After responding to two emails from Henry, one about the Black Soul project and another vague one about hearing about an exciting opportunity for me on Monday, I declared my mother officially wrong. I’d taken advantage of Saturday afternoon and managed to respond to not just one, but two work emails. Booya.
That’s when I noticed the email that I should have seen first. I had been so curious to find out what Henry’s “secret project” was, and then ultimately so disappointed to discover he hadn’t actually told me that I’d skimmed right over email from the [email protected].
Now that I looked at it, there was a string of three of them grouped together on my Gmail app.
The first one read,
Subject: You know you want to…
Take the job, Maverick. I’ll make it worth your while.
~EFB
P.S. I promise to stay out of your way.
I pondered what the F could possibly stand for while my stubborn will fought career-obsessed butterflies in a battle for power.
Francis?
Frederick?
Fitzgerald?
Ferret?
Ezra Fucking Baptiste? I wouldn’t put it past him.
Moving onto the second email, I opened it with more trepidation.
Subject: About last night.
Molly,
Forgive my late email. I was wired after the party and couldn’t sleep. The truth is, I’ve looked up your profile on your company website, and while I’m impressed with your work, you’re still green. I’m offering you a job that I believe will build your portfolio and credibility. Working for me will help you land better clients. And, you should know that I’m willing to pay whatever your fees are. This is a win-win for both of us.
~EFB
One more thought. I see that you are drawn to grey and yellow, but I’d rather not.
Was he serious?
Grey and yellow?!
What did he know about design? Nothing! Nada!!! Zilch! He should stick to what he was good at— being an asshole—and leave me and my favorite the trending colors alone.
And. AND! He’d spelled grey with an E when everybody knew that gray with an A was the American-English spelling.
And it was romantic.
It was the romantic way to spell gray.
I mean for that reason alone it was obvious this man was a sociopath. Or worse. A realist.
Gross!
Fury convinced me to open the third email. Well, fury and morbid curiosity.
Subject: This will be good for you.
I’ll see you Monday. We can discuss the details then.
~EFB
Also, I don’t know if I said it already, but I just wanted to thank you again for your work on the engagement party. I appreciate all that you did.
One final thought, since she’s a pain in my ass and reading over my shoulder, I’m forced to tell you that Dillon says hello. And that she enjoyed meeting you.
That’s all, Molly. Talk to you soon.
For half a second, I pondered all of his post scripts and how he seemed to say more at the end of his emails than at the beginning. But then I pushed away that adorable weird quirk to make room for the justifiable outrage boiling in my blood.
He’d insulted me on so many different levels. It was hard to decide which one should be the most upsetting.
From assuming I was more interested in money than integrity to insulting my design style again to assuming I would take the job simply because he demanded it. The man was intolerable.
He clearly wasn’t used to hearing the word “no.” Or “no, thank you.” Or “not a chance in hell, buddy.”
I had the strongest urge to paint again, but only so I could create something vaguely in his image and then turn it into a dart board.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed, I repressed the flattered preening of my ego. Okay, for like a hot second I could admit that it was nice to be considered for Ezra’s website revamp. And not just considered, but aggressively sought after.
I had no doubt he would pay well. And somehow I knew that if I demanded more money, he would pay that too.
Not that I would. I wasn’t totally greedy.
But not for one second did I really believe that he would keep his nose out of my business. In fact, for hardly knowing him or seeing him or wanting anything to do with him, he was perpetually in my business.
I held my phone with both hands and tapped out the quickest reply I could. There was no reason to prolong whatever was happening here. The emails needed to stop. The unsolicited advice needed to end. And Ezra Baptiste just needed to disappear from my life altogether.
Subject: Let me stop you right there.
Dear Ezra Franklin Baptiste…
Hello, Ezra Fenwick Baptiste…
What up EFB…
Ezra,
There’s no need to call me Monday since we’ll have nothing to discuss. I apologize that you’re so set on the idea of us working together when I am super set on us not working together. If you’re really that interested in SixTwentySix though, I’m happy to refer you to another designer that I trust.
Best,
MM.
P.S. Tell, Dillon I say hello back and that I enjoyed meeting her too. And that she’s hands down my favorite Baptiste.
I pressed send with a feeling of complete satisfaction. I’d remained professional, polite and persistent. All the right P’s. Now he would get the message loud and clear and move on.
He was a successful business owner with restaurants to run and empires to build. His attention span was probably the equivalent to a chipmunk on crack. Monday would come and go and so would his thoughts about me or what I could do for his business or my penchant toward gray and yellow and all things green.
And I would be more vigilant to avoid Ezra as often as possible. Now that the engagement party was over, I wouldn’t need to seek him out again, and the chances of me ever running into him on accident were very slim.
It wasn’t like we ran in the same circles or shopped at the same organic, uppity grocery stores or vacationed on the same private tropical islands. I would stay on my side of the city and he could stay on his.
There was only Vera’s wedding to worry about, but we would be back to being strangers by then. Like divorced strangers. We could share joint custody of Vera and Killian, alternating weekends and Wednesdays.
We would pass each other coming and going or at the occasional party hosted by our mutual friends, but he had his world and I had mine and ne’er would they ever meet.
I stared at my phone, refusing to close my eyes and conjure his eyes, his nose, or the breadth of his strong hands. I ignored the tingle in my fingers begging me to paint and draw and create something that could capture that unnamed thing in him I found so obnoxiously fascinating. As I finished my hair and put my makeup on, I stubbornly refused to head back to my studio and examine what I’d done the night before.
As I made lunch and took two Tylenol, two Advil and an Alka-Seltzer, I chose to forget about the advice Ezra had given last night and the way he’d focused so intently on me.
And then I proceeded to erase from my mind the three emails today, the emails from before that, and every interactions I’d had with him since I met him.
He had his life. And I had mine. And everything about us was too different to even consider working together or near each other or in a general vicinity of each other. We were too different and too set in our own ways.
Good luck, Ezra Fezziwig Baptiste. Godspeed.
Chapter Ten