Chapter 18
California
I was prepared. Too prepared, maybe, but I had started to dream about the conversation I was going to have with Simon.
It had been three days since Beau’s meeting at Redwood. Three days since Simon shelved me like some file he might never pick up again.
I knew Simon’s every tic, his every tell. What the rap of his fingers on a desk could mean depending on the pace. But I didn’t know this version of Simon. The version who had spent days licking his wounds over striking out on the attempt to acquire InfoSynth.
Simon never struck out. Never missed the signals.
But he did with Beau. And now I was paying for it.
Ever since the moment Beau walked out of Redwood’s conference room, Simon had become the king of petty, icing me out in meetings and turning up the radio silence.
Requests to “work on that presentation” went dead.
If Simon did have a request, he routed it through email, and if I emailed him, he ignored me entirely.
Sulking. In a thousand-dollar suit.
Today was Friday, though. And every Friday, we met in his office to go over his obligations for the upcoming week. It was the one thing he never skipped.
“Este, we need to talk,” I imagined him saying.
Then I was going to say, “Simon, I understand that didn’t go how you hoped, but I’ve been digging and I think I’ve found a list of alternatives.”
Professional. Useful. Back in my place.
That’s not to say there weren’t moments when my zen mood was rocked by self-respect. The silence was clearly meant to humiliate and destabilize me. But for what? Bringing him Beau Walker on a silver platter?
It didn’t matter, I kept telling myself. I was stuck with my choices unless and until I could get to higher ground. So my plan was to respectfully cool off our romantic entanglement and reset.
We’re just going to put everything back the way it was before.
This little pep talk got me about halfway to Simon’s office before I realized the lights were off and his door was closed.
That’s different.
Simon was always the first person in when he was in town. He said he liked the quiet. He did his best thinking then.
My zen mood lasted until I got to my office and saw it. There, in the middle of my desk, was one of Simon’s monogrammed note cards. I could see his handwriting from where I was standing in the doorway.
The sinking feeling in my stomach propelled me as I walked around the desk and picked up the card. It was four sentences:
I think it’s time for you to move on. You’re too talented to stay here. I don’t want to hold you back any longer. I wish you well.
—S
I stared at the card, heat rising in my face as the chill of disbelief made everything below my neck feel numb.
He couldn’t close the deal with Beau. He lost. And now, I was the collateral damage.
He was firing me. This was a termination letter. On three-hundred-dollar stationery.
I’m going to throw up. Or pass out. Maybe I’ll do both, one right after the other.
I’d been so guided by loyalty—to my job, to Simon—I hadn’t stopped to consider the possibility that Simon could suddenly be disloyal to me. I fooled myself into believing I was safe.
Eyes closed. Feetfirst. Straight into a garbage truck.
I’d allowed myself the indulgence of sleeping with Simon—not just because I liked him, but because he made me feel untouchable.
Like the rules didn’t apply. Like I had power, even when I didn’t.
I think I also liked how easy it was to fall into bed with him at the end of a long day and then leave in the morning without having to do any of the emotional work that comes with dating.
We never had to stare into each other’s eyes and bare our darkest wounds.
There were no expectations and no complications. Just work and sex. Until now, that is.
Because I understood that in addition to the firing, I was being dumped.
This just in: Girl who would do anything to realize her dream has overplayed her hand.
I should have known better than to expect I could put any of this back. I couldn’t control what got lost. All I could control was my reaction.
And I chose rage.
“You wish me well?” I repeated to my empty office, bile rising in my throat.
“Hey, Este.” James was standing in my doorway. Judging from the typical blank look on his face, he didn’t know about my unceremonious exit from the company. Which might actually have been worse. It meant that sometime today the board was going to send some email about my departure.
I have to get the fuck out of here.
“Shut up, James,” I said.
His face twisted in disbelief.
“I don’t want to hear one more loud, protracted story. I don’t work here anymore. I’ve got my envelope and my ‘fly birdie fly’ note. So I’ll see you around.”
“What are you talking about?” James looked at me, gobsmacked.
I swiped the card off the desk, not bothering to pack up a thing in my office as I walked out. I didn’t want anything else. I had been fired by the person I revered. And he didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face.
Radiating an otherworldly anger, I blew past a blinking James without saying another word.
He’s someone else’s problem now.
But as I raced out of the back door and into the parking lot, the self-recriminations started to creep in.
I slept with my boss. What did I think was going to happen? Did I think I was going to change him? No.
But I thought we were one and the same—people who were more committed to work than romance. I thought we’d both be quasi-single forever. I had bet on our mutual cynicism.
