I Wish I Was Like You Page 17

“Eve is worse,” I said. “She’s a phony. She’s old. What is she even doing here?”

  “You’re such a dodo. You think getting older is a crime?”

  “No. But you can do some things when you’re young that you should get over by the time you’re Eve’s age.”

  “Like what?” he asked.

  “Drinking all night…”

  “Says the girl who once barfed in a trash can because she couldn’t make it to the bathroom.” He laughed.

  “How did you know…?”

  “You told me last night,” he said.

  “Well, I’m not middle aged. I’m, like, twenty-four. Five. Four.”

  “Too drunk to remember how old you are?” He slid off the desk and headed toward the production room. “I have work to do. Then I’m going home to sleep for three days. Have a holly jolly Christmas, dodo!”

  I stumbled home to my apartment through eerie, almost empty streets. A taxi cruised past at ten miles an hour. The white gray sky began to shimmer. Raindrops speckled and then pelted the pavement. I tried to move faster but every muscle in my body ached.

  I was half a block from my building when a movement caught my attention. Peripherally I noticed a silhouette, a flimsy form arched and clinging to the bricks beside a white window ledge. I stopped to squint at it through the rain and thought the figure moved, inching up the side of the building next to my apartment, flattening and then arching and moving again.

  I held both hands up as a visor over my eyes but the rain was coming down hard. I could barely make out the corner of the roof. I couldn’t say whether the shape I’d seen was three-dimensional or an optical illusion, shape or shadow, animal or human. But when I reached the arched portico to my building and heard a low whistling nearby—behind me yet strangely close to my ear—I bolted inside and raced up the stairs.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The year 1994 began with an announcement from Carl. Circulation had dropped by another two percent and things had to change. He looked directly at Eve when he said this at the top of the staff meeting. Afterward she disappeared for the rest of the day.

  “Where’s Eve?” Moo asked around three o’clock.

  “Nearest bar?” I said. “The Comet?”

  Moo frowned at me. “Why don’t you ever come to my brunch?”

  “I was planning to come to the next one,” I lied.

  “It’s a social thing but we make plans, too, talk about projects and share ideas. You don’t know what you’re missing. One time, one of the editors from the Stranger showed up.”

  “Really?” These stories were legion. ‘The night Courtney Love ran over my foot at SIFF.’ ‘The party where I told Eddie Vedder what his fans won’t tell him.’

  “Yeah. He was drunk and I caught him going through my underwear drawer. He called me a liar and Joey my boyfriend punched him in the face.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “But you totally don’t have to do it, if it isn’t your thing. I mean it isn’t required. Eve never shows up.”

  “No, I want to be there. I’m definitely coming to the next one,” I said. If I could count on Eve not being there maybe it was a good place for some damaging gossip.

  “Cool!” Moo flashed one of her bright white ‘everything’s okay, then’ smiles and left my cubicle. I heard her say to someone in the corridor, “She said she would,” and Charlie came strolling in.

  “Are you acting casual?” I asked.

  “Are you coming to brunch?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “To be part of the—team, I guess.”

  He studied me as if I were an exotic bird behind glass. Then he crossed one foot over the other, spun 180 degrees, and walked out of my cubicle.

  “I told you,” I heard Moo murmur.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “Hey, Greta!” Shelly called out. “Eve says meet her at you-know-where. Have fun.”

  I wondered how many people were aware of my feelings toward Eve. It seemed unfair to be singled out as the mean-spirited one, given how much the whole staff made fun of Eve behind her back. Somehow I’d gone too far, taken a more hostile tone or otherwise tipped people to my true intentions. There were times when Charlie looked at me as though surprised by my nature.

  Two strips of bacon and an egg over medium stared up at me. Ileen’s, née Ernie Steele’s, offered no pretentious items aimed at brunch lovers. No veggie quiche with a side salad. The menu remained simple even after the joint changed hands. The most noticeable upgrade? The new management scrubbed decades of brown grease off the white Naugahyde walls.

