We talked for an hour. And despite how badly I felt about Alexa, I felt wonderful with Chris. This was what a husband and wife should be like. This was what I’d assumed we would be like when we were married. Why there had been so precious little of this, I couldn’t say, but I loved the closeness now. I loved him.
We decided I would speak to Roslyn the next day. I would admit I’d made a mistake and try to get Alexa her job back. By the time Chris led me to bed, I was exhausted, but I was calm with my decision. I murmured thanks and fell asleep.
“Absolutely not,” Roslyn said.
My calm from last night evaporated as if the air had been sucked from the room.
We were sitting in Roslyn’s office, a cool space decorated with black and white prints of chilly winter landscapes.
“Why?” I said, trying to stop my legs from jiggling up and down. “Why can’t we rehire her, if I admit I made a mistake?”
Roslyn shook her head and gazed at me, clearly disappointed. “Remember when you brought up the topic of letting Alexa go, and I told you it had to be your responsibility?”
I nodded and chewed anxiously on the inside of my lip.
“Well, that remains true. Once you’re in management, you have to make some tough decisions, and you have to stick by them.”
“Of course. I know that, and I agree, but I think just this once-”
“Can’t do it, Billy.”
“But why?” My anxiety was replaced by desperation. If I couldn’t somehow reverse what I’d done, Alexa’s family would suffer. I wouldn’t be able to shake the thought of that bleak apartment from my mind.
“When you let Alexa go, did you read the HR manual?” Roslyn asked.
I nodded, although I’d really only skimmed it, too set on sacking Alexa ASAP.
“So then you’ll probably recall,” Roslyn said, leaning forward on her desk, “that once someone is terminated, they cannot be rehired. Laid off, yes, we might be able to bring them back, but not if they were terminated for cause.”
I sagged in the chair. I had rushed forward to something I wanted-getting Alexa out of my little world-without knowing or paying attention to the consequences. “There’s nothing I can do?”
She shook her head. Then her face brightened. “But on a better topic, how’s the budget going for Odette’s book?”
I held back a sigh. Budgets, budgets, budgets. The new staple of my work life. How I hated them. “Just fine,” I said.
“Great!” Rosalyn was chipper now that we’d dealt with the unpleasantries. “Well, see if you can get the numbers up. We’ve got to make some money off of her. And don’t forget we’ve got an officers’ meeting this afternoon.”
That made me sit a little taller. I wasn’t sure what went on in such meetings, yet they sounded official, exciting. Evan had told me otherwise, but I always believed he’d made them sound painful because he knew how badly I wanted to attend. And now I would. My first officers’ meeting.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
Having your toenails pulled out with tweezers.
Listening to a Ted Nugent song for eternity.
Bleeding from the eyes.
Being run over by a lawn mower.
Watching a four-day Three Stooges marathon.
I sat in the boardroom making a list of things that might be more painful than the meeting itself.
Evan hadn’t been patronizing me or trying to make me feel better when he’d said officers’ meetings were boring. In fact, the word “boring” itself was a rip-roaring riotous party compared to what this meeting really was-monotonous and brainless.
We were on the topic of whether to have carbonated mineral water put in the pop machine. Lester, a VP from accounting, pointed out in a speech as long as a state of the union address, that the pop machine was really just for soda and we’d already compromised that sacred concept by adding regular water. Another man, clearly Lester’s nemesis, argued that Lester was promoting a prejudiced attitude toward water, and that surely water of all kinds should be allowed the same rights as soda and permitted to mingle in the same areas.
“And you’re missing a big point,” the nemesis said. “We make money on that machine. The sparkling water will sell as fast as hotcakes.”
Lester huffed and puffed about the importance of tradition and doing things the way they’ve always been done. I scribbled on my pad, Sell as fast as hotcakes. What did that mean anyway? What were hotcakes, and did they really sell so quickly? Maybe we should put those in the machine.
Lost in tedium, I began to write other sayings that didn’t make sense.
Colder than a witch’s tit. A witch was a mammal, wasn’t she? And therefore, why would her breast be colder than anyone else’s?
Snug as a bug in a rug. Never understood this. Is the bug supposed to be rolled up in a rug, or just happy to be lolling in carpet fibers?
Clean as a whistle. Whistles were coated with saliva with every use, and therefore wouldn’t exactly qualify as clean.
I felt someone’s eyes on me and looked over to see Evan staring at my legs. I’d worn a light blue, pleated skirt that was rather schoolgirl and saucy. Apparently, Evan agreed. He raised his eyebrows and gave me a salacious smile. Feeling bored and bold, I crossed my legs, and the skirt rode a little higher. Evan’s mouth fell slightly open, his gaze never leaving me. That gaze carried with it a certain power, wholly different from the power I’d felt when I fired Alexa. This power was sexual, ragged-the intensity thrilled me, yet scared me too. This power was great enough to carry me away with it, right when my marriage had gotten back to the place I wanted.
“Excuse me for a moment,” I said, standing up.
Everyone in the boardroom looked at me with surprise. I thought I saw Evan grinning.
“Ladies’ room,” I said.
More stunned looks. Evidently, no one in the history of Harper Frankwell had ever left an officers’ meeting to use the restroom. I considered sinking back into my seat fast, but between the boredom and Evan’s eyes, I had to escape.
“Ladies’ room,” I said again, before I scooted toward the door.
By the time the meeting ended two goddamned hours later, no one seemed to remember my departure from the room or the way I’d snuck back in. I barely had time to do any work before I had to leave to meet my mom, but with my excitement to see her I couldn’t have cared less. I headed for the parking lot.
As I steered my car onto the highway, my cell phone bleated from inside my purse. I reached over to the passenger seat and answered it.
“How’s traffic?” Chris said.
“Same as five minutes ago. What’s with you?” I had talked to Chris three times at work today, and once since I’d pulled out of the lot.
“I just wish I could go with you.”
I laughed. “Since when?” Chris had never had such a keen interest in seeing my mom.
“I want to be with you.” There was a plaintive note in his voice.
“Chris, you were with me last night and the night before that, and this morning.”
“I want to be with you all the time.”
Internally, I repeated, since when? Why, exactly, had Chris come back to me so quickly, when for years he’d distanced himself? I hadn’t wanted to ponder that question-I just wanted to be happy with the new closeness we’d found-but Chris’s near desperation baffled me. Even in our happiest days, we’d never been the couple who lived hand-in-hand.
“I’ll see you when I get home,” I said.
“Baby doll!” My mother swept into the bar at Milrose Brewery and pulled me into a hug.
I squeezed her tight, inhaling a new light, floral perfume. Over her shoulder, I could see other patrons at the bar checking her out. And for good reason. Her black hair was pulled elegantly into a chignon, and she had on huge dark sunglasses and a tangerine wrap around her shoulders that made her look more Parisian-urban than Barrington-suburban.