Good Pet

I do, but I don’t want to think about it. So, I just reach forward and start grabbing up bits of food to put on a plate. I don’t pay attention to what I’m grabbing or putting in my big, shaking hands. I just grab and move from one container to another, from basket to plate, and then from plate to my mouth.

I don’t bother to say anything for the rest of our lunch. I let Ms. Vanacore do the talking, since she seems content to do so anyway. As I’m eating food, I’m not feeling hungry, just confused, and stressed out.

I got the job I didn’t think I would get. I got the kind of job I’ve been fighting to get for the past year, but why don’t I feel happy? Why do I feel stressed? Why do I feel chained? Like I’ve got a leash on me, and a collar around my neck?

And then I see it. Vanacore’s eyes on me. They are drilling into me again, making me feel lightheaded and weightless. It doesn’t matter that Melissa is a few tables away, the way Vanacore’s eyes are, it’s like she’s a demon, and she’s trapped me. She’s found her way into my head and started to whisper.

Chapter Fourteen

Melissa

He really did it. He really paid for my lunch, that Tommy. And after just getting promoted. I can’t let him be that generous to me again.

I have come back to the office from lunch now. I’ve been back for a few hours, actually, and so has Tommy. What I was able to see of him on his way back up to the office with Ms. Vanacore, anyway. But he doesn’t look “here.” He still looks out to lunch. He has this far away, almost vacant look to his eye like he’s in some sort of trance or shock.

I hope it’s not from having to pay that extra sixty dollars for my meal, I think guiltily, hating that I got one of my favorite dishes there — whole roast duck, andouille sausage with rice on the side, and an alcoholic drink called Pink Voodoo.

Guilty as I feel about having someone like Tommy — my boss as of nine or ten o’clock this morning when he was officially offered the job with a new partner of the firm — I can’t help smiling. As guilty as I feel, I’m also happy and touched by the gesture.

When Dennis got his job at the modeling agency in Paris all those months ago, before he left, he didn’t ask me to pay for his meal. He didn’t ask me to make the decision or the reservations to take him out to dinner. He simply demanded that I do. He is simply assumed that I could and should pay for him on such a special occasion. I did. But it wasn’t the same. He stole my agency around it. He stole my ability to be a good girlfriend from me that night. He acted like he was owed the fancy dinner, owed my footing of the bill.

And when it came from my turn? For a special occasion for me, that deserved a dinner? Dennis complained about it. He huffed and puffed about how much extra money that was, and how we really didn’t have the budget for it, and how I needed to be more reasonable about where I asked to go out for dinner, and what I ordered; never mind that he got to order exactly what he wanted.

“I’ll get him back for this,” I growl. I correct myself directly after that, remembering that I mean that toward Tommy — repaying him for his kindness and getting him back for the lunch he so graciously paid for. Not getting my boyfriend back for his stupid, selfish behavior, even if that is at the forefront of my mind.

For the rest of the workday, the four or five hours left to it, I manage to answer phones. I forward calls, take messages, and manage the calendar for Kane’s new incoming appointments, meetings, and whatnot. I say “manage” because half of my brain is still taken up with some not-so-nice memories of my boyfriend. Of how he acted around taking me out to dinner for my birthday or other special occasions. Not just during our long-distance relationship, which is often just a bit of money sent to cover my own dinner, but when he was still living in New York and still living with me.

Under all these thoughts, it’s a wonder I manage to do any part of my job correctly, but I suppose I have ten years of doing the job to thank for my lack of errors.

Finally, though, the end of the day arrives. I say goodbye to a lot of the coworkers that come through. I make additions and subtractions to Kane’s calendars as he asks me on his way out. When I’m not doing that, I’m downstairs, making security has everything they need for the night and watching the separate “pools” of workers bubble out from the elevators to the ground floor and head out for the day.