Cheating on Myself by Erin Downing

yes?”
    “You’ve got Chad. You’re not single.”
    “Eh, I’m as close to single as you can be when you’re ‘in a relationship.’ We rarely live in the same city. But that’s not the point. You’re acting like being single in your thirties is the worst curse to have ever befallen anyone.”
    I shook my head. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
    “That’s what it sounds like to me,” she said, lowering her voice as we walked past the interns. They all turned and looked at us anyway. “You’re in your prime, you’re not beaten down from years of crappy dates—”
    “Nuh-uh, I have had years of crappy dates. It’s just that they’ve all been with the same person.”
    “Doesn’t count,” Lily pushed me into her office and I sat in the chair facing her desk. I propped my feet up on the edge of the faux-wood surface, hoping Lily couldn’t see down my skirt. “You haven’t been suffering through rounds of bad blind dates and online dates and office romances, so you’re not jaded. I think you’re going to love dating.”
    “Maybe you’re right,” I conceded, thinking about all the meals in my future. I liked eating out. Really, dating was just eating out at interesting restaurants with someone new, right? I would be good at this! “I guess if I really am starting over, maybe I should just get a first date out of the way?”
    “Now that’s the right spirit.” Lily flopped down at her desk and logged in, scrolling through twenty minutes worth of emails. “Oh, shit,” she said, suddenly paling and looking up at me.
    “What?” I was feeling hopeful, and didn’t really care what micro-drama James had cooked up today. Surely, the woes of retail marketing and the impending stress of Black Friday (still more than two months away, but ever-present nonetheless) couldn’t be as dramatic as Lily’s facial expression suggested. “Put on a happy face, Lil. Otherwise, the Bears are going to come after you and eat you up for your bad attitude or something.” I laughed. “We’ll figure out some punishment.”
    “Layoffs.” She quietly uttered the word every corporate employee dreaded.
    “Well, nothing that severe.” I looked at her more closely. “Wait, do you have an email that says there are going to be layoffs? Real layoffs, or the performance-based layoffs of last week?” I suddenly felt sick.
    “We have a staffing meeting at six to discuss. I don’t know when they’re happening, but they’re coming,” she said, licking her lips.
    Suddenly, I had the feeling we were no longer alone. I pulled my feet off Lily’s desk and turned to look back at the always-open door to her office and saw James Davis leaning casually against the doorframe with his hands tucked into the pockets of his sweater vest.
    “What’s going on, girls?” James insisted on calling us all girls, despite the fact that it was both condescending and unprofessional. “How were the weekends?” He chewed on something in his mouth. Through his cheek, I could see the outline of his tongue wrap around his back teeth to pull something out of the nether-regions, and the chewing intensified. His hair, which had been pomaded into submission, was artfully messy and intentionally overgrown. I felt the same sickness creep up every time I had to be this close to James. He just oozed eww.
    “The weekends were fantastic,” Lily said, cool as ever. “Did you do anything fun?”
    Our boss tucked his hand inside his pants pocket and jangled some coins, leading me to wonder what else he was touching in there. “Some of the B-school guys went out for a few beers. It’s always great hanging out with the old crew.” He chuckled, as though inviting us to join his inside joke. James had graduated from business school six years earlier, but he always talked about it as though he’d been out for nearly a century and his memories of it were fading fast. I guess that was his way of trying to add a few years on to his experience to get