The Wild Woman's Guide to Traveling the World Page 19

  Looks like I’ll be eating another smelly, healthy salad over my computer keyboard. As I stood up to head for the door, my desk phone rang. It was Jeanette.

  “Ms. Bruno, Carson Greene is waiting for you at the front desk.”

  Wonderful. Just when I’d gotten my blood pressure back down to a manageable rate, Carson showed up unannounced.

  “Send him to my office, please.”

  When he knocked on my door, I pulled him in by the arm and shut it immediately. “What are you doing here?”

  “I know you tend to work through your meals, so I figured I’d come say hi and force you to take a little break.” He hoisted a paper bag in front of my face. “I brought you some lunch. You know, there’s a great little Cantonese hole-in-the-wall around the corner.”

  The office suddenly smelled of spring onion and ginger, sparking a memory of Hong Kong: standing with Carson in the sweltering streets, scarfing down dai pai dong, kissing soy sauce off each other’s lips.

  I shook the sentimentality from my brain and grabbed the bag from his hand. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I was expecting a ‘thank you,’ but okay.”

  “Seriously, Carson.” I set the bag down on my desk, ignoring the way my mouth had begun to water. “This is a bad idea. People are already talking. I could get in a lot of trouble.”

  “That creepy guy spilled the beans, huh?”

  I nodded. “You should go.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll get out of here. I’ve got a little gift to give you first. Something to keep by your side while you work. Hopefully it’ll make you smile.”

  He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. Another caricature. This time, a curly-haired woman stood on top of a double-decker bus with a microphone in her hand and a smile on her face. Behind her, the Statue of Liberty towered in the distance. The words inside the thought bubble read, Sophie’s Spontaneous Tours.

  “Catchy name, right?”

  “What is this?”

  “Think of it as a little inspiration.”

  It was really good, just like all his drawings. Clever, cute, flawlessly executed. But for some reason, the sight of it made my stomach turn. How exactly was this inspirational? It was a reminder of a life I didn’t have and never would. Unlike Carson, I wasn’t motivated by pipe dreams. I was motivated by plans. Like that task list sitting on my desk. The one that seemed totally insurmountable. Especially now that Seth had quadrupled the number of unchecked boxes I had to tick off.

  I suddenly felt very dizzy.

  When Seth flung the door open, I could have sworn the room shook. Perhaps it was the foreshocks of a devastating earthquake.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, his eyes fixed on Carson. “It’s you.”

  Carson looked at me, then back at Seth. “Do I know you?”

  “You’re the guy from the pictures.”

  Carson furrowed his brow, and I tugged at his shirt. “Come on,” I said.

  “What pictures? What is he talking about, Soph?”

  “Ignore him. He’s an asshole.”

  “Now I’m an asshole?” Seth laughed. That cocky, arrogant, my-daddy’s-a-millionaire cackle. “You weren’t saying that when I had you bent over the desk.”

  I was pretty sure, at that very second, I saw the walls of the office begin to decompose. In a matter of minutes, I’d be up to my elbows in crumbling drywall.

  “Listen, buddy,” Carson said. “I don’t know who you are, but—”

  “Who I am,” Seth said, puffing his chest, moving closer to Carson, “is the guy whose sloppy seconds you’re sucking up. You didn’t think you were the first person to fuck her in this very room, did you? She’ll spread those legs for anyone.”

  The next sound I heard was the sickening crunch of bone against bone, as Carson’s fist collided with Seth’s shit-eating grin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Blood spattered my leather desk blotter. That thing had certainly taken a beating in the last twelve hours. Not as bad a beating as Seth was enduring, though. He made an awful gagging sound, like he was swallowing his own tongue, and his arms flew up to shield his face from another blow. When I saw Carson jerk his arm back to hit him again, I grabbed his bicep and tugged with all my strength.

  “Stop it right now!” I hissed. “This is a place of business!”

