Read Online Love and Miss Communication by Elyssa Friedland - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elyssa Friedland
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since, like all associates, she was bounced among the firm’s smaller offices every time the new hires started. She had been expecting to move into a partner suite, where she would have had the benefit of the firm’s generous decorating stipend. She had so many ideas for the larger space. A buttery-leather couch in a rich shade of camel would go along one wall, opposite two wooden armchairs fabricated in a deep pink silk. Three oatmeal-colored cashmere pillows with cable braids would sit equally spaced and perfectly upright on the sofa, and she’d place a matching cashmere throw over the back of her desk chair. Her desk would be curvy and modern, unlike the heavy mahogany models that the male partners favored. And she would hang draperies. Nobody ever remembered that detail. But she would have. Gauzy taupe curtains trimmed in suede, with gray satin tiebacks. What a waste of good ideas.
She flipped the light switch. It was symbolic really. Someone from maintenance would be by shortly to sterilize the place, scrubbing her keyboard with disinfectant so that not even a trace of her essence remained.
She was about to leave the BlackBerry on her mouse pad, per the departure instructions, but instead she wrapped the outdated relic in a few paper towels and dropped it in the trash can. Striding beside the guard down the hallway, she felt like she was doing a perp walk. Her ears popped as the elevator shuttled between the twenty-second and twenty-first floors, but when she stepped onto the busy sidewalk at 5:00 P.M. she couldn’t hear a thing.
# # #
Stasia called Evie two times on the day of Evie’s date with Mike Jones to make sure she didn’t bail. It was an exceptionally humid and rainy day in July, the kind that no amount of hair-styling product or waterproof makeup could combat.
“Maybe this is what you need to distract you from what happened at work,” Stasia said. “Mike sounds like he could be promising.”
In the background Evie heard Rick say, “If she doesn’t want to go, then she shouldn’t go.”
“I’ll go, because I trust Annie,” Evie said. After a more aggressive search online, including using LexisNexis with her not-yet-terminated Baker Smith passcode, she had finally turned up some information on her date. A black-and-white photo revealed he was a handsome graduate of the University of Pennsylvania undergraduate and dental school. None of that would she admit to Stasia.
“I’m proud of you for putting yourself out there,” Stasia said. “It’s so important.”
Evie wondered what life experience Stasia was drawing from. In college, she dated the hunky quarterback of the football team for two straight years and then broke his heart when she traded him in for the equally hot lacrosse team captain, who also happened to be the son of a famous actress and the grandson of the Post-it note inventor. Her love life was a seamless flow of enviable relationships. She didn’t understand how difficult it was to be “out there.” Nevertheless, Evie knew Stasia was just trying to be helpful, so she didn’t challenge her with a snarky comment.
Later that night, Evie met Mike at Café Lalo, a coffee bar near her apartment famous for its appearance in the movie You’ve Got Mail, a rainy day favorite of hers. The place was half-full andEvie surmised by the nervous postures and din of throaty laughs that many of the patrons were on first dates.
“Evie?” the man lurking next to the hostess asked.
“You must be Mike,” she said. He looked younger in person than in the picture she found online, with faded freckles across his nose. His hair was the unlikely, but pleasing, combination of white and red. What did that make him—salt and paprika? Dressed in a stylish checked button-down and slim trousers, he was a far cry from Dr. Hamburger, the aptly named orthodontist who forced a dreaded palate expander on her when she was eight and slapped on braces a few years later.
“It’s so nice to meet you
She flipped the light switch. It was symbolic really. Someone from maintenance would be by shortly to sterilize the place, scrubbing her keyboard with disinfectant so that not even a trace of her essence remained.
She was about to leave the BlackBerry on her mouse pad, per the departure instructions, but instead she wrapped the outdated relic in a few paper towels and dropped it in the trash can. Striding beside the guard down the hallway, she felt like she was doing a perp walk. Her ears popped as the elevator shuttled between the twenty-second and twenty-first floors, but when she stepped onto the busy sidewalk at 5:00 P.M. she couldn’t hear a thing.
# # #
Stasia called Evie two times on the day of Evie’s date with Mike Jones to make sure she didn’t bail. It was an exceptionally humid and rainy day in July, the kind that no amount of hair-styling product or waterproof makeup could combat.
“Maybe this is what you need to distract you from what happened at work,” Stasia said. “Mike sounds like he could be promising.”
In the background Evie heard Rick say, “If she doesn’t want to go, then she shouldn’t go.”
“I’ll go, because I trust Annie,” Evie said. After a more aggressive search online, including using LexisNexis with her not-yet-terminated Baker Smith passcode, she had finally turned up some information on her date. A black-and-white photo revealed he was a handsome graduate of the University of Pennsylvania undergraduate and dental school. None of that would she admit to Stasia.
“I’m proud of you for putting yourself out there,” Stasia said. “It’s so important.”
Evie wondered what life experience Stasia was drawing from. In college, she dated the hunky quarterback of the football team for two straight years and then broke his heart when she traded him in for the equally hot lacrosse team captain, who also happened to be the son of a famous actress and the grandson of the Post-it note inventor. Her love life was a seamless flow of enviable relationships. She didn’t understand how difficult it was to be “out there.” Nevertheless, Evie knew Stasia was just trying to be helpful, so she didn’t challenge her with a snarky comment.
Later that night, Evie met Mike at Café Lalo, a coffee bar near her apartment famous for its appearance in the movie You’ve Got Mail, a rainy day favorite of hers. The place was half-full andEvie surmised by the nervous postures and din of throaty laughs that many of the patrons were on first dates.
“Evie?” the man lurking next to the hostess asked.
“You must be Mike,” she said. He looked younger in person than in the picture she found online, with faded freckles across his nose. His hair was the unlikely, but pleasing, combination of white and red. What did that make him—salt and paprika? Dressed in a stylish checked button-down and slim trousers, he was a far cry from Dr. Hamburger, the aptly named orthodontist who forced a dreaded palate expander on her when she was eight and slapped on braces a few years later.
“It’s so nice to meet you
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