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Living Large
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Chapter 5:- 5
I woke up the next morning before my alarm with mixed feelings. I was anxious to begin my change, but still not entirely sure I was ready to share it with the world. Just yesterday at lunch, I was carelessly stuffing a gooey cheese filled panini into my mouth, feeling pity for the girls in the world who had to starve themselves to feel good. Today, I was one of them. I decided that I would start simply, and would walk to work. I hadn’t walked to work in over two years. I wasn’t even sure I knew the way, but I had a good notion as to the general direction. My parents had purchased the condo for us as an engagement gift, and it wasn’t without its perks. When we moved into the condo, it didn’t take me long to fall in love with the driving service. I did attempt to refuse it at first, but there is just something about a warm leather seat on a blistery day that entices you away from the cold hard sidewalk pretty easily. Today I would stand strong. I bundled up and left the apartment.
When the doors to the elevator opened to the lobby, I walked proudly out, holding my chin up above my scarf.
“Shall I get the car ready Miss Sophia?”
I looked over to the concierge’s desk. There stood Brian, my favorite concierge. He was tall and gangly and barely looked over eighteen. He had migrated to Boston from somewhere in Tennessee, and he managed to fill a southern drawl with all of the hospitality that my mother’s lacked. My mother, Adessa Rose, is a true southern belle. She was raised as the starring member in a once incredibly wealthy plantation family from just outside of Savannah, Georgia, and she doesn’t like anyone to forget it. My mother believes that her greatest sacrifice in life was to marry for love; forever tarnishing her Papa's honor by taking on the Jewish sounding name of Bernstein, and raising her family in the North.
Adessa Rose is not however, to be confused with any of the warm and tender idols of the south, known for cooking up feasts using one iron skillet and wearing a big smile. She is no barefoot contessa. She considers those women to be “tacky”. My mother is one of those women who look perpetually hungry, and if you sniff carefully around her, you can smell the aged money in her Chanel purse. Sniffing, of course, “is tacky”, so you’d have to make sure she didn’t catch you doing it, or you would be sure to find yourself on the receiving end of a stern reprimand.
“Excuse me, Miss Sophia? Shall I get the car? I’m sorry it’s not ready now, I must’ve missed the call.” He looked worried. I think Brian wasn’t every resident’s favorite concierge.
“No Brian, I didn’t call. I’m walking today.”
“You sure? Today isn’t really a great day for walking…”
I felt heat rising from inside my chest to my cheeks. “Yes Brian, I am sure.”
I turned away from Brian, gloating a little as I looked out through the front doors. My face dropped quickly. The thick glass barely seemed capable of holding back the rage that Mother Nature was releasing against it. It looked as though she was out to get me, and the doors stood weakly, shaking like a small savior against a violent avenger. I stepped towards the door slowly, ready to face my opponent. Without looking back, I pushed my body against the doors and fell out into the wild.
I was instantly choked by the wind’s icy fingers and I almost just as instantly regretted my decision to walk. Determined to do this, I stomped my feet on the ground, one in front of the other, lumbering towards work.
After what felt like the longest thirty minutes later, I fell through the front doors of my building. I was soaked, from a combination of the cold pelting sleet making its way in through my coat and my warm slimy sweat, working its way out. My chest heaved up and down, and I stood close to the door to avoid speaking to the receptionist until I could catch my breath. She was the chatty type; a girl who never quite understood when she was the butt of a joke. Usually I enjoyed teasing her without her knowing, but she was also naively blunt, and I knew that she would point out my exhaustion. I was already well aware of my exhaustion, and I didn’t need any reminding. My efforts were futile, since she quickly stood up and came around the desk and walked towards me, her eyes filled with worry.
“Are you OK?! Do you need some water or something, you look clammy and you are really out of breath. Are you sick?”
I spoke slowly, breathing through my teeth.
“No no, I’m fine.” I paused for a moment, pretending to contemplate something as I slowly let out the air that was on fire in my chest. “Actually, maybe I am catching a cold. I’ll take some Dayquil when I get to my desk.”
I shoved past her and slammed my finger into the elevator button, pushing it several times.
“OK, well, good morning. Jeesh!”
The elevator door opened directly across from the entrance to the office. Through the glass doors was a small nook, created by two walls laid out in an "L" shape, with a wall directly to the right and a wall directly in front of the doors. The wall that an entering person faced was outfitted with a small mirror and table, worth more combined than my entire year of rent for my first apartment in the city. To the left the room opened a little, revealing a set of mid-century chairs in soft green leather.
As I passed through the doors, my heart started beating heavily again. It seemed innocent enough to the unknowing visitor, but I knew what lay directly around the corner. The actual office was a massive open room surrounded by small offices facing out into it with glass walls. In the center of the open room there were about nine or ten desks scattered around, in what we referred to as the sea. Each desk had a low wall about ten inches high on three sides. This gave the person working at the desk the illusion of privacy, while still ensuring that there actually was none. Us sea dwellers typically enjoyed meeting a visitor with at least a half dozen sets of scrutinizing eyes upon entrance. Today, I may as well have been a visitor, after my fiasco the day before. I sucked in a deep breath and took a step.
“Where the hell have you been!!?? You missed the whole God damn meeting!”
The MEETING! Elaine, our editor in chief, did not demand a set amount of hours of the creative staff, as long as deadlines were met. She did however require that the entire staff meet weekly. So every Wednesday morning the entire staff flowed into the sea at exactly eight am, to discuss the future of the magazine. Elaine was no nonsense, and it seemed she was always on the cusp of establishing a stricter regime, but she was respected and the magazine was successful, so she only extended her dictatorship through to the Wednesday morning meetings. Nobody missed them. Until now.
