The Opposite of Me (11 page)

“Nothing like this has ever happened before and I assure you it will never—”

“Lindsey,” he cut in, his voice a whip. “Doug is your employee.”

I blinked in surprise. Where was he going with this?

“Well, technically, yes,” I said. “But he doesn’t report directly to me.”

“I don’t care who the hell he reports to. He works on your team,” Mr. Dunne said. “What were you thinking?”

“It was a mistake,” I said, dropping my head in shame. “A terrible, terrible mistake. One I’ll never—”

“I know you’re disappointed tonight, but that’s no excuse,” Mr. Dunne said. “You’ve left me with no choice.”

Anxiety exploded inside of me, cutting off my airways and making me gulp shallow breaths. Suddenly I knew what he was about to say, and I had to stop him; I had to change Mr. Dunne’s mind.

“Doug started it,” I babbled. “Ask him; he’ll tell you. Of course that doesn’t excuse what I did, I’m not saying that at all—”

“I have to let you go,” Mr. Dunne said.

His words hit me with the force of a thunderclap ripping apart the sky. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. My entire body started to shake.

Mr. Dunne exhaled. “Lindsey, I like you. You do good work. But aside from the fact that you’ve violated basic standards of decency in the office, you’ve left this agency open to a major sexual harassment lawsuit. You know we have a policy in place to prevent this sort of thing.”

“Doug won’t sue!” I said, my voice rising to a hysterical shriek. “Let me talk to him; I swear he won’t sue.”

“No, you will not talk to him!” Mr. Dunne thundered. Now he was really angry; spots of red appeared high on his cheeks.
“Do you want him to say you asked him to keep quiet? Do you want him to say you threatened him? Do you want to drag the name of this agency—the agency I built from scratch—through the mud of a lawsuit?”

“No, no, no, I didn’t mean that,” I said, unconsciously clasping my hands, as though in prayer. God, how could I possibly be making this worse? I had to think clearly now; everything depended on it. I had to sell myself like I’d never sold anything before.

“Please, just give me another chance,” I begged. I would’ve gotten down on my knees if it would’ve helped. I would’ve kissed his feet and brought him coffee every day. I would’ve done anything to keep my job. How could this be happening to me?

If I’d been anxious before, waiting for Mason’s announcement, it was nothing compared to this. Panic spread through my body like wildfire. I was shaking so hard that even Mr. Dunne noticed, and his expression softened slightly.

“I’ll work harder. I’ll do better. I swear I’ll never do anything like this again.” My voice was a shriek.

“I believe you,” Mr. Dunne said. “But it’s too late. The damage is done. You knew about our policy. You understood the consequences. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no,” I said. “You can’t mean that. You can’t. Please.”

“Lindsey, I’ll give you a reference,” he said. “That’s all I can do.”

“But—” I started to say.

“You need to leave now,” Mr. Dunne cut me off. “Please pack your things immediately. This isn’t easy for me, either.”

I stared at him, my mind reeling. I had to fix this, I could still fix this, I could—

But Mr. Dunne was standing up, and walking over to his door, and holding it open for me to leave.

And just like that, in the snap of a finger, my life was over.

Six
 

 

I STAYED IN BED for three days straight. My insomnia was cured; now I had the reverse affliction. All I wanted to do was sink into a deep, dreamless sleep. I drew my shades so darkness and silence wrapped themselves around me. I turned off my phone and let my mail pile up in a heap in my hallway and slept for hours and hours, waking only to pull another quilt out of my closet and add it to the pile on top of me, or to sip from the glass of water on my nightstand. Like a severely injured patient who is put into a medically induced coma to speed healing, my body was self-medicating, taking me away from the reality of my pain and into the blessed reprieve of sleep.

Once I heard someone pounding on my door, but I put my pillow over my head, and eventually they went away. I dove into sleep again, the hours passing like seconds, my exhausted body soaking in rest.

On the fourth day, I made it all the way from my bed to the bathtub, taking small, careful steps. I kept the lights low and filled my tub with almost unbearably hot water and added an entire bottle of Molton Brown bubble bath. I brought a cup of chamomile tea with honey into the tub and soaked for an hour,
my mind still numb. Just making the tea and filling the bath had exhausted me all over again.

I lay in the tub, not thinking about anything but the patterns my fingers were aimlessly tracing in the bubbles. I felt insulated from everything, like a fragile china cup rolled up in layers of newspaper and tucked between sheets of Bubble Wrap. Nothing could hurt me in my little apartment; I was safe and protected and warm. When my fingers turned soft and raisiny, I pulled the plug, put on an old T-shirt, and toddled back to bed, my movements as slow as an old woman’s.

Hours later, I awoke to hear the door of my apartment opening.

I didn’t have the energy to move. If it was a burglar, he could take everything, as long as he left my bed. I wanted to stay in it forever, hugging my soft blue cashmere pillow, my mind in a fuzzy place where reality couldn’t intrude.

“Miss Rose?”

It was the superintendent of my apartment building.

“Are you in here?”

