Rich and Pretty(2)
Huck’s office has dormer windows from which you can see the backs of all the houses on the next block over. Lauren and Sarah used to smoke cigarettes in there, fanning the smoke out of the open window, even though no one would have smelled it because at the time Huck himself went through half a pack a day, the Kents burning away to nothing in the ashtray as he typed furiously about what Johnson got wrong in Vietnam or the welfare state’s inherent evils. They were idiots as teenagers.
Lulu is retired. Her one album—a couple of traditional corridos, a Chilean tune closely associated with Joan Baez, a few folky pop songs—remains a cult favorite, had a bit of a renaissance when one of her originals was used over the opening titles of what turned out to be a blockbuster holiday film. Royalties: one way the rich get richer. The voice is not entirely gone, though it’s changed, deepened, grown slack, as female voices do with age. She’d never seriously made a go of it, had ended up married while only twenty-four, which was how it was done at the time. She’d followed the rest of the script: decamping to New Haven and making lunches and dinners for Huck, as though he were her child, tagging along to Washington and dressing to impress for various, boring parties, giving birth, going out to dinner, decorating the Connecticut house, hosting fund-raisers for this and that. It’s time-consuming, being a part of this family. Lauren never knew three busier people. It’s remarkable that none of them actually have jobs.
They’re throwing a party tonight. Something to do with a book, maybe, she can’t remember, but Sarah has insisted that she come, has reminded her about it with weekly e-mails for two months now, as well as helpful voice-mail messages:
Hey Lolo, it’s me, don’t forget, Thursday night, my parents’ place, you promised promised promised, wear something amazing, be your usual beautiful self, but don’t be late, I’m going to have no one to talk to because Dan can’t make it because who cares OK, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.
Lauren’s office is freezing. You could keep butter on the desk. You could perform surgery. Every woman in the office—they’re all women—keeps a cashmere sweater on the back of her chair. They sit, hands outstretched over computer keyboards like a bum’s over a flaming garbage can. The usual office noises: typing, telephones, people using indoor voices, the double ding of an elevator going down. For some reason, the double ding of the elevator going down is louder than the single ding of the elevator going up. There’s a metaphor in there, waiting to be untangled. They make cookbooks, these women. There’s no food, just stacks of paper and editorial assistants in glasses. She’s worked here for four years. It’s fine.
Today is different because today there’s a guy, an actual dude, in the office with them, not a photographer or stylist popping by for a meeting, as does happen: He’s a temp, because Kristen is having a baby and her doctor put her on bed rest. Lauren isn’t totally clear on what Kristen does, but now there’s a dude doing it. He’s wearing a button-down shirt and jeans, and loafers, not sneakers, which implies a certain maturity. Lauren’s been trying to get him to notice her all day. She’s the second-prettiest woman in the office, so it isn’t hard. Hannah, the prettiest, has a vacant quality about her. She’s not stupid, exactly—in fact, she’s very competent—but she doesn’t have spark. She’s not interesting, just thin and blond, with heavy eyeglasses and a photograph of her French bulldog on her computer screen.
Lauren has it all planned out. She’ll walk past his desk a couple of times, which isn’t suspicious because his desk isn’t far from the kitchen, and the kitchen is where the coffee is, and by the third time, he’ll follow her in there, and she’ll make a wisecrack about the coffee, and he’ll say it’s not so bad, and they’ll talk, and exchange phone numbers, e-mail addresses, whatever, and then later they’ll leave the office at the same time, ride down together in the elevator and not talk because they both understand that the social contract dictates that sane people do not talk in elevators, and then he’ll let her go through the revolving door first, even though she’s pretty sure that etiquette has it that men precede women through revolving doors, and then they’ll both be standing on Broadway, and there will be traffic and that vague smell of charred, ethnic meat from the guy with the lunch cart on the corner, and he’ll suggest they get a drink, and she’ll say sure, and they’ll go to the Irish pub on Fifty-Fifth Street, because there’s nowhere else to go, and after two drinks they’ll be starving, and he’ll suggest they get dinner, but there’s nowhere to eat in this part of town, so they’ll take the train to Union Square and realize there’s nowhere to eat there either, and they’ll walk down into the East Village and find something, maybe ramen, or that Moroccan-y place that she always forgets she likes, and they’ll eat, and they’ll start touching each other, casually but deliberately, carefully, and the check will come and she’ll say let’s split it, and he’ll say no let me, even though he’s a temp and can’t make that much money, right? Then they’ll be drunk, so taking a cab seems wise and they’ll make out in the backseat, but just a little bit, and kind of laugh about it, too: stop to check their phones, or admire the view, or so he can explain that he lives with a roommate or a dog, or so she can tell him some stupid story about work that won’t mean anything to him anyway because it’s only his first day and he doesn’t know anyone’s name, let alone their personality quirks and the complexities of the office’s political and social ecosystem.