“I thought we weren’t going to talk about this.” I fish my car keys out of my pocket. When I glance up at him again, he looks so sad that I take pity on him. “Listen, forget about it. Really. Please. You’re the only other person in the world who knows that. So I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself.”
Nodding once and briskly, he says, “Of course. You don’t even have to ask.”
“Just making sure.” With that, I turn and limp stiffly down the stairs, marveling at how I haven’t been completely desensitized to humiliation in the past eight hours.
Other than when I wire the money to Hank, I spend the rest of Sunday in bed, listening to Snow Patrol on a continuous loop. Fantasy Jude tries to cheer me up, but not even I can reconcile the reality of my predicament with the ideal of him.
Sandberg gave me the cold shoulder for the first hour after I got home. I gave him a few extra treats, though, and that seemed to placate him. I also told him, “I would have rather been here with you, buddy, believe me.” Who cares that it’s a lie?
Monday, I have my hand on the button to call in sick to work, but I know I can’t drop the ball on my part of the Museum Board presentation. Instead, I call Wanda and tell her I’ll be late, since I have to get this thing with my car straightened out. When I call the city, though, they say that Jude’s already been there to pay the tickets, and the boot has been removed.
I do make it a point to tell the person on the phone that it was really irresponsible of them to boot my car just because it’s the same color, make, and model of the offender’s car. And was parked in the personal parking space registered in his name. After saying all that, I feel pretty sheepish, so I say, “Never mind. I understand how it happened,” and hang up quickly.
I take the El to the stop closest to Jude’s apartment and walk to my car. Someone, obviously when the orange metal contraption was still clamped on my tire, has stuck a note on my window that says, “Loser.”
“Pretty much,” I can’t help but agree as I tear it off, crumple it, and throw it into my backseat.
Jude lives a little further from work than I do, so by the time I get there, it’s close to 9:30. I put my purse in my desk drawer and sit down to check my voicemails and emails. But first, I peek over at Jude’s office. He turns from his drafting board right then, sees me, and waves his pencil in my direction as a greeting. I act like I didn’t see him. I’ll have to talk to him soon enough. But I want it to be on my terms.
Lisa pokes her head over our shared wall. “Hey. What’s going on? Everything okay?”
I jump about a foot. “Shit,” I mutter. “Nothing! I’m fine!”
“Yeah, that’s convincing,” she says. “Seriously, why are you late?”
I’m annoyed that I have to explain myself. The least Wanda could have done was send out a lousy email to the other admins that I’d be in eventually. “I had a personal errand to run,” I say shortly.
She accepts my answer without question. “So… what’s the latest with you and Jude?”
“What?” My head snaps up to look at her. She seems completely innocent, but she’s obviously heard something.
Marvin. Anyone who says men aren’t as gossipy as women is delusional. “Nothing happened, okay?”
Lisa furrows her brow. Zoe, hearing my tense voice, comes across the aisle. “What’s going on? What’d you do this weekend?”
“What is this, twenty questions?” I huff, grabbing my wallet and stomping in the direction of the break room. Of course they follow me, Lisa filling Zoe in on the way.
As I look for something in the vending machine to eat for a late breakfast, Lisa says, “Well, I was just asking about the Museum Board presentation tonight, but now I’m curious. What were you talking about?”
I don’t know how to get out of this one. Silence can only work for so long. She’s going to come up with more outrageous scenarios than what the reality is, anyway, so I answer (however minimalistically), “We worked together on it this weekend. I thought you were assuming something happened between us when we were here alone. But we weren’t alone. Marvin was here too.”
“Why would we assume that?” Zoe asks.
“Because you guys are always trying to make something out of nothing.”
“The preemptive denial,” Lisa muses. “Always a sign of guilt. I know that from being a step-mom.”
I shoot her a dirty look. “Or a sign that someone’s friends make her paranoid.”
Just then, Jude walks in. He sees Lisa and Zoe with me and says, “Oh. I thought… Never mind.” He runs his hand through his hair. “When you get a minute, can you come with me… er, I mean…” He blushes and punches his fist against his leg. I want to punch him for being so obvious. “Marvin wants us to look at the video when you get a couple secs—minutes!” He turns and mutters disgustedly at himself, “Oh, fuck me,” as he walks away, in the direction of Graphics.
I’m so annoyed by his display that I’m not even blushing, like I normally would be.
Lisa exchanges a glance with Zoe, but neither one of them says anything to me. Instead, they scurry off together, whispering. The most I can hope for is that it’s not all over the company by the end of the day that Jude and I are sleeping together. That’s the best I can hope for. The worst? I don’t even want to think about it.
Abandoning my breakfast mission, I stomp to Graphics, where Jude and Marvin are deep in discussion about the video.
“There you are,” Marvin says. “I was just about to show Jude
