“Yep,” Harlan said. “Good job checking in. I’m shutting the door now. Good night.”
“Wait,” Jennifer said. She did kiss Dyma, and she held her head, too. Presumably smelling her breath. “All right,” she decided. “You can go to bed.”
It had been an interesting weekend. She’d kept meaning to move back into her apartment, but somehow, she hadn’t. It had just been so … nice to be with him. To have him supervise her workout, because, oh, yeah. Still hot. To cook dinner with him. And going to bed with him? That had been more than nice.
He’d said he had a limit. So far, she hadn’t seen it. She’d seen plenty, but she hadn’t seen a limit.
But then on Sunday night, he’d said, “Maybe bring your toothbrush over here. Shampoo. Like that.” In a casual way she hadn’t quite known how to interpret.
She’d wanted to say, What happened to the moving-on guy? Because I can’t forget that. She’d also wanted to say, But I’m going to love you anyway. I’ve got no choice. She’d decided, though, that as long as her clothes were still at her place, it was temporary. She could slide on out of here anytime.
Besides, he had a really nice bathroom.
She wasn’t going to guard her heart. Not possible. Her heart was all-in. She was going to guard her expectations, though. She wasn’t living in the future anymore, or in the past. She was living in the right-the-hell-now. Which was why, when Dyma had asked her yesterday afternoon, when she had been at the apartment, showering and changing after another exhausting workout, “So what’s the deal with you and Harlan, exactly?” she’d answered, “I don’t know. I’d say we’re taking it one day at a time.”
“Mom,” Dyma had said. “You aren’t. You always worry. You know what I think it is? You’ve always been so focused on taking care of me, and of Grandma, too. And now that I’m graduating and Grandma’s gone and Grandpa Oscar wants his meatloaf sampled, you don’t have anybody to take care of anymore, so you’re focusing on Harlan instead, since the baby isn’t here yet. Like, everybody needs an object.”
Now her kid was judging her. And judging her exactly wrong.
No. Just no.
She said, “You know what? I’m getting a little tired of hearing what I’m not and what I am. I love you, but you really don’t get my life. Focusing because you need to, because it’s your job to take care of somebody you love? That’s just a woman’s life. But maybe I’ve accepted that I can’t control forever. I’m here right now, and I’m loving being here. Harlan and I are having a baby, and I’m so excited about that. If it doesn’t work out between us, I’ll …”
“Yeah?” Dyma asked. “What, exactly? How do you move on when you have a baby with the guy?”
“The way women have been doing since forever,” Jennifer said. “I hate to tell you, but generally, a guy doesn’t show up with the engagement ring on your first date. Or on your fifth date. And if he does—run. You take your shot. Both of you take your shot. It’s scary to date somebody. It’s scarier to love somebody. It’s a leap of faith. Sometimes, your leap doesn’t pay off. Sometimes, you fall. That doesn’t mean you don’t leap. People aren’t breakable. Or if they are, they’re mendable, too.”
“Whoa,” Dyma said. “That’s a surprisingly cynical outlook.”
“No,” Jennifer said. “You know—I think it’s something entirely different. If you’re always afraid, you hang on so tight that you lose all your chances, all the things you aren’t looking at. All the lives you could be living. You’re only living in one tiny piece of the pie of your possibilities, because you’re trying to wrap your arms around it all the time to keep from losing it. If you go on and … and give yourself, though, to somebody else, to your life, you get to live all the way. You get to love all the way. Once you decide you’re mendable, you’re free. If I hadn’t been trying to hang on to Mark, because I didn’t want to be alone, because part of me kept thinking it could be forever and that I needed somebody forever, so I kept trying to shoehorn myself into that spot, what else might I have done? What else might I have been?”
“Wow,” Dyma said. “You realize that’s basically the Tao. I mean, that’s it.”
“That’s the other thing,” Jennifer said. “You get to be smarter when you get older, too. You get to make up your own Tao.”
Now, it was two-thirty on Monday afternoon, and she was packing up, telling her new boss, a guy named Ed who looked like an ex-linebacker and probably was, whose shaved head was as polished and dark as a newel post, whose face was scary but whose command of details was legendary, “So I’m out of here, but I’ll be in early tomorrow.”
Ed would have answered, but there was somebody in the entry to her cubicle. Blake Orbison, to be exact. Jennifer had noticed that Ed tended to shut up when Blake was around.
She said, “Hey, Blake. I’m just leaving.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about that.”
“Well,” she said, “could you have picked another time? I literally need to be out the door.”
Ed looked up like he’d heard a signal called that wasn’t in the playbook, which was probably about right.
“Doctor’s appointment,” Blake said. “I know. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
“All right,” she said. “I’m not going to ask how you know that, even though I have a bad feeling. Walk and talk, then. You know I hate to be late.”
“For such a model employee,” he said, “you have an authority problem.”
Ed grinned, then wiped the smile off his face. Definitely an ex-linebacker.
“Yep,” she said. “But you knew that when you hired me. Let’s go.”
Blake waited until they were in the elevator, at least. Then he said, “Kristiansen called me today. He wanted to talk about your situation.”
“Uh-huh,” she said. “You know—I’m a grown woman. I’m not sure what all this antler-bashing is, but I think you could consider this. It’s not even my first time around as a single mom. I’ve done the whole thing before, all the way through. Not many thirty-four-year-olds can say that. And I’m prepared to do it again.”
“Slow down there, slugger,” Blake said. “I already got this today.”
Jennifer looked at him sidelong. The elevator reached the basement, and she headed for her car with Blake loping along beside her. When she had the door unlocked and had slung her laptop bag inside, she asked, “What, exactly, did you get today?”
“Basically, that he’s got this. Kristiansen.”
“That he’s got what?”
Blake sighed and ran a rueful thumb along his jaw. “That he’s looking out for you, and I don’t need to do it anymore. Told me to back off, if you want to know the truth. Let’s see if I remember this. ‘You might be her boss, but that’s it. Anything else? Back right the hell off. No more questions about whether she’s OK. I’m not calling your wife and asking her if she’s OK, or if the kind of sex you’re having is all right with her. Because it’s none of my business. If Jennifer tells you she’s not OK, if she asks for your advice, you can give it to her. If not—back off. I’ve got this.’ Hell of a way to talk to your quarterback.”