Diary of a Working Girl (36 page)

I should rip up my article and throw in the towel and maybe get a job at the deli. I could still be creative with sandwich making.

Look at those beauties Martha Stewart concocts. I can sculpt delicate cucumber flowers by dragging a fork along the sides, maybe throw in some unusual veggies, like radishes. Perhaps I can carve sandwiches into the shapes of hearts and stars. People can start writing articles about
me
. “Lane Silverman—Queen of Bread,” or

“You Won’t Believe What’s Between Her Bread,” or something like that, anyway. (I’ll leave it to someone else this time.) 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 284

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“Where are you?” she asks.

“I’m at the café down on University Place. Why? Do you want to join me?” I would love the chance to talk face-to-face, to get a reaction about this whole Sherlock Holmes look, because, really, I think I may be onto a new fad. And if it’s bad news she’s going to give me, then at least I won’t be crying into my cell phone sitting here all by myself. If you’re going to be melancholy, it’s much better to have someone there to sympathize with you and maybe she’ll even want to go into the sandwich business with me.

“Er, yeah, I’ll be there. Wait for me.”

She doesn’t say good-bye, just hangs up, and I take comfort in this one traditional Joanne-type action. It can’t be all that bad—

whatever it is. I go back to my reading. I’m going so fast, because it really is an interesting story, and before I know it, I’m coming to the day of the shopping expedition—Tom and mine. I remember that day now. His discreet appreciation of the attention, the adorable way he’d slipped into the limelight, so innocent and child-like. Aha! A clue. Hadn’t he done that whole speaking without words thing? Hadn’t he—errr—noticed me looking at his ass and . . . liked it? Hadn’t he offered to take me out to dinner? It had been so easy to speak with him over cocktails, effortless even.

Didn’t he look defeated when I’d spoken about Liam? Like I’d crushed the very life from him by confessing my love of another?

Like he was ready to declare he’d never love anyone ever again if he couldn’t have me? Hmmm. I’ll tag that bit with a yellow Post-it flag (this one signifies
maybe
) and come back to it later.

But as I read over the encounter at the Pen-Top I begin to feel ashamed—it looks as if I talked about myself the entire time. It looks as if I was a completely selfish cow whom he could never like. Oh, no! I really am like those Ab Fab women. Maybe the 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 285

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name wasn’t as nice-sounding as I’d first thought. He hadn’t told me anything about himself that night.

But maybe this is a good sign? Maybe he was just so completely engrossed in me that he wanted to know every single detail about my life. Compare that with conversations I’d had with Liam the Fraud. He had never once allowed me to talk about myself. And while at the time I’d been enthralled, wanting to know each and every detail about the life of Liam—now that I think back, I can see that is just awful—he hadn’t been interested in
me
at all. I’m torn between tagging this a good sign (red) or a bad sign (green) and, once again, decide on a yellow, when I realize that I am out of yellows. I look at the pages I’ve already gone through. On the side of each and every page there are yellow flags. I am getting nowhere. I think of that song, “it was all yellow.” That really is a sad song. Frustrated, I dramatically bury my head in my hands.

“Tom, I wish you could just tell me what you think!” I say out loud to my yellow-trimmed papers.

“About what?” a voice asks.

Great, now I’ve gone mad. I am imagining that my paper is answering questions.

“Well, can you answer this?” I ask it, “How does Tom feel?

Huh?”

I let out a sigh, pick up my highlighter again, and shake the fleeting thought that perhaps this stack of papers is a real-life fairy godmother.

“About what?” the voice says just as I’m putting highlighter to paper at the part where Tom is asking me to take part in the merger project.

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and crown myself with wildflowers. And then I have a thought and try out my hypothesis by asking, “T-Tom?”

“Yesssss?” I hear the voice again.

And this time, I look up. I look to my right. To my left. I hear a light-hearted chuckle, this time coming distinctly from behind me.

