3. The Ugly Truth…
3
The Ugly Truth…
Paige
It’s after eight o’clock in the evening by the time I walk through the door of my airy apartment, dragging my suitcase behind me. My eyes are burning and my shoulders are slumped, and if I met me on the street today, I’d say to myself, “What is wrong with her? There’s a girl who needs to get her shit together.”
“Paige? Nooo!!! Don’t tell me you haven’t left yet,” Vivian says, peering at me from over the top of her computer screen.
She’s sitting at her desk in our living room, as per usual, and without asking, I know she’s searching for the next topic for her lifestyle blog, Blissful Living . Vivian is huge among women twenty-one to twenty-seven, and makes a killing as an influencer. She got in early, worked hard, and has made something of herself, which is exactly what I’m trying to do. We met in college and moved to New York together to live out our Sex in the City dreams of boozy brunches on Sundays, coffee house chats, and wild dating stories. We immediately abandoned the brunches and the men in the quest for success, and honestly, I regret nothing. Vivian is the reason I’m not living in a three-hundred-square-foot studio with a view of some dumpsters, and instead am able to share a whopping thousand-square-feet in Murray Hill with a view of the Empire State Building. She’s also the reason I don’t pack up my things and slink back home to Philadelphia in spite of senior twatwaffle.
She winces, then says, “Please tell me they closed the Caribbean and not that you decided to postpone again, because if you postponed again, Tiff is never going to forgive you.”
“I postponed again,” I tell her, abandoning my suitcase in the small entryway and flopping onto the sage green velvet sofa. The sofa—like almost all of the furnishings in the apartment—was a sponsored product from an up-and-coming company. It’s crazy how much free shit Vivian gets, just by smiling and tossing her long blonde hair while she talks about cookie recipes and candles. But of everything she’s been given, the velvet sofa is my favorite. Other than it attracting every speck of dust in the neighborhood, it’s deliciously plush and cozy and I love it, especially on a chilly winter night when I’m basically devastated. Like tonight.
She walks over and plunks herself on the light beige swivel armchair. “He made you stay?”
I nod. “I live on Guy Time, remember?”
“You know that’s not a thing, right? It’s just some shit he made up to keep you running twenty-four seven.”
“I know, and I’ll get off Guy Time eventually, but not today. The meeting with the Vialis people went until six o’clock and they want the night to think it over.”
She reaches over and puts her hand on my knee. “ Paige, you’ve got to quit. I mean, it was bad enough when he made you drain his dog’s anal glands, but this is unforgivable,” she says, fully annoyed on my behalf.
“I can’t quit. Not after putting in six years of my life there.”
She shakes her head at me. “Then set some boundaries because this is insane. He seriously can’t manage this one little crisis without you?”
“It’s a massive crisis, and apparently not,” I say, leaning my head against the soft sofa and closing my eyes. “They’re going to reconvene at seven tomorrow morning and give him their final decision. I had to cancel his flight home, rebook a bunch of appointments and meetings he had, and find him a hotel room for the night. But it’s okay because I’ve got a flight at noon. which will put me there just in time for the rehearsal dinner. I’ll miss the actual rehearsal, but honestly, what’s there to know? I wear the dress, I hold the bouquet, and I follow the other bridesmaids.”
“But what if…?”
“If he tells me to delay, I won’t do it. He can fire me or keep me on, but either way, I’ll be on a plane tomorrow at noon.” I pick up my peach bellini lip balm off of the tray on the coffee table and put some on, letting it soothe my lips and calm my nerves.
She grimaces, then says, “How’d your family take the news?”
My gut churns. “I haven’t exactly told them yet.”
Her eyes fly open. “Oh my God, Paige, they must be expecting you to show up any minute now.”
“I know. I should probably call them.”
“Yeah, I’d say so. The longer you leave it, the angrier they’ll be.”
Letting out a long sigh, I say, “Yup. I better get it over with. ”
I pull my cell out of my coat pocket and open my Facetime app, then wait while my mom’s phone rings. When she picks up, I see she’s sitting at an outdoor restaurant in one of her many uber-expensive summery dresses. She smiles brightly into the camera and holds up a drink. “Paige, darling! Are you almost here?”
“Is that Paige?!” my grandmother shouts. Her face appears on the screen. “Hello, darling girl! Are you on the island yet?”
“Not exactly, Gran,” I say. “But soon.”
She wrinkles up her nose and moves in a little closer. “Have you gained weight, dear? Your face looks very round.”
“I may have been stress-eating a bit,” I answer, even though inside I’m ready to slap myself for feeling the need to justify my weight to her.
Vivian makes a hissing noise and waves her hand at me. “No! Do not answer that,” she whispers. “You’re perfect.”
I give her an appreciative nod and turn my attention back to the screen where my mother is inspecting me as closely as she can from her position near the equator. “Oh. My. God, Paige. Are you sitting on that awful couch in your dreary apartment?” Her voice is clipped and her words fast.
“Yes,” I say. “But I’m almost leaving.”
