Then the caterers arrive with the food, which means all the admins have to go help set up the lunch. I forward my phone to my voicemail, feeling a rising sense of panic that I might not get a chance to talk to Jude before this ridiculous announcement. I wish I could step out of the batter’s box and hold my hand up to the umpire. “Whoa. All I need is, like, thirty seconds. All I have to say is, ‘Jude, I love you. I’m sorry. Let’s talk later.’ Just a quick time-out. No frills. Please.” But I’m helpless to freeze time. This is no game.
The best I can hope for is that he gets to the conference room before everyone else. Then I can just whisper that to him before the meeting starts. With this in mind, I decide to work as quickly as possible on the setup, then wait for him in the hallway.
Since I’ve loitered at my desk as long as I can to try to catch Jude, I’m the last admin to arrive to the setup. As soon as I walk in, Leslie says loudly to me, “Hey, I hear your ex-boyfriend is about to get a big promotion.”
“You hear a lot for someone with tinsel between her ears,” I snap, wishing I could hold my tongue and play it cool but feeling better for lashing out at her. I shoot Lisa a dirty look for spilling the beans about the break-up. I thought I told her it was temporary!
Lisa gives me an innocent look and adds, “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s impolite to eavesdrop, Leslie?”
Zoe says, “You’re a whore, Leslie.”
Said in her little-girl voice and so matter-of-factly, it’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in days. I hold the edge of the table and wheeze.
Zoe proudly sticks out her tiny chest. “Did I say that out loud?” she asks the room. “Plus you’re just jealous.”
Too casually for it to actually be casual, Leslie replies, “Been there, done that. When it comes to sex, English men are like English food… bland and cold, especially that one.” She points out the door and in the general direction of Jude’s office, even though it can’t be seen from here.
“Don’t listen to her, Libby,” Lisa urges, as if I ever would. “She’s lying. Jude never gave her the time of day, not even when she was practically offering to express her own breast milk into his coffee.”
Leslie calmly continues to arrange the napkins, plasticware, and paper plates at the beginning of the buffet line. “Believe what you want to believe. I’m only saying something now because you guys are caput. I don’t ever want anyone to accuse me of being a home wrecker. But would someone who’s lying know this?” She leans in close to me and says, “What’s the deal with his ticklish feet?”
I just stare at her as I feel all the blood drain from the top of my tingling scalp through the tips of my red-painted toenails. Numbly, I reply, “Well, that’s a good question.”
“It was before you two were an item… I think.”
“This conversation is inappropriate,” Zoe steps in. “I’m sorry I called you a whore, Leslie.”
Leslie grudgingly accepts Zoe’s apology.
My diminutive friend taps her chin contemplatively. “Yeah, I think it would have been more appropriate to call you a ‘dirty fucking tw—”
Just as it feels like it’s about to come to physical blows between Zoe and Leslie, Gary and Jude walk in, followed by Mr. Peal, the company president and CEO and two interchangeable guys I always confuse for one another, one the CFO, named Walter, and the other the Marketing Director, Rudy.
“Everything just about set here, ladies?” Gary asks cluelessly.
Jude takes one look at me and mouths automatically, “What’s wrong?” as if he has the right to even be in the same room with me, much less ask me about my well-being.
I shake my head, however minutely, and quickly look down at my feet.
Lisa answers for all of us that the food’s ready whenever they want the meeting to start, so Gary tells her to round everyone up. More to get out of the room than anything else, I go with her. But I walk next to her like a zombie as she makes her rounds through the office.
Marvin passes us in the corridor. “Yo, Libby, wazzup? You and Jude bustin’ outta this town? That’s the skinny I’m hearin’.”
I smile tightly at him. Well, at least one of my fantasies is still alive and well underneath all of Marvin’s frizzy hair. Thankfully, he doesn’t wait to hear the answer. There’s free food to be had, after all.
When everyone’s been informed that the meeting’s about to start, Lisa pulls me into a corner. “Listen, no one would think less of you for skipping this lunch. As a matter of fact, I bet you could take the rest of the day off and no one would notice. I’ll even cover for you and say you’re in the bathroom or at the copier or wherever anytime someone comes by. You don’t have to torture yourself hearing this announcement, whatever it is.”
My eyes puddle up but don’t overflow. “I bet you’re a good mom, Lisa,” I say emotionally. I blink my eyes rapidly and take a deep breath. “But I can do this. It’s not the end of the world. Think how much worse it would have been if I had taken him back and then found out.”
She looks dubiously at me, like I’m a seriously drunk person who’s promised not to puke in the passenger seat of her brand new car if she’ll just give me a ride home.
“All right. If you’re sure…”
“I never said anything about being sure,” I mutter, following her into the conference room. She gets in line for the food, but I hang close to the door, up against the wall.
When everyone who wants food
