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I stared at the ceiling for hours last night, trying to find the right way to tell everyone at Jail Records that Emily won’t be returning to the office. I started thinking about it yesterday on the plane, coming home, when the reality of what happened began to settle in my chest. The speech I prepared lost its meaning the moment everyone sat here in front of me. With wide-eyed, serious faces, the Jailbirds, Iris, and Faith are waiting for me to speak.
I swallow several times and sip some water, but I don’t know where to start. One by one, I look at their faces and imagine how they will react.
“Are you going to talk, or are you going to keep us waiting all morning?” Iris asks impatiently, perhaps suspicious because her best friend is not here on the couch.
Damian gives voice to the concern visible on their faces. “Are you sick? Are you going to die? Please explain your grim expression—you’re scaring us.”
When I think back to Emily, a mixture of betrayal and anger creeps into my stomach, and I don’t know how to contain it. “Emily quit.” I drop the bomb without mincing words.
Complete silence falls, and their faces show a mixture of confusion and disbelief. I don’t even know if they’re breathing. Iris is so pale I’m afraid she’ll faint at any moment.
Simon is the first to speak. “Why did she quit? Didn’t you do anything to convince her to stay?”
“There’s nothing you can do. That’s just the way it is.” A child throwing a tantrum would sound more articulate than my lame explanation. I know it’s a childish answer and wholly inadequate to explain a situation that will have consequences for the record company.
“Does this have anything to do with your bruised and swollen knuckles?” Michael notices my fingers as he squeezes Faith’s hands. She seems on the verge of tears. Maybe because Emily is the one who’s always helped her fill in the gaps at work, or perhaps because, over time, she has become a friend. We’re all friends. Everyone in this room cares about each other, and it’s normal for them to be baffled by the news. And when friendship and work mix, if relationships break down, professional and personal lives suffer.
“That’s none of your business. Emily is gone. I’ll look for someone to replace her. In the meantime, I’m your point person, just like I was until a few years ago,” I snap, almost shouting.
“It’s none of our business? Are you kidding? Emily is one of our employees, and you owe us an explanation.” Leave it to Damian not to beat around the bush, and he’s right.
I’m just unable to tell everything that happened without explaining why I was in Los Angeles. I’m still going to resolve the situation without having to sign another lousy contract for the only clients who have given me unconditional trust since I was a nobody in this business. Remaining silent is better than telling lies that would be uncovered right away. Even if what I’m doing is light years from the professionalism I try to maintain. If one of my employees behaved like I am right now, I would fire them without a second thought.
“I’m solving the problem, okay? If you want Emily, you’re free to go and get her back, but if you do, you’ll lose me!” I shout, getting up from the couch and pacing in front of their baffled faces. I should have stayed home and returned to the office after I calmed down.
“Did she quit, or did you fire her?” Thomas asks in the silence.
I turn and nail him to the chair with my gaze. “What difference does it make?” I hiss before stomping out and slamming the door behind me.
I spent the night looking for a thousand ways to clarify in a civilized way why she is no longer here, why I let go of one of the best assistants I have ever had. But the truth is that there is no way to explain how betrayed and humiliated I feel by what Emily has done. There is no way to make it clear why the anger that mounts inside me obscures any rational thought, why my heart has taken over in a situation where my brain had to guide my actions. On paper, what I did is all wrong. I had to separate the emotional side from the rational one, but the truth is that it’s impossible.
I have always been able to keep my emotional life separate from the working one because I have never been intimately involved with any of the women I’ve worked with. Emily makes my blood boil, she makes me lose my mind, and I can no longer lie to myself: what I feel for her is not strictly professional. I want to sink my hands into her hair, taste those lips and the rest of her body until she moans my name. I want to strip her of those sexy clothes and sink into her as she clings to the sofa in the conference room. None of this is about a work colleague.
***
If I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, I was wrong. I spent hours with the lawyers trying to find a solution to the contract dilemma, and they spent ninety percent of the time having to repeat the same information because my head is focused on a single thought: Emily. Emily with my father, Emily in the hospital next to Aaron, Emily leaving the room with her head held high telling me she quit, Emily wrapped in that red dress, so beautiful it hurts. No matter how hard I try to keep my focus, it’s a constant retracing of every moment I spent with her in Los Angeles.
When I enter my apartment and drop my laptop bag on the sofa, I inhale deeply and look around at my usual immaculate apartment which the cleaning staff tidied up this morning. It’s the one I’ve been living in for years, yet the only thing I see when I set foot in it is Emily sitting at the kitchen counter eating what I cooked or her sitting next to me on the couch. She entered this place only once, and the truth is she never left.
I open the fridge and grab a beer. I look at it and think back to my night in the hospital and the pills the doctor prescribed me. I put it back and grab a bottle of water. Another thing I kept hidden from my friends.
A knock on the door draws my attention, and when I open it, I stare back at the four faces I hoped not to see for a while, at least not so soon after our meeting this morning.
“Are you going to let us in or not?” Damian’s stern voice perfectly matches the expression on his face.
“Were you waiting for me?” I ask when I realize it’s impossible they arrived precisely two minutes after I walked through this door.
Michael nods as he sits on the couch next to Simon and Thomas. “We stayed all afternoon at the café in front of your apartment to keep an eye on the entrance.”
I sit down in a chair and watch them. I don’t feel like talking, and I’m annoyed by their presence here.
“You didn’t think we’d just drop this topic, did you?” Thomas asks me with a nagging tone that irritates me.
“Actually, I was hoping you would give me some time. But it’s clear thatyourtime is more valuable than mine.” My defensive attitude doesn’t help things, it just seems to make them nervous.
Maybe Thomas expects an apology from me—with that judging look and raised eyebrow—but I don’t offer one.
Simon gives voice to what all four are obviously thinking: “Do you really think you can walk into the office and tell us Emily quit, or you fired her, and we’d all just shut up and accept it? If she was incompetent, we might have overlooked it, but you fired one of the best employees we could ever hope to have without consulting us. Remember that this company has five business partners, and you can’t just do what you want. We want an explanation.” He is the most peaceful of the band, and his reproach goes straight to my stomach.
