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When I first met Renee, she was a mess. Catholic school clearly didn’t exemplify fashion. Her hair was blonde and thick, and ended abruptly at her shoulders. It looked similar to the way a horse’s tail would look if you cut it to be six inches long. Like a bush that only grew sideways. And even worse, she had bangs too. I remember wondering what on earth had possessed her mother to give her that haircut, as her hair wouldn’t have been that bad if it was long and weighed down. We didn’t have hair-straighteners back then.
Looking back now, it makes sense to me. Mrs. Evans, Renee’s mother, was a very sweet woman, but fashion was not one of her strong suits. As teens, Renee and I labeled her mother’s sweater collection the “Bill Cosby Sweaters.” Each of them shared the same blend of neon colors, knit together like an afghan. So it was of no surprise that Renee showed up to Rockland High her first day looking like she’d just stepped out of the Salvation Army.
Even worse than her hair were her clothes. They weren’t bad per se, just much too big for her. It was like someone had dressed her up as a boy and forgot to tell her. Baggy clothes were the style in the nineties, with it being the grunge decade and all, but there were still ways to maintain your feminism.
What I liked about Renee was that she didn’t seem to care. She was naturally pretty, but she didn’t know it. She didn’t give a second thought to her appearance. She was so happy to get the hell out of Catholic school and surround herself with normal people that she just took it all in. She was like a kid at Disneyland. She didn’t say much. She didn’t try to impress anyone. She just observed.
After striking up a conversation with her, I learned that this little fashion-deprived creature was actually quite intelligent. She knew a lot about music. More than anyone I’d ever met. I think she was so isolated at her previous school that she befriended rock and roll and never left its side.
I asked Renee once about Catholic school. She said that the kids were nice, just different. She told me that she wore an Aerosmith shirt to school on a casual day and all the kids teased her, chanting that Steven Tyler looked like an old lady. She said, “All I could think was that Steven Tyler was one of the most beautiful men I’d ever seen.” It didn’t bother her that the kids made fun of her. She just seemed genuinely confused as to how these people could view the world so much differently than she did. I think it was then that I fell in love with her.
Over time, Renee’s image slowly began to develop. We went shopping at the local favorites, Hot Topic and Newbury Comics. We bought blue mascara and purple lipstick, oversized moonstone rings and bicycle-chain necklaces. We replaced Renee’s skateboarder pants with tighter jeans, and her baggy band t-shirts with fitted ones. She grew out her bangs and put layers in her hair to offset the bush look.
And thus, Renee Evans was born.
Ironically, if you met Renee now, you’d never guess that she once dressed like a lumberjack. She has a very tall, modelesque presence, perfectly put together, like a stylist dressed her. Her thick hair is always immaculately curled, her makeup like a cosmetic ad, her scarves and boots matching the exact shades of her latest ensemble. But back then, Renee didn’t care what people thought of her. She didn’t try to fit in. Renee was who she was, without apology. And I loved her for that.
I fell in love with David Whitman the first time I saw him. It sounds ridiculous, I know, but trust me, no one thought the concept of love at first sight was more ridiculous than me. Up until David, I was a self-proclaimed serial dater. Renee was more of the relationship type, and she somehow managed to find great guys who also happened to be single. I never had such luck. I always found the ones who were single for a reason. Needy, jobless, womanizers, alcoholics, not-really-single-pretending-to-be-single, you name it. Deep down, I wanted to find true love, but it just never worked out that way.
Renee always teased me for my ever-changing love life, calling me a game player, telling me I loved the thrill of the chase. But the truth was, I hated dating. I hated the disappointments. That’s what dating was: one disappointment after the other. I guess I just hoped that eventually I’d find someone who would make all the bad dates worth it.
And I did. I just didn’t expect him to stroll through my living-room door with my best friend.
David Whitman. Renee had told me all about him. In fact, he had been the sole point of our conversations for weeks. When Renee had a new love interest, it was all she talked about. At the time, we were both seniors at UCLA, and Renee was interning at Pace, a local LA magazine. David was the sports editor, and every day Renee came home with a new story about him – what he was wearing that day, how he’d brought her a coffee, how all the girls in the office loved him. That was the funny thing about Renee. She called me a game player, yet she generally only liked a guy if a) he didn’t like her, or b) everyone else liked him. So essentially, she played games too, she just didn’t know it.
