As much as I hated to admit Jordan was right, I was drunk. Really drunk. I hadn’t eaten a substantial meal in days, and between the shots and the drinks, I was four or five deep. And for the first time in my life, I was an angry drunk.

“Cigarette?” Jordan cocked his head to the side.

“I don’t smoke. It’s disgusting.”

“Then just stand outside with me,” he said curtly, pulling me by the arm. I ripped it out of his grip and spun around with my finger pointed at him, but I saw so much concern and kindness in his expression that I dropped my arm back to my side and turned toward the door. “We’ll be back in two minutes,” I heard him say to Kevin.

The fresh spring air forced my pores open, sobering me up for a moment. “I’ll have one too,” I said, as though I was doing him a favor.

Jordan shook his head. “I quit months ago. I don’t have any on me.” He folded his arms over his chest and stared at me. “What the fuck is going on with you, Skip?”

As I shook my head, the tears came almost immediately. “I feel like I’m coming apart,” I coughed out, gasping for air.

“Shit,” Jordan said. He took a step toward me and then retreated, not knowing how close to get. I thought for a moment of telling Jordan about Gary assaulting me, about my relationship with Peter, about Carmen finding out—maybe he’d be the one who could help me out of the mess I had made. But if somebody else knew everything that had happened, it would suddenly become real.

“How could you sleep with Carmen?” I said instead. “I won’t cover for you the way I did with Nancy, you know.”

His jaw dropped open. “Huh?”

“I know you guys are having a thing.”

“You’ve lost your mind, Skip. Seriously, you’re insane. I’ve never laid a finger on Carmen.” He spoke slowly, as though I were holding hostages. “That’s Peter’s job,” he said.

Everything stopped.

“Who?” My knees grew weak, and I bent slightly to rest my hands on my thighs.

“Peter! Shit!” Jordan said.

“Peter Peter? Peter Dunn?” I asked. I leaned backward against the wall, no longer trusting my legs. Carmen knows I slept with Peter, I thought. And Peter’s the guy Carmen has been seeing? This was not good. Not good.

“Yes, Peter Dunn! How did you not know that? Everybody knows. Carmen is pretty obvious about it,” he said with a smirk.

“Oh my god. This day is actually so much worse than I thought it was. And it was really fucking bad to begin with. My life is completely going to shit!” I yelled, stomping my foot in frustration.

“That’s a bit dramatic, Skip. But yeah, he’s fucking Carmen. And Peggy in recruiting. And Sarah in accounting. I mean, the man can’t keep it in his pants.”

I struggled to take a deep breath, with only minimal success.

“Did you really not know this?” Jordan said. “I actually feel like we’ve spoken about it.” I shook my head, and my heart banged against my ribs. “Shit. Skip? Are you okay?” Jordan’s hand was on my back. “You’re freaking out. I mean, this doesn’t even really involve you. You need to chill.” As he spoke, he dug into his breast pocket, and I heard the rattling maraca of pills.

I watched his lips moving, and in a crystal-clear moment, I saw it: my cheating with a serial adulterer, my assault by a rich scumbag, my entire existence in corporate America, was just so . . . typical. I realized what I had always feared to be true, since the moment my world records were shattered. I wasn’t special at all, I was just like every other pathetic person I knew. I bent down and puked between my shoes.

*

I stared at my bite marks in the pizza crust, taking one last small nibble at the corner, as we sat on a bench. I wiped the grease from my chin with the back of my hand and threw the rest of my slice into the trash, then leaned my head on Jordan’s shoulder, which felt solid and warm against my cheek.

“I can’t do this job anymore,” I muttered into the foggy air.

“You’re really fucking stressed. And you don’t sleep. And you drank too much tonight. You can do this. You’re so talented,” he said calmly.

Images flew through my mind—Carmen’s sideways glances during that presentation, the ones I’d thought were directed at Jordan; the locked restoration room door; her questions about where I was going with Peter; and finally, the conversation she’d overheard—until, like a gift, the Xanax Jordan had given me kicked in.

