Chapter 11
Cherry kind of forgot that the whole world would be able to watch Tom’s movie trailer. Including everyone at work.
People who had never mentioned the Thursday comics—even when the books were runaway bestsellers, even when Tom was on The Late Show—were suddenly very interested in the Thursday movie.
Cherry had meetings all day Monday, and every one started with, “I saw the trailer for your husband’s movie!” (Almost no one at work knew that Cherry and Tom were separated.)
“Well, it sure looks good,” someone would say.
“It does look good,” Cherry would reply.
“They’ve got that actress playing you, the one from the thing.”
“Oh, she’s not playing me.”
“I thought she had a British accent?”
“Acting, I guess.”
“I guess you’ll get to go to the big premiere.”
“We’ll see.”
“Did you get to meet Kathy Bates?”
“No. I wish.”
“She was great on The Office.”
“I agree.”
“Say, did they try to get Alexander Payne for the movie?”
“I’m not sure . . .”
“That would have been cool.”
“It would have.”
“Then they could have filmed it in Omaha—and we all could have met Kathy Bates.”
“That would have been really cool.”
“Well, you tell your husband that we’re all excited for him.”
“I will.”
“Tell him we want to meet Kathy Bates!”
The last meeting of the day ended at 5:15. Cherry felt done in. She was sweating through her blouse under her wool jacket,
and she’d rubbed all her eyeshadow off onto her hands.
She stayed in the conference room to gather her papers. And her defenses.
Meg Jones, Cherry’s boss, stepped into the doorway. She was wearing a cashmere coat and holding a pebbled leather satchel.
She was on her way out. “You doing okay?”
Meg had been in all the meetings, too. And she was the only other person in the building who knew that Tom was gone.
“Yeah,” Cherry said, waving her hand. “Fine.”
“Are you sure? Because you look like the stock photo we used for that Employee Health brochure on depression.”
Meg Jones was in charge of all the railroad’s communications, internal and external. Cherry was her second in command.
“When It’s All Too Much,” Cherry said.
Meg nodded.
Cherry started to cry.
Meg sighed and stepped into the conference room, shutting the door behind her. “I see.”
“Sorry,” Cherry said, fanning her cheeks. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I almost started crying myself when that idiot from legal wouldn’t shut up during the planning meeting.”
Cherry didn’t believe that Meg Jones had ever almost cried. She was the most composed woman that Cherry had ever met. (To be a female vice president at a railroad, you
had to make people forget you were a woman at all.)
Cherry got a Kleenex out of her bag. “You mean when he asked if the girl from Bridgerton had gained weight to play me?” She blew her nose. “That actress wasn’t even on Bridgerton.”
Meg frowned. This was her sympathy frown, Cherry knew. They’d been working together long enough that Cherry could read all
of Meg’s microexpressions.
“You know . . .” Meg said, “you could tell people that you’re getting a divorce. There’s no shame in it. Three-fourths of
the executive team is divorced.” Meg Jones herself had been divorced twice.
Cherry shook her head and pressed her fingers into her eyes, trying to stop the tears at their source. “No. I don’t want them
gossiping about me. I don’t want that to be the thing that gets attached to my name—‘Cherry, that fat lady in Comms who used to be married to the famous artist.’ ”
“Hmph,” Meg said. “More like ‘That ferocious badass in Comms who used to be married to some weird nerd.’ ”
Cherry rolled her eyes and kept going—“‘I heard her husband left her the second he got famous.’ ”
Meg frowned more deeply. Her face barely moved. “You’ve got to stop thinking like this, Cherry. You have to keep your head
up and set the narrative.”
Cherry looked into Meg’s eyes. She couldn’t tell if she was getting personal advice or an order from her supervisor. With
Meg Jones, there was never much distinction.
Cherry nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
Meg sighed again and dug into her bag, pulling out a silk scarf. “Stop apologizing. This is the first time I’ve seen you cry
about Tom.”
“I usually do it in my office with the door closed.”
“That’s what offices are for.” Meg buttoned her coat. “Did you watch the trailer?”
“No,” Cherry said. “I’m not going to.”
“Good mental hygiene, Cherry. There’s nothing for you there. There’s nothing for anyone—that actress has doll eyes and a face full of fillers. She can hardly blink.”
Cherry smiled. From Meg Jones, this was practically maternal. (Meg’s age was undeterminable; she was possibly old enough to be Cherry’s mother.)
Meg wrapped the scarf around her neck and tucked it into her collar. “You should sleep with someone else, you know. You won’t
move on until you do.”
That caught Cherry off guard. Was it more career advice? They’d never talked about sex before . . . But maybe they could? Strategically? Meg Jones wasn’t a prude, and Cherry was still dying to say this out loud . . .
“Actually,” she said, sitting up a bit. “I did.”
Meg stopped adjusting her scarf. “You did?”
Cherry nodded. She found herself smiling.
Meg smiled, too. Like a shark. “Who?”
“An acquaintance. Someone I saw at a concert.”
“You picked up a man at a concert? Cherry, this is very unlike you.”
Cherry could feel herself blushing. “I mean—I have been married for almost ten years, so I wasn’t really in the market . . .”
“That wasn’t criticism.”
“Okay, well . . .”
Meg looked sharp. “Is this someone you’ll see again?”
“Oh . . .” Cherry looked down. “I don’t know. Probably not. He took my number, but . . . that was Friday night, and he hasn’t
called. I don’t think I’m the sort of person he dates.” When Cherry looked up, Meg’s eyes had narrowed. “I don’t even know if he dates,” Cherry said. “He has a kid. It felt very . . . in the moment. Like—a moment, you know? A night.”
Meg nodded slowly. “Good.” She pulled the handle of her bag up onto her shoulder. “You’re alive, Cherry. Act like it.”
With that, she opened the door behind her and walked out. (Meg Jones was never much for “hello” and “good-bye.” She started meetings with “let’s get to it.”)
Cherry looked back at the table. She picked up her notebook and papers and slid them into her bag. She was still holding a
Kleenex, but she realized that she wasn’t crying anymore.
She took her phone out of her bag. (She always silenced it during meetings.) She’d gotten the usual deluge of texts from her
sisters and her mom, plus two messages from an unknown number:
Three cherry emoji.
Then, “We should go on a date.”