Second Time Around

by Christine L'Amour

  “Right,” Jerry agreed, amiable enough—but he still had a look on his face like he knew things couldn’t be that easy.

  “So, that’s that,” she said firmly, nodding her head. “You were right. Things are, uh, settled.”

  Jerry squinted at her. “So, you’ve… terminated… whatever it was you had with… you had going on.”

  Valerie gritted her teeth and tried to make it look like a smile. The amount of uncomfortable paused in that phrase was making her feel like she would lose her mind. The man couldn’t even say it.

  “I think Monica’s ended our romantic relationship before I could,” Valerie told him, hands closed in fists on her lap; thankfully, he couldn’t see it.

  Jerry winced at her words and Valerie failed at looking like that didn’t satisfy her.

  “Monica is a sensible woman,” Jerry said, pushing up his glasses and moving to cross his arms. “She’s amicable, competent, quiet, and sensible. She has a son, she’s had a good life, she’s got no reason to stray from the proper path. I’m glad you’re starting to see the sense in it, too, Valerie. I’d be very sad if I had to let you go.”

  “You don’t need to, everything’s completely fixed now,” she said to him, too brightly to be anything but sarcastic.

  “Something tells me you’re not being genuine,” he snapped, fingers digging into his arms. “I don’t have any time for this, Valerie.”

  Valerie tried to gentle her smile, to soften her spine, to look anything but furious and wounded at the fact that this man had driven Monica away from her. She tried to look like she didn’t absolutely hate him for that.

  “I just told you Monica broke up with me,” Valerie snapped back, unable not to. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Everything’s perfect for you now, Jerry. What else am I supposed to do here? Shall I go and tell Monica you’d like us to lick your boots also?”

  “I will not stand for this,” Jerry hissed, standing up.

  Valerie stood up as well, uncaring that her chair scraped loudly over the floor.

  “I will sue you for discrimination, Jerry,” she told him, teeth bared in something too sharp to be a smile. “Will I win? I don’t know! Probably not. I know that. But what a mess it will be! What a scandal. What a shame. People will surely talk. You might be able to sweep us under the rug, to quietly demand that we ruin our lives for you, but not if I bring this to the public. Being a homophobe is so 2008. God knows what your investors would think about being connected to someone like this!”

  Valerie thought about being meek, about trying to obey, about her plans going down the fucking drain not five minutes after she walked into this room. She watched as red rose to Jerry’s face, as he looked at her like she was a bug he wanted to step on and found it hard to understand why he couldn’t.

  “Leave my office,” Jerry demanded. “I have to think about all this.”

  Valerie gathered her fuming wits and left. Let him sit in and stew in his anger; she was going to be in the next room doing the very same thing.

  Her only consolation was that he had Monica pegged down as an obedient, proper employee, and that this wouldn’t blow up in her face again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Girl, you need to relax,” Sharon told her, no-nonsense.

  Monica paced her living room and sent her a glare, because she was busy talking on the phone. It was late and Sharon had come to sleep over at her place so they could eat pizza and watch some shitty movies and wallow, but Monica had people to call and work to do, and it wasn’t working out so far. David was at his grandparents’ house; things were chilly between them and Monica, but they loved David.

  She had hung up on her mother and then done nothing with it, and nothing had happened. They had gone back to their awkward, uncomfortable status quo, and a part of Monica couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t pushed Valerie away, if it would have made her snap at her parents, tell them some choice words, if Valerie would have made her angry enough to shout at them. As it was, she endured stony silences and refused lunches and dinners and nothing had changed.

  Nothing changing was good, she told herself, even though she hated it.

  “Monica, hang up the damn telephone and come watch this movie,” Sharon said, annoyed. “You’ve barely sat down since we arrived. I know you have a lot of work, but we’re here to relax, and we can’t do anything if you’re off talking to clients or whatever it is you’re doing!”

  Monica gave her an apologetic grimace, guilty, and tried to cut her conversation short. She was on the phone with Mrs. Harrison trying to set up a meeting, but… a part of her even wondered why she bothered. Jerry obviously hadn’t been convinced, her work had been for nothing.

  She sat down beside Sharon on the couch and sighed. Sharon wound an arm around her shoulders.

  “You need to relax.”

  “I will,” Monica muttered. Her phone chimed; she checked it and saw she had a new email from Jerry. She sighed again, long and hard and exhausted. “I will, as soon as Jerry stops sending me emails at nine pm.”

  “Don’t read it,” Sharon said with a groan.

  Monica shrugged and resignedly read it.

  She froze.

  Jerry said unexpected circumstances and we talked about this not a week ago and surprised by how vehement and rude she was and things can’t go on and I can’t deal with this anymore.

  “What’s up?” Sharon said with a frown, having realized something was badly, badly wrong.

  “Jerry’s… Jerry’s demoting me,” Monica said hollowly. Sharon stared at her, confused, and Monica tried to look back at her and couldn’t do it. “He says he can’t deal with this confusion and this nonsense anymore and that’s he’s. He’s transferring me. He says I’ve got an eye for details and I’m the one who said the financial department needs more people, so he’s sending a formal request to have me sent there. I was going to organize and head my own fucking project and he’s sending me to the job I told him to hire interns for.”

