I didn’t remember saying anything in the cab.
I had to get to the airport on time.
“You’re welcome to stay as late as you like. It’s five a.m., for Christ’s sake. Go back to sleep. There are clean towels on the shelf in the bathroom. Please just lock the bottom when you leave.”
He stared at me, a stunned look on his face. “Goddammit, you really are selfish. Not that I should be surprised. Everyone but me seemed to figure it out. But even after you ripped the rug out from under me, I still didn’t want to believe it.”
I felt the hot sting of tears but kept my back turned and continued packing.
“You can’t even look at me, because you know it’s true. You needed me, and then when you thought you didn’t, you left. When we met, I felt sorry for you. But I don’t anymore.”
There was no way I’d make it through the day without throwing up.
“You think you’re being given some ‘second chance’ to live the life you always wanted? I’ve got news for you—you’re still the same lost, insecure person you were with me. You take yourself wherever you go, Sam.”
I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When I said goodbye, Ben was lying in bed, facing the window. He didn’t turn around.
The moment I shut the door to the Uber, my whole body shook as I sobbed. What had I done? I had wanted so badly to convince myself that despite everything, he’d be okay, that maybe one day, we could even be part of each other’s lives again.
If that had ever been a possibility, I’d just destroyed it.
I hobbled through the security line at JFK and collapsed into my seat with ten minutes to spare. I had six hours in the air with nothing to do but think about how I’d stepped knee deep in shit. It hadn’t even been three months since I found him in his apartment, angrily writing a divorce memoir. What was the point of gettingthatdrunk? To feel less nervous? It would have been better to have ghosted him entirely.
The flight was bumpy. In my hungover daze, I’d forgotten to pack the Xanax Ben and I had joked about less than twelve hours earlier. Despite the captain leaving the seat belt sign on throughout the flight, I threw up in the business class lavatory three times, feeling more remorseful each time I sank back into my seat.
I knew I had the emotional upper hand, and I had abused it.Iwas the one who left and broke his heart.Ishould have known better.
He was right: I was still the same lost person. Just with more expensive clothes, a Manhattan address, and a sixty-hour workweek.
Nine hours after I woke up next to Ben, I landed at LAX, physically and emotionally wrecked. I shuffled through the terminal and foggily scanned the drivers until I spotted my name. I dozed in the back of the car and woke up at the Peninsula Beverly Hills. It wasn’t even 1 p.m. yet. I was supposed to meet Eddie in a conference room at the Century City office at 3:30 p.m. I checked into my room, showered, and shut my eyes for a few minutes, willing my hangover to disappear. Twenty minutes later, I woke with a start, feeling slightly less nauseated but still exhausted. I called an Uber at 2:45 and forced myself to review the interview outlines over the ten-minute ride.
The LA office overlooked all of Century City, the former Fox studio lot. The receptionist deposited me in an unoccupied visitor office. I sat down in the plush leather desk chair and rested my head against the back of it, trying to ignore my persistent nausea.
I jumped at a knock on the door.
“Samantha, right? Leo Hirschman. Eddie said we should meet while you’re out here. Think we’re grabbing a cocktail at the bar downstairs after your witness interview. See you then?”
He was taller than I expected and looked about ten years younger than his law firm bio.
The irony of it all was too much. It was as if half of me was crushing this new life, and the other half was stuck in the quicksand of my old life. Taking a deep breath, I tried to compartmentalize everything that was happeninghere, in Los Angeles, from the emotional bonfire waiting for me back in New York.
I could barely appreciate how well the interview went. I sensed from Eddie’s reactions that the trip had been worth it from the first meeting alone. We needed support for the argument that the poker game wasn’t an “illegal gambling business” because, among other things, Andie hadn’t employed the required threshold of five “participants” to helprun the business. The only people Andie had worked with consistently were two personal assistants whose “duties,” she maintained, were of a personal nature and had nothing to do with poker. The first assistant we interviewed had even brought the hard-copy planner she used to schedule Andie’s life, and there wasn’t a single entry that referenced poker games.
“That was fantastic. They’re not all like that. Butthatwas a win for us. Let’s call Andie tomorrow and debrief.”
I made a note to ask Patricia to schedule the call.
“Leo Hirschman said he mentioned cocktails. I need to send a few emails first, but you should feel free to head down,” Eddie said as he headed out the door.
All I wanted was a soft pillow in a dark hotel room. But skipping drinks with Eddie and Leo would be career suicide. I stopped by the visitor office to grab my things and tried to pull myself together.
Twenty minutes later, I found Leo in a back booth, martini in one hand and iPhone in the other. The sight of him kicked my nerves into overdrive.
Leo personified the confidence of a young partner whose client list and accolades topped most veteran partners’. He had aqua-blue eyes and dark-brown hair that was almost black, and he was tall, lean, and tanned. He could have been an actor. He reminded me of a throwback to the old-school studio executives: handsome, dynamic, hypermasculine. He probably spent all his free time on the tennis court.
“Eddie’s been full of praise for you over the last few weeks,” Leo said with a friendly smile.
I managed a humble grin. “It’s an honor to meet you. I’m sure you know this, but you’re a legend in the New York office.”
