Read the book: «Slim Chance»
JACKIE ROSE
was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, where she now lives with her husband, daughter and dog. After cutting her teeth in the publishing world editing a travel magazine, she decided to devote herself to writing full-time. Slim Chance is her debut novel.
When she’s not looking herself up on the Internet, Jackie likes to spend her time sleeping, shopping and musing about the meaning of it all. She’s also currently hard at work on her second book.
For Dan, my one and only love
Slim Chance
Jackie Rose
MILLS & BOON
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to…
Robyn Berman, for lighting a fire under me and keeping it burning. Sam Bell, my devoted editor, for all your help and encouragement, every step of the way. Rachel Pritzker, for being the absolute polar opposite of the mother-in-law in this book. Nelu Wolfensohn, for that whole roof over our heads thing. Riana Levy, Tara Cogan, Wendy Cooper, Kathy De Koven and Ilana Kronick, for being the very paragons of friendship, if not always virtue. Lorne Scharf, photo expert, for the back-cover shot. Rose and Issie Lipkus, for your endless smiles and support. Natalie Rosenhek—aka “Bubba”—for baby-sitting with a passion. Shoel Rosenhek, for getting me started with all those trips to the library. Jordy, for sending news of the world home from New York, London and beyond. Sarah, lover of ideas and pursuer of wisdom, for everything, always. Sandy Lipkus, for being the best teacher I ever had.
And, of course, Abigail,
for helping with revisions from the inside.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
EPILOGUE
1
If you’ve ever puked at work, it has probably been for one of two reasons—either you’re desperately, uncontrollably ill with some type of stomach flu or food poisoning, in which case you’re just glad to have made it to the bathroom on time and don’t really care if anyone hears you throwing your guts up, or else you’re sick in the sort of way you’d prefer to keep to yourself (i.e., violently hung over; just discovered you’re pregnant; fired, and so on). That afternoon, as I stared down into the bowl in the unforgiving light of the ladies’ room on the third-floor offices of Kendra White Cosmetics, The Second-Largest Direct-Selling Makeup Company In America, I realized that this situation definitely falls into the latter category, the sort of barfing where you pray for privacy while processing the certain knowledge that your entire life as you know it is about to change.
I can’t believe I said yes.
Until that moment, thanks to a healthy aversion to mayonnaise and an inherited ability to hold my liquor, I’d never suffered the indignity of being sick in public. Now, though, a gaggle of thick-stockinged co-workers fretted outside the stall door, gossipful glee disguised as concern. They’d seen me bolt for the bathroom. Now they waited for completion.
Please, just let me not puke.
But it was no use. My eyes filled with water, my knees hit the floor and the bowl became my whole world. In my day-to-day life at Kendra White, I make a concerted effort not to put my ass anywhere near these toilets. Now, my face was inside one.
An eternity passed, during which time I pretended I was in the Ally McBeal Unisex, so sterile, so sleek, so much fun…not at all like this abysmal pit, where ladies’ unmentionables are strewn all over the wet floor and the garbage can’s always overstuffed. Oh my God, is that a pubic hair on the seat?
“Are you all right, Evelyn? Do you need someone to hold your hair back?” Pruscilla Cockburn, my boss, wheezed from the other side.
“No, I’m fine,” I gagged.
“Well then, get a hold of yourself, dear. It’s only nerves! You’re going to make a wonderful wife. And what a fellow, that Bruce. He’s waiting just outside the door, you know. Gosh! Have you ever seen such a romantic proposal? Well I know I certainly haven’t—not even on A Wedding Story, and I’ve got every one on tape. I mean, can you imagine? Asking her at work? In front of everyone…?”
At this point, it was obvious she’d forgotten all about me, and was simply sharing with the others. What a hag. I had just suffered the worst sort of humiliation imaginable, my love life savagely ripped from the privacy of my own heart and put on display in front of everyone I hate most in the world, and all Pruscilla could think about was what a great story it would make at the coffee cart tomorrow morning. My entire life had just been turned upside down, and all they could think about was how it affected them. I turned away from the bowl and saw four pairs of feet, each in worse shoes than the next. Pruscilla’s were stuffed like sausages into worn-out red pumps. She always matches her shoes to her outfits—vast swaths of brightly colored fabric that go under the guise of “caftans” and “capes” in plus-size stores. They should be illegal, as far as I’m concerned.
