He glares at her, clearly wondering who died and made her Mrs. Claus.
Unfazed, Mary turns to me and breezily resumes her Secret Snowflake monologue. “Anyhoo, we all pick names and then buy a gift for our Secret Snowflake each day for a whole week. The following week, we have the luncheon and find out who our Snowflake was. It’s just a blast.”
I smile and nod at Mary, thinking she really needs…what? A life? Some serious counseling? To be smacked upside of the head?
Um, how about all of the above?
Okay, maybe I’m just being mean. Maybe the whole New York attitude has gotten to me at last and I’m too jaded. Maybe I could use a little of Mary’s childlike Christmas spirit. Maybe we all could.
I look at her, taking in the jingle bell, the mistletoe earrings, the sprig of holly tucked into her graying bun.
The woman is a freak. That’s all there is to it.
“Going to the party on Saturday, Tracey?” she asks.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” I say truthfully. “How about you?”
“Oh, I’ll be there with bells on!”
Right.
I find myself picturing her hitched to Santa’s sleigh. On, Dasher, On, Dancer, On, Mary. Er, Merry.
The thing is, I might be jaded, but I’ll take that any day over terminally cute and festive, and not just at this time of year.
Mary decorates her cubicle—and her person—seasonally. I heard she actually showed up decked out as a leprechaun last Saint Patrick’s Day, and in a witch costume on Hal
loween. Mercifully, I wasn’t here for either of those events. I was, however, forced to participate when she organized a Thanksgiving feast last month, where we all had to bring something. I brought canned cranberry sauce. The crummy Key Food store brand kind. Mary brought pies she made from scratch using sugar pumpkins she grew on her fire escape.
It’s like she’s embraced her inner preschool teacher, corporate decorum be damned. Reportedly, upper management thinks she’s fun and boosts morale. The rest of us think she’s a pain in the ass, but the rest of us don’t count. We just have to make like pilgrims and Secret Snowflakes, and come February, she’ll probably have us all making construction paper hearts and tramping through the woods to cut down cherry trees.
The elevator stops at my floor.
“Don’t forget to sign up before you leave tonight,” Mary calls after me as I step out into the empty corridor.
I suppose I should be looking forward to the whole Secret Snowflake thing. At least
somebody
will be buying me Christmas presents. Not that a shrink-wrapped drugstore coffee mug filled with hard candies in shiny red wrappers can compete with boyfriend
baubles
.
From someone other than Will, that is—he was as stingy with his baubles as he was with his affection.
As I wave my card key in front of the sensor beside the locked glass doors leading to the floor reception area, I find myself wondering what it would be like to be showered with gifts from somebody who is head over heels in love with me.
Will I ever find out?
Wah. I want to find out. I want baubles and happily-ever-after, dammit.
“Hi, Tracey,” Lydia, the hugely pregnant receptionist, says from her desk, where she’s reading today’s
Newsday
. “Going to the office party?”
“Definitely. Are you?”
She laughs. “If I’m not in labor. Are you bringing a date?”
“Nope.”
Is it my imagination, or is that pity in her mascara-fringed eyes?
Look, I know I’m not supposed to go through life obsessed with finding Mr. Right. I’m not supposed to feel inadequate because I’m single; I’m not supposed to need a man.
I’m supposed to be an independent woman who can stand on her own; a woman with a promising career and cultural interests and plenty of good friends.
I’m supposed to be like Murphy Brown, Mary Richards, Elaine Benes. I’m suppose to make it after all—a hat-tossing single woman in the city, confident and savvy and solo. Or does that just happen on television sitcoms? Old, outdated television sitcoms?
As I make my way down the hall toward accounts payable, I decide there is a certain irony in the fact that I’m spending my nights watching
Nick at Nite
and TV Land reruns about women who actually
have
lives. Fulfilling lives that are too busy for endless speculation about how and when and where to meet a soul mate.
In real life, I don’t know many—okay,
any
—willingly single women. Everyone I know, aside from Raphael’s lesbian friends, either has a man or wants a man.
Is that so wrong?