  He bared his teeth but didn’t throw the punch. Instead, he shook out his hand, wiggled his fingers, inspected the angry red splotches that marked his knuckles. A growl rumbled low in his throat, veins popping in his neck. For some strange reason, I thought about kissing him. Then I got mad at myself for even entertaining the notion. Because he’d just beaten up my coworker. A coworker who was a total asshole, and completely deserved it, but who could also make my life a living hell.

  I stood between them, one arm extended in each direction like I was stopping traffic. Slowly, Seth lowered his arms, peering cautiously at his attacker. “Are you okay?” I asked him.

  Seth touched two fingers to the bridge of his nose and winced. It was bright pink and swelling rapidly. Not knowing what else to do, I offered him a box of tissues from my desk. He snatched them and blotted the bloody mess dripping from his nostrils. Glaring at Carson, he said, “Leave. Now. Before I call the cops.”

  Without a sound, I trailed Carson out the door and down the hall. My shoulders slumped, my feet dragging along the carpet. I pressed the button for the elevator, then raised my trembling fingers to my lips. The descent to the lobby was painfully silent. I didn’t look up from the ground until we made it through the revolving doors and out onto the pavement. Then I stared Carson right in the eyes.

  “What is wrong with you?” I asked.

  “You heard what he said. He deserved it.”

  “I don’t care if he deserved it. You don’t react to an insult by busting someone’s face open. I think you broke his nose.”

  “Never mind his nose. I could’ve broken my hand.” He massaged his fingers. “My drawing hand, by the way.”

  “That’s what you’re concerned with right now? Your drawing hand? You punched my fucking coworker in my office. How do you think this makes me look?”

  Carson cocked his head to the side. “From the sound of things, he’s not just a coworker. Apparently, you’re having sex with him, too.”

  “I had sex with him. Once. Months ago. I barely even talk to him now. What difference does that make, anyway? What difference would it make if I’d slept with every guy in my company?”

  “Well, if you’re not talking to him anymore, what was he doing with my sketchbook?”

  “He was snooping through my desk.”

  “Why was it in your desk? Why wasn’t it at home, for safekeeping?”

  “Because you mailed it to my fucking office!” At this point, I was shouting and flailing my arms. Commuters on 42nd Street whizzed by without so much as a second glance. New Yorkers weren’t fazed by anything. Not even the huge scene I was making. “Why the hell would you send something like that to the place I work?”

  “You didn’t give me your home address! When we said good-bye at the airport, you just shoved your business card in my face, like I was some client you’d had a sales lunch with. Were you just assuming we’d never see each other again?”

  “Yes, actually. I was.”

  He flinched, like I hit him, and his voice got very quiet. “So I was just some random guy. Another one of your meaningless conquests. Is that why you told me not to call you anymore? Were you hoping I’d quietly go away?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” I said. “What we had was special, but it was always meant to be temporary. You were going off to travel the world. I had a job to get back to. We both had other plans. Or so I thought. How was I supposed to know you’d show up here by surprise and put my whole career at risk by beating up my colleague?”

  “He deserved it. No one insults you like that.”

  “I don’t need a hero, Carson.”

  “What?�
��

  “I don’t need someone to swoop in out of the blue and save me. My life is just fine. I’m getting along quite well on my own.”

  “Are you, really? Because I don’t see someone who’s getting along just fine. I see someone who’s miserable.”

  A crowded city street, a heated screaming match, and a loved one telling me how miserable I was? It was Temple Street Night Market all over again.

  “What I see,” Carson continued, “is someone who’s so obsessed with status and planning and obligations that she only allows herself joy in tiny morsels. As soon as she gets a little nibble, a taste of what happiness feels like, she willfully throws it away and chalks it up to a fleeting fantasy.”

  He paused, waiting for my reaction. But my vocal cords felt paralyzed.

  “Contrary to what you may think, Sophie, what you and I had in Hong Kong was real life. What you and I have right now is real. What happened on that tour bus yesterday? Real. Don’t deny it. Don’t deny the person you really are. Stop being so damn afraid to be happy.”