“I’m okay. I’m coming out,” I sniffed, opening the door.
I should have seen it coming. Bruce’s proposal, I mean, not the puking.
That morning, for some reason, I read my horoscope, which is something I never do, seeing as how I’m usually far too late to read the paper, or even bring it in, mind you. Plus, I hate touching newsprint—it always ends up all over everything, especially my face. Not that I really believe in astrology anyway. Except for maybe the page at the back of Cosmo, since it’s a magazine, not a newspaper, and because once I used the lucky numbers and won $125 in the lottery. But I suppose that’s numerology.
Anyway, that morning, my horoscope was dead-on, although I had no way of knowing it at the time. The first sign that the planets were aligning against me occurred when I actually woke up early. Well, not so much early as just not late. And Bruce, dear that he is, made us breakfast. Three-egg cheese and mushroom omelets—with the yolks, of course; none of that whites-only shit for us—and coffee. It was unusual for me to lose my dietary resolve so early in the day (that usually doesn’t happen until right before lunch), but I knew that since it was Friday anyway, Monday would doubtlessly be a better time to start watching myself. Better not to spoil the weekend, and all the wonderful meals that might have been.
“Evie, you wanna go out for dinner tonight, just us?” Bruce asked, knowing full well we almost always go out Friday nights, just us. He probably thought he was being adorable for asking, but to tell you the truth he was verging on smarmy. Or maybe it was just that he’d already asked me three times. With our busy career-person schedules, Bruce doesn’t always see as much of me as he’d like, so I try to keep our weekly date sacred no matter what. That is, unless his mother, Roberta—known as Bertie to those who love her, or at the very least to those who don’t despise her, since not too many people can claim more than that—decides that she wants to have us over for watery soup and boiled potatoes, in which case we drop everything and run directly to the Fulbrights’ Greenwich, Connecticut compound for a meal that would make dinner with the Royal Family seem like a hoedown.
I was at the very least glad to hear tonight would not be one of those nights. One Friday a month with his mother is quite enough for me, though Bertie would have us over every week if I didn’t put my foot down. It’s my theory that these so-called family nights are really just an excuse for her to try and turn Bruce against me, since she obviously thinks I’m stopping him from fulfilling his true potential. And who could blame me? Bertie sets the tone with interview-style questions like “Bruce, do you feel that teaching second grade is a challenge for you, intellectually speaking?” (A: “As you know, Mother, it’s a school for gifted children, so yes—it is a challenge”). Or perhaps a confusing zinger like, “Evelyn, does being Italo-American give you an edge in the mail-order cosmetics industry?” (A: Well, I’m only one half Italian-American, Mrs. Fulbright, but no, I don’t think it really makes a difference.”)
Then we all sit back and enjoy the show while Bruce’s wicked WASPy sisters, Brooke, Wendy and, of course, Diana—each lovelier and thinner and perkier-breasted than the next—turn the emasculation of their older brother into a spectator sport, while at the same time taking an obvious mental inventory of every bite I manage to put in my mouth without gagging. By the end of the night, I’m ready to kill, ready to shake his sweet old dad and say “Wake up! They’ve got you by the balls, man! Get out now, while you’ve still got a good 20 years left!” But nobody seems to notice any of it except me, and Bruce and I spend the train ride home fighting.
But we’ll save all that for next Friday. Tonight, we’re free.
“I was thinking Luna,” Bruce continued. “I made reservations for nine.”
He knows I love it there. Luna is where my parents had their first date, a blind date. It was where they fell in love the second they laid eyes on each other. When I was little, and sad or not feeling well, I begged my mom to tell me the story over and over, and she would always oblige, sparing no details—what she was wearing, the food they ate, how my dad said she looked like Elizabeth Taylor, only with brown eyes and a bigger butt. I tried to imagine them there, sitting next to the steamy window on a dark winter night. Luna was also where they went to eat the night I was conceived. It was the last time they did it before my dad died, although she left that part out until I was a little older.
