12. Maddie
MADDIE
I t was too good to be true.
It’s all I can think, and I nearly tell Suzette just that when she texts me and asks how it’s going.
I should have known that the minute I started to settle into what I thought was a fresh start, it was too good to be true. But I wanted to see the best in it. Looking on the bright side is what got me through hard times.
Now it all feels like a joke.
The next Monday after Graham leaves me a note, everything goes wrong at work. The weekend was amazing. Easy and carefree. Sleeping in, having lazy morning sex, and then enjoying the benefits of the penthouse while Graham worked. But it came and went far too quickly.
First thing in the morning, dressed in a prim and proper skirt suit, I show up at the office ready to tackle the day, but the CEO is in a terrible mood. I’ve worked for men like Michael Davies before. When they’re irritable, everyone walks on eggshells. It’s not a comfortable feeling.
Some of the work we were doing at the assistant level was misfiled or submitted to the wrong person, and when he calls the three of us in for a meeting with his secretary, I know it isn’t going to go well.
And it doesn’t.
I didn’t cause any of the trouble—my work was fine and that’s determined—but the CEO isn’t happy to let the other assistant’s mistake go.
My jaw drops. I’ve been here almost three months and other than a few moments where small comments were made here and there, it’s been fine.
It’s been great even connecting the company to charities and sharing successful strategies.
I don’t work directly with the CEO though.
And now I know there’s no way I ever could.
I sit through about three minutes of him yelling at her—actually yelling—before I can’t stand it anymore.
Someone had to defend the poor girl. And then he’s yelling at me. As it turns out, I’m the one who’s leaving, because the CEO fires me on the spot. I leave the office with shaking hands and angry tears in my eyes and call Suzette.
“I’m really sorry,” I tell her, the second the call connects. “It didn’t work out.”
“Maddie, what?” There’s a rustling sound like she’s moving the phone to her other hand. “What didn’t work out?”
“The job. I just got fired for being unable to handle the pressure.” I tell her the story, getting angrier with every word that comes out of my mouth. “I couldn’t sit by and let it happen, so I’m done. I left the office. It’s over.”
“Okay. Maddie, this is fine. It’s a setback, obviously, but it’s not the end?—”
“Maybe it should be.” I toss my hand in the air, frustrated beyond belief. “Maybe I should get real with myself and stop pretending that a positive attitude can fix every situation. I was kidding myself when I thought I could stay in this apartment.”
“I don’t think?—”
“And I was kidding myself if I thought that I could get involved with a man and keep it casual.” Emotions sweep through me and every small negative thought I’ve had for the past two months tangle with themselves at the back of my throat.
Suzette doesn’t say anything. I get to an intersection by a flower shop and look away from all the pastel blooms in the window. They look like flowers for a celebration, and there’s nothing to celebrate today.
“Did something happen with Graham?” Suzette asks carefully.
“He took me to meet his friends.”
“I thought that went well. You said it did.”
“Well, no, it didn’t, because now they all know me, and I don’t understand why he’d want that. He didn’t want to show up alone, and they were too nice, like he’s actually interested in anything beyond being fuck buddies.”
“I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“I did, at the beginning,” I burst out. “It seemed like fun, at the beginning. But every time we’re together, I just get more confused. He seems like he wants something real with me, but he never says so.”
“And you want to be with him.”
“I can’t be with him. I shouldn’t even be in that building.”
“Because of the cost?”
“Because of the rent, and because...” I don’t want him to notice that I got fired.
Tears leak into the corner of my eyes. It’s then I realize, I’m so embarrassed.
I don’t want him to start thinking of me as the woman who couldn’t handle her own life.
We’d turned it into a sexy game, and now, in the space of a day, it’s not a game anymore.
I don’t understand why everything feels like it’s crumbling all at once. “I just can’t.”
Suzette says all the right things a friend would, but I don’t hear any of it.
All I can think about is how I’m going to have to explain to a man like Graham, someone who works their ass off day in and night out, that I got fired because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
I confess to Suzette as I try to calm myself down.
“I would have willingly quit if he hadn’t fired me.
After all of these years, I don’t have a job.
” My breath catches and I try to pull myself together, I try to get my emotions to make sense.
