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Is this an intervention?
(Blakely)
“Is this an intervention?” I was sitting across from Jess at a table in one of the most expensive restaurants in Hollywood. We were inside, where it was darker, more intimate, the surrounding tables were occupied by older men and their young beautiful dates. Conversations were hushed, candlelight flickered. If there was an intervention it was likely to be overheard, and frankly I was done with being lectured, with arguments and constant negotiations, my divorce was taking a pound of flesh, Darren had been my husband, but now he was a horrible monster that seemed bent on destroying me, or maybe I was just being ‘sensitive’ as he liked to point out. I sighed.
Jess narrowed her eyes.
I knew Jess was upset with me about my phone calls with Liam, she pursed her lips and shook her head whenever she overheard us talking.
But now she didn’t say anything, she patted the back of my hand. “No... not at all...” And then exhaled. Yeah, this was totally an intervention. I put down my fork and wiped my mouth. “Out with it — why are you taking me out to dinner?”
She pursed her lips. “Well, you’ve been going through this terrible divorce and I thought you might need a night out.”
“Here? At this darkened restaurant? Everyone male is over our age by thirty years, all the women are under our age by a decade. It’s not really our style.”
“I asked you to go out clubbing with me and what did you say?”
“I said I wasn’t feeling it.”
“So I had no choice but to take you out to a proper ‘conversation’ kind of restaurant — besides, it’s top-rated. The chef is amazing. The fact I got reservations was amazing.”
“So what did you want to talk about?”
“How’s the divorce?”
“Terrible, he’s fighting me about everything, everything. Can you believe it?”
“Basically the business, your accounts, all of it?”
“Hotly contested. He’s acting like the agency is his, like I was just a personal assistant.”
“Ugh, the nerve, the agency is your blood, sweat, and tears! So many times you worked late while he was at meetings.”
“He was the ‘face’ of the agency and I was the background. I’d tell him to take the clients to dinner, because he was so freaking good at dude-talk, well guess what has bitten me in the ass? Thinking we were a team.”
“Have I mentioned how much I hate him?”
“Thank you, you’re a good friend.”
“So what do you do during the day, you’re still going to work?”
I spun my wineglass thinking about how shitty my days had been. “I have been but Wednesday was my last day.”
“How did that even work, you had to work with Darren, smug-ass Darren?”
“Yeah, I had a bunch of accounts to deal with, I sat in my office with the shades drawn, listened to make sure he was gone to lunch before I left, did my best to look like I was ‘unbothered’ while slinking around trying not to be ‘bothered’. Ugh, I hate myself. I know Darren is to blame, but this whole scenario has me as the person ashamed to be in the office. He’s walking around, loud and charismatic, leaning against desks, holding big meetings that I am invited to, but obvs can’t go, so he fucking literally leaves my seat open, as if I’m just being slack, as if I’m ‘absent’.”
She gasped. “How do you know about the meetings?”
“Karrie sits in the meetings and takes notes, I don’t know how I would live without her.”
“And I know I ought to just Meryl Streep-in-Devil-Wears-Prada stalk into the meeting and level him with my gaze and demand I am centered in everything as the co-owner of the agency, but I can’t. I lost my footing. Maybe it was the hike, I was gone, he laid claim to the agency, pissed all around, marking his territory.”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t have gone.”
“Thing is... I don’t regret it one bit. What if I had stayed and I was right now in a clash of wills over which chair to take at the head of the meeting? I would probably be a wreck right now.”
“As opposed to this totally un-wrecked person in front of me?”
