Page 85 of Fireworks Flame
“Perfect,” I echo stupidly, my eyes dropping to the three-inch heels beneath her desk.
They’re a classic black, pointed-toe with a scalloped rim for subtle flair and the red sole to advertise the expense of Louboutin. For lack of a better word, they’re absolutely perfect.
And they look terribly, painfully constrictive.
—
My stomach contractsas I enter the floor where I used to work. I’m not sure I’m ready to see everyone, but my desire to speak to Elena has won out over my skittishness. The office space feels larger than I remembered. It smells of microwave popcorn, an offense that would’ve irritated me a month ago, although not as badly as Ben’s insistence on heating up fish in the shared area. Now, it merely makes me smile. There’s something impressively unfettered about the decision to make popcorn at 9:46 in the morning. Is it breakfast? Brunch? It’s anyone’s guess.
Elena must be lost inside some project on her screen. It’s the only explanation for her surprise when I lean over her cubicle wall after greeting several coworkers nearby. At the sight of me, she flinches before quickly covering her nervousness with an enthusiastic greeting. Her reaction makes me feel guilty fornot reaching out sooner. It’s not like she robbed my condo herself. She was only ever trying to help me out.
“I thought I could convince you to sneak out for a cup of coffee,” I say warmly, “but it looks like you’re hard at work.”
“Looks can be deceiving.” She smiles with relief and pops up, sending her chair spinning behind her. “Let’s make a break for it. Mr. Dailey’s wife has had him on a juice fast all week, and the only time he comes out of his haze of hunger is when he’s running for the bathroom. He wouldn’t notice if I moved to Toronto, much less disappeared for an hour.”
Our footsteps speed up as we head toward the door, as if we really are attempting a prison yard escape. And when the elevator doors close behind us, we erupt into giggles that quickly turn to overlapping apologies. By the time we make it to the street, the sun has battled through the smog and is beaming its approval. What starts as coffee extends into the two of us lying beside my hotel pool in newly purchased bikinis.
Instead of plastic loungers, the hotel has plush cushions on wooden frames. Green plants line the area, and the water in the pool is smooth like glass. A covered area to the left holds a smattering of tables surrounded by flowers, and a group of businessmen have taken them over. They have a small buffet of food lined up against one wall, and they seem to rotate between eating from it and wandering into the pool area to take calls. Other than them, we’re the only people here.
“Now I’m really not going to make it back to work,” Elena says remorselessly as the cabana boy walks away with our orders for two mojitos and a flatbread to share. “If Mr. Dailey notices I’m missing, I’m going to have to pretend I’m on a juice fast as well. He’s spent enough time in the bathroom that he won’t have any follow-up questions.”
“And I’ll be there on Monday to back up your story,” I remind her.
She brightens, but as she takes in my expression, her enthusiasm dims. “Are you sure you want to come back?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” My eyes skim the length of the pool, deliberately avoiding hers.
“I can’t imagine.” She leans toward me, smelling of coconut sunscreen. “You’ve got a real chance at becoming creative director, which is what you’ve always said you wanted. And who wouldn’t? It’s more money. More power. And a lot more prestige.”
“It’s also longer hours, means spending every day alone in an office, and I’ll still be looking at an endless supply of food projects.”
“I thought you’d be thrilled to get an office,” she says, squinting in confusion. “You hate being interrupted while you’re working.”
My mind flashes to Booker’s work avoidance and Mia’s sarcastic comments. But especially Deiss. He never failed to encourage me when I was searching through online postings for my next job. As if he had some internal alarm, vigilantly scanning for any doubt that might sneak up on me, he managed to show up with praise every time I began to question my work.
The truth is, between those three people and all the customers that came into Studio Sounds, I was constantly being interrupted. Still, I’ve never produced more or done better work than I did there. More importantly, I’ve never enjoyed myself so much.
“Ididhate it,” I say. “But people change.”
CHAPTER 27
I’m not sure the exact moment it hits me that I’ve made a terrible mistake—possibly because I’ve known all along. But I realize it when my mojito arrives and it occurs to me that it’s full of calories I shouldn’t consume if I want to be moretailoredin order to meet Marian’s expectations. And again when I slip the straw in my mouth and drink it anyway.
I realize it when some of the businessmen wander over with a bottle of champagne and begin hitting on us. And again when I pinpoint the safe bet among them but turn down his dinner invitation anyway, despite the fact that Elena has deemed him “surprisingly yummy for a nice guy.”
I realize it when Elena goes into detail about the bone broth project she’s taken over in my absence.
“I don’t think I can go back,” I blurt out, interrupting her. “It’s a good job. I know it is. And I wish I was like you and had things like the theater to direct my creative energy toward. But I don’t. I just have design. And I want to do every kind of project there is to do.”
“Okay?” Her face twists with confusion. “So, is this your way of saying you don’t want Marian’s job?”
“Yes,” I say. “But I also don’t want a lot of other things. I don’t want to be tailored. And I don’t want to live alone anymore. And I don’t want to play it safe. And I especially don’t want to give up on love just because it’s messy and I can’t predict how it will end up.”
“Those all sound like reasonable things,” Elena says.
“I don’t want to plan for the future anymore when that means giving up living in the now,” I add determinedly.
“Still reasonable.”
