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The man was infuriating. Everybody loved him. Every. Single. Person. Even my mother. Even Mrs. Glass.
Mother had been calling me every few days to check on the status of our relationship. I downplayed it as much as I could because I still had no idea how to handle the situation. She was pushing harder for a dinner at our place every time, and I was starting to think I was going to have to work with Travis to fake it somehow. That would mean bringing enough of my things over to make it look like I actually lived there, which was a prospect I didn’t enjoy. Then again, I could make him come to my place. But that would mean bringing his insane zoo, which I didn’t think would fit in my apartment.
Sooner or later, I knew the lie was going to blow up in my face. The trick was finding a way to slip out from under it before that happened.
Mrs. Glass let herself into my office on a Friday evening. I’d been swamped all day and trapped in my office because Travis was feeling particularly social. The damn man had barely been in his closet since the mysterious hour-long lunch break disappearance he took every day. Employees were only supposed to get half an hour for lunch, but Travis was apparently immune to rules because everybody liked him too much to call him on it.
Mrs. Glass had on a highly impractical fur coat with tiger stripes in black and white. The trim looked like cow spots. Sometimes, I wondered how the woman was the head of an international fashion superpower, but then I remembered her personal wardrobe didn’t go through the same review process as our professional lines or catalog pieces.
“You’ve been unusually immobile lately,” she noted, sitting down across from my desk and carefully folding one leg over her thigh. “Should I be concerned you’re coming down with something again?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve had a lot of emails to send.” It was partly true, at least. I’d bitten off more than I could chew when I decided to try to secure a celebrity endorsement of the magazine. I wanted it to be a surprise for Mrs. Glass—hopefully the type of surprise that floated into her thoughts when she considered naming an heir to her throne. But the task was proving more difficult than I imagined, and I found myself swamped in an email chain with dozens of celebrity agents and publicists who wanted details I couldn’t give without Mrs. Glass’ approval.
“Hmm,” she said, uncharacteristically disinterested. She turned her head and seemed to spot Travis through the windows beside my door. He was in a circle of five men, grinning as he said something that had them all laughing. “He’s quite the man, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know who you mean.”
“Barry Boulders, of course.”
I fought the urge to sigh. “Yes. He seems to be getting along well.”
“Well?” she laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone quite like him.”
“Neither have I.”
I meant the comment to sound like conversational agreement, but Mrs. Glass turned a perceptive eye on me. “Is there a problem between you two?”
“Other than the fact that he falsely claimed there was a fire and cost us about an hour of productivity while everyone evacuated the building last week? Not particularly.”
“You know,” she said, leaning forward with a conspiratorial glint in her eyes. “There was a man once. Before I met my husband, of course. Charming. Handsome. Exotic. But he wasn’t the business type. He worked in the mail room, actually.” She leaned back in her chair, sighing wistfully and then chewing her lip as if a particularly raunchy image of the man just surfaced. “We were like Romeo and Juliet. He the Montague and I the Capulet. Star crossed lovers but born to the wrong families to ever consummate our passion.”
I was just staring with raised eyebrows, nodding because I didn’t know what else to do. I knew there were office rumors about Mrs. Glass’ husband who had been put in jail for some sort of fraud charges two years ago. I had no idea she was so romantically inclined, though.
“What happened?” I asked.
She huffed. “Real life happened, Dear. Loving the man you marry is the luxury of the unambitious.” She spoke the words confidently, but I saw the way her lips turned down in distaste, as if the taste of them didn’t agree with her.
She waved that off like it was no big deal. “I’m thinking of promoting Barry. I know Addie and Matt are training to be your right hands, but Barry is exactly the kind of man we need. And frankly, I think the two of you make the perfect pair.”
I choked on air. “Mrs. Glass, I—”
“I’m not asking, Elizabeth. I’m informing you of a decision I’ve already made. I heard about his anxiety issues and his particular requirements for spaces isolated from the rest of the office. Your office and mine are the only other separate areas besides the closet. I’m going to have an architect draft up some plans to make your office a shared space. I can’t have my people working in closets. Besides,” she added with an oddly mischievous glint in her eyes. “I think the close proximity will spark some real… creativity between you two.”
