The Eden Project Pt 03 Ch 18

Chapter 18: Old Spice

Three things woke Ellie, in this order:

The tackiness of her dry mouth.

The swimminess of her head, which was entering the trade-off into headache territory.

The realization that the sunlight streaming into the apartment was too bright for her to still be on time for work.

"Shhhhhhhhit!"

Ellie sat bolt upright, which shot pain through her skull. She powered through it and patted the bed around her for her phone, failing to find it. Then, after piecing together a couple of the disjointed events of her bender the previous evening, she stumbled to the bathroom and found it on top of the toilet tank. She snatched it up and discovered that the time was 10:17am. "Shit!" she repeated.

Ellie opened Slack and found the expected messages from Marco.

[9:02am] Where are you? Are you still sick?

[9:03am] Meeting with PunchUp?

[9:07am]???

"Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK."

She took half a second to register that she still didn't have a new text from Kathleen, but she had bigger issues at present.

As Ellie examined her pillow-creased face in the mirror and hastily applied a minimum effort in the form of eyeliner with quick wing-tips, she realized the bathtub was still full of water from the night before. She sighed at her own sloppiness and poor decisions, then lifted off Hannah's T-shirt to apply deodorant.

Oh God, that was all real.

But no time to marinate on that reality; she cast Hannah's T shirt aside and swiped two quick streaks under her arms, bolted out of the bathroom, grabbed a random bra and panties from the laundry pile in the corner, blindly selected her burgundy dress from the closet, and wiggled into it as quickly as she could manage. Then she returned to the bathroom, brushed her teeth for a total of five seconds, and reached around to arrange her hair into a messy bun that could perhaps pass as intentional. The greasy, heavy texture made her regret the laziness of her bath the previous evening.

She grabbed her keys and purse, slid on yesterday's ballet flats, and paused long enough to fire a quick message to the General channel on Slack apologizing profusely for her tardiness and promising to be there in 15 minutes.

On the 20 minute drive to work, Ellie continued to assemble the spotty memories of the night before. She recalled the cigarette with her neighbor and detected the taste of it in the back of her mouth. She remembered him helping her to bed, and realized that she woke up with no underwear on. A surge of humiliation prickled through her nervous system as she understood that her level of undress was her own doing; The divorcee had been nice enough to put her to bed, and probably saw more than he, or Ellie, would have liked. All she had been wearing was Hannah's T shirt.

Why did I put Hannah's T shirt back on after the bath? I wasn't even wearing it when I came home.

Whatever this revealed about Ellie's attachment to the T shirt's owner, she chose not to dwell on it as she pulled into the parking lot of the drab, brown office building housing her marketing agency.

Her head pounded and swooned as she rode the elevator, key-carded herself into the trendily appointed office, and bolted past Marissa the receptionist. Ellie shot her a quick, apologetic smile. Marissa reciprocated with a tight-lipped smirk that said, "I don't envy the river of shit coming YOUR direction."

Ellie passed Kathleen's desk, catty-cornered to hers, with a breathless "Hey!" that Kathleen didn't return. She rounded the clump to her own desk, plopped down, and logged in at 10:50am; nearly two hours late.

She began silently counting down from ten and made it to six before a cloud of Old Spice announced Marco's arrival.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah, a little," Ellie said, recognizing the opportunity to blame her rough appearance on continued illness.

"You could look more like it," he said. Asshole. "You missed the PunchUp meeting."

"I know, I'm so sorry," she slurred, and realized with horror that she was still a bit drunk. Then she carefully enunciated, "It won't happen again. Did someone cover for me?"

"Kathleen managed to, yeah... again..." said Marco. "You might not be able to show up on time, but at least you keep client notes up to date."

Ellie glanced over the low partition at Kathleen, who raised her eyebrows, but did not lift her gaze from her computer. She turned back to Marco and repeated lamely, "It won't happen again."

"Whatever, just get caught up," said Marco. "Kathleen sent you the actionables from this morning; that's your first priority when you're done with the stuff you missed yesterday. Oh. Also..."

"Marco? A word?" Lisa had poked her head out of her office.

"Yup! Be right there," Marco called back, and spared Ellie one last look of disdain before power-walking away to Lisa's summons.

Ellie took a deep breath and understood that it could've been a lot worse. She thanked herself internally for her own otherwise-flawless attendance, and began the process of scanning her inbox and deleting everything that could obviously be ignored.

