two days a week.
“You’re probably safe, Britta,” I said. “Lucky you.”
“Hey, I paid my dues,” Britta said, glancing toward the bar where Numero Uno was still monopolizing Jack.
Two years ago, when Phoebe falsely accused Britta of being a cocaine addict, Britta rose to the challenge and emerged from the coffee room with her nostrils caked in white. Vaseline coated with Sweet ’N Low. Numero Uno went ballistic, calling in HR and security. When the dust settled, Britta lodged an HR complaint against Phoebe Laguno, and Numero Uno Laguno was sent off for job retraining at a spa upstate. Since then, Phoebe Laguno didn’t mess with Britta Swensen.
“Oh, tell me it’s not Jack,” I said.
“He seems to be the flavor of the month,” said Lyle, the office slut who would probably be voted most likely to step on his own dick. With spiky hair, buff body and puppy-dog eyes, Lyle was a real hottie. Too bad about the sex-compulsion thing.
The conversation shifted to a critique of the best restaurants in Manhattan, and names such as Le Bernardin, Per Se and Gramercy Tavern were tossed about. Britta said she refused to eat anyplace that wasn’t five stars, and her job-share partner, Imani, complained that she didn’t like having to make a reservation so far in advance. Lyle was a fan of steakhouses like Smith & Wollensky and Ruth’s Chris and Peter Luger in Brooklyn. “I’m a red-meat man,” Lyle said. Somehow, I was not surprised. And Byron and Nick argued that their clients liked places with excellent service, where the wait staff called them by name.
I listened in patiently, unable to add much since I so rarely had the chance to eat out anymore, and when I did step out with Gracie or Harrison we weren’t dining at five-star restaurants. I would have put in a good word about Dish of Salt or the Russian Tea Room…or the margaritas at Arizona 206 and the view from Top of the Sixes, but these old stomping grounds of mine had closed down, making me feel slightly prehistoric. (Of course, if someone popped the question about where to find the best suckling pig, I was on it!) This was Jack’s world, part of the job to wine and dine clients, while I was at home pushing Cheerios and downing a yogurt. It hardly seemed fair, but then again, while Jack was outside scraping ice and snow off the car, I was often home in my slippers sipping coffee at the computer.
The sales team then covered bars—everything from singles bars to historic bars and taverns to gay bars in the Village and the current hot bars to see and be seen. Again, my lips were sealed.
Fast-forward to Broadway shows they’d seen recently. Did it count that Harrison and I almost saw The Producers with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick except that Jack’s out-of-town stay was extended and I couldn’t get a sitter?
When the Broadway tableau was depleted, talk moved to the network’s lineup this season: the sitcoms, sports events, reality shows and dramas designed to bring in high ratings shares and thus increase the price of commercial air time and boost station revenues. Familiarity with the network lineup was mandatory here. The sales staff needed to push the network shows and entice advertisers to buy into the dream. Which made it that much more embarrassing for me. I couldn’t recall a single show I’d seen on the Corstar network this year. Actually, I couldn’t recall any shows at all beyond the crime shows Jack and I watched after ten. I spent prime time giving baths, reading stories, and picking up LEGOs and dolls’ heads. Jack and I had been talking about getting satellite TV with a DVR, but the prospect of learning a new system was overwhelming. What if we couldn’t find Sesame Street for Dylan each morning, or SpongeBob for the girls?
I felt as if I should apologize to someone here, explain why I’d lost touch with Corstar’s lineup, beg forgiveness for my ignorance of top-rated shows and rising sitcom stars and crushes from teen dramas.
Just then the music stopped and the sound of a spoon clinking against a glass cut through the ballroom. Everyone turned toward the stage, where lights now shone on a bald man at the podium. “What about Bob?” someone called, eliciting a ripple of laughter. No Corstar event was complete without a few words from CEO Bob Filbert.
If network programming was a religion, Bob Filbert would be the pope. This was the man who could offer me dispensation for my lack of devotion to the station. The corporate Big Daddy smiled down upon us all, proclaiming it a delightful celebration and a successful year for Corstar. “I know you’ve heard murmurings of the changes in the offing, and I’m hear to say that the rumors are probably true. We’re going to be realigning our power here at Corstar. Moving the cheese, so to speak.”
I squirmed in my seat, recrossing my bare legs under the table. Corporate-speak and I were not compatible. During the short time after college that I’d worked for that insurance consulting firm, I had quickly burned out on the insider’s jargon, the anagrams and nicknames for procedures and contracts. When my boss had explained for the zillionth time that the pink copy of a requisition form was a pinky and the green copy a greeny, I had looked him in the eye and flatly told him: “I quitty.” I have never been good with foreign languages and I just couldn’t suffer corporate-speak gladly.
“Now, it’s human nature to resist change. We all know that. But I challenge you to keep yourself open to revision and progress, and you’ll be delighted with the new face of Corstar. No one says it’ll be easy. We’re raising the bar, expecting more.”
I stifled a groan, knowing how Jack hated the “raising the bar” speech. “Fuck the bar,” he always said. “If I were a trained dog, maybe I’d jump higher, but I’m not. Filbert can take his freaking bar and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.” Without being too obvious I shot a look over to the bar where Jack stood tall, hands at his sides. While many of the men here tonight had rolls to hide under their suit jackets, Jack looked lean in his navy suit, and I longed to slide a hand under his crisp white shirt and run my palms down his firm abdomen, down, down, down. Maybe I would, as soon as we got home. I felt a secret thrill that he was going home with me—that handsome guy was my husband.
When Bob summed up his speech and announced: “Enjoy your dinner!” there was a mad scramble of the guests to tables. No one wanted to be stuck at a table with strangers or sitting beside the office black sheep. I walked to the bar, where my husband was ordering yet another scotch.
“I saved you a seat,” I said, moving closer to whisper, “between me and Judith, far, far from Numero Uno.”
He knocked back some scotch and let out a low rumble of pleasure. “Ah, Rubes, you sure know how to work a crowd.”
I touched the smooth sleeve of his navy suit and gave him a squeeze. “Can do.”
5
Ch-Ch-Changes!
“Ch-Ch-Changes! Bob will raise the bar. Ch-Changes. Don’t want to take it in the ass. Ch-Ch-Changes…” My charming husband wavered at the corner of Fifth and Fiftieth, grooving to his own angry rendition of one of our favorite Queen songs. Amazing how that guy can hold his liquor so well in a business setting. Once out the door, he’s just like every other loud, sloppy drunk.
“Got a little repressed anger there, palsy?” I asked.
“Barely repressed,” he roared, spinning toward me, then lurching back toward the avenue. “We won’t get screwed again! No, no!” he sang out, switching his parody to The Who.
I fastened the top button of my coat and looked up Fifth Avenue. No cabs in sight, yet. A group of us had taken a cab from the Gorham to Rockefeller Center to watch the skaters and see the Christmas tree, a beastly spruce that dominated the Plaza, colored lights blinking in its bobbing branches. Every year Jack and I talked about bringing the kids in to see it, and every year we talked ourselves out of facing the crush of crowds that thronged through Rockefeller Plaza on evenings and weekends. Besides, with a huge tree at the mall and a house three blocks from us strung with so many lights and illuminated inflatables that it resembled an amusement park, the kids would be unimpressed by the city’s display.
“You know they’d never let you go,” I told my husband. Everyone loved Jack, and he performed, a self-motivated man.