Most supers were Queens through and through, with the requisite gold chains and generously unbuttoned shirts. Mine was a struggling poet who weighed less than I did and had squealed like a Catholic schoolgirl when a resident discovered a baby mouse in the laundry room.

“I’m coming in, is that okay?”

I closed my eyes again. Maybe when he saw that I was sleeping, he’d go away.

“Lindsey?”

This time it was a different voice. Matt’s.

I should get up and offer them some tea, I thought vaguely. But my arms and legs were too leaden to move. Maybe they’d go ahead and make it for themselves.

“God, if she did something to herself—” Matt was saying.

“Hand me that frying pan,” the super said.

“Why?” Matt asked.

“If it’s foul play, the perp may still be here,” the super said knowingly.

“For Christ’s sake,” Matt said. “Move out of the way.”

My bedroom door squeaked open. I should ask the super to fix that squeak; how convenient that he was here. It was like fate, or kismet. Was there a difference between fate and kismet? I wondered vaguely. If so, it was a question for greater minds than mine.

“Miss Rose?” the super yelled into my face. “Can you hear me?”

I dragged my eyes open.

“Lindsey?” Matt shoved the super, nearly knocking him down, and appeared at my bedside.

“Hey,” he said softly, peering down at me. He put my purse on the bed. “I brought you this.”

I lifted a hand and gave a little wave. A wave was so pretty, I thought, watching my hand gently flap back and forth. If you did it slowly enough and spread your fingers, it looked like a fan. People should really wave more.

“Do you feel all right?” Matt asked. He was wearing a suit. He must’ve come right from—
No.
My mind recoiled, like a hand jerking back from a hot stove. I wasn’t going to think about that.

“Good,” I tried to say, but my voice was a croak. I cleared my throat and tried again.

“Good,” I said. “Sleepy.”

I closed my eyes again and started to drift off.

“She might’ve overdosed,” the super said. “We should probably put her under a cold shower.”

I opened an eye and tried to muster up a glare.

“Linds?” Matt said. He leaned closer to me. He had a red spot on his tie. It looked like spaghetti sauce.

“Remember the gnocchi?” I asked him.

“The what?” he asked, a furrow forming between his brows.

“I think she said Nokia,” the super stage-whispered to Matt. “She wants her cell phone. She might want to say her good-byes. Call her friends and whatnot.”

The super leaned closer to me. He was trying, with minimal success, to grow a goatee, I noticed. “Who—do—you—want—to—call?” he said, exaggerating the pronunciation of every word like an English as a second language teacher speaking to a particularly dim-witted student.

“Lindsey, did you take anything?” Matt asked.

“Hmmm?” I said.

Matt yanked open my nightstand drawer and rifled through it, then he dropped to the floor in a push-up position and peeked under my bed.

“You didn’t take any pills, did you?” Matt called from my bathroom. I hoped he wouldn’t notice I hadn’t wiped down the tub after my bath. There wasn’t anything worse than a bathtub ring.

“Check her pupils,” the super advised, pulling a minuscule flashlight out of his pocket—he was the only super in town who refused to wear a work belt—and shining it into my face.

God, that little man was annoying. I put the pillow over my head again, hoping they’d take the hint and leave.

“Lindsey,” Matt said. “Can you tell me what day it is?”

I took off the pillow and made an effort to smile reassuringly at him.

“Look,” I said, speaking as politely as I could. “Thank you both for coming by. But I really must rest now.”

That should do it. I closed my eyes again.

I heard the two of them muttering in the corner. It was kind of comforting, actually, as though someone had turned the television on low to a soap opera.

“. . . just sleeping pills, but only one was missing . . .”

“. . . check for alcohol?”

My refrigerator door opened and shut, then I heard someone rummaging through my cabinets. Maybe they were fixing something to eat. I should be hungry, but I wasn’t, which was lovely, because it meant I’d never have to get up again.

“. . . breakdown. My aunt had one . . . same symptoms . . .”

“. . . hospital?”

“. . . call someone?”

I snuggled deeper under my comforter, curling up my body so I was as small and cozy as possible, like a little squirrel snug in its nest. I’d nearly fallen asleep again when one sentence sliced through the thick fog in my mind, as clear and frightening as an air-raid siren.

“I found her address book,” Matt said. “I’m going to call her parents and sister.”

I sat up in bed and threw back the covers and shrieked at the top of my lungs, “Nooooo!”

Two hours later, I was sitting on my couch, wrapped in a warm bathrobe, a half-empty bowl of chicken noodle soup on my lap. Matt had found a can in my pantry—it was just about the only thing in my pantry—and heated it up, then watched me eat every spoonful. Even though the smell made me feel ill, I’d managed to choke down enough to satisfy him. He’d also made me take a shower, and he’d opened the blinds. It had snowed while I was sleeping; the streets were clear, but the treetops still wore little white lacy caps. The cold, bright sunlight told me it was midday. It had taken me a while to figure out which day. Tuesday.

“I’m okay,” I said for the hundredth time. “I was just tired.”