  If only I could have snapped my fingers and made my fears magically vanish into thin air. How easy life would’ve been for me. I’d have been a fearless girl of action, a slave to my whims, the wild woman I’d always dreamed of being. But Carson didn’t understand where I was coming from. Sometimes it felt like my life was going full speed ahead, passing me by, and I didn’t have a say in where it went.

  “Not all of us have a trust fund,” I said. “Some of us have to actually work for a living. To earn money to pay bills. So we can have a roof over our heads. Instead of wandering the world like a drifter with no place to call home.”

  His jaw flexed and released. “At least I’m happy with the life I’ve chosen for myself. Every day, I get to follow my passion.”

  “You’re not following your passion. You’re not following anything at all! You’re just floating around, completely aimless. The only goal on your five-year plan is me. Well, guess what? I’m a person, not a goal. What else are you working toward? Nothing! You draw and you draw. You create all these gorgeous, beautiful works of art. And then you let them go. You abandon them in a hotel room, or you throw them away, and you never think twice. And you do it because you’re too afraid of failure to even try to chase success.”

  I stood there, panting, anticipating Carson’s impassioned rebuttal. All he did was throw his hands up in surrender and say, “I guess you and I have very different ideas about what it means to succeed.”

  We stared at each other for a moment, both of us silent, until he said, “I’m gonna go back to your place and collect my things. I think it’s probably best if I leave.”

  At first, he made no gesture to walk away. I think he was waiting for me to tell him no. Instead, I nodded in silent agreement.

  He turned, and a violent tremor seized my whole body as I watched him disappear down 42nd Street. Deep breaths. Keep it together. But it was no use. Nothing I told myself could stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks.

  * * *

  Going back inside the building right away didn’t seem like a reasonable option, so I decided to take a stroll to clear my head and dry my eyes. After containing my sobs, I crossed the street and climbed the seven steps to enter Bryant Park, where I was greeted by the burbling noise of a pink granite fountain. Which wasn’t just any fountain; it was actually the first monument in New York City ever to be dedicated to a woman—Josephine Shaw Lowell, a businesswoman and progressive reformer. Somehow, I doubted Ms. Lowell ever had to break up a scuffle between two lovers in her office.

  Heading east, I snaked through a maze of scattered folding chairs and bistro tables and popped back out on the sidewalk, where I walked past the entrance to the New York Public Library. Two marble lions flanked the wide staircase. Not many people knew those lions had names; during the Great Depression, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia dubbed them “Patience” and “Fortitude,” the qualities he felt people needed to get through those troubling times.

  I continued on toward Pershing Square and turned left to enter the lobby of Grand Central Station. Nothing quite defined this city for me like standing in the middle of the bustling terminal and soaking in its frenetic energy. Sunlight streamed in through the massive windows, while passengers rushed back and forth between ticket booths and tunnels, eager to catch their trains before they took off for their final destinations. So many people, so many places to go. All of them with different dreams to chase.

  The four-faced clock on top of the information booth read 1:45. It was probably time to head back to work to confront whatever unpleasantness awaited me there. I returned to One Bryant Park, and when I arrived on the thirty-third floor, everything seemed like business as usual. Everyone sat with their heads down, busy typing or talking on the phone. Seth was nowhere to be seen. In my office, the bag of Cantonese food still rested on the edge of my desk. I opened it up, releasing an aroma that made me salivate. Without sitting down, I pulled out a plastic container of roast pork noodle soup and a plastic spoon, slurping it with gusto. Even lukewarm, it was delicious. The spice on my tongue stirred up memories. Warm embraces, carefree laughter, unexpected luck.

  Happiness.

  My desk phone rang, melting the memories away. When I picked up, it was Elizabeth. “I’d like to see you in my office immediately.”

  The soup churned in my stomach. I took slow, measured steps toward the staircase, feeling like I was dragging a thousand-pound weight up to the thirty-fifth floor. When I knocked, she told me to enter. Two pairs of eyes greeted me as I poked my head through the half-open door. One pair was severely bloodshot and swollen.

