Parkside Plaza sketches, a photo of her and Saraub at the Long Beach Boardwalk in February, and the framed New York Times twelve-line article about her New York Emerging Voices Award in Architecture. Their sizes varied, but she’d assembled them so that their corners aligned, and the spaces between them were equidistant. Her pens were arrayed in a jar by color and thickness of tip. Her desk reeked of bleach because at least once a day, she swiped it with Clorox. In her lap, she noticed that her hands were not evenly placed. She separated them now, so that each hand held an equal amount of each corresponding thigh, and her thighs were equidistant apart, too.
“Crap,” she moaned. For how many years had she been like this? Triple-checking that the toaster was unplugged, worrying that the floor would open, lingering in bed some mornings, because she was afraid the day would bring something that she couldn’t tame by rearranging it into right angles? Of course this was physical. How could she have gone so long without getting a second opinion?
As if willing it to do so, the black phone rang. She picked it up, a welcome escape. “Hello?”
Saraub’s voice. “Aud—” She hung up. The phone rang again. She took it off the hook. Her cell phone chirped. She pulled out its battery, too unnerved to spend the time turning it off. It didn’t matter what he had to say; apology or condemnation, the sound of his voice would start her bawling.
She put down her drafting pencil and did something she’d sworn she’d never do at any job, ever. Not even when the high-school kids at IHOP smeared her face with Reddi-Whip, or when she’d organized all the Jell-Os at the college dining hall by color, and the fry cook had told her, “You’re pretty weird. Like somebody broke you, and you keep trying to put yourself back together, only you do it wrong. You know?”
She ran into the Vesuvius bathroom and cried in a stall. When she got out she saw Jill at the mirror. Her eyes were also red and swollen. They nodded at each other, then Audrey headed out. Before she got to the door, Jill called her back. “Audrey?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?” she asked, wiping her hands on her trousers, because the women’s room never had towels.
Audrey shook her head. “No.”
“Me, neither,” Jill said.
“Well, that’s some consolation,” Audrey answered.
Jill’s somberness cracked, and she gave Audrey a lopsided grin. “Cute,” she said, then peeled open her purse and applied a coat of jarring, bright red lipstick, as if to let Audrey know she was excused.
Audrey lingered, thinking about what Collier had said over lunch. “I’m sorry your son is sick,” she said, then headed out.
Before she got to the door, Jill stopped her. “Audrey?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” She seemed genuinely touched, like it was the first time anyone at the office had offered their sympathy. Audrey nodded, and started out. As she opened the door, Jill called, “Take care of yourself. Whatever it is that’s troubling you…” She paused for a second, and Audrey understood that the sentiment bore a specific, human-sized weight: “It will pass. Good or bad, nothing lasts.”
For once, Audrey thought before she acted, and chose not to speak but instead to nod.
When she got back to her desk, she rolled open the plans and began calculating distances between hedges and the building’s internal plumbing. She worked until her shaking stopped, and her worries left. After a while, she got lost in it, as only someone with OCD can do.
An hour passed. And then another. Pretty soon, she looked up at the clock, and saw that it was eight o’clock. Most of the lights in the office were out, the cleaning staff was vacuuming near her feet, and upon the blueprints, she’d drawn nearly a hundred doors.
12
Girls’ Night Out (Everybody Screws Up, Sometimes)
As Audrey keyed her way back into 14B at The Breviary, Jayne came thumping out of 14E on a pair of wooden crutches. On one foot she wore a strappy, three-inch black stiletto. On the other she wore a green wool knee-high sock. Beneath the sock, an Ace bandage peeked. She pointed the socked foot at Audrey’s trim waist, like she was challenging her to a karate foot duel. “Lady!” she cried.
Audrey was in no mood. She’d had enough crazy for one day. Besides, this was nutty. Jayne must have been listening for the sound of Audrey’s jingling keys all evening.
Jayne wiggled her toes