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“You’re making us slipcovers and curtains?” Chaz looks pleased. “Cool.” He stops looking pleased when I keep on crying. “Or maybe not cool. If it’s making you cry.”
“I’m not crying because of the slipcovers,” I say, reaching to dab at my eyes with the backs of my wrist. “I’m crying because I’m such a loser.”
“Okay. I’m going to need a drink for this one,” Chaz says with a sigh. “You want one?”
“Alcohol won’t solve anything,” I wail.
“No,” Chaz agrees. “But I’ve been reading Wittgenstein all afternoon, so it might make me feel less suicidal. You in or you out? I’m thinking gin and tonics.”
“I’m i-in,” I hiccup. Maybe a little gin is what I need to buck myself up. It always seems to work for Grandma.
Which is how, a little while later, I find myself sitting next to Chaz on his gold-trimmed couches (the cushions are gold, too. If I didn’t know they came from a law office, I’d swear his couches came from a Chinese restaurant. An upscale one. But still), telling him the wretched truth about my finances.
“And now,” I conclude, holding on to my tall, frosty drink glass, the contents of which are mostly consumed, “I have a job—I’m not going to say it’s my dream job, or anything, but I think I could learn a lot—but it doesn’t pay, and I have no idea how I’m going to get rent money for next month. I mean, I can’t even temp now, because I don’t have my days free, on account of having to be at Monsieur Henri’s. And you know how much I suck at bartending and food service. Honestly, unless I sell off my vintage clothing collection, I don’t think I’m going to make it. I don’t even know how I’m going to get the subway fare to get back home from here. And I can’t tell Luke, I just can’t, he’ll just think I’m stupid, like Madame Henri does, and it’s not like I can ask my parents for money, they don’t have any, and besides, I’m an adult, I should be supporting myself. So clearly I’m going to have to tell Monsieur Henri that I’m very sorry, but I made a mistake, and then head down to the closest temp agency and hope they have something—anything—for me.”
I draw in a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s either that, or go back to A
“She the one who used to steal everyone’s boyfriend?” Chaz asks.
“Yes,” I say, thinking how nice it is that Shari’s boyfriend already knows all the important people and references from our lives, so I don’t have to explain them to him, the way I do Luke.
“Well,” he says. “They won’t compare you to her. She’s got a personality disorder.”
“Right. She has more of an excuse for striking out in New York than I do!”
Chaz considers this. “She’s also a big whore. I’m just quoting Shari, here.”
I think I’m getting a migraine. “Can we leave Kathy Pe
“You brought her up,” Chaz points out.
What am I doing here? What am I doing, sitting on my best friend’s boyfriend’s couch, telling him all my problems? Worse, he’s my boyfriend’s best friend.
“If you tell Luke,” I growl, “anything about what I said here today, I’ll kill you. I really mean it. I’ll—I’ll kill you.”
“I believe you,” Chaz says gravely.
“Good.” I climb to my feet—not very steadily. Chaz didn’t skimp on the gin. “I’ve got to go. Luke’ll be home soon.”
“Hold on there, champ,” Chaz says, and pulls me back down to the couch by the back of my beaded cardigan.
“Hey,” I say. “That’s cashmere, you know.”
“Simmer down,” Chaz says. “I’m going to do you a solid.”
I hold up both hands, palms out, to ward him off. “Oh no,” I say. “No way. I do not want a loan, Chaz. I’m going to do this on my own, or not at all. I’m not touching your money.”
“That’s good to know,” Chaz says dryly. “Because I wasn’t pla
“Chaz,” I say, putting my hands down. “I’m not getting paid to do the wedding-gown thing. When you aren’t getting paid, you can pretty much make your own hours.”
“Right,” he says. “So you have your mornings free?”
“Regrettably,” I say.
“Well, it just so happens,” he says, “that Pendergast, Loughlin, and Fly
I blink at him. “Your dad’s law firm?”
“Correct,” Chaz says. “The receptionist position there is apparently so demanding that it has to be split into two shifts, one from eight in the morning until two in the afternoon, and the other from two in the afternoon until eight in the evening. The afternoon shift is currently held by a young woman with modeling aspirations, who needs her mornings free for go-sees… or to recover from her hangover from partying the night before, whichever you care to believe. But they’re looking for someone to fill in for the morning shift. So, if you’re serious about wanting a job, it might not be a bad gig for you. You’d have your afternoons free for Monsieur Whatsisname, and you wouldn’t have to sell off your Betty Boop collection, or whatever it is. It only pays twenty bucks an hour, but it comes with benefits like major medical and paid vaca—”
But he doesn’t get to go on. Because I’ve already thrown myself at him when I hear the words “twenty bucks an hour.”
“Chaz, are you serious?” I cry, grasping big handfuls of his T-shirt. “Will you really put in a good word for me?”
“Ow,” Chaz says. “That’s my chest hair you’re pulling.”
I let go of him. “Oh God. Chaz! If I could work all morning, then go to Monsieur Henri’s in the afternoons… I might be able to make it. I might actually be able to make it in New York City after all! I won’t have to sell my stuff! I won’t have to go home!” More important, I won’t have to admit to Luke how much of a failure I am.
“I’ll call Roberta in human resources and set up an appointment for you,” Chaz says. “But I’m warning you, Lizzie. It’s not easy work. Sure, all you’re doing is transferring phone calls. But my dad’s law firm specializes in divorces and matrimonial pla
I’m barely listening. “Is there a dress code? Do I have to wear panty hose? I hate panty hose.”
Chaz sighs. “Roberta can tell you all about that. Listen. Not to make it not all about you for a change, or anything, but do you know what’s up with Shari?”
That gets my attention. “Shari? No. Why? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.” For a minute, Chaz looks younger than his twenty-six years—which is only three years older than Shari and I are, and yet in so many ways, light-years older than that, even. I personally think that’s what comes of sending your kid off to boarding school during those integral tween and teen years. But maybe that’s just me. I can’t imagine having a kid and purposely sending him away, the way Chaz’s parents did, just because he was a little ADD. “She just can’t seem to stop talking about this new boss of hers.”
“Pat?” I’ve heard the Pat stories ad nauseum myself. Every time I talk to Shari, it seems like she has another story about her intrepid new boss to share.
But it isn’t a wonder, really, that Shari’s impressed by the woman. She has, after all, been instrumental in saving hundreds, maybe even thousands of women’s lives by getting them out of their abusive family situations and into new safe environments.
“Yeah,” Chaz says, when I mention this. “I know all that. And I’m glad Shari likes her job, and all. It’s just… I hardly ever see her anymore. She’s always working. Not just nine to five, but evenings and some weekends, too.”