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tonight—gotta dash. See you Monday night.”
    And then he truly is gone.
    And with complete incomprehension, I sink into Adam’slushly comfortable chair, inhaling the smell of the expensive leather and trying to make sense out of the strange conversation I’ve just had with him.
    I am so miserable I can’t feel anything, so I pick up the list of business e-mails Adam asked me to delete and turn to his computer. He was so anxious to escape me, he has forgotten to exit his private e-mail. And despite the fact that I am numb with misery, I cannot resist the urge to peek at his private e-mail. And I discover two very interesting facts.
Adam got the credit, and a very fat bonus, for his work on the Kitty Krunch and Perfect Pantyhose accounts. Okay, he is Director of Advertising, so as the top dog he gets the credit, but there is no mention in this e-mail of the fact that I did a lot of the work for him.
Adam didn’t recommend me for the promotion. He recommended against me getting it. There it is, in black and white, almost word for word what he said to me. My lack of experience, blah, blah, ending with the possibility of a review in six months.
    Oh God! What about the Tiffany’s box? It’s obviously for someone else. It’s for another woman.
    Adam’s telephone rings again and I nearly don’t pick up. What could be more important than my breaking heart? How could he do this to me? Why has he done this to me? Who is she?
    And while my thoughts whirl chaotically, I pick up the receiver.
    “Emily, this is Stella Burgoyne. Put Adam on.”
    I hit my forehead with the base of my palm. The last thing I need is Stella Burgoyne, CEO of Burgoyne’s Fine Paper Products. Stella, the curse of the conference table. Stella “I-can-get-you-fired” Burgoyne. Definitely a man’s woman. This woman has met me no less than six times and she stillgets my name wrong, but I cannot afford to make an enemy of her and so I am nice (but ironic—just my little joke).
    “I’m sorry, Stella,” I say, with saccharine sweetness, knowing full well that she prefers to be addressed as Ms. Burgoyne by minions such as myself. “Adam’s gone for the weekend. Can I take a message?”
    And if she wants revenge for my having had the audacity to call her Stella, she could not deliver a more crushing blow.
    “No, Emily,” she gushes, swiftly moving in for the kill. “I’m meeting Adam at the airport for our little rendezvous—I just wanted to be sure he left on time. The Bahamas are so beautiful at any time of year, don’t you think? Gotta run, or Adam will think I’ve stood him up.”
    And with a tinkling little laugh, just to rub salt in the wound that is my bleeding heart, she hangs up.
     
    I take a good look at myself in the art deco mirror. For once, no one would mistake me for being younger than my years because I am stooped and defeated, the air of world-weary misery surrounding me is palpable.
    How did our relationship disintegrate so quickly?

3
When Emma Met Adam
    If someone were to ask me now how Adam and I met, I would have to say that it started with a death.
    And a pair of ripped pantyhose.
    I wish it had started with something more romantic—like a kiss. Yes, a kiss definitely sounds much more appealing—a romantic tale to tell to our children and grandchildren in the years to come…
    Oh, God, how can I tell our children and grandchildren in the years to come? Our love is doomed …I should have guessed that the death thing was definitely not a good sign. I should have known it could never work for us…But I was blinded by my image of the perfect boyfriend. Obsessed with my stupid list of what I thought I should achieve by age thirty.
    And lust, of course.
    This is what happened.
    Adam came to work at Cougan & Cray a year ago (apparently a whiz kid, head hunted from Sezuma Advertising, our chief competitor). And the moment he sauntered into the office, with his blond good looks and Peter Pan boyishness (and immaculately cut