Page 71 of Submissive Lies

The one woman frowned and then shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen Steve since this morning. Did you need some help over at your booth? I can get one of the guys to come over right away.”

“No, no,” I waved my hand. “It’s nothing urgent. I just had a question about the call in the morning.”

“You’re booth 2235, right?” The woman gave me a helpful smile. “I’ll make sure Tony knows you came by. I’m sure he’ll get back to you right after lunch.”

I smiled weakly. “Oh, no, it’s fine. It’s nothing, honestly. I was just checking…”

Before I could dig that hole any deeper, I gave a slight wave, and then turned, walking away.

I sat at a table in the convention center’s atrium, but didn’t eat lunch. I couldn’t. The thought of food made me nauseous, and the tension that racked me only made it worse. I had no way of contacting Steve. I’d never asked for his cell number, and I had no idea where he was staying. I wasn’t about to press anyone at the I&D company for a way to get in touch with him. The last thing I needed to do now, on top of everything else, was get him in trouble with his employer. If I pressed Tony or someone else to get his phone number, or asked about where he was staying, it would raise eyebrows for certain. There’d be questions followed by assumptions, and none of them good. He deserved my continued discretion, considering everything else I’d put him through this morning.

Sitting there, I had a momentary surge of anger directed at Steve. He’d walked away from me, leaving me there, not given me my moment to explain things to him. To offer my apology. He could at least have had the courtesy of doing that, but instead he’d abandoned me. As I was building myself up into a good head of steam, my self-loathing—who’d mostly gone into hiding since the other day—came back full force.

-Oh, yeah…. that’s rich. You think this is his fault? That he owes you anything? That you have any right to be mad at him? What a bitch…-

He could have at least given me an opportunity!

-To what!? To lie to him some more!? Hmmm? He owed you a chance to do that, eh? God, you are a fucking piece of work.-

I wasn’t going to lie to him!

-Sure you weren’t. He’d have no reason to believe otherwise, right? RIGHT!?-

Fuck off.

-Make me. Oh, wait, you can’t. Because you fucked things up bad, Jen. And you know I’m right.-

My internal dialogue was everything I didn’t need right now. There was no having a clear, rational discussion with it. I was my own worst enemy, and what really hurt was coming to realize that all of this wasn’t just a function of what had taken place this morning. This was just the last move in the end game of something I had started fifteen months ago. The denouement now playing out was one I’d set the stage for a long time ago, and it was following the script life gave it. To punish me for my lies and hubris. And I deserved that. Every damn step of the way.

In the end, the anger towards Steve dissipated. I had no rational way of maintaining it. He hadn’t done anything wrong except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was an emotional IED that had had remained hidden until I could blow up in his face. And the pain I suspected he was feeling was all me. I owned that, and goddamn if it didn’t slice into me like a knife.

After an hour trying to think through and process all the things I’d done, I accomplished nothing of any real value other than I felt like crawling into a hole and disappearing from the world. That didn’t happen. Instead, I dragged myself back to the booth and plastered on a plastic altogether unconvincing smile I’m sure made me look like some sort of blow-up doll. No one seemed to notice. It was the first day of the show and people were amped up, especially those who’d come over from the other company. I wasn’t even registering on anyone’s radar right now. When I returned from lunch, the girl who had taken over for me held up a business card. I recognized the logo. It was from the I&D company.

“Ms. Boyd, some guy came around looking for you while you were at lunch.”

My heart leaped to my throat, and with an effort I stopped myself from snatching the card from her hand. As she held it I reached over smoothly and took it. I looked at the front eagerly.

It was from Tony.

“Oh.” I said, feeling my heart sink back into my chest. I flipped it over, but there was nothing written on the back. It took a moment, but I realized that one of the women at the service desk had obviously passed along to Tony that I had stopped by. He’d come around at lunch to find out what I needed. That was all. No Steve.

“Thank you,” I said politely, putting the card into one of the desk drawers. This day was going to be a long one. As I sat at the counter I became more and more preoccupied with my internal misery, and despite my efforts, it began to show.

“You OK? You seem a little out of it.” Tracy had snuck up on me, and her hand on my shoulder broke me out of my trance.

“Oh,” I gave a little start, turning on the stool. I saw who it was and took a deep breath, forcing a too-bright smile onto my face. “Oh, thank you. I’ll be fine. Just a little post set-up exhaustion. It happens sometimes.”

Her head bobbed energetically in sympathy. “Oh! Yeah, I can imagine. This booth is so big! It must be a ton of work!”

“Yeah, it is.” I nodded, putting on my best world-weary look. “Sometimes it catches up with you, you know?”

She gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder as she moved off. I closed my eyes and hoped that exchange would buy me some understanding later when I announced this evening that I wouldn’t be up to joining them for dinner. Because I was going to do just that, even if it got back to Loren. I could hold it together during the show, but no more than that right now. I needed to corner Steve tonight during the check-in. And if I had the tiniest sliver of karma left to my name, maybe he’d give me a few minutes. To grovel and apologize for having lied to him. And if I was lucky, maybe he’d give me enough time to explain how I’d tried to end things with Thomas, how he’d blown me off, refusing to return my calls and texts. At this point, I’d just be happy if he’d listen to anything I had to say. Before he told me what a piece of shit I was and walked off.

The rest of the day passed in fits and starts. There were times I kept busy handling something going on within the exhibit. At others, I sat at the reception counter wallowing in misery. No matter what I kept that smile taut across my face. I appreciated the times when I was busy because it stopped me from brooding. Still the day seemed to drag on interminably. Thoughts of Steve, the look on his face, the tone of his voice continued to plague me. Added to everything else, now that my self-loathing had kicked back into high gear, it began flashing mental images of a different Steve to me. The one who had looked at me with such affection. Lust. Desire.

-Hey, do you remember when he looked at you like this last night? Good times, huh? Ooo, but then you fucked that up, didn’t you? When you shit all over him this morning. Wow! Good job, Jen! Fucking impressive!-

The announcement at 6:15pm that the show would soon close for the day was like a reprieve from the warden. For the first time in hours I actually smiled a real smile. One of relief. I watched as people began to move out across the hall towards the exit doors. I looked around at my co-workers. They’d congregated in small groups, talking amongst themselves, and I guessed that maybe two or three clients at most remained. I wanted things to be over as quickly as possible, so I would have as much time as I could to speak with Steve alone. In spite of all of my self-pity and self-loathing over the course of the day, I’d spent some time coming up with a plan of how I wanted the conversation to go. I would bare my soul to him, and though I didn’t expect it to garner me much sympathy, at least I would walk away knowing I’d tried. One thing was for certain, I would not lie about anything, no matter what he asked. If he chose to humiliate me and make me bare every mistake I’d made, I’d do it. No reservations. Dignity didn’t play much part in my plan. But honesty sure as fuck did.

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