I’m careful not to make a sound as I hurry past the closed door, knowing Mike is asleep behind it. How bizarre is that? Me, creeping naked past my boss’s bedroom door.
Well, not naked, but close enough. The blanket I grabbed is little more than a throw.
It doesn’t occur to me until I’m in the shower-steamy bathroom with the door closed behind me that I’ve brought nothing to wear on my return trip to the bedroom.
Rut-roh.
I’d better hurry. I can’t think of anything worse than running into Mike in the hallway when I’m half-naked.
After checking the door repeatedly to make sure I’m locked in, I drop the blanket, find the new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet and unwrap it. The crinkling cellophane is deafening. So is the tap when I turn it on.
The bathroom is old, with pink-and-black tile and stains in the grout. It’s not that clean, either. When I pick up the soap and see a coarse, curly black hair embedded in it, I’m so horrified that I drop the whole bar into the tub.
I don’t even want to speculate about whose crotch it fell out of.
I wash without soap, and as I do, I think about Jack and last night.
And Jack’s apartment.
It’s a third-floor walk-up in one of those boxy brick apartment buildings that line the streets of the outer boroughs. We pretty much went straight to the bedroom when we got here, but I glimpsed enough of the tiny place to know that it’s your run-of-the-mill bachelor pad. Mismatched hand-me-down furniture, no rugs, no pictures on the walls, and it smells faintly of old beer and steam heat and Comet.
Jack’s room consists of a full-sized mattress and box spring sitting right on the floor, a tall dark dresser that looks like it came out of his childhood bedroom and some stacked plastic milk crates filled with books and CDs and papers.
So much for my trust-fund theory. Jack is clearly living on his media planner’s salary. Which makes a forty-dollar box of imported chocolate and a shrub-sized poinsettia plant all the more impressive. If they really are from him.
Dammit, the tub isn’t draining right, which leaves me standing in a shin-deep pool of soap scum and floating hairs. Oh, ick.
Plus, several of the holes at the top of the vinyl shower curtain are torn right through. So it droops on one end and I don’t realize the floor is getting soaked until I’m done with the shower.
“Shit!” I whisper-scream when I see the flood.
I climb out of the tub and try to sop up the mess without using all three towels that are in the barren linen cabinet, reasoning that I need one and Mike will need one. But it takes two towels to even semi-dry the puddles. I’m left still dripping wet and naked myself, and wondering if I dare use the last dry towel.
What are the chances that there’s a clean, newly laundered, just-folded load sitting just outside the door in a laundry basket?
I know, I didn’t think so, either.
I have no choice but to grab the last dry towel from the shelf, do my best to blot my hair and the rest of me. My feet are slippery up to my ankles from standing in the soap slick in the tub. They’ll probably be all itchy later. Lovely.
I wrap the towel around myself, and drape the blanket over my shoulders for good measure.
Then I open the door, peer cautiously into the hall and step out of the bathroom.
All is dark and quiet.
Safe.
I take two steps…and skid in my still-damp, slippery feet on the hardwood floor.
I go down with a crash and a screech.
“What the—”
“Tracey?”
Two doors open simultaneously.
Two men rush out of their rooms.
One is Jack.
The other is Mike Middleford, boss of Tracey.
Did I say that I couldn’t think of anything worse than running into Mike in the hallway when I’m half-naked?
I did?
Well, guess what? I just thought of something far freaking worse.
I scramble to rewrap the towel and blanket around myself as Mike gapes, standing there in—you guessed it—his underwear.
They’re not boxers, like Jack has on.
Nor are they a zebra-print thong, à la Raphael.
But, God help me, they’re something in between. I believe the proper term is tighty whities.
Oh, the horror, cries a news commentator in my head, who apparently hasn’t seen anything this bad since the Hindenburg crashed and burned.
Tracey: sprawled, nearly naked.
Mike: tighty whities.
Oh, the horror. Oh, the humanity.
Face flaming, I get to my feet and speed-skate toward Jack, who hustles me into his room and closes the door behind me.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“That was…that was…” I can’t even find the words to describe it. I bury my face in his bare shoulder, trembling.
“Did you hurt your leg?” he asks, holding me at arm’s length and looking down.
“No.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Dammit, I am bleeding. Ouch. My knee has one of those brush-burns you get when you’re seven and fall off your two-wheeler onto the asphalt.
Oh, to be seven again.
Oh, to be fully clothed and falling off a two-wheeler.
Jack takes a corner of the towel that’s slipping off me and kneels at my feet, gently dabbing my knee.
I wince.
“Does it hurt?”
It stings like crazy, but that’s nothing compared to the utter, soul-searing humiliation I feel.
“It’s not so bad,” I tell him, meaning the knee.
He dabs at it again.
“Do you think Mike saw anything?” I ask.
Which is like Michael Jackson asking if anybody’s noticed he got his nose done.
“Nah,” Jack says, unconvincingly. “Come on, let’s go clean up your knee. I’ll get you a Band-Aid.”
The Band-Aids, as I recall, were next to the toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet.
