The Girlfriend (The Boss) (7 page)

I’d just finished my make-up and my artfully sloppy braided bun when Tony buzzed the intercom. I put on some small hammered silver hoop earrings, grabbed the sturdy cardboard moving box I would take with me to collect my things, and headed into the breach.

“Good morning, Ms. Scaife,” Tony said, holding the door for me.

“Good morning, Tony. I’ll try not to puke back here today,” I quipped, noting that when I climbed into the backseat, it didn’t smell even faintly of vomit. There was no stain on the floor, either.

“Very good, ma’am,” he said, and his stereotypical Noo Yawk accent made the formal phrase sound more personal. “I’m glad you feel better.”

When we arrived at the office, Tony offered to go up with me to carry my things, but I asked him to wait with the car, instead. Like hell I was going to give anyone up there more ammunition to gossip behind my back.

At the security stand in the lobby, I checked in and received a visitor’s pass. That kind of smarted. I rode the elevator up with two other people, neither of them from the magazine, and I got off before they did. The first person I saw in reception was Ivanka, who looked up from the desk with a little smirk.

“Just going to get my stuff,” I said as I strode past her. I hadn’t meant to glance toward Neil’s office, but I did, and I spotted Deja sitting at my old desk.

I had expected every eye in the place to be on me, judging and condemning. I guess I was full of myself, because no one seemed to care at all that I was there. I got one or two curious looks from people as I breezed past their desks, and only one openly hostile glare.

Well, almost only one.

The glass door to the beauty department was open, but I knocked on it anyway. Only India Vaughn, the lead beauty editor, was inside, peering at some lipstick swatches on the back of her hand. When she looked up, her pleasantly neutral expression froze for an instant.

“I’m here to clear out my desk,” I said, holding out the box.

Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded, pursing her lips. “Ah. Spy number two. My already very full workday is complete.”

“Uh...” My gaze flitted around the room. Jessica Nguyen, the other assistant beauty editor, was nowhere to be seen. When I’d met with my old boss, Gabriella, she’d told me Jessica was coming to work for her. But India seemed to be taking it a little more personally than if it was just a simple change of career. Had Jessica been a mole? “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you, and Jessica, working for Gabriella right under my nose.” India rose from the stool she’d been seated on. “You know, at first I thought you were spying for Neil Elwood, since he gave you the job. Ballsy move, biting the hand that promoted you.”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t anybody’s spy, India.”

“What did you tell Gabriella?” India shrugged and crossed her arms. “Did you tell her I was drinking again? Because I know she would have asked.”

“I told Gabriella that you were a very capable editor. I am not in bed with her.” Poor choice of phrasing, I realized. “And I’m not working for Neil, he fired me.”

“That’s the part I don’t understand. He fired you, but you’re
not
working for Gabriella?” India’s curiosity was winning the battle over her anger.

“Look, if I tell you— “ I looked to the open door, sighed, and set the box on the work table. “Do you mind if I close this?”

“This sounds intriguing. Let me get my coffee.”

While India moved to her desk in the corner, I shut the door and pulled the blinds over the long window.

What are you doing? This is stupid. It could potentially hurt Neil. It could potentially hurt
Porteras.

But if I knew one thing about India Vaughn, it was that she loved this magazine more than she loved anything else in the world. It was her dream, the way it had been mine. I could trust her with this information.

I spoke very softly. “Look, I didn’t get fired because I was spying for Gabriella. I never told her anything. I warned Rudy at the beginning of December to watch out for Jake Kirchner, because I had a feeling something was up. We were work friends, before he became a total douche bag.”

“He’s always been a total douche bag, Sophie.” In India’s working class London accent, it sounded like a condemnation of Jake and sympathy for my shortsightedness at the same time.

I shrugged. “You take Gabriella’s dog to the holistic vet for Hopi ear candling, and then you come back and tell me how easy it is to separate real people from fake ones.”

“Point taken.” India sipped her coffee. Her nails were filed into ovals, and painted a yummy shade of deep plum. Very festive.

I was going to miss working in fashion.

