Fake It 'til You Make It, page 2
‘I’m sorry, Cassandra. I don’t know how—’
‘Save it, Abbey. You’ve been needing to step up for a while now. I’m pissed and disappointed, a toxic combination.’
I know what’s coming. The job I love, the only job I’ve known, the only thing I’m good at, it turns out, I’m not good at. With quick realization, I beat Cassandra to the inevitable and tell her, ‘You’ll have my resignation letter on your desk within the hour.’
Then I run from the office toward the restroom, unsure of the primary reason I’m going to throw-up – excessive alcohol consumption, betrayal, incompetence, or fear of not having a clue what I’m going to do next.
In the space of twenty-four hours, it feels like my entire existence has been obliterated. My checklist-perfect life is a gigantic hot mess.
3
ABBEY
Three weeks later
‘Dee, please tell me this isn’t a huge mistake.’
I’m standing next to my younger sister on the sidewalk outside my new home, apartment 7B in Blake House, Brooklyn Heights. A brown box full of clothes is starting to feel heavy in my arms, but I pause, staring at the glass front door I used to dream of walking through.
‘This isn’t a huge mistake,’ my sister replies.
Her smile is as bright as the sunshine-yellow dress she’s wearing but I know that behind her shades, her eyes will be mocking me.
‘Only say it if it’s true. Is this the worst idea I’ve ever had, honestly?’
‘This isn’t the worst idea you’ve ever had, Abbey Mitchell. It can’t be, since it was my idea.’
She’s teasing me again. I’m no stranger to my sister trying to wind me up; she’s done it since the day she was born. But today, I really need encouragement and reassurance, instead of the sarcasm and wit I’m receiving.
I realize I’m chewing my lip, like I do when I get stressed. ‘Mom and Dad are going to kill me, aren’t they?’
‘All you’ve done is blow your life savings on six months’ rent; it’s not like you’ve shattered Mom’s hopes of you marrying a model man, who happens to be the second son she always wanted, and ticking off everything on her checklist of things you must do before you’re thirty. Oh, wait—’
‘Dee! You’re not helping here. Mom still isn’t really speaking to me since the break-up. Not without an undertone of disappointment, anyway.’
‘Maybe that’s because you didn’t tell them the reason you and Andrew broke up. That cheating, lying bas—’
If I wasn’t holding a box, I’d press my fingers to her crude mouth. ‘I’ve got it, thank you. There’s no point giving everyone the sordid details and dwelling on things. What’s done is done.’
Dee lowers her shades and gives me a school ma’am look, eyebrows raised. ‘Right, sure. It’s all the faff. That’s why you’d rather have our parents off side.’
The problem with siblings, especially the kind who follow you hundreds of miles from home in Alberta, Canada to New York City, and spend far too many nights sleeping on your sofa, is that they know you much better than you’d care to admit.
I’m not going to get back with Andrew. Of course I’m not. No chance.
He’s with someone else.
Regardless, I have a modicum of self-respect.
But what would be the point of my parents hating him? Moreover, why would I admit that I couldn’t hold on to him?
‘Plus’ – Dee drapes her arm around my shoulders – ‘when I tell Mom and Dad that I’m knocked up to a fellow actor and we aren’t even dating, I’m going to need to deflect.’
‘Ah, the truth. This isn’t a good idea. It’s a terrible idea that you hope will make Mom and Dad more irate than your illegitimate child? You remember they’re practicing Catholics, right?’
Dee shrugs. ‘My upbringing is precisely the reason Brett and I weren’t using protection.’
Despite the importance of the situation, I laugh. ‘I still can’t believe you’re going to be a mom.’
‘I know. Crazy, right?’
I don’t think, I hope, that Dee’s flippancy is just because the enormity of the pregnancy hasn’t sunk in yet. Otherwise, it’s terrifying.
‘Have you told Nate yet?’ I ask.
Our brother, Nate, successful architect, married with two kids, all by thirty-two years old. Our parents adore him. Their only gripe with him is that they don’t see him enough.