I don’t have a passion like he does. The voice in the back of my head tells the truth.
I’m just not good enough for a man like him, for an apartment like that, for a life like this.
I’m a fraud. My phone beeps. Another call is coming in.
“I have to go,” I tell Suzette.
“Call me later,” she says, just before I answer the next call.
“Hello?”
“It’s me.” Kenzie’s voice wobbles, like she’s been crying, and my stomach sinks.
I close my eyes, pressing my back to a building as the city passes me by.
This is the worst timing. I can barely exhale as she continues.
“Listen. I know you just started a new job, but I need help. The loan company said they’re going to start taking money from my paychecks, and I need all of it for the rent, so I need?—”
“You’ll have to move here, then. You’ll have to just…I don’t know, Kenzie. You’ll have to come here, and we can figure something out.”
“I can’t do that. You know that. My whole life is in Chicago, and it’s not like I can just rent a car?—”
“I don’t know what else to tell you!” I try my best not to raise my voice at my cousin, but my throat feels like I swallowed a rock and my eyes were burning before and there’s just nothing I can do.
“I got fired today, Kenzie! I got fired. I don’t have any extra money.
I have to take drastic measures myself, so the only way I can?—”
“Mom’s sick,” Kenzie says, her voice cold.
“What?”
“My mom is sick. That’s why I haven’t asked her. That’s why I’m always asking you . Do you even care?”
“Kenzie.” I lean against a lamppost, taking deep breaths. “What do you mean she’s sick?”
“She has cancer,” she tells me, and my entire body goes cold.
“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“I am too,” she says, and she’s choked up.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because she said not to tell anyone. It’s treatable, just expensive.
She’s going to be okay. She will…but also because I wanted to handle it,” she tells me.
“I wanted to figure out a way to solve it on my own. And I couldn’t, obviously, or I wouldn’t be calling.
But it’s not like I can call her because she’s dealing with so many medical bills that she might lose her house, too. ”
“I’m sorry,” I say. A driver in traffic cuts across to the opposite lane, almost hitting another car, and horns blare. “I’m sorry, Kenzie.”
It’s not enough, just to apologize. I’m stick to my stomach at the thought that my aunt has been sick…and nobody told me.
They probably didn’t tell me because I got a whole new life with Kevin and disappeared into it and thought my cousin needed to get her head together.
I guess she’s not the only one.
“None of this is your fault,” Kenzie says in a voice that tells me it is my fault, at least a little. “I know how hard you worked to get where you are. I just thought…” She lets out an angry sigh. “I thought you’d understand, because of that.”
“Kenzie.” I rub at my forehead with the back of my hand, blinking back tears. “I just need some time. I’ll figure something out, I swear, I just can’t do it right this minute. I haven’t even gotten home from the office yet.”
“No.” She takes a deep breath, and I can almost see her straightening her back. “I’ll figure this out. You deal with your stuff. I’ll deal with mine.”
“Kenzie, please?—”
My cousin hangs up.
I don’t blame her for how she feels. I couldn’t possibly blame her for that when I’ve felt the same way so many times. But this, on top of getting fired, on top of thinking that I’d avoided disaster…
It’s too much. I’m quick to text my aunt that I love her and miss her. I almost tell her I know but I don’t. Instead I just let the tears out.
She answers back with a text telling me she misses me, and she hopes I’m living my big-city-life dreams and maybe one day she can come down to see me. I have to read it all through glassy eyes. We’ve never been a super close family, but I that doesn’t mean I don’t love them all.
I get back to my building and go through the lobby as fast as I can, my head down. If Graham is in here today, I don’t want to see him. My phone buzzes with a text, but I don’t look at it. I throw myself into the elevator.
It’s empty and I shove myself into the corner of it.
The hall on the eighth floor is empty too, so nobody sees the tears start to fall as I fumble to get my key in the door.
I slam it behind me and kick off my shoes, drop my purse, and go for my clothes. I don’t want to be in the skirt suit for another second.
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” I say out loud. “ Don’t. ”
But I do. I feel sorry for myself, for my cousin, for my aunt. I feel sorry for my family that they have me to deal with.
My chest aches, my head hurts, and it’s all gone wrong. Again.