She made a face. “I don’t even think people can have a successful career and a happy relationship. Look at my parents. If my mum had wanted to work, my dad would’ve been fucking miserable.”
I thought back to what Leo said about focusing on work. If it was ever possible to have both, it certainly wasn’t going to happen before my career had really even started.
I stared at the bartender’s toolbox of green olives, cocktail onions, and cherries and almost wanted to tell her about my feelings for Leo. But after what had happened with Charlie, I was reticent to give anyone else reason to paint me as morally adrift. Even if it might level the playing field a bit and help her feel less alone.
I also knew I didn’t have any good advice. All I could do was listen.
“Even if I’m coming into this story at the end of the book, tell me everything. How it started, all of it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I arrived Monday morning to an empty office. I still hadn’t heard from Charlie.
I drank three cups of coffee before heading to the forty-ninth floor for a required continuing legal education seminar for junior associates.
I spotted him come in ten minutes late and sit in the back row. I waited until the lunch break, then filed into the buffet line behind him.
“Good weekend?” I asked casually.
He smiled. “Nothing too crazy. I didn’t have to work, which was awesome. I finally got through that Yeats book I’ve been trying to finish for three months. Saturday night, I went out with Annabelle.”
“Is that the forty-eight-hour-date girl?”
He laughed. “I think we can call her by her name now that I’ve been on two separate dates with her.”
“Look at you. Two dates!”
“How was yours?”
I told him about going out with the girls on Saturday night.
“I actually met someone I thought you’d like. One of Caroline’s friends. But now that you’re properly dating Annabelle, I’ll try to think of another lucky guy to set her up with.”
“Two dates doesn’t mean we’re dating. It means I decided to see her a second time.”
“So does that mean you’d be up for meeting Caroline’s friend?”
“Depends. What kind of music does she listen to?”
“We didn’t get that far. All I know is where she works and that she lives in Brooklyn.”
“Are you borough-typing me?”
“One hundred percent. If the subways and bridges shut down, and your significant other lives in Manhattan, that could be the end of a relationship.”
We sat down as he cracked open a can of Mountain Dew and smeared the contents of a mustard packet on a catered club sandwich.
“Dating in New York is bleak enough without outer-borough discrimination, you know.”
“Where does Annabelle live?” I asked.
“Brooklyn.”
“There you go.”
“Is it just me, or do catered lunches have a certain satisfying quality?” he asked.
“I’m not there yet. So, can I introduce you to Margaret? Or do you want to see where things go with Annabelle first?”
