i have been carrying this around for so long now and i guess i just need to say it even if nobody listens because i feel like such a liar every single week and im almost sixty one years old now and youd think by this time in my life i would have some backbone or some sense of who i am but instead i just sit there and smile while my stomach turns over and over like a washing machine and i think back to when i first started at the firm in ninety four and how much i wanted to fit in then and it turns out i never really stopped wanting that which is pathetic when you think about it really how i am still that same girl trying to stay on the good side of the boss man because i don't want any trouble we live in such a small place here out in the valley where everyone knows what kind of truck you drive and who your daddy was and my boss bill he is the kind of man who thinks if you dont eat a steak on wednesday then you probably arent someone he can trust with a big account or a leadership role and i need those accounts because i am so close to retirement and i just want to finish my time without people whispering about me being difficult or fussy or one of those city people even though i grew up three miles down the road from the office but i went away for school for a bit and i think he still holds that against me in a way like i might have picked up some high and mighty ideas that dont belong here in the real world as he calls it every wednesday like clockwork bill stands up at eleven forty five and claps his hands and says alright ladies and gents lets go get some protein and we all pile into his big suburban and drive down to millers steakhouse which is the only place in town that still allows smoking in that little back room where we sit and the smell is just thick like you could cut it with a knife and it sticks to my clothes and my hair and even when i go home and shower i can still smell that heavy greasy char and it makes me feel like i am covered in something i cant wash off no matter how hard i try and i just sit there in the booth next to the window that is always foggy from the heat of the kitchen and the thing is i havent eaten meat in fifteen years not a single bite since my sister got sick and i started reading all those books about what we put in our bodies and how it changes things and i made a choice for myself back then but i never told bill or the girls in the design department because i saw what happened to marcy when she started asking for almond milk in the breakroom and bill spent three weeks calling her the princess of wales and eventually she just quit because he made her feel like such a nuisance and i dont want to be a nuisance i just want to blend into the wallpaper and get my paycheck and go home to my cats and my garden and not have to EXPLAIN myself to a man who thinks a vegetable is something that comes out of a can with a lot of salt so when we sit down at millers and the waitress who i went to high school with her name is debbie and she knows my sister too she brings over those big plastic menus and i order the chopped sirloin because it is the cheapest thing that bill wont comment on and i have to sit there and pretend to chew and pretend to enjoy it while i am actually just cutting it into tiny pieces and hiding them under my mashed potatoes or sometimes i wrap a piece in a napkin when no one is looking and i feel like a criminal or a child hiding broccoli but i am a grown woman with a mortgage and a retirement fund and it is just so exhausting to keep the act going year after year after year and i wonder if debbie knows because she gives me this look sometimes when she clears my plate like she sees right through me last week bill looked right at me while he had a piece of gristle stuck in his teeth and he said margie you are the only one here with some sense not like these young kids always complaining about gluten or whatever the hell else and i just laughed and said you know it bill and i felt a piece of my soul just wither up and die right there on the red checkered tablecloth because i knew i was being a coward and i was letting him think i was someone i am not just so i wouldnt have to deal with the look on his face if he knew the truth about what i eat when i am alone in my own kitchen where i feel like i can finally be myself but even there i feel the guilt of the lie following me home sometimes i think about what my legacy is going to be and if people will remember me as a good designer or just as the lady who worked for bill for thirty years and never caused a stir and it makes me sad to think that i have spent so much of my life being quiet and making myself small so that other people wouldnt be uncomfortable and now i am almost at the end of the road and i dont even know if i know how to be loud anymore or if i even have a voice left under all those layers of pretending to be the person they want me to be and i worry that i have wasted my one life being afraid of a man who eats steak for lunch every single wednesday—it just seems so small when you say it out loud i remember one time we were at a holiday party and there was a shrimp cocktail platter and i almost reached for a carrot stick instead but i saw bill watching and i took a shrimp and i chewed it and i thought i was going to be sick right there on his expensive rug and i had to excuse myself to the bathroom and just sit on the floor and breathe for ten minutes while the room spun around and i wondered why i was doing this to myself over a piece of seafood but it isnt just the food it is the whole lie of it all and how it gets bigger every time i dont say anything and it feels like a heavy stone in my pocket that i just keep carrying around for no reason other than i am too tired to put it down and now it is two in the morning and i am sitting here on my porch looking out at the woods and i can still feel that heavy feeling in my chest from lunch today because i had to eat more than usual because it was bills birthday and he was watching everyone like a hawk to make sure we were CELEBRATING and i feel like a failure as a human being because i value my peace and quiet more than i value my own heart and what i believe is right and i wonder if i will ever tell them the truth or if i will just retire next year and fade away and they will never know who i actually was or what i actually cared about i guess i just wanted to tell someone because there is nobody in this town i can talk to about it because news travels faster than a forest fire around here and if i told one person then by sunday service everyone would be looking at me different and bill would hear and then i dont know what would happen and that uncertainty is just too much to bear at my age so i will probably just keep going to millers every wednesday until i finally walk out of that office for the last time and maybe then i can finally breathe again without feeling like a fraud but i doubt it... i really doubt it... it is just too late to change things now i think...