But perfect Nate is sooooooo busy.
Dee is four years my junior, one year out of acting school, wild and most often penniless. Yet, whilst she’s been making babies, I have been unravelling every life goal I’ve strived toward since I was a teenager.
‘Nope,’ she says, with zero concern. ‘I’m going to try it out on him first, before the parents. Will you come to dinner with us? Nate will pay.’
I scowl at her, though I feel no menace. ‘If you stop showering me in sarcasm, I’ll think about it.’
‘Thank you.’ She gives me a chaste kiss on my cheek then starts walking, empty handed, away from my car load of belongings and toward the entrance of my new, swanky apartment block. She calls back across her shoulder, ‘It’s not like you have anything better to do now that you’re single and unemployed.’
She has a point.
I follow Dee to the main entrance, where she’s holding the door open for me, until her phone rings and she takes it from the pocket of her dress.
‘Hi, you,’ she says, letting the door close behind her.
‘Dee!’ I call, lugging my box. This is so typical of my sister. I love her but she definitely puts herself before anyone else.
Grunting, I lean back against the glass pane on one side of the double doors, balancing my box on one knee whilst trying to open the adjacent door with my spare hand.
I try to navigate my way through with my butt, but as I do, I lose balance. It’s my face or the box; one of us is going down.
The box falls, some of the contents spilling out.
‘Argh.’ I stomp my foot in frustration. It’s that or cry. Today is quickly becoming overwhelming. ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ I mutter, my voice breaking.
This is way out of my comfort zone. I’m not impulsive. I am not showy. And despite taking Dee’s advice, I’m just not the kind of woman who fakes it until she makes it.
I blow a raspberry with my lips, staring at my box and its spilled contents, then I shake my head and shuffle my shoulders. I need to be that woman, otherwise what is the point in all of this? What was the point of blowing my dream wedding fund on a fancy apartment I can barely afford?
‘I’ve got you,’ a male voice says.
I glance from my big panties – the large, stretchy, comfy panties I wear for bed when it’s that time of the month – which are lying in a heap on the ground, to the dark-blond hair on top of the man’s head, who has bent down to help collect my things. My big panties!
‘Oh God, you don’t have to—’
He picks up the underwear, a nude pair of all colors, and looks up at me from behind a pair of aviators.
The sun is shining right on him, allowing me to see wide eyes behind his lenses. His chiseled face has an almost surreal look – too good to be true – yet it has a softness in the cheeks, the skin, the character lines around the sides of his mouth, that makes him appear… nice? His hair doesn’t look like it has been styled; it’s messy, a little rugged, yet it complements the rest of his features.
Only now do I remember that this aesthetically pleasing guy is holding my worst offering of underwear in his hands.
I snatch back my nude panties, shoving them into the box.
‘They’re my bedwear.’ I try to explain why anyone other than pregnant women and the elderly would wear these garments, but my words are slurred and blended by mortification.
No one is supposed to see them, ever! Especially not hot guys who are…
Whoa!
He rises to full height, towering above me. He’s tall but not lanky. He’s burly. Manly. The sleeves of his white T-shirt are tight around his biceps but more Chris Hemsworth than Dwayne Johnson.
Nothing like my ex, who was slimline, almost weedy. I like weedy.
But I still don’t want Mr Big and Burly to be holding my period panties.
In this moment, I have to concede that Dee has a point about blowing some of my savings on a new wardrobe. If I’m going to commit to this idea of acting the part until I’m legitimately playing the part of someone successful and chic, I need a wardrobe to match my new apartment. The woman who rents apartment 7B in Blake House does not wear panties that come up to her neck.
I struggle to heave the box from the ground.
‘Let me,’ the man says, reaching down to help me.
‘No,’ I snap. ‘I’ve got it.’
Please never look at me again.
‘Okay, let me get the door, then.’
I nod, my cheeks aflame. ‘Thanks.’
