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“They’re not selling grace. They’re selling balls.” I flop down into my chair and reach for the brand new bottle of antacids I’d bought on the way in this morning, fighting with the childproofseal.
“Don’t forget their line of other products,” she says as I grab two pills and pop them back, no water. “Smooth, which keeps male nipples fromchafing.”
I recap the bottle and shift back in my chair, peering up at my colleague over the top of my monitor. “Because on the list of priorities for the world to solve, male nipple comfort is at thetop.”
She laughs, and with her red hair tucked up in a bun and her freckles, she looks like a teenager. Like me, she’smidtwenties.
Unlike me, she has a kid, a preacher for a father, and an endless sense of wonder for theworld.
“How’d it go with Daisy?” sheasks.
“I think I’m on strike two.” Strike one was the risk she took hiring someone without experience in thisindustry.
Though I’d done PR for a top record company in Philly, it was different from selling consumer and relationship products in New York. Plus, my previous employer had a bumpy road. It wasn’t my fault, but it made my resume less impressive than some other applicants working for growingcompanies.
“But you’re still in the game. That’s all that matters.” Kendallwinks.
I don’t know how she does it. It’s ridiculous how seriously that company takes themselves. Thought if I’m honest, what bugs me more is that I didn’t understand what the hell theywanted.
I wasn’t an academic genius. Classes were hard for me. I managed to wrangle solid enough grades in high school, plus a few that had my placement advisor raising her eyebrows, to get into UPenn. But the working world has been a refreshing revelation. I can figure things out, and it doesn’t matter if I can do math or writeessays.
I’ll figure this outtoo.
I haveto.
Kendall’s eyes light up. “On a better note, how was yourdate?”
Oh,God.
Mydate.
“I’m trying to forget it,” Imumble.
“He wasterrible?”
“Iwas terrible.” I debate whether to fill Kendall in, but I need to tell someone. “Apparently, it wasn’t a date. He wanted to meet about his company. And I sat through an entire dinner without figuring out that he was there for my professionalopinion.”
“Whoa. That sounds awkward. When’d you findout?”
I reach for one more antacid because things are better in threes. “After I kissed him in the hallway of the restaurant and asked him to come back to myplace.”
Her eyes go round, and at least one of us isentertained.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. I basically met the guy, shared four oysters with him—which I made him buy—then asked him to fuck me. Which he passed on, might Iadd.”
The worst part was that on my way home, all I could think was whether I was so out of it—or desperate—I missed all the signs? That I threw myself at a guy whose interest in me stopped above myneck?
It was a special brand ofhumiliating.
My mother would’ve died, then come back to yell at me, then diedagain.
“He must’ve been cute,” Kendallprompts.
And that’s half the problem. If he hadn’t been Jake’s age, with those gorgeous eyes and the kind of composure that made me want to get under it, I wouldn’t have plowed through the warning signs and leapt right off Confidence Cliff and into GratuitousGorge.
Still. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I’m not getting anything right, and that bothers me way more than the fact that I jumped theguy.
