Hot Mess (20 page)

“Twenty-three is so not geriatric! And things are going—” I was about to gush about dinner and the kiss on Tuesday and then the flirty e-mails today, but I realized that I couldn’t be too enthused about the Colin situation in front of her. Rachel’s entire summer quest was a boyfriend and here I’d just stumbled into a relationship like Adam Sandler at the end of every single one of his movies. “—okay. We’re hanging on Saturday. So, I guess that’ll be fun.” I cut it off there, not wanting to rub in my happiness too much, and flipped the TV back on.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I was still really stressed about keeping my juvie status a secret from Colin. And that stress was only adding to my typical nightly restlessness, dreading the impending eight hours in cubicleville the following day.

I lay in bed staring at the digital clock with my mind wandering, replaying the day. And despite all the Colin happenings, what I kept coming back to was what Rachel said about my Derek stories.

You should write a book or something.

I mean, come on. Me? Write a book? I’m a kid! Kids don’t write books! Well, except for that home-schooled one who wrote those dragon books that sold a billion copies. I guess if it worked for him, maybe I could give it a shot. At least then I’d have something worthwhile come out of this summer. It was becoming pretty clear that this MediaInc thing was never going to materialize into a real resume dazzler.

And those stories definitely were book worthy. And I did have a lot of stuff written down already. If my roommates liked them so much, other people would at least get a laugh out of them. And, like, everyone gets book deals these days, right? And oh, what sweet, glorious revenge to out Derek as the crapbag he was! And make a few dollars doing it? Nothing wrong with that. As it stood now, the only way I was going to make money off this summer at all was if I sold all of my pilfered Dr. Grip pens on eBay. So yeah, why not write a book about being an assistant for a crazy executive? And then genius hit me harder than a paparazzi-car-chase accident:
The Devil Wears Dockers
. My job totally
was
like working for a poorly dressed, potbellied, male Anna Wintour…well, you know, minus the fame, fortune, and free designer gear.

Eighteen

“L
adies,” I announced grandiosely over Cinnamon Toast Crunch the following morning, “I, Emma Freeman, am taking time out of my busy schedule of lying to men and Googling Brandon Routh to write a book.”

I puffed out my chest and smiled proudly and looked at them expectantly for a response. They both perked up—well, “perk” might be a bit strong, more like “made eye contact with me,” but that’s about as perky as they get before nine a.m.

“Really?” Rachel chirped, milk dribbling down her chin. “About your boss?”

“Yes ma’am. I figure that I should turn my brave story into money and fame, like Fantasia Barrino or one of those kidnapped reporters.”

“Good for you,” Jayla said earnestly, putting down the latest issue of
Paper
magazine and giving me a small round of applause, Rachel dutifully following suit. “I wish I had gotten a jump on painting when I was your age. But Jake says that the best way for me to make up for lost time is to start working at a gallery ASAP.”

Rachel and I exchanged WTF glances.

“Oh, you guys,” Jayla laughed dismissively. “We’re just friends! Jesus Christ, first Chloe and now you two.”

Wait—Chloe knew about Jake?

“What does she say about Jake?” I pried. “Has she met him?”

“Oh God, no no no no. She’s just like, ‘Jay, he wants you, obvie!’”

“Jayla,” Rachel said in a kindergarten teacher voice, “he does want you.”

“He does not!” she shrieked.

“Ew, yeah, he does not!” I said, scowling into my cinna-milk.

“I mean, he doesn’t just want your body,” Rachel clarified. “I think he really likes you.”

“No he doesn’t!” I snapped before Jayla could answer, and they were both taken aback at my outburst of venom. Even though I really loved Jayla, I couldn’t picture her sticking with a guy for more than a holiday weekend. She’d make Jake fall in love with her, they’d be happy for about five minutes, then she’d run into Josh Hartnett at some club opening and she’d forget my cousin’s name. And besides, I’d probably have to see them make out and that’s just gross.

Rachel threw a stern look my way and put her hands on her hips.

“What is your problem, Emma? They like each other, so what?”

I expected Jayla to come back with something sassy and defensive, too, but she just sat there looking hurt. God, what a bad friend I was. What did I want, the whole world to be single? I should be happy for them, whether or not I had Colin or Brian or Justin Timberlake or anyone else. And they were pretty much adults and could do whatever they wanted. Me bitching about it was only going to make Jayla feel crappy and probably ultimately unite them against me. I collected myself from my mini-episode. “Rachel’s right,” I said sheepishly. “He does totally like you, I mean, why wouldn’t he? Go forth and have lots of fun.”

Jayla laughed. “Well, thanks for the blessing, Mom, but there’s nothing going on. He’s just a friend. Guys don’t like me, remember?”

I wrinkled my nose. Guys don’t like Jayla? Was she crazy? She practically gave boys whiplash when she walked down the street!

