Chapter
6
I had to tell James what I’d decided. But a basic premise of trial work is that you don’t plea-bargain until you know the strength of your case. So I called Walter first.
I knew that losing my job was a distinct possibility. Associates were sometimes asked to leave Lane Lavash, usually for lack of productivity but occasionally for crimes as simple as sending an e-mail to another associate criticizing an equity partner. The firing was done nicely, with the associate simply told that he had “no future with the firm” and ought to look elsewhere, but the end result was the same.
What’s the difference between a dead dog in the road and a dead lawyer in the road? There are skid marks in front of the dog.
Unfortunately, one dead lawyer in the road meant twenty live ones panting for his job. And my finding a job I liked better would be harder with this on my record. Lane Lavash would have little good to say about me.
Still, I was ready to take the risk. That was how strongly I felt about this all-wrong life I had built. I had to take it apart and rebuild. I had to salvage what was good.
James was good. At least I thought he was, assuming he wasn’t having an affair, which I desperately wanted to believe. He didn’t have the commitment problem Jude did. And though he and I had barely seen each other in recent months, I did miss him. Tall and solid, he had a way of looking at me that made my toes curl, a middle-of-the-night way of pulling me into his body to spoon that made me feel protected. And the intellectual connection? When it was good, it was good.
Was Walter good? I resented his impatience and his nose-to-the-grindstone mind-set, but he did have one good feature—predictability. Since he always e-mailed me at 6:30 AM, I knew I could reach him then. Lacking a clock, I turned my BlackBerry on and off three times Tuesday morning before the time on it was right. Walter picked up after a single ring.
“Yeah,” he said distractedly.
I cleared my throat. “Walter?”
After only the seconds it took for him to recognize my voice, he erupted in barely restrained anger. “Well, thank you very much for returning my calls, Mrs. Aulenbach. Would you care to tell me what you’re doing? Better still, would you like to tell me when you’ll be back, because there’s a shitload of work here, and you’ve left me one man short. I have a computer that’s going to waste. If you don’t value this job, there are plenty of others who do.”
Contritely, I said, “I value it. But I’ve been struggling with some personal issues.”
“Serious enough for you to walk out in the middle of a workday without a word to anyone?” he went on, and I didn’t interrupt. If I were to look at it from his point of view, he had a right to be annoyed. “That was Friday morning, Emily. I’ve been calling you ever since. Did you even check your messages?”
“No.” I had made a point to ignore all those dings on the few occasions when I’d turned on my BlackBerry. It was actually easy to do in the sky and clouds of this attic room, where the intrusion really grated.
“No? Well, I guess that tells me where I am on your totem pole.”
“It isn’t just you, Walter. It’s everyone. I’ve had my BlackBerry off.”
“Why?” he asked, as if I’d lost my mind.
It would have been easy to say that a family member was sick, but I couldn’t. I might be irresponsible, but I wasn’t dishonest. Besides, sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but my nightshirt, I felt exposed. “I’m trying to figure out who I am and what I want.”
“Aren’t we all? That doesn’t mean we bail out on people who depend on us. I’m fifty-eight, and I’m still trying to figure out what I want, but I come to work every morning, and I do what I’m being paid to do.”
Maybe it was his personal work ethic, or his having three kids in college. Maybe it was just different for men.
“I see burnout all the time,” he lectured. “I’ve felt it myself. You can’t just quit. You have to work through it.”
I’d heard that one from the guy who taught my spinning class. “This isn’t a charley horse.”
“Okay,” he said shortly. “When will you be back?”
I cleared my throat. “That’s what I need to talk with you about. I have to be away from New York for a little while, and I fully understand the position this puts you in. I also understand that you may need to hire someone in my place.”
“But you’re one of my best workers,” he whined, and gentled a bit. “What if I gave you the week off? Can you be back next Monday?”
“No. I need more time.”
“How much?” he asked, but I knew how he worked. I had seen him bargain up the fee a client would pay. He knew the art of negotiation. I had learned from the best.
“Three months,” I said, knowing that I would never get that much but that if I started higher, I would lack credibility. Four months would have been beyond the pale in Lane Lavash time. Three months was an opening bid.
