Chapter 47
Chapter
The day of the company retreat finally arrives, and my heart is in my throat as I walk through the glass-roofed atrium of the hotel where they put it on every year.
The floor is packed with booths and people I’ve never seen before, teams flown in from other offices, everyone with lanyards around their necks.
It’s been a TKCORP tradition to hold this event for as long as I can remember, with professional development sessions organized along different tracks and grand proclamations about investment in human capital in all the company literature. Mom was so proud when she was asked to present, one year.
A bunch of union members are clustered in a group across the floor, and I start moving toward them—but then Mark Winterson steps into my line of sight.
“Whoa, didn’t mean to startle you. You okay?” He steadies me, and leans in to whisper in my ear. “I got a room upstairs.”
“Why?” I blurt out.
“Because I can.” He slips an arm around my waist and tugs me closer. “And it’s my fault—I know I’ve been distracted—but we…haven’t in a while. Couple weeks at least?”
I laugh nervously. “Did you consult your ledger?”
Mark Winterson chuckles dryly and presses me into a side hug. “Just wanted to show you I can make time for us.” He puts a key card in my hand, folding my fingers over it. “Text me.”
As he strides away, I turn the key over in my hands, staring at the paper sleeve that says Room 505.
I’m going to have to meet him there. I realized, sometime on the long drive back from the wedding, that I don’t even need to find out his heartbreak year—I just need to get the first deal Erickson ever told him about.
If I have those two parts, I can try every year of his life along with them. There are only thirty-one possible combinations, and I don’t think Excel will lock me out if I’ve tried too many times. And this is probably my last, best chance.
Maybe it’s not clear what I can do for Mom anymore, but at least I can see this through. And then I can break up with him. This will all be over soon.
Rising up above me on either side, all the floors of the hotel are visible in cross section—conference rooms on the third and fourth floors, guest rooms above, every room letting out onto a walkway with a view of the convention floor.
You can see everyone coming and going from pretty much everywhere you stand.
Tough location for clandestine operations.
And thanks to that design, I can see some of the #future-managers approaching Al and Grace on the fourth floor.
If they’re following the script laid out for them in the Slack channel, the #future-managers are asking them if they’ve heard anything about the union, acting like they want to sign cards.
And Al and Grace are making a show of acting confused, while a group of accountants is on the floor below, chatting up a group from the Logistics Department about the union. They all step into an empty conference room together, and some of the tension in my shoulders releases.
On the other side of the fourth floor, Morgan and Steve are going into another conference room, followed by Carol and Sarah and—my heart jumps—Greg. We haven’t really talked since the copy room, confining ourselves to scattered texts, passing nods in the halls, furtive glances.
And Mark Winterson emerges from the stairwell nearby and goes into the same conference room everyone just went into. Oh fuck!
I wait a few minutes to see what might happen. Then I open the union chat and write:
Ruby:
you guys doing okay?
Sarah:
we were getting somewhere
there are people from all the departments we haven’t reached yet in this mixer
Carol:
but then Mark Winterson showed up
Greg:
yeah, he’s just hanging out? making weird small talk
Steve:
he must know he’s cock blocking
Morgan:
Steve! Gross
This would be a great time to create a diversion. I take out my phone and text Mark Winterson:
Ruby:
wow these sessions are a grind!
could use some of that stress relief you were talking about
meet you upstairs?
I peer up at the fourth floor again, leg jiggling with nerves. And lo and behold, Mark Winterson emerges from the conference room, smiling at his phone.
So I run for the elevator, heading to the fifth floor.
When I enter room 505, Mark Winterson is reading on his phone again, lying on the bed in his shirtsleeves and navy suit pants, wiggling his black-dress-socked feet. His jacket and tie are thrown over the back of a chair in the corner.
“There she is,” he says, putting his phone on the nightstand face down and extending an arm out toward me. “Come here.”
I climb onto the bed beside him, and while I’m still balanced on my knees, he reaches for my waist and tugs me close—and in the process of trying to maintain my balance, I end up straddling him.
My sensible A-line work skirt strains, bare knees pressed into the cool hotel duvet beneath us. The laminated card at the end of my conference lanyard whacks him in the face, and he laughs as I mumble “Sorry” and toss it back over my shoulder.
From this angle he looks soft and vulnerable, gazing up at me all dopey and content. It makes me dizzy, the way mental revulsion and sexual attraction get all twined up in each other when I’m around him these days.
His hands are on my hips, keeping me in place, and his fingers drum idly along my lower back. “Ruby, I need to talk to you about something.”
My stomach clenches, bracing for him to ask me why I’m spying on him for an unrecognized union.
I slide off him and lie on my side, propped on one elbow. “Sure! Anything. Shoot.”
He rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “The first time we had lunch, I was kind of using you.”
I’m so surprised, a laugh bursts out of me, inappropriately loud. “Is that so?”