“Anyway, I got fired because I knew that someone in the company had access to the subscriber list and was feeding the information into Gabriella’s new magazine venture. And I didn’t tell, because I didn’t want to jeopardize the possibility of being offered a job with her.” Wow, that sounded super sleazy out loud. No wonder Neil had been pissed enough to consider dumping me. “But I wasn’t spying for her.”

“No, Jessica was.” India tilted her head. “Why didn’t you tell me, or Rudy, when you knew about the subscribers?”

I took a deep breath. “If I tell you, you have to swear this goes no further than this room. It could damage Elwood and Stern, it could damage this magazine, and it would really not endear you to Neil Elwood. I think you know he’s not a guy you want to piss off, if you still want to work in publishing.”

“Understood,” India said easily. That made me wonder what other secrets she’d heard over the years and kept to herself, because I had never heard any serious office gossip attributed to her as the source.

“I was going to tell Neil. Because I’m his girlfriend.”

India’s eyes couldn’t have gotten any bigger and still fit on her head.

“It’s a long story,” I continued. “I didn’t get a chance to tell him about the subscribers leak before he found out about Gabriella offering me a job. No, I’m not the leak. No, I didn’t know about the Elwood and Stern takeover, and no, I’m not going to work for Gabriella.”

“So, you and Neil Elwood?” She made a little noise that sounded like she was grudgingly impressed. “I thought for sure that was just an unfounded rumor. And he’s not—”

“Dumping me over all of this?” I shook my head. “No, we’ve got other shit to worry about.”

India regarded me for a long moment with an uncertain smile. “Sophie Scaife. I would have never guessed it.”

My mind seized on something she’d said before. “Jessica was the one feeding the subscriber list to Gabriella, wasn’t she?”

“She was. She came to me from the mail room. And I believe she’s now creative director of Gabriella’s new magazine.”

That hit me like a punch in the gut, and I know it showed on my face.

India somehow managed to look sympathetic while smirking. “That was the job she offered you, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “I had to pick between her and Neil. Neil won.”

“Isn’t he going back to England?” India frowned slightly.

“Yeah, I’m going with him. I don’t have a job here anymore. I’ll probably never work in New York again now that I’m blacklisted at Elwood and Stern as well as with Gabriella and her crew.” Somewhere along the line, I’d forgotten to think about my unemployment from that angle. I guess being caught up in the pregnancy and Neil’s cancer had kept me from looking at it from such a grim perspective.

“What will you do?” I appreciated that India had asked, instead of just assuming I’d be living off of Neil.

I mean, I would be living off Neil, but that wasn’t my life’s ambition.

Yeah, Scaife, what are you going to do?
I heard Holli’s always surprisingly practical voice in my head. I raised my hands and let them fall together in my lap. “I have no idea. I’ll probably try to write freelance or start a blog. Right now, I’m just worried about the move.”

Oh, and the fact that Neil might die and also, we just went through an abortion
. I knew I sounded lackadaisical about it, but there really wasn’t much more I could say or feel about either subject.

India looked concerned. “Well, you were good, in the short time you were here. And I’m sorry I accused you of spying. You did some unethical things, but who here hasn’t? If you ever need anything, a reference, somebody’s number, give me a call.”

Wow, I hadn’t been expecting that. “Sure. Um. Thank you, India.”

“Just—” She stopped herself, then, as if against her better judgement, she warned, “Be careful with Elwood. Men like that... a girl can get swept away very easily.”

Jesus, wasn’t that the truth?

* * * *

I spent the rest of the day at home, emailing back and forth with Neil’s lawyer about immigration statutes. It was basically a non-issue for me to come into the country for six months, but after that I had to really start getting things nailed down. I wasn’t sure how great I felt about the prospect of permanently immigrating anywhere. I’d never considered myself patriotic before, but the prospect of leaving New York and the US to live in a totally different country was shockingly lonely to me.

And the packing would be unbelievable.

As the day wore on to evening, I had an even worse task to face: my mother.

Neil was going to come by and pick me up at eight for a late dinner, and I’d wanted to do at least
some
packing before he arrived. But the longer I sat in my room, looking helplessly at all my stuff and not having any inclination to do anything with it, I had to admit defeat.

