When she rolled over and opened her eyes, she saw the red numbers on the cheap alarm clock. 7:42. She could either close her eyes and go back to sleep, commit to 'staying the night'—a difficult concept when your workday didn't end until 4:30 in the morning—or get up and go home. The 'walk of shame', they called it.
Sally Sasser considered the options only briefly, and then got quietly out of the bed, careful not to wake the man in it. Casey McCall slept surprisingly heavily for such an energetic man. That, or he was very good at pretending to be asleep.
He didn't even shift in the middle of his plain white sheets this morning, as Sally collected the random pieces of her clothing and her large bag and carried them all into the bathroom.
As a single woman in New York, and one who liked to be able to take advantage of whatever opportunity might present itself, Sally had grown used to carrying supplies in her bag to mitigate the feeling of walking home after another one-night stand.
One-night stand? She looked at herself in the mirror as she tamed her morning bedhead. She'd been sleeping with Casey for months now … but somehow it was a series of one-night stands, never anything approaching a relationship. They rarely even talked. Mostly they just tumbled into bed. Sally couldn't help wondering what she kept coming back for.
In the bathroom, she tugged on a sports bra and a T-shirt and a pair of running shorts and laced on the sneakers, bundling her work clothes into the bag in their place. Hell of a thing to do to an expensive pantsuit, crumpling it up like that, but pretending to be coming home from the gym felt a lot better at that hour than wearing last night's wrinkled suit home. It was easier on the nights they went to her place, but Casey was rarely willing to wait at the office until her show wrapped at 4.
She splashed a little water on her face, using a damp cloth to make sure all of yesterday's makeup was wiped off, studying herself in the mirror. She looked better on her way to work, hair and makeup carefully done, but bare like this she still looked fairly youthful. Not youthful enough for a city in which the people behind and in front of her on the sidewalk were usually rising young models and actresses, but half the time they didn't have two pennies to rub together, living six to a room in cheap apartments in Alphabet City, while Sally made enough for her tailored suits and her decent apartment convenient to the office. That was worth a few laugh lines.
Letting herself quietly out of the bathroom, she glanced over at Casey, who still hadn't moved, his breathing deep and even. The cheap blinds were closed, the morning sunlight filtering in around them. Everything in his apartment was boring and plain, bought in a hurry and without much attention when he moved out of the place he had shared with his wife. When she first came here, Sally had been infatuated, or possibly hopeful, enough to offer some suggestions, to bring by a colorful throw blanket that had made her think of him. It was still sitting, folded, on the unused dining room table.
She had set out to entice Casey into her bed to prove she could—to herself, to Casey, to Casey's partner Dan … to Dana Whittaker, Casey's producer, subject of his obsession, and stumbling block to Sally's career advancement. But in the process of seducing Casey, Sally had found him charming, and funny, and sexy. He was untaught in the bedroom—ten years of marriage did that to a man, she'd found—but he learned fast. And after the first week, Sally had found herself entertaining visions that maybe this time, this one time, there could be more to it.
She'd resigned herself years ago to the idea that you could have a successful career in sports television or you could have a relationship, but not both. Casey had given her a few moments of imagining that she could have it all … but after the second week, it became clear to Sally that he was having sex with her because she was there, and she was willing, and he found her attractive, not because he wanted to spend time with Sally the person. In many ways, Dan, who openly hated her, treated her better. At the very least, he knew she was there. Casey increasingly gave her the impression that he was looking over her shoulder at someone else. Dana, naturally. Dana, who was all but engaged to a man who didn't understand working women. Her boyfriend Gordon had come home with Sally one night, pouring out his frustrations over drinks. And Sally had slept with him, because he was good-looking and interested and she was curious, but she had sympathized with Dana—there was a double standard for women who worked in demanding jobs, because they were supposed to be willing to drop everything when their man called, but they didn't always want to. Sally couldn't see Dana's situation ending well.
In the elevator, Sally pressed the ground-floor button, nodding at the man in a business suit reading the Wall Street Journal who was already there. He looked her over, liked what he saw, and went back to his paper. Sally stood all the straighter for the attention; Casey might not appreciate her, but other men did. Not for herself, but then … that wasn't what she wanted, was it? Not really. Not until she had risen far enough, secured enough power and upward trajectory to have it all on her own terms. That was the goal, the real dream. Which was why it didn't matter that Casey McCall slept on, unaware that she had left, in his drab apartment between the nightmare of his failed marriage and the dream of his unattainable love. Because Sally Sasser was moving up, and no one was going to get in her way.
The elevator doors opened and Sally stepped off, walking with a long, confident stride, head held up. Walk of shame? Not this morning.