Forty-five minutes passed, and then someone else spoke. "Ellie, can I talk to you privately for a moment?"

Looking up, Ellie saw Kathleen forcing a pleasant smile for the benefit of the prying ears and eyes around them, but knew that acid simmered beneath. She braced herself. "Sure."

Marissa didn't look up when Ellie followed Kathleen back past reception. Ellie spared a glance behind Marissa's desk at the tastefully colorful, wall-sized vertical garden of succulents arranged around the back-lit company logo. She often considered the irony of the flourishing creativity and collaboration that this entryway implied, and the cold and political environment that it truly represented.

Kathleen passed through the front door and didn't hold it open for Ellie, but continued marching several yards down the hall and around the corner. Ellie hustled to keep up. When she finally rounded the corner, Kathleen was waiting with arms folded.

A short, pale, heavy girl in her late '20s with dyed-black hair and fashionably chunky glasses, Kathleen was the type of person whose loyalty to those she marked as friends could be both an asset and a burden. Today, as always, she wore a pastel dress (lime green baby doll this time) to stand in contrast to her black hair. A collage of upper-arm tattoos were visible as they usually were. Kathleen never quite left the Emo/Hot Topic aesthetic behind after high school, but wore it with expertise.

The side of Kathleen's loyalty that could be burdensome now crackled from her eyes as she stared Ellie down. Ellie stood there silently, waiting for the lecture to begin.

It didn't.

Finally Ellie said, "Sorry about the PunchUp meeting..."

"Obviously I don't give two shits about the PunchUp meeting," Kathleen scream-whispered back. "Where. The fuck. DID YOU GO yesterday?"

Ellie cursed herself for not utilizing this morning's commute to construct a plausible lie. "I just... look, it was a really good date that just... kept going, you know..."

"You said you got on a plane! Didn't you just met this guy Wednesday night?"

And then Ellie recognized another opportunity: One nugget of revealing truth that she could share with Kathleen without overt risk, and which might distract her from this dangerous interrogation.

"Um..." Ellie cracked a grin. "Girl, actually."

Kathleen's eyes went wide as saucers, and it had the desired effect. She smiled. "WHAT?!"

"Yeah..."

"Wait, so what are you... like... I mean, it's not necessarily my business, but..."

"I don't know, bi I guess?" Ellie offered, and the uncertainty of her answer was truthful.

"Well, shit!" Kathleen grinned. She slapped Ellie on the forearm. "Nice! Did you guys have sex?"

Ellie nodded, still grinning.

"Was it good?"

"Yeah, it was... Fantastic, actually."

"DUUUUUDE. So are you going to see her again?" Then Kathleen's face changed to nonplussed. "Wait, what about the airplane trip?"

Ellie's mouth went dry. The admission of her non-heterosexuality didn't buy the amount of leeway she had banked on. She spent several moments searching for a mollifying explanation. Empty.

"Honestly, I'd rather keep it private..."

"No. Nuh uh," said Kathleen. "You put me on murder watch. I was worried sick about you, you gotta give me something."

I didn't ask you to be worried sick, thought Ellie savagely. How about you butt out?

And then renewed guilt penetrated her defenses. The 'none of your business' retort wouldn't hold water. She did ask Kathleen to worry. If Kathleen were to possibly come to her rescue or dispatch someone else to do the same, Ellie always owed her a location at minimum. This she had failed to deliver, and she had known all along that Kathleen's frustration was justified.

Nothing to do but lie your ass off.

"Um... So, she turned out to be, like... really wealthy," Ellie invented.

Kathleen's mouth pulled into a mischievous grin. "I never pegged you for a gold digger!"

Ellie pressed her advantage. "Yeah, no, it was crazy, she apparently had a house and a bunch of land out in... Utah..."

Kathleen's eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Yeah," said Ellie, finding a weakly plausible path forward. "She's this big tech founder and had a private jet, she was here for work. She insisted on flying me out for the day and we... you know... went to her house... had a lot of great food... went hiking..." And here, she chose to quit while she was ahead. "Then she flew me home. I got a little too drunk and forgot to set my alarm."

"That's cool... You couldn't text me from Utah?"

Ellie fumbled. "... No, it was, like, really in the middle of nowhere. No service." These fragments of truth might just save you yet. "Besides, she really values her privacy."

Kathleen's brow furrowed with incredulity. What's next, Ellie? 'She goes to a different school'? 'She's a fashion model in Canada'?

