“Her name’s Corey!” her friend yells over her shoulder as they shuffle out.
“Well, I agree with her,” says Frank. “We are like a family.” He looks around the room. People nod vaguely. “And I don’t know about you.” He raises his glass over his head. “But I need to drink heavily to be around my family. So mazel tov!”
Everyone is laughing. Everyone except Cleo.
*
“What’s your New Year’s resolution?” one intern asks the other.
“Get off my antidepressants for good,” the second intern says. “I’m tired of feeling numb to life’s joys. Yours?”
The first intern reaches down to pull up the hem of his pants.
“Fashion socks,” he says.
*
I am standing by the snacks table downing water and Fig Newtons to sober up when Cleo approaches me. I look around. No Frank.
“I just love your hair,” she says.
“Oh,” I say, brushing crumbs off the front of my dress. “Thank you. Yours is nice too.”
“Mine’s all flat and blah,” Cleo says. “Yours is much more exciting.”
I know this dance.
“No way,” I say gamely. “I always wished I had straight hair growing up. Yours is exactly what I wanted.”
“And I always wanted curls.” Cleo laughs lightly. “If only we could swap.”
“If only,” I say.
We look at each other. Those two words, so full of longing, hang in the air between us.
“What’s he like to work with?” she asks.
“Frank? He’s very smart. And, um, funny. And just an all-around decent chap.”
This last part I inexplicably say in a cockney accent. I wonder if I will ever be able to look myself in the eye again. Cleo smiles generously at me.
“I’m glad,” she says. “That he’s nice.” She leans toward me conspiratorially and holds my gaze. I have the insane idea that she may be about to kiss me on the mouth when she says, “Lee, can I ask you something? It’s a little delicate—”
Her friend in the fuzzy sweater interrupts us. “Cley, do you know if we’re allowed to smoke in here?” He gives us a quick appraising glance. “Are you two about to make out or something?”
Cleo colors. She is so pale you can literally watch the blood rise to the surface of her skin.
“This is my friend Quentin,” she says.
“Best friend,” says Quentin.
I haven’t heard anyone referred to as that since high school. That was it, I realized. Cleo, her life, her friends, were still that of a girl’s. I looked older than her when I was eighteen. I probably was older than her when I was eighteen.
“You’ll have to ask Frank if you can smoke,” says Cleo.
As if conjured by his name, Frank appears with Anders in tow. I can’t be sure, but I think I see a flicker of panic in his eyes.
“I see you’re meeting Cleo’s real husband,” he says, patting Quentin on the back.
Quentin looks at Cleo with territorial pride.
“I’m Eleanor, by the way,” I say.
“Frank, I’m smoking in here, okay?” says Quentin.
“Your name’s Eleanor?” asks Cleo.
“You girls look great,” says Anders. “Love the dresses.”
“Cleo’s is a jumpsuit,” says Quentin.
“You’re Eleanor?” Cleo says again.
“Love the jumpsuit then,” says Anders.
“You can smoke out the window over there,” says Frank.
Quentin rolls his eyes and removes the unlit cigarette from his mouth. “Coming, Cleo?” he asks, though it is more of a demand.
“One second,” says Cleo, turning back to me.
“Do you … Did you think I was someone else?” I ask her.
“Cleo,” whines Quentin.
“I said give me a second,” says Cleo with the slightest edge in her voice.
She turns back to me. Watching Cleo compose her face is like watching a vase shatter backward. All the pieces suddenly zoom back together.
“I thought your name was Lee … I was confused.”
“Cley, can you come help me bring out the Secret Santa gifts?” interjects Frank. His face is all twitchy and tense.
“Please excuse me,” she says, following him away. She looks strangely dazed.
“Typical,” spits Quentin and storms off to smoke out the open window alone.
And so I am left with Anders. He is looking at the Christmas tree, blinking one eye, then the other, in time to the flashing lights.
*
I take the elevator down to the lobby. A group of accounts people come in from smoking outside. I don’t want them to see my face, so I bend over like I’m trying to lace my shoe. Their laughter bounces off the floors. I take out my phone. It only rings once.
“Ma,” I say quietly.
“What’s wrong?” she says.
“I have to tell you,” I say.
“What is it?” she says. “Do you need me to come get you? I’m getting my keys.”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me.
“He’s married, Ma.” I say. “He’s married to someone else.”
I put my hand over my mouth to quiet the little choking noises I’m making.
“Myke’s married?”
“No, Frank’s married.” I laugh in spite of myself and rub snot on my sleeve. “Myke’s an idiot.”
There is silence on the other end. I hear her exhale.
“Oh, Ellie,” she says. “I thought you were going to tell me something really terrible, like you were moving back to LA.”
*
The next morning my mother makes me pancakes before work while I lay my head on my arms and moan. Outside, it is snowing. I try to inhale the flakes as I walk to the train. I need something pure inside me. Finally one lands on my tongue. Nothing.
*
“How’s your day going?” Jacky asks me.
I lift my head up from my arms.
“It’s no double dolphin kiss,” I say.
Jacky roars with laughter.
“Nothing is, hon,” she says.
*
It’s the day before the office closes for two weeks. Frank and I are walking to lunch when an Orthodox Jew approaches us. He asks if we’re Jewish. The wrong half, says Frank, but I tell him I am. He smiles and wishes me a happy Hanukkah.
The wrong half. I keep repeating the phrase in my mind as we walk. I want to tell Frank that there is no wrong half, no halves at all in fact, that if there were, we’d be busy halving ourselves again and again until we got to the little square of us that was good and then we would all be free to love and be loved.
“Let’s go through the park,” says Frank, nudging me in the direction of the gates.
I squint into the icy sunlight. The path sparkles with a thin layer of frost. Everything is hard and bright, like I’m looking out from inside a diamond.
“So, you’re Jewish?” Frank says.
“You couldn’t tell?” I say.
“My mother always wanted me to marry a Jewish girl,” he says.
“I just realized that marriage is the definition of temp-to-perm,” I say.
“What?” says Frank.
“Temporary to permanent,” I say. “That’s what I am.”
“Oh, you’re perm,” says Frank. “You’re about as perm as they come.”
A breeze filled with light and ice circles us. A police officer sitting on a bench unwraps a silver Hershey’s kiss. Children scream in ecstasy on a playground out of sight. We stop walking. Frank is looking at me. I am looking at Frank. This is a place of exquisite beauty and extreme danger.
CHAPTER NINE
January