* * *
—
As it turned out, the next day Stacey had an emergency in the office. A one-year-old who had rolled off the changing table, and needed to have her forehead stitched up. Stacey had no time to change properly when she got home, she put on loafers instead of running shoes, changed her shirt, and they were out the door to go uptown to meet Tammy’s mother. Before they arrived, Kate stood looking around her apartment, waiting for them. Tammy had texted that Stacey had had an emergency and they’d be ten minutes late.
She tried to guess what Stacey would be like. It was like meeting a daughter-in-law seven years after the wedding. It was a done deal by then. Everything about the situation was new to her, and Tammy was the bridge between them. She straightened the books on the coffee table again. The flowers they’d sent her were on a table in front of the window and looked beautiful. Kate had changed three times, and finally settled on white jeans and a pink shirt. She didn’t want to overdress. They were fifteen minutes late when they rang the bell. Kate nearly jumped out of her skin, and ran to open it. Tammy hugged her before she even saw Stacey, and then she saw a tall, thin, shy young woman, with delicate features, deep blue eyes, and prematurely gray hair in a short pixie cut. She was wearing a white shirt and jeans.
Tammy introduced them, and without hesitating, Kate reached out and hugged her. Stacey started to cry. Two minutes later, they were all hugging and crying, and Kate felt as though she were adopting a child.
“I’ve waited so long to meet you,” Stacey said in a choked voice.
“Me too, I just didn’t know it,” Kate said in a voice filled with emotion. She hadn’t expected Stacey to be so simple and human and warm, but it shouldn’t have surprised her knowing Tammy.
“God, you two are such sissies. Man up,” Stacey said as Tammy handed out tissues for all of them, and they laughed.
“Would you like a drink?” Kate offered, and wondered if she should have had food for them, but none of them could have eaten. It was too emotional.
“Water would be fine. I’m on call this weekend. I’m sorry we were late, I had to stitch up a one-year-old.” Kate could see her easily in that role, and being great with kids. She had eyes filled with compassion, and a gentle style, with laugh lines near her eyes.
They sat down in the living room, and she brought out some of the albums of Tammy as a little girl. Stacey loved it, and they laughed at some of the pictures. Tammy looked angelic in most of the pictures, and she was always carrying her favorite doll.
“You sure were a girly girl,” Stacey commented with a loving look. “I looked like Dennis the Menace as a kid. I carried a tool kit for about two years, and took my parents’ TV apart and nearly electrocuted myself. I set fire to a Brillo pad stuck in an outlet to get a spark to light a cigarette in my room when I was fifteen. I don’t think anyone was surprised by how I turned out. They’re just surprised I didn’t wind up in jail. I stole my father’s car and drove to Cincinnati from Columbus when I was fourteen. My younger brothers were scared to death of me.” Tammy knew that one of Stacey’s brothers had been gay too, and had died of AIDS. Stacey had had her share of heartbreak. It was what had made her decide to go to medical school. She’d spent a year with Doctors Without Borders, working in an AIDS clinic in Africa. They talked about it briefly with Kate, who was vastly impressed by Stacey. She was a very impressive woman, and the bond between her and Tammy was obvious.
The time sped by as they talked, and at seven o’clock Stacey got a text from her answering service. She had an eleven-year-old boy in the emergency room with a broken arm, and she looked apologetically at Tammy and her mother.
“I have to go to work, but this has been so wonderful.” She turned to Kate then. “Would you come to dinner at our place sometime? I’m a terrible cook, but I buy great pizza and spaghetti and meatballs, or sushi.” Kate hadn’t been to Tammy’s apartment for years and felt guilty about it now.
“I’d love it.” She smiled warmly, and they hugged before the girls left, this time without tears.
“Thank you for everything…for this…for Tammy,” Stacey said softly.
“Thank you, Stacey.” Kate suddenly felt like she had a lot to be grateful for. Things weren’t as bleak as she had thought only a few days before. “You should take Stacey to meet your grandmother,” she said to Tammy.
“I will. Stacey wanted to meet you first.” They hugged again, and the two women got on the elevator, as Kate walked back to her apartment, thinking about the time they had spent together. Stacey was a wonderful addition to Tammy’s life, and now to Kate’s. A whole new chapter had begun.
* * *
—
She was still thinking about them that night when Bart called her. He had a meeting in New York on Tuesday and wanted to know if she was free. She had been so busy and overwhelmed lately, they hadn’t spoken in days, since her birthday. But a lot had happened since then, Anthony’s breakup and Tammy’s revelation.
“What’s up? You’ve suddenly gone quiet on me,” and her texts had been brief and read like fortune cookies. And she wasn’t up on his news either.
“A lot has been going on,” she said. She hadn’t told him about Claire’s pregnancy and the debacle over that, and now she didn’t feel comfortable telling him that Tammy was gay. That still felt somewhat private. The only thing she felt at ease telling him was the news of Anthony’s wedding being canceled, which he would hear anyway. But her reluctance to share more intimate news with him told her something about their relationship, which she already knew. Their relationship was easy, but had remained shallow. Anything deep or too personal, she kept to herself. She let him see the pretty parts of them now, involving all three of her kids. Although Tammy’s relationship with Stacey was anything but messy. It was adult and mature, and as solid as any marriage, but it would be considered unorthodox in some people’s eyes, and most likely his. His children weren’t huge successes in life, compared to hers, but their problems were more ordinary and run of the mill. She felt too vulnerable at the moment to share most of it with him.
