“I don’t know. Two cigarettes in one night makes you a smoker.”
She sighed and dropped her head dangerously close to the glass. “I wasn’t smoking. I was on the phone.”
“Ah. Why did you say you were going to the bathroom?”
“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” she said, her British accent more pronounced the slower she spoke.
“I don’t know what that means. You didn’t need to go to the bathroom?”
She lifted her head and blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I mean when I called you. When you refused to step out and meet me for lunch.”
“Meaning, you don’t actually hate your job?”
She nudged me down to an emptier part of the bar.
“There’s a man at my firm. A much ... older man.”
“And?” My mind flashed to Leo. Was Emilie living my fantasy?
She swirled the cocktail without taking a sip.
“We’ve been seeing each other for a while now. It started last summer.”
“When we were studying for the bar?” No one could pull that off, not even Emilie.
“No, the summer before that.”
“When you were a summer associate?”
She nodded. “And all through last year. He’d come down to DC, or I’d take the train up here for a weekend. Sometimes we’d meet at the halfway point, at a bed-and-breakfast on Baltimore Harbor.”
“So he’s a partner?”
“Yes.”
“A married partner?”
“No. He’s never been married.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifty.”
I couldn’t believe I had been clueless for well over a year. Then again, I hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with her about sleeping with Ben or my feelings for Leo.
She said they both decided to keep the relationship a secret once she got to the firm, but then they started working together eighty hours a week on a complicated appeal, and it was Emilie who realized she couldn’t handle it.
“Every time I try to talk aboutus, he uses work as a weapon. He says, ‘When am I supposed to think about the future? When I’m home at two a.m. after editing your work?’ That’s always his excuse. And he always says ‘the’ future. Notourfuture.”
She looked distraught. I couldn’t believe she’d been able to keep all of this under wraps. It was so layered. I felt sad that she hadn’t trusted me enough to bring me into the fold.
“What are you going to do?”
Her eyes were wet. I wished I’d made time to meet her for lunch.
“I don’t know, but I’m just so miserable. I haven’t known what to do since the first time we met that summer. Sam, you know me. I’m not someone who falls for a guy and loses my head. He’s a career bachelor whose world revolves around work. And yet somehow, my feelings only get stronger, and ...” Her voice sounded strained. “It’s started to feel like the opposite for him. He doesn’t even look at me the same way anymore. It’s like I’m a ... distraction. It’s so incredibly painful. Sometimes I lie awake at night and feel like I can’t breathe. If he ends things, I can’t stay there. It would be hell.”
I shook my head. “Man, we’re really a pair. I’m divorced, and you’re trying to lock down a forever bachelor.” I briefly considered telling her about sleeping with Ben. I wondered if it would make her feel better to know we all had secrets. But I wasn’t sure making this about me was the right move.