“One second,” she says. The screen goes black and I hear the sounds of a party fading while the clicking of her heels on the cement takes over. A minute later, her face reappears on the screen. She’s about to give me the mother of all lectures. “I am … furious with you. In fact, I don’t think I have ever, in my life, been so disappointed with someone. How can you be missing this, Paige? How?! It is the most important time in your baby sister’s life. Her wedding trip. You’re missing everything. The mani-pedis, the massages, the ladies’ night on the pirate ship, with the real Jack Sparrow, Paige! The real one! And you missed it. You can’t get these moments back. There are no do-overs. This is it.”
“I know. I do. And I feel awful but I’m?—”
“Selfish. That is what you are. How did I manage to raise such a selfish human being? I tried so hard to teach you etiquette and good old-fashioned family values. So hard, but you were always so determined to…” She trails off and shakes her head, her eyes filling with tears.
“I do have family values, Mom. I do. But you and Dad also raised me to be a go-getter, a winner. And I’ve been busting my ass for Guy for six long years now, and I’m so close to having it all. So close.”
She pinches her nose and sighs. “No, you aren’t. You’re a secretary and that’s all he’ll ever see you as. That man has been stringing you along this entire time and he’s not about to stop.”
I bristle at the word ‘secretary’ as I always do. My family can’t understand why I took the job and they certainly don’t understand the importance of what I do. Even though now is not the time to try to explain it, yet again , I’m going to do it anyway. “I know it seems that way but I’m just paying my dues and learning the business, and I’m also making connections and getting all the right people to trust me.”
“You know who doesn’t trust you? Tiffany. You missed the engagement party because Guy was pitching the people at Apple?—”
“Only because Guy promised I could go to her shower, and you and I both agreed the shower was more important. ”
“And did you make it to the shower?” she asks in a clipped tone.
“No, but?—”
“But only because he simply couldn’t survive without you.”
“His wife just left him the day before and he was in the middle of pitching Pepsi, which he got, and said he couldn’t have done it without me.”
“Oh my God, I can’t listen to this. Not right now. Not on the eve of your sister’s wedding rehearsal,” Mom says, her voice shaking with anger. “Tiffany is going to be devastated when I tell her you’re not coming.”
“I am coming. I promise. Tomorrow morning, first thing. Well, not first thing,” I say, glancing at Vivian, who gives me the world’s most supportive bestie look. “My new flight leaves at noon, and instead of having a stop-over in Florida, I’m flying directly to Santa Valentina.”
“The wedding is on Azure Island.”
“I know that.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do. I have a charter booked. It takes off an hour after I land. I’ll be there in time for the rehearsal dinner, I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you have no intention of keeping.”
“I have every intention of keeping it. There is literally nothing that will keep me from Tiff’s wedding, Mom. I promise. I know I screwed up by missing the first part of the trip. I do. But I’ll be there to walk down that aisle and hold her bouquet for her.”
“That’s the maid of honor’s job.”
“Well, if the maid of honor needs me to hold her bouquet so she can hold Tiff’s, I’ll do that.”
“You promise? You will be here tomorrow night? ”
“Yes. I promise. Even if it means I lose my job.”
“I’d be happy if you lost that stupid job. You can just as easily get a job at an ad agency in Philadelphia. In fact, with your father’s connections, you’d be way ahead if you’d have stayed there in the first place.”
“Mom, we’ve talked about this so many times. I need to do this on my own.”
“Which is ridiculous. You were raised with every advantage, Paige. Every advantage.”
Oh great, here we go.
“We gave you everything—private school, tutors, riding lessons, that expensive nose on your face! We introduced you to all the right people. All the best young men. You could be happily married by now with all the security you’d ever need. But no, you decide to sneak off to New York to live as a pauper while you try to ‘break into’ an impossible industry.”
“It’s not impossible. And I’m already in. I just need a junior account executive position to open up.”
“You’ve been saying that for years.”
“Yeah, well, after this, Guy isn’t going to have a choice but to promote me.”
My mother narrows her eyes and moves the screen close to her face. “Are you … orange?”
“I had a spray tan this morning, but once I shower, it’ll be fine.”
“I hope so. You look … shockingly orange.”
“Thanks.”
My older brother Phillip’s face appears on the screen next to my mom. “Hey, Paige. Oh my God, what happened to your skin?”
My mom glances at him. “A better question would be to ask where she is. ”
He looks at me. “Don’t tell me you’re still in New York.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon. Sharp.”
Vivian gives me a firm nod and a thumbs up, even though tomorrow afternoon sharp makes no sense at all.
“You better be or Tiffany will never forgive you,” he says.
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know.”
“Paige, there is no need to get snippy with your brother. He’s only trying to help.”
He gives me a grin so irritating, he might as well be sticking his tongue out and waggling his fingers in front of his nose. “Yeah, Paige. No need to get snippy.”
“Right. I’m just a little stressed out.”
“You know what you should do?” he asks. “Take a little trip to the Caribbean. Get some sun. Recharge your battery.”
“Great idea,” I grind out. “I’ll do that.” Jackass.
My mom looks away from the phone for a second, then says, “I have to go. Your father’s smoking another cigar and his cardiologist said no more than one a day.”
“Okay, bye,” I say. “See you tomorrow!”
“I better.”
“I love?—”
She ends the call, leaving me to say, “you” to an empty screen.
I toss my phone onto the sofa. “That went well.”
Vivian nods. “Definitely could’ve been worse.”
But the truth is, I have a terrible feeling that this streak of bad luck is just getting started.