  “Oh,” Sharon said, “shit. What the fuck happened? I thought you said your last conversation with him wasn’t too bad!”

  “It wasn’t,” Monica said, tears welling up in her eyes, and then she remembered: “it wasn’t that bad. So, what happened?”

  Sharon winced, because she realized the answer before Monica did. It didn’t take long for Monica to figure it out, though.

  “Valerie,” she said blankly.

  ***

  Monica went to Valerie’s apartment, because she didn’t want to do this in front of her neighbors and didn’t want David to hear any of it. She left him with her neighbor and called Valerie, who quickly texted Monica her address, and went. She didn’t offer Valerie any explanations as to why she wanted to see her so suddenly on a Saturday morning and Valerie didn’t ask. Valerie sounded happy, even, that Monica was talking to her.

  Monica was tired, and angry, and she wanted very badly to punch Valerie in the face.

  The other woman quickly buzzed her in, then opened her front door for her a bare second after she had knocked, an expression on her face like she didn’t know what she was supposed to be feeling. Monica marched in without waiting to be invited, quickly looking around: Valerie had few pieces of furniture and even less of any kind of decoration. There were boxes in the corner of the living room, still unpacked. Monica wasn’t surprised that Valerie’s home looked like she hadn’t meant to stay.

  “You want some coffee?” Valerie asked awkwardly.

  “I want to know what you said to Jerry,” Monica said coolly without turning around to look at her.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “Why?” Valerie asked at last. “It doesn’t really concern you, does it?”

  “It concerns me when he’s fucking demoting me over it!” Monica hissed, swiveling around to glare at her—at Valerie.

  “What?” she asked, baffled. “What on Earth are you talking about? Demoting you—Jerry wouldn’t do that. He can’
t do that. I told him we broke up, just like he wanted!”

  “You fucking said something, Valerie! He’s sending me to do work that I had suggested interns for! Interns! I was supposed to win this competition and earn a fucking promotion and head my own team and my own project and look at what you’ve done!”

  “It’s not on me if Jerry’s being an asshole!”

  “It is if you’ve pushed him into it!” Monica shouted. “What did you do? What did you say?”

  “I just said I would fucking sue him if he tried to fire me,” Valerie shot back, righteously angry, like being fair mattered when there was so much more on the balance. “Which is what we should already do, because he’s fucking threatening us with having us fired already and that’s against the law—”

  “Sue him?” Monica asked, incredulous. “You threatened to sue him? And now it’s falling on me? How fucking dare you! You know this is important to me! You know I’m trying hard! You know I have a son!”

  “It’s not on me—”

  “It’s never on you, is it?” Monica snarled.

  “He should be sued!” Valerie yelled. “He should be fined; he should be punished for doing this to us!”

  “I can’t fucking believe you,” Monica said, amazed.

  “Why are you here?” Valerie demanded, crossing her arms defensively. It made her look small. “Just to shout? Well, that’s done. See you Monday, nice taking to you.”

  “You can’t kick me out like that!”

  “I’m not kicking you out,” she snapped. “But what else do you want from me? You broke up with me! You don’t get to make demands on how I deal with my shitty boss, and it’s not my fault if it ends up affecting you because you don’t have the guts to stand up for yourself!”

  Monica stared, shocked. She barely heard what Valerie said, stuck on some of her words: you broke up with me. Monica hadn’t. She hadn’t broken up with her, because there had been nothing to break, they hadn’t been dating, they hadn’t been together, really. But she still floundered, shocked by the words.

  “I didn’t,” she tried, “I didn’t break up—”

  “You’ve been avoiding me for over a week now, you never tell me shit, you act like I’m personally responsible for every shitty thing in your life—of course you’ve broken up with me!”

  Monica supposed, then, that Valerie was right; there was nothing for her to do, being here. She hadn’t quite realized that she had meant to break up with Valerie by coming here. She had thought about demanding something, about shouting, about slapping her, about pulling her away and the satisfaction of watching Valerie’s heartbreak—but she had indeed done it already, hadn’t she?

  “You’ve made it very clear you can’t forgive me,” Valerie continued, voice losing its steam. “You won’t talk to me; you won’t look me in the face. Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t think this would affect you; I told Jerry you broke up with me and he was all like, Monica’s so good, so nice, so reasonable, I didn’t think he’d take it out on you.”

  Monica stared. She didn’t know what to say. She wanted, abruptly, not to be here. She wanted to hug Valerie, to cradle her face in her hands and kiss her. She realized all at once that it had been weeks since she had touched her. Weeks. It felt so long, suddenly; it felt like a fucking eternity.

  Valerie was still looking like that at her: evenly, resignedly, and so tired.

  Monica shook her head and made her way out.

  ***

  When Monica arrived home and went to get her son, he was fast asleep. She gathered him up in her arms from the neighbor’s couch, smiled gratefully at the woman, and went back home. She didn’t wake him up. She didn’t take him to his room. She went to her bed and set him down gently, carefully, so he wouldn’t wake, then laid down next to him, holding him to her chest.

