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Phones ring exactly when I don’t want them to.
Like during meetings. Or when I’m trying to talk with the executives who have come down from their towering offices to the jungle of cubicles and the smaller offices to check in with the rest of us. Right as I’m finally figuring out a problem I’ve been having with a project and trying to get it untangled so I have some hope of finishing it.
That was the way it was that afternoon. I’d been standing, considering myself on my way out the door, for the last forty minutes, and no matter how hard I tried to take that next step, I wasn’t making any progress. First, it was the owner of a company I’d been trying to land as a client and had been playing coy and not making any decisions but chose that day to suddenly have a million questions he absolutely had to ask in individual phone calls. Then it was an existing client who needed me to talk them through a simple shift in their budget we’d already discussed twice that week. After that, a prospective client who was finally getting back to me after I’d been waiting for their call for days.
It was one of those days. Of course, it was. Of all days, that had to be the one that was going to be a pain in my ass. The one time I was trying to leave the office early to do something that wasn’t work, I was suddenly wading through all the projects and calls and conversations that should have happened when I was spinning around in my office chair waiting for any of it to happen. That was a common feeling for me. Even when I had plenty to do, I was looking for something else. I was never willing to settle or to feel like I had done enough. I always worked as hard as I could, trying to do more every day.
People on the outside often used words like driven and determined to describe me, but I felt like it was more than that. I wasn’t just trying to accomplish something. I was trying to prove it. I was constantly chasing after that sense of legitimacy. I had to prove I could make it, to be a success in my own right rather than relying on the established reputation and wealth of my family. That was the thing. I had a whole life waiting for me from the time I was born. It was written in the stars. Or the ancestry papers, as it were.
All I had to do was be the good little girl that was expected of me. Behave, be polite, and eventually marry the wealthy man my family thought was right for me and be the dutiful wife. It wasn’t as oppressive as it sounded. For some people, that is. I knew a lot of women my age who were very happy to spend their lives pursuing interests and enjoyment rather than careers, essentially being a professional wife, mother, and hostess. And more power to them. If that was what they wanted, I believed whole-heartedly that was what they should have. It wasn’t that there was something intrinsically wrong with the whole concept.
It just wasn’t right for me.
From the time I was really young, I knew I wanted a career. I wanted something that made me stand out from my family. Growing up only being looked at as the next generation of my family was too small. I was barely in double digits when I realized that also meant that everything I ever accomplished would come under question. When you grow up the child of wealth, power, and influence, people tend to forget you have your own capabilities and pursuits. They believe anything you ever do or want is simply handed to you. And I didn’t want that. I wanted to be successful and recognized because I did something for myself.
So I focused hard in school. I went on to get an advanced degree and threw myself fully into my career, always trying to build it and get it to the next level.
But that meant I was always busy and stressed, especially now that I was also helping one of my best friends prepare for her wedding and another prepare for the impending birth of her first child. While also looking to move into a new home because I had officially had enough of the nosy neighbors and frustrating commute that came along with the old apartment building where I was currently living.
That was exactly why I needed to get out of work early that day. I had finally managed to land a viewing appointment for an apartment at a gorgeous building I had been coveting since it first went up more than a year before. The apartments had filled up in an instant then, and I put myself on a waiting list more as motivation and a vision board item than because I actually thought I was going to have a chance of getting in any time soon. After all, this wasn’t the kind of building someone would just move out of on a whim when they got an apartment. People who managed to move in here stayed.
But thank goodness for old age.
Saying that probably wasn’t my best look.
Right then, though, I didn’t care that the apartment had recently been home to a woman now wandering the other side. As long as she wasn’t still in the living room where she died, I was happy. I just needed to make sure I got to my appointment on time. The waiting list went on long after my name, so if I wasn’t there, they could easily just pick up the phone, call the next name, and I could be attending a housewarming rather than a viewing by the time I got across town.
I finally managed to run out of the building and toward my car, but my phone was ringing by the time I opened the door. I glanced at the screen and let out a sigh before answering.
“Hello, Mother,” I said.
“You know, Alexis, you really should work on sounding more pleasant when you answer the phone. You never know who could be on the other end,” my mother said.
I hated that she called me Alexis.
“I do know who is on the other end, Mother,” I said, climbing into the car. “That’s the beauty of caller ID.”
“So you chose to be that unpleasant when you saw it was me?” she asked.
Damn. Busted. It doesn’t matter how old we get; mothers are still mothers.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be unpleasant. It’s just a really stressful day for me,” I said, pulling out into traffic.
