That devil on my shoulder starts whispering suggestions again. She’s full of bad ideas, and I lack the restraint to ignore her today. “Someone’s in a bad mood. Did your girlfriend not ask you to the winter formal?”
“I’m sure she will, once she’s in high school.”
My traitorous mouth twitches. “You’re disgusting.”
“Speaking of things that don’t impress you,” he says, a flicker of unease in his gaze, “how did it go with the chef?”
“Great,” I reply briskly. “Really fun.” Though I’m not sure listening to Tad talk about how “turnt” he got the night before and then paying for the opportunity was as superb as I’m making it sound.
“And how was his cottage?” His face says I know for a fact that asshole did not have a cottage.
“Amazing. Six-burner Wolff range. Subzero refrigerator. He made me popovers this morning and served them to me in bed.”
He freezes, and for a moment he looks sort of…pissed off. “Are you serious?”
I roll my eyes. “No, because it was a first date. Visiting his cottage and having him make me a gourmet breakfast is more of a third-date scenario.”
His eyes are still narrowed. “Your expectations might be a bit high.”
I pull out a pen. “Lower expectations…” I repeat, scribbling the words on my desk calendar. “That’s great life advice, Ben. Anything else?” I hold eye contact with him and bite the tip of my pen, as if waiting breathlessly for more.
“Yeah,” he says, heading for the door, nostrils flaring. “No chef is ever going to make you happy. And you’d fucking hate breakfast in bed.”
What’s strange is that he seems angry about it.
What’s even stranger is that I suspect he may be right.
I knock on Victoria Jones’ door Saturday morning, and Lola, twelve, opens it and ushers me inside. The place is a mess, but if I was a single mom with rheumatoid arthritis and three kids, I’d probably be cutting some corners too.
I hand Lola A Wrinkle in Time because it was a book I loved at her age. She hugs me and I endure it, but in truth I want to walk away and not know this world here exists. Not caring is so much easier than caring.
There’s a fallacy you tell yourself, sitting in an upholstered chair in a high-rise, looking at shoes online, and it’s that people like Victoria are different from you in a fundamental way. That she and her children are okay with living on a disability payment and little more, and probably wouldn’t actually want your life any more than you’d want theirs.
And then you meet a shy eight-year-old who only wants to sit in the corner and read, just the way you did at her age. You meet her little brother, Phillip, who wants to show you his diagram of the Earth’s orbit around the sun and tells you he really wants sheets for his birthday. Fucking sheets, as if they’re a luxury. And then you realize what bullshit it is, those distinctions you’ve made, and that the only person they were convenient for was you.
“This isn’t getting you into trouble, right?” Victoria asks.
Yes. If not this time, then soon. Fields told me to stop taking pro bono cases two years ago, and it’s a wonder I haven’t been caught.
“No,” I reply. “It’s fine.” And technically, I haven’t taken on any new pro bono cases because I was already working with Victoria when Fields issued his edict. I doubt he’d agree though.
Travis, boisterous and cuddly, has spent my few minutes here running repeatedly into my legs, but now he scrambles onto the couch and climbs into my lap, pressing sticky hands to my dry-clean only suit.
A few minutes later, Victoria’s friend, Rae, arrives with a battered face. I help her fill out the request for a restraining order and coach her on what kind of documentation she will need to bring. When we finish, Lola is looking at me with bright eyes, as if I’m a hero.
I want to tell her not to. Because Fields must be a monster to tell me not to help a woman like Rae, and the only way to defeat a monster is to become one yourself.
I sometimes wonder if I’m not already there.
After the happy chaos of Victoria’s apartment, the office feels unusually quiet. There are never a ton of people working on weekends, but I’ve grown accustomed to seeing Ben’s smug face here, and the irritating way he’ll raise a brow as he passes, as if to imply I’m doing something wrong.
If he isn’t here, it means he has a date. Maybe he’s taken her away for the weekend, probably to a place teenagers enjoy—Disney, perhaps, or Tijuana. He’ll buy her a few drinks and a sombrero with her name stitched in hot-pink cursive and she’ll think he’s a prince among men.
I could have a date, too, if I wanted. Tad texted, but I’ve decided that perhaps chef is not the optimal career for a partner after all. I’m now thinking I’d like a very tall former Peace Corps volunteer, but only one who doesn’t look like he’d wear ponchos and smell like weed, or a very tall doctoral candidate, but one who isn’t going to bore the hell out of me discussing things that don’t matter to real people, like whatever he’s studying. Obviously, therefore, I’ve found no one.
Ben isn’t as picky, however.
I wonder who he’s with, and my hand slides toward my phone despite several oaths I’ve taken to stop stalking him online. Ben’s Instagram feed is a lost cause—the only thing he’s ever posted is a meme about the Lakers—but Drew Wilson, his most famous female friend, tags him constantly.
She’s changed her last name to Bailey, I’ve noticed, which must be her husband’s name. It’s a rookie mistake. When I write a book about marriage, it will focus on making the whole thing easier to dissolve when it’s done. I’ll hand it out to the newly engaged and stop getting invited to weddings and showers. Win-win.
Drew has a new picture up of her hot husband hoisting a massive pumpkin on his shoulder. I scan the photo’s background for Ben, but I don’t see him. I can’t really picture him at a pumpkin patch anyway, unless he’s there to shut it down.
I scroll through the old photos until I get to the one I like best. It’s from Drew’s wedding, and Ben is walking her down the aisle. He’s in a suit, just like he is every day, but there’s something sort of sweet in his face, something hopeful.
If I didn’t know better, I could be persuaded, when looking at this photo, that he isn’t evil at all.
14
Ben and I are in a car, in an area of town I can’t identify. The air is suffocating, and no matter how much I mess with the vent, nothing changes. I try to roll down the window but the button doesn’t work. “This is ridiculous,” I groan aloud. “Why is it so hot in here?”
Ben smiles. It’s his filthiest smile, the one that chafes against me like no other. “Maybe you should take something off.”
And suddenly, the heat is not my biggest problem. It’s that devil on my shoulder, whispering now, saying, “Do it, Gemma. Call his bluff.” His voice is cool and seductive…a flicker of glee in my stomach, a frosty breath over my skin. I can’t resist it today.