Chapter Eight
Izzy
“That did not happen, holy shit.”
“Swear to God,” I said as I came out of the kitchen with two bottles of Heineken in my hands, shaking my head because I still couldn’t believe it.
“Did the jackass at least help you up?” Josh asked, taking a beer while grinning like my shame was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“He didn’t have to, because my loud oof brought everyone out of their offices,” I said, plopping down on the couch, still mortified by my klutziness. “The entire floor collectively stepped into the hallway with offers of aid.”
“I’m sorry, but that is hilarious.” He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a legend already.”
“Fantastic.”
My cousin had been in my apartment when I got home, watching some soccer match that wasn’t on any of his streaming services but was apparently included in mine, so at least I had someone to vent to about my nightmarish afternoon.
“Do you think he heard you?” Josh asked before taking a long drink.
“Oh, there is no way he didn’t,” I said. “But the second it was out of my mouth, the commotion exploded, with everyone gathering to witness my legendary sprawl, so there wasn’t a chance to connect. By the time I was back on my feet and not surrounded by colleagues gawking at my bloody knees, he was gone.”
He glanced over at me from underneath his ridiculously bushy eyebrows. “You know you’re getting fired, right?”
I sighed and leaned my head back on the sofa. “Yeah, I know.”
I watched the rest of the match with him, knocking back a few more beers, but I wasn’t really watching as everything kept replaying in my mind.
Because I couldn’t understand how it’d all gone so wrong at Ellis.
On the one hand, I’d settled into a job that I knew I’d be good at. That I already was good at. I killed it during the meeting that afternoon, and after the great tumble, Pam had stopped by my office to tell me how much she appreciated my quick thinking and ingenuity.
Yet I was about to get fired.
How is this possible?
Unbelievably, and absolutely ridiculously, it all pointed back to that ill-fated latte. If I hadn’t snagged Amy’s drink, none of this would’ve happened.
It was absurd, but factual.
My thievery had driven the nauseatingly scrupulous Mr. Phillips to treat me like a criminal, which had driven me to behave like a defensive, angry teenager.
Damn you and your delicious beverages, Scooter’s.
It was tough to swallow, because I’d never been the type of person to take someone else’s coffee (what kind of person did that, right?), and I definitely wasn’t the type of person to call my boss a name, even if they deserved it.
Yet I’d somehow managed to do both.
And as I sat there after Josh left, mildly tipsy and contemplative, it occurred to me that I hadn’t technically apologized to Blake for the lie. I mean, for the record, I hadn’t lied to him, but since I hadn’t corrected his assumption about my name, it stood to reason that he might consider it untruthful.
I grabbed my phone from the coffee table and clicked into my messages. I knew it was a bad idea, but I felt like I had nothing to lose.
I found the text Blake had sent me after that elevator ride a couple weeks ago, before everything went south, and wrote:
Hi. I will lose your number after this, so don’t get freaked out that an employee is texting you. But I have a question.
I waited for a response, but after about two minutes, I texted:
Okay—obviously you’re ignoring me, which I get. Because AVP. Still…can I talk to you for a sec?
I waited a few more minutes.
I counted to ten, and then wrote:
Okay, well, I’M going to talk, even if you choose to ignore me.
I
Am
Sorry
About
The
Latte Misunderstanding
I
Am
A
Very
Honest
Person
Who
Simply
Lost
Her
Head
For
A
Second
When
Panicking
About
Possibly
Being
Late
On
Her
First
Day
I’ve never stolen anything or lied about my identity.
*Well actually I had a fake ID my freshman year of college that said I was Connie Brockman, but it was so bad that I only used it once because when the bouncer looked at it for more than five seconds, I confessed and went home.
Right as I hit send, again , my phone started ringing, which made me scream. I looked at the display, and it was Blake.
AAAAAAAAAAHHHH.
I raised the phone to my ear and said, as calmly as possible, “Hello?”
“I seriously didn’t know someone could be that textually irritating.”
The man had the deepest, sexiest voice, reminding me of when he’d looked down at me in the conference room and spoken in that quiet, rumbling voice. Such a shame. I said, “What can I say—I’m an overachiever.”
