5. Jules
— ? —
Jules
I’ve been staring at the same slide for a quarter of an hour.
Maybe he’s finally accepting that there’s nothing left to say.
Or maybe he’s already convinced himself that I’ll come around, because I always come around, and he can wait me out until I get tired of being angry.
I force myself to focus on the slide, which shows the numbers for the literacy initiative, the schools that have signed on and the plan for the first year.
This presentation matters, and this work matters.
I’ve spent six months building this proposal, and I’m not going to let whatever is happening in my marriage destroy it.
My office door opens.
Harry is standing there holding a bag from the Greek place I love, the one that’s a twenty minute drive from the office.
“You forgot to eat,” he says.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re always hungry. You just forget about it when you’re working.” He sets the bag on my desk. “Avgolemono soup and chicken souvlaki.”
I stare at the bag and then at him. He’s still in the suit from this morning, but his tie is loosened and there are shadows under his eyes.
“I’m not here to fight,” he says. “I’m not here to go over this morning again.” He runs a hand through his hair. “You have a big presentation and you need to eat. That’s all.”
I should tell him to leave. I should tell him that bringing me lunch doesn’t fix anything, and doesn’t make up for the fact that he couldn’t choose me when I asked him to.
But I’m tired, and I am hungry, and despite everything I don’t want to walk into that room with my stomach growling.
“Fine,” I say. “Sit down.”
He pulls up a chair across from my desk, and we eat in silence for a few minutes. The food is good, but I barely taste it.
“Jules,” he starts.
“I don’t want to talk about Avery.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Then what?”
He sets down his fork. “I just wanted to say that we’ll talk tonight, after your presentation. We’ll figure this out.”
“Will we?”
“I’m not losing you over this.” His voice is rough. “Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, I’m going to fix this.”
I don’t respond, because I don’t know what to say that I haven’t already said.
He stands up and comes around the desk. I tense, expecting him to try to touch me, to kiss me, to push for more than I’m willing to give right now.
But he just reaches out and fixes the collar of my green blouse, and his fingers brush my neck for a moment.
“Knock them dead,” he says.
He leans in and kisses my forehead, soft and quick, and I let him. I’m still angry and still hurt and still not sure what happens next, but I let him.
“I have a meeting two floors down,” he says. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay.”
He leaves, and I sit at my desk and stare at the closed door, trying to sort out what I feel. I love him and I’m furious at him. I want him to be different, and I don’t know if he can be.
I check the time. It’s 12:45, which gives me an hour and fifteen minutes before the presentation.
I stand up and grab my water bottle to refill it. I need to clear my head, focus on work, and get through the next few hours before I can deal with everything else.
The break room is empty. I fill my bottle at the cooler and take a long drink, and the cold helps a little.
When I get back to my office, the door is open, and I left it closed.
I step inside, and Avery is sitting at my desk.
She’s in my chair, behind my computer, scrolling through my presentation file. When she sees me she doesn’t startle or look guilty. She just smiles, sweet and pleasant, and keeps scrolling.
“What are you doing?”
“Just looking.” She clicks through another slide. “This is really impressive, Jules. All these charts and numbers. You must have worked so hard on this.”
“Get away from my computer.”
“In a minute.” She stands up slowly, smoothing her dress.
“I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The big literacy initiative. Harry talks about it all the time, and about how proud he is of you.” She tilts her head.
“It must be nice, having him believe in you so much. Having him think you actually earned this position.”
“Get out of my office.”
“The thing is, everyone on this floor knows how you got this job.” She moves around the desk toward me, and there’s nothing pleasant about her smile anymore.
“The assistant who spread her legs for a corner office. It’s not exactly a secret.
People talk, Jules. They whisper about you in the break room, about how you’re only here because Harry likes the way you look on your knees. ”
“I said get out.”
“Harry and I grew up together. You like to forget that. We were both at the children’s home.
I was there when he had nothing, when nobody wanted him, when he was just a scared kid with no family and no future.
” She stops a few feet away from me. “I’m the one who’s been there through everything.
