She smiles at me and nods. “Thank you. I tried it myself once but was contacted by some sketchy people and gave up.”
“This site is reliable, don’t worry.”
I smile at her and get off the plane, declining Theodore’s invitation for the limousine to return to my apartment. I look at the time, and it’s too late to go to the jewelry store, so I take it easy and call a taxi back to the office. If I retrieve my laptop tonight, I’ll have more time tomorrow morning to return the earrings.
At first, I felt embarrassed, like a prostitute who accepts money from her clients. I didn’t dare to look at the people behind the counter, grabbing the receipt and the jewelry and refunding the money onto my credit card. Over time, however, I noticed that none of them cared. If they had any inkling of what I had done to get those gifts, they never let on, and above all, didn’t judge. Little by little, it has become so routine that they don’t even ask me on which of the cards I want the refund because it’s already in their system.
Manhattan seems almost more beautiful now, with its twinkling lights out the car window, perhaps because this weekend has been particularly unpleasant. When I reach Jail Records, all the annoyance disappears, giving way to worry. The lights are on, and there’s only one person who could be here on a Sunday at eleven in the evening.
“Did you spend the weekend in here?” I ask Evan, who raises his head from his computer. He didn’t even hear me come in.
I watch him rub his eyes. He is so tired he looks like a rag doll. The elegant suit is crumpled, the shirt has seen better days, and his hair looks like he’s run his hands through it dozens of times.
“I came to get a document that I had forgotten and lost track of time,” he admits, looking at the clock.
The dark circles under his eyes are so deep I’m sure he spent the weekend working. My heart clenches to see him like this, and I can’t help but wonder if he has a life outside this company. It’s rare to see him out with the Jailbirds.
I reach the cabinet where I keep my laptop, take it, and put it in my bag. I approach Evan and sit next to him. He looks at me, frowning, a smile on his face.
“You’re tan and smell like sunscreen. Were you at the beach?” he asks, puzzled and the chasm that opens in my chest makes me almost short of breath.
My heart bounces back in my throat. “Yes, I was on Long Island with my mother this weekend.”
Lying to Evan is the worst thing about being on that website. Iris might understand since she was a paparazzo for years when she needed money, but with Evan it’s different. With the admiration and respect I have for him, I couldn’t stand it if he found out what I do in my free time. He is such a clean-cut, rule-following guy that this would mar his opinion of me. He introduces me in business meetings as “the best assistant a manager could wish for”—how would he react if he knew? The best assistant a manager could wish for, except when she sleeps with men in exchange for expensive gifts. Evan has a moral integrity that defines his every move, and what I do is far from morally acceptable. And this might even change my opinion of myself.
“Go to sleep, Evan. It’s late, and tomorrow you’ll have to face another week.”
He looks down, almost ashamed to be here working. If only he knew I have so much more than him to be ashamed of.
“Give me half an hour, and then I’ll go home, I swear.”
I smile at him and shake my head. “No, come with me now because I’m sure you haven’t even eaten.”
I reach out my hand, and he hesitates before grabbing it, getting up, and following me outside these walls that close him in here day and night. Feeling his skin on mine is an electric shock that runs down my back. I’ve had another’s hands on me for a whole weekend, but the only time every single cell in my body comes to life is when I touch his fingers.
I wish I could do something more for him. If only I could help carry even half of the worries that crush him, because I can see him giving in. I notice it in his curved shoulders as he follows me miserably out of Jail Records, in his blank stare at the cracks in the sidewalk as we wait for a taxi, in the smile that never reaches his eyes as he greets me from behind the window.
Evan has locked himself in a cage from which he can no longer get out, and the mere thought that his life will fade behind those invisible bars makes me worry so much that all my own problems become insignificant. Evan is like a beacon that has guided me since I took a seat next to him at the beginning of this adventure. When we didn’t even have a desk to sit at, but he already had everything planned and under control. If that light goes out, leaving me in the dark, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to find the way back to safety.
