Costars (New York City Bad Boy Romance) (85 page)

I’ve
never been so good at waiting.

I
pull my phone back out of my pocket and dial the number.

“Hello?”

“Hey
Irene,” I say, “I don’t suppose Alec’s around, is he?”

“No,
he’s out,” Irene says. “They’re just finishing up in Jersey. He should be back
tonight, though, can I take a message for you, Eric?”

“Yeah,”
I tell her, “no. I don’t know. I’m kind of gotten myself into a mess here, and
I don’t know what the fuck to do.”

“Ooh,”
she says, “lady problems?”

“Yeah,”
I tell her, “but make that plural.”

“You
sly dog,” she says. “What’s going on?”

“I
really don’t know if you want to hear about it,” I tell her. “It has to do with
one of your friends.”

“Oh,
don’t tell me you got things going with Jessica and then decided to sneak
around with that sister of hers,” Irene says. “She really needs to stop doing
that shit. I mean, she’s pregnant for
fuck’s
—”

“Everybody’s
pregnant,” I mutter.

“What
was that?” she asks.

“No,
it doesn’t have anything to do with Kristin,” I tell her.

“Then
what’s going on?” she asks.

“I
really don’t know if I want to talk about it,” I tell her. “I don’t even know
what to say.”

“Are
you home?” she asks.

“Yeah,”
I answer. “Why?”

“I’m
on my way,” she says.

“You
really don’t have to do that,” I tell her.

“Oh
come off it,” she giggles. “I love giving advice. You should really know this
by now. Besides, you’re one of my friends, too.”

There
really doesn’t seem to be any better option on the horizon, so I say, “All
right. I’ll be here.”

“Okay,”
she says. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

Irene
does love giving advice. How useful it is, though, generally depends on how
much she’s had to drink that day and from the sound of things, she’s already
had a couple.

Before
I set my phone down, I send Irene a text, saying, “You’re not driving, are
you?”

I
wait a few seconds and then pull up her number to call, but I get a text back,
just one word: “Cab.”

Well,
this should be embarrassing.

Chapter Twenty-One

Of All the Clothing
Stores on the Upper West Side…

Jessica

I
come into work a bit late, but I’m just glad I summoned the courage to come in
at all.

Last
night, the vengeful part of me wanted to fire Linda, but she can’t really be
blamed for what happened. Yeah, I told her specifically not to sleep with
Eric—of course, back when I said that, it was just because he was going to be
working in the store—but still, unless it happened after Eric and I got
together and she knew about it, I can’t really be too mad at her.

Still,
when I walk through the front door and see her standing at her register, I have
to clench my teeth to keep from unloading on her.

“Hey,
Jessica,” Linda says as I walk past without looking. “What’s up?”

I
just keep going until I get to my office.

The
store is busy today, so I can’t very well just make up an excuse and leave.
Cheryl’s here, but there’s just too much to do.

If
nothing else, maybe work will help me take my mind off of everything.

Cheryl
knocks on my door.

“Did
you see?” she asks. “We’re bouncing back.”

“Yeah,”
I say with as much enthusiasm as I can muster. (It’s not a large amount.) “It
looks like things are really moving out there. You’re doing great work,
Cheryl,” I tell her. “Thanks for keeping an eye on the store the last couple of
days.”

“Not
a problem,” she says. “I am loving this whole manager thing. There are a few
things I wanted to go over with you, though.”

I’m
so spaced I didn’t even realize she’s been holding a clipboard this whole time.

Cheryl
goes over sales numbers by department over the past couple of days that I’ve
been gone and makes some suggestions regarding how we might increase those
sales in the departments that are still lagging.

She
has some good ideas, I think, but I’m nowhere near paying attention. At the
moment, I’m looking through the office doorway at Linda, trying to see if she’s
showing yet.

“Jessica?”
Cheryl asks.

“Yeah,”
I answer, returning my focus on her.

“I
was just saying that we’re starting to move enough product in the rest of the
store that we might just have some leverage to renegotiate with Burbank and get
a better deal so we can lower prices and get some more people in every part of
the store,” she says.

“I
don’t know,” I tell her. “He seemed pretty full of himself when he left here
last time.”

“That’s
why I was thinking we might want to consider bringing in a negotiator to help
us here, now I know that’s going to cost some money, but if we can talk Burbank
out of throwing us the rest of the way off the ledge, I think we can really
make a difference here,” she says.

“Did
you have anyone in mind?” I ask.

“I
was hoping you might know someone,” she says.

“Wish
I did,” I answer. “I’ll keep my eyes out, though. If there’s any way we could
even get him to sit back down with us before the term of that contract is up, I
say it’s worth it.”

“Also,”
Cheryl adds, “I think we’re going to need another full-time cashier, maybe two.
I’ve been jumping in when I can, but even then we’re getting overloaded.”

“I’ll
look into it,” I tell her.

“Great,”
Cheryl says. She smiles and walks back out the door.

As
she goes, I’m only just starting to realize exactly how busy we are.

I
stand up and move to the doorway, my mouth dropping further as more of the
store comes into view.

How
did I miss that?

The
store is full of people milling about, holding up clothes to themselves in
mirrors, talking, laughing—what’s more, they’re buying.

The
line in front of Linda’s register is six people deep, and by the time Cheryl
opens up the next register over, that number just continues to grow.

Women
of all shapes and sizes are moving about every department, so many of them with
a smile on their face.

I
walk out into the store and just listen to what people are saying as I go.