“As much as I enjoy hearing my phone ping every five seconds, I feel I must inform you that I will not be responding to your messages.”
I rolled my eyes and reached for the Cheetos that Josh had left on my coffee table. “Because you have fat thumbs and can’t keep up?”
“Because it would be unprofessional for me to be texting an employee.”
I said, “What if I was texting that I was too sick to work?”
“A call to the office would be the best course of action,” he replied.
“What if I was texting to tell you the office phones weren’t working?”
I heard him clear his throat and wondered what he was wearing. His deep voice sounded polite and businesslike when he said, “Miss Shay, is there something I can help you with?”
“ Miss Shay ? Oof.” I sat back on the couch, glad I was a little buzzed, and said exactly what I was thinking. “Listen, I just want to say that if you’re going to fire me for the lie and for when I was kind of a jerk to you, can you please just do it now? It’s been hard enough the past two weeks, just waiting for it, and I can’t deal with it hanging over my head.”
“ I have no plans whatsoever regarding your employment.” He sounded like he thought I was absurd when he said, “Pam is your manager, so she’s the only one who makes those decisions. And that lie happened outside of work, so it doesn’t really fall under any Ellis policies.”
“But you’re her boss.”
“Yep,” he said.
“And I called you a jackass.”
“Wait, when did you call me a jackass?”
Shit. I said in a slow, apologetic tone, cursing my big mouth, “When I was face-planting this afternoon…?”
He made a sound, a deep noise of surprise like he hadn’t expected to be amused by me, and said, “I missed that.”
“I’m very quick with obscenities. My special gift, really.”
“So it would seem.”
“Okay. So, to summarize,” I said, unable to wrap my head around it, “you’re telling me that you’re going to do nothing about my unprofessional behavior.”
“Correct.”
“I still have my job.”
“Yes.”
“Wow.” I couldn’t believe it. Was this man for real? I knew the best course of action would be an abrupt subject change, but still I said, “I feel like I should thank you.”
“So…?”
“So thank you, I guess.”
“Wow, so heartfelt.”
I ignored that, because something about the off-duty sound of his voice made me miss the guy I’d met on my first day. Weird, right? Still, I heard myself say, “Now, um, can I talk to you as Izzy from the coffee shop for a second, not Izzy from work?”
“The girl I met in the coffee shop wasn’t named Izzy,” he said, sounding terse, “so I don’t actually know how that game would work.”
I thought about it for a second, got an idea, then pressed the end call button.
Blake
Did she just hang up on me?
Before I could even process that, the phone started ringing.
“Hello?” I answered.
“Hi, is this Mr. Chest?” she asked, and I was annoyed that I liked the sound of her voice when she was clearly a flake.
Which is why I asked, “What are you doing?”
“Hi, um, this is Amy—we met at the coffee shop and then in the elevator a couple weeks ago…?”
“Yeah.” I picked up the bottle of Dos Equis that was sitting beside my laptop and took a long drink, irritated by the ridiculous situation I suddenly found myself in. Not only was Amy a liar who wasn’t actually Amy at all, but she was underneath me on the Ellis org chart.
Talk about a lose-lose scenario.
Even if I was cool with casual dishonesty, which I so fucking wasn’t, Scooter’s Girl was on my payroll now, so she was simply an employee. Nothing more, nothing less.
She said, “I know nothing about your career and you know nothing about mine, this is just a call between two people who met in a coffee shop and in an elevator. Nothing we say is connected to any two people who might work at the same company. Are we clear?”
I sighed. “What’s this about, Amy ?”
“Okay, well, I’m certain you think I’m a horrible person because of the coffee lie, but in my life, I’m usually honest to a fault. So to prove myself, I’m going to tell you five embarrassingly honest things about myself.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing I should stop her but too interested in hearing the five things to actually do it. Goodyear walked up to the desk, bumped into it, and then started meowing and walking in circles until I picked him up and set him on my lap.
