reporters call the firm, requesting information about people on whom they are writing stories.
“Lizzie.” Roberta does not look amused. “This is very serious. If you are harassing or otherwise bothering Miss Higgins—”
“I’m not!” I cry, genuinely startled. “She came to me!”
“For what?” Roberta demands. “What other line of work are you in, Lizzie?”
“If I told you that,” I say, “you’ll know why she came to see me. And she hasn’t given me permission to tell anyone that. So I can’t say. I’m sorry, Roberta.”
I can’t believe that I’m doing this. I mean, actually NOT spilling a secret for a change. This is a real sign of my inner growth. I should totally be celebrating.
Too bad I feel so much like vomiting.
“You can fire me if you want to,” I go on. “But I promise you, I am not bothering Jill. If you don’t believe me, call and ask her. She’ll tell you.”
“She’s Jill to you now?” Roberta says with more than a little sarcasm in her tone.
“She told me I could call her that,” I say, wounded. “Yes.”
Roberta looks down at the picture. She seems to be at a loss. “This is highly irregular,” she says at last. “I honestly don’t know what to say about it.”
“It’s nothing illegal,” I say.
“Well, I should hope not!” Roberta cries. “Are you going to be meeting her again?”
“Yes,” I say firmly.
“Well.” Roberta shakes her head. “All I can say in that case is, try to be more careful not to get your picture in the Post. If one of the partners had seen this and recognized you—”
“I had no idea there was a photographer there,” I say. “But I’ll definitely be more careful in the future. Is that it? Can I go now?”
Roberta looks startled. “Well, you’re in an awfully big hurry to get out of here. Christmas shopping?”
“No,” I say. “I have to get to that business that I’m doing for Jill.”
Roberta’s shoulders slump. “Fine,” she says. “But fair warning, Lizzie. This firm prides itself on its sterling reputation. Any whiff of impropriety on your part and you’re gone. Understand?”
“Totally,” I say.
Roberta looks down, dismissing me…
… and I bolt from her office. Heading back to the reception desk to get my coat and purse, I ignore Daryl’s whispered“Yo! What’d you do this time?” and Tiffany’s“Oh my God, are you all right? You look like someone just told you that your Prada handbag is a fake.”
“I’m fine,” I mutter. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Seriously,”Tiffany hisses, “call me and tell me what she said. I’m collecting Roberta stories to submit to the Smoking Gun.”
I wave at her and hurry out, my heart hammering so hard in my chest, I’m afraid it’s going to fly out and hit the wall. When the elevator doors open, I rush inside without even looking to see who else is in there before pounding the button for the lobby. It isn’t until a voice beside me says, “Well, hello there, stranger,” that I look up and see that Chaz is in the car with me.
“Oh my God,” I cry. “Were you going up to see your dad? Why didn’t you say anything? I’d have held the door for you—oh no, and now you’re going down. I’m sorry!”
“Relax,” Chaz says. “I wasn’t going up to see my dad. I was coming to see you.”
“Me?” I’m shocked.
“I was hoping I could take you for a drink,” Chaz says. “And pump you for the information I need about my ex in order for me to start rebuilding my male ego so I can learn to love again.”
I chew my lower lip. “Chaz,” I say. “I am trying really hard not to talk about people behind their backs. It’s this whole new thing with me. I have gotten in so much trouble in the past for being a big mouth, and I’m really trying to change. Because despite what some people think, people can change.”
“Sure they can,” Chaz says. The elevator has reached the lobby. “Come on. Let me take you for a beer at Honey’s.”
I’m about to say I can’t. I know Chaz is hurting, but I have a dress to design. I’m about to say,I have to get to the shop. We have this huge project—which is another thing I can’t talk about—and I’m in a time crunch, so I’ll see you later, okay?
But then I look into his face and see that it’s been a while since he shaved—and, as far as I can tell, changed baseball caps.
Which is how I find myself sitting across from him in one of the red vinyl booths at Honey’s, a sweating diet Coke in front of me, listening to the dwarf sing “Dancing Queen,” a not entirely unpleasant experience.
“I just need to know,” Chaz is saying into his bottle of beer. “I know it sounds stupid, but… I mean… do you think I did something to… turn her?”
“What? Of course not,” I cry. “Chaz! Come on. No.”
“Well, what happened then?” he demands. “I mean, a person isn’t straight one day and then gay the next. Unless maybe I did something to make her—”
“You didn’t,” I say. “Chaz. Trust me. You didn’t. It’s exactly like Shari explained to you. She just fell in love with someone else. And that person just happens to be another woman. It’s no different than if she’d met some other guy she ended up falling for instead of you.”
“Uh,” Chaz says. “It’s different.”
“It’s not,” I say. “It’s still love. Love does crazy things to people. You can’t blame yourself. I know Shari doesn’t blame you. She still loves you. She told you that, right?”
Chaz grimaces. “She mentioned it.”
“Well, it’s true. She does still love you. Just, you know. Not romantically anymore. It happens, Chaz.”
“So you’re saying,” Chaz says slowly, “that I could, conceivably, fall in love with a guy sometime?”
“Conceivably,” I say. Although to tell the truth I really can’t picture Chaz in a homosexual relationship. Or, rather, I can’t picture any of the homosexual guys I’ve known (and dated) actually wanting to be in a relationship with Chaz, seeing as how his fashion sense is less than minimal and he does have an alarming enthusiasm for college basketball and not much interest in home furnishings. I have a much easier time picturing Luke comfortably nesting with another man.
“Have you ?” Chaz wants to know.
“Have I what?” I glance at the clock above the bar. I really need to get to the shop. I have about a million ideas for Jill’s dress and my fingers are itching to get started on them.
“Ever been in love with a woman.”
“Well,” I say slowly. “There are a lot of women in my life I’ve really admired, and wanted to be like, and wanted to get to know better. But not, you know,sexually .”
Chaz is scraping the label off his beer bottle with a thumbnail. “And you and Shari never… er… experimented?”
“Chaz!” I throw my coaster at him. “No! Ew! You and Luke are exactly alike. That’s it, I’m leaving—”
“What?” he cries, looking truly alarmed as he catches my arm before I’ve made my way completely off the end of the bench. “I was just asking! I thought maybe, you know, all girls do that kind of stuff—”
“Well, they don’t,” I inform him. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Now let go of my arm, I have to get to work.”
“You just came from work,” he points out.
“My other job,” I say. “At the bridal shop. We have a really big new job, and I want to get started on it.”
“You really like this wedding stuff, don’t you?” he says as, over on the karaoke stage, the dwarf switches from Abba to a little Ashlee Simpson, declaring that, despite what everybody thinks, he didn’t steal my boyfriend. “You really believe in it… the happy ending, the rice… the whole thing.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Of course I do. And I know you’re sad right now, Chaz—and you have every right to be. But someday it will happen for you—I promise. Just like it’s going to happen for me, too.” Maybe sooner than anyone thinks.
“Well, I hope you’re not still counting on making it happen with Mr. Woodland Creature,” Chaz says.
