“Cole & Associates.” Jayne sets her knife and fork down, picks up her napkin to dab the side of her mouth. “Yes. Still there.”
“How long have you been there?”
Tory is about to say something, but then Jayne answers softly, “Oh, forever. Twenty years plus.”
“Doesn’t that get boring?” Tory asks at the same time as Shayna says, “You must be incredible at your job. I know the Coles. Martin had a reputation for being exacting. I hear Daniel is even more so.”
Jayne flushes. Tory straightens.
“You’re handling the big pharma case, aren’t you?” the man sitting next to Shayna, a donor, interjects.
“Yes.” Jayne smiles for real this time.
“Tough going, I’m sure,” the donor continues. “You guys must be swamped. Case of the decade, they say.”
“Well, I’m not a lawyer, so…what I do is not that important.”
Shayna raises both her eyebrows. “You’re the office manager, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she replies almost shyly.
“My office manager runs my company,” the donor says with a broad smile. “Without him, we’d all sink. I’m sure you know everything that’s going on and then some, and you keep it all in order.”
Jayne’s eyes light up, and I realize how rarely I’ve seen that lately, that spark.
“Well, I manage the paralegals and administrators, so, yes, I usually know what’s going on.”
Shayna raises her glass. “Better than Daniel, I’m sure.”
I notice how I have not said a word about my wife’s job. I open my mouth to say she is incredible when Tory cuts in, “Must be stressful, though, juggling that and family. I don’t know how you do it.”
Jayne’s smile tightens. “I manage just fine.”
Tory laughs lightly. “You must be superhuman.”
“I think she’s just good at what she does,” says a voice across the table, Paul Grant, one of my oldest friends at the hospital. He’s a cardiologist, too. He turns to Jayne. “So, are you still handling the client liaison work too, or just management now?”
Jayne’s face brightens again. “Both, actually. I like the mix.”
After that, Paul monopolizes my wife. He listens when she talks. He asks questions. He laughs at her dry humor. Jealousy surges through me. Not because Ithink anything is happening —Christ, no— but because I miss being the one who made her light up like that.
I take another sip of wine.
Tory leans in, voice soft, “Claire isn’t here tonight?”
Claire is Paul’s wife. She’s a psychologist.
“No, she’s at a conference in Chicago,” I tell her.
“Oh, well—” she starts, but on stage, Camden’s CEO taps the mic, and her words dissolve as the gala shifts into its program.
He thanks donors for “their generosity in advancing cardiac care and surgical innovation,” and polite applause sweeps the room.
Then the screens behind him light up with a slideshow of department heads — surgical team, nursing, admin.
My photo flashes by.
I’m standing next to Tory, both of us professionally posed.