Bruce and I always save Luna for special occasions, never more than once or twice a year. And walking around Little Italy makes us horny and couple-y feeling, so it’s always a guaranteed good time. There’s something so nice about prancing around, arm in arm, flaunting our delirious happiness to the droves of miserable Manhattan singletons out hunting in packs, or, even better, those on obviously painful blind dates. It’s like we’re members of a private club of two, and it reminds me how being a part of something, no matter how troubled or even depressing it may be at times, is usually far superior to being a part of nothing.
“That sounds all right, sweetie,” I said, playing along. Our anniversary was coming up—six years. I figured that’s what he had in mind.
“Okay, so I’ll call you around lunchtime. Will you be in the office or are you planning to go out?” he asked.
“Um, I should be in all day, but I have a meeting around one.” In retrospect, I can see now that he was being unusually inquisitive, but since interest in my workday comings and goings wasn’t something Bruce normally displays, his clumsy attempts at making sure I’d be there were lost on me.
“Good, good,” he said. “Well, have a nice day, then. Call me if you leave work for some reason.”
So I was wide-awake, full of omelet and full of energy as I stepped out the door on September 24, a glorious autumn morning, and decided to bring the paper to read on the train, despite the fact that I was wearing my new winter-white three-quarter-length trench from Anne Klein (Marie Claire, September: “Revamp Your Fall Wardrobe with These 10 Must-Haves”). It’s about a 40-minute commute from our Park Slope apartment in Brooklyn to the midtown Manhattan offices of Kendra White. Normally, I use the time to drift in and out of consciousness. Yes, I’m one of those unfortunate sorts you see on the train or bus whose head lolls to one side like an idiot or whose mouth suddenly drops open. At least once a week I miss my stop, usually twice a week.
That morning, though, I read the paper alongside the other commuters like a real Cosmo girl, maneuvering the pages deftly, spilling my grande latte only once. There’s the usual something or other about Afghanistan on the front page… Better turn to the Entertainment section…oooh, it seems Madonna might be considering having another baby, just as I suspected. That’s good. She’s such a stylish mom… Bla, bla, bla, Leonardo DiCaprio broke his clavicle tripping over his feet outside a hot but unnamed L.A. nightclub…That little cross-eyed boy from Jerry Maguire has a new movie coming out…. Dreadful, I’m sure…Wonder how far off my horoscope will be for today….
Virgo (August 23-September 22) See the forest for the trees. Focus on partnership, communication, personal advances. Individual close to you confides, “I need you now more than ever.” Keep an eye out for details. Work situation may be stressful, but don’t lose your head. Taurus plays key role today. Spotlight on domestic situation, home, cooking. Financial prospects good. Be leery of Uranus, planet of sudden changes. Stay cool! This too, shall pass.
Oh for God’s sake, that could mean anything—they really do all sound the same. I can see why Morgan thinks horoscopes are for idiots who feel powerless over their own lives. How utterly ridiculous! As if planets could have any effect whatsoever on what’s happening down here on Earth. Except for the moon, maybe. Now that’s another story. And it’s not really a planet anyway. I’ve heard that since the moon controls the tides, it can also pull all the water in your body around every which way, accounting for things like PMS and unexplained weight gain….
I woke up only one stop too late. By the time I got off the subway, the front of my trench coat was covered in black smudges and coffee, more than enough to ruin my good mood for the day. Ridiculous—white coats are even sillier than white carpet. What the hell was I thinking?
Upstairs, comfortably ensconced in my gray-carpeted cubicle, I worked hard at online solitaire for a good two hours until I realized that I’d forgotten to forward out Pruscilla’s memo regarding that afternoon’s staff meeting. Oh God, no one even knows about it, and it’s Friday—half of them are probably out to lunch already.
As one of the legion of marketing assistants at KW, and, more specifically, as Pruscilla’s immediate underling, my responsibilities tend to lean more toward the administrative than the intellectual. A great way to put my four-year honors degree in philosophy (with a minor in psychology) to work, although, to be fair, I suppose my career does allow me to hone my existential angst.
