Page 14 of Drowning Erin

I really have no idea. I don’t want toknow.

“Well, she’s walking in the door right now,” he says, “and until you have a good reason, I’m going to keep on doingit.”

My head swivels to see her moving toward us, wearing sky-high heels and a little skirt with a pristine white button-down. This is the outfit she wears on Mondays and Thursdays, when she goes to her internship, except she should have been done hoursago.

“The naughty librarian look,” Pierce says under his breath, grinning at me. I don’t smileback.

He jumps up when she gets to the table, while I pretend not to notice she’s even arrived. To my chagrin, he pulls out the chair between him and my date—my date who looked just fine sitting here on her own, but now, next to Erin, looks like she’s trying way too hard. Only now do I notice that Anya’s clothes are too small, and she’s wearing an assload ofmakeup.

“Well, well, well, look at Miss Corporate America,” I say to Erin snidely. “How was a day spent selling your soul to theman?”

I see a flash of anger in her eyes and feel a little surge of victory. She largely ignores me now; sometimes that flash of anger is all I canget.

“Laugh all you want,” she says. “When you’re 50 and living in Will’s basement, I’ll be laughingtoo.”

“Maybe you can visit me there when you’re finally ready to lose your virginity,” Ireply.

To my unhappy surprise, she laughs. “Unless you’ve devised a time machine—and let’s face it, you’re unlikely to exert the effort even if you were capable of it—that ship hassailed.”

I spend the rest of the night feeling bitter. I don’t even like her, so why I am pissed off that I’ll never be herfirst?

11

Erin

Present

We’re onlyfive minutes into Friday’s staff meeting, and Timothy has already used the wordsynergy15 times by my count. I have trouble staying awake during these meetings under the best of circumstances, but after last night’s long call with my dad, it feels almost impossible. He’s called twice this week, which means he’s on another downward spiral. I’m sure my mother hoped—though she would never say it—that the move here, away from his friends and past, would give him a clean start. Instead he’s lonely, and my father’s solution to every unhappy feeling is to make it go away withbooze.

I feel my cell buzzing in my lap and surreptitiously check it, only to discover that I am missing a call from Rob. Timothy sayssynergyagain, and I picture winging the phone at his head. I imagine the clunk it would make on impact, the shock on his face. It’s small consolation for being stuckhere.

When the meeting’s over, I go outside to call Rob back, positioning myself in a patch of sunlight to stay warm. I love Harper, but she won’t hesitate to shout commentary over our shared cubicle wall if I’mthere.

He answers, and I hear rustling in the background, which forewarns me that he’s busy and about to rush me off the phone for another of his super-fun nights out. I’m annoyed before he’s even said aword.

“I’ve got to run here because people are waiting,” he says. “But I wanted to let you know, it looks like we’re not getting out of here until the end ofJuly.”

“July,” I repeatblankly.

It’s April. He was supposed to be home the first week of May, and that was bad enough, butJuly?

“They’re bringing in new staff to replace some of the people here, and we can’t even begin the transition until that’s done. None of us are happy about itbut…”

He continues to speak, but I have stopped listening. I don’t want him to justify this to me. Does he really think I care deeply whether or not the transition is a success? I don’t. All I’m thinking is this: July is three months away. The end of July means two-thirds of the summer will beover.

“What about Olivia’s race?” I ask, my voice devoid of inflection, barely awhisper.

We already have our plane tickets. We were going to fly into Reno and spend a day in Tahoe before we droveup.

“I think the tickets are refundable, but you should still go,” he says. His tone is encouraging, as if he’s beingkindsomehow when he’s actually bailing on our first trip together in a year. “It’ll still befun.”

Yeah, nothing like a trip to Tahoe alone,Rob.

I tell him I wish he’d spoken to me first, and he simply continues to justify the decision, telling me what a big deal this is for the company. I dig my nails into my hands to silence my reply. To avoid saying “I don’t give a flying fuck about the transition, Rob,andthis isn’tfair.”

I hold all of it in. It’s easy enough to do because I’ve done it my entire life. But as he continues to speak I only hear the wordsthree months. Three months. Only two weeks have passed, and I’m already going crazy. How the hell am I going to stomach threemonths?

I stew about it all day, and I’m still not over it that evening as I finish up an op-ed demanded last-minute by the chancellor’s office. It’s after 7 PM, and I’m scrounging through my desk for something to approximate dinner—which will apparently consist of Tic Tacs and one mangled cereal bar—when Harper emerges from the bathroom, clad in five-inch black heels and atinyblackdress.

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