and full Internet access and I don’ t.
THE NEXT MORNING, Brie came into my cubicle. She wore a yellow top that clung to her generous bosom, along with a leopard-print mini. Her hair-a never-ending source of entertainment for me and often nothing short of a work of art-was in a flip reminiscent of Diana Ross in her Supremes days. All in all, on the demure side for Brie.
“I found this in the printer,” she said, waving a piece of paper at me, “but I’ m not sure if it’ s for you or for Susan. It’ s from her computer, but the note is addressed to you.”
I’ d been deep in thought-trying to come up with a good rhyme for ‘ transit’ for a headline I was working on-so I barely glanced up. “Thanks.”
“It’ s from some guy named Sebastian,” she continued just as I was dismissing ‘ rancid’ as being too negative. When I heard the name, little fingers of worry starting to worm their way up my spine.
“Sebastian?”
“Yeah. It’ s strange because he’ s asking one of you, I think you, on a date and I figure Susan’ s married, but as I said, it was from her computer, so”
I snatched the paper from her hands.
Her face got excited. “He’ s inviting you to a book signing. Sounds like the kind of thing you’ d be into, huh? All intellectual and whatnot. Me, I prefer a date with a little action in it, where I can dress up real nice. You know, like going to a club-ooh, there’ s that new one in Hollywood I went to last weekend, and let me tell you, it was off the chain! I wore my new pink leather skirt, and-“
“Brie?” I interrupted. “You said you found this in the printer?”
‘ Yeah. You and Robert break up?’ When I didn’ t answer right away, she narrowed her eyes at me. ‘ You’ re stepping out on him?’
‘ We split, back in August. Give me a sec, will you?’ I paused to read what she’ d brought in, which was a printout of an e-mail. It was from Sebastian all right. He thanked me for writing him, said how excited he was to hear from a fellow copywriter and that he loved the photo I sent him. And then he invited me to a book reading and signing at seven o’ clock on Thursday at Book Soup. There’ ll be wine and cheese there, and we can go out for dinner afterward, the note read. I know that it’ s last minute, but let me know if you can make it. Love to get together and find out more about you.
‘ Susan must have written him,’ I said, and realized it was the wrong thing to say when Brie put up both hands and started to edge away.
‘ You know what? This is none of my business. Whatever kinky kind of things y’ all are into, that’ s for you to know and me to never find out.’
Great. Now Brie was going to tell everyone in the office how Susan and I were into some sort of swinging lifestyle.
‘ Come with me.’ I grabbed Brie’ s arm and dragged her to Susan’ s office, where I marched in and shut the door behind us.
Susan looked up from her desk. Without saying a word, I waved the printout in the air.
‘ Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘ It did print out.’
‘ Yeah. Oh, dear,’ I mocked.
‘ I couldn’ t get the printer to work right last night,’ she went on to explain. ‘ I was going to bring it in to you this morning and talk to you about it. Anyway, I thought I canceled the job-’
‘ You wrote him pretending to be me!’ I cut in.
‘ Yes, and he asked us for a date!’ And then she corrected, ‘ Well, you. I told you that picture of you from the party was gorgeous. He e-mailed me back within minutes. We had a couple back-and-forth e-mails. I’ m no writer, and we know it’ s been forever since I’ ve had to flirt& but obviously I’ ve still got it. A date! A blind date, if you catch my drift.’
‘ Brie here,’ I said pointedly, ‘ found it.’
Susan pulled the corners of her mouth down in an oops face, but just for a second before moving on to berate me. ‘ It’ s ridiculous you’ re being so private about this whole thing anyway. If I were doing something this nice, I’ d sing it from the rooftops.’
I blew out a breath and looked at Brie. For some reason, I didn’ t want her to think badly of me. I admired her ‘ take no bullshit’ style. No one else could handle Lizbeth the way she did.
Brie knew about the accident, of course, so I proceeded to fill her in about Marissa’ s list and how I was completing it for her.
When I was done, Brie gushed, ‘ I saw something like that on The Guiding Light! This lady had a rare blood disease and only had six weeks to live, so she was trying to do everything real fast before she died. Oh, and if you ever want to watch it, I usually book Lizbeth into meetings in the conference room at two o’ clock so I can use that portable TV she keeps on her side table.’
‘ Brie, this is between us, though. Okay?’
‘ Sure. So’ s that thing about watching the Light.’
Before I left, they made me e-mail Sebastian and accept his invitation. What the heck. It wasn’ t as if I had any other offers.
Then Susan picked up a phone call, and Brie walked with me back to my office. ‘ So, what kind of stuff is on this list, anyway?’ she asked.
I rattled off a few of the items, then realized maybe it wasn’ t so bad that Brie found out. Being Lizbeth’ s assistant, she could prove helpful. ‘ That reminds me,’ I said after a moment. ‘ One of the things I have to do is pitch an idea at work. I have an idea for a gas giveaway, but Lizbeth seems so hell-bent on this traffic reporter project, I don’ t know if she’ ll even listen to anything new. Any suggestions?’
Brie paused to consider my question. ‘ The woman’ s a bulldog. If she can’ t get what she wants one way, she’ ll get it another. It’ ll be tough, but don’ t you worry about a thing,’ she said as we parted ways in the hallway, ‘ I got your back.’
Chapter 4
I ‘ ve had eight boyfriends so far in my life, with the average length of relationship being 9.8 months. The mean is 14.4 months. Two out of the eight-a full 25 percent of all of my romantic entanglements-were named Scott.
I came up with these statistics on a girls’ weekend in Palm Springs a while back, when rain kept us indoors with nothing else to do but play cards and calculate our romantic affairs. Linda, a friend of mine from high school, brought a laptop, so we were able to put the whole thing on a spreadsheet.
My track record seemed reasonable until Linda started playing with the numbers a bit more. ‘ Check this out,’
