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I’m stubborn, though. I used the Wayback search engine, which archives old internet pages, and found the article. The reporter likened Joshua Smith’s company to a swarm of locusts, devouring everything in its path and leaving devastation and heartbreak behind.
He also talked about how Joshua had appeared from nowhere ten years ago, after graduating from a low-level Midwestern business school that was more a diploma mill than anything else. Joshua was so tight-lipped about his personal life that he didn’t even reveal his age. He looked to be late twenties to early thirties, but that was just a guess. Nobody knew anything about Joshua’s family, or where he’d grown up. There are 2.8 million people in the United States with the last name of Smith, the reporter mentioned, making it just about impossible to track down his family. The reporter seemed to be hinting that it was a made-up name, chosen deliberately to hide his origins.
Joshua wasn’t publicity-shy, though. He was frequently seen around town with various models and socialites, but never more than once with the same woman. In every picture, they were clinging to his arm and gazing up at him adoringly, and he was looking away.
I just couldn’t figure him out. And I’m insecure enough that his rejection hurt. I wanted to make him look at me one more time, acknowledge my existence, as if I were a little girl again, invisible, lonely, begging someone to make me real by noticing me.
When I heard that Smith Acquisitions was having a party for some of their bigwig clients, on a whim, I went to human resources and volunteered to waitress. I told them I’d had experience, and was delighted when they said yes.
And now Heather, who knows about my obsession, is trying to force me to make a move. “This is your chance tonight. Whenever you go to work, you’re wearing those god-awful pantsuits. But tonight you’ll be dressed up all sexy. You have to make a pass at him,” Heather informs me.
“Are you insane?” I laugh at her.
“Yes.” She smirks. “But that’s beside the point. You talk about him all the time. Carpe dickem, woman. Seize the dick.”
“Why are you so fascinated with Joshua Smith’s dick?” I select a black wraparound dress with a plunging neckline, and set the other dresses aside, draping them over the back of a chair. “Weirdo. Also, it’s supposed to becarpe diem. Seize the day. And if you’re so interested in his private parts, you go after him.”
“I’m not the one who’s in lurve,” she croons, drawing the word out.
“And neither am I. I’m merely mildly obsessed. What exactly do you suggest that I do?”
“Just at least go up and introduce yourself. Say ‘Hi, I’m Tamara.’ That’s it. See what he does.” She grins mischievously. “And that dress you’re holding right now is the one. It is the bomb. He won’t be able to stop staring at your tits.”
I glance down critically at the wraparound cocktail dress. “Well, I do have a halfway decent rack. I don’t know, though. He hasn’t shown the slightest flicker of interest in me since the minute I started working there. I think it’ll take more than my magic boobs to catch his eye. There are plenty of girls in the city with boobs.”
“Free bagels for a week,” she sings out. “With salmon and cream cheese. If you just grow a pair of lady-cojonesand say hi to him.” She works in the bagel shop around the corner to pay the bills, and auditions for parts in commercials and sitcoms. And she’s always pushing me to do crazy things.
I laugh ruefully. “Damn you. You know my weakness.”
Of course, she doesn’t knowallmy weaknesses. Nobody does. Why tell people that I’m a little bit crazy?
I wait until she heads off to the bathroom before I start tapping the mirror with my index finger. Always the index finger.
“Five, four, three, nobody will hurt me. Seven, eight, nine, everything will be—”
“Tamara?” Heather calls out. I didn’t hear her come back out. I start and stifle a shriek, and my heart accelerates to a million beats a minute. She’d interrupted the chant! Nobody can interrupt the chant! The last time someone interrupted the chant… No.I won’t think about that.
“What were you doing?” she demands suspiciously, coming into the room.
I can’t explain it to her. I can’t tell her about the tapping rituals and the chants that keep me safe. First of all, I know her too well. She’s loud, funny, sarcastic, one of those people who feels obligated to mock everything. The reason behind the tapping and the chants…it’s too painful to share.
And secondly, if I tell anyone, the magic will vanish. I don’t know why, but I know it’s true.
I need them. They calm me, uncoiling the tension that twists me up and sends panic flooding through me at random, unpredictable moments.
And they work. They saved me when I was seven. When I did the Bad Thing. Because of the chants, nobody ever found out.
“I’m not doing anything,” I say, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
“Why were you tapping the mirror like that and talking to yourself?” There’s a ring of disgust to her voice that sends me right back to grade school, when a gang of girls trapped me in the bathroom and made fun of me for my DIY haircut until I cried and threw up. I wasn’t the one who’d cut my hair; my stepfather had sat on me on the floor and hacked hunks of my hair off with dull scissors. Why? Because I hadn’t brought him his beer fast enough. The memory of his erection bulging through his boxer shorts is still enough to curdle my stomach.
“I wasn’t,” I lie, like an idiot.
“Yes you were.” She backs away from me as if I smell bad, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “Why are you acting like such a freak?”
I’m shocked. That’s the nastiest tone she’s ever taken with me.
“Why are you being such a bitch?” The words fly from my mouth before I can stop them. Her features contort with utter hatred, sending shock waves through my body. We’ve been friends for three months now, ever since she moved in across the hall. I’m so busy with my multiple jobs, working from morning to night, that I don’t have time to meet a lot of people, but Heather reached out to me right away. She’s loud and self-confident, which I am not, and she supports everything I do. She makes me feel pretty good about myself.