Before I met David, I wasn’t sold on the idea of him. Renee was a creative soul. A creative soul who was now dating a sports editor. She hadn’t mentioned a single thing they had in common, or that she found interesting about him. It seemed to me that she felt she had won the hunk of the office and wanted to parade around with the prize on her arm. Sure, he sounded nice and cute and all, but I knew Renee. Eventually, she’d want more than that.
When David walked through my living-room door that first night, everything in my body stood still. I understood now. None of his personal history or interests mattered. It was the effect he had on you. Those eyes. That smile. He could be a needy, jobless, alcoholic womanizer and it wouldn’t have mattered. You would have followed him to the end of the Earth anyway.
From the instant I met David, I felt an immediate connection that I had never experienced before. It was the way he looked at me. Maybe he looked at everyone that way, but he still made me feel like I was the only person in the room. Intense brown eyes and the faintest hint of a smile on his lips. Like he was looking through me. Like he knew that he could have me if he wanted me, even if it meant ruining a lifelong friendship. He had that power.
I hated him for that.
And at that moment, for the first time in my life, I hated my best friend.
Chapter 2 (#uc4e6d987-40b0-54ae-89d4-2decceaed90c)
Los Angeles, CA
January 2009
During our senior year at UCLA, shortly after Renee landed an internship at Pace, I landed one of my own at Sphinx, a local video-game company. I have no idea why they hired me, because I didn’t love video games. I didn’t even like video games. I was just desperate for a paying internship. But as it turned out, Sphinx was exactly what I was looking for.
After several major switches, I’d decided on communications because it allowed me to take photography courses, which had always been my true passion. I loved photography because it was the only art that allowed you to capture truth in the visual sense. Renee loved music because it captured truth in the audio sense, but for me, I loved the visual. The lens didn’t lie. It highlighted the little beauties of everyday life that were often overlooked, and there was something so raw and honest about that. But I also knew that photography was a difficult business to earn a living at, therefore I picked a major that included creative courses that still had a business aspect to them, such as marketing and media studies.
I had just completed an interactive marketing course on social media outreach, as well as a media literacy course in which we were assigned to read about the psychology behind role-playing video games. So when I came across Sphinx’s ad stating they were looking for interns with experience in online marketing and knowledge of video games, it sounded pretty perfect. I may not have been much of a gamer, but my last two classes had provided me with all the knowledge I needed for the position. Not to mention, it paid a lot. More than most internships.
Before I was called in for an interview with Sphinx, I was contacted by a local health insurance company, HCG, who was looking for an intern to manage their website and social media pages. I like to call these kinds of experiences “blessings in disguise.” Because if I hadn’t had the opportunity for comparison, I never would’ve realized how utterly perfect Sphinx was for me.
The HCG office was located next to the LAX airport. I was greeted by a man named Jason Porter, who introduced himself as the Human Resources Director. He cleverly referred to himself as the resident “herd,” then had to draw me a verbal map to his joke, spelling out the acronym for Human Resources Director: HRD. He chuckled at his own irony. I did not find him funny.
Jason brought me to his spacious office, then sat down at his desk and motioned for me to take a seat across from him. He began the interview with some small-talk, asking me why I moved to LA, why I chose my major, what courses I had taken thus far. As I answered his questions, I noticed that he was actually quite good-looking. Olive skin, green eyes, nice smile. I suspected he was older than he looked, as he had the slightest hint of gray in his brown sideburns. Early forties, maybe.
These good looks slowly disappeared less than ten minutes into the interview. After the small-talk concluded, Herd wasted no time getting down to business. He made it very clear that, when I was not in class, every spare moment would be spent working for him. On the days I did not have class, I would be expected to work a full eight-hour day, beginning at 8am, and wear a suit. I almost choked on my own disgust. I was not a morning person, nor was I a suit. And five days a week? I had envisioned working a few afternoon hours after class, three days a week at most. Herd had other plans for me.
It only got worse from there. Herd went on to tell me that he expected the internship to become a full-time position once school was complete. He emphasized that he worked between fifty to sixty hours a week and expected this person to follow suit. No pun intended. He droned on about his role in the company and how much impact he’d had since he came on board. It wasn’t even an interview. It was Herd talking for the sake of hearing himself talk. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
When the interview was finally over, Herd handed me his business card and frowned when I placed it in my purse.
