It’s safe here, I remind my stuttering heart. Everything is fine.
Still, when I stretch out on the sofa, my view out the living room windows is… the Million Dollar Dorm. Lying on the sofa in a third-floor apartment gives me a perfect view up to the fifth and sixth floors.
Neil’s living room is dark. He’s probably out at the bar with friends. But eventually he’ll go home and head to bed, closing his bedroom door with another quiet click.
He’ll stretch out on the big bed that smells like his luxury aftershave and clean linens. When I close my eyes, I remember how it felt to lie beside his big sleepy body. How relaxed I became listening to him breathe.
My whole life I’ve been categorizing places as either safe or dangerous. Curled up by Neil’s side, I had never felt so safe. I had never been so well cared for.
But looking into his hazel eyes when he smiled at me? That had been scary. I never knew a man could make me feel both safe and terrified.
That’s why I had to go. Who could live each day like that—waiting for his smile to fade? Waiting for our arrangement to end?
When he’d casually brought up the idea of staying married for another three months, I’d lost it. I’d felt like a death row prisoner who’d been granted a temporary stay of execution.
It’s hard to celebrate when you still feel dread.
I guess I finally found something I’m not strong enough to conquer. It’s the tremble I feel in my heart whenever I wake up next to Neil Drake III.
I’m bleary the next morning at the diner. I can’t stop watching the door, wondering if Neil will walk through it.
He doesn’t, and I try not to care.
I need to stop thinking about him. Today won’t be the day, though, because I’m going to meet his lawyer. When I’d called her office yesterday, her assistant had said she was booked solid all week. But when I’d pressed, she’d put me on hold and then returned to book me into Ms. Moss’s coffee break today.
So, to Sal’s distress, I have to leave halfway through my shift.
“You’re not interviewing somewhere, right?” he asks, wringing his wrinkled hands.
“No way, Sal. We’ve been over this. I’m not quitting this job.”
He frowns at me. “But you got that fancy husband now. I thought he’d hook you up with a desk job.”
“Really?” My smile is wry. “As if you could see me in a desk job?”
The old man eyes me thoughtfully. “I can, baby doll. I can see you doin’ a lot of things. I guess it’s lucky for me that you can’t see it, too.”
Sal needs to get his eyes checked.
The lawyer has asked me to meet her at a coffee shop in midtown. But when I get there, the place is more like a fancy cafe. There are elegant men and women everywhere, and I feel underdressed in my waitressing uniform.
Figures.
It’s hard to say which patron is the lawyer. I scan several grey heads, but nobody tries to flag me down. I ask the host where I might find Ms. Moss, and he points toward the last person in the room that I’d expect. She’s beautiful, with thick, long hair, bedroom eyes and a lowcut blouse showing off a gorgeous diamond necklace.
I guess untangling other people’s fuckups pays pretty well.
Lifting my chin, I approach the table. She glances up from something she’s reading on her phone. “Charli?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I reach out a hand to shake.
“You ma’amed me?” she says, looking taken aback. “Do I look that old?” She gives my hand a firm shake. “Actually, don’t answer that. Have a seat instead.”
“Um, thank you.” I sit down in the chair and try to look relaxed. I’d never met a divorce attorney before, and I wish I hadn’t.
“Coffee?” she asks. She waves down a waiter without waiting for an answer.
“Thank you.” How much could coffee here cost? I hope not much. There’s about sixteen dollars in my wallet.
Ms. Moss orders two cups of coffee, “And a plate of those cute little sandwiches. Thanks.” She turns her attention to me. “I’m sure you know that Neil Drake hired me to dissolve your marriage.”
“Of course,” I say quickly. “We, uh, never meant to get married. And I believe we could have tried for a Las Vegas annulment. But we had to hurry home.”
She nods quickly. She talks quickly, too. A true New Yorker. “I don’t know exactly how they do things in Nevada, but I had to explain to your husband how it works here in New York. You both meet the residency requirement, but there’s the issue of the six-month waiting period for a no-fault divorce—”
“Six months?” I gasp, panic rising inside my chest. “Neil didn’t tell me that!”
The lawyer holds up a hand. “Don’t panic, honey. Let me finish. If you want to get divorced immediately, I have a workaround.”
My heartbeat tries to settle back into the normal range. “Okay. I’d love to hear it.”
“First, I need to remind you that most parties to a divorce get their own representation.”
I shake my head. “I can’t afford it. Neil said he’d take care of the whole thing.”
“Okay.” She tightens her lips. “It seems I’m going to be your lawyer, then, not his. Only he’ll be paying the bills.”
“Why?”
She leans forward in her chair. “You can’t get a no-fault divorce yet. So that means one of you has to sue the other for divorce. And you need to claim cruelty or inhumane treatment by Neil.”
“I what?” My voice is pitched two octaves higher than usual. “Say that again?”
Her serious gray eyes take me in. “The only way to get you a fast divorce is for one of you to claim that the other was cruel. I know that sounds terrible, but the standard for cruelty in a marriage that’s only a couple weeks old is pretty low. Has Neil ever yelled at you?”
“Um… not unless you count smack talk over darts at the bar.” My head is spinning. “Are you serious right now?”
“I am,” she says firmly. “You can have a divorce, but you need to claim that he yelled at you, and that it was frightening. Now, if you were married for twenty years, the standard is different. He’d have to beat you senseless with a pipe.”
I sit back in my chair, mouth open. “That’s madness. Neil would never hurt me.”
The waiter picks that moment to set a cup of coffee down in front of me, in a beautiful, delicately scalloped cup. He also sets a plate of tiny square sandwiches down between us.
Ms. Moss waits until he leaves before she takes one of them. “Cucumber and smoked salmon. Will you have one? I love them.”
“Tell me about this cruelty thing again,” I say. “Isn’t there any other way?”
“There isn’t,” she says. “You have to accuse Neil of cruelty if you want a fast divorce.”
“But he’s not,” I stammer. “He’s not a cruel person. I don’t want anyone to think that he is. Aren’t divorces public information?”
She tilts her head from side to side, as if considering. “The grounds for divorce are supposedly sealed. Although the details have been known to leak when the filing is recorded.”