New York for Beginners (13 page)

“So what in the world are you doing at Schoenhoff Publishing now? Shouldn’t you be spokeswoman for Amnesty International or something?” he asked.

“I applied for a voluntary position at
Greenpeace Quarterly
, but I didn’t get it. Instead, I was accepted at Schoenhoff’s journalism school.”

Tom furrowed his brow. “So you just gave up your plans to save the world and defected to the commercial enemy?”

“At first I did it because I didn’t have any other job prospects. But then I realized very quickly that it isn’t half bad to write about the nicer things in life—instead of topics like ethnic cleansing or factory farming. It’s a hell of a lot less depressing, anyway.”

“And the perks were probably a lot better. Travel, invitations to press dinners and movie premieres . . .”

“Not to mention the free cosmetics samples that arrive daily. Guaranteed to have been tested on laboratory animals,” Zoe added, finding her own newly discovered sarcasm charming—probably because Tom seemed to like it.

“So you sold your soul,” Tom said, laughing. “You unscrupulous granola eater, you.”

That evening, as Zoe entered the ballroom for the welcome dinner sporting a sunburned nose and a floor-length chiffon dress in tropical-parrot colors, she felt like Alice in Wonderland. The whole room was decorated like a palace from
Arabian Nights
, including purple Bedouin tents that housed bars and waiters wearing harem pants and saffron colored turbans. The floor was sprinkled with sand, and on the tables were luxurious flower arrangements that smelled captivatingly of lilies.

All that’s missing is a live elephant or two,
Zoe thought.

She was seated at a side table in the back right corner of the room, surrounded by representatives from start-ups she’d never heard of. Tom had a place at the table of honor, front and center, where Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook was patting his shoulder. After the hummus dip and a slightly limp green salad that looked like it had seen better days, a short film was shown in honor of Sandberg’s career. The most influential woman of the New Economy. Prominent defender of women’s rights. And so on, and so forth.

The main course was couscous with thin strips of Argentinian steak and baby carrots in chermoula sauce. The start-up guys were shoveling it into their mouths with their forks in their right hands, as though they were prisoners who weren’t allowed to have knives. After the course was cleared, Tom stepped onto the stage.

When Zoe had to speak in front of a group of more than three people, she lost about a pound of her body weight in nervous sweat. This was probably because in German schools, students were basically not allowed to speak until eleventh grade, when they were suddenly expected to deliver fluid presentations in front of their fellow students and teachers, as though they’d done nothing else their entire lives. The Americans seemed to have it the other way around. The four-year-old son of one of Zoe’s colleagues had already started giving presentations in preschool, and apparently loved it. The concept of “show and tell” was completely foreign to Zoe.

Thanks to his American upbringing, Tom stood there at the microphone looking completely relaxed, wearing his charming lopsided smile, greeting the world’s eight hundred most important media specialists as easily as if he was showing off a new teddy bear to his kindergarten classmates. He looked fantastic in his black tuxedo, and he gave an equally fantastic tribute to Sheryl Sandberg. A photographer snapped pictures of him throughout.
Picture perfect
, Zoe thought, and then it occurred to her that she’d never seen him any other way. The man was not only photogenic, but he seemed to look presentable at any time of day or night. He’d probably never torn up a single photo of himself. Unlike Zoe, who had joyfully welcomed the invention of the digital camera, because she no longer had to stand in a photo shop with a pack of prints, filtering out and destroying a third of them because they were too embarrassing to keep.

Tom looked almost a little abashed, pushing his hair out of his face as he stepped off the stage after a thunderous round of applause. At that moment, his gaze met Zoe’s. She got a warm, fuzzy feeling from him, and raised her hand to wave. He waved back, and then gestured toward the door as if to say, “I’ve fulfilled my duty—let’s get out of here.”

The moon cast silver on the Atlantic, which was as smooth as a mirror that evening. Zoe had taken off her strappy sandals and made herself comfortable on a luxurious-looking double beach chair, which was more like a bed with its mattress and throw pillows. When she heard footsteps, she turned and saw Tom approaching with two cocktails that had little pink umbrellas in them.

“That isn’t a Sex on the Beach, is it?” Zoe asked. She started to blush at the corniness of her joke the moment the words left her mouth.

“It has some other awful name,” Tom said, appraising the alcohol mixture in the light of the setting sun. “On a beach in Florida, you have to drink stuff like this.”

“But just one. After all, friends don’t have sex on the beach,” she said, trying to rescue the situation but only succeeding in putting her foot further in her mouth.
Dammit
, she thought.
I’m blabbering like a nervous schoolgirl.

Tom didn’t seem to have noticed. “To friendship!”

“To friendship!”

They both sipped cautiously from their curvy glasses, and both shivered at exactly the same instant. The drinks were not only horribly colorful, but also horribly sweet. Tom put an arm around Zoe and pulled her close. She rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. They gazed silently at the water. The only sounds they could hear were distant music and voices from the hotel pool.

Friends. Zoe couldn’t help but think of Eros and Bora Bora:
You leave me so cold, I could swim naked with you on Bora Bora under a full moon with the sound of lapping waves in the background, and nothing would happen.
Maybe Tom really just wasn’t into her. Maybe his attraction to her had been enough for a one-morning stand, but nothing more. After all, she was a strange European who didn’t hesitate to speak her mind, liked to pay for her own dinner, and found even the existence of
The Rules
ridiculous.

