LITMIR.BIZ

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polite golf clap. “Brava.”

      “Now the other one,” Martika said. “A little faster, this time.”

      “But…I have to go to work tomorrow!”

      “Two piña coladas isn’t going to put you under the table,” Martika said, with an exasperated sigh. “Besides, we haven’t even gone to a club yet. This is just warm-up.”

      As Taylor started to protest that he needed to make this an early night (“I promised Luis!”) Martika noticed that Sarah was going from flushed to pale.

      “I think I’ll just nurse this one.”

      Martika shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She took her watermelon shot, and with a quick snap of the wrist threw it back, feeling more than tasting the quick tang of Midori before being hit with the slight flame of alcohol. She put the glass down, smiling at Sarah. “One piña colada, and you’re trashy. This is downright epic.”

      “I didn’t say I was trashy. I just said I had to go to work tomorrow.”

      “What is it you do again?”

      “I’m an assistant account executive,” she said. Her dilated eyes were beginning to look a little out of focus. “At Judith’s…that’s my friend.” She took another sip of the piña colada, as if she weren’t thinking about it—like she was just thirsty. “My friend Judith, who you haven’t met.”

      “I have,” Taylor said, also noticing that Sarah was slowly working down her drink. “Judith makes this one look like you.”

      “Wow. Guess I’ll have to not meet her, then.”

      Taylor chuckled. Sarah sipped.

      In an hour, Sarah had sipped her way through another piña colada and was getting surprisingly talkative. The club idea was out—the girl was weaving as they got her into the car, something Martika thought completely hysterical and Taylor found “charming.”

      “I’ve gotten so used to you stereotypical Irish two-fisters that it’s been a while to see a ladylike, girl-drink-drunk,” he said. Martika frowned at him.

      “I’m ladylike.”

      “Sure,” Taylor patted her cheek. “And I’m Keanu Reeves.”

      “Good night, Keanu!” Sarah said, and abruptly started hiccupping. “Oh, God. Hope I don’t yuke.”

      “You and me both, sister,” Martika said, propping her up in the elevator. “Four piña coladas and you’re a mess. This is so funny.”

      Martika guided her back to the apartment. She was still talking in that little girl voice of hers.

      “So I’m waiting for Jam to move back,” Sarah confided earnestly. “Well, not back, it’s not like he’s lived here before. But you know what I mean.”

      “Sure.” She grinned as she undid the top two dead bolts and finally got the door handle. “Although, if I hadn’t heard the details from Taylor, I’d guess that Jam was your invisible friend rather than your fiancé.”

      “Well, he’s sort of my invisible fiancé,” she said, with a hiccupy little laugh.

      “You said it,” Martika pointed out, closing the door behind the wobbling Sarah. “Not me.”

      “I know. I don’t mean to complain. I just miss him, that’s all. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like he misses me,” she said. The tone was so matter-of-fact, Martika felt a pang of pain on her behalf. She wondered if Sarah were sober if she would have felt the pain. Then she realized—if Sarah were sober, she wouldn’t be saying all of this. “So why do you stay with the guy?”

      Martika knew she probably shouldn’t counsel her roommate on her love life—but hell, she counseled all of her friends. And if anyone ever needed a mentor, it was this little drunk girl with the long blond hair—like a misplaced Norwegian waif.

      Sarah stopped by the arm of the couch, in the middle of a very amusing tableau of trying to kick one shoe off with the other foot. “Why what?”

      “If he’s invisible, and you miss him, why do you stay with him?”

      “Can’t walk away,” she mumbled, finally successfully kicking off one shoe and sighing. “I mean, you can’t just give up on something like that. Besides, I love him. I couldn’t walk away from somebody I loved.”

      “I can understand that,” Martika said. Not about relationships. But say Taylor—she’d never walk away from him. “But the question is, does he love you? He seems to be hurting you an awful lot.”

      Sarah seemed to sober for a moment—like a kid at a high school party who had suddenly realized that her parents had come home. “He’s not hurting me,” she said, struggling with the other shoe. “He just…he’s just busy. He needs me to understand. I’m trying to be very, very understanding.”

      Martika was understanding this whole thing a bit, herself. She frowned. The guy was an obvious asshole. Sarah really ought to dump him, move on. Maybe she’d start that campaign, too, as well as her campaign to “corrupt” the kid. “Well, as long as he’s away, it doesn’t matter how often you’re out, right?”

      Sarah thought about this for a minute, then grinned. “Nope. Doesn’t, really. I’m sure he might mind if it were like every night or if it were interfering with my career…”

      “Well, it won’t.”

      “I’m just saying,” Sarah said…then slumped into the couch. “I think I’m going to sleep right here.”

      “Oh, no, you’re not,” Martika said, tugging her to an upright position. She’d never seen somebody decompress quite this fast. “Shit. Come on, Sarah. You take Martika’s advice—a few vitamins, a few aspirins and one huge glass of water. Then brush your teeth, and go to bed.”

      “What day is it?”

      “Thursday, sweetie. Remember?”

      “I think I have something important to do tomorrow, but I can’t remember what.”

      “You’ll remember tomorrow,” Martika promised. “I swear, honey. Now get up and brush.”

      Chapter 4

      Unhappy Girl

      “Walker! Where the fuck have you been?”

      Sarah stood stock-still, as if she’d been shot. Her slight headache made her feel as if she had been shot. “I beg your pardon?”

      “I told everybody they needed to be in here early today!” Becky’s eyes were glinting like gunmetal, and if she’d shot red lasers out of them, Sarah would have been no less surprised. “Early! What time is it?”

      Sarah glanced at her watch, unsure if that was a rhetorical question or not. “Eight?” she said, glad that she’d set the alarm before she went out on the town.

      “Goddam eight. Jacob has been in here since seven. Michelle has been here since goddamn six.”

      Jacob and Michelle had not been hazed at 5140, either, Sarah reflected. She knew there was something she was supposed to do today. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. Just when she was trying to make a good impression, too! She needed this job. She really, really needed this job!

      Becky was not appeased. “I need you to input all of these—and double check this time—and Raquel’s going to be busy doing copying for me, so I need you to go to the cleaners and get my suits. Goddam presentation is first thing Monday morning, we’ve got absolutely nothing worth showing yet, I need to pull off a goddamn miracle. If you’re not careful, Sarah, you’re not going to be staying here. Off the top of my head, I can think of twenty people who’d give their right arm to work for a place like Salamanca.”

      Oh, no. Sarah felt herself go clammy with shock.

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