I turn, and my eyes are drawn to the most elegant sight. A single chocolate crocodile stiletto shining in the sunlight atop a table, a true thing of beauty.

I’d know that shoe anywhere. God knows I struggled enough in maintaining ownership of the thing. It is my shoe. But what is it doing at a neighboring café table? As perfectly majestic as it looks there, it does seem odd, sort of like, well, a talking stack of paper, I guess. As much as it is inspiring article ideas: “The Shoe as Art,” “One Woman’s Shoe,Another Woman’s Masterpiece,” it does seem strange.

I hear the voice again. “Do you recognize that shoe?”

Again the voice is behind me, even though I am facing the other direction now. And when I turn, I see a single bright-yellow sunflower. And when I look up, the sunflower holder is none other than the man I am currently investigating under a blinding umbrella of yellow—Tom. I am happy to see that there is no flirty bluebird on his shoulder. I have enough of a challenge on my hands right now.

“What? What are you—”

“I’m here on official business,” he says.

“I’m sorry, I, um, I meant to call in sick again,” I scramble for an excuse, realizing that Tom is still my boss, although he
could
be my love interest. And without the
Beautiful
job, and unsure about the future of my article, he could potentially be my boss for some time. In the midst of my investigation I’d forgotten to call in. God!

Another selfish act on my part. He’ll probably be glad if I give up my job.

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I cup my hand over my mouth, ready to produce an Oscar-worthy sick-person cough when he scoops my hand away from my mouth and into his dry, rough palm.

“That’s okay. I can see you are
severely
under the weather. I wouldn’t
dream
of having you chained to a computer all day getting my whole team sick with spring-fever-itis. I hear it can be quite devastating.”

Wait. That’s a joke, right? (Did I not check off checklist #11 regarding witty statements.) He’s playing around with me. So maybe he’s not angry. And come to think of it, I don’t think it’s standard procedure to make a personal appearance to reprimand a no-show employee. And he
is
holding my hand, and it’s definitely not in an attempt to check my pulse—that is, unless there is a new method of pulse-checking that involves rubbing the underside of one’s palm in a slow, methodical, extremely pleasant manner.

I’m searching, trying to place that look in his eye. It is absolutely not anger. But it is not lust, either. And it is not the standard-issue look that Hugh Grant gave to Julia Roberts in
Notting Hill
, that seemed to say “I am a devastated human being without you.” Yet, it is equally, no,
far
more wonderful. It is a look that only someone who appreciates the Tao of Tom would understand. It is a look just for, well, me—and it is (clue!) the same look he gave me at Calvin Klein. I am reaching for a red Post-it flag when he rises from the seat he’d just taken, drops my hand, and, I think, may be leaving. I want to scream “No!”

But it turns out I don’t have to scream at all. He just fondles the bow atop my hat and says, “Another new look from
Vogue
, Sherlock?”

And before I have a chance to answer, he walks to the table where my slender, sexy shoe is scintillating in the early morning glow.

He scoops it up, muttering, “How the hell do you walk in these?”

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And I smile, because I actually love the fact that Tom does not appreciate the beauty of a good heel. I’d just noted that a minute ago when I read over a time I’d tripped leaving his office and he’d said the very same thing. It just wouldn’t befit a man who prefers a sunflower to a rose to understand the dictums of fashion. And I’m so clearly enamored of the beauty of a sunflower-type now (I’ll have to add this to the checklist), and I am sure that were he to have gone with the status quo on even something as trivial as flower selection now, that he would not be the man for me (which I am very much hoping that he is, given the fact that he has just presented me with a flower and held my hand in a non-pulse-checking manner). Anyway, didn’t I read somewhere that roses are out? Maybe we’ll start a whole new botanical trend!

And then, (thank you, fairy godmother/fate/wacko from my dream!) he does the most adorable thing. He takes the shoe, kneels down before me, and reaches under the hem of my pants to slide my shoe off. Only, when he sees what I am wearing over my feet he stops and looks up at me with his eyebrows all bunched up, shaking his head.