And you’re what? The assistant he decided to fuck? ”
I should walk away. I should refuse to engage and refuse to give her the satisfaction.
But I’m done being careful, and I’m done pretending she’s just insecure and not actively trying to destroy my marriage.
“I asked Harry this morning to get rid of you,” I say.
Her composure cracks. For a second I see raw, desperate fury twist her features until I barely recognize her.
“You did what?”
“I told him I want you gone. Your desk, your keycard, your number in his phone, all of it.”
“He would never…”
“He’s thinking about it.”
The fury turns wild and manic. Her hands are shaking at her sides, and her eyes have gone bright and glassy.
“You think you’ve won?” Her voice is higher now, and faster.
“You think because you have a ring on your finger, you matter? Harry has known me for twenty years. Twenty years. He’s known you for three.
When this little marriage of yours falls apart, and it will, I’ll still be here.
I’ll always be here. He’ll always choose me. He’ll always…”
“Get out of my office, Avery.”
“Or what?” She laughs, a high, brittle sound. “You’ll tell Harry? Go ahead. Tell him whatever you want. He’ll believe me. He always believes me, because I’m family, and you’re just the assistant he’s fucking.”
She pushes past me and walks out.
I stand there for a long moment with my heart pounding and my hands shaking.
Then I grab my bag and head for the private bathroom at the end of the hall. I need to splash some water on my face and pull myself together. I have a presentation in an hour, and I can’t walk into that room looking like this.
The bathroom is small and private, with a single toilet and a sink and a lock on the inside. I close the door behind me and grip the edge of the sink, staring at my reflection.
My face is flushed and my eyes are too bright. I look like someone who’s about to fall apart, and I tell myself to breathe.
I turn on the faucet and splash cold water on my cheeks, three times, until the cold takes the edge off the adrenaline.
I’m drying my face with a paper towel when I hear heels on the tile outside. They stop right outside the door, and there’s a metallic click.
I reach for the handle. It turns, but the door stays shut. I push against it with my shoulder and it doesn’t give at all, and it takes me a second to understand that the click I heard was a deadbolt sliding into place on the outside.
“Hello?” I call out. “Is someone there?”
Nobody answers.
“Avery?” My voice comes out sharper than I intend. “Avery, what the hell are you doing? Open this door.”
Through the thick wood, her voice is muffled but clear.
“Let’s see you make your presentation now.”
“Very funny,” I say. “Open the door, Avery.”
Avery’s heels haven’t moved. She’s still standing just outside the door, and a long moment passes where neither of us moves.
Then the heels start to walk away.
The heels keep walking, growing fainter, until they’re gone.
Nothing happens. I’m pulling my phone out of my pocket to call the front desk and have someone sent up to let me out when the fire alarm starts screaming.
For one second I freeze, and then I throw myself against the door. My shoulder hits the wood and pain shoots down my arm, but the door doesn’t move. I try again, and again, and the deadbolt holds.
“Help!” I scream over the alarm. “Somebody help me! I’m locked in!”
“Avery! Avery, open this door! Avery!”
I pound on the door with my fists until my hands ache. I kick at it, aiming for the lock and then anywhere that might give. The wood shudders but holds.
I look around the bathroom. There’s a small sealed window, a toilet, a sink, a paper towel dispenser and a small trash can. There’s nothing I can use as a battering ram, and nothing heavy enough to break through a deadbolted door.
My phone is still in my hand, and I don’t call the front desk. I call Harry.
It rings four times and goes to voicemail. I hang up and call again, and then again, and it rings out every time.
I call 911 and get a recording telling me that all lines are busy, which I didn’t know could happen.
I call the security desk downstairs, and it rings and rings, because everyone who works at it is already outside.
I’d text my team, but I watched both of them leave their phones on their desks when they went to set up the meeting room.
I try Harry a fourth time and a fifth, with my fingers shaking as I redial, and each time it rings out my chest gets tighter.
“Come on,” I whisper. “Come on, Harry, pick up. Pick up.”
