Oh fuck.
Should he respond? What if he does respond and his e-mail goes to the wrong address? What if, somehow, Winnie sees it? (Amber and Winnie work in the same office. E-mails are always getting passed around in offices.) What if he doesn't respond? She might keep sending him e-mails. She might get mad. She might tell Winnie.
He has to be very, very careful here. He has to cover his tracks. (She's crazy, this girl. She's trying to steal his idea. And he's going to have to let her.) "Dear Amber, " he writes. (No, he can't write "Dear Amber. " It sounds too intimate.) Amber: It was nice to meet you today. However, I believe I led you astray. There is no such thing as an alpha male. At least not in human beings. Good luck with your story on monkeys.
He hits the send button.
The phone rings. Again. "Jess!" Winnie says. "What a privilege." (She's such a suck-up, James thinks.) "It was an emergency situation, but I can promise you, it won't happen again.... Oh yes. I love the project.... With the right management, it can be a huge success.... Thank you. Thank you so much, Jess.... My goodness. I promise you, I'll be worth every penny." She hangs up. "James," Winnie says.
He jumps. (Is this how he's going to be from now on? Jumping in terror every time Winnie comes into his office? In terror of what she might find out?) "That was Jess Fakes. The CEO. He's just offered me the job as head of their new Internet site. It pays five hundred thousand a year. With stock options." James says nothing. He's shocked.
"Can't you sound a little more excited? I'm a really big deal now.”
"I am excited," James says. "Can't you tell?" And then Winnie does something she's never done before. She walks over. Puts her hand on his hair. Ruffles it.
"I'm proud of you, too," she says. "You've been working really hard. I'm sure this piece on monkeys is going to be great. Maybe you're right. Maybe it could be a book.”
Winnie yawns. "I'm kind of tired. I'm ordering sushi and then I'm going to bed. Should I order you the usual? California roll?”
"Sure," James says.
Platinum
MY DIARY
Smile.
You have everything. Oh God.
No names.
There are spies everywhere.
Hate everyone and everything, including my husband.
Why?
I'm so vicious.
I
This morning, I totally got even with him for coming in at one-twenty-three a.m. When he PROMISED, PROMISED, PROMISED he'd be home by midnight. At the LATEST. It was a test, and he failed. Again. But instead of screaming at him when he got home, I ignored the whole thing but lay awake all night again, feeling like my head was going to explode, which I'm sure it is, one of these days very soon. But if I tell him that, he'll just say, Why don't you take some more pills? Well, why doesn't he stop being such an asshole, and then I wouldn't have to take any more pills. As it is, some days I feel like my legs are made of rubber. If s no wonder I can barely walk across the room to answer the phone.
So this morning, when he got up, I pretended to be asleep. As soon as I heard the water running in the bathroom, I went to my secret stash and snorted a large line of that shitty cocaine that N. got from the bartender at M. Sure enough, in about one minute I felt a huge puke coming on and I ran into the bathroom and vomited several times while he stood there in horror with shaving cream on his face. And when I stood up, I was trembling, and I sort of stumbled back against the wall, wiping my eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I smiled mysteriously and said, "Oh, I'm okay now, I guess. I don't know what came over me.”
“Maybe you should see a doctor," he said.
All he wants is for me to be pregnant. That’s what they all want. They think, once I'm pregnant, mat all the trouble will end and I'll settle down. I'm like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby.
"I'm so sorry I was asleep when you came home. Did you have fun?" I asked. Then I got back into bed, and he came in before he left for that STUPID office, and sure enough he said, "Do you think you're pregnant?”
"Oh, probably not.”
"But you're sick. Do you think you should see Dr.
K. again?”
"ALL I DO ALL DAY IS GO TO DOCTORS," I started to shout, but then I saw that closed-up expression on his face again, so I switched into my sexy voice and said, "It's nothing. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine.”
"But I am worried about you," he said. "Then why don't you stay home and keep me company?" I asked.
Well, fuck him. That was obviously the wrong thing to say as well because he just shook his head, patted me on the leg, and went away.
I HATE HIM. What does he want me to do? Who does he want me to be? Who am I supposed to be, here, please? Will somebody PLEASE tell me?
Went to see Dr. Q. at one-thirty. He kept me waiting for three minutes and forty-two seconds, which is almost four minutes and completely unacceptable. Two and a half minutes is the cutoff for ANYONE.
I always tell everyone I won't be kept waiting for more than two and a half minutes unless I'm the one who's keeping them waiting. That’s one of the reasons why I refused to be on the cover of that stupid Vogue magazine, because that idiotic woman said, I'll have someone call you right back and I said, What do you mean by right back and she said, In five minutes and she called back in eighteen and I said, Sorry, I'm not interested. Plus, I have my other reasons, which are that I hate that woman (I hate her so much I won't even say her name), but more about that later.
So, this is typical, the person who was before me eating into my appointment time with Dr. Q. is some forty-year-old woman wearing sweatpants. They're not even Calvin Klein. And she's holding a tissue.
Why do women always cry in shrinks' offices?
"Well," Dr. Q. says. I think he notices I'm being extremely cold and standoffish. "How are you today? Do you still think that someone in the family is secretly poisoning you?”
"What on earth makes you say that?”
"That," he says, flipping through his notebook, "is what you said yesterday.”
"I did throw up this morning.”
“I see.”
Then I don't say anything. I just sit in the chair, drumming my fingernails on the metal arm.
"I see," Dr. Q. says again.
"And what exactly is it that you see, Dr. Q.?”
“I see that you're wearing a head scarf again.”
“Your point?”
"You've been wearing a head scarf and black sunglasses for the last two weeks.”
I give him a withering smile.
"So ... How does it make you feel when you wear a head scarf and dark sunglasses?”
"How do you think it makes me feel, Dr. Q.?”
“Why don't you tell me?”
"NO," I say. "Why don't you tell me?”
"That would, ah, defeat the purpose of our ... visits.”
Ugh. Dr. Q. is so THICK.
"It makes me feel safe," I say. "From the family poisoner?”
Sometimes I want to kill Dr. Q. I really do.
D.W. called. I haven't talked to him for three months. I've been avoiding him.
HELP.
I used to write that on all my books when I was a kid. I used to wrap my books in brown paper bags and then write my name on the front in different colored Magic Markers. I used to dot my I's with circles.
D.W. knows too much.
Of course, he calls at the most inconvenient time. Right in the middle of The Karen Carpenter Story, which I'm watching for something like the fifty seventh time. The phone rings just at the part when Karen finally moves into her own apartment and her mother finds the box of laxatives. D.W. has on that sugary voice I hate sooooo much. "Hello, my darling," he says. "What are you doing?”