“You know, you should really buy a briefcase,” he scoffed in a patronizing tone. “Placing business cards in a purse is just so… unprofessional.” He laughed mockingly and shook his head, having his own little private business joke with himself. “And also, Justine, you should always wear a suit to an interview.” He looked me up and down like I was a toddler who’d dressed herself for the first time. I followed his gaze, glancing down at my black-collared shirt and charcoal dress pants. Judging by his expression, you would’ve thought I’d shown up dressed for a hip-hop video.
As I headed toward the elevator, I passed by the work area, where all the insurance agents sat next to each other in tiny cubicles, wearing blazers and headsets. Their desks were lined with tiny bags of junk food. Most of them were overweight. They looked tired. I felt sad for them.
Herd shook my hand goodbye at the elevator, but I no longer saw him as good-looking. I saw him as a man with a condescending, insincere laugh, who had bags under his eyes from working sixty hours a week. A man with no social life and no family, only a mahogany desk and an oversized briefcase. A man who owned an expensive house with expensive things that never got used.
It’s funny how, in the course of thirty minutes, you can learn very, very quickly what you want in life. And, more importantly, what you don’t want.
As a precaution, I went out and bought a suit. I refused to be humiliated twice. Luckily, I didn’t need it, as Sphinx was as far from a suit shop as you could get.
Sphinx’s office was located in Playa Del Rey, which was about a 20-minute drive from my apartment in West LA. Their lobby was like a Toys-R-Us. The walls were covered with action figures and game posters. A giant candy bowl sat on the receptionist’s desk. As I filled out my application, I continued to sneak glances at a Reese’s peanut-butter cup that was taunting me from the corner of the dish. The receptionist finally noticed and offered me the dish. I liked the place already.
I watched the employees flow in and out of the lobby as I waited for my interview. None of them were dressed professionally. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Some of them had facial piercings and tattoos. They reminded me of the people who worked at Hot Topic when Renee and I shopped there in high school. A petite Asian girl wearing tights, jean shorts and boots skipped through the lobby, stealing a Kit-Kat from the candy bowl. I smiled at her.
After giving my application to the receptionist, a man appeared and led me to the interview room. He introduced himself as Manuel Mendoza, the Human Resources Manager. He was short and stocky, with a young face. Latino, I assumed by his name and dark features. He wore a gray t-shirt, jeans, and converse sneakers. He did not refer to himself as an acronym.
My interview was the complete opposite of HCG’s. It didn’t feel like an interview at all. Manuel and I briefly discussed the position and my college courses, then he brought me to the “gaming room,” which held several flat-screen TV’s hooked up to gaming consoles and a few old-school arcade games. I confessed that I didn’t play video games. He didn’t care. We played anyway. It was the best interview of my life.
After Manuel beat me at a round of virtual sword-fighting, he brought me back to the interview room and introduced me to Vincent Seminari, Sphinx’s Marketing Director. Manuel had warned me that Vincent was the man to impress, as he would be my future boss. Vincent had dark eyes, a long nose that gave him character, and spoke with a hint of an Italian accent. I guessed that he was probably in his early to mid-forties. He also wore jeans and informed me that everyone at Sphinx did. He joked that I was the “best-dressed person there.” I felt foolish in my stupid suit. He told me that most of the employees began work at 10am and everyone received four weeks of paid vacation annually.
I was in my glory.
After the interview, Vincent gave me a tour of the building. The workstations were gorgeous. Sphinx occupied the seventh floor of the building, a bright, beautiful space with an incredible view of the city. There were no cubicles, only wide tables in the shape of a U, where everyone sat next to each other. Open and free. It was what every company should be.
As Vincent and I walked around, I noticed that everyone seemed happy. Two of the employees shot Nerf guns at each other from across the room. The break room had free coffee, snacks, and soda. The CEO walked through, clutching a skateboard in his right hand. It was like being in a world where no one grew up.
Before we reached the elevator, I noticed a small office that had paper taped over the window. I turned to Vincent, pointing to the room. Before I could say anything, he shook his head, laughing.
“You don’t want to go in there,” he insisted.
“Why not?” I asked.
“We call that the ‘Lactation Station’.”
“The what?”
