By evening, Dawn was reeling with emotion from her charged brunch with Meeghan and confrontational phone call with Lisa.
She could barely enjoy the party. Dawn surveyed the crowd: waiters carrying precariously perched glasses of champagne and a variety of exotic looking hors d’oeuvres weaved between San Francisco’s elite. The in-crowd. She spotted her always-handsome husband laughing gregariously with his studio television executives. That promotion was his. She smiled, imagining what it would be like to see the love of her life on network television reporting the news every night.
Rick saw his wife out of the corner of his eye and winked. She felt her skin flush like a middle school girl with a crush. At any other party she would have walked over and taken his hand but at high society functions the socializing was usually divided by sex. Men talked shop, women talked shopping.
Dawn made her way to the balcony. Spectacular view. The Golden Gate Bridge shimmered like it was covered in gold flecks. She felt the frigid ocean breeze give her goosebumps. Memories of riding through the city in a rusty yellow hatchback with Lisa washed over her. They’d always cruise slowly through Pacific Heights, imagining what types of people owned the towering mansions that seemed to take up a whole city block. Laughing, they’d tip up their noses and speak in obnoxious voices imitating the very people Dawn found herself rubbing shoulders with in her everyday life.
She was truly sorry about the rejection letter but not enough to crawl to her best friend’s apartment and apologize. Dawn squinted her eyes resentfully. “Did Lisa think I’d hire Thomas out of pity?” she thought to herself.
“Crazy woman, I tell you,” she whispered to herself, shaking her head.
“Who’s crazy?”
Dawn turned quickly, startled. A familiar face. Leslie, WNBC’s assistant producer. Queen of the coffee runs, or so Dawn had heard. She looked almost senior producer material in her department store black cocktail dress.
“Oh hi, Leslie. You scared the…,” she looked at her glass, “what are we drinking anyway?”
“It’s the Dom baby. One bottle is worth more than my car payment,” Leslie swallowed hard and smiled loosely.
“Well then you almost scared the overrated champagne out of me.”
Leslie laughed a bit too loud.
Dawn smiled. At least someone was having a good time.
“Maybe you should switch to water. Do you have a ride home?”
Leslie moved into Dawn’s personal space. It’s amazing how the invisible boundary line between two people felt so tangible once violated. Dawn could smell the blend of goat cheese appetizers and alcohol on Leslie’s breath.
“We’ll all be drinking only water soon enough, am I right?”
Dawn stared blankly at Leslie. She wondered if it would be rude to take three giant steps back.
“What are you talking about, Leslie. Seriously, I’ll call you a cab right now.”
“Oh what, you haven’t heard? You darling anchor man didn’t say anything? WNBC has been acquired. Some Canadian company. I knew Canada was more powerful than anyone gave them credit for. It’s all that free health-care. Keeps them strong. That and the maple…maple has antioxidants that-”
Dawn cut her off.
“What? Acquired? What does that mean for the staff?”
Leslie clumsily grabbed a caviar-topped wafer off of a moving tray.
“Well, if you’re a moderately cute assistant producer who can fetch a triple tall nonfat mocha like whoa but has no job security, it means that I’d better create my account on sugardaddy.com tomorrow morning. For the MILF wife of an evening news anchor hopeful, it means she’d better start brushing up on her francais ce soir because they’re shipping most of the evening regulars to their Quebec affiliate.”
Dawn felt like she’d been hit by a truck. A truck full of goat cheese.
She walked past Leslie and scanned the room for her husband. Rick saw her first and guessed by the look on his wife’s face that they’d be up late, and not having the Dom Perignon-fueled romp he’d hoped for.