  I’d just come from a fairly raw conversation with Eve, in which she hinted at the possibility of assigning work, selecting the shows I would see and review. Over my assertion that choosing the shows was my prerogative, she claimed I wasn’t seeking out the most provocative material. We had to increase circulation and I had to shape up, she told me. Passing the heat from Carl right along to me. Her proposal would make my job a lot grimmer than before. I imagined slogging through an adaptation of The Call of the Wild at a children’s theater, or a solo performance of Macbeth set at an insane asylum.

  “Are you eating your food or hypnotizing it?”

  There’s a moment before acknowledging a stranger’s intrusion when almost anything can happen. Some people would have ignored the comment. Others might have engaged in conversation and then gone on about their business. What I did is hard to explain. Chalk it up to fatigue and a three-day hangover.

  “Why?” I asked. “Do you want it?”

  The formerly retreating young man, slender and brown-haired, with a quick dazzling smile, climbed onto the barstool next to me. “My name’s Nate,” he said. “Are you inviting me to breakfast? Because…” He glanced at his watch and snatched a slice of bacon. “I’m free.”

  The waitress poured a splash of coffee into my half-empty cup. She stared at Nate on her way back down the bar. He popped the bacon slice in his mouth and chomped it down.

  “What are you, a street urchin?” I asked. Avoiding his gaze, the flattering intensity of his attention.

  “Good guess,” he said. “Mime.” He touched my face with a fingertip, pointed at the corner of his eye and let it fall down his cheek.

  “You’re the shittiest mime,” I said.

  Nate pointed to his eyes with both index fingers and mimed one teardrop after another, a tsunami of tears.

  “Okay,” I said. “You’re an actor, right?”

  “Bless you, milady,” he said and mimed a flourish with an invisible hat. “No. Actually, I’m not an actor. Hate actors, don’t you? All the folderol and dressing up, it’s unconscionably self-serving and exhausting to watch. But seriously, are you having that slice of bacon?”

  I slid the plate over. He ate everything. He wiped his lips with a napkin and winked at the waitress when she gave him the stink eye on her way to the kitchen.

  “I love this dump,” he said. “Want to go for a walk?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “So I can bum a cigarette. I like to smoke after a fine meal.”

  An hour later we were sitting on the sofa in my apartment, naked, smoking cigarettes and drinking Chardonnay. My hair had fallen down in a long tangle over the course of three fucks, from front door to bedroom to kitchen to living room.

  “What is this guy hoping to find?” Nate asked. “Tell me more.”

  “I think he’s after a mirror image,” I said. “A little brother, a doll version of himself.”

  “A narcissist,” he said. “Easy one.” He scanned the room and made an exaggerated frown. “Don’t you subscribe to any magazines?”

  “No,” I confirmed.

  “For a journalist…” he said. He took a stroll along the periphery of the living room. I enjoyed the sight of his taut, tan ass in motion. “For any kind of writer, you don’t have many books.” He stood before the lone bookcase with i
ts secondhand collection of classics.

  “I have a few.” Feeling defensive and trying not to let on.

  “Just the basics,” he said with a laugh. “Where did you go to school?”

  “Is this a quiz?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Life is a quiz. What’s the guy’s name, again?”

  I was having second thoughts about enlisting him in my plan. It was a slight mechanism, taking shape in my mind during our second fuck. I’d reiterated and even instigated rumors about Eve. This was different. I would be setting in motion a series of deliberate actions designed to get Eve fired.

  “Carl,” I said. “His name is Carl.”

  “I need a portfolio,” he said. “That’s easy enough. Won’t the publisher, Carl, check my references?”

  “Not necessarily. It all depends on your charm. He won’t question your credentials if he thinks you’re cool.”

  “Well, am I cool?” he asked, still prowling the room.

  “You’re okay.”

  “Where do I plausibly meet Carl?” he asked and licked the back of my neck.