Please tell me he doesn’t live here.
I should be so lucky. As I step into the building, Mr Big and Burly follows.
If I weren’t holding a box, I would run directly to my apartment, stopping only to murder my sister for leaving me in this predicament.
But I am holding a box, so I make for the elevator. As I struggle to finger the button to call the ride, the guy is back.
‘I’ve got it,’ he says. He’s taken off his shades and now I see he has gentle blue eyes, sketched at the edges with the finest of lines.
Muttering my appreciation, my eyes squeezed shut, I step inside the elevator. Before the doors close, I tentatively open one eye, only to find the guy is now unabashedly dangling my large panties from his finger.
‘You forgot these.’
Kill. Me.
Kill. Me. Now.
Horrified, I drop the box, snatch the underwear and repeatedly hammer the close button, until finally, the doors comply.
The man isn’t smirking or sniggering at my underwear; he’s just getting on with the next thing – unlocking the mailbox for apartment 8B – seemingly oblivious to my embarrassment.
When I make it to my new home, Dee is in the lounge, standing at the Juliet balcony with the French doors open.
She turns my way when I set my box on the floor with an exaggerated grunt, fanning myself with my T-shirt, an absolute sweaty mess. ‘Would you get a load of this view?’ she says, looking back across East River to the city skyline.
Momentarily, my worries abandon me and I remember why I have pined after this apartment block for so long. The view is incredible. Even from where I’m standing at the back of the lounge, I can see the sun’s rays dancing on the water. I see small motorboats cruising the river and a larger sightseeing boat.
There isn’t a cloud in the sky, and it makes me feel like this place might just hold possibilities, that maybe my luck isn’t entirely doomed.
It isn’t just the view. The apartment is everything I want it to be. From the cream walls and immaculate hardwood floors to the blush-pink soft furnishings on the cream leather sofa and the glass top of the oak trunk table in the dining area. From the black granite countertops and gleaming white kitchen units to the fancy tap that offers me cold water, boiling water, water with gas and water without.
Along the hallway are the abstract oil and watercolor paintings I remember from my viewing. In the master bedroom is a brand-new, fancy queen-sized bed, and I tell myself that getting to sleep like a starfish will be a wonderful, liberating experience, as opposed to an unwanted and lonely one.
Through the bedroom, there’s an ensuite of the size that someone in my unemployed position, who was only allowed to lease on the proviso I paid the entire six months’ rent upfront, shouldn’t be able to afford. I try not to focus on the ‘his’ part of the ‘his and hers’ basins. Instead, I imagine where I will place my toiletries – my toothbrush, in its own area, where no man will be able to put his dirty, soggy one next to mine. There’s a bath – a bath! – as well as a shower.
Buoyed with excitement, I take myself off to the enormous walk-in wardrobe with a sofabed that could be big enough for a second bedroom, but not for me because I am man and child free. No ties. No obligations. No one to please but myself.
It’s seven thirty in the evening. My sister left around 3 p.m. without having helped me at all to move in. I wouldn’t expect a pregnant lady to do heavy lifting, but the reality is, pregnant or not, Dee wouldn’t have lifted a finger anyway. I love her for what she is, and in spite of what she isn’t.
I’ve hung up my clothes in the walk-in wardrobe, which seem pathetically few in the large space. My shoes are neatly lined along the purpose-built shoe rack, also looking like a truly meagre offering, more Big Bang Theory than Sex and the City.
Now alone and pooped by my efforts, I’m streaming a NASA moon-landing documentary on my laptop, I’ve ordered a chicken pesto pizza and a tub of peanut butter ice cream, and am enjoying my queen bed, just me. The irony is, I’m squished onto one side, on one set of pillows, as if waiting for someone to join me. And those joyous thoughts of my new single life, the hot girl summer I imagined, have abandoned me.
I’ve paid an extortionate sum of money to pretend that I’m some sassy city girl, living her best life, yet I’m sitting in my bed in paisley cotton sheets, an old T-shirt and shorts, much like the girl who left Alberta four years ago.
