Page 15 of I Need You to Read This
Everyone seems a little on edge here, Alex thinks, remembering the sickly sheen on Jonathan’s face earlier. What is it about this place? She opens a letter and begins to read a plea from a woman who wants help fixing her ailing marriage, but then puts it down, distracted.
Alex goes to the window, chewing on the inside of her cheek. The sky outside has gone dark denim blue. The last flares of an orange sunset streak the sky. She presses her forehead to the cool glass and looks down. Far below are lines of white and red light, traffic crawling across Midtown. Now that she’s not reading, Alex feels her ears ringing from the quiet of her office. The silence agitates her. A little break from this room will be good. She wants to be out there, in thereal world. She watches a crowd of people gather at the corner, their bodies moving as one through the crosswalk when the light changes, all heading home from work or out to dinner. She can see the lights from a coffee shop spilling out onto the street. Suddenly she wants to be down there with all of them, to leave the sterile chill of theHerald’s giant air-conditioning system and walk out into that wallop of heat.
THIRTEEN
The hallway feels even more strange and isolated, knowing that everyone has left for the day. She hurries down it and comes into the main newsroom.
The overhead lights have been dimmed for the night. The office looks as though it has been suddenly abandoned. Half-full coffee cups left on desks. Sweaters draped over the backs of chairs. Inside one of the cubicles a shadow moves slowly. She steps closer, her heart hammering as she catches sight of the thin cord dangling from the ceiling. It leads all the way down into one of the cubicles where a large shape sways very gently back and forth. Her heart thuds. She nearly screams until it bends, catching the fading light from the window, and she realizes it is actually a sign hanging from a piece of crepe paper, remnants from a sad office birthday celebration. The sound of Alex’s startled laugh bounces around the empty room.
She continues through the newsroom, surprised to see a yellow glow coming from behind the blinds in Howard’s office. His shape is barely visible moving behind the blinds. He is pacing, his limbs long and jerky like a shadow puppet. His muffled voice rises angrily from inside.
Curious, Alex moves toward the glass wall where there is a thin space between the sides of the blinds. Now she can see Howard. His jacket is off, his cuffs rolled up. He presses his phone to his ear. Alexwatches his fingers clench as he speaks. “What can I possibly do about it?” she hears him say, the anger in his voice barely constrained. His hand runs through his hair, gripping it nervously. She moves closer, putting her face nearly up to the glass. His desk is in disarray, papers scattered across it. A mug sits on top. He picks it up and tilts it to his mouth, gulping from it.
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” His voice drops, the anger receding into a helpless monotone. Alex holds her breath trying to hear him. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
Suddenly he spins toward her. Alex clamps her hand over her mouth and jumps quickly away. She prays he hasn’t seen her there. She draws back into the shadows, her heart pounding, then ducks into a cubicle, pressing herself into the fabric-covered partition as she hears him come out of his office.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
She keeps her hand over her mouth to prevent herself from making a sound.Just what everyone needs on their first day of work, to be caught spying on their boss,she scolds herself.
“Sorry, I thought I heard something,” he says in a lower voice, to the person on the phone. When she is sure he’s back in his office, she dashes as quickly as she can to the elevators.
FOURTEEN
The coffee shop across from theHeraldis bright and buzzy, but at 9 p.m. Alex is the only customer. Canned pop music plays from the speakers as a man begins to mop the floor behind her, eager to close for the night. At the counter she orders an Americano from a bored-looking barista. She hasn’t eaten since this morning’s bagel, she realizes, suddenly famished.
“What’s that?” she asks, pointing at the last thing in the food case, an unidentifiable beige baked good wrapped in plastic.
“Chocolate chip muffin,” the woman mumbles. Behind her the door to the shop opens and closes. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a man walk up behind her. She can feel the impatient shuffle of his feet as he waits to order.
“Sure. I’ll take it.” Her streak of eating terrible food is ridiculous, but she’s going to need fuel to get through all the letters in the bin. The thought of it piled high with envelopes makes her throat go dry. She can already feel the pressure mounting behind her eyelids as she anticipates another night of little to no sleep. And that isn’t even the worst of it.
Reading them all is one thing, but she isn’t even close to choosing a letter to answer. Sure, she’s found a few possibilities and set them aside. She’s beginning to wonder if it isn’t the fear of failure that’s holdingher back now more than anything. She imagines herself finishing the column and turning it in. The disappointment in Howard Demetri’s eyes as he tells her he has to fire her. It would hurt at first, but would part of her also be relieved?
She takes her purchases to the side counter and removes the lid of her coffee. As she reaches for the creamer a hand shoots out and intercepts her, a set of large fingers taking hold of the pitcher and snatching it away.
“Oh—” She looks up, startled, as the man obliviously tips it into his coffee. He’s wearing a light-gray suit, perfectly cut to his frame, which is slender with broad shoulders. His hair is combed over to one side, though it looks a bit ruffled, like he’s recently run his fingers through it. And the top button of his shirt is undone, his tie loose around his neck. He looks almost old-fashioned, like an extra from a movie set about Wall Street back in the day. The only thing that ruins the image is a set of puffy red headphones clamped onto his head. He stirs the creamer into his cup, his eyes flickering with focus on whatever he is listening to. When he is done he places the creamer at the far side of the counter where she can’t reach it. She starts to say something but remembers the other day, the man at the restaurant. Alex doesn’t need any more unsettling conflicts with strange men. Annoyed, she moves to the other side of the counter. Now he turns to look at her, pulling down the headphones so they dangle around his neck. He points at the creamer. “Sorry, were you going to use this? I thought you were done.”
“I was about to. It’s no big deal,” she assures him, shaking off some residual irritation. Why do men always fill in all the space around them?
“No, really. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t wear these things out in public.” He smiles, revealing a deep dimple in his left cheek. “I’m a menace. Completely in my own world.” He hands her the pitcher, and she forgives him internally without even meaning to.
“What are you listening to?” she asks, finding she’s actually curious.
“Great Expectations,” he says casually as he rips open a packet of sugar and dumps it into his cup.
“You’re listening to an audiobook?” Alex says with true disbelief as she replaces the lid on her coffee.
“I like to put them on while I work. It passes the time between extremely stressful phone calls I couldn’t care less about.”
She looks at him suspiciously. What thirtysomething man listens toGreat Expectationsat work? “And are you enjoying it?” Alex doesn’t know why she is drawing out the conversation. Maybe she isn’t quite ready to return to the tomb-like quiet of the office. Or maybe it is the honey brown of his eyes sparkling down at her. It has been a long time since she has even met a man she was attracted to.Dangerous, Alex.
“It’s a great story. I mean, I’ve read it before in school probably, but these voice actors are really something. Though I have to say I don’t know why Miss Havisham is so sad about being stood up. It’s a dodged bullet, if you ask me. I keep wishing I could go visit her—maybe I could have talked her out of years and years of misery.”
“Oh, I doubt it,” Alex says quickly. “The thing with people like her is they want to suffer. She was addicted to the pain of it, basically. If it wasn’t her marriage, it probably would have been something else. There’s nothing you could have done.”
He looks at her with obvious surprise. Then his eyes wrinkle at the corners. “You sound just like my therapist.” Alex’s own smile wavers. “That’s a good thing, she’s quite intelligent.” He nods at her small bag containing the muffin. “Chocolate chip muffin? I’ve been there before.” He winces. “Desperate dinner of those behind on work. You’re staying late at the office, too, I take it?”