"Nobody knows she's gay, is the thing. She's not out. She swore me to secrecy."

"I mean, you know I wouldn't tell anyone," said Kathleen. "Spill!"

Ellie knew this was the truth as she replied, "I actually really can't. Like, there was paperwork. It was pretty intense."

Kathleen's eyes went wide and she blinked. "Geeze." And then her brow furrowed again. "Are you fucking with me? You've gotta be fucking with me."

"I'm really not." Ellie shook her head vigorously and grinned. "I can hardly believe it myself."

Kathleen sighed, defeated, and by the grace of God, Ellie sensed the questions coming to a close. "Well, damn, girl. Alright..." She wondered if Kathleen actually bought the story, and could not determine for sure. Her face was impassive, which in itself was a bad sign. "I'm just glad you're okay." Then she pointed an aggressive finger at Ellie. "Do not do that again. Find someone else to watch your ass if you're gonna have secrets."

Ellie nodded. "It really wasn't fair to you. I'm sorry."

Kathleen relented. "Apology accepted. Oh! Sebastian and I wanted to know if you were interested in dinner and drinks at our place tonight. You down?"

"Sure," said Ellie.

"Cool, he says to have you come over at seven. He's got this new pork loin recipe he's all excited about."

"Great," said Ellie, and meant it. Kathleen's husband Sebastian was a fabulous cook, and a visit this evening would be a welcome sample of normalcy. The two of them returned to the office, Kathleen filling Ellie in on her two missed meetings and Marco's continued shenanigans.

Six and a half hours later, Ellie was the last of her coworkers to trudge out of the office having just finally overcome her hangover, but more deeply in the hole in terms of work to catch up on. She anticipated spending most of her Sunday working from home and gaining precious ground, a probability that she deeply resented. It would involve further revisions to a logo that had been rejected by the client nearly a dozen times over already, and a mountain of busy work that Marco had chosen this Friday to assign with a Monday deadline. Half of her weekend was gone.

Unless...

Pausing beside her Corolla, Ellie began to undo the clasp of her purse in order to fish out the crumpled piece of paper Hannah gave her this time yesterday. Then she remembered that her phone was dead, having not been charged in nearly two days. Oddly grateful for this fact and the leeway it gave Ellie to procrastinate on this very big decision, she merely unlocked her car, threw her purse and the possibilities it carried into the passenger seat, and drove home.

She plugged her phone in next to her bed before taking a proper shower, freshened her clothes and makeup, and ate a handful of Goldfish out of the cupboard. Ellie was just fastening the laces on her Nikes to head out to Kathleen's when her phone lit up on her bedside table: Charged.

Ellie looked up from her laces at her phone, then her purse. She instantly began sweating through her fresh deodorant. Thoughts tumbled through her head in the half-lit apartment.

Today was not a day that enforced any desire to keep the status quo in her life.

And yet, Hannah and the project that she represented asked more of her and her body than she could possibly want to offer.

Ellie had half a mind to open her purse, fish out Hannah's number, drop it in the toilet, and flush. Seal off this thrilling and terrifying opportunity forever.

And what would be the outcome of such a decision? Ellie would return to her marketing job on Monday, and the day after that, and the day after that. Maybe in ten years she could achieve an executive title at some agency or another. Find a spouse. Buy a house. Have children.

Children that live to how old? Two? Six, maybe?

She experimented with mentally calling bullshit on the Earth's time limit, but no use: Ellie had seen too much. The ever-obnoxious knot in Ellie's throat returned, and the reality of how little she had to lose battled with the clearly rational choice -- disposing of Hannah's phone number.

Instead of picking up her purse, Ellie retrieved her phone. 6:42pm. She had just enough time to leave now and be at Kathleen's on schedule. And still she merely stood there, staring at her phone's home screen.

6:43pm

The front door rattled. Mister Across-the-Hall had opened and shut his door opposite to come out again for a cigarette.

Ellie accepted that she likely owed him an apology for the night before... And another cigarette didn't sound too bad either, given the circumstances. Her chances of living to old age were shot, anyhow. Not to mention another opportunity to forestall her decision.

I can be a little late for Kathleen's; she won't mind. And to be safe, she sent a quick text to Kathleen:

Hey chica, sorry I'm running like 10 minutes behind. Traffic's been a nightmare.