It’s
positive. It’s all positive.

People
aren’t just talking with each other; they’re talking about the store, about the
clothes. I have no clue what Cheryl’s been up to in the few days that I’ve been
gone, but whatever it is, it’s working.

The
biggest draw, it seems, is the recessed area in plus sizes.

Where
they exist, there are plus sizes among all of the other departments of the
store, but this section, this little piece of the store where plus-sized women
can get items that aren’t available anywhere else
for
anyone else, is thriving.

“Excuse
me?” a woman asks, coming up to me.

“Yes?
How can I help you today?” I ask.

“I
was wondering if you happened to have this in black?” she asks, holding up a
dress. “I know it’s probably a long shot, but I really think this dress in
black would just be perfect for me.”

One
of the upsides of spending most of my life in this store as a control freak is
that I know every single item that’s in it.

“I
know that we used to have it, but let’s see if it’s still in stock,” I tell her
and we walk over to the next rack over from where she got the dress she’s
holding.

I
look through and, sure enough, it’s right there.

“Oh,
thank you,” she says as I hand it to her. “You really have a wonderful thing
going here. You know, I used to walk by here all the time, but one of my
girlfriends showed me these shoes she got here and, well, I just had to come in
and see it for myself.”

“Thank
you,” I tell her and I’m actually smiling as she walks away.

I
don’t know if this upswing alone is going to be enough to convince Burbank to
sit back down with me, but whenever we
do
talk terms again, so long as this keeps up, I’m going to have a hell of a lot
of leverage.

“Jessica!”
Linda calls and I turn around.

Yeah,
she’s starting to show. It’s subtle, but when you spend your days running a
women’s clothing store, you start to notice things like that.

I
walk over, but before I get to the register, I can already tell what Linda
needs. Her line has only grown as has Cheryl’s.

This
is going to be the first time that we’ve ever opened the third register.

To
be honest, I don’t even know if the thing still works.

I’m
up front for at least twenty minutes before the rush starts to die down. The
flow of customers is still steady, but it finally thins enough that I’m able to
close down register three and head back to my office.

If
I could, I’d stay out on the floor all day. It’s about the most incredible
thing I’ve ever seen, but Cheryl’s right. We’re going to need some more
cashiers, and the sooner that happens, the better.

*
                   
*
                   
*

When
the workday finally comes to a close, I’m not even sure I could handle looking
at the total receipts, although that doesn’t stop me from going ahead and doing
it anyway.

Just
today, we’ve managed to make up about half of what I spent on Eric’s crew and
from what Cheryl says, yesterday was almost as big.

We
close down and, before Cheryl heads back to her car, I stop her and give her a
hug.

“Thank
you so much,” I tell her. “Let’s get together tomorrow before we open up. I
really want to hear just what it is that you’ve been doing to get such a
response from the neighborhood.”

“It’s
easy,” Cheryl says. “I started a social media campaign, showing some of the
things we’ve got that nobody else does, comparing prices to our competitors and
spending all my time recruiting friends to tell their friends to tell their
friends and so on and so on and so on,” she beams.

“I
don’t know why I never thought of that,” I tell her, “but I’m just glad that
you did.”

“Just
doin
’ my job, boss,” she says and, still grinning,
she turns and walks away.

Just
like that, though, it all starts coming back to me.

The
adrenaline of the day and the wonder at how fast and how dramatic the change
has been was enough to keep my mind off of Eric and that whole nightmare, but
now with nothing left to occupy my every moment, my elation dissolves into that
clusterfuck
of emotions that I still don’t know what
to do with.

I
get to my car and I call my dad’s number.

My
mom’s supposed to be home from the hospital today.

Oddly
enough, she’s the one that answers.

“What
happened with Eric?” my mom asks.

“Well
hello to you, too,” I answer. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,
drugged up and otherwise incoherent,” she answers. “So what happened? The two
of you seemed like you were doing so well when I saw you yesterday, or was that
the medication?”

“It
wasn’t the medication,” I start.

I
go on to give her the whole, lurid story minus the part about Eric and me
knocking boots just before the phone call. By the time I’m done venting, I’ve
been sitting in my parked car for almost twenty minutes.

“I
don’t understand,” she says when I come to the end of it.

“My
boyfriend—or at least the guy I was calling that yesterday—got someone else
pregnant,” I tell her. “It’s really that simple.”

“It
doesn’t sound simple at all,” my mom laughs. “It sounds like an absolute
quagmire.”

“Thanks,
Mom,” I tell her. “As always, your advice just makes everything all better.”

“What
I don’t understand,” she says, “is why you feel so betrayed? He didn’t cheat on
you, unless I missed something there. You said this whole thing happened a
couple of months ago?”

“Yeah,”
I tell her, “but I don’t really see how that changes anything. I’m sure it
would be worse if he
had
cheated on
me, but right now, I can’t even imagine what worse would feel like.”

“Well,”
she says, “you know what you’ve got to do, don’t you?”

“Not
even a little bit,” I answer.

“You
need to go over there and scream at him for a while,” she says. “He’ll try to
interrupt, to explain, but just keep on screaming until you can’t scream any
more. After that, he’s going to talk to you and you’re going to need to listen
to him. Either this is it or it isn’t. Once he’s talked himself out, you’re
probably going to want to start yelling at him again, so do. Get it all out and
when you’re all done with that, maybe the two of you can come to an
understanding of what this actually means for the both of you and for your
relationship.”