Page 57 of One Night Only
I doubt I’ll last one minute.
* * *
“Amanda’s gone.”
I look up at Will’s whisper to see him drawing a finger across his throat.
Oh my God. Amanda? Three desks down, parakeet-owning Amanda? “She’sdead?”
“What? No.” Will looks bewildered. “Harvey let her go.”
I stare at him in horror. “That’s the sign for someone dying!”
“Not in an office environment. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“What do you mean Harvey let her go?”
“Her and Chris. Happened last week. She’s started telling people.”
“Chris too?”
“We’re definitely not getting bonuses this year.”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“I’m sorry, do you not want your bonus?”
We both shut up as Amanda walks past and I feel a shot of fear. She started only a few months after I did. Will sends me a pointed glance but I ignore him, opening my inbox to see Annie’s emailed a bunch of photographs from the wedding.
I look so beautiful!She writes in the accompanying message.Remember we’re back in New York on the seventeenth. Can’t wait to see you.
Back.
But not for good.
They’re coming over for a few weeks before Paul transfers officially to the Dublin office. A few weeks of Annie in the city and then she’ll be gone.
I click through the photos, still distracted by the Amanda news. The first shots are of the hotel, looking as elegant as can be in the rare Irish sunshine. It’s hard to believe I was there only a few short weeks ago.
I linger on one of the group pictures we took after the ceremony. She included all the outtakes and there’s a lot of dress arranging, fly-swatting and squinting at the sun.
Short of holding my hand over the screen I can’t do anything to avoid seeinghim.
Declan smiles at the camera, charming and handsome, and ugh. There’s a few of just the two of us, his hand politely around my waist, almost hovering. Do I imagine the rigid set of my shoulders? The frozenness of my smile? I lean toward the screen, trying to read between the pixels.
Will coughs and I look up to see Harvey approaching. I quickly close down the tabs and spend the rest of the day trying to do my work. Harvey’s loose with hours. If the work gets done, people can leave and they usually do. Especially in the summer. But I stay until the bitter end, trying to make a good impression. Will leaves at five fifteen with barely a goodbye. Harvey passes at six twenty with a knowing look in my direction and a tap at his watch.
I pretend I’m on the phone in the classic “I’m very busy and important” move.
But the floor empties once he’s gone. I spend another twenty minutes clicking blindly through my emails, watching everyone go until, finally, I allow myself to leave too.
I pack up quickly, rearrange a few of Will’s things to annoy him and get into the elevator, humming to myself.
I thought the office was empty, so I jump when I hear a faint shout before a hand reaches through the closing doors. Matthias pushes them back open with an apologetic look and gets in.
He has a folder of blueprints under his arm. I resist the urge to look at them.
“Hot out there,” he says by way of greeting.