  “Brunch,” I said. “With me. Brunch at Moo’s house.”

  “You’ll introduce us?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “If you’re going to pass as a writer it’s crucial for Carl to discover you on his own. No introductions. You have to be fascinating enough to get his attention. All I can do is put you in close proximity. You have to take it from there.”

  “Fun. Why do I feel like I’m visiting another planet?”

  When we arrived Moo was on the front lawn, leaping in the air and swinging a croquet mallet into the branches of an elm tree. Three people I didn’t know cheered her on and sucked on cocktails adorned with straws and paper umbrellas. As Nate and I approached Moo waved and laughed.

  We entered the house as I had planned, with Nate a few steps behind. Anyone who noticed would assume we were together. Yet later I could plausibly say we were not, and I’d never met him, he was just someone who drifted in around the time I arrived.

  Charlie greeted me in the foyer. “Hey there. At last! Come have a drink. You’ll need it.”

  Nate headed off down the hall, asking people along the way where he could find the bathroom.

  “By yourself today?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Is that okay?”

  I handed him the wine I’d swiped from Vaughn. It was a decent bottle of Beaujolais. Naturally, I’d saved the good stuff for myself.

  A Hammerbox tape pounded away in another room at medium volume.

  “What is this?” an unseen guest shouted. “Who changed the music?”

  Another voice replied, “Are you kidding? I threw that R.E.M. CD out the window.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Fuck your elevator music. This is Hammerbox! Carrie Fucking Akre! Stay away from the CDs and the tapes! I’m watching you…”

  I was surprised to see Steve holding court in the hallway. Two of the minions slouched close to their god, throwing ugly looks at anyone stupid enough to approach.

  Charlie steered me past a dining room full of people drinking and arguing about Newt Gingrich. In the kitchen I found another twenty or so people clustered around the counter, picking at something. Closer inspection revealed a side of beef, rare-pink and scarred with claw marks from dozens of forks. A nearby table was piled with cheese and bread and condiments.

  “Is this brunch?” I asked Charlie who stood next to me with his drink.

  “You missed the pig on a spit. That was the last brunch before the holidays.”

  “This is weird,” I said. “I thought Moo was vegetarian.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “I don’t know.” I really couldn’t put my finger on the reason for my impression. “She seems healthy.”

  “She’s Superman healthy,” he said. “She’s an Olympian. She could kill a man with her thighs.”

  “I assume you’ve tested your theory,” I said.

  “Do I look dead?”

  “Maybe you were the exception.”

  I stood peering down at the ravaged side of beef. There was so much blood I wanted to stare into it. I imagined the outline of my head reflected there. I imagined the guests murdering the cow in the back yard and then hauling it on their shoulders into the kitchen.

  “I need to adjust my idea of brunch,” I said, and Charlie roared with laughter. Over his shoulder I glimpsed Nate in the doorway, accepting a beer from Carl.

  Denny between Bellevue and Olive, the building repainted inside and refurbished. The new owners have slathered white wash over the mold but it’s there, yearning beneath the surface.

  A security door with intercom system keeps out undesirables. Hardwood floors grace my old apartment. The kitchen has been expanded and combined with the living room in an ‘open floor plan,’ offering the illusion of more space. The bedroom sports an array of sun therapy lights. Just because you live in the Pacific Northwest doesn’t mean you have to be subject to little things like weather. The rest of the apartment is stripped back, clean and modern, with the slightly mad look of a woman after a third facelift.

  Here you lie, staring at a TV screen, on your $1,500 Danish sofa. Another bad day at the office, thanks to Sadie the Adenoidal Project Manager. She’s turned your methodical pace into an issue, and encouraged your teammates to do the same. She’s mastered a tone of voice to use when mocking you when you’re five minutes late for a meeting, or when you take too long in the bathroom. A smidgen more hostility and you could report her to HR for bullying. As it is, she shames you daily and gets away with it.

