When I pushed through my apartment door around eleven, after I had returned from “dinner” with Peter only to order dinner at my desk to keep working, Sam was sitting on the couch, playing a video game with a headset on.
“Hey!” He leaned all the way down to one side as he steered into his virtual turn. “You motherfucker!” he yelled at whatever teenager in Singapore he was competing against.
I stared at him and felt a lump forming in my throat. “I’m going to shower.”
He didn’t hear me, or if he did, he didn’t react.
I let the water rush over my face, then placed my hands in front of me on the cool tile and rested my head against them for support, afraid I’d lose my balance.
Q.It’s clear that you formed friendships with both colleagues and clients. Did you ever feel that you were treated differently because you were a woman, not just because you were a friend or were good at your job?
A.Yes. I think Klasko works hard to promote diversity, and their emphasis includes gender diversity.
Q.How exactly did Klasko “promote” this diversity?
A.I think they aim to promote a diverse range of associates through the ranks, and that I was sometimes given opportunities to work on deals and attend social gatherings because I was female.
Q.Did you ever use your gender to manipulate a situation to your advantage?
A.What do you mean?
Q.Did you ever use your gender as a way to secure work from clients or manipulate your position at the firm?
A.I don’t recall that being my intention at any stage, no.
Chapter 21
I fought the urge to lunge for my phone and let it ring twice before I answered.
“Hey, Peter,” I answered cheerily, pointlessly rustling papers on my desk to sound as though I was in the middle of something.
“Hey, kiddo. What do you think of Vermont this weekend? We could both use a break . . . There’s still snow on the mountain, believe it or not . . .”
I didn’t hear much else, but again I forced myself to wait a beat before answering.
The trees bled into one another in brushstrokes of green and brown as we sped up the Taconic in Peter’s black Range Rover. It was the first time I had ever seen him behind the wheel of a car, and I found it strangely erotic. As I stared out the window, I wondered how exactly I came to be sitting in the passenger seat next to Peter Dunn. I was giddy with the anticipation of a weekend tryst with the man I’d been imagining weekend trysts with since I’d first encountered him.
I needed this weekend. I deserved this weekend.
“Where did you tell your boyfriend you were going?” he asked, snapping me out of my reverie.
“To an M&A team-building retreat at your ski house,” I answered, staring out the window. I wondered if he could sense the fact that I had had sex with Sam that morning. I hadn’t really wanted to, but somehow the guilt of turning him down when it had already been so long was worse than the depravity of doing it. I felt Peter watching me. “What?” I looked over at him.
“Great call,” he said with an approving nod. I knew it had been smart to tell the truth about my location and the fact that I was with Peter, but I hated that I was getting so good at lying.
I watched his large palm rest gently on the ball of the gear selector of the automatic car, sensing from his grip that he must have a stick shift back in his garage in Westchester. I wanted to know what kind of car it was. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to stop lying to Sam, and I wanted a weekend with Peter to turn into a full week with Peter. I took my finger and traced swirls around his scars, picturing him young, on the docks in Cape Cod. I imagined him still with the same wide, pure smile.
“I wasn’t the most well-behaved kid.”
“Hmm?” I turned my head to him lazily, still lost in my daydream.
“I used to have my hands slapped with a ruler every time I acted up in Catholic school.”
I stared at him as my mental image of him as a child vanished. Why would he have told me the scars were from oyster shucking? What was it Vivienne had said? Nobody is ever what they seem. I checked the clock. We were only two hours into a four-and-a-half-hour drive, with a weekend and a drive back stretching before us. I wasn’t about to press him on his inconsistent testimony. So I shoved it out of my mind.
We entered the house through the pristine garage, which smelled subtly of pine and peppermint, and the main floor was as lovely as I remembered it. The image of Sam and me playing drunk Scrabble and laughing popped into my head. I had a glimpse of us eating cold pizza in the hot tub. I thought of us making love on Peter’s bed. Despite the cold mountain air, I felt my wool sweater constricting around my body, and when I freed myself from it, Peter mistook my guilty sweat for something else.
As soon as Peter’s hands were on me, though, nothing else mattered. We spilled from his enormous rain shower to the plush carpeting of his bedroom; we tumbled from his bed straight into the hot tub. Tired and satisfied, we were both quiet as we pushed our backs up against the jets.
“We need dinner,” he finally said. “There’s a great gastropub in town. Great beers on tap, and they do the best Korean-style braised short rib I’ve ever had.”
“It’s five o’clock,” I said, calling my phone to life. “Early-bird special.”
“Honestly, Alex, I’m sick and tired of you always reminding me how old I am.” Peter smiled, splashing the hot water up toward my neck. I laughed in delight as I slung my legs around his waist. “Okay, seriously, we really do need to eat.”
By the time we walked into the restaurant at five thirty, we grabbed the last two seats at the bar. “Post-ski rush,” he said knowingly.
It seemed bizarre to me that Peter wasn’t more concerned about being seen in this small town with somebody who wasn’t his wife, but I was enjoying it all the same. He ordered us pints of beer and lobster tacos and tuna tartare, and we split short ribs and creamy polenta for our entrees. I’d only gotten one bite into the soft, unctuous meat when Peter got a call and excused himself with an eye roll that let me know he had to take it. I was almost through my second beer when he came back to the bar, wireless headphones in his ears, and muted his phone.
“Do me a favor and call a car to Starlight. You can bill it to—”
“Got it,” I told him. By this point, I called cars to the Starlight for Stag River almost weekly. I was glad to be useful to the client, however minorly, but in this moment my mind drifted to that night the driver had reprimanded me. “You know, the Quality drivers hate making the Starlight Diner run. Isn’t that so weird?”
Peter turned his entire body toward me as he stood beside me. “Why do you say that?”
“One of them told me so,” I said, and shrugged. He stared at me as though expecting me to continue.
“That’s beyond unprofessional. It’s not up to the drivers to like a specific route. Can you send me the name of the person who said it?”
I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t. However much my interaction with the driver unsettled me, I didn’t want to get the guy fired.
Peter looked back down at his phone. “I’ve got to get back to this—Gary is really flipping out.” He nodded in the direction of the short ribs and opened his mouth. I placed a forkful on his tongue. “Thanks for saving me that one bite,” he joked.