The Assistants(56)
Jesus.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” I said as honestly as I could. “Robert didn’t fire me exactly. It’s more like he gave me a nudge out of the nest.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Kevin said. “Was it your decision to leave?”
“Ultimately, yes,” I lied. “I got a generous severance package, and now I can focus all my attention on the site.”
“But the way you were escorted out, he made it look like you were some sort of criminal—”
I nearly spilled my second beer at the word. “That’s what they do when people who are close to Robert leave the company,” I said, which sounded plausible even to me. “It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if a crowd hadn’t formed to see me out.”
“So you quit.” Kevin’s puppy brows were crinkled in that way that suggested he didn’t fully believe me. “But everyone’s saying you were fired.”
“I didn’t want to be an assistant anymore,” I said. “Is that so hard for you to understand?”
Kevin drew back like I’d spit in his face. I hadn’t spit, I don’t think. I was pretty sure it was his sensitivity that made him draw back like that. It was a constant struggle for me to keep my Bronx in check and not steamroll over Kevin’s gentleness at any given moment.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. The truth is, I’m feeling a lot of different things right now. This is a big change for me, and I’m not great with change.”
I impressed even myself with this one.
Our food came, finally, and Kevin, recalibrated to his former balance, held a perfect forkful of his entrée up to my mouth. “Do you want to try this? I think it might be trout. Possibly in truffle oil?”
“I hate truffle oil,” I said.
“Yeah, f*ck truffle oil.” He threw his fork down onto his plate, smiling wide.
He was trying so hard to be a good sport.
But I was barely keeping it together.
There were suddenly so many variables, everything that felt like a given only yesterday now had to be called into question. Even my relationship with Kevin. If Robert had caught on to anything, or if my being fired wasn’t the end of this, or if I was going to Thelma and Louise it with Emily before the week was through, I should maybe, like, give Kevin a clue that things weren’t kosher. That everything wasn’t coming up roses. Or whatever other idiomatic cliché existed as shorthand for saying things had in fact become totally f*cked. What would such a clue be? I didn’t know, but blatant avoidance of meaningful conversation and random tantrum throwing appeared to be my current course of action till I came up with something better.
When dessert came, the flourless chocolate cake we ordered had walnuts hidden inside it. I wasn’t allergic—but, come on, walnuts?
“The flourless chocolate cake is a classic,” I shouted, loud enough for the entire airship to hear. “Why do this?”
Maybe our waiter had mentioned the walnuts during our chat and we’d missed it, but still.
Kevin called for the check.
We didn’t talk the entire walk back to my apartment, which was only about twelve minutes, yet a lot of time for silence. And when we reached my front door, I didn’t invite him inside. Instead I just stood there like a moron.
“Listen, Kevin,” I started to say—fully prepared to let him off the hook and break up with him right there—before he leaned in and kissed me.
I drifted backward, momentarily dazed. In spite of my hysteria, of behaving suspiciously and dodgily all night, of refusing to eat my dessert on principle—he still wanted to kiss me good night.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.” And he kissed me again.
The sensation of his lips on mine made the taut muscles of my jaw relax. My shoulders settled and the knot in my gut loosened just so. But I knew I had to go inside alone.
You’re likely to be wearing an orange jumpsuit by next week, Emily had said. What if she turned out to be right? And what if starting over in Mexico with a new identity, subsisting on empanadas or whatever, was better than finding out?
“Thank you for dinner.” I closed the door in Kevin’s sweet face, and it felt like I was closing the door on my entire life.
If you love someone set them free, I told myself. Before they’re brought in on accessory charges.
24
THE NEXT DAY, I didn’t have a job to go to. When was the last time I was just hanging around my apartment alone on a Tuesday morning? Couldn’t tell you. I might have immediately lapsed into boredom, ambling around, opening the fridge, closing it, opening it again—had the future of my entire adult life not been pushed to the edge of a cliff the day before. So I made coffee and checked the website.
Overnight, Wendi had apparently gone into full-on fixer mode (à la Olivia Pope from Scandal). Wendi was a gladiator when it came to manipulating the Internet. She’d somehow managed to turn a clear negative (me, fired) into a positive (me, class hero). Wendi posted photos of me being hauled out of the Titan building onto the “News” section of our website, beneath buzz-worthy headlines like: Tina Fontana Quits Titan Corp., Escorted Out. And: Fontana to Barlow: I Quit! The subtext here, if you hadn’t caught it, was that I left my job of my own accord.