He chortles like it’s a cute story. “I was going to ask you about your co-workers. Find out which ones are, let’s say, less essential.”
A chill runs up my spine, and he shifts back onto his side so he can look me in the eye.
“But that’s only how it started.” His thumb and forefinger encircle my wrist, the lightest handcuff. “I wanted to be honest with you about it because my feelings changed. A lot. It surprised me. The more I saw of you, the more I couldn’t stop thinking about you. What I’m trying to say is—”
Mark Winterson lets a ragged breath out. He actually seems nervous. “You really got me. Hook, line, and sinker. At first this was just a fun distraction, but I haven’t felt like this since…since…”
The echo of what his sister said piques my interest. “Since…?”
He shakes his head and seems a bit pained, like he’s mad at me for making him feel something.
I groan. “Come on, you can’t do that. I’ll tickle you and make you sweaty.”
He has mentioned several times, over the six weeks we’ve been dating, how much he hates being sweaty.
I reach for his armpit, and he clamps his arms against his sides.
“I hate this story. It makes me sound like a loser.”
I give him my most innocent look. “I won’t judge.”
Mark Winterson closes his eyes like he’s getting a migraine. “Remember Clarissa?”
“Zack’s wife?”
He grimaces. “She was my girlfriend in college. Thought we were going to get married, for real.”
My gasp is genuine. “And she dumped you for your cousin?”
“I found out she was cheating on me.”
“Oh my God, Mark, that’s awful.” I’m trying to focus, but my brain is screaming Heartbreak year! “How old were you, even? When you found all that out.”
“Like twenty? And Zack was a fucking eighteen-year-old freshman, but she said he obviously had more drive.” Mark Winterson runs his hands over his face. “And then I still had to see them at family gatherings a few times a year. Totally humiliating.”
“That’s terrible.” I put a hand on his arm and rack my brain for something comforting to say. “You seem very driven. Also, you’re way hotter than him. Like, objectively. Hands down. No question.”
Mark Winterson laughs in a way that is probably meant to be self-deprecating, but he’s obviously delighted to hear it. “You’re funny.”
“Nah, just calling ’em like I see ’em.” I give him my best Bugs Bunny grin. “You’re smarter than him too. And better personality, for sure. He seemed like a dick.”
“Don’t girls like that, though?” His smile is taunting.
“Do they? Seems like a big population to generalize about.”
“Oh, okay, didn’t realize you were a social scientist.” Mark Winterson chuckles and glances at the ceiling. “Anyway, it was long enough ago that it’s a bad look for me to still be mad about it. Everyone else is like, Obviously they are a better fit, they’re really serious, blah blah.”
So is that why he’s doing whatever he’s doing? Going balls to the wall to impress Erickson and become his number two so he can outshine his cousin?
The things I’ve read about him slowly fit together with the story he just told. He started his undergrad at UPenn, where Zack graduated (I learned from Google), and where he must have met Clarissa. But partway through undergrad, Mark Winterson somehow transferred to the London School of Economics.
There’s an uncomfortable wobble in my stomach as I recognize the similarity. I got my heart broken and moved across the country. He moved across an ocean.
“Anyway, it stings a lot less now,” he says with a small smile, squeezing my wrist again. “Thanks for that.”
Mark Winterson’s phone buzzes on the nightstand, and he grabs it.
“Shit, I have to go,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry. I would have wanted to—”
“It’s okay!” I say, sitting up too fast.
Fuck, I didn’t ask him about his relationship with Erickson, I realize as I watch him cross the room and redo his tie.
“You probably noticed I’m working a lot lately,” he says, putting his jacket back on. “It won’t always be like this, but—we’re trying to figure out this deal. It could be big for the company.”
“Like a merger?”
“More like risk management.” He pauses as he’s adjusting his tie in front of the mirror, and meets my eye in the reflection. “I can’t exactly talk about it.”
“Must be a lot of pressure. Working on Erickson’s project.”
“Just don’t want to disappoint him. And I found out today—” He laughs, but he doesn’t sound like he’s having a good time. “I actually have to go to Vegas this weekend to meet with the other side. Seal the deal.”
“Oh, fun, I love Vegas,” I say reflexively, remembering when Mom and Tita Wendy took me and Greg out there with them in eighth grade. Something about how glitzy and unreal things were was weirdly comforting to me.
Mark Winterson sits back down on the bed and plants a kiss on my temple. “Come with me, then.”
Just one more late night. Just one more weekend. Almost there, almost there.
His phone buzzes again, and he frowns at it and stands.
“Bring a bag to the office tomorrow.” He points at me. “We’ll leave early. I’ll arrange it with Erica.”
“O-okay,” I say in a daze. “See you tomorrow.”
The heavy door closes behind him, and I slump backward onto the bed, staring at the round ceiling light, thinking, exnihilo_____2013!