When Ellie opened her door, Mister Across-the-Hall looked around with raised eyebrows and a smile. "Look who it is!" He was still in work clothes; a well-tailored pink gingham button-down that fitted his chubby frame flatteringly, tucked into slate-gray plaid suit pants.

"Hey," said Ellie. "Mind if I bum?"

"Sure," he said, holding the pack of Camels out.

Ellie selected a cigarette and he lit it for her. This one was gentler on her sober stomach. "I thought I owed you an apology for last night."

Mister shook his head dismissively, looking not at Ellie but over the railing he was leaning on. "Don't worry about it. I'm glad you're okay."

Ellie nodded. "Well, thanks again... or for the first time? I think I was too out of it to thank you last night."

"No problem."

She leaned against the rail next to him, and only just then did the memory of hurling over it the night before return. "Oh, shit, I really overdid it..."

Mister laughed. "You know, I have a daughter that's about your age. Maybe a little older. I'd kill her if I caught her smoking."

Ellie chuckled out a smoke cloud, and coughed a little. "Yeah, well..."

"But obviously I don't have any real room to judge," he said, gesturing with his own Camel.

"And what would you say if you saw your daughter behave like I did last night?" Ellie asked with shame.

"Well..." he said, shooting smoke out of his nostrils, "it's really none of my business, but I know when I see someone who's going through something and self medicating. I'm not a stranger to vodka. If I found Molly trying to numb pain the way I found you last night, the last thing I'd do is get on her case about looking for comfort in liquor. Clearly she needs help with a serious problem, not a lecture."

Ellie smirked at him. "I'm sure you've got some very sage advice, but... I'm not really in a place where I can... articulate... or explain... my problems."

He smiled. "What was your name?"

"Ellie." She offered her cigarette-free hand to shake.

He took it. "Carlos."

"Carlos," she repeated. "Where does your daughter Molly live?"

"Washington State. Near her mom. She's not really talking to me these days."

Ellie winced. "Ouch... That sucks. Honestly, I'm kind of in the same situation with my parents."

Carlos nodded. "I'm sure you have your reasons. God knows Molly has hers."

The silence that followed was deeply awkward. It was long enough for Carlos to finish his cigarette; he crushed it out on the railing and then flicked the butt out into the void beyond the stairwell. Then he broke the silence. "Tell you what: You keep your reasons for not talking to your parents private, and I'll keep Molly's reasons private."

"Fair enough," Ellie said.

"And I have no intention to pry," said Carlos, "but I'm just gonna drop some quick advice on you that really helped me after I lost my family."

"Shoot."

"Find your village."

Ellie blinked. "My village?"

"The group of people who will have your back no matter what. The ones whose love and support is something you never have to question. I couldn't stop knocking back the booze until I found mine. Sometimes it's blood family, but in your case it doesn't sound like it is. So:" Carlos locked eyes with her. "Do you have a village, Ellie?"

She paused, taking her turn to tamp out her cigarette. "Maybe."

"Lock it down," said Carlos. "That's the best advice I can give you. Goodnight, Ellie."

She returned to her apartment and pulled her phone off the charger. Kathleen had responded: "You're good, no worries."

Armed with a bit of leeway, Ellie fetched her purse and fished for the crumpled piece of paper. For a split second, she had trouble finding it and her heart began to pound in panic; but there it was at the bottom, under a 5-year-old tube of mascara.

She pulled it out, sat down on her bed with her phone, thought about another Sunday spent designing logos and filling time sheets and ignoring Pete's phone calls (a call after church was always assured, when his self-righteous fuel had been freshly replenished)... and dialed the number Hannah gave her.

There was oddly no ring tone.

One second after she hit the call button, an unfamiliar female voice simply answered: "May I please ask who's calling?"

"Umm... Is this... is this Hannah's phone?"

"Who's calling, please?"

Ellie's neck grew hot. "Uh... my name's Elizabeth? Ellie?"

"One moment."

The silence on the other end of the line returned for a full fifteen seconds, during which Ellie seriously considered hanging up the phone and chucking it across the room. And then the line clicked again:

"Well damn, that was fast!" Hannah's familiar voice.

"Hey," said Ellie, grinning broadly despite herself. "Uh... Did... Did the blood work come through?"

"Yep," said Hannah. "The peeps at the lab have cleared you for all genetic abnormalities. You are clinically and officially extremely normal."

Ellie laughed. It was almost upsetting how badly she needed to hear Hannah's voice. "Well in that case, I... um... I think I actually want to... you know..."