“I can’t.” I plop down on the edge of his rumpled bed, wishing I could smoke. But my Salems are in my bag, which is hanging on a hook somewhere beyond Jack’s bedroom, so it’s out of the question, since I can’t leave this room. Ever.
I say exactly that to Jack.
Jack grins. “Really? I kind of like the idea of you in my bedroom 24/7.”
“Jack, I’m not kidding. How can I ever face Mike again after that? I work for him!”
“It’s not that big a deal, Tracey.”
Easy for him to say. He wasn’t sprawled naked at his tighty-whitie-clad boss’s feet. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that in the whole history of the world, no other human has ever been sprawled naked at their tighty-whitie-clad boss’s feet.
Jack sits beside me on the bed.
“Do you want me to go talk to Mike?”
“No!” I narrow my eyes at him. “What could you possibly say? Pretend you didn’t see that? I don’t think it’s an image he’s going to forget any time soon.”
I know I won’t.
Every time I look at Mike, I’m going to see his toothpick legs and his scrawny but hairy chest and the disconcerting bulge in his—
“I can’t stand it,” I wail, closing my eyes to block out the image.
Jack gives my shoulder a there, there pat. It doesn’t help.
I can’t think of anything that might help, aside from maybe a cigarette. Or being shot with a tranquilizer gun.
We hear footsteps in the hall. A door closes, and a few seconds later, the tap is turned on.
“He’s in the shower!” I tell Jack, springing into action. “I have to get out of here before he comes out.”
Jack looks down at his boxers. “But—”
“Now!” I bark in a guttural voice.
He looks taken aback, so I sweetly smile and say, “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he says, but I can tell he’s wondering if there’s a scary hidden ax-murderess side of me.
r />
Ten minutes later, we’re both dressed for work and walking through the brisk gray morning to the subway. My hair is still wet and I’m wearing the same thing I had on yesterday, of course. I have to stop home and change before I go to the office.
I tell Jack to continue on uptown when we reach my stop.
In my apartment, I find Raphael snoring in my bed and the television on. It’s tuned to a porn station; a closeup action scene of a big wet tongue on the most enormous nipple I’ve ever seen in my life.
Oh, for God’s sake.
I turn it off, take another shower—this time with soap above the ankle and proper rinsing below—dry my hair, and get dressed. Raphael sleeps through it all.
I can think of a billion places I’d rather spend today than the office. Like, say, in the confessional at St. Fabian’s. Or Baghdad.
But I can’t call in sick. I’d have to call Mike, who knows I’m not sick. Who now knows everything about me, come to think of it.
I slink into the office fifteen minutes late. When I see Myron wheeling his mail cart by the reception area, I realize I forgot to bring the paperback sports biography I bought him as today’s Secret Snowflake gift.
Mental Note: Run down to Korean market and find something—nice shiny apple?—to leave for Myron at lunch hour.
Mike’s in his office with a couple of production guys. Thank God he’s busy for now. That gives me time to brace myself before I see him again.
“Morning, Tracey!” Merry chirps, passing me in the corridor as I hang up my coat.
“Merry! Wait, I need to ask you something.”
“Hmm?” She turns around. She’s wearing one of those acrylic Christmas sweaters with a sequined candy cane on the front, and a plastic pin shaped like Rudolph’s head. The nose is a miniature lightbulb that’s glowing red.
“About the Secret Snowflake…how much are we supposed to spend on gifts for our person?”
“Fifteen dollars for the week. Is that a problem?”
“No! I just, um, wanted to make sure.”
She says dramatically, “Isn’t your Snowflake leaving you little gifts, Tracey? Because if there’s a situation…”
A situation.
Judging by her expression, there’s nothing more ominous—at least, not to Mary the One-Woman Goodwill Gestapo—than a Secret Snowflake situation.
“No, there’s no situation,” I assure her, unwilling to admit that my Snowflake is either neglecting me or overspending. For all I know, that’s grounds for a Secret Snowflake tribunal, and who has time for that?
Merry goes on her merry way, Tra La, and I head to my cubicle, praying Mike will spend the rest of the morning—or, with any luck, the rest of both our careers—in meetings.
I stop short in the doorway to my cube.
A white envelope is propped on my keyboard. My name is scrawled on it in black Sharpie.
Thank God my stomach is empty, because I’d probably throw up if it weren’t.
For a split second, I’m convinced that it’s from Mike. That he’s firing me.
Okay, get a grip, Tracey. He can’t fire you for being naked in his apartment.
But can he fire me for letting him unwittingly take a shower with nary a dry towel in the bathroom?
My hands are shaking as I tear the envelope open.
Inside, there’s a little cardboard folder that contains a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate to Sephora.
Okay, I’m not fired.
That’s a good thing.
Somebody is treating me to upscale beauty products.
Also a good thing…
Unless it’s a major hint.
As in, “You need a makeover, Tracey Spadolini, and if you’re not going to spring for it, I will.”
Whoever I is.
Nah. Twenty-five bucks at Sephora wouldn’t transform me into a new woman. I’m not even sure it would buy me blusher and a lipstick.
I have no idea who left this envelope, but after further investigation, I have to conclude that it probably isn’t from Jack. The gift certificate is timed and dated, and I was with him last night when it was purchased.
