“Want to grab something?” My drink was dry, and while I could use another, I’d had a quick one with my brother earlier and I needed to head back to the hospital later.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She took some water. “Both?” Her eyebrow raised above her eyeglasses. She finally used her hand and removed mine from her thigh. “I’m praying for your dad, Ford. But we are a thing of the past. Old friends who lost touch. At one time, one night, I thought maybe we’d be something more, but we weren’t. We never would be… I’ve accepted it. So, let’s leave that all in the rearview, yeah?”
Only the nicest girl I’d ever met would put me in my place.
She threw two twenties on the bar, and said, “For our first round,” and stood.
“James.” Her name came out in my most authoritative tone I typically reserved for intimate settings, but I didn’t care. “Tonight may be a no, but I’m not giving up.”
I laced my fingers through hers as she started to walk away, and tugged her back to face me.
“That’s a promise.”
“We’ll see,” was all she said before slipping out of my grasp.
Who was I kidding? I let her go. I loved a challenge.
Jamie
Isnuck into the hospital through the back door and wound my way through the kitchen to the back elevator and up to my office without seeing a single Conway. A black SUV was stationed out front when I arrived, so one of them was inside. And at this point it didn’t matter who—I was avoiding them all. I thought back to a week ago when I’d passed Beatrice in the hall and she’d stared right through me. I’d chalked it up to her being upset over her husband, but I knew, somewhere in my core, she had no clue who I was. As a kid I spent a lot of time in their house. It was a white Tudor, austere like Beatrice, both inside and out. Ford would always whisk me and any other friends upstairs to the playroom when we were young. It was there that Maggie would supervise us with an eagle eye. She’d serve snacks prepared by their chef—usually little tea-sized sandwiches.
“Ashley.” I greeted my assistant from behind my sunglasses. Keeping them on, I hid my eyes while saying, “I’d appreciate your discretion on something. Please don’t mention Mr. Conway asking about my whereabouts.”
She sat a bit taller in her seat. “He was very convincing. Like he had to know where you were. It seemed urgent.” She knew she’d made a mistake.
I decided to run with it. “He did have to speak to me about a donation in his father’s honor, but moving forward I’d prefer him to schedule an appointment like everyone else.”
“No problem. I’m sorry, Jamie.”
I’d insisted Ashley call me by my first name since day one. Now, as I sat in my leather chair behind my desk, I had a faint memory of my mom saying Beatrice Conway was the type of woman who was addressed as aMrs. So-and-So, and my mom was a first-name type of gal. It was during one of the times she’d picked me up from an after-school get-together at the Conways’, Maggie depositing me in the car as usual, and we’d left without any further pomp and circumstance.
My friends all called my mom by her first name, Lauren. She was known as “Ms. L the Librarian” at the school I attended on scholarship. The same private school Ford and his siblings went to—with their surname on doors and buildings. Beatrice Hunt Conway came from a long line of whiskey distillers. Her money, coupled with Ford’s dad’s own inheritance, allowed them to live a life of luxury long after Ford Jr. left private practice and teaching at top law schools to take a place on the court. My dad, a disgruntled accountant who’d at no time earned what he wanted, never came to the school or engaged with any of my friends, and turned his nose up at the opportunity for me to attend there.
Opening my laptop, I wondered what type of parent I would’ve been. A first name or aMrs. So-and-Somom? I guessed I’d always be just Jamie. Looking at my emails, seeing an event for the maternity ward, must’ve made me sentimental. I thought about my frozen eggs and how they would remain frozen forever. When I’d hit thirty-four, I still hoped to meet someone. Those dreams died when I hit forty.
I didn’t have time to ruminate on my lifeless eggs because I heard a deep voice ask, “Is James around?”
“Who?” Ashley asked in her own sweet-talking high-pitched voice.
If I didn’t know the only person who called me James other than Val, I would’ve known who was asking by Ashley’s deference.He has that effect on people.
“James. Jamie, I mean,” Ford corrected.
“Oh, let me check.”
Of course my door was partly ajar, and he could see me sitting there in my navy power pantsuit.
“Oh, I see her right there,” he said, shouldering his way around the desk and through my door. “Your assistant doesn’t know your full name?” That’s what he led with as he shut my door behind him.
“I go by Jamie. Like I always have.”
“Not with me. To me you were always James and her giant peach.”
“James and the Giant Peach,” I corrected him.
