“You should have seen the filthy text messages Sable was sending him. She’s all horny cat for him, even after he treated her like dirt.” I stab at the little slice of fig that’s in my drink. “He called her sweetheart. It’s so obnoxious. Why do they just eat it up?”
“‘Sweetheart,’ but it's got a subtext of ‘I hate you,’ and that's like catnip.” Hannah kisses her fingers. “McCarthy’s like every guy we ever dated before twenty-five.”
I think about my exes, their casual disregard for me and my feelings and well-being. My headthunksdown on the rickety bar table.
“Why is my life so crappy? I’d love to be one of those girls whose only problem is finding a date to the high school reunion and showing up the mean girl. Meanwhile, the best-case scenario in my life is that my stalker is one of my jilted ex-fiancés and not some rando who’s going to kidnap me and turn me into soap, because that would set off my mentally ill client and he’ll drop a one-thousand-ton mother of a bomb and level half of Seattle.”
“Aww! McCarthy loves you!” Hannah giggles drunkenly.
“Shh! No!” I look around furtively. A lot of Prism employees go to this bar. “He’s a self-absorbed prick and a walking red flag.”
“Sounds like just your type.”
“What do you mean?” I cry.
“Come on,” Hannah says, “you pick the worst men. I don’t know why you’re getting so hung up on McCarthy.”
“Wow.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” my friend says kindly. “Just, you know, of all the shitty men you’ve been with, at least he’s hot and has money. I bet you could spin that into a free place to stay for a few months.”
“I’m not like that.”
“Homeless? Because yeah, you are.” She grabs the cocktail menu. “See if the pussy pass lets you bring a friend.”
“Why does everyone want to have a threesome with him?” I shriek too loudly. A server startles next to me, almost spilling the drink he’s carrying.
“Sorry,” I apologize, grabbing napkins.
“I don’t want to have sex with McCarthy and definitely not with you. I know how often you shower.” Hannah swipes one of her calamari into the spicy sauce and chews. “I just want a couch to crash on. My roommate seems tonever sleep and only have phone sex with her boyfriend. It’s rough out there trying to find a place to live, is all I’m saying. You were on that dating app just to find a guy to date in exchange for a place to live. I’m saying you could do worse than McCarthy, even if he is a grade-A douche.”
“My job…” I moan.
“Oh, FYI, Berthy’s defo firing you. You weren’t at the meeting Friday, but she lit you up. I think the grand bosses are going to give in just so they don’t have to hear about it anymore.”
“Why is my life a disaster?”
“Have the threesome with McCarthy, then move into his guest bedroom. If you can convince him to buy you a car, then you can pawn it later, and you’ll be set until you can find a new job.”
I’m not sleepingwith McCarthy again. I’m not giving in to him.
I believe every catastrophe has a silver lining, and this one where I’m being stalked and thrown out of cars and threatened by fiancés? The silver lining is that I finally have my wake-up call.
I need a list.
I’m at my desk, hoping Bethany doesn’t call me into her office, wanting to know why this weird stain is on her chair and if I have anything to do with it, and oh, by the way, she was at our major client’s house last night, and it looked like I was living there, so…
Not anymore.
I’m done with McCarthy.
Not done with men, though. My insurance doesn’t cover that much therapy.
I write:Red Flag List.
I chew on my pen and contemplate.
No, Truman isn’t with me. McCarthy refused to let me take him.