Is Andrew alone right now? Is he still seeing the woman he was sleeping with behind my back? The woman Dee found after extensive social media searching on my behalf?
My cell phone is lying next to me on the bed covers. I could call him. Be casual.
Why? Why would I do that?
He cheated on me.
It’s just… our story doesn’t feel complete.
Everyone liked Andrew. He was perfect for me. Until he wasn’t.
Everyone still likes Andrew because I haven’t shared the truth of what happened with anyone – except Dee and Shernette.
In everyone else’s minds, he is still perfect for me.
Staring at the screen on my laptop, I try to think positive thoughts, like my sister and Shernette have told me I have to do. Finally, a positive thought comes to me, but even as I think it, I know it’s not enough: at least I’m not an astronaut stuck on the moon with no sustenance or comms.
Sighing, I close down my laptop, slide it under the bed, double check that my bear spray is where I left it (you can take the girl out of Canada…) and lie back, exhausted.
When there’s nothing better to do, sleep. That’s what my dad has always said. So I’ll sleep and tomorrow will be a new day. A much better day because I won’t have to lug heavy boxes from my car to my new, extortionately priced apartment.
I can feel myself sliding toward slumber when… boom, boom, boom.
What the fudge?
There’s a rhythmic banging, as if someone is repeatedly hitting something full throttle against a wall above me.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
4
TED
With a handful of junk mail and a couple of other envelopes that look like they could be fan mail, I let myself into apartment 8B. After setting down the mail on the sideboard, I turn on the air-conditioning – a necessity given the apartment is one of two penthouses in the building and it doesn’t have reflective glass windows.
I kick off my sneakers and move into the spacious lounge area, slipping down onto my brother’s extremely comfy but needlessly large sofa. It’s Monday morning and for the millionth time in the last forty-eight hours since I arrived here from San Francisco, I ask the empty room, ‘What am I doing here?’
Resting my head back against the soft leather cushions, I drag my hands through my hair, staring at the spotlights in the roof.
Should I have fought harder? Or was it always a losing battle trying to keep my own fiancée?
Three days ago, I thought I had it all. A beautiful wife-to-be, a partnership that is making serious tracks in Silicon Valley, and a best friend who I could also rely on as my greatest business ally.
I was wrong on all counts.
My cell phone vibrates in my pocket, and then the noise of its ringtone is surrounding me through every wall speaker in the apartment. I take the phone from my pocket and swipe the screen.
‘T bird!’ My brother’s voice echoes in the vast square footage.
I boot my troubles out of my head and my voice as I respond. ‘Hey, you’re on extreme surround sound.’
I hear the humor in his voice. ‘Yeah, it’s handy when you want to be hands-free. So how’s it all going over there? Are you still hiding from the world or are you ready to share your woes?’
I sit forward, leaning across my knees, resting on my elbows, my face in my palms. ‘The former. You haven’t mentioned what’s going on to anyone, right?’
‘It’s not my story to tell, kid, but I think it’s a matter of time before word spreads.’
‘Yeah, well, a little bit longer to get my head around it all would be nice.’
‘No one will hear a thing from me. I just wanted to check in and make sure you’re not eating your weight in jelly sandwiches.’
I look across to the kitchen counter, where there’s a loaf of white bread and a kilo of strawberry jelly. ‘I’m not five years old, Mike,’ I reply, instead of outright lying.
‘If you say so. Just to let you know, the cleaners will be there today at four. Hide your sticky socks from under the bed.’
I shake my head, though I am, miraculously, amused. ‘It’s only been three days; I’m not that desperate, yet.’
Mike is still laughing when the beep beep beep of the dead call tone comes through the speakers and I have to think about what to do with myself.
It’s the start of a new day, which means I can sit on the sofa with a strawberry jelly sandwich or choose a new signed baseball from my brother’s wall shelf collection and bounce it off the wall repeatedly until my mind is completely numb.