He was silent for a beat. “Are you seeing a shrink?”
“No.”
“Then who says three months?”
“Me.”
“I can give you two weeks. You have that coming.”
Uh-huh. Two weeks of unpaid leave. They called it personal time, and it covered vacation days, sick days, and family days. I would have had more than two weeks if personal time could build from one year to the next. I rarely used my two weeks; a day off was a day with no billable hours at all.
“I need more than two weeks,” I said. Four minimum, I thought.
“Three, then.”
“Nine,” I countered.
“Bring me verification from two independent doctors that you need nine weeks, and I’ll give you that.”
I was silent, trying to choose my next move, when he said on a surprisingly compassionate note, “Four. That’s my best offer. We never do this, Emily. The only reason I’m even considering it is that I like you, and that I trust that you can work through this and return to be one of the firm’s leaders. You know how to handle people. You could be our managing partner someday, and that makes what you and I decide right now crucial. We’ll call it an administrative leave, but four is the best I can do. I’ll hold your job that long.”
Four wasn’t enough, but it was better than none. “I’ll take four. Thank you, Walter. You’ve been incredibly generous.”
“Will you keep in touch?” he asked with what sounded like actual concern. And funny, if I had ever heard that before in my dealings with Lane Lavash, I might have felt better about the culture of the place. Honestly? The idea of my being managing partner one day was pushing it a little—actually, pushing it a lot. Still, I appreciated his accommodation. Four weeks wasn’t anywhere near what I’d need, but at least I’d have a job at the end.
If I wanted it. Which I might not. But burning every bridge made no sense.
So I promised to keep in touch and ended the call feeling a brief satisfaction. Now came James.
Bracing myself on pillows against the headboard, I tucked my knees up and dug my cold feet into the comforter. Holding the BlackBerry close, I put through the call.
His phone rang once, twice, a third time. I was trying to decide whether to leave a message, when he finally clicked in, but he didn’t say a word.
“Are you there?” I asked timidly.
There was another silence before he said, “I’m here.”
“Are you okay?” His voice didn’t sound right. It wasn’t familiar.
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” he shot back, but he sounded tired, like we’d been arguing for hours. “My wife picks up and leaves without a word, and—and she wants to know if I’m okay? How would you be if I did that to you?”
“Devastated.”
“I am. And—and confused. If you want to leave me, the least you can do is to tell me why. Did I offend you? Is this about my ditching your firm dinner Friday night?”
I was silent. James knew me better than to think I’d done something so big for such a petty reason.
“Emily?” he asked cautiously, apparently afraid I’d hung up.
“I’m here. I just don’t know what to say. That isn’t why I left.”
“You were fine Thursday night.”
“You said that last time we talked, and maybe I was fine on the surface. But is what’s on the surface all that counts?”
“If it’s all I know, it is. Talk—talk to me, babe,” he begged.
“I’ve been talking for months about how much I hate my job and about how little time we have together.”
“Come on, Em.” He did sound familiar now, even the repeating of words that he did when he was too tired to be crisp. “We all—all say those things. It’s the nature of the beast.”
“What if I don’t like that beast?”
“Don’t like me?”
“Don’t like our lives,” I corrected. “It isn’t just one thing—it’s everything. I feel like a robot, clocking in, clocking out, rushing to yoga, rushing to book club, rushing to the dry cleaner before they close for the night. I can’t breathe. That’s what happened Friday morning. I was at work and I absolutely couldn’t breathe.”
I ignored the question. “We lead a life dominated by machines. Our careers were supposed to be about helping people, but we’ve become mid-level bureaucrats. We have no time for friends or for each other. I have never been so lonely. Don’t you feel it?”
“I’m too busy to feel it.”
“But aren’t you hungry to connect with another human being on a personal level?” I asked pleadingly, because I wasn’t getting through, and that hurt. The James I’d known in law school would have understood. That James would have felt the loneliness. So either he had changed, or I had misjudged him from the start.
“Speaking of friends,” he said, “Colleen Parker keeps calling here. You accuse me of not connecting, while you—you blow her off?”
“Colly’s a perfect example of what I’m saying. I have no business being in her wedding. We’re barely friends. And that’s supposed to be okay? It’s like the whole concept of friendship has been redefined. It’s shallow. I am lonely.”
