My cheeks burning, I dig around in my bag until I find my key chain. Then I remove the key to the office doors from it and hand it over. The whole time, my brain searches feverishly for some kind of response to the charges laid against me. But there’s really nothing I can say. She had warned me. And I didn’t listen.
And now I had to pay the price.
“Good-bye, Lizzie,” Roberta says, not unkindly.
“Bye,” I say. But a bubble of spit, brought on by the fact that I am weeping openly now, prevents me from saying more. I let Raphael guide me with a hand on my arm through the office—conscious of everyone staring, although of course my vision is so blurred I can’t actually see whether or not they really are looking at me—and to the elevators. We ride down to the lobby in silence, because there are other passengers on board with us.
When we reach the main floor, Raphael continues to guide me through the lobby, because I still can’t see. At the doors to the outside he stops and says a single word to me: “Bummer.”
Then he turns around and heads back to the security desk.
I push open the lobby doors and head outside into the bitter Manhattan cold. I have no idea where I’m going, really. Where can I go? I have no job, and soon, I’ll have no place to live. I have no boyfriend, either, which is really, you know, freeing, on top of the just-getting-fired-and-having-no-place-to-live thing. I feel, in fact, just like Kathy Pennebaker probably did, when she finally admitted that New York City—that big, gutsy, glittering town—had beat her to a pulp and sent her packing.
I’d actually seen Kathy while I’d been home for Christmas. She’d been at the Kroger, pushing a cart in the produce section, looking so washed out and wan, I hardly recognized her.
Is that going to be me someday?I’d wondered, as I’d stared at her from my hiding place behind the nut and dried fruit bins. Will I cease to care what people think of me and go to the grocery store in an over large ALLSTATE 400AT THE BRICKYARD SUMMER RUMBLE NASCAR T-shirt and cropped cargo pants (in the winter)? Will I start dating a guy whose mustache is yellow from nicotine, and who is stocking up on cold medicine—so much so that he can only be planning on mixing up a batch of crystal meth for the weekend? Will I ever actually buy radishes? I mean, for a salad or even just to use as garnish?
And then, hurtling down the street with tears streaming down my face, trying not to slip in the slush beneath my feet, I realize something.
And not just because I’ve suddenly found myself standing in front of Rockefeller Center, its ice-skating rink and gold statue of a man lying down iconic to New York City’s image—the more so with the glittering, towering Christmas tree behind.
No. No, I realize. That will not be me. That will never be me. I would never wear cargo pants in public. I don’t think I could bring myself to date someone who has a yellow mustache. And radishes are only good on tacos.
I’m not Kathy Pennebaker. And I will never be Kathy Pennebaker. EVER.
My resolve thus strengthened, I turned around and found a cab—on my first try! At Rock Center! I know! It was a miracle—and gave the driver the address of Monsieur Henri’s.
When he pulled up in front of the building, I opened my purse to find I had no cash—except the ten-dollar bill Grandma had given me.
But what choice did I have? I handed over the bill, told the driver to keep the change, and barged into the shop, where I found Monsieur and Madame Henri chuckling over the copy of the Journal with steaming mugs of café au lait in their hands and a plate of madeleines in front of them.
“Lizzie!” Monsieur Henri cried delightedly. “You are back! Did you see? Did you see the story and photo? We are famous! Because of you! The phone won’t stop ringing! And the best news of all—Maurice! Maurice is closing his shop down the street and moving it to Queens, instead! All because of you! All because of that story!”
“Yeah?” I unwind my scarf, staring at both of them with fury. “Well, I got fired because of that story.”
This wipes the smiles off their faces.
“Oh, Lizzie,” Madame Henri begins.
But I hold up a single finger.
“No,” I say. “Not a word. You’re going to listen to me. First off, I want thirty thousand a year plus commissions. I want two weeks’ paid vacation, full medical and dental. I want at least one sick day per month plus two personal days per year. And I want the upstairs apartment, rent free, all utilities paid for by the shop.”
The couple continue to stare at me, openmouthed in surprise. Monsieur Henri is the first one to recover.
“Lizzie,” he says, sounding wounded. “What you ask, of course, you deserve. No one is suggesting otherwise. But I don’t see how you can ask us to—”
But Madame Henri silences him with a“Tais-toi!”
While her husband looks at her with surprise, she says to me, clearly and concisely,“No dental.”
I practically feel my knees give beneath me, I’m so relieved.
But I don’t let on. Instead, I say, with all the dignity I can muster, “Done.”
And then I accept their invitation to join them for café au lait and madeleines. Because when your heart is broken, carbs don’t count.
Aaahhhh! You’re home from the honeymoon! Time to start enjoying wedded bliss, right?
WRONG. You have work to do. Get out your stationery—maybe you’ve sprung for the thank-you cards that match your invitations; maybe you’re merely using your new monogrammed note cards—and your favorite pen, and start writing .
If you were smart, you didn’t wait until after the honeymoon to begin the thank-you process, but started writing and sending out thank-you cards as you received each gift . If, however, for some horrible reason you chose to wait, you have your work cut out for you now. At the very least, you ought to have been saving each gift tag, with a note scribbled on the back as to what the gift actually was. If this is the case, you have it easy: just jot a thoughtful note—MENTIONING THE GIFT RECEIVED BY NAME—to each giver, signing it cordially with both spouses’ names.
If you have not kept track of who gave you what, start doing some investigating. Because you can bet that even if you haven’t been paying attention, someone has. And that someone—usually a mother or mother-in-law—can tell you exactly what you received from whom.
The reason you must mention the name of the gift received in your thank-you note is so that the giver knows for certain that you received their gift, and that it was acknowledged in some thoughtful way. Writing “Thank you so much for the gift” is neither polite nor satisfying to the giver… and in general will guarantee that when the baby shower comes around, you will not be receiving anything from that person.{1}
Yes, you must handwrite each card. No, you may not send a photocopied or even printed letter of thanks to your guests.
LIZZIENICHOLSDESIGNS™
Chapter 26
I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as ’twas said to me.
—Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), Scottish novelist and poet
“Wait,” Chaz says. “So he said he couldn’t picture a future with you in it?”
I’m carting the second-to-last armload of clothes up the narrow staircase to my new apartment. Chaz, behind me, has the last one.
“No,” I say. “He said he couldn’t picture the future, period. Because it’s too far away. Or something. You know what? The truth is, I don’t even remember anymore. Which is fine, because it doesn’t matter.”
I reach the top of the stairs, turn left, and I’m in my new apartment. MY apartment. And no one else’s. Clean, furnished in shabby chic, and featuring faded pink wall-to-wall carpeting and cream-colored wallpaper with pink roses in every room save the bathroom, which is tiled in plain beige, it features floors that slope even worse than the ones in Chaz’s place; only four windows—two that look out onto East Seventy-eighth Street from the living room and two that look out into a dark courtyard from the bedroom; a kitchen so tiny only one person can enter it at a time.