Chapter 2 #2
I had all my nail salon appointments and shopping trips with Mom while I was employed.
I figure she has enough on her plate. For one, the most mitigating, is that I’m too much of a coward to admit that I was in a relationship with a man who was married, even though he swore on his grandmother’s name he was separated and awaiting divorce.
Stupidly, or blindly, I believed every word.
Ben was sweet and attentive, playful and had a smile so gorgeous it was like a chunk of the moon itself rested between his lips.
If you were gifted one of his smiles, you had earned it, and although they were rare, they were precious to me.
The relationship with my coworker’s twin made the position unbearable, leading me to the unexpected and reluctant step of resignation, an act I thought beyond my capabilities.
HR received the sanitized version; I was taking a position elsewhere and would remember my time fondly, yada, yada ,yada.
The cruel inevitability of it all was a coat of personal shame I couldn’t shrug off, and I tried.
The position elsewhere was yet another lie weaving its jellyfish tentacles into the fabric of my current existence.
I couldn’t tell HR I was an oblivious hoe, and I couldn’t tell my mother any of it.
As far as she was concerned, I had free time to join her and Cait at the doctor while I was waiting for a call from an agent.
I figured if and when she knew about me leaving that job, I’d have started another and she’d be none the wiser. I’m going straight to hell.
I reached the park where the chess action was in full swing; the building shadows of afternoon were reaching their long obsidian fingers across the grass where the pigeons congregated to peck.
With the milling of gray birds comes the predictable phrase hurled without malice by Hertio, one of the chess aficionados.
“Rats with wings,” he angrily declares as his adversary scatters seed from a bag with as many folded wrinkles as his weathered face.
Yusef continues to ignore his competitor, smiling broadly and nodding as the birds peck around walkers and small children roaming toward play equipment.
I settle myself on the bench closest to the players and take out my sketchbook, flipping it to the page where the image of the two men mid-competition continues to develop.
When I had first approached the men with a request to sketch them, both were initially reluctant and dismissive.
Both had emigrated from Europe when they were younger, having found new homes separately in the land of the free.
Only as our conversations continued and they eventually agreed to be models for my sketching piece, did I discover incredible lives lived with honesty, dignity, and separate but equally heartwarming struggles.
One of Turkish origins, the other a Cypriot, the two men conversed with animated hand gestures and languages swapped from Turkish to Greek and back again.
This I had learned from a mother rolling a pram back and forward with her foot while balancing a toddler in her lap.
“They’ve been like this for years,” she said, laughing at the absurdity of her statement.
“They pretend to hate each other and hurl insults back and forth in between the pigeon drama, but they are just two lonely old men who find comfort in chess, and in each other.” Her knowing smile as she released her squirming toddler was reassuring.
Chess combatants fiercely positioned in a game governed by a 64-square grid and plastic pieces, yet connected by memories of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
Their new life in a country half a world away took them from their family.
They found allies in each other across a board surrounded by the trill of pecking pigeons and ringing cell phones.
After an incomprehensible morning with a shocking medical prognosis for Cait, the one thing I can do to calm my racing heart and galloping mind is to draw.
Slowly, the pencil skates across the paper, its tiny pores receiving the pigment openly.
Deeper tones of black and basalt highlight sections of the board, the patched-up trousers and the fissured paper of the seed bag.
Softer grays and a hint of shadow provide lowlights and accents on shoes, shine glare on glasses and the stainless-steel flask both men slurp from.
This is often followed by an audible ahh and a contented grin.
Creased foreheads illustrated deep, unrelenting concentration.
Strategist planning three to five moves ahead, those moves often taking days or weeks to come to fruition.
A flurry of feathers and flapping activity scatters the birds and has Hertio cursing again, one arm stretched out protectively above his head and over the precious board.
As the teens on scooters continue through the park and away from any calm they have destroyed, my mind drifts back to Pen’s text and the interview in the morning.
Executive Personal Assistant to the CEO.
I could spin that as a corporate role and leave out the insidious details; in fact, I’d have to because of the NDA.
If—and that was a huge stretch—I got the job, that would solve two of the current pressing issues.
This would be the new position I’d left publishing for, the official line to my family, and second, the outlandish pay would go directly toward a retinal specialist for Caitlin.
The initial revulsion I felt reading through the job description and NDA has softened now that we need the money, and a lot.
My only wish, if I dare be granted one, is that the CEO is younger than my chess-playing subjects and possesses the honesty and integrity my last sexual partner lacked.
Just as the retreating sun swathes the sky in the beginning of oranges and pink hues, I make my way to Pen’s loft for a selection of interview-appropriate outfit selections. What I think is suitable, Penny vetoes as too chaste and bland. Her choices scream cocktail party or chic film premiere.
“Bri, it’s an executive assistant role, not a librarian internship.”
“Pen, I can’t wear sequins to an office at ten in the morning.
” And so, it continues until we finally agree on a textured charcoal pencil skirt and a silky amethyst blouse to “bring out my eyes.” Sure enough, the striking soft purple makes my cool blue-green eyes pop more than they naturally do against my pale skin and dark hair.
If I have any chance at all of snagging this position, I must showcase my looks as much as my professional polish with tasks such as calendar management, database creation, and financial analysis.
“A car will collect you at 8:45 for your appointment at ten. Remember, as your agent, I’m the only person you can discuss any aspect of this process with because you signed the NDA. Don’t tell anyone in your family, don’t tell Jaspar, and especially don’t tell Ed.”
With a heartfelt hug, I’m out the door with a garment bag, my sketching supplies, and high hopes, heading to the subway line that snakes its way to my apartment in East Orange.
Cait’s tentative diagnosis was by far the absolute worst part of the day, the worst part of my entire year, if I’m honest. Only when I was wearing Saba and Tom Ford, in power heels and determination, could I feel optimism might be around the corner, if not at my next stop.