Well, maybe I’ll meet somebody any second now. Maybe I’ll round the next corner just past the water fountain and
I’ll crash into the perfect man. Maybe he’ll steady me by holding my arms just above my elbows, and we’ll look into each other’s eyes, and…
Kismet.
What? It happens.
It happens all the time.
Well, it does.
Okay, it happens all the time in Sandra Bullock movies, and sometimes it happens in real life, too.
I find myself holding my breath as I approach the corner, wondering if this is more than a fantasy—if maybe it’s a premonition.
I decide that if I round the corner and crash into a man—any man—that it’s fate. As long as he’s single and reasonably attractive.
Okay, here I go.
This could be it.
I squeeze my eyes shut and turn the corner.
Open my eyes.
Empty.
The long carpeted hallway stretches ahead, empty as my love life.
Oh, well. Deep down, I knew it would be.
Deep down, I don’t believe in kismet after all.
“W
here is everyone?” Seated beside me on a bar stool, Brenda lifts the hand that’s not holding a blood-orange martini to check her watch.
The four of us have been here at Space for a half hour and a round and a half of cocktails. We’re sitting at the curved stainless-steel bar beneath a vast black “sky” dotted with tiny white lights that are supposed to be constellations. The bartenders are wearing silver jumpsuits. Mirrors line every surface, making the place look infinitely expansive—and reflecting me in all my slinky red glory.
I’m not looking at my own reflection. Well, not most of the time. The thing is, when I do happen to catch my eye, I can’t seem to get over that this is really me. It’s enough to banish any lingering doubts about being the only woman in the place baring a little cleavage and a lot of thigh.
“What time is it?” Yvonne asks.
“Eight. And the party starts at eight. Are the four of us the only punctual people in the whole freaking—”
“Nope,” Latisha cuts in, pointing across the cavernous room toward the door. “Look who’s here.”
“Let me guess. Judy Jetson?” My quip strikes me as more amusing than it should, courtesy of the potent second drink I just sucked down.
“Nope, Mary,” Latisha says, gesturing.
“Madonna,”
Brenda murmurs, wide-eyed.
“Oh, so we’re talking Mary, Mother of God?” I swear, I’m cracking myself up.
“No, Mary, the office freak. Look.”
Still giggling, I set down my empty glass and turn to see that Mary—excuse me, Merry—has just made her entrance. Her roly-poly figure is encased in a bright red dress with white fake fur trim. Incredulous, I gape at the shiny black boots below and the Santa hat perched jauntily on her round head. All that’s missing is a sack full of toys slung on her back.
“Now, that’s a real shame,” Yvonne says dryly, shaking her pink bouffant, an unlit cigarette in one hand and a martini glass in the other.
Mary spots us and makes a beeline for the bar. “Hi, everyone!”
I can’t resist. “Mrs. Claus, I presume?”
She titters and warbles, “Oh, Tracey, you’re so funny. Um, Yvonne, you’re not allowed to smoke in here.”
Yvonne rolls her eyes in the direction of the Little Dipper.
“She knows,” I say. “She just likes to hold her cigarette. It’s a habit.”
A habit Little Miss Merry Two-Shoes couldn’t possibly understand.
A jumpsuited bartender materializes. “Can I get you something?”
Mary orders a spritzer.
That’s enough to make me order my third martini. I rationalize it by deciding that blood-orange martinis aren’t as potent as the regular kind, but basically, I’m about to get trashed.
I’m just one big Office Party Don’t, but I can’t seem to help it. Blood-orange martinis are my new best friend.
I’m not in the mood for spritzers, and I’m sick of being one big
Do
all my life. Maybe it’s just my martini fog, but it seems to me that
Don’ts
have far more fun than
Do’s
do.
Soon, thank God, Mary disappears and the place fills up. You don’t grasp just how huge an agency Blaire Barnett is until the whole company is in one place. I see plenty of faces I don’t recognize, and some that I do. The music throbs, and there are a few people out on the dance floor, most of them self-conscious-looking entry-level drones or grooving mail-room staff.
“Who’s that guy? He’s cute!” Brenda says, nudging me and pointing at someone I’ve never seen before. He’s got blond hair, which is usually not my type. Not Brenda’s type, either, but look at her gaping.