After an hour of damage control and an hour and a half of lunch, I managed to round up most everybody in the department and assemble them in the boardroom. It’s not like it would matter much who was there, although pretty much everybody was. Pruscilla, Queen of the Universe and Director of Product Marketing for the East Coast, had called the meeting for no reason really, other than that she likes to call meetings from time to time to berate some of us for our laziness and impress others with her uncanny knack for finding typographical errors in promotional materials after they’ve been printed by the tens of thousands. The usual blame-laying and defensiveness followed, and I was getting quite sleepy, until there was a knock at the door.
And then someone walked in. A tall guy with rounded, wire-rimmed glasses and freckles. I stared at him for a few seconds until I realized that I recognized him. It was Bruce. My Bruce. Of course, my first thought was that someone had died. My mother? My heart flew up into my throat. His mother? My heart settled back down to its usual position.
“Wh-what are you doing here?” I stammered, already embarrassed. At this point, the ten or twelve women seated around the boardroom table realized with interest that Bruce wasn’t a courier. One of them whispered to me, “Isn’t he yours? He’s got roses!”
And he did. A gigantic bouquet of bloody-looking ones. I know red roses are supposed to signify romantic love and all that, but to me they’ve always seemed a bit on the cheesy side. Orchids—now those make a beautiful bouquet, or maybe lilies… I glanced around the room nervously. All eyes were on Bruce. Awe and jealousy and confusion hung thick in the air. Oh, Evie—give it a rest! Red roses are beautiful, and you know it! Most of the desperados in here would drop dead with shock and gratitude if they got even a single half-dead rose on Valentine’s Day, and here it was, a Friday afternoon in September, and my man was holding at least two dozen….
“Evelyn…” Bruce got down on one knee on the floor in front of me. Instantly, my cheeks start to burn. In my peripheral vision, I could see open mouths and stunned faces. None more stunned than mine, I’m sure.
“Evelyn, I came here today to tell you that I love you, that the past six years have been the best of my life, that I cannot imagine my world without you….”
Was he really talking to me?
“…From the day we met in the cafeteria at NYU, when we reached for that same pudding, I knew you were special….” Somebody behind me giggled loudly. Panic set in, along with elaborate fantasies of revenge.
I can barely breathe—how can she laugh? She’s ruining my moment. I will kill her, whoever she is, I will kill her. I will drill everybody later and find out who laughed. I bet it was Violet from Skincare. She never really liked me, even though I visited her twice in the hospital after she had those polyps removed. It really makes you wonder how some people can be so selfish and intrusive, especially regarding things that don’t even concern them. When it comes to their own amusement, jealous people will do just about anything to take the focus and attention away from those who deserve it….
All of a sudden, everybody laughed, shocking me out of my reverie.
“…which is why you finally agreed to let me take you out to dinner, and promised to throw out that hot plate and never try cooking in your dorm room again!”
Oh God, was he still talking? I had no idea what he’d just said. What the hell was the matter with me?
“So all that to say, that if it wasn’t for the New York City Fire Department, I might not be kneeling here before you today,” Bruce concluded. Everyone laughed again.
Bruce put the roses down on the table beside me and grabbed my hand. “You’re my best friend, Evie, and I adore you. I love you more today than I did yesterday, and I will love you more tomorrow than I do today. And that will be true for every day of the rest of my life…”
Tears suddenly filled my eyes. I blinked and they fell onto my lap. It was undeniably the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. But he wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.
“…So I want to know, Evie…will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” And just like that, he pulled out a little blue velvet box and opened it up. Everyone gasped.
But I didn’t even see it. The room started to spin.
For the next few moments, it was like I’d somehow been dropped into someone else’s body on the other side of the world, and everyone was speaking a different language. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. Where was I? Who was this guy with the glasses in front of me? He needed a haircut, that was for sure. Time stood still.
“Evelyn?” the man said.
“Evelyn?”
And then, just as quickly, it all came thundering back. It was Bruce, the love of my life. Asking me to marry him. I guess I must have been on autopilot or something because I jumped up and someone that sounded an awful lot like me shouted, “Yes! Yes! Of course I will!” He scooped me up in his arms and then the tears really started and I was laughing and crying and I couldn’t stop. Everyone burst up out of their chairs and began clapping and cheering. People from outside heard the fuss and came flowing into the boardroom, incredulous that such a spontaneous display of romance and drama could ever invade the unlikely weekday world of Kendra White. And it was all happening to me. Everyone was looking at me.