There was silence, then a quiet “Is that your way of telling me you’re seeing someone else?”
I thought of Jude. I wasn’t seeing him, but I would if I stayed. Did I want that? No. Could I resist? No more than I’d been able to resist rushing to the window to hear the coyote last night. The two were related. On some level in me, there remained a fascination with both.
No way would James understand that, though, and he had given me the perfect opening. “Are you?” I asked back.
“Agh. Is this about Naida again? Emily, I am not having an affair, not with Naida or anyone else.” He was so straightforward, so blunt, with no words repeated, that I actually believed him. “I’m married to you, though it doesn’t feel it right now. You left me. Do you want a divorce?”
“I did not leave you. I left the life that was consuming us, and no, I don’t want a divorce. I want to work things out.”
“How can we, if we can’t talk face-to-face? Where are you? You’re not with your mom. I already called her.”
I pressed my fingertips to my brow. “Oh, James.”
“She said walking out would be the last thing you’d do unless you were desperate. So if she believes you were desperate—and she claims not to know where you are—why isn’t she worried?”
“Because she has faith in me,” I said. “She’s always believed I have common sense.”
“I used to, too, but—but this is insane.”
“Okay.” I tried a different tack, because this one clearly wasn’t working. “Suppose you’re on the road, driving somewhere. What do you do when you take a wrong turn?”
“Ahh, hell,” he brayed. “Here we go. Men are from Mars, yada yada. I keep going, you ask directions.”
“But I kept going, too, because I didn’t realize I’d taken a wrong turn—because I didn’t want to realize it until it got so bad I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Last Friday was horrendous from the minute I woke up, but it was only more of what our lives have been for months, for years. What do you do when you take a wrong turn?” I asked rhetorically this time. “Stop. Turn around. Go back.”
“You forgot the asking for directions part.”
“Who do I ask? I’ve been dropping hints to you for months, only you’re too busy to hear. I want a marriage, James. I want there to be a you and me, but we don’t have time. I want to be a lawyer, but the work I do isn’t practicing law. I want to have friends, but they’re running like zombies themselves. I thought having a baby would help.”
“Help?”
“Force a change in my life. Get me off the treadmill. I want to hold something small and warm,” I pleaded, “something that needs me and not just any woman, and I want to watch it grow without clocking in. I left my watch at home, did you see? I want to make time stop—well, not stop, but slow down.”
“And that’ll solve the baby problem? I hate to tell you this, but you can’t get pregnant unless we have sex, and if you’re there, and I’m here, we can’t have sex. Where the hell are you?”
I sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It sure does. My life is here, Emily. If you’re not coming back, we have a problem.” He sounded worried. “Is that what you’re thinking?”
“I haven’t thought that far.”
“What about your job? You can’t just walk away from Lane Lavash and—and think they’ll hold it while you decide whether or not you want it.”
“Walter’s giving me four weeks. I talked with him a few minutes ago—and don’t get in a huff about that,” I hurried to add, so that I didn’t further bruise my husband’s ego. “I haven’t been in touch with him since I saw him at work Friday morning, and I only called him now so that I’d know where I stood before I called you. He doesn’t know anything, except that I have to be away.”
James was quiet.
“For what it’s worth,” I added, “he was very decent at the end.”
“How was he at the start?”
“Angry. Like you.”
“A major difference being that I’m your husband,” he said, but he was subdued.
I was thinking about these two men in my life. “That’s one of the problems, James. The way our lives work, I have more face time with Walter than with you. You have more face time with Naida than with me. We spend more time at work than anywhere else, including our home. Why are we carrying that huge mortgage, if we use the place only to sleep?”
“It’s an investment. That’s what all of it is, Em, an investment in our future. We discussed this. We knew what we were getting into when we took these jobs. We knew we’d be eaten alive in the short run.”
“For two years, maybe four, but it’s been seven, and it’s only getting worse. I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Finally, sounding defeated, James said, “Where does that leave us?”
“I need time.”
“Time to decide if you want me?”
“Time to decide what happened to our dreams.”
He didn’t answer.