“Kevin. We left Kevin,” I realized aloud.

“Kevin is fine. Let’s get you home, Skip. It’s Sam’s turn to deal with you,” he said, laughing. I burst into tears again at the mention of Sam’s name, but allowed him to hail me a cab to take me home.

Chapter 23

“Sloppy,” Peter muttered under his breath, and I cringed. In the forty-five minutes it took him to read the acquisition agreement I’d drafted, I sat in his office and alternated between watching him and reading my emails on my phone. He didn’t say a single word to me as he took a pen to my draft with short, tight, angry marks.

I winced as I watched the red lines slash through the words I’d chosen carefully, and thought of how Carmen wouldn’t return my phone calls. I watched Peter gnaw at his lower lip, and I wondered momentarily whether he was so angry because Carmen had stopped sleeping with him as well. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to care—about anything, really. Except my deals.

I was throwing myself into work, gladly letting it consume all of my energy and waking hours. I almost managed to convince myself I was doing okay—until I drank. Liquor allowed all the vile bodily fluids to escape from my face—hot tears and yellow mucus and bubbles of saliva—as soon as my defenses were slightly weakened. A few days after my less-than-stellar showing at drinks with Kevin and Jordan, I tried a few glasses of wine alone on my couch when I got home from work. Even before I was through with my first glass, I found myself wailing and shaking my shoulders, the way I only ever did when I was certain everything was crumbling around me, and when I was positive nobody was within earshot.

But sober, I convinced myself that I felt somewhat calm about my personal life and the state of chaos it was in. Weekdays in the office somehow felt very much normal, aside from the fact that Peter was reviewing my work with a much harsher eye.

When he finally looked up and handed me the document, it was entirely covered in red. “Turn these changes by COB,” he said without any trace of warmth.

I nodded and turned to leave. “When did you start doing M&A?” he asked, looking at me as though we barely knew one another.

“October.”

“Hmm,” he snorted, and turned back to his computer.

He was going to write me a bad review. He was going to kill my career. I was so screwed. Klasko was sadly the only place that felt like home, where I felt like the competent adult I’d been, pre-affair, pre-breakup, pre-Incident. I needed the tailored business clothes to hold me together, the sterile lobby to make me feel sane, the superficial pleasantries and mundane deal work to keep my mind off everything that had happened.

When I woke the next day, I inhaled in disgust. What was that smell? I looked under my bed for remnants of food, then looked at my gym shoes to see if I had stepped in poop, before burying my head in my chest and breathing in. I had actually thought it was impossible to recognize one’s own stench, but I could tell I smelled rotten, in a way that indicated sickness rather than bad hygiene. I forced myself into the bathroom, where I painstakingly removed my clothes, breathing harder with panic as every article of clothing dropped onto the tile floor. I looked at my sunken eyes and matted hair and forced myself into the shower, where I remembered why I had been avoiding it. Being naked made the whole night rush in on me, the pulsing music in my ears, the anxiety in my veins. I mostly heard my own screams, my own struggle. My body didn’t feel like my own any longer. It felt like this unnecessary weakness following me around, and I didn’t want to exist in it. Snap out of it, I told myself. You’re fine. At the end of the day, nothing even happened. I scrubbed myself and toweled off as quickly as possible, then checked my email as I pulled on black pants and a silk blouse.

From: Carmen Greyson

To: Alexandra Vogel

Subject: Can we talk?

My office? Now? We really should talk . . .

From: Alexandra Vogel

To: Carmen Greyson

Subject: Re: Can we talk?

On my way in now. Will come straight to your office.

“Hey,” I said after knocking on Carmen’s doorframe forty minutes later. We looked at each other, both seeing a thinner, more hollowed-out version of our friend. I shut the door behind me and took a seat.

“So . . . ,” she started, and her lip immediately began to quiver. “I have something to tell you.” It was unnerving to watch her unwind, tears leaking out of her eyes and her hands shaking. “Peter Dunn and I also slept together.”

I tried my best to look surprised, but my effort was wasted; she could barely make eye contact.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.