And then I was running from the room.
When I opened the stall door, four blank faces stared at me through overly made-up eyes.
“I’m all right, I’m all right. I just need to freshen up a bit,” I sniffled, managing a smile. “I’m just so excited. I mean, I guess I’m in shock. I never expected it, well not like this, anyway. I just can’t believe it.” It was the truth.
“Aw, it’s just like being tossed into a tub full of icewater, hon,” laughed Cheryl-Anne, who works in Sales Rep Training and looks the part. “You’ll get over it soon enough. When my Dickie proposed to me, I just about flipped my wig.” Chuckles all around—she really does wear a wig.
“It was New Year’s Eve, and I’d had more than one too many,” she continued unnecessarily. “I sure do like to have a good time, though, as you ladies already know. Remember the Christmas party of ’98? Oh, Lord—the buns on that copy boy. Anyway, when Dickie popped the question, the whole world started to spin, and I just fainted dead away. I was sick for two months after that. But I guess it musta had something to do with the morning sickness!” she shrieked and slapped her thigh.
Everyone hooted like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. As if a drunken, unwed pregnant woman falling flat on her face in the middle of Times Square were a legitimate source of amusement. How could they laugh? I’d seen pictures of her children. They were very disturbing.
“I think you’re right,” I managed in a weak voice. “It must be nerves.” Back to me now, please.
“I’m sorry, dear,” Winnie from Cosmetics said and grabbed my hand. “This is your day and here we are going on and on. You just have a good cry if you need to and don’t worry about a thing. You don’t have to go back out there before you’re good and ready.”
I hugged her and nodded. I didn’t really know her all that well, but at that moment, it didn’t matter. She was sweeter in one instant than my own mother had ever been, and I vowed then and there not to ditch out on the surprise 50th birthday party I knew was planned for her next Thursday night, although I normally try and get out of those types of things. Hell, I might even chip in for the present.
I straightened myself up a bit and faced the mirror.
Pathetic. I looked as bad as the rest of them. Puffy black eyes, puffy white face, puffy alien body. A distorted imprint of Winnie’s pink-and-tan face remained on my collar. My wrinkled, camel-colored CK jacket (Glamour, March: “15 Work Essentials You Can’t Live Without”) strained at the chest, buttons silently groaning. The size twelve felt like a size two. When did this happen to me?
But Bruce doesn’t seem to mind. He’s good that way. In fact, he never really says a thing about my weight, even though I’ve gained about thirty pounds since we met in my junior year. He just listens patiently as I rail on and on about it, fit after fit, diet after diet, year after year. Feeding me M&M’s all the while… Oh God, that’s it, isn’t it? He must actually like me fat.
Funny how it had never occurred to me before now. He must be one of those guys who gets off on it (Marie Claire, October: “Men Who Like Their Ladies Large”). But should that piss me off or not? I couldn’t decide. Was it wonderful that Bruce loved me no matter how I looked, or was he betraying me by fattening me up just to satisfy his own twisted sexual fetish? My heart began pounding again.
Courage, Evie. Pull it together—now is not the time to lose it. Bruce loves you, you love him, and it’s all gonna be okay.
Pruscilla caught my gaze in the mirror, sighed and looked over toward the door dramatically. Bruce was waiting outside. What to do? What to do?
I loved him. I really did. Besides, I’d said yes. How could I have let myself say yes if I didn’t really want to marry him? And if there was only one thing in this world that I knew for sure, it was to trust my instincts. Always listen to your inner voice—I’ve taken away at least that from years of watching Oprah (plus the fact that liquid diets don’t work in the long run).
Bruce was the best thing for me. Everybody knows it—Morgan, all my other friends, Mom, my grandmother. Bruce grounds me. He accepts me. He loves me. And even though he usually drives me crazy, we’re a perfect match. I’d be a fool to let him go.
So there really was only one thing I could do—plan a fabulous wedding. That, and lose about forty pounds.