Smoke starts to seep through the vent near the ceiling. It’s just a thin wisp at first, barely visible, but the smell hits me immediately, acrid and chemical and wrong.
I shove my phone in my pocket and attack the door again. I throw my full weight against it, over and over, until my shoulder is screaming and I can feel bruises forming. The wood creaks but doesn’t give.
I drop to my knees and look at the gap where the door meets the frame. I can see the bolt through it, a thick bar of metal, and I need a tool that’s thin and strong enough to get in there and work it back.
I yank the paper towel dispenser off the wall and pry at the metal casing until I get a thin piece loose. I jam it into the gap against the bolt and push, and it doesn’t move.
I try again, harder. The metal bites into my palm, and the bolt shifts maybe a millimeter.
The smoke is getting thicker, and my eyes are starting to burn.
I give up on the bolt and go back to the door. I kick at the lock area, over and over, putting everything I have into each strike. My foot aches and my ankle protests, and the door holds.
I pull out my phone and call Harry twice more, and both calls go to voicemail.
I text him too. Locked in bathroom 10th floor.
It sits there under the calls with nothing coming back.
A number I don’t know flashes up on the screen while I’m redialing, and I swipe it away, because I can’t afford to lose the line to a wrong number.
The smoke is curling down from the vent now, filling the upper part of the room. I grab paper towels and wet them in the sink and stuff them into the gap under the door. I press more wet towels against the vent, standing on the toilet to reach it.
It’s not enough, and the smoke keeps coming.
I crouch down near the floor where the air is clearer and try to think. The bolt won’t budge, and the hinges are on the outside. The window is sealed, and even if I could break it, I’m ten stories up.
I try 911 one more time and get the same recording. I call Harry again, and then again.
“Please,” I whisper to his voicemail. “Please pick up. Please.”
The smoke is halfway down the walls now. I’m coughing with every breath, with my throat raw and my lungs burning. I press myself flat against the floor where there are still a few inches of clear air.
I try the door handle again and yank my hand back with a cry.
The metal is scorching hot now, and I can see blisters already forming on my palm.
I try the other hand on the deadbolt side, where the metal might be cooler, and it isn’t.
Pain sears through my fingers and I jerk away with both hands throbbing.
I call Harry one more time, and it goes to voicemail.
I crawl to the window and haul myself up with my face against the glass. Ten floors below, tiny figures are streaming out of the building, and red and white emergency lights are flashing.
I scan the crowd desperately, looking for dark hair and broad shoulders and a white shirt.
He’s near the front of the building, and I’d know him anywhere, even from ten stories up.
He’s safe, and he got out, and relief hits me so hard my knees nearly buckle.
Then I see who’s with him.
Avery is pressed against his side with her hand gripping his arm. He’s bending down toward her, listening to whatever she’s saying, and then he straightens and looks up at the building and around at the crowd, his head turning fast from side to side.
He’s looking for me. He knows I’m not down there, and he’s looking.
But Avery tugs at his arm and says a few more words, and he looks back down at her. She steps in closer, and he’s focused on her now, and he isn’t looking up anymore.
I pound on the window. I scream his name until my voice cracks and gives out entirely.
He doesn’t look up.
I call him one last time and watch him while it rings, and he never even reaches for his pocket.
I keep pounding. My burned hands leave smears of blood on the glass. The smoke is so thick now that I can barely see or breathe, and I’m coughing so hard my whole body shakes.
Below me the fire trucks are pulling up and the ladders are going up. But they’re so far away, and the smoke is so thick, and I can’t stop coughing long enough to scream anymore.
I’m going to die.
I’m going to die in this bathroom, locked in by the woman who’s been trying to destroy my marriage, and the last thing I’ll ever see is my husband holding her while I die up here.
The ceiling makes a sound I’ve never heard before, a deep groaning creak that vibrates through my whole body.
I look up. Through the smoke I can see cracks spreading across the ceiling tiles. Dust and debris rain down, and the light fixture swings wildly.
The ceiling cracks wide open, and a piece of it hits my head, and everything goes black.