“If you’re getting impatient, why don’t you come in here and lather me up yourself?” I asked. She didn’t say anything, just shutting the door. Too bad. I was actually looking forward to her coming in here and doing it. She was a little bit unpredictable so sometimes she surprised me. I guess today wasn’t going to be one of those days.
I stood under the water, letting it run over my head and face. I didn’t want to get out. I didn’t typically take long showers, but once the shower was over, I was going to be heading out to a charity auction. It was my big night. My debut, as Missy and Toby were calling it; the first time I’d be out in public since changing my look. I felt like the prize bull at a fair. They were going to take me out and show me off.
Unenthusiastic was an understatement. There were a million and one things that I would have rather been doing tonight. I felt almost like this was a punishment. After the incident with Alex at the club, apparently, things didn’t get better once I was gone. We ended up losing the contract. It’d been over a week since that incident and Toby was still mad at me. I knew that because he never minced words when he was upset, he told me exactly what the deal was.
I would’ve rather been figuring away how to make up for that rather than doing this, but in a way that was sort of what this was. There were going to be tons of people at this event, most of them with a lot of money and a lot of them willing to give some of that money to us if we could convince them to part with it. The best-case scenario for tonight would be going to this stupid thing and leaving with a contact. Even better, more than one contact.
No pressure, then. I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face. There was no way around it. When I was choosing this job, I never anticipated that this was going to be part of it. If I knew that, I wondered whether I would still choose the same thing. Why wasn’t I rich enough to outsource this part of the job to someone else yet?
There was no point complaining. This night had been in the making for weeks now. It was too late to back down. In reality, it was just going to be a few hours of socializing, probably getting to talk about my work, and then I could come back home. Not that bad. I tried to imagine it, running through the night in my head.
No, it was no use. I was still nervous. Probably even more nervous than I had been earlier today. I turned the shower off and wrapped myself in a towel. When I walked out of the room, Missy was waiting there for me. Her face dropped.
“I thought I told you not to get your hair wet,” she said. I honestly wasn’t thinking about that. I forgot. My mind was on other stuff. I actually hadn’t done it on purpose, surprisingly.
“It’s going to take like twenty minutes to dry, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” She went to the bathroom and came back with the hairdryer. “Sit down,”
Wonderful, I had a fucking red-carpet event to try and not fuck up and Missy was pissed. She had actually done this stuff before. I needed her for tips and now she was mad. I sat and waited for her to dry my hair. It was short now, I wasn’t kidding when I said it wasn’t going to take long but now she was upset and I was nervous. The night was just getting worse and worse.
“Thank you,” I said when she turned it off, finished.
“Get dressed,” she said, not in the mood to chat or anything else. My clothes were hanging on a rack right next to the bed. The nerves started to kick in hardcore. I felt my hands shake as I pulled my clothes on. I had bee
n in active combat and I hadn’t ever been this nervous before. I knew that nerves were normal in this case but I was shitting bricks. I put on underwear and pulled on the pants. Missy came back out of the bathroom when I was putting my shirt on.
“Make sure you tuck it in,” she said.
“I know that. I’m not a toddler,” I snapped. If she wasn’t going to make tonight easier then she didn’t have to be here today. This was her idea. She and Toby were responsible for this and I didn’t know why I had to play along with this shit. I was looking in the mirror. The hair and beard weren’t weird anymore, it was everything else. It was the life I was being expected to lead now. I didn’t want this part and it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel honest.
When I was a child, the only thing I wanted to do was catch frogs in the swimming hole all summer. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to do the things that made me happy. It was all so simple. Hunting and fishing with my dad. Having my grandfather teach me how to whittle. Even staying up all night when I was older, figuring out how to build robots. That was the person that I was, not this guy. I didn’t wear suits and go to charity balls. I wasn’t built for this. I never asked for it.
“Sit down,” Missy said to me. I looked at her trying to find a reason not to do it. I couldn’t find one. I sat. “Chin up.” I raised my chin. She started fixing my tie for me. I knew how to do it myself, but I was too distracted to pick a fight with her about it.
“Why are you upset?” she asked.
“I’m not upset.”
“You’re sulking, Easy.”
“I don’t sulk. I’m not a kid.”
“You’re getting free therapy, you might as well tell me,” she said.
“Free? Last I checked, I was paying you an arm and a leg to dress me.”
“Keep complaining and I’m going to double my rate. What’s the matter with you?” she asked. Free therapy. At this point, she was the reason why I needed therapy. The last few weeks with her had been hectic. As much as she was trying to be a calming influence right now, my feelings around her were still incredibly unsettled. I wasn’t sure how or why she expected me to return to a normal client/employer relationship after everything that happened between us. As far as I was concerned, we still had unfinished business and here she was trying to be my shrink. What did I have to lose by telling her?
“Why do I have to go to this thing?”
“Because it’s your job.”
“No, my job is design and development.”
“Yes, behind the scenes. Otherwise, you’re the face of a company. You need to network. Make friends.”
“Those people are not my friends.”