“First of all, I think you should know that even though I’m an adult, I still sleep with my baby pillow. It’s nothing freaky—I’m not into wearing onesies and pretending I’m a baby—but my mother never pried the pillow out of my sticky hands like she should have, so I still need that lumpy little rectangle in order to get a good night’s sleep.”
I was smiling, damn her. “Um, noted.”
“The second thing—I have a large pizza delivered to my apartment at least once a week, even though I live alone.”
“Tell me what you watch while you eat it,” I said, wondering what kind of apartment she lived in.
“I’m very much a creature of habit, so it’s one of two things. I either turn on Gilmore Girls and rewatch episodes I’ve already seen, or I watch Little House on the Prairie. ”
“You’re shitting me.” My grandma loved that show, and sadly, I’d seen nearly every episode.
“I’m not,” she said. “My grandma loves that show, so I grew up watching it every time I went over to her house. I swear to God that Charles Ingalls has ruined men for me by being so damn perfect.”
“That is a high man bar, isn’t it?”
She said, “The Mount Kilimanjaro of man bars, for sure.”
I heard something rustling, and I wasn’t sure how, but I knew. “What is that—potato chips?”
“Charles Ingalls would never put me on the spot like that, for the record,” she said, laughing. “But you are close. Cheetos.”
“Lucky.” I couldn’t think of the last time I’d had Cheetos. “I had a Clif bar for dinner.”
“That’s because you’re Mr. Chest,” she said, reminding me of the way she’d called me that via text. “No way would your pecs be that spectacular if you filled them with trans fats and french fries.”
“Did you just compliment my pecs?”
“Settle down, Chest, it’s just an observation. No different than ‘there’s a book, that is a car, those are spectacular pectorals . ’?”
I wasn’t sure how she was making me laugh when I’d wanted to shake her a few hours earlier, but I scratched Goodyear’s head and said, “I’m taking it as a compliment, no matter what you say.”
“Suit yourself. Honest question—can you do a one-handed push-up?”
“Probably…?”
“Fascinating. I will file that little morsel away to revisit later.” She made a noise in her throat and said, “Okay, third fact about me. Also, I hope you’re preparing yours.”
“My what?”
“Your five facts, dumbass. This is important.”
“I never said that I would—”
“ Number three ,” she said, using the same tone a teacher would use if a student were interrupting, “I’m a little obsessed with sports fanfic.”
I said, “I’ll be honest—I don’t know what those words mean.”
“You don’t know what fanfic is?” she asked.
“I mean, sort of,” I said. “It’s just, like, people making up new stories about existing works, right?”
“Yes.” She sounded a little impressed. “And these are fictional stories about real athletes and teams.”
“Like actual NFL players?”
“Yes.”
“Ah. Okay,” I said, even though I didn’t really understand it.
“Obviously you don’t understand, and that’s fine. I’ll be sure to say, ‘Ah, okay,’ about your number three when your turn comes around.”
“I’m not—”
“ Number four ,” she barked out, a smile in her voice, “I grew up here, have a brother—Alex—in Phoenix, and I was briefly famous in eighth grade when a video of me falling down my school’s stairs went viral.”
“I will need a link or it isn’t true,” I said, turning my head so I didn’t get a mouthful of tail as Goodyear started walking in circles on my chest, trying to get comfortable.
“Sending right now,” she said, laughing. My phone buzzed with a text notification. “But if you make fun of my hair, I swear to God I will shank you with an ice pick.”
“Do you have an ice pick?” I asked.
“Of course not. Does anyone? Has anyone in the history of life ever needed an ice pick, other than, um, ice harvesters?”
“I don’t think ice harvester is a thing,” I said.
“Agree to disagree. Okay. Are you ready for number five?”
“I don’t know, am I?”
“You can’t be.”
“Then I’m not.”
“All right.” It sounded like she let out a huge breath before she said, “Number five. I totaled my car on the interstate last year when I sneezed.”
I couldn’t not smile. Again, even as Goodyear’s claws dug into my thigh. “Yeah, I’m gonna need more information. Also, I’m assuming you were okay…?”
