Interstitial #9
known, when asked to be Bernadette’s plus-one, that this would mean being an only one, a stranger in a sea of people who all
seemed to know each other.
She drank her champagne until it was gone.
She accepted another glass from a different server, and walked around the perimeter of the party, sipping, until that one was gone too.
She spotted someone she knew tangentially from the city and she briefly joined a clot of people, then made her excuses when she realized she didn’t know anyone they were talking about.
She wished, as she did at least once a week, that Audrey were here with her. That would be ironic, Audrey at a work party,
since one of the main reasons they broke up was Jordan’s “toxic workaholism.”
They’d arrived at the party just before six, and now it was close to seven thirty. Maybe forty-five minutes from sunset. The
light was beginning to peel back from the edges of the sky, revealing the oncoming darkness. Jordan was looking at the sky
when yet another server approached, this time with a tray of cups. Each cup contained a single oyster and a mini bottle of
Tabasco sauce. A traveling raw bar! The mini Tabasco sauce was probably the cutest thing Jordan had ever seen, so she accepted
one, even though she’s not an oyster girl. She slipped the Tabasco bottle into her bag, left the cup on a tall table, and
realized that she needed the bathroom. Off she went, then, toward the glass house. There was a joke here about throwing stones,
but there was nobody to tell it to. She’d workshop it in her mind, maybe tell it later.
Finding a bathroom was harder than it seemed like it should be in a house that purportedly had seventeen of them.
(The Shipman house in Lenox has three, which on the surface seemed like plenty, but only one has a shower so there was almost always one sister standing outside it, exhorting another sister to hurry up.) In this house, seventeen bathrooms strong, all of the doors blended into the walls and Jordan was too nervous to open any of them.
What if behind one of them was, say, an opium den?
Or a den of iniquity? Or some other kind of den?
Also, why did Jordan feel like she was the only person in this house?
Had nature called to no other party guest? Where were the caterers?
She admired the floating staircase for a moment. Even up close, she couldn’t figure out the mechanics. An architect, she was
not. She wondered if anyone outside was observing her, the same way she’d looked in when they first arrived. Then she found
another staircase, going down this time, and not white and floating but gunmetal gray and anchored industrially to the wall.
Jordan descended.
Success.
She came out of the bathroom and saw that behind one wall was a full movie theater complete with giant plush seats. Next to
that, a home gym, glassed in like the gym in a hotel, with a Peloton treadmill, bike, and rowing machine, and a Pilates reformer. She’d never seen a Pilates reformer out in the wild, in somebody’s house! She inched closer, practically
drooling, her feet itching to try out the straps. They looked pristine, not like the ones at her studio that saw many pairs
of feet a day. A voice behind her made her jump.
“Hello there, young lady. Looking for something?”
Jordan whipped her head around. “Jesus! You scared me, Bernadette.” Bernadette was standing on the last step of the staircase,
smiling at Jordan in that half-mocking way she has, as though she is the middle school queen bee and she has your number.
“I was looking for the bathroom,” Jordan explained. “Took me forever. But I found it. One down, sixteen to go.”
Bernadette descended the final step and stood level with Jordan. “There’s one in the pool house. That’s the one guests are
using. I saw you walk over here so figured I’d track you down and tell you.”
Jordan’s face burned. No wonder the house was empty. “Ohmygod,” she said. “I’m not supposed to be in here, am I?”
“Strictly speaking, no.”
“Am I going to get in trouble?”
“Are you going to get in trouble?” Bernadette tilted back her head and hooted. She must have been a nightmare in high school. Jordan felt foolish. “I guess
you can take the girl out of Western Mass . . .” said Bernadette. She laughed some more, then said, “I won’t tell anyone that
we’re in here if you won’t.”
This was when Jordan realized that Bernadette was drunk. Really drunk. Many-glasses-of-champagne-on-an-empty-stomach drunk.
Ho, boy. Bernadette plopped down in one of the plush movie seats and patted the one next to her. Reluctantly, Jordan sat,
but she looked around while she did, as though the usher was going to come and ask for their tickets.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Bernadette. “I want someone to be partner. I’m thinking about succession planning.”
“Really?” Jordan sucked in her breath and her heart started to beat faster. “Really, do you mean it?” This is what she’d been
hoping for—to beat out Tom and Caitlin and Irina! To be partner! To be in the right position when Bernadette is ready to retire!