“That’s too bad about Anthony’s engagement,” Bart sympathized. “Is he heartbroken?”
“I don’t think so. Amanda overdid the wedding, and I think it gave him cold feet. He’s not ready.”
“Maybe they’ll patch it up later,” he said, trying to sound optimistic.
“I doubt it.” He was surprised by how philosophical she was, but so much else had happened in the last two months that Anthony’s canceled wedding was the least of it.
“So how does your dance card look for Tuesday?”
“I have a late meeting at the office, but I should be home by eight or nine.” She didn’t want to tell him she was busy, but she wasn’t enthused about seeing him, which surprised her. She usually was. She just wasn’t in the mood nor to put a good face on it.
“That’s perfect. I won’t be free till then either. And I have to leave the next morning at six A.M. for a meeting in Washington. I just thought that it would be nice to spend the night together.” It was basically a very high end booty call, and usually she didn’t mind, but this time when she hung up, she realized that she did. It suddenly occurred to her that it would have been nice to have someone she could really talk to, whose problems and interests were similar to her own. His children had never been a high priority to him, and he didn’t pretend they were. He was honest about it. But it bothered her that these days the only adult she could confide in was her mother. It seemed a little strange at her age.
Margaret had always doubled as best friend, particularly since Tom’s death, but Kate was missing some male perspective in her life, which she didn’t get from Bart, since their common goal had been to keep things light. She wondered now if it was a little too light, to the point of not being real. Real life was what she had been dealing with, oppositional children, a hostile unwed pregn
ant daughter, her concern about her children’s poor or risky decisions, and discovering that one of her children was gay. You couldn’t tell those things to a stranger, or a man you slept with once in a while.
Bart lived in another city, they were both busy, and she was no longer even sure how exclusive their relationship was. She had no idea what he did when he wasn’t with her, or who he went out with, and it bothered her. They were too old to have a relationship based mostly on sex and the occasional nice dinner. She didn’t want to complain to him about it, but in the past few weeks, since their two weeks in Shelter Island, it had occurred to her that she was telling him none of the heavy things that were going on in her life. He was in the outer circle, not the inner sanctum. As long as her children had appeared to be perfect, it was fine. But now it wasn’t. No life was as perfect as it appeared from the outside.
* * *
—
Stacey and Tammy took Margaret to brunch at The Carlyle on Sunday. It was a treat for her, and had been Stacey’s idea. Afterward Kate and her mother discussed what a lovely and very impressive person Stacey was.
Kate spent most of the day working, preparing for a tough week in the office. It was clear to her that for the next two months, she was going to be buried, getting ready for impending trials. There would be no playtime in her life, just work. It happened that way sometimes and went in waves.
Anthony checked in with her on Sunday night while she was working at home.
“I was beginning to think you had run away and joined the circus.” He had been MIA for several days, and she figured he had been in hot pursuit of his amateur boxer, the underwear model with the mean right hook.
“Not quite. I’ve been working things out with Alicia.” She noticed immediately that he sounded happy. More so than he had in months with Amanda.
“Has she forgiven you?”
“Almost. I’m working on it. She doesn’t trust me yet, but that’s fair. I’ll have to prove to her that she can.”
“That sounds reasonable.” It appeared that she was the kind of woman who wasn’t willing to be treated badly by anyone, which Kate approved of. She was that way herself, ever since Tom. It was why she kept serious relationships at bay, and figured she didn’t need one. But they were a lot younger and had their whole lives ahead of them, with everything that entailed, marriage, kids, heartbreaks, divorces, good times and bad times, joys and bitter disappointments. “Am I going to meet her?”
“You will,” he said vaguely. “It’s too soon now.”
“Have you heard from Amanda?”
“We texted a couple of times. She sounds okay. She’s in Paris with her mom. Maybe this is a relief for her too. The wedding got to be overwhelming. If I ever do get married, I’m going to city hall. I don’t need or want all that fanfare and pretentiousness. Her father was going to spend a million on it.”
“At least,” Kate agreed with him.
“That’s sick. I’d rather have the money to start a company.”
“I think she liked it, and he wanted to indulge her.”
“I guess,” he said, sounding baffled. “I just wanted to let you know I’m alive.”
“I’m happy to know it,” she said. A few minutes later, they hung up and she went back to work. Kate wasn’t hearing much from Claire these days either. She was giving her mother the cold shoulder. She could live with it, although she was sorry not to be more supportive of the pregnancy, but Claire wouldn’t let her. She was still proving a point, and Kate didn’t want to cater to it, and didn’t have time to do so. She had sent her half a dozen helpful books on pregnancy, as a loving gesture, and Claire hadn’t even thanked her.