I had to call my mom.

Sometimes, there are just things you have to do to clear a path to the other stuff you need to do
, my mom was fond of saying, usually when she’d been overseeing the cleaning of my room. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t see an abortion as something I’d done to “clear a path,” so I was going to make damn sure she never found out.

I also decided that if I did ever end up raising a daughter, I damn sure wasn’t going to screw with her thinking about her body and what she could do with it.

At the mercy of my out-of-whack hormones, I had to try twice before I called. For a while, I just laid in bed with the phone in my hand, crying.

Finally, when the threat of Neil possibly showing up and interrupting the call and everything getting super weird became more and more possible, I got myself together and dialed the number.

“Sophie!” My mom greeted me. “I was getting worried. I need your flight information so I can get your uncle down to Marquette to pick you up.”

“Yeah, about that...”

I heard something clatter and I could perfectly picture my mom, probably slaving away over banana nut bread batter. Her honey blonde hair, streaked with platinum, would be flat-ironed, the front pinned back from her huge, smoldering brown eyes and bombshell pouty lips that I did not win in the genetic lottery. At size twenty-eight, my mom looked like a Midwestern Donatella Versace, a comparison she’d embraced with glee once I’d pointed it out to her.

Right now, there was nothing gleeful about her. “Oh, honey, no. You can’t cancel on us now! Your cousin Ricky just got back from Afghanistan. We were going to take the first big family picture since grandpa died.”

Ouch
. I was not only missing Christmas, I was ruining the family picture. I wiped a tear from my eye and made my voice stay level through sheer force of will. “I know, I know. But it’s for a good reason this time, I promise.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” mom said with an exasperated sigh. “Your bitch boss wants you to decorate her dog for Christmas?”

“No. Um, I don’t work for her anymore. I... kind of lost my job.” There was really no reason she had to know that I’d lost my job because I couldn’t keep my personal and professional life separate. Or that I’d gotten a promotion, then immediately blown it. I had to reframe the whole thing quickly. “The magazine got sold, and Gabriella didn’t take me with her to her new job.”

“Sweetie, I am so sorry.” My mom was at least good at admitting when she was wrong. “I would never have joked—”

“It’s okay, I know,” I reassured her. “There’s more. Just stick with me.”

“You’re not...” Mom’s voice lowered. “You aren’t pregnant, are you?”

“No!”
Not anymore
. That was my mom’s number one fear; that I would end up a single mother, like her. Any time I had bad news to break, pregnancy was her first guess. “I’m seeing somebody. It’s pretty new, but things are moving kind of fast.”

“And you’re missing Christmas with us to be with him?” Mom sounded a little accusing.

“Yes,” I admitted. “But like I said, I have a good reason. He has cancer, and he has to start chemotherapy soon. It’ll be nice to spend the holidays together just, you know. In case.”

“Oh, honey.” My mom was more shaken up about it than I was. Of course, I was mostly ignoring the cancer part right now, and probably would until the day we set foot in a hospital. It was easier to delay the unpleasantness than to face it and deal with it.
 

“I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone. Why didn’t you tell me? You must be so scared.”

“I’m not, he’s going to be fine.” If I just kept telling myself that, it would be true. “He’s going home to England to have chemo, and I’m going to go with him.”

“He’s English?” Leave it to my mom to concentrate on the important details. “I bet he has a cute accent.”

Oh, barf. I did not need my mom to be attracted to my boyfriend. Especially when she was closer to his age than I was. That added a whole new level of creepy. Besides, cute wasn’t the word I would have used to describe the way Neil spoke, but I also wouldn’t use the word I
would
have used to describe it to describe it to my
mother
. “I don’t know about cute, but I like it.”

“Well, we’ll miss you.” There was no way I would get out of a little guilting, so I endured it as my mother went on. “But you’re not moving permanently, right? You’ll be able to come home at some point? Maybe for Easter?”

“It depends on how Neil’s doing, but maybe. I just... I don’t want him to be alone.” And I didn’t want to be an ocean away, wondering every minute if the man I loved was miserable or suffering or dying.