I am the dumbest girl who has ever girled.
This thought shot a fresh dose of rage through me. By the time I got to my car, I was vibrating with anger. My cheeks were hot and the pressure between my ears threatened to melt my brain.
Is that possible? Can a person be so angry their brain dissolves?
When my phone rang, I didn’t look at the caller ID on my car dash. Just let the Bluetooth pick it up as I pulled out of the office parking lot.
“Yeah?” I said with so much fury that I was surprised the caller didn’t hang up.
“Este? It’s Beau Walker.”
Fuck. Not now.
I couldn’t talk to Beau Walker. I was filled with so much unchecked vitriol, I needed a priest. I needed an exorcism.
When I didn’t respond, he continued, “Hey, I’m sorry about the way the Redwood meeting went.”
Don’t sweat it. You have plenty of other buyers. Buyers who didn’t try to turn your product into government surveillance software and then turn my career into fire kindling.
“Honestly, I think you dodged a bullet,” I said, not knowing at the time that it would be the last clearheaded thing I said for days. Possibly longer.
“I’m glad to hear you say that. Listen, I was calling to check on my shirt.” He chuckled.
If I had been in any other state of mind, this would have been charming. But poor Beau didn’t know he had dialed into the seventh circle of hell.
“Your shirt? You’re calling me about a shirt?” My anger was so white-hot I was almost numb. Beau must have been stunned silent by my tone, because the line went quiet. It was entirely possible he had already hung up as I yelled, “It’s a shirt, Beau! It’s fine. Everything is fine.”
After another beat of silence, he finally said, “Are you okay, Este? You sound—”
“Me? I am great. I’m—thriving actually. So young and free and full of goddamn potential Natasha Bedingfield should write a fucking song about it.
Everything’s—I’m—” My voice cracked, and I had to bite down so hard on my lip I thought I tasted blood.
When I spoke again, my voice was steady—or at least as steady as it could be.
“How are you, though? Probably cold without that shirt. Was it your only one? Is—is that why you’re calling? ”
I was talking nonsense, like the anger was leeching every brain cell from my body until I was drunk on despair.
I wanted to tell the whole world to fuck off, burn every bridge, and disappear into the ether.
But despite being ready to hard-reset the universe, I couldn’t tell Beau to fuck off.
He wasn’t part of the whole world. In my mind, I had already set him apart. He was something else.
I couldn’t tell him the truth. It was too humiliating. My brain kept tripping between what I could and shouldn’t say until everything came out in disjointed ramblings.
“Este, can I come get you? Where are you?”
“I—I’m going to get myself out of this on my own.
And I’m not worried about doing that at all.
I’m independent and smart. Sisters doing it for themselves, like R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Fuck. I’m A-OK. I’m pretty and smart.” The memory of Simon kissing my knee made me feel so stupid, and I was stupid, because the next thing my half-melted brain spit out was “And I’m a great lay. I bet you didn’t know that.”
Jesus, Este. Hang up the phone.
The words keep coming, though. “So I tell you what, I will get your shirt dry-cleaned—another thing I am supercapable of accomplishing because I have time and a car—and I’ll get it returned to you.
Actually, maybe I’ll buy you a new one. Or ten new ones.
Text me your address and I’ll send you a baker’s dozen. Okay?”
“I don’t really want the shirt back, Este. I just wanted to talk to you. I—”
“Okay, great. I guess that’s settled then. Have a nice fucking day, Beau Walker.” And then I disconnected the Bluetooth, panting like I’d fully lost my mind.
I didn’t remember the rest of the drive home.
The mental postmortem didn’t begin until my ass hit the sofa in my Venice apartment, frozen bottle of tequila in hand.
And even then, it was hard to separate facts from emotions.
My blood was boiling with some pernicious blend of disappointment, humiliation, remorse, and something else I couldn’t place.
Shock, maybe.
I’m not supposed to fail.
When my parents were alive, flipping through flash cards at the dinner table, my life was buttressed by ambition. They’d shaped me on the promise that achievement was the foundation of everything, so when they died, I braced myself with control and a refusal to fail.
Living with Delia, I remained studious and hardworking, only leaning occasionally into her fun-loving, bourbon-soaked doctrine. All in the name of making my own life.
So then why am I in a free fall?
I sat on the couch, staring at nothing and trying to get my brain to replay the last few hours, but it patently refused. Like some deeper part of me was determined to save me from myself.
Did I tell James to shut up? Did I tell Beau Walker that I was good in bed? Future me will have to solve these mysteries.
For now, I could only sit there, wondering how someone so sure of herself could unravel so quickly.