“I’m like a diamond paperweight,” she said with a weary sigh. “I’m pretty to look at and show off, but you don’t really have a use for me. You just keep me around to tell people you have it.”

Was this seriously what she thought? I mean, yes, she was eye-poppingly gorgeous and boys were definitely into that, but once you had a conversation with her, it was obvious that she was more than just a pretty face.

“That’s not true, Jayla,” I said. “You had some bad luck with Carter but that had nothing to do with you, okay? He was a psycho and a liar and a troll fatty. I mean, what sane person lies like that?”

“You mean besides you?” Rachel sniggered.

Ouch.

I stammered that I was going to tell Colin the truth…eventually.

Probably.

Not.

“I mean, I will tell him. I just need to figure out exactly how, you know?”

The girls looked at me skeptically.

“Who are you trying to fool?” Rachel said, getting up from the table and heading to the sink. “You haven’t told him because you don’t want to, and you’re not going to tell him, because you’re never going to want to. Plain. And. Simple.”

I got up from the table and dumped my bowl in the sink. Then I leaned up on the counter and glowered at Rachel for her malicious—well, I guess just really true—verbal attack.

“No, I know what she means,” Jayla said, coming to my defense. “It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. You could spin this a whole bunch of different ways, so you really need to plan it out exactly. Like last summer, when I hooked up with my friend Patrick—he’s this really awesome artist from Brooklyn—I thought I was kissing his twin brother, Steve. So I could have been like, ‘Pat, last night, I totally thought you were Steve, so please don’t get mad when you see me flirting with your brother tomorrow.’ But that would have been terribly mean. So instead I said, ‘I know you’ll never like me the way I like you, so if I ever kiss Steve it’s only because he reminds me of you.’ I mean, that was a
total
lie—I
in no way
actually like him—but whatever, it worked.”

I nodded gratefully even though I really had no idea what the point of her story was.

“Yeah, well, whatever you say or whatever story you concoct, you need to do it soon, Emma,” Rachel scolded. I hated it when she lectured me, especially about boys. Like, wasn’t this the girl who just said she’d never been on a real date like three seconds ago? Uck, it was like when Dr. Phil told people to get in shape when he was about the size of a mobile home.

How in the hell did our conversation go down this road? I changed the subject and asked Jayla why she was up so early. She looked at the clock on the microwave and shook her head in disbelief that anyone could be up at an ungodly hour like eight-thirty a.m.

“Off to apply at galleries,” she said, drinking the last of her Naked Juice smoothie and stuffing her resume into a Birkin bag. “I figure I’ve got a leg up on the competition because I’ll work for free.”

“Well, good luck.” I wearily put on my sensible-and-not-at-all-sassy work heels and headed for the door. “Anyone would be crazy not to hire you. If only to see you strut around in the newest Marc Jacobs shoes before anyone else has them.”

Jayla giggled and almost shot carrot juice out her nose. I chuckled all the way to the elevator, happy to have such nice friends to wake up to. Coming home to them was the best part of my MediaInc summer. And if the best part of your job is leaving it, that says a lot.

I stepped onto the street and was hit by a wall of ninety-degree air. I tapped on my iPod and played my “Good Morning!” playlist. A little Natasha Beddingfield always helped me face another day.

I spent most of my workday half-assing my already half-assed daily duties so I could devote my time to Googling literary agents and reading sample novel proposals online.

By lunch I had decided to write a thinly veiled narrative of my own life that focused on a horrible boss named, um, Eric Orfman, who spent his days torturing a girl named, um, Jemma. Okay, so it needed some work and a thicker veil, but I really felt good about the idea. I wolfed my turkey roll up at my desk and headed to Barnes & Noble to get some books on successful proposal writing during lunch.

“Thirty bucks for this huge book on lit agents, can you believe it?” I complained that night to Rachel over Easy Mac and
America’s Next Top Model
. “But it lists, like, everyone in the book world.”

“Wow, so you’re really serious about writing a book?” Rachel said, awed at my motivation.

“Yeah, I am. But I mean, it’s like how serious do I have to be? If Paris Hilton can write a book, I totally think that I can do it.” I took a cheesy bite. “I figure I’ll get started on writing this week and then send what I have out to all of these agents”—I tapped my tome—“en masse. On the company postage dime, obvie.”

“Obvie,” she agreed. “I mean, what good is working in an office if you can’t steal supplies, postage or otherwise?” She curled her legs under her and spooned in another bite of cheesy sauce.

I had already plotted the lie I was going to use to con the mail guy into sending out the random envelopes with my apartment listed as the return address. I’d just say it was such important business that the client needed my home address so they could reach me 24/7. God, I was good.

“The weirdest part is that today I didn’t even mind the stupid shit Derek did to me anymore. It was like I almost wanted him to or something. He did his typical asinine crap and I just smiled because I knew it was more material to write about.” I shoveled in one last mac ’n’ cheese bite and, aside from a thin coating of cheese mix, my bowl was clean. I looked over at Rachel’s bowl and she was done, too. In under five minutes, Rachel and I had just polished off a family-sized pack of Velveeta Shells. Impressive and disgusting all at the same time.

