Diamonds Take Forever by Jessica Jiji

Author:Jessica Jiji
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

14

“Miss, we have arrived. Miss?”

Only in the minds of Canadian radio producers do New York City cabbies say, Hey, lady.

“Huh?” I asked, lifting my upholstery-creased face up from the seat before gathering my bearings enough to pay the driver.

I was back in front of Crunch Fitness, in no shape to work out. My locker key was at home, but I couldn’t risk going there and crashing completely, so I showered with my oversized backpack near the stall, and dressed as best as I could, feeling as crumpled as my clothes while I sat surrounded by glistening and invigorated people who were all on New York time and New York pace—frenzied.

Although I was early for work, I wasted forty-five minutes on a coffee break intended to caffeine-trick my jet lag.

Trying to get myself back up to speed, I slowly read through the pile of pink bilingual message slips from Angelika and clicked through my computer’s overloaded inbox while contending with Morgan’s “Do you need a new iron?”

Eventually I dialed into my voice mail.

“You have seven new messages,” the electronic woman said. She could have warned me one of them was from Joe.

“What the fucking fuck?” he began, never one for polite phone conventions. “You’re seeing someone else already? Michelle….” There was a pause, followed by, “Call me by fourteen hundred on Monday—after that I gotta take Ma to Colombia and I won’t be back for two weeks.”

Then he added, “The number didn’t change,” as if to imply that he’d been decent enough not to move on so quickly.

I didn’t feel triumphant that the tables seemed to have turned since I’d seen him in the building lobby, just stupid for telling Jiminez that I had a new boyfriend when all I had was a tortured interest in a semi-married man, plus his black leather jacket, which, it turned out, had been completely unnecessary that mild spring morning.

Still displaced from the trip, I deciphered the military lingo and realized that there were a few hours left to call Joe, who couldn’t admit he’d be visiting his father in Colombia and so passed off the trip as a favor to his mother.

Instead of dialing his still-familiar number, I immersed myself in rote work tasks, arranging interviews, digging up factoids and sitting through a live spot featuring a pompous historian. All of it beat debating what to say to my ex.

I’m not exactly seeing someone…. This guy has a thing for me but he’s not quite divorced yet…. I bought a brand-new thong to convince myself I’d moved on but ended up with nothing but lace crawling up my ass…. Oh, and my fail-safe seduction dress? It failed.

During a lunch of microwaved noodle soup, Benny interrupted my quiet perusal of the arts section.

“Hey,” he said. “How are you feeling? How was your flight?”

“I could use some more sleep,” I replied through the fog of a fatigue headache.

“Are you still pissed?”

“Not really,” I said, thinking I couldn’t handle both Bennett and Joe in the same afternoon.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, bright and sincere and well rested that he was.

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