One
CLARA
Golden, blocky letters broadcast the name of the popular hotel in front of me.
I wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow morning for the real estate development conference, but I’d stopped by now, the evening prior, in an effort to get my bearings in advance of the big event.
I was the new girl at my job in the city planning department, and I was eager to do whatever it took to keep up with my coworkers.
Tomorrow that would include sitting front row at my boss’s presentation on window regulations.
Today, I just wanted to find out where the Hazelwood Room was and what section of this massive hotel would be home to the conference.
But for a brief moment, I forgot all of that. My field of vision had shrunk to only include the front door.
Midtown Manhattan was a chaotic, chockful-of-humans experience most times.
But I could pick out the lines of Preston’s profile from a mile away.
He was conventionally handsome, the kind of good looks you’d find in a throwaway Target ad.
But his all-American dimples were not supposed to be here right now.
For a moment, I stared at the closing door, reminding myself of all the reasons why I was probably wrong.
Sure, he worked a block away, but it was Friday evening, and he’d told me an hour ago he was heading to his parents’ house for the weekend. In a city of this size, there were probably at least five doppelgangers for every human on earth.
Besides, I didn’t want to consider that he’d been lying to me.
The soft pulse of my hopes and dreams told me to turn around.
The knot in my gut told me to follow him.
I started for the golden doors, running through potential dialogue in my head.
Preston and I didn’t live together. We’d been dating for just over a year, and I’d had to remind him to celebrate our anniversary last month.
He worked a lot, but so did I. We were both young, ambitious, ladder-climbing people.
He was my aspirational boyfriend, the type of man I’d desperately wanted to snag.
My Target-ad dreamboat. He no longer needed roommates to afford rent in the city.
He was successful, knew how to use the complicated machines at the gym, and drank smoothies with protein in them.
For God’s sake, he made his bed in the morning.
The fact that, deep down, I’d come to suspect that he’d always been merely tolerating me didn’t matter.
That man was a catch. He was what I was supposed to want.
Inside the cool lobby of the grand hotel, laughter echoed between the marble walls.
I looked around, a heavy part of my heart hoping I wouldn’t find him.
The last, gasping wish of the future I’d created in my head when it came to Preston.
There’s still a chance you two can become the relationship you’ve always dreamed of.
He could have gone any direction. I drifted toward the bustling bar nestled to the left of the lobby.
Potted ferns spiked on either side of a hostess stand.
Velvet-upholstered barrel chairs and high tables for leaning and making business deals dotted the interior.
It was a lounge and cocktail bar for all manner of business.
I smiled at the hostess, who ushered me toward an open table near the wall of windows.
I sank into the seat, looking around as casually as possible.
And then I spotted the Target-ad profile.
He was seated at the bar. All the bar stools faced away from my little table tucked off to the edge.
His gelled dark blonde hair had become slightly softer after his long day at the office, wisping across his forehead as he leaned back on the barstool and swung his gaze toward someone at his side.
The woman at his side.
The knot in my gut turned into a fist. The fist began to pummel me. My insides turned to mush, and I was rooted helplessly to my seat.
Preston propped his elbow onto the bar, resting his head on his hand as he smiled dopily at his companion. I couldn’t tell who she was, but I was willing to bet money it wasn’t his mother.
He’d never once looked at me like that. Not even in the beginning. Certainly not at our anniversary date, which he’d arrived late for and spent most of on his phone.
A server approached me, but I was registering everything a beat too late.
The world around me had turned sluggish, slo-mo reality dissolution.
I mustered what was probably not a smile and asked for water.
The server walked away, not without a slight look of concern, and I resumed watching my future crash and burn.
Even though he’d been boring, he’d been solid.
He emanated security and potential and a bright future.
The sex had been amazing, and maybe somewhere deep down I’d hoped that would make up for the fact that things had always been so predictable with him.
Was that why he’d stuck around? Come to think of it, he never suggested we go places like this—public, exposed, elegant.
We had no spontaneity, no showing each other off.
As I spiraled deeper into this hole of shock and despair, my thoughts turned darker.
I’d already proven that I’d been with a man who lied to me, but had I also been with a man that was embarrassed of me?
The server returned with my water, and before he left again, I blurted out, “Martini.”
“Sorry?”
I felt like the alien in Men In Black who’d stuffed himself into the Egger suit. I could barely speak. I just needed sustenance for my aching soul, and that sustenance was alcohol.
“Martini,” I said again, after gulping back the wave of tears.
The server nodded and departed, allowing me full view of Preston’s shoulder now leaning against the woman.
I watched as his hand snaked along her exposed thigh.
From the back, she looked like a model. Immaculate figure.
Gorgeous blonde hair. Probably a perfect ten and some sort of CEO.
It didn’t matter who she was. She was simply proof.
Proof that I didn’t stack up. Whatever progress I thought I’d made in life had dissolved.
Regrets, warning signs, disappointment, failure all pummeled my brain, leaving little pockmarks of told ya so.
When the server returned with my martini, I drank it one gulp.
I set the glass down, wiped my sleeve across my mouth, and dropped thirty dollars on the table.
I’d seen enough.
I took a picture on my way out, the perfect profile of Preston leaning back and grinning at the woman. I’d be sending it to him shortly. Just as soon as I figured out where I was going to nurse my wounds.
I left the cocktail lounge, an urgent drumbeat inside my heart pushing me to a new destination. I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t even want to leave the hotel. I just needed to process somewhere, preferably with alcohol, where I wasn’t staring at my new ex-boyfriend.
As I re-entered the boisterous lobby of the hotel, I allowed my broken heart to guide me.
I drifted along a different hallway on knees made of glass, following a small group of businessmen.
They took me as far as the elevators, and then I latched onto the sound of laughter coming from further down the hall.
I discovered a new wing of the first floor, which led to a moodily lit restaurant.
It looked fancy as hell, the type of place I’d normally avoid as too expensive.
Not tonight.
My heels clicked on the tiled floor as I stepped up to the small line forming at the hostess stand. Pain licking through me. I needed to rebel somehow.
What if I spent the rest of the evening being exactly who I wasn’t?
Or role playing the woman I’d like to become someday?
I could be the strong woman who had her shit together. The woman Preston would beg to come back. The woman who hadn’t just been cheated on in broad daylight and was too scared to cause a scene.
My boyfriend was on the other side of the building, on a date with a woman who wasn’t me, after he’d lied about heading upstate to visit his parents. Let me be one more person lying today. Nothing mattered right now. I could be whoever I wanted to be.
My real name was Clara Whitehall. New York City native, suddenly single plant mother, a late-twenties orphan trying to cobble together a career in city planning.
But right now?
I was Scarlett, CEO of . Regular facial-getter. Someone who hired people to water her plants. No longer trying to cobble but already well beyond cobbling. Scarlett built things with purpose and beauty.
Scarlett didn’t care about cheating exes.
Scarlett only cared about getting what she wanted.