“Tom?”

“Zoe?”

“Just completely hypothetically, and not like I really mean it: If we were to go skinny-dipping right now, would something happen? Between us, I mean?”

Tom took his arm off her shoulders and looked at her quizzically. “What makes you ask?”

“Nothing.”

He stood up abruptly. “You should stay away from me, Zoe. I’m not good for you.” Then he disappeared into the darkness.

When Zoe arrived at the Miami airport two days later, she was still feeling distraught. Tom had avoided her for the rest of the conference. They hadn’t exchanged a single word over the past two days.

If Allegra hadn’t been so horribly bossy the other day, Zoe would have called her bestie so they could analyze the situation, blow by blow. But that clearly wasn’t going to work. She wanted to let Al calm down a little before she took the step to call her. Tom was booked on the same return flight, so Zoe decided to punish him by ignoring him. Because he’d ignored her. She was well aware that this was just bitchy-girl logic, but she didn’t have any better ideas. That was all she was capable of at the moment.

Zoe checked in for her flight at a computer terminal, and the machine spat out a boarding pass with seat number 4A on it. First class. Zoe double-checked the name, the destination, and then the seat number. There was no mistake, she was flying first class. American Airlines must have given her an upgrade.

Nice!

On the way to the gate, she secretly checked out all the men over thirty who were roughly of Tom’s stature. She wanted to be ready to walk past him with her nose in the air. But she didn’t see him.

Had the coward changed his flight?

Zoe walked past the food court, which smelled of greasy fries, pizza with lukewarm cheese, and hotdogs. Now that she was flying first class, she felt sorry for the economy passengers who had to buy their own rations for the trip. She was already looking forward to the three-course meal served on white tablecloths.

She boarded first class in a happy mood. So far, there was no trace of McSlimy.

The seat next to Zoe remained empty until the flight attendant was just about to close the cabin door. Then a man slipped calmly on board. As though it was the most normal thing in the world, Tom sank into seat 4B next to Zoe.

“This can’t possibly be a coincidence!” Zoe cried.

“And if it is?” Tom answered, grinning.

“But it isn’t!”

“Then maybe it’s fate.”

“And how did you bribe fate?”

“With thirty-five thousand miles.”

Zoe rolled her eyes and looked at the ceiling. “Thomas Prescott Fiorino. Could it be that you have a psychological problem?”

“Not that I know of,” he responded, clearly amused.

“You’re not schizophrenic, by any chance?”

“Nope.”

“Or bipolar?”

“No. Why?”

“Do you really have to ask? First you sleep with me, even though you know you’re going to be my boss. Then you apologize, and we decide to be friends. Two days ago, you give me some drivel about staying away from you and leave me sitting on the beach. You don’t even talk to me anymore. And this morning you pay for an upgrade so I can sit next to you. If that’s not indicative of a psychological disorder, I don’t know what is.”

“A woman like you shouldn’t have to fly economy.”

Before Zoe could think of horrible names to call him, the flight attendant approached Tom and asked “Mr. Fiorino” to please switch off his cell phone, which was lying on his tray table. She actually knew his name—and used it a little too devoutly for Zoe’s taste. He switched off the phone with a cooperative smile. The attendant stared at him delightedly for a few seconds, as though it was the first time in her career that a passenger had actually followed her instructions. She’d probably reward “Mr. Fiorino” with a gold star after takeoff, or whatever flight attendants saved for special first-class passengers at thirty thousand feet. The effect this man had on women bordered on criminal.

The plane rolled to the runway and the pilot revved the engines. A few minutes later, they were gliding over the boutique hotels of Miami Beach, and away to the north. Tom got out a
New York Times
and folded it in half lengthwise, the way real New Yorkers who knew anything at all about subway etiquette did.

“That’s all?” Zoe asked in amazement. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”

“Not really,” Tom answered. “Everything has been said. You should keep away from me, Zoe.”

“I’d prefer to decide that for myself,” she replied.

“I’m not good for you.”

“And why is that?”

“I have a real talent for making women unhappy. My relationships always end in chaos. And you don’t deserve that.”

Now Zoe had to laugh. “Who said anything about a relationship?”

“What did you have in mind, then?”

Zoe thought about it for a moment. She suddenly felt that it was time to be “foolish” again. She asked herself Allegra’s standard question:
What would you do if you weren’t afraid?
Then she gathered all her courage.

“How about we become friends with benefits?” she answered lightly, hoping she sounded extremely cool and relaxed.

Tom just laughed. “Zoe Schuhmacher, I don’t get the impression you’re the ‘friends with benefits’ type of woman.”

“Is that an insult?”

“More like a compliment.”

That night, Zoe Schuhmacher dreamed of Thomas Prescott Fiorino for the first time.

The Verdict, or: Can Anyone Really Sue Whomever They Want Here?

In the land of opportunity, anyone can drag anyone else to court at any time. You can accuse your employer of any imaginable kind of discrimination (age, gender, skin color, religion) or harm (a desk that damages your posture, office coffee that causes headaches, etc.). Or, you can try to sue the manufacturer of the chocolate spread that you smear half an inch thick on your toast every morning, because it’s advertised on the package as being “a healthy meal,” even though it consists of mostly sugar and fat.