“Do you remember those dreams?” I asked. “We dreamed of being good lawyers and really helping people. Instead, I spend my days in a cubicle, wearing a headset, typing complaints into a form, and you spend yours plea-bargaining. I know it takes time to build a practice, but the kinds of cases we’re working on won’t get us where we want to be. They may bring in big fees, but is that what it’s all about? There has to be more. We were going to be the golden couple—outstanding at work, outstanding at home. Remember?”
“Maybe we were naïve.”
“Or took a wrong turn. Look at the whole picture—work, friends, food, weekends. Even when you factor in the reality of paying our dues, we’re not living out even a shadow of those dreams. Are you happy with the way we live?”
He seemed to consider that. “No. But I can bear it until it improves.”
“That’s all I’m asking now, James. Bear with me until I figure things out.”
“But what do I do in the meanwhile?”
I knew what he was about. James was goal-oriented, which was one of the things I had first loved. We had shared a goal in law school, shared a goal in taking the jobs that we had. Sitting idle would drive him crazy, not that there were many choices.
There was one, though. Vicki had cited a movie. I tweaked the concept. “We could talk on the phone—like, set aside a time, make a date.”
He said nothing at first. Then, “What kind of marriage is that?”
“A better one than we’ve had.” The idea was growing on me. “We could talk, maybe argue, possibly find common ground.”
“On the phone? Who was complaining that her life was dominated by machines?”
He’d been listening. That was good. “This is different,” I pushed. “We’d be the ones in charge. I’m not averse to machines, James. I just think they’ve gotten the upper hand. We could reverse that.”
He grunted. “Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier if you came back here so we could talk? Why won’t you tell me where you are? What’s the big secret?”
“No big secret. I just need to be alone.”
“I’m your husband,” he reasoned, setting off such silent fury in me—my husband, where’ve you been, why do we never see each other, why the concern now?—that I was mute. He must have felt the fury, though, because he said, “Okay, we could meet halfway between there and here.”
“James,” I replied seriously, “you could sell a GPS to a carrier pigeon. I can’t do face-to-face yet. In two seconds flat, you’d convince me that my life isn’t so bad.”
“It isn’t.”
“For me it is.” It was as simple as that.
After a bit, he said quietly, “Okay. I hear you. But I don’t know. Phone sex?”
“Not sex.”
“Just kidding.”
“I’m not. I’m dead serious about this, James. I will not meet you in person until I get a grip on myself. The phone works for me. If you’re talking with me, I know you’re focused on me and not work. And I do like hearing your voice,” I added quietly, because even through his frustration, the familiar was there. James’s voice is very male. Husky, it has depth and authority. And yes, sex appeal. All three would serve him well before a jury, if he ever got to court.
“I don’t know,” that deep voice said, but I could tell he was wavering. “It’s embarrassing that we can’t meet in person.”
“We will. Just not yet.”
“Nnnn, I don’t like it.”
I held my breath. This was the moment when he might say that if I didn’t return to New York, he would file for divorce. Like with the possibility of losing my job at Lane Lavash, I had thought this through, too. I didn’t want a divorce, but I wasn’t ready to return to New York. Call me stubborn. Or selfish. But I could still feel the panic of being unable to breathe, and until I was past that, I needed space. This was non-negotiable.
James must have heard it in my silence, because he said a conciliatory “Will you leave your BlackBerry on so I can text in between?”
“If you were the only one texting, I could do that, but there’s all this other stuff that makes me gag. I’ll just turn it on for the phone. Today’s Tuesday. How about Friday night? Say, seven o’clock?”
“Come on, babe,” he complained. “Neither one of us is home by seven.”
“Maybe that needs to change.”
“Maybe I don’t want it to change.”
A stalemate? Possibly. Alternately, he might be simply wanting to save face. I could compromise. In the end, I might have to. But not yet.
“Then I guess you have as much to think about as I do,” I said quietly. “I’ll call Friday at seven. Bye, James.” I ended the call before the awkwardness of saying I love you could creep in, though, truth be told, we hadn’t said those words in months. I’m not saying we didn’t feel them, just that we didn’t say them.
But I wanted to say them. And I wanted to hear them.
So, with barely a breath, I made a final call.