“Lactation Station,” he repeated, lowering his voice to a whisper. “It’s the breastfeeding room.”
I had never laughed so hard in my life.
Chapter 3 (#uc4e6d987-40b0-54ae-89d4-2decceaed90c)
I make lists. Correction, I’m a compulsive list-maker. I write everything down – to-do lists, shopping lists, future goals. And sometimes, when I’m down, I make them for simple inspirational reminders.
I stared at the piece of my paper in my hand for a long time; the new list that I would hang on my fridge and read every day as a positive reminder.
Why I Moved Back to Boston:
That was as far as I’d got.
Okay, so I wasn’t adjusting well. It was November. I was freezing. My parents had a cottage in Cape Cod that they rented out during the summer, so they were letting me live there rent-free until summer rolled around again. Cape Cod was great in the summer, but in the winter it was the boonies. I had to drive 45 minutes to reach civilization, and even then, the only nightlife that existed on the south shore was at Irish pubs. I hated beer. I hated sports. I rarely ate meat. That didn’t leave me many options. If I tried to order a hummus wrap and a Champagne Royale at one of the local bars, they’d think I was insane.
My cell phone rang before I could attempt to continue the list. I looked down at the ID and felt a slight pang of disappointment. I had been home for almost four months, and every time my phone rang, I still hoped it was him.
It never was.
“Hey girl,” I answered.
“Hey J,” Renee said on the other end. “You still coming to Dylan’s show tonight?”
Shit. I had forgotten all about it. Renee’s fiancé, Dylan, was the singer in a local band, and she had told me about the show weeks ago. I glanced down at my pajama pants. “Yeah,” I answered. “Of course.”
“You forgot, didn’t you?”
“Yup.” Renee always knew when I was lying. There was no point in covering it up. “What time does it start?”
“They go on at ten. They’re playing the downstairs room at the Middle East, not upstairs. I’m going to ride in with Dylan so just call me when you get there and I’ll come meet you.”
“Okay. See you soon.” I hung up and took a sip of coffee from the mug I’d been holding for the last 20 minutes. I picked up the piece of paper again.
Why I Moved Back to Boston:
#1 – Renee is here. She is my other half. I need her in my life.
It was true. LA didn’t feel like home without Renee. Sure, I had made a few friends at school and at Sphinx, but for the most part, Renee and I did everything together. When she left, it didn’t feel the same. And besides that, the girl was an absolute saint. How she could forgive me after what happened with David was beyond me. But regardless, she was my best friend, and she was here. Therefore I would brave the coldest of winters to be with her, because I loved her.
Truthfully, though, everything worked out for the best. Renee was now six months pregnant, engaged, and happier than I’d ever seen her. Dylan and Renee were perfect for each other. David and Renee… weren’t. My aching heart wanted to say that he was perfect for me, but my head knew that wasn’t true either.
#2 – David does not live here. Therefore, I do not have to worry about seeing him everywhere I go.
I swear, people in love need a live-in therapist. It’s all we think about. It’s all we talk about. After David broke up with me, I couldn’t go anywhere. Everything reminded me of him. Our favorite restaurant, our local bar, the supermarket where we shopped. I couldn’t go any of those places. It was almost as if it would’ve been better if he’d died in some tragic accident or something. At least then I wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into him in line at Von’s.
Here, I was safe. Nothing reminded me of him. He was thousands of miles away. It’s like it was all a dream.
But deep down, I knew that as far away as I was from him, he was still here. He was always here. I couldn’t escape him.
I glanced down at the paper again. I couldn’t think of a number three.
Los Angeles, CA
February 2009
I always know that I’m going to sleep with a guy by the way he looks at me. It’s usually an intense stare, he’s usually Italian, and I usually end up regretting it. That’s just how it goes.
I was less than an hour into our morning meeting at Sphinx when I noticed it. The Stare. I was seated in the conference room with the marketing team for their weekly conference. They met every Monday at 10am to go over marketing strategies for new game releases, and Vincent thought it would be a good idea for me to join the meetings, even though I hadn’t a clue about anything they were discussing. As one of the girls talked about an upcoming convention, I caught eyes with Vincent from across the table. I quickly reverted my gaze back to the girl so he’d think I was paying attention. I wanted to make a good impression. But when I looked back at him a few minutes later, he was still staring at me.
Oh boy.