“Then you must be thinking about Gabriela’s wedding.” I wasn’t, but that wasn’t going to register to her even if I said it, so I wasn’t going to bother. “I have been, too. It’s getting so close. I’m sure she’s just overwhelmed with all the last-minute details. Her mother says she hasn’t even finished her thank you notes from her bridal shower yet. You know, as her maid of honor, it really is your responsibility to make sure she stays calm and help her through all of these things.”
“I know what my responsibility is. We already have a plan for the thank you notes,” I said.
“How about the wedding? Do you have a date yet? The maid of honor can’t come to the wedding without a date.”
“What kind of rule is that? Maryellen went to her cousin Stacy’s wedding without a date,” I said.
“And people talked about her the whole time,” Mom pointed out.
“People would have talked about her no matter what. That’s kind of the problem with groups of these kinds of people. They talk about each other,” I said. “And don’t you think they already talk about me?”
“Yes, honey,” she said in that faux gentle tone mothers must get bestowed upon them before being allowed out of the maternity ward, “I know they do. Do we really need to give them something else to wonder about?”
“The wedding is about Gabriela and Dean,” I said. “Why does it matter if I show up with anyone and who that might be?”
“It’s just how things are done, Alexis,” she said. “You don’t want attention being pulled to you because you look like a single woman.”
“I am a single woman,” I said.
“And perhaps there’s a reason for that,” she said. “It’s difficult to find the right man when your nose is in your work all the time.”
“I happen to like my work.”
“As you’ve told me. But maybe you could at least put a little more thought into your appearance. When I saw you the other day, you looked like you’d barely put any thought into your outfit, and you weren’t even wearing lipstick. It concerns me that you aren’t taking proper care of yourself.”
“Mom, I was in the middle of a jog. I don’t wear full makeup when I’m working out,” I said.
“But you could. There are plenty of good brands that offer waterproof options. I’m sure they would work for sweat. If you insist on going out in public to work out, you should at least put some effort into how you’re presenting yourself. You could meet the most wonderful man while jogging, you know.”
“If I’m meeting a man while jogging, it’s probably because he’s jogging, too, and he’s not going to expect me to be in makeup,” I said.
“It certainly would be a lovely surprise for him if you were,” she said.
And thus went my conversation with my mother that took up the entirety of my way across town. She wasn’t mean. She was rarely actually mean. She had just perfected the art of being nagging and annoying and focusing in on the exact elements of myself and my life that, though I loathe using such an overdone word, triggered me.
She had so perfected the art, in fact, that she had transitioned away from her displeasure at my uncoordinated jogging outfit and sweaty hair to what she deemed my “unstable living situation” right as I was pulling into the reserved parking spot near what I hoped would be my new apartment building.
“Mom, I’m not going to become a transient. In fact, I’ve got to go. I have an apartment to look at in the Bentley,” I said.
“The Bentley,” Mom said, sounding dangerously close to being impressed. “Oh, yes, Marla Vandross died.”
“Yep. Lucky me. I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you soon,” I said.
She was saying something as I ended the call, but I had approximately thirty-seven seconds to get into the lobby and look put together, and I wasn’t wasting any of it.
No matter how many times I saw it, the Bentley took my breath away. It was gorgeous and just felt like something. Like if you lived there, you were somebody. I felt hopeful as I walked into the lobby. This was my next step.
Almost immediately, a polished-looking man with a smile that rivaled the gleaming marble of the floor came striding toward me. His hand was out before he was within ten feet, and I had a moment of not knowing if I was supposed to walk toward him or stay where I was.
“Ms. Murphy,” he said. “I’m Grayson Barrett.”
“Alex,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Alex. Welcome to the Bentley. I’ll be showing you around,” I said.
I smiled and nodded. “Thank you. I’m really excited to be here.”
“Well, there is a lot to be excited about living here. I like to think of it as living in a top-quality resort. We offer a wide variety of amenities to our residents, starting with The Coffee Shop right here in the lobby.”
He gestured to the side, and I saw a little shop in the lobby. I thought he was just referring to it being a coffee shop, but the sign hanging over the door declared that the actual name. It made me smile again. It was charming. As Grayson described the growing popularity of the shop and the regulars that frequented it, I peered through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls surrounding it.
The energetic tour guide had moved on to talk about something else, but I missed it. I was too busy watching the extremely attractive barista behind the counter.
“Alex?”
Grayson’s voice snapped me back into reality, and I realized he’d already started walking across the lobby toward the elevator. Within the hour, I had toured the apartment, fallen completely in love just the way I expected to, and signed the lease. I walked out of the building ready for my new chapter.
