Ben nodded without interrupting.
“That’s my life. Someone is always watching. Was, I guess,” I said. The words came flooding out of my mouth faster than women running into a surprise sample sale on Fifth Avenue. “Now that I’ve been excommunicated and shunned and won’t fall on my sword, it probably doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What happened?” Ben turned his head for a second and then back toward the darkened road. A pair of headlights hovered in the rearview, but nothing came from the other direction.
Disbelieving, I glanced at him. “You really didn’t google me?”
“Nah. I don’t do that.”
“It’s amazing to me how genuine you are. And always have been.”
“It’s called being a real person. I have feelings, emotions, and I live by them.”
“That’s how I’m trying to be. Better to myself, gentler on my insides, kinder on the outside. Does that make sense?”
He nodded, again not interrupting.
I watched him push his hair out of his eyes and wanted to move the conversation to something lighter, like why doesn’t he get his hair cut? But my heart wouldn’t let me.
Resigned to finally having this conversation, I said, “You know I worked at Columbia. In student advising.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Well, it was a cushy job in the business school, highly sought after, and I landed it as my first job out of college. Family name, strings pulled, all of it.”
I cleared my throat and stared at Ben’s profile, trying to gauge his reaction. He appeared to remain nonplussed, keeping his eyes on the road, but his features relaxed.
“I moved into an equally cushy apartment on the Upper West Side, near Columbus Circle. I didn’t make many new friends because I was still tied to my parents’ world. Their events, their social circles, and their finances. I was able to live and do things many of my peers weren’t able to, but I wanted to date. Really date. So I tried a dating app. It was awkward and strange, but felt like I was finally in the real world like a regular person. You know?”
Ben laughed again. “I don’t know, but I understand you wanting to do something on your own. Something like the common folk.”
I frowned. “When you put it like that, it sounds crass.”
He gave me an apologetic look. “That’s not how I meant it. I’m only trying to understand the divide between how you lived and how mostly everyone else did or does.”
“Yes.” My reply was soft, but he’d hit on the truth. “The divide was gigantic. Anyway, I met a guy online. He said he was twenty-five, and I was thirty-one at the time. We went for coffee and hit it off. He was fun and exciting, from New Jersey, and said he was an entrepreneur. I never checked or asked a lot of questions. Then we went for a drink, and he walked me back to my apartment and kissed me good night.”
“Sounds pretty normal.”
“Well, he must’ve gotten a load of where I lived or maybe he knew beforehand, I don’t know. We went for one more coffee and shared another kiss outside my building before he called thePostand outed himself as a Columbia student having relations with an employee.”
“What? It was a setup?” Ben looked at me for a second, his blue eyes blazing with fury.
“I don’t know. He led them to believe we were more intimate than we were. He also didn’t explain he was a graduate transfer student and twenty-five. It didn’t matter, though. My name was smeared and my reputation ruined. My parents weren’t interested in explanations or rebuttals. They wanted me to do some sort of ridiculous penance like community service, even though what I’d been accused of wasn’t against the law, and publicly date someone of their choice. But I couldn’t do it.”
“So, you came to Vermont? For a do-over? A new life?”
“Well, I tried to stay in my job for a year, but I couldn’t stand the curious looks and the cold shoulder people gave me. I thought if I just put my head down and did my job well, people would forget. Truthfully, I don’t know if they did or not because my parents certainly didn’t forget. I had to escape, and so I did. I guess it was a cowardly move.”
“What? No way. It was brave, standing up to generational wealth and all those tired standards.”
“I agree. They’re tired, but those standards are—were—a way of life for me.”
“You’re moving forward, not backward, Murph. That’s all I know.”
We’d been so deep in conversation, and my thoughts were so heavy and disturbing, I’d lost track of time. On a long exhale, I realized we were back at my place.
“Sorry the conversation got so down toward the end,” I said as Ben parked.