“You’re married, Bren. Remember?”
She shrugs. “I’m not
dead
. I can look. And
you
should look. Maybe you’ll meet someone.”
“Maybe I will.”
“You should start mingling.”
“Maybe I will,” I say again, but I’m having a good time just hanging by the bar with my friends.
Then again, it’s getting a little warm in here. The music seems to be abnormally loud, and I’m thinking I should switch to a spritzer after I finish this drink. The insert the pharmacy gave me with my happy pills says that I’m not supposed to overindulge in liquor.
I spot a very familiar face approaching as Brenda and I pose for a picture Latisha is about to take with my camera.
Yes, I brought my camera. Is that a Don’t? It’s not on the list, but it probably isn’t considered a Do. Especially when Latisha and I keep cracking ourselves up pretending to be private detectives furtively taking photos of Alec, a married account executive who looks a little too cozy at the bar with Mercedes, the buxom and boozy sixth-floor receptionist. Which is a borderline violation of
She
magazine’s
Don’t Gossip
rule.
The familiar face stops in front of me, and its mouth says, “Hey, how’s it going, Chief?”
“Hi, Mike!” Am I slurring? “Here, get in the picture with us!”
“How about if I take it?” he offers, setting down his bottled Molson Ice and taking the camera from Latisha. She gets into the picture with me and Brenda and we all pose with our arms around each other, flashing big, cheesy smiles.
God only knows where Yvonne is. Last I knew, she was heading outside for a smoke. I decide I’ll join her just as soon as I’ve had a courteous—and hopefully sober-sounding—conversation with my boss.
“Hey, Mike, great tie,” I say, admiring the green silk background imprinted with teeny-tiny Santa Claus faces.
“You like it? Thanks.”
I do like it. Somehow, what’s grotesque overkill on Merry seems pleasantly festive on anybody else.
“Ooh, anybody want to Slide?” Brenda squeals as a familiar refrain of “boogie woogie woogies” erupts from the DJ booth.
Mike and I pass. I’d do it, but I’m afraid my boobs would pop out of my dress every time I did the leaning-over step. Pleased with my foresight, I stand sedately with my boss and watch Brenda and Latisha join the line dance.
“Dianne said if she ever saw me doing the Electric Slide, she’d break up with me,” Mike confides.
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“Well, then,
she’s
kidding.”
“She’s not,” he says. “She thinks it’s a ridiculous dance.”
I glance at the ranks of office workers gliding four steps back, four steps forward in perfect sync—except for Merry, who keeps going the wrong way and crashing into people.
Okay, it might be a ridiculous dance, but it’s fun. Suddenly I feel sorry for Mike, banned from the Slide and God only knows what else.
“You know, Dianne’s not here,” I point out. “You should try the Slide.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. She’d never find out.”
He looks around the room nervously, even skyward, as though expecting to spot Dianne in a trenchcoat and dark glasses astride one of the fake shooting stars.
I find myself thinking of Alec the married account exec, flirting madly with Mercedes. And even Brenda, wearing the
rock that consumed a few months’ worth of Paulie’s NYPD salary, yet blatantly checking out other guys. And Buckley, dragging his heels about moving in with Sonja.
Of course, in the back of my mind there’s always Will, who cheated on me with Esme Spencer, who played Dot to his George in a summer-stock production of
Sunday in the Park with George.
Maybe it’s good that I’m single. Maybe I don’t want to meet someone after all. At least, not for a while.
I look at Mike, who’s wistfully watching the dance floor.
“So, are you allowed to Macarena?” I can’t resist asking, expecting a big laugh and maybe even applause.
He fails to see the hilarity. In fact, he takes the question seriously and actually looks uncertain. “She never mentioned that, but…”
You know, maybe it’s the martinis again, but I’m starting to really dislike that Dianne. She seems so sweet on the phone, but as a girlfriend, she’s a little Nazi-ish, don’t you think?
“I need a cigarette,” I announce to Mike. “And you need a new beer. That one’s empty.”
“Okay,” he says obediently, and once again I’m saddened. Poor, poor Mike. He may be the boss in the office, but clearly his power stops there.
