Wendy Markham - Slightly Married

Unfortunately, Adrian is too busy glaring at the closed elevator bank to appreciate my uberefficiency.

An upward-bound elevator finally arrives and the four of us stride on board, where we ride in stony silence to the eighth floor.

Well, Adrian and Susan are stony. Carol is stony by association.

Me, I’m just pondering my bridal bouquet, wondering if I should go for a circular nosegay–type arrangement, or more of a cascade.

Either way, I’ll need roses. Lots of them. In red. Or maybe off-white. But not yellow, because my Sicilian grandmother says yellow roses are bad luck.

The elevator stops, dings, and we step out onto the eighth floor.

I used to think it was my imagination that the Creative Department’s offices were bigger and better than ours downstairs. I also thought Jack was just being paranoid when he claimed that the Media Department’s space two floors below—which is where he works—is dingy and small compared to the other departments.

Guess what? All true.

How do I know, you might ask?

Because my friend Latisha and I went out to Duane Reade for a tape measure one day when we were bored. We snuck around wearing our trench coats, measuring offices, taking notes, cracking ourselves up with our spy routine.

None of our underling peers—except Jack—was amused when we told them what we’d done. In addition to being amused, Jack was all, “I told you so.”

On the Creative floor, which occupies all of eight, the paint is a fresh and soothing shade of off-white. Ceilings are lofty and higher than on other floors, and most of the window offices face Lexington Avenue or the side street, where there’s a partial view of the Empire State Building.

In direct contrast: the media floor, which is all the way down on five and shares space with an architectural firm. There, the offices are painted phlegm yellow, a few square feet smaller with drop ceilings, and even some of the supervisors don’t have windows. Those who do have windows overlook views that are even more dismal than mine.

If you were going to compare the agency heirarchy to, let’s say, jeans: the Creative group would be your 7 for all mankind, the Account group would be Ralph Lauren, and Media would be Wranglers.

Wait, do they still make Wranglers?

See? That’s exactly what I mean. Media is definitely Wranglers. They exist (I’m pretty sure), and they’re functional, but nobody really notices them.

Mental note: share clever jeans/agency department analogy with Jack, who will appreciate it.

On the eighth floor, we Account people rush to the sleek and subtly lit exposed-brick and glass-walled conference room where the Creatives are waiting.

I am struck with a familiar longing to be on their side of the room. I resist the urge to sidle up to them and whisper, “I’m really one of you.”

Because technically, I’m not.

Not on the outside, anyway.

The women are collectively thin, black-clad and attractive, with sleek short haircuts, most in trendy glasses that make them look erudite and chic.

The men—most of them good-looking with longish hair—are carelessly stylish in jeans and turtlenecks with blazers. They tend to remind me of my friend Buckley, who also happens to be a freelance copywriter. They have that quick-witted, funny-sexy-smart thing going on, just like Buckley.

Jack has it, too, but in a quieter, more subtle way.

Jack. My fiancé.

Hallelujah! I actually have a fiancé!

Yet as we take our seats around the conference table, I sneak my left hand out of my pocket for a quick glimpse of my ring, just to make sure it’s really there and I didn’t imagine the whole thing.

Nope, the diamond’s there, all right—and Adrian just caught me staring lovingly at it.

Oops.

I ingeniously pretend there’s a bug crawling on my knuckle and slap at it with my right hand, saying loudly, “Ouch!”

Everyone stops talking and moving chairs to look over at me.

“Mosquito,” I explain, scratching as if I’ve just been bitten. Then I wave the air in front of my face for added authenticity. Then I remember that it’s February in a Manhattan office building.

Then I note that if I don’t stop this charade right now, I might as well keep on waving…goodbye to my brilliant advertising career.

Adrian is watching me with this expression that’s…well, I guess you’d describe it as a fascinated frown. Not in a good way.

“Tracey?” Carol interjects, looking from our boss to me. “Do you have that nutritional data for pork ribs that we’d like to add to the presentation?”

What she is really saying is, “I’m saving your ass. Now prove that it’s worth saving and show us what you’ve got.”

Good old mushroom-headed Carol.

“I have it right here,” I inform her and the rest of the group, some of whom—cough, Susan, cough—look vaguely disappointed at my efficiency. They were probably hoping to watch me slide slowly into madness. It happens all the time in this industry. I’m sure it starts with slapping at imaginary bugs, frequently on Monday mornings.

But it doesn’t happen to me.

No, I, Tracey Spadolini, account executive extraordinaire, am hell-bent on maintaining my sanity.

I whip out my manila folder and open it briskly, scanning the top document. “Pork ribs…pork ribs…pork ribs…”

…are available at Shorewood Country Club with a smoked hickory or honey-mango barbecue sauce for the cocktail hour, not the main course, at an added $5 per head.

Oops.

I stare at the reception catering menu I printed off the Internet last night, then slowly lift my head to find a roomful of expectant faces.

“Wrong folder,” I say in a small voice, pushing back my chair. “I’ll just run back down and get the right one.”

Then I bolt for the elevator, clutching the folder whose tab is labeled Wedding and decorated with lopsided red-Sharpie-drawn hearts.

It’s a little anticlimactic to walk into Tequila Murray’s that night just as two-for-one margarita happy hour is ending, where Yvonne, Brenda and Latisha are waiting to toast my engagement.

The four of us have been working at Blaire Barnett together for a few years now. Well, actually, Yvonne—who is well past retirement age—has been there a few decades, working as Adrian’s secretary. Before that—well before that, I’m sure—she was a Rockette. She still has a dancer’s lithe body and has been known to demonstrate a few kickline moves when pressed…and smashed.

I slide into the fourth chair at our regular table before hanging my bag over the back. The chair would tip over without me in it to counterbalance the weight in the black leather tote. It’s jammed with stuff—some of it work related, but most of it wedding related. Modern Bride alone is like lugging a brick doorstop around on your shoulder.

“I’m so glad you guys didn’t leave,” I tell the three of them.

“No, you’re so lucky we didn’t leave.” Brenda checks her watch. “I’ve got fifteen minutes, tops, to hang out, and Paulie said the baby is already sound asleep. I missed his bedtime nursing for the second night in a row—last night was my cousin’s baby shower and I didn’t get home till eleven. Poor little Jordan’s going to wonder where his mommy is.”

“I hate to say it,” I tell her, “but Carol and Adrian are still at the office now, making a gazillion changes to the campaign, and we have to present it again on Thursday…You’re probably all going to be working late all week.”

“Paulie might as well grow a tit,” is Yvonne’s predictably dry take on the situation before she downs the last swallow in her martini glass. She doesn’t go for “girlie drinks” like margaritas and cosmopolitan.

“Well, Susan knows I’ve got to leave early tomorrow for Keera’s teacher conference,” Latisha says firmly. She’s fiercely devoted to Keera, the now-teenage daughter she raised as a single mother before she met and married her husband, Derek. They have a child together, too, a boy Latisha the New York Yankees fanatic named after her favorite player, Bernie Williams.