LITMIR.BIZ

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with sleek short haircuts, most in trendy glasses that make them look erudite and chic.

      The men—most of them good-looking with longish hair—are carelessly stylish in jeans and turtlenecks with blazers. They tend to remind me of my friend Buckley, who also happens to be a freelance copywriter. They have that quick-witted, funny-sexy-smart thing going on, just like Buckley.

      Jack has it, too, but in a quieter, more subtle way.

      Jack. My fiancé.

      Hallelujah! I actually have a fiancé!

      Yet as we take our seats around the conference table, I sneak my left hand out of my pocket for a quick glimpse of my ring, just to make sure it’s really there and I didn’t imagine the whole thing.

      Nope, the diamond’s there, all right—and Adrian just caught me staring lovingly at it.

      Oops.

      I ingeniously pretend there’s a bug crawling on my knuckle and slap at it with my right hand, saying loudly, “Ouch!”

      Everyone stops talking and moving chairs to look over at me.

      “Mosquito,” I explain, scratching as if I’ve just been bitten. Then I wave the air in front of my face for added authenticity. Then I remember that it’s February in a Manhattan office building.

      Then I note that if I don’t stop this charade right now, I might as well keep on waving…goodbye to my brilliant advertising career.

      Adrian is watching me with this expression that’s…well, I guess you’d describe it as a fascinated frown. Not in a good way.

      “Tracey?” Carol interjects, looking from our boss to me. “Do you have that nutritional data for pork ribs that we’d like to add to the presentation?”

      What she is really saying is, “I’m saving your ass. Now prove that it’s worth saving and show us what you’ve got.”

      Good old mushroom-headed Carol.

      “I have it right here,” I inform her and the rest of the group, some of whom—cough, Susan, cough—look vaguely disappointed at my efficiency. They were probably hoping to watch me slide slowly into madness. It happens all the time in this industry. I’m sure it starts with slapping at imaginary bugs, frequently on Monday mornings.

      But it doesn’t happen to me.

      No, I, Tracey Spadolini, account executive extraordinaire, am hell-bent on maintaining my sanity.

      I whip out my manila folder and open it briskly, scanning the top document. “Pork ribs…pork ribs…pork ribs…”

      …are available at Shorewood Country Club with a smoked hickory or honey-mango barbecue sauce for the cocktail hour, not the main course, at an added $5 per head.

      Oops.

      I stare at the reception catering menu I printed off the Internet last night, then slowly lift my head to find a roomful of expectant faces.

      “Wrong folder,” I say in a small voice, pushing back my chair. “I’ll just run back down and get the right one.”

      Then I bolt for the elevator, clutching the folder whose tab is labeled Wedding and decorated with lopsided red-Sharpie-drawn hearts.

      

      It’s a little anticlimactic to walk into Tequila Murray’s that night just as two-for-one margarita happy hour is ending, where Yvonne, Brenda and Latisha are waiting to toast my engagement.

      The four of us have been working at Blaire Barnett together for a few years now. Well, actually, Yvonne—who is well past retirement age—has been there a few decades, working as Adrian’s secretary. Before that—well before that, I’m sure—she was a Rockette. She still has a dancer’s lithe body and has been known to demonstrate a few kickline moves when pressed…and smashed.

      I slide into the fourth chair at our regular table before hanging my bag over the back. The chair would tip over without me in it to counterbalance the weight in the black leather tote. It’s jammed with stuff—some of it work related, but most of it wedding related. Modern Bride alone is like lugging a brick doorstop around on your shoulder.

      “I’m so glad you guys didn’t leave,” I tell the three of them.

      “No, you’re so lucky we didn’t leave.” Brenda checks her watch. “I’ve got fifteen minutes, tops, to hang out, and Paulie said the baby is already sound asleep. I missed his bedtime nursing for the second night in a row—last night was my cousin’s baby shower and I didn’t get home till eleven. Poor little Jordan’s going to wonder where his mommy is.”

      “I hate to say it,” I tell her, “but Carol and Adrian are still at the office now, making a gazillion changes to the campaign, and we have to present it again on Thursday…You’re probably all going to be working late all week.”

      “Paulie might as well grow a tit,” is Yvonne’s predictably dry take on the situation before she downs the last swallow in her martini glass. She doesn’t go for “girlie drinks” like margaritas and cosmopolitan.

      “Well, Susan knows I’ve got to leave early tomorrow for Keera’s teacher conference,” Latisha says firmly. She’s fiercely devoted to Keera, the now-teenage daughter she raised as a single mother before she met and married her husband, Derek. They have a child together, too, a boy Latisha the New York Yankees fanatic named after her favorite player, Bernie Williams.

      Latisha has her hands full these days. Poor Keera was just diagnosed with dyslexia. Latisha has been absorbed with trying to get the right services for her while constantly doing battle with Bernie, who is a terrible two now.

      “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I wouldn’t count on Susan letting you go early,” I tell her reluctantly. “Adrian’s on the warpath and everyone’s going to be going nuts. It’s going to be all hands on deck until the Client approves this thing.”

      Is it my imagination, or is there suddenly tension in the air?

      I can’t help but suddenly find myself all too aware that I’m now privy to information that isn’t readily available to the three of them, with their administrative jobs and joint cubicles down the hall.

      They must be aware of it, too. But trust me, when I was promoted last month, nobody was more thrilled for me than they were.

      Well, maybe Jack was—since he not only loves me but gets to reap the salary benefits.

      But these three were the ones who encouraged me to ask for a promotion, and they were the ones who took me to Tequila Murray’s to celebrate the moment it came through.

      Just as they insisted on taking me out tonight after Brenda shared the big news about me and Jack. I haven’t seen the others yet, thanks to the ongoing Client meeting from hell, and it was a little disappointing that I didn’t get to tell them in person. I didn’t even have time to ask Brenda to save the news for me to share—let alone time to revel in her thrilled reaction.

      But I was touched when I returned to my office at last to find a bunch of congratulatory e-mails from the girls and orders to meet them here for happy hour.

      “Well, anyway, I’m really sorry I’m so late,” I say apologetically, reaching for a broken-off tortilla chip from the nearly empty basket on the table and dredging it through what’s left of the salsa. “If I’d have known I was going to be stuck there this late, I would have said we should celebrate another night.”

      “It’s okay…Here, we ordered you your raspberry margarita.” Brenda hands it over. “Actually we ordered one when we first got here, but we had to drink that. This is your freebie second. It’s a little melted.”

      It’s pure liquid, but who cares? I take a sip and the tepid tequila burns its way down to my empty stomach. Pure heaven after a hellacious day in Account Exec Land.

      “Come on, come on, give it over.” Latisha

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