  Your only release comes from watching these films—a stack of them sits on the $1,100 coffee table—in which women who resemble Sadie are made to run for their lives, pursued by men with weapons. On screen, Sadie scrambles barefoot through a forest until she falls, cutting her hands to ribbons, and turns to find the man with the hatchet standing over her.

  Do you feel that? It’s a sort of pulsing, not quite a throb, in your right side. You’re only twenty-five, so you never visit a doctor. If you did you might discover this congenital condition in time. You’ve considered a check-up but you just don’t have time. Work is crazy, and you have to pay for this place, now a $425,000 condo with your name on the contract.

  Sleep well.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Two weeks later, Eve’s reckoning began with a bang. The front door almost came off its hinges when Carl sailed through. We were all sitting around griping and waiting for the staff meeting to begin.

  “Where’s Eve?” Carl asked. He tugged off his gloves and jacket and glanced around like he expected to find her hiding behind the furniture.

  “Should be here soon,” Charlie said.

  “Probably,” I said. “Maybe.”

  “Why does she, why does she, why doesn’t she come in early? She should be excited to be here. What if there’s, what if I have good news to share at the meeting? I’m excited about it, and why isn’t she here? Never mind. Good news, everybody except Eve! Great news! I met this guy, this whiz kid, this young writer and he’s fucking amazing! You won’t believe it, he’s got credits you won’t believe, and he’s been looking for a paper with potential, he just moved to Seattle, he turned down offers from the Weekly and the Stranger, thought those guys would cramp his style, and this is the best thing that could happen right now. Round of applause!”

  We applauded. I thought I was suppressing a grin until I caught Charlie watching me.

  “Is he going to write features?” Ed asked.

  “Features, right, tech, business, anything he wants, he’s going to be our news editor and we finally get the fucking Albanian poets and the Everyman Named Chad and the Lady Welders off the cover,” Carl said.

  Ed grimaced. “I didn’t know Eve was looking for a news editor.”

  “She doesn’t, she didn’t, when we talked about this weeks ago she promised to make
changes. What changes has she made? I don’t know, I don’t see it. We’re still fighting for an audience every issue. So this is where we’re going, more timely stuff about business and politics, tech news, political cartoons, all the stuff that’s booming. It’s our fucking name, right? Boom City should be the paper everyone picks up. They don’t know what they’ll read but they know it’s going to be the read of the day. Right? The city’s growing and we have to grow.”

  “What does Eve say?” Charlie asked. His expression told me he already knew the answer. “What does she say about this new guy?”

  “She doesn’t know yet,” Carl said. “If she were on time she would know but she’s late so I’ll tell her when she gets here.”

  “You’re interviewing him, and she doesn’t know yet?”

  Carl studied his shoes. He pulled on his jacket then his gloves.

  “I hired him last night,” he said. “He’ll be here in a couple of hours. His name is Nate Shore. Hey, Shelly, bring in a desk and set up a workstation when he gets here.”

  “A desk? From where?”

  “Buy one. Order furniture and have it delivered. He’ll need everything, including a PowerBook, put it on my card, take care of it. This is great news, you guys. It’s going to put us on the fucking map. Finally! Great news!”

  He raised his fist and jumped up like he was trying to touch the ceiling. Then he spun sideways and dashed out the door the way he came in.

  Nobody said anything for a minute. We sat there in the wake of Carl’s big dream, stunned and uncertain. Moo was the first to stand. She picked up her notebook and headed barefoot back to the sales desk. Gradually the rest of us followed suit and no one suggested going out for breakfast.

  In the afternoon the freelance reviewers wandered in on lunch break from their jobs around town. They stopped by to pick up their mail and catch up on staff gossip. A couple of the minions visited with Steve in his cubicle.

  We were far enough from our next deadline to be lazy. We pretended to read the last issue of Boom City or make notes while we eavesdropped on Carl and Eve arguing in her cubicle.