He’d flown out of the train so fast, it must have slipped out of his hand. I’d apparently been too busy admiring his juicy, trouser-hugged ass to notice. Picking the iPhone up, it felt hot in my hands. The case smelled of him. Wanting to sniff it closer to my nose, I restrained myself.
I covered my mouth and looked around. If my life were a TV show, the laugh track would have been inserted right about now. No one was looking at me. No one seemed to care that I had Mr. Fancy Pants’ phone.
What was I going to do with it?
Placing it inside my leopard-print purse, it felt like I was harboring a bomb as I made my way out of the station onto the sunny Manhattan sidewalk above. I could feel the phone vibrating with text notifications, and it rang at least once. I wasn’t ready to touch it again until I’d had my coffee.
After stopping at my regular street vendor, I sipped my cup of Joe as I walked the two blocks to work. On this particular day, I was running late, so I decided to forego uncovering Mr. Big Prick’s life until after lunchtime.
When I arrived at my desk, I took the phone out and realized the battery was in the red, so I connected it to my charger. My position as an assistant to a legendary advice columnist was certainly not my dream job, but it paid the bills. Ida Goldman was the owner of Ask Ida, a daily column that had been around for years. Ida had been trying to groom me lately, asking me to try my hand at writing some of the responses. Select write-ups were printed in the paper while answers to other submissions were posted on Ida’s website. Part of my job was to screen the questions that came in and decide which ones to pass along to my boss.
While Ida’s advice was always sensitive and politically correct, my take on things tended to be more to the point, basically cutting out the bullshit. As a result, she never actually published my responses. Occasionally, I couldn’t resist taking it upon myself to answer some of the questions that didn’t make the cut—the ones that would have ended up in the trash bin anyway. Some of these people really needed a clue, and I felt it was a disservice to ignore their pleas for help.
I just recently discovered that my husband has a porn stash. What do I do? –Trisha, Queens
Score! Invest in a good vibrator. Make sure you put everything back the way it was after you get your rocks off while he’s at work.
I got drunk at a party and kissed my best friend’s boyfriend. Now I can’t stop thinking about him. I feel horrible but think I might be falling for him now. Any words of wisdom? –Dana, Long Island
Yes. You’re a cunt. C you next Tuesday, Dana!
My boyfriend recently asked me to marry him. I said yes. He’s the sweetest, kindest man I’ve ever known. Problem is, the diamond he gave me was smaller than I hoped for. I don’t really want to hurt his feelings. I need to know a polite way to express my disappointment. –Lori, Manhattan
God has the same dilemma when it comes to you, sweetheart. P.S. When your fiancé dumps your selfish ass, give him my number.
Answering a few emails in an honest and forthright way always seemed to give me the energy I needed to jumpstart my day. The morning went by quickly. By noontime, Mr. Big Prick’s phone was now fully charged, so I took it with me into the break room. I had ordered Thai food in for both of us.
After we finished lunch, Ida left the room, giving me about ten minutes of privacy to sift through the phone. Luckily, it wasn’t password protected. First stop: photos. There weren’t many of them, and if I thought I was going to be able to collect clues as to who this guy was based on the pictures in his library, I had another thing coming. The first photo was of a small, fluffy, white dog. Looked like a terrier of some kind. The next photo was of a woman’s bare tits with a champagne bottle planted in the middle. They were pale, perfectly round and totally fake. Yuck. Then there were more photos of the little dog followed by a picture taken of a group of elderly women who looked like they were in a Jazzercise class. What the hell? I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. The last photo was a selfie of him and an old lady. He was dressed more casual, his hair a little mussed, and was actually smiling. He looked so incredibly handsome in that shot. It was hard to believe that this was the same stuck-up guy in a suit from the train, but the gorgeous face confirmed it was him.
Five more minutes until I had to return to my desk. There was no email account linked to the phone, so I opened his contacts instead and decided to call the very first name on the list: Avery.
***
“WELL, WELL. GRAHAM MORGAN. It’s been a long time. What happened? Have you run through the entire alphabet so soon and now you’re starting back at the beginning again? You remember I wasn’t one of your playthings, right?” I heard the blare of a horn and traffic in the background, followed by a car door slamming that muffled the city sounds. “To the Langston building. And don’t take the park. The cherry blossoms are in bloom, and I don’t need puffy skin before my meeting.” She finished barking at the driver and remembered the phone. “So, what is it, Graham?”
“Umm. Hi. It’s not Graham, actually. My name is Soraya.”