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Sincerely,

Danny Danson

I fall to the ground. I scream at my father, “NOW leave! Get out! Leave me alone! This isn’t real. He would have called.” Danny loved me yesterday. I’m sobbing, and my father kisses my head and he leaves quietly. The door shuts and I’m trapped alone with a pain that’s so intense I may never recover. I recheck my silent phone. I call and get that same automated message. I crumple into a ball, trying to make it hurt less.

I’m going to have to reinvent myself in order to survive the pain.

Part Two

Deuxième Partie

Present Day (aka…ten years later)

BETTE

“I hate that guy. I hate him more than flan. And flan is disgusting. Flan is failed cake.”

“There’s no flour in flan.” My closest friend and colleague, Sophie, shakes her fabulous beachy waves over her shoulders. She helped me become who I wanted to be in life, helped me push through. Well, she did, and the night that shall not be named. She’s a genius graphic designer. Infinitely better than that smug fucking Beantown asshole.

I hate all of Boston there’s not a stitch of it that brings me joy. He’s there and, well, I have a bad history with men and Boston.

Sophie waves her stylus in the air. She needs to get back to work so we can bury this fucker. “What did he say today?”

“It’s like the guy doesn’t know our positions at this agency are absolutely equal. And he’s not condescending because I’m a woman, he’s like this with everyone. I want to destroy him. I want to scorch the earth and have someone lay his body at my feet. Then I want to wear that blue dress that Daenerys had on after she emerged from the fire with those baby dragons.”

“She was naked.”

“Well, in my story, I’m wearing the dress. I look better in blue than naked.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“Do you want me to strip right now?” I ask while presenting myself and thrusting my hips towards her.

“I really don’t think that will goose productivity, but if you think it will help, that’s your path,” she says offhandedly. “It’s not like we have to see him. Or have ever seen him. Ignore him.”

We’ve shared an office since I was named Senior Project Manager and Creative Director in Chicago. I’ve only had to deal with Assface directly since I was promoted two years ago. Before that he was an occasional nuisance. He’s the ‘me’ in the Boston office and we just stole a client because our work is better. He’s not taking it well.

The Eva/Rinaldi Ad Agency or E/R A is currently huge. If you bought anything in the last year, I guarantee my agency convinced you to do so. The owners are super quirky, and all creatives are in teams of two, called the lyrics and book approach, like Broadway musicals. One editorial and one artistic comprise each team. I’m the words and Sophie’s the pictures. Assface in Boston is the art to his partner’s words.

E/R A is collapsing all their branches into one to focus less on the housewife market and more on “Real Housewife” luxury market. There’s only one VP Creative Director job in New York to snag. Eva and Rinaldi have set up an insane competition to prove we deserve the top job.

Sophie only takes me seriously when I put my hands on her armrest. Which I’m doing right now.

“First off, he said, ‘You’re doing some passably good stuff at the regional level.’ Then all morning, I’ve been fielding calls from the Athens, Georgia Chamber of Commerce telling me I’d won their ‘Athens—Where Adventure Awaits!’ campaign.”

Sophie laughs hard because it means he pitched it behind my back. Our agency doesn’t do local work.

In our two-year history of pranking each other, I admit, this is a good one. Our war started with him dropping me from our first joint client call. I still don’t know how he did it, but we’ve been escalating ever since. Fucker.

“You need to get laid. Maybe fall in love because it’s been a freaking decade.”

“Go suck a dragon egg. Work is my focus and I have been laid.”

“Not enough.”

“True that.”

This is who I became after the night that shall not be named. The only way to survive the pain was to transform into someone else. I gave up worrying something bad could happen because it already had. The worst thing I could imagine—Danny disappearing from my life—pushed me over a line I’ve never crossed back over.