I stare at the laptop on the coffee table, sipping my beer. Anxiety gripped my stomach when Jasmine advised me to look for someone to hang out with on sugar daddy sites. Now that I think of giving this service a chance, all-out nausea assails me. But the alternative is to initiate a stable relationship, and considering it’s one o’clock in the morning and I’ve just finished work after Emily kicked me out of the office, no sane woman would agree to date someone like me. The only one who is already aware of my situation and could somehow understand is Emily, but I don’t even want to get close to that thought. If there is a rule I have always imposed on myself and not broken even once, it’s never to mix romantic relationships with work.
I inhale deeply, open the laptop, and start browsing one of the sites Jasmine suggested. It seems to be the most famous and reliable in terms of being discreet. The fact that you can’t see sugar babies if you haven’t opened an account by dropping hundreds of dollars is proof of that. To contact them, you have to shell out even more. Profiles of more or less attractive girls appear on the screen, all with a description of hobbies and interests they hope to share with the other person. The problem with these services is that they are very similar to dating ones. You have to find the right person with whom you have a connection before you can build a relationship that makes dating enjoyable. Of course, the sugar daddy has to commit to taking care of the sugar baby economically by giving her gifts and such, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be chemistry between them.
The only area you have to consider when using an escort service is the physical one. It’s a purely sexual exchange that lasts only as long as the act, then everyone goes their own way. Of course, you can also take her to an event to make a good impression because she’s beautiful, intelligent, and knows how to hold a conversation at a certain level, but there doesn’t have to be a second date. With a sugar baby, this is not the case. It’s implicit in the agreement that you’ll date, go to dinner, take vacations, and maybe have sex, but that’s not the point of the exchange. It’s a kind of paid company, in the broadest sense of the term, not just between the sheets. And to get to know a person, you can’t go out with her just once.
I spend at least fifteen minutes scrolling through pages and pages of girls, so many of them that I start to confuse the photos and interests. No part of my brain is devoting energy to analyzing these profiles with the intent of finding someone I could get along with. I’m on the verge of closing the page when a profile catches my eye.
Although you can only see the eyes, I’d recognize that shade of hazel anywhere, it’s the one I immerse myself and get lost in every day. Emily’s name next to the profile photo makes my blood freeze in my veins. My finger trembles on the mouse when I click the button titled ‘Know your baby.’ Other pictures of Emily appear on the screen, less artistic than the profile. On a Caribbean beach with that red micro-bikini that drives me crazy every time she wears it; on a mountain skiing; sipping a cocktail in an elegant dress that wraps her like a glove without being vulgar. She describes herself as “a dynamic girl who loves the outdoors, travel, live music, and evenings in the company of friends.”
This is an Emily I find hard to recognize; she’s never said anything to any of us about this. When did she go to the Caribbean? Or skiing in the mountains? Does Iris know about this?
I grab the phone to ask her best friend for confirmation, but I stop. How could I explain this website? Does Iris know, or has Emily kept it hidden from her too? I can’t risk giving away her secret if she hasn’t told anyone, especially since it’s not my business what she does in her spare time. The questions crowd my mind so frantically that I can’t identify them.
My one rule in the workplace is: never get romantically involved with someone I share my desk with. I have always believed that office love stories are a double-edged sword—sooner or later, someone gets hurt. It’s all magical at first, when you never want to be apart from the person. But if the relationship sinks, if the story doesn’t take off, that magic soon turns into a nightmare you can’t wake up from. Every day you have to face a person you’d rather stay away from, making the workplace unlivable.
The mere fact that I am reminded of these arguments when looking at Emily’s photos disturbs me so much that my heart pounds in my chest.
I love my job. It’s the part of my life that makes me most proud and gives me the most fulfillment. Discovering this secret side of Emily, someone I fight elbow to elbow alongside every single day of my life, makes me feel connected to her in such a personal and profound way that it terrifies me. Not so much because it makes me think of her in an inappropriately intimate way, but because I’ve discovered a part of her life that she decided to keep secret. I know something so personal that she chose to hide it from me, and discovering it by chance almost feels like a betrayal of trust.