“I was fine. My foot involuntarily slammed on the brakes when I sneezed,” she explained, “which sent a Honda CRV slamming into my backside, which pushed me into the side of a Ford Expedition.”
“Is it weird that I’m impressed by your recollection of the makes and models of the vehicles involved?” I asked, laughing against my will.
“Not at all—I am incredibly impressive.”
“Not what I said,” I countered.
“I know it’s what you meant,” she replied. “Okay, now you.”
“No, thank you.”
“Then I’ll ask you five.”
“Do I have a choice here?” I asked, knowing I needed to end the conversation and get off the phone. But— damn it —there was just something about her that made me want to linger.
“Okay, number one. Where did you grow up, and where did you go to college?”
“I grew up in Omaha,” I said, “and went to college in Minnesota.”
“Were you in a frat?” she asked.
“I played basketball.”
“Shut up—so did I!”
“Really?” She hadn’t struck me as looking particularly athletic, but maybe that was because I’d been obsessed with her legs in those high heels and had been a little blind to pretty much everything else. “Where?”
“La Vista Middle School.”
I was smiling again, damn it. “Tell me everything.”
She told me about how she only went out for basketball in ninth grade because her friend Lindy wanted to, and how she scored a whopping two points over the course of the season. She rambled about running hundreds of laps because of missed free throws, and finished the story with “Yes, the coaches hated me, but I feel like I might’ve taught them a little something, too.”
“I think they probably just hated you.”
“Can it, Chest.” I thought I heard the Little House theme song in the background just before she said, “Okay, number two. Were you mad when I spilled coffee on you a couple weeks ago? Honest answers only.”
Honest answer. I reached for my beer and said, “The honest answer—and I’m only copping to this because we will not be talking after tonight and this conversation is unrelated to the two people who work at the same company—is that you spilling coffee on me was a fucking lovely surprise.”
Her voice was quiet when she said, “It was?”
“Sure. It’s not often that a funny, charming, beautiful girl appears out of nowhere and starts rubbing your chest in the middle of a coffee shop.”
Her breathless laugh made me wish I could see her face, especially when she said, “I felt the same way, to be honest.”
“I am a charming girl, thank you for noticing,” I said. “And I did not rub your chest, for the record.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Okay, um, number three,” she said. “What is your—”
“Number three—when you stepped into the elevator at Incite, I had an instant daydream about hitting the stop button and seeing what transpired. So when you actually did it…hell, it felt like a Big Fate kind of moment.”
She didn’t laugh, didn’t say anything, and I let my head fall backward so I could stare at the ceiling and regret actually saying those fucking words out loud.
After a moment, I said, “You there?”
I heard her clear her throat. “So is there any way to go back—”
“No.” I looked out the window over my desk, out at the city lights, and felt a heavy load of disappointment settle over me as I said, “There are rules, and I have ethics. Regardless of the Amy thing, Isabella Shay is on my team, therefore off-limits.”
“But I—”
“Actually, I should probably go now.” I grabbed Goodyear, stood, and walked toward the kitchen. I needed to feed the cats and get on with life sans Scooter’s Girl. “You know we can’t text and call anymore, right?”
“Um,” she said, and something about her tone made me stop walking. I listened like she was about to tell me a secret, gripping the phone and standing frozen. “Isabella Shay is your employee, so you definitely shouldn’t be communicating with her after hours. But if, from time to time, you were to get a random text from Amy, a girl you met at Scooter’s, would that be such a bad thing?”
Shit, shit, shit, shit , I thought, knowing the right answer. There were no gray areas regarding ethics in the workplace—I wholeheartedly believed that. So I didn’t know what the fuck was wrong with me when I heard myself say, “I suppose not.”
“Okay, I have to go now. Bye.”
Before I could say a word, the call ended.
Which didn’t surprise me this time, because Isabella Shay was a giant question mark.
I went into the kitchen and grabbed a can of tuna from the cupboard, holding Goodyear against my chest as I wondered who the girl really was.
And just as I was setting the bowl on the floor and putting down Goodyear, my phone buzzed.
Hi, it’s Amy from Scooter’s.