  “Have a seat.” She gestured to the empty leather guest chair beside Seth.

  Elizabeth clasped her hands together and leaned forward on her mahogany desk. “Sophie,” she began, “as you know, McKinley is the third most prestigious consulting firm in the world. We pride ourselves on behaving responsibly and ethically and by serving our customers with the utmost dedication. As such, we can’t stand for anything less than one hundred percent professionalism, at all times.”

  I nodded, hoping they couldn’t smell the fear sweat pooling under my arms.

  “Seth has told me some disconcerting things,” she continued. “I’d like to make sure I hear your side of the story before we take any further action.”

  Further action? I looked over at Seth. His once-perfect nose looked slightly askew, and his eyes were puffing up as we spoke. Why wasn’t he at the doctor? Was it more important for him to make sure I got reprimanded than it was to seek medical attention for his wounds?

  I cleared my throat. “Well, I had a guest in our office for lunch, and—”

  “She was in there having sex on her desk, in the middle of the workday,” Seth interjected.

  “No, I wasn’t!”

  “I have another witness who’ll back my claim. Owen Rappaport was—”

  “He’s lying!”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth said. “Let’s just calm down. One person at a time. Seth, I already heard your side, so let’s—”

  “Get my father on the phone,” he demanded.

  “Seth, I’m not sure that’s necessary,” she said.

  “Yes, it is.” He glared at me with his beady eyes, a spoiled little boy who wasn’t getting his way. This whole ordeal felt like something out of middle school. An expulsion hearing where Elizabeth was the teacher, and I was the bully who’d beaten up the principal’s son. It was a fight I would never win.

  Despite the hesitant look on her face, Elizabeth turned on the speakerphone and dialed up John Ramsey. His secretary, Claire, said he was in a meeting.

  “I’ll take a message,” she said.

  “Claire?” Seth chimed in, leaning toward the desk with a greasy smile on his face.

  “Oh, hi, Seth,” she cooed. “Everything okay?”

  “Not really, sweetie. I’m in a bit of a bind right now. I was hoping to speak to my father right away.”

  “Sure
thing,” she said. “I’ll put you through immediately.”

  When Seth smirked at me, I was half expecting him to stick out his tongue and blow a raspberry, like a sixth grader. The three of us sat there, listening to hold music, a Tom Jones song in the silliest instrumental arrangement I’d ever heard. I think I detected a slide whistle. Even though the whole situation was objectively ridiculous, my heart was racing. This was it. I was about to be fired by a founding partner of McKinley Consultants Worldwide.

  But, if I was being honest with myself, didn’t I deserve it? Lately, I hadn’t been giving this job one hundred percent of my effort. At most, I was giving an unenthusiastic fifty percent. Because I didn’t care. I hated everything about it. Sure, before I started mentally checking out, I was good at it, setting goals, crunching numbers, sticking to a plan: These were my inherent strengths. But they weren’t my passions. They didn’t bring me joy.

  The hold music cut off abruptly. “What is it?” John barked. I’d always wanted to speak with John Ramsey. Perhaps not under these specific circumstances, though.

  “Hi, Dad,” Seth said.

  “I’m busy. This better be good.”

  “Well, Dad, there’s been…an incident.”

  “What kind of incident?” He sounded exasperated.

  Seth’s face went grave. “I’ve been assaulted.”

  “By who?”

  “An unauthorized guest of Sophie Bruno.”

  “Who the hell’s Sophie Bruno?”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or troubled that John Ramsey was completely unaware of my existence. Seth crinkled his eyebrows. He definitely seemed troubled. “She’s a junior analyst here in the New York office,” he said.

  “You didn’t call the cops, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what the hell do you want me to do about it?” John’s voice blasted from the speakerphone and echoed off the walls. Elizabeth pursed her lips and stared at her twiddling thumbs. Clearly, she had no intention of contributing to this train wreck of a conversation.