“Can I ask why on earth you are wearing slippers?”

“Well, I didn’t have any brown leather shoes other than the ones you just brought here, and so I thought these brown leather slippers would do just fine. Don’t you think they look cute, though?”

“Ab Fab, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost understand your logic there. And yes, they look absolutely adorable.”

And as he slips the right one off, he takes my foot in his hand (free pedicure; thank God) and kisses it! His lips are so tickly on the side of my instep that my leg jerks uncontrollably and I kick him in the face.

“Okay, so I’d better remember you have ticklish feet,” he says, rubbing at his jawline, “and one hell of a swift kick.”

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Maybe that wasn’t a “traditionally” romantic moment, but in a weird way it was much better than anything normal. And when he regains his composure, he places the shoe on my foot, looks up at me, and says, “Ahh, the perfect fit.”

That look once again says something to me—it says that it isn’t the shoe he is talking about—it’s me! Case solved! Look at that, the clues came to me! I am the best detective in the entire world!

Our first kiss, which one would imagine to be a strikingly passionate, beautiful display, ending with the other café patrons rising for a standing ovation, whistling and clapping their hands together, wiping tears from their eyes, turns out to be absolutely nothing like that at all.

First of all, we both close our eyes before our faces are close enough, so we wind up doing one of those awful teeth-banging things, at which point Tom winces and says, “You know, Ab Fab, for a romantic, you are a seriously crap kisser.”

I smile here and say, “Well, you’re a pretty crap kisser yourself.”

At that point, he says, “Well, maybe just for this first time we should keep our eyes open, as a safety precaution.”

And you know, keeping your eyes open is actually a wonderful way to kiss. As we move closer and look at each other, our lips taking each other’s in, I can see the extraordinary way his eyes dance, turning up a bit at the corners, tiny lines forming. I can see his eyes so clearly that I notice they are actually made up of millions of tiny specks of green and brown and even gray that together make up the most spectacular hue. It is breathtaking.

And his lips! They are so soft and plump—the opposite of what I usually like, but such a wonderful change! I’ll have to add this to the checklist! I mean, now I actually
have
my M&M, I don’t really need the list, but old habits die hard.

With no teeth-banging this time, it is just moment upon moment 21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 290

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of soft touching, deep kissing, a bit of lip-tugging—overall a perfect mixture of movements. I could write an article on it: “The Perfect Kiss,” “A Kissing Equation” (not that I’m thinking about articles smack in the middle of the quintessential romantic moment of my life).

Just before we part, someone screams from across the street, “Get a room!” At that Tom pulls away, not saying “to hell with PDA-naysayers! This is my Lane and I want all the world to see how much I love her!”

Instead he remarks, “See that? I am with you for nearly a minute and I’m already causing scenes. The Ab Fab lifestyle—I wonder if I can take it.”

But already I know he could take it, wants to take it.

And so he goes on, “There’s just one thing I have to clear up.

You really think I have a great ass?”

And right here, I venture something I know is very un-Tomlike—I grab for it.

“Not bad,” I tease.

“I’m glad you approve, because I know what a high priority your checklist gives to looking good in boxer briefs,” he says.

And I’m just about to correct that it’s gray boxer briefs, when I think, WHAT? How the hell does he know about the checklist, and for that matter, what the hell did I write for him on this item?

And then it hits me. Being that I had just read the very passage that praises his ass myself, I knew he’d seen it all.

“So you know?” I venture.

“Oh, I know.”

“Whoops,” I say.

“Whoops is right. Looks like I’ll have to find a new assistant now. One who isn’t in it to score with her boss.”

“So you don’t have any problems with all of this?” I ask, know-21430_ch01.qxd 1/26/04 10:06 AM Page 291

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ing the whole thing probably appears a
bit
complicated to an outside party.

“I do have one problem, Ab Fab. If you’re going to continue to stand here with your hand on my ass, it’s only proper that I be allowed to do the same.”