* * *
—
Monday at the office was as stressful and hectic as she’d expected. Tuesday was worse. She had another meeting on their big case with Jack Hirsch and Scott White as opposing counsel. She was seeing a lot more of them than she wanted. They were trying to wear her down, and she was developing a severe aversion to Scott White, the other partner on the case. She thought he was good looking and arrogant, and too cocky for his own good. His comments to and about her client were sometimes downright rude. She didn’t like her client much either, but she had to be professional about it.
She noticed that White stared at her a lot to unnerve her. She had a strong urge to tell him to get over himself and behave. He thought he was God’s gift to the legal profession. He was a few years younger than she was. He fit the bill as tall, dark, and handsome, and looked a little like Tom, but she was impervious to him. Good-looking men didn’t impress her, and she considered him a huge pain in the ass. Most of their meetings so far had been time wasters. It wasn’t working. It just made her angrier and tougher. She had half a dozen other big cases on her desk, not just theirs.
She was sitting at her desk reading discovery files at home, when Bart showed up on Tuesday night, as planned. She hadn’t dressed for him, she hadn’t had time. She was in work mode, only got home from the office half an hour before he arrived, and hadn’t had time for dinner.
She realized that in the beginning of their relationship she would have used the half hour to dress for him and do her hair, and look relaxed when he arrived. But she had too much work right now. She looked distracted when he finally showed up, half an hour late himself, but ready for playtime. She had hours of work left in her briefcase.
“You look busy,” Bart said jovially when he saw the files spread out on her desk. She poured him a Johnnie Walker Blue Label on the rocks. She was out of gin, and couldn’t shake him a martini.
“This month is a nightmare,” she confessed, sitting down next to him on the couch, “and next month will be too. I hate these damn frivolous cases.”
“So do I. We need to change the laws governing that in this country. Anybody can sue anybody here and it costs them nothing, with contingency lawyers, and the plaintiffs don’t have to pay legal fees. They should.”
“Amen to that. So do something about it, Senator,” she teased him.
“I have a few other things on my plate right now too,” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him. He always relaxed when he was with her. They never talked about their problems. He was there for pleasure. That was the farthest thing from her mind tonight. She hadn’t even had time to brush her hair before he got there, and he realized his timing wasn’t ideal showing up mid-week. “Ready to take a night off?” he whispered as he leaned over and kissed her. She wasn’t, she was still stressed from the office, but she didn’t want to say it to him. She was thinking of getting out of bed to go back to work, after he fell asleep. She didn’t know what else to do, in order to finish her work. But she was definitely not in the mood for playtime. That was the trouble with hit and run sex and romance. Sometimes it was the wrong time, and if she wanted that kind of relationship, you had to take it when you could get it, convenient or not, and be ready to act like a geisha who had nothing else to do.
“Kids okay?” he asked her, as she poured him a second drink, and tried not to look at her watch as she did, but he saw her do it.
“Perfect,” she said by rote. That was definitely not the truth. But she knew it was a courtesy question, not a real one. Anthony and Claire were somewhat precarious at the moment, but she didn’t want to go into it, and she didn’t want to tell him she had met Tammy’s female partner of seven years, which finally explained why she hadn’t been dating. Her lack of apparent dating life wasn’t about work, it was about sexual orientation, and a secret Kate had no intention of sharing with him. She had a feeling he’d disapprove. He was very old school about some things, and Catholic, and was opposed to same-sex marriage. Kate had been too, and now her view had changed overnight with Tammy and Stacey.
“What have you been up to?” he asked pleasantly.
“Just work.” She smiled at him. He kissed her again, and half an hour later, she
followed him to her bedroom, and for the first time with him, she felt like a hooker. In real life, if they lived together or dated seriously, she would have told him that she had too much work to do to think about sex at the moment, but he only had nine hours to spend with her, and she couldn’t be picky, and didn’t want to let him down, or refuse him.
She took a quick shower, put on a pink satin dressing gown with nothing under it, and slid into bed beside him, knowing how he expected the evening to end. It was why he stayed with her. He kept condoms in her bedside table, which always made her wonder if he was sleeping with other people. She wasn’t. He was the only partner she’d had for six years, and the sex had always been very good. Not earth shattering, but good, and satisfying for both of them.
He pulled the tie of her satin dressing gown loose once she got into bed. He had already been there when she slid in beside him, and he dropped the pink satin gown on the floor and felt the silk of her body as he kissed her, and slowly convinced her this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Their lovemaking was quick that night, and he’d been drinking before he got there. It didn’t affect his performance, but he was sound asleep and snoring seconds after rolling off of her. She looked at him lying there next to her. He was a handsome man but he suddenly felt like a stranger, and she felt like a trick. They had talked for half an hour at most, had sex for ten minutes, and at six A.M. he’d be leaving to catch his plane back to Washington. It was a total of forty minutes of interaction. She wondered how much hookers charged for that, or if they had a minimum if he spent the night. She never used to think of that with him, but now she did. Something was missing. The fire had gone out of it for her, and maybe for him too.
She got out of bed while he was sleeping, retrieved her dressing gown from the floor and went back to the living room to read discovery files, and went back to bed at midnight.
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