“Did he do anything today?” Rachel asked, licking at her bowl of cheese resin.

“Of course. He burst into my cube and asked me to sort and collate these packets. He’s all ‘Let’s move the needle on this and use some teambuildingmotivationorganization.’ Like, what the heck does that even mean? So I walk after him and say, ‘Uh, I put those packets on your desk an hour ago,’ and do you know what he says? ‘Ha-ha, I know that. I was just trying to sound productive. The CEO was around the corner.’ I mean, really.”

Rachel laughed so hard, she splattered cheese spit everywhere. “This book is going to be awesome. I’m totally going to have a friend on the
New York Times
bestseller list!”

For a few seconds I pictured my face on huge posters around Barnes & Noble and everyone calling me the younger, hotter J. K. Rowling! Eh, or even if I just made a few people laugh at Derek, that would be worth all of the times he’s made me want to cry.

I didn’t have real plans that night, so I kept Rachel and Jayla company as they prepped for their evenings out with gentlemen callers, reliving more of Derek’s idiocy.

“So today when he arrived to work, he comes straight to me and says, ‘Man, I can’t believe what good time I made getting here, my Eclipse was pushin’ seventy-five at least! Is there some sort of Jew or Asian holiday today? Because there was no traffic on the Tappan Zee, it was like no one else was going to work.’ As if Japanese national holiday observance could be measured in the bridges and tunnels of the New York metropolitan area.”

“He cannot possibly be for real,” Jayla laughed, shaking her head as she gave herself a final once-over in the mirror.

“Oh, he’s real, all right. As real as Keira Knightley’s eating disorder.”

When my Saturdate with Colin rolled around, I was too amped on
The Devil Wears Dockers
to keep it to myself.

“I could totally be the next, um…” I groped for a respectable well-known author as the waitress handed us our menus, “Dan Brown. Except for I’d be unraveling the mysteries of middle management and not of Christian dogma.” Colin was shaking his head at me. “Come on, Colin, you know The Dorf. He’s so ridiculous. Someone has to put it on paper.”

Colin laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, but you do realize he’ll fire you once the book comes out, right? I mean, are you really ready to risk your job over this?”

Ah yes, the job lie.

I fumbled for an answer. “Uh, well, yeah. I think I could make a crapton of money and become superfamous. I kind of hate my job anyway.”

“Really? You have a lot of responsibility, probably. Do you even interact that much with Derek?”

Oh boy. Time to change the subject in a major way.

“Ha, you’re right. Maybe I’ll just scrap the idea or write about my roommates instead. So, tell me about your week.” I took a deep breath to quell the blush of panic I could feel spreading across my chest. Dammit! Why did I always walk into these stupid conversations where I could so get caught in my Lie o’ the Century?

I tuned out most of what he was saying and just nodded along. I couldn’t care less if MediaInc burned to the ground that very instant, and I could barely stand to hear Colin go on and on about it. Did I really have that much in common with this guy? I mean, did I really like him or just the idea of him?

Just then he put his hand on my bare knee under the table and a ripple of excitement went through me.

No, I totally liked him, the idea of him, the touch of him, the sight of him! Him. I really liked him.

After lunch we walked around the East Village and came across an indie movie theater playing some foreign film.

“Oh, I just read a great review of this. Come on, wanna see it?” He nodded his head toward the theater.

“You mean like now? Just walk in? We didn’t even plan to see a movie today.”

“But we didn’t have plans to do anything else. Let’s just go.”

Why was I being such a prude? This was an unplanned movie, not an unplanned pregnancy.

I giggled and took his hand as he bought two tickets. Just another chapter in my city girl summer. Strappy shoe wearing. Colleague kissing. Spontaneous afternoon movie seeing. Woo-hoo, Emma!

In total middle school flashback style, we made out through ninety-four percent of the movie. It started with our pinkies touching, and by the time the opening credits finished rolling, our lips had gotten reacquainted.

“Should we go back to my place?” he whispered hotly in my ear when the movie was over, and slid his hand dangerously high on my inner thigh. Panic! I really liked him, and yes, he was everything I’d ever collage-pasted into my dream boy book, but whoa. His place? If he’d been some guy my age, he probably wouldn’t have expected more than a make-out session. But older guys expect a home run, right? In
Sex and the City
it seemed like after forty-five seconds of knowing a guy, it was almost expected. I never really understood how you could just go out, meet someone, and then feel that comfortable with them. Maybe I’d get it when I was older, but I really didn’t think so.

“Er,” I stalled, searching through my list of excuses for needing to peace out. “I have a…dinner…to go to.” We were barely three hours out of lunch. I wasn’t even hungry for an afternoon snack.