Derek—er, Matt—glanced at her, inspecting her openly in a way that reminded me of a scientist inspecting a curious-looking insect. He didn’t appear to be at all offended by her comment, or surprised by it. The irony here, which wasn’t at all lost on me, was that the way he looked at Janie was how she used to look at people when they said something surprising.
Now pregnant, she just looked at everyone with varying degrees of intense irritation.
I gathered a deep breath, ignoring a sudden urge to curl up on Fiona’s comfy sofa and request Sandra spoon me. She would if I asked. Sandra loved to cuddle and I hadn’t cuddled with another person since my ex.
I miss cuddling. Maybe I do need a professional cuddler.
Greg cleared his throat, drawing my attention to him. He was looking at me with pointed intensity, a silent question behind his concerned gaze. Are you okay?
Quickly, I grabbed ahold of my emotions and yanked them back, pasting a smile on my lips; it was another of those situations where I didn’t know how widely to smile. “Well. I guess that explains that.” I tried shrugging, imbuing my voice with false bravado. “No harm no foul.”
Fiona’s tone was infinitely gentle as she said, “Marie—”
“We should all get back to our evening,” I said firmly, not wanting to talk about it, not until I had time to myself and definitely not in front of imposter-Derek. I needed to sort through my own messy feelings. “We should let Greg and, uh, Matt go on their run.”
“Right,” Greg said reluctantly, his eyes moving past me to his wife, adding a few seconds later, “let’s go.”
The tall Brit’s frown was severe. He didn’t look at Matt as he turned, merely gesturing for the shorter man to follow while he disappeared down the hall. Matt moved his dispassionate stare from Janie, and his eyes collided with mine once more. I lifted my chin, glaring at him. He gave me a tight smile and then left, following Greg.
“Don’t listen to him, Marie.” Ashley raised her voice after the front door closed, forcing my attention to the laptop screen. Her face filled the entire space. “That guy is what we call a douche canoe.”
“You should move.” Janie turned her grumpy expression on Fiona as Alex removed his hands—no longer needing to restrain her—and stuffed them in his pockets. He traded a sideways glance with his wife. “Otherwise,” Janie continued, “I might be forced to punch that guy in the throat.”
Fiona inspected me for a short moment, and then gave Janie a weary smile as Sandra and Elizabeth reclaimed their seats. “Actually, we are moving. We’ve been putting it off for months, but with the baby, we’ll do it within the next year. This place is too small for five people.”
“Move to our building,” Elizabeth suggested, sneaking me a surreptitious glance while she addressed Fiona. “You know Quinn would love having you close by so he can pick your ninja brain more often.”
Quinn, Janie’s husband, ran a wildly successful global security firm and owned several floors in a building overlooking Grant Park. The apartments were reserved for employees of his firm, but Elizabeth and Nico lived in one of the penthouses, as did Janie and Quinn. As Alex worked for Quinn’s corporate subsidiary, Cipher Systems, he and Sandra also lived in the building. Fiona had also recently accepted a contract position with Cipher Systems.
“Then Greg can go jogging with Quinn instead of that douche canoe,” Janie mumbled, her lip curled into a subtle snarl as she rubbed her lower back.
If I hadn’t been so off-kilter and preoccupied by recent events, I might’ve laughed. Truly, Janie had become a different person over the last few months.
As though reading my mind, Elizabeth piped in, “Jeez Louise, Janie. It’s like, carrying Quinn’s baby has turned you into a replica of his grumpy ass. Pretty soon you’ll be giving us all the ice stare and quoting Dirty Harry movies.”
“Quinn doesn’t quote Dirty Harry movies.” Janie wrinkled her nose at Elizabeth.
“He doesn’t need to, because that’s how he talks in real life.” Elizabeth’s teasing statement drew chuckles from everyone except me.
I tried, but I didn’t laugh this time. Couldn’t. Thankfully, the subject change provided an opportunity to dart out of the room to refill Janie’s water. Walking into the kitchen, I ran the faucet and sighed. I was having trouble swallowing, unable to move past Derek’s/Matt’s notion that nothing about me was unique.
Nothing was special. I was nothing special.
My eyes caught on my reflection in the dark window over the sink. I had blonde hair. My skin was beige. I was wearing my tan sweater dress.
I was struck by my monochromatic blandness. Did the inside reflect the outside?
4
Kiddon & Brun's TWSS system
A statistical machine learning algorithm to detect whether a sentence contains a "That's what she said" double entendre.
Source: Funniest Computer Ever Open Source Initiative
Several events over the next week transformed my melancholy into rage.
First of all, men were idiots. Let’s just get that out of the way.
Second, I was propositioned by my building manager. He was married. With children.
Third, I’d neglected to deactivate my FindUrPartner.com account after the date from hell, so when I logged in five days later there were three new messages, all of them containing dick pics.
Scratch that.
All of them containing underwhelming dick pics. I mean, if you’re going to send a woman a dick pic, at least send something worth seeing. Not a gherkin dwarfed by hairy potatoes.
And finally, my ex—who I hadn’t spoken to in over a year—invited me to his engagement party.
His. Engagement. Party.
To. Another. Woman.
There I was, minding my own business, opening my mail while waiting for a conference call to start. I was at work, sitting at my desk. As a contract writer, I could work from home. I’d tried doing just that for a few years, but found the isolation to be counterproductive to my mental health.
Therefore, I’d joined an office co-op near the Loop a few years back. Basically, it’s an office—like any other office environment—except most of us don’t work together or even in the same field. We shared the same public space, used the same copy machine, the same break room, etc.
I liked the dynamics and environment of working in an office. Not only did it get me out of my pajamas, it gave me the opportunity to have normal discussions around a water cooler with other working professionals.
Glancing impassively at the envelope, because it had looked like any other envelope, I noticed my address had been handwritten. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, nor had a return address been visible. Tearing into it serenely, I listened as others joined the call.
It took reading the invitation five times before I fully comprehended what it was. And by the time complete understanding settled in, my rage was out of control, especially since the party wasn’t for another six months.
Who does that? Who sends an invite for a party that far in advance?
I focused on that minute and meaningless detail because the rest of my feelings felt too unwieldy to examine.