then make lame excuses. I’d go to the effing Christmas party.
After the e-vite went out with the details, I kept meaning to buck up, put on my big girl pants, and show the hell up… but while I was waiting for the injection of courage that never came, I missed the RSVP deadline.
So I stayed home, ate Ben & Jerry’s and watched Die Hard and Love Actually.
But I don’t tell her any of that.
“Well, what about Friday night happy hour? I know he’s stopped by a few times—” I can almost hear the “tick, tick, tick” of Pilar’s brain working through this puzzle and arriving at a conclusion. “But you’ve never come out to happy hour, have you?”
“No,” I say.
“And you don’t follow any of us on social media.”
Now she sounds like she’s adding up my crimes. Calculating out my sentence.
I shake my head.
“Why not?”
“I only use social media for work,” I say.
“But happy hour?” The way she says ‘happy hour’ makes me feel so nerdy.
“I—” I gulp air. “I should go pack my desk.”
I sneak one last glance at Pilar, who looks at me with so much pity that I have to quickly turn away.
I’ve just finished packing my desk when Gennie calls me to her office. Seated behind her big, bossy desk, she has never looked so cold and intimidating, not even on the day I interviewed with her, a year and a half ago. And that was one of the scariest interviews I’ve ever done, though later I realized that Gennie reserves that side of her personality for interviewees. And as I discover today, for employees who sleep with her boyfriend.
“I am so, so, so sorry, Gennie. You have to believe me, I had no idea who he was.”
“I do believe you,” she says, her voice as terrifying as her demeanor.
“I would never. Never in a million years. Girl code…”
I apparently can no longer complete sentences. My eyes fill with tears, but I won’t cry. I won’t.
There’s something in people that senses weakness, my mother said, after we left Atwell, the small town that soured me on small towns. They sense it and they go in for the kill.
Gennie looks like she would like to kill me.
“Do you even understand why I’m so angry?” she says.
“You have every right to be mad! I slept with your boyfriend! Not that I knew he was your boyfriend. And not when he was your boyfriend. But the fact remains, I did. If I were in your shoes, I’d be furious with me.”
I suddenly realize it doesn’t matter whether or not she is going to fire me. I have to do the right thing. I’ve made things impossible. Uncomfortable. And whether I did it on purpose or not, it’s my fault. There’s only one way out. I’ll have to quit.
“I want to make this as easy for you as possible,” I say quietly. “I’ll give you my letter with two weeks notice as soon as we’re done in here.”
Gennie’s perfect eyebrows nearly touch her hair. “Lucy.” I brace myself. “I’m not mad because you accidentally slept with my boyfriend when he wasn't actually my boyfriend. I mean I am. Of course I am. I want to strangle you with my bare hands and bury the body where it can never be found. Mmmm. Actually, I want to strangle him with my bare hands and bury the body where it can never be found. Or?” She tilts her head. “Strangle both of you?”
I wince.
“Sorry. Too much honesty? It’s just, he wasn’t supposed to rebound. He was supposed to pine and realize how much he’d taken me for granted.” She sighs. “Which he did, eventually, but he may have slept with half of Manhattan on his way to doing it.”
Gennie comes out from behind the desk, pacing. She kicks off her heels and strides back and forth in her stockinged feet. Then she stops, turns, and points at me. “But whatever, I get it, you didn’t know, and he didn’t know who you were. He was just, you know, doing what guys do when they’re hurt.” She crosses her arms. “But I’m mad at you because if you had even once come out to happy hour with us, or gone to a Christmas party or a rooftop barbecue or a housewarming party for anyone at work, or followed even one of us on Facebook or Instagram or… you would have known who Liam was.” Her voice has gained strength and her finger is jabbing the air. I take a step back.
“I’m mad at you because I’ve been working with you for more than a year and you literally have no idea what’s going on in my life, none! And I literally have no idea what’s going on in yours. I didn’t know you like comedy clubs or sometimes hook up with strangers—”
I wince, but there’s no judgment in Gennie’s voice. Just… sadness.
“And if you’d just let any of us be friends with you like we’ve been trying to do, this wouldn’t have happened.”
I feel awful and try to find the right words to tell her so, but they stick in my throat.
“But no,” she says. “You had to be an ice queen and go your own way and now I have to work with you knowing you know what my boyfriend’s O face looks like.”
“I—I know.”
The ice queen thing—it’s not like I’ve never heard it before, but it still hurts.
She’s not saying anything I don’t know.
I’m that coworker.
The one who isn’t really a very good “team player.”
The one who isn’t really a “people person.”
Or, to put it the way Darren did when he broke off our three-year relationship last year, I’m unknowable. A black box, he said. I kept waiting for you to open up to me, but now I know it’s never going to happen.
I’ve realized he was right, and since then, I’ve vowed to be better. Any armchair psychologist could tell you I’m closed off because my dad proved himself so untrustworthy in every possible way, but that easy assessment doesn’t mean it’s simple to fix.
“I meant what I said about giving notice,” I say. “You don’t have to work with me, I’ll move on.”
She throws her arms in the air. “Have you heard anything I just said? You are not giving notice. No notice!” She buries her face in her hands. “Oh, Lucy, what am I going to do with you?”
“Fire me?” I suggest. Again.
“I’m not firing you,” she says.
“But I—”
I can’t, I think.
I can’t come to work knowing that within a day or so, everyone at work will know the story of what happened. How I stood up, all soft and eager and vulnerable, with my feelings showing all over my face, and said, “How did you find me?” like the heroine of a romantic comedy, except I wasn’t the heroine.
I was the comic relief.
Gennie’s expression softens.
And now it looks an awful lot like pity, too.
I would so, so, so much rather she hated me.
“Listen. I totally get it if you need a little time. Maybe a leave of absence. Say, three weeks. Take some time off. Let both of us reset.”
“Please just let me quit,” I beg.
She shakes her head. “If you sucked at your job, I would. But you’re the best I’ve got, and I’m not letting you go that easily.”
“Thank you.” My voice is small again, but at least steady.
“I won’t let this get in the way of what’s best for the team or the business,” Gennie says. “And I know you won’t, either.”
I thank her for the three weeks leave of absence. For her generosity in not firing me. I apologize again, while she waves it off.
When I go, though, I take the box with me. The one with the contents of my desk.
I think, I’m never coming back here.