It was Friday, and I had only four hours until I left my job forever. Finally, I was making the jump from a lowly academic journal to the glamorous world of magazine editing. My job in New York began in one week, and I was leaving my shabby little cubicle and awkward, unfriendly coworkers behind.
Things were hectic: I'd spent all morning forwarding my email contacts to a personal account, arranging for the moving truck to come Sunday, and thinking of article pitches I wanted to assign. All the while, receiving a steady stream of well-wishes from coworkers who had barely spoken to me in three years. Sayonara, suckaz, I thought, except for one person.
For three whole years, Anil and I had been the only people of color in the entire editorial department. When I started, I was fresh out of college, but I knew my stuff. Anil was a little older, in his thirties, and he caught me up on office politics, and even saved my ass once or twice.
Anil was strange. He was barely taller than me, but wiry and strong, with black eyes that saw everything and one of the most incisive minds I had ever known. He had an indeterminate olive complexion, and until he told me he was from Nepal I didn't know what he was, racially speaking. Anil didn't believe in what he called "the National Geographics tango," or asking someone about their culture in order to form an idea of their personality.
"Talk to me as an individual, get to know me as a person," he said. "Then we can talk about Kathmandu." Turns out, he'd lived for many years in Atlanta and was very at ease with black culture and politics. I liked him immediately, and immensely.
Anil hadn't been by to see me all morning, which was a little strange, so I shot him a chat message.
"Que pasa, 'manito?" We often wrote or spoke to each other in bad Spanish, a little in-joke because his wife was Mexican.
"Cool, just finishing up a report left over from yesterday. Let's take lunch early, like 11:30?"
"OK."
"Monique, good luck in New York!"
I looked up to see Shari, my boss. Pushing fifty and fighting it, Shari might have been attractive if she wasn't so catty. Anil had told me that she'd written a couple of mediocre books and was threatened by anyone with writing talent. She'd tried to sabotage me on more than one occasion. I put on a wide smile, swiveling my office chair to face her.
"Thanks, Shari! I'm really excited about the opportunity."
She exhaled through her nose like a bull snorts—her version of a laugh. "Just hope you keep that enthusiasm. New York can be brutal. And there's no shame in coming back if things don't work out."
I bristled at the implication.
"Thanks for the offer. But it's not necessary. I don't plan on coming back."
"Well, don't speak too soon. Hey, I did my time in New York, too. I could've stayed, but I opted for a better quality of life here, and you may decide to do the same. Everyone isn't cut out for the rat race, and when you see how far an editor's salary goes in the city—"
Strolling by, Maryse came to my rescue. Over six feet tall, with a solid frame and short blonde hair, she still looked damn good, even in her sixties. Next to Anil, she was my closest friend in the company.
"Oh, shut up, Shari," she said with an arch smile. "Don't you have some forms to fill out, or something?" That French accent of hers made everything sound amusing, so she regularly got away with murder.
"Maryse, you're such a clown," Shari giggled and walked away. Maryse continued smiling until Shari was out of sight, then turned around with a grimace.
"I'm sure whatever she had to say was appropriately unpleasant. The frustrated prostitute."
"She offered me my job back. Sort of a pre-emptive lack of faith, like she knows New York is going to chew me up and spit me out in a couple of months." I tried to mask my own jitters; the prospect of moving to New York was a little scary.
"You will do fine; it's here that I'm worried about. This place is crumbling. It will not be the same without you, my dear." Maryse gave a wistful sigh, then kissed me twice swift and hard on the corners of my mouth. She pressed a small ivory box into my palm and walked away quickly.
Inside the box was a beautiful antique bracelet. It matched my taste perfectly. I slid it on my wrist and held it up to admire it.
At 11:30, Anil rose without looking at me, pulled on his jacket and headed out. We'd started being more discreet about our friendship this year.
Everyone knew we were close; we had a daily habit of taking lunch together to walk the neighborhood. But a couple of times on our lunch tours, we'd been so busy talking and cracking up that we'd lost track of time, and it hadn't gone unnoticed. Three drinks deep at the Christmas party, Shari had finally cornered Anil and asked if we were seeing each other. Since then, we'd toned down our public, platonic PDA.
