“Annie? Are you…are you all right?”
“No,” I blurted, shaking my head and obviously feeling more afraid than sane, because I blurted, “I’m not all right. I’m all wrong. I’ve ruined everything. I’m in love with him, and I didn’t tell him. Instead, I ran away when I found out something that I didn’t know. I didn’t know that he knew who I was. And when I found out that he knew, that he knew about who I was all along but loved me anyway, wanted me anyway, forgave me anyway, I panicked and left because his love felt like a manipulation. But it isn’t, and his emails were the only way he had of telling me how he felt without me freaking out like a ‘Freakout Francine!’ And instead of admitting the truth and owning my part and accepting his feelings and trusting him, I turned and fled like a spineless asshole.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yes. ‘Oh, dear’ is right. I’m totally fucked, aren’t I?”
“Uh….”
“It’s okay, you can say it. You can say, ‘Annie, you are fucked.’ I mean, what kind of person falls in love with Ronan Fitzpatrick but is too much of a hypocrite and coward to own up to those feelings, especially when I know—I know for a fact—that they’re reciprocated! I know it, Joan! But not anymore because he wants me off the account!”
I might have been slightly hysterical at this point. I wasn’t crying, but I was screaming at my boss.
“Annie, calm down.”
“I can’t! I can’t calm down, Joan. I can no longer keep my shit together. You are the closest thing I have to a real-life friend, and you intimidate the crap out of me. I have no one. I had someone, but I threw him away, twice. Two times. I thought I didn’t need anyone. I was wrong. I’m so very wrong…I’m a spineless asshole.”
I was pacing the apartment, making contingency plans, because I was pretty sure I was about to be fired. My blog could support me, pay all my bills…assuming I wasn’t about to be outed as The Socialmedialite by the dunghead who’d stolen my laptop. Then I would become a true hermit. A shut-in, finding photos for my blog from other sources. Maybe I would get a ferret. A cat just felt too benign. My kind of crazy deserved an ambiguously cute rodent with a penchant for biting.
Really, I had more money than I needed. Years of spending funds only on takeout, tea, and pastries had yielded a significant savings. Being miserly with my finances and feelings was about to pay off in the most tragic way possible.
“Listen to me—”
“I’m fired, aren’t I? It’s okay if I am; just tell me now. If I’m going to lose my shit, I might as well lose all of it at once and have a shit storm of shittiness.”
“Annie, shut up and listen.”
I snapped my mouth shut and sat down heavily on my couch, released a resigned exhalation, and bit my bottom lip to keep from saying anything else.
“Now….” Joan cleared her throat, and I heard some movement in the background. I thought I heard her snapping her fingers. She often snapped her fingers at people when she wanted their attention.
I prepared myself for what would undoubtedly come next, and tangentially I decided that I should have invested in a therapist years ago. Then I could have called her or him rather than committing professional suicide. Therapists always struck me as a hire-a-friend service. Therapists are to mental and emotional purging what prostitutes are to physical urges.
Amidst my meanderings about prostitutes and therapists and ferrets, Joan surprised the cuss out of me.
Of note, she didn’t fire me.
Instead, she said, “Put on some tea. I’m coming over. And don’t even think about having another childish fit and leaving the apartment. You might have given Ronan Fitzpatrick the slip, but I will hunt you down and make your life very uncomfortable until I am satisfied that you’ve learned your lesson. You can’t run away from people who care about you and are invested in your success and happiness. It’s a dick move, Annie. Don’t be a dick.”
Also of note, she used the word “dick.”
“Uh….” What?
Before I could say anything, Joan abruptly hung up, leaving me staring at my apartment, wondering into what bizarre universe I’d just stumbled.
***
I didn’t run away. Instead, I did as I was instructed and put the tea kettle on, prepared two cups of Earl Grey, and changed into a black T-shirt and black yoga pants.
Joan arrived no less than twenty minutes later; she must’ve rushed, taken the company car. Maybe she flew on her broom…. Whether she was a good witch or a bad witch had never quite been settled. For now, I assumed she was a good witch with ruthless tendencies.
I opened the door and stepped back, my eyes wide as she strolled in—giving me the once-over as she passed.
“First of all, you’re not fired, so you can wipe that look of panic off your face.”
I shut the door and followed my boss into my apartment. She looked somehow shorter here. Maybe it was the lighting.
She continued as she scanned my place, inspecting books on my shelves and frowning at my desk in the living room. “I do not excel at this type of thing, so I’ll just tell you what I think. Then we can sit on the couch and drink tea and do whatever it is that women friends do when one of them is having a crisis. Here is what I think: you’re having a colossal overreaction. Mr. Fitzpatrick is on his way to New York as we speak. He took the first flight out of Ireland this morning—I imagine he did so once he discovered you’d left. When he called me, he sounded angry, yes. But he also sounded concerned about you, about your being forced into taking on his account, forced into a relationship for the sake of his career.”
This news should have been a relief. Instead, it just made me feel more like a spineless asshole. “But he’s not the problem. I’m the coward. I’m the one who left. I’m the one that overreacted when I found out…when he told me about the thing with the thing.”
“The thing with the thing? Are you having a seizure? Suffering from aphasia?”
“No,” I huffed, pulling my hand through my hair and scratching my scalp. “He found out who I really am.”
“He found out about your home life? When you were a child?”
“No. Not that, I told him about that.” I waved her question away. “He found out about who I am now, what I do when I’m not at work or working. Actually, he knew all along, and I didn’t know. And now that I know that he knew…I just don’t know.”
“Annie, stop speaking in code. I can’t help you see reason and get your shit together if you don’t tell me what’s really going on. Why is it that you left Mr. Fitzpatrick, the man that you supposedly love and trust?”
I peered at her from between my fingers and shook my head. “I can’t tell you. If I tell you, then you will fire me.”
Joan frowned at me, her gaze feeling remarkably penetrating and shrewd.
Then I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as she said, “Oh, I think I understand. This is about your stolen laptop and hobby blog, isn’t it? You should know the laptop was recovered before it could be hacked—Ronan told me on the phone. Your secret is still relatively safe.”
I straightened. My hands dropped as I held her gaze but said nothing. I couldn’t speak. The news that they’d recovered my laptop before I was exposed should have eclipsed everything else. It didn’t. The fact that Joan knew my secret was the only take-home message.
Her lips curved into something resembling a smirk, and she shook her head. “He knew all along, did he?” Then she added as though speaking to herself, “Ronan Fitzpatrick is smarter than I thought.”
Again, and for the second time in a half hour, I wondered into what bizarre universe I’d just stumbled.