Which means the chocolates and poinsettia weren’t from Jack, either.
Not a good thing.
Can my Secret Snowflake really be behind this?
Frankly, I’d rather be ignored and forgotten, like I forgot poor Myron today.
I mean…I’m going to run out and get him a nice shiny apple? Who am I, the old hag from Snow White?
Meanwhile, my Snowflake is giving me better presents than I’d buy my own mother.
That’s just wrong.
And creepy as hell.
“How’s it going, Chief?”
I look up to see Mike standing over me with a stack of papers in his hand.
“Hi, Mike.” Instant flaming face.
“Nice flowers.” He’s fully clothed…in person. But not in my mind’s eye.
Oh, Lord.
“Thanks,” I say, sounding hoarse.
“Secret Snowflake again?” he asks.
“I, uh, guess so.” I try not to stare at anything but his face and hope to God he’s not having the same struggle.
“Listen,” he says, holding out the papers. “I need four copies of this presentation by the end of—”
“No problem.” I snatch the stack out of his hand and take off for the copier.
Good thing I have an appointment with my shrink after work tonight.
Maybe she can make some sense of my life, because I sure as hell can’t.
“Do you think a person can fall in love with someone new within months of breaking up with somebody they were with for three years?”
Dr. Schwartzenbaum—whose real name is Beatrix but goes by Trixie and has repeatedly invited me to call her that—studies me over the top of her half glasses. “You’ve met somebody new, Tracey?”
“Sort of. I mean, I definitely did meet him. But he’s my boss’s roommate.”
She nods. Waits.
Twenty-three stories below, sirens wail along Twenty-ninth Street.
I shift my weight on the leather couch. It makes a deafening sound that sounds exactly like a blast of intestinal gas. Nice. I shift my weight again, hoping it will make the same sound so she’ll know it wasn’t a fart, but the couch won’t cooperate.
I look up.
She’s just watching me. It’s hard to tell from her expression whether she’s wondering whether flatulence fumes are about to hit her in the nostrils or if she’s merely still waiting for me to expand on what I was saying.
That’s the one thing I hate about Dr. Schwartzenbaum. She spends a lot of time just waiting. And listening. I mean, I guess technically that’s her job, but sometimes I wish she’d do all the talking. The endless Tracey monologue can be exhausting.
“Do you think I should be dating my boss’s roommate?” I ask her, giving up on making the couch fart.
“Do you think you should?”
That’s the other thing I hate about Dr. Schwartzenbaum. She tends to answer my questions with questions.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “I mean, I guess the answer is no, I don’t think I should.”
She waits.
“But I’m attracted to him. And he keeps calling me. We spent last night together—and just before I left work, he called and asked me out again for the weekend. I know I should have said no, but I said yes. I don’t know what we’re doing. He said it’s a surprise.”
Dr. Schwartzenbaum nods intently and shifts her weight in her chair, uncrossing her black-silk-pants-clad legs and re-crossing them in the opposite direction.
“Do you think I should have told him I couldn’t go out with him again?”
“Can you go?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to go?”
“Yes.”
“Then why would you tell him you can’t go?”
The question isn’t rhetorical.
“I’d tell him that because
nothing can come of this relationship. I’m not even over Will yet.”
She nods, clearly in perfect agreement. Or is she? It’s hard to tell with her. She’s big on nodding, and I’m starting to think it merely means I hear you, go on.
She nods all the time when we’re talking about Will. Naturally, we spend a lot of time talking about Will. Rather, I spend a lot of time talking about Will. Dr. Schwartzenbaum spends a lot of time urging me to dissect my feelings about him—which, apparently, have a lot to do with my feelings about myself. And my mother.
Who knew?
Well, Buckley knew. He warned me before I started this that therapy always comes down to how you feel about your mother, but I didn’t think that applied to me. My mother is four hundred miles away.
Which is also, according to Dr. Trixie Schwartzenbaum, relevant.
“Do you think about Will when you’re with this other person?” Dr. Schwartzenbaum asks now.
“No,” I say quickly.
She’s silent.
I think about it more carefully.
“No,” I tell her again. “Not when I’m with him.” In the biblical sense or otherwise. I admit, “But I still think about Will sometimes. How long do you think it’s going to take before I’m over him?”
I wait for her to ask, How long do you think it’s going to take? But she doesn’t.
She says, “That depends.”
More silence.
“Depends on what?”
“Do you want to be over Will?”
“Yes!”
“Are you sure?”
I was, but…
“Yes,” I say, less forcefully, because obviously she thinks I’m not sure, so, um, maybe I’m not.
Silence.
Dammit. I hate it when she makes me feel wishy-washy.
“I want to be over him,” I offer.
“Do you?”
“Don’t I?”
“Don’t ask me, Tracey, ask yourself. I wonder if you just want to be over the pain. If perhaps there’s a part of you that isn’t ready, yet, to let go of Will.”
Okay, there’s another thing I hate about Dr. Schwartzenbaum. When I try to answer her questions with questions, she won’t let me.
Now she’s waiting for a reply, sitting there in her silk suit with her legs crossed and her fingers steepled, as though she has all the time in the whole damned world.