It’s easy to differentiate a professional stare from a sex stare. A professional stare ensures that the employee is comfortable and attentive on his or her first day of work, but seizes once eye contact is met. A sex stare does not. A sex stare is confident and will maintain eye contact even after the contact is broken, thus intimidating its target and causing he or she to become nervous.
And damn it, it always fucking works.
By the third eye-contact connection, I already knew I was going to sleep with him. The stare wasn’t making me uncomfortable. Instead, a familiar nervous-yet-exciting stomachache appeared. I looked down at my outfit, trying to see myself as he did. I was wearing a black fitted sweater, my favorite pair of Bebe jeans, and black stilettos. Undoubtedly the most feminine outfit in our entire mini-gaming world. I twirled my long brown locks between my fingers. I felt his dark, Italian eyes on me. I liked it.
My eyes drifted to his left hand. No wedding band. Check. Rolex watch. Silver cufflinks. Double check. Navy collared shirt, tanned skin, slightly gelled hair. Very put-together. I pictured him in an expensive sports car. A Porsche, maybe. Black. I pictured myself in the passenger seat. I wondered if he had a girlfriend.
It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I had been looking in the wrong places. I mean, didn’t a lot of couples meet at work? It was pretty obvious by now that I wasn’t going to find Mr. Maturity at UCLA, nor was I going to find Mr. Monogamous on the Sunset Strip. Vincent was older, good-looking, and, judging from his appearance and title, did well for himself financially. He was a catch. And based on my appearance, age, and the burning stare from across the conference table, it appeared that the feeling was mutual.
My first few weeks at Sphinx were a joke. I made zero professional contribution whatsoever. Instead, my days went something like this:
10am: Get coffee and bagels for Vincent.
11am: Have coffee and bagels with Vincent in his office. Pretend to talk about work. Talk about anything but work.
12pm: Have lunch with Vincent.
1pm: Pretend I am checking my professional emails. I am an intern. I do not have professional emails.
2pm: Pretend to pay attention to Vincent’s social media tutorial when what I am really paying attention to is how close he is standing to me.
3pm: Attend “off-site meeting” (happy-hour drinks) with Vincent and “vendors.” Pretend to know what “vendors” are.
Repeat.
Surprisingly, Vincent waited an entire month before asking me out. By then, I was practically panting for it. He, of course, pretended the invitation was to “celebrate” all the hard work I had accomplished during my first month. I knew better. Not only because he stared at me like I was a Krispy Kreme, but because I hadn’t accomplished jack shit in the past four weeks.
The bad news was that he was going to be working from Sphinx’s London office for the next month, so our date was postponed until his return. The good news was that we had already covered everything that you cover on a first date, so I figured I was good to skip the three-date rule and prematurely put out. I knew everything about him that I needed to know. He had grown up in Milano and moved to the United States when he was eleven. He lived in Beverly Hills. He had a ten-year-old son, whom he mentioned having on the weekends, thus the reason he didn’t go out much. Ah, a divorced dad. I wondered if my parents would disapprove.
I couldn’t wait to tell Renee about my upcoming date. I had been gushing about Vincent since my first day at Sphinx, and I could tell she was relieved that I finally had a love interest, too. Her daily David Whitman anecdotes had grown more than tiresome and I hadn’t even met the guy yet. They were still in the newlywed stage, where they mainly just had sex at his place. David lived alone. I understood.
I was bent over the kitchen stove making a grilled cheese when I heard the sound of our front door open.
“He asked me out!” I yelled to Renee, flipping my sandwich onto a plate. I barreled into the living room, but stopped dead in my tracks when I realized she wasn’t alone.
“J,” Renee said cautiously, as if she felt bad catching me off guard. “This,” she gestured behind her, “is David.”
Wow. I was not expecting that. Naturally, I wasn’t expecting David to be standing in my living room, but I also wasn’t expecting to feel the sinking in the pit of my stomach when I met him. Never in my life had I met someone and felt so instantly drawn to them. And he hadn’t even said anything yet. He just grinned at me like we were having a private joke. The only two people in the room. In the universe.
“He asked you out, huh?” David joked. There it was again, that mischievous, one-dimpled grin. His eyes went slightly wild when he smiled, like he was scared, surprised, and amused all at the same time. I couldn’t help but smile back.
