“Right,” I mutter. “I know. Okay?”
“But I mean… what kind of present is THAT? If Raoul broke something of mine—or God forbid his DAD came to visit and broke something of mine—I would expect him to replace it, and not try to pass the replacement off as a CHRISTMAS PRESENT. Because he still owes you a PRESENT.”
“I know,” I say, and am relieved when the phone rings. “Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn, how may I direct your call?”
“Lizzie.” I’m surprised to hear Roberta’s voice on the other end of the line. “Is Tiffany there yet?”
“Yes,” I say. Tiffany had come into work early, as usual, to ask how my Christmas had gone, and tell me all about hers, which had been spent at Raoul’s godmother’s estate in the Hamptons, where they’d made drunken love on a polar bear skin rug, and Raoul had gifted her with a canary diamond cocktail ring and a fox stole, which she is wearing inside because, as she says, “It’s part of my OUTFIT,” of snakeskin pants and a silk blouse.
“Good,” Roberta says. “Could you ask her to take over the desk while you come back here and see me please? And kindly bring your coat and purse with you.”
“Oh. Okay.” I hang up slowly, feeling all the blood in my body dropping to freezing temperature.
Tiffany must read from my expression that something is wrong, because she tears her attention away from her ring for a moment and goes, “What?”
“Roberta wants me to come back to her office,” I say. “Right now. And she wants me to bring my purse and coat.”
“Oh, shit,” Tiffany says. “Shit, shit, shit. That fucking bitch. The day after Christmas, too. Talk about a fucking Grinch.”
What did I do?I’m wondering, as I stand up and reach for my coat. I was so careful.No one saw Jill and me together after that one time. I’m sure of it.
“Listen,” Tiffany says, sliding into the chair I’ve just vacated. “Just because we won’t be working together anymore doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I really like you. You invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. No one else in this fucking place ever invited me anywhere. So I’m going to be calling you. Do you hear me? We’ll hang. If you want to go to the shows during Fashion Week, whatever… I’m here. Got it?”
I nod dumbly and start for Roberta’s office. I can see that someone is in there with her already. As I get closer, I can see that the someone is Raphael, from the security desk downstairs. What is Raphael doing up here? I wonder.
“You wanted to see me, Roberta?” I say, stepping into her office.
“Yes,” Roberta says coldly. “Come inside and close the door, will you, Lizzie?”
I do as she asks, glancing nervously at Raphael, who is looking nervously back at me.
“Lizzie,” Roberta begins, not even bothering to invite me to sit down. “You recall a conversation we had a few weeks ago about your having been photographed by the press in the company of one of our clients, Jill Higgins, don’t you?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak, because my throat has gone dry with terror. Why is Raphael here? Have I broken the law? Is he going to arrest me? But he isn’t even a real cop…
“You assured me at that time that your relationship with Miss Higgins had nothing whatsoever to do with this office,” Roberta goes on. “So kindly explain to me why I opened the Journal this morning to find this.”
Roberta hands me a copy of the New York Journal, open to the second page…
… on which there is splashed a huge black-and-white photo of Monsieur Henri and his wife, standing in front of the shop and grinning ear-to-ear beneath the headline “Meet the Designers of Blubber’s Wedding Gown!”
The first thing I feel is a bubble of outrage burst inside my chest. Designers! They aren’t the designers of Jill’s dress! That’s me! I am! How dare they try to pass themselves off—
But then as my gaze skims the article, I see that the Henris haven’t tried anything of the sort. They are extremely upfront about the fact that Elizabeth Nichols—“an exceptionally talented young woman,” according to Monsieur Henri—is the one who refurbished Miss Higgins’s wedding gown, after having met Miss Higgins “at the law offices of Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn, where Miss Nichols works as a receptionist, and where Miss Higgins sought representation for the handling of her prenuptial agreement with husband-to-be John MacDowell.”
And then—grainy but still recognizable—is a picture of me, hurrying through the doors to the lobby of the very building in which I’m standing now.
And all I can think is,Gray Cords! It was Gray Cords! I knew he was trouble the first minute I saw him!
Also,Why, oh, why, did the Henris have to open their mouths about me and how Jill and I met? True, I never told them it was a secret—but why did I tell them anything about it at all? I should have just said she was a friend. Oh God. I’m such an idiot!
“You know how much we here at Pendergast, Loughlin, and Flynn pride ourselves on keeping our association with our clients private,” Roberta is saying. I can hear her voice only dimly through the roaring in my ears. “You were warned once before. You know I have no choice now but to let you go.”
I look up from the newspaper article, blinking rapidly. The reason I’m blinking so much is that my eyes have filled with tears.
“You’re firing me?” I cry.
“I’m sorry, Lizzie,” Roberta says. And she actually looks as if she means it. Which helps. Kind of. “But we talked about this. I’ll make sure your last check gets mailed out to you promptly. I’ll just need your office key. Then Raphael will escort you out.”
My cheeks burning, I dig around in my bag until I find my key chain. Then I remove the key to the office doors from it and hand it over. The whole time, my brain searches feverishly for some kind of response to the charges laid against me. But there’s really nothing I can say. She had warned me. And I didn’t listen.
And now I had to pay the price.
“Good-bye, Lizzie,” Roberta says, not unkindly.
“Bye,” I say. But a bubble of spit, brought on by the fact that I am weeping openly now, prevents me from saying more. I let Raphael guide me with a hand on my arm through the office—conscious of everyone staring, although of course my vision is so blurred I can’t actually see whether or not they really are looking at me—and to the elevators. We ride down to the lobby in silence, because there are other passengers on board with us.
When we reach the main floor, Raphael continues to guide me through the lobby, because I still can’t see. At the doors to the outside he stops and says a single word to me: “Bummer.”
Then he turns around and heads back to the security desk.
I push open the lobby doors and head outside into the bitter Manhattan cold. I have no idea where I’m going, really. Where can I go? I have no job, and soon, I’ll have no place to live. I have no boyfriend, either, which is really, you know, freeing, on top of the just-getting-fired-and-having-no-place-to-live thing. I feel, in fact, just like Kathy Pennebaker probably did, when she finally admitted that New York City—that big, gutsy, glittering town—had beat her to a pulp and sent her packing.
I’d actually seen Kathy while I’d been home for Christmas. She’d been at the Kroger, pushing a cart in the produce section, looking so washed out and wan, I hardly recognized her.
Is that going to be me someday?I’d wondered, as I’d stared at her from my hiding place behind the nut and dried fruit bins. Will I cease to care what people think of me and go to the grocery store in an over large ALLSTATE 400AT THE BRICKYARD SUMMER RUMBLE NASCAR T-shirt and cropped cargo pants (in the winter)? Will I start dating a guy whose mustache is yellow from nicotine, and who is stocking up on cold medicine—so much so that he can only be planning on mixing up a batch of crystal meth for the weekend? Will I ever actually buy radishes? I mean, for a salad or even just to use as garnish?