“I mean it.” Then something unexpected happened. Bernadette’s hand was on Jordan’s thigh, resting as casually as if it was on her own thigh. This couldn’t be right. There must be a mistake. Jordan returned Bernadette’s
hand to her, placing it on the armrest between their seats.
The hand came back almost immediately, resting on Jordan’s crotch, the heel against her pubis. Jordan froze. She couldn’t
move or think. What should she do? Her voice sounded like it was coming from the corner of the room when she said, “I don’t think you mean to do this.” She
squirmed, tried to shift away, but Bernadette’s hand held her fast.
“It’s okay, nobody knows we’re here,” Bernadette said, undeterred. She turned slightly in her seat so she was facing Jordan. “Why don’t you loosen up, Jordan? Have a little fun?”
“Loosen up?” repeated Jordan. “Bernadette—”
Bernadette leaned in, her breath hitting Jordan’s neck, and whispered, “If I were you I’d think carefully about what choice
you make here, Jordan. I’m about to make some big decisions.”
Jordan was breathing hard, and she could feel her face flaming. She twisted her body completely away and stood, leaving Bernadette
sitting, looking up at her. Her crotch was still burning where Bernadette’s hand had been. Her eyes were smarting from Bernadette’s
dragon breath. She said, “Bernadette. You’re drunk. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Bernadette snorted and said, “I don’t know what I’m doing?” She hooted. “We’ll see about that!” She rose, gave Jordan a long, inscrutable look, and stalked
up the stairs. Jordan stood next to her theater seat for a good long time, her knees shaking just a little. She waited before
following Bernadette, and right when she emerged from the house and into the night the fireworks show began. Pop pop. Pow pow pow.
It took Jordan forty-five minutes to find an Uber that would make the $295 trip from Sagaponack back to the city. The Uber
driver was cranky and quiet, the way Uber drivers often get when they accept a really long trip and then regret it. She was
glad for his silence—she didn’t want to talk.
When she was back in her own apartment, she poured herself a nightcap—WhistlePig, neat, in one of the Glencairn glasses she
bought herself the previous Christmas, for no reason other than she wanted them.
Her hands were shaking a little as she poured.
She put on her pajamas and climbed into bed, setting the glass beside her on the nightstand. The WhistlePig was so smooth and flavorful (notes of cocoa and cured leather) that just holding it made her feel calm. She took a small sip, then another, set the glass down again, picked up her phone.
Nothing from Bernadette, not that she’d really expected anything.
She drank the rest of the WhistlePig in one gulp. If Glen Cairn were a person (he’s not, right?) he might be disappointed
in Jordan for her gracelessness. She settled herself on her pillow for a long summer’s nap.
She would deal with all of this in the morning. Or not.
“Oh my god, Jordan,” says Natalie. “Is that why she’s calling you all the time? To apologize? Is she worried you’re going
to complain to HR or something?”
“Actually, there’s been no apology. There’s been no acknowledgment.”
“But Memorial Day was, what, six weeks ago? What’s happened since then?”
“She’s traveled a lot. A client in LA, a client in London. I was in Atlanta for a week when she was back. She was on vacation
over the Fourth . . . so it’s kind of been business as usual. But it’s not. She’s been calling me because she wants me to
lie to a reporter who’s working on a story about her, about her being a ‘toxic boss.’ ” Jordan makes air quotes with two tired
fingers. “She’s trying to make sure I’ll do what she needs me to do to make it go away.”
“Why would you do that?” asks Natalie, horrified. “She’s definitely toxic—and threatening. She put you in a terrible situation.”
“I know.” Jordan tents her fingers and lays her head gently in them.
“But she’s my boss. And it was just that one time.
And, like, it’s easy to talk myself into the possibility that I’m making it a bigger deal than it was.
If I’m on her side here, she’ll make me partner.
I’ve been working toward this for ten years.
I know I’m capable of running that place one day. ”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” says Jordan. “And I only have tomorrow to figure it out. She wants me to talk to the reporter by Friday.”
“Is there any more of whatever you’re drinking?” says a voice from the Great Beyond—or the doorway of the kitchen. “I know
you’re both mad at me, about the wedding thing. But I can’t sleep.”
“We’re drinking water,” says Jordan.
“You can’t sleep because you had, like, nine shots of espresso,” says Natalie, her voice chilly.