I head for the door and gratefully indulge my craving for menthol out on the litter-strewn sidewalk with a bunch of other banished addicts.
We smokers are an eclectic bunch. There are stressed-out upper-management types and administrative assistants who wear sneakers with their stockings on weekday subway commutes; fresh-out-of-Ivy-League assistant media buyers and
well-past-retirement-age grandmotherly career secretaries who seem reassuringly immune to lung cancer.
We puff away and talk about the good old days when you could actually smoke in a bar in New York. One old-timer (not Yvonne, but she might as well be, given the overall blowsy broad persona, complete with raspy voice and borough accent) waxes nostalgic about smoking at her desk.
Then an icy wind gusting off the East River has us hastily stubbing our half-burned butts and scuttling back inside.
I head directly to the bar. Mostly because I don’t see any of my friends in the crowd, and the bar is always a safe place to park oneself. But also because I need another drink.
I order yet another blood-orange martini and try to sip it slowly as I watch everyone on the dance floor bopping around to “Love Shack.” I spot Latisha out there more or less dirty dancing with Myron the mail-room guy, who’s been after her since before she dumped her loser boyfriend Anton last summer. She’d better not screw things up with Derek, her new boyfriend, a single dad who shares her passion for the New York Yankees…and, according to Latisha, her passion for—well, for passion.
I wonder morosely if I’ll ever experience passion again. God forbid my sleazy romp between the
StarWars
sheets was my sexual swan song, but I can’t seem to conjure up any situation in which I’ll be having sex any time soon. I’ve sworn off one-night stands, so unless somebody sweeps me off my feet…“Hi.”
I turn around to see a strange guy standing beside me. Not Jeff S-n
strange
; just
strange
as in I’ve never seen him before in my life.
I look over both shoulders. Huh. Apparently, he was talking to me.
“Hi,” I counter, cautiously.
“I’m Jack.”
“I’m Tracey.”
And they lived happily ever after.
Yeah, right. I wish.
This guy is so cute that I find myself wondering why he’s come over to me, having momentarily forgotten that I, too, am now cute.
“Do you work at Blaire Barnett?” Jack asks.
Well, duh. Everybody in the room works at Blaire Barnett.
“No,” I find myself saying, “I’m a nurse at Bellevue. Mental ward.”
“You are?”
I laugh at the befuddled expression in his big brown eyes. “No. I’m just being a wise-ass.”
And probably sabotaging my chances of any kind of future relationship with this guy, but I can’t seem to help myself.
“Actually, I work at Blaire Barnett,” I confess, and sip my drink. This one is stronger than the last. Much stronger. So strong I taste no blood orange; I swear it’s all vodka.
“Yeah, I work there, too,” Jack says.
Have I mentioned how much I love big brown little-boy eyes on a grown man? No?
That’s probably because I never realized it until this very moment. He’s tall—much taller than I am, and I’m wearing heels. He’s broad-shouldered. His hair is the same melted-milk-chocolate color as his eyes; kind of wavy and combed back from his face. He’s got a great mouth with a full lower
lip. And the best part of all: dimples. He has two dimples, one on either side of his mouth. They’re there even when he’s not smiling.
“So what do you do?” Jack is asking.
Okay, so he’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree. Or maybe he’s just hard of hearing. But who the hell cares about his brain or his ears when he’s got eyes like that?
“I work at Blaire Barnett,” I repeat patiently, feeling almost like a nurse in Bellevue’s mental ward.
“I know…. I mean, what do you do there?”
Oh. Good. He’s not stupid or hearing impaired.
“I work in account management.” Please don’t make me say the
S
word.
“Doing what?”
I feign confusion. “What?”
Okay, he’s not stupid or hearing impaired, but now he thinks I’m one or both. Would it be better to just admit that I’m a secretary? I’m afraid he’ll think that’s all I am. That he won’t believe it if I tell him I’m in line for a promotion.
He starts to ask, “What do you—”
“So what department are you in?” I quickly interrupt.
“Media.”
Mission accomplished. Line of questioning derailed. Celebratory sip of drink in order.