  David wasn’t a mistake. He had been very wanted; he had been the only thing she had truly wanted out of her relationship with Julien. It had been a disaster; her parents had introduced him to her during a random barbeque and she had let them, because the fire in her had dimmed and she hadn’t wanted to fight with her parents anymore, who had been then the only people she had had. They dated and married very quickly, and not a week later her parents had started bothering her about grandchildren, which was when she realized that was what it had been all about: another child, someone who could be normal, a baby for them to love in an uncomplicated way.

  She had given it to them. She had given David to herself, and she had always loved him more than anything, this boy who was shunned by his father when he found out the truth about her. Why she didn’t love him. Why she never had, never could.

  She buried her nose in his soft baby hair.

  He was, really, all she had. She remembered Valerie in her home, playing with him filled with delight, looking at him like he was everything she had never dared to want. She had looked at him like she had loved him, instantly and completely, just because he was Monica’s son, because that was how he deserved to be loved.

  Monica ached with it. She ached and hurt and missed her so badly it made her feel ill.

  Chapter Fourteen

  What have I done, Valerie asked herself, curled up in bed with her covers over her head. What have I done?

  Jerry’s actions weren’t on her, but it was still her fault that he had demoted Monica. Monica’s happiness hadn’t been on her when they had been children, but it was still her fault that Monica had been miserable. That was how it went, wasn’t it? Valerie Dawkins did not grow roots because she was always running—but also because she tended not to know what to do with anything she tried to keep; she ended up ruining it all.

  Now she laid in bed and considered answering her mother’s calls.

  Her phone was buzzing with it, clattering along her comforter. She wanted to answer it, just because she wanted to talk to somebody, anybody, even if the thought of calling her parents to complain about anybody being homophobic nearly made her laugh.

  She wondered what Monica was doing now, what she had for dinner, how her baby son was. She wondered if Monica would ever, ever forgive her, and if she would ever get to kiss her again.

  They were thinking nearly the same things, truly; they were both heartbroken, both tired, both in love.

  ***

  Valerie stared at her orange juice and out at the street in turns. Clarice was drinking coffee and looking at her with concern. She had thrown away her amusement; Valerie was too quiet for it, too strange. They were in the same café they had been some time ago, having brunch. It was good. It was nice, having a friend. Valerie liked growing this tiny, tiny root.

  “I don’t want to pry,” Clarice said. “If you want, we’ll sit here for a few hours and talk about fish and my new hot neighbor. He has twin kids and they are adorable, and I feel like all my motherly instincts are punching me at once when I see him leave the house with one strapped on each side of him. So, we can talk about that. Or you can tell me what exactly happened between you and Monica.”

  “Nothing,” Valerie said with a sigh. “Or, exactly as predicted,” she corrected herself. “Of course, Jerry would take it out on her, since she’s the easiest target. Of course, she would hate me for it.”

  “She can’t hate you for the things Jerry does,” Clarice said softly.

  “Oh, she can,” Valerie said softly. “She does. And she’s right—”

  “She’s not right!”

  “She is, because if I hadn’t done anything, this wouldn’t be happening.”

  “Well, maybe she shouldn’t have bent her head and obeyed him like that, either,” Clarice said with a frown. “Valerie. Monica is not a saint. She’s also responsible for the things that happened to her. It’s not on you that she didn’t stand up for herself or that she decided to break up with you.”

  “Maybe it is my fault!”

  “She’s not a saint,” Clarice repeated. “She can make her own decisions and the things that happen to her are partially the consequences of those deci
sions. Drink your orange juice, Valerie, you look like you need it.”

  Valerie drank her orange juice, utterly miserable. She knew Clarice was right, but she also knew Monica was right, and overall, she had no idea what to do, now.

  “She’s broken up with me,” she muttered.

  “Yeah, a while ago, right? I noticed.”

  “She didn’t think of it like that,” Valerie said with a sigh. “We weren’t really together. She can’t forgive me and I get it, even though it hurts. Christ, it’s been so long since we kissed, since we—since anything. It felt like a fucking dream. I don’t know, maybe I hallucinated the whole thing.”

  “I don’t think you did,” Clarice said dryly. “We could all see you making cow eyes at each other through the office, even if I didn’t recognize it as that for a long time. Look, Valerie, you’re not a kid anymore. You can fix this.”

  “Right,” Valerie said, looking into her empty cup.

  “Don’t lose hope,” Clarice told her brightly, patting her shoulder. “If everything goes to shit, I’ll call you over to my apartment to see the catfish.”

  “Clarice, you’re a true friend.”

  “You’re welcome. Now listen to me when I tell you about this neighbor of mine. I haven’t caught his name yet, but he’s only moved in last week. I know he’s single because he lives alone and doesn’t wear a ring and also because the landlady told me everything she knows about him.”

  “All right,” Valerie said easily, even smiling. “Tell me about your new man. Let’s stop talking about all this bullshit.”

  ***

  Valerie wanted to talk to her. She gathered her things, put her jacket on, and held the doorknob of her front door with white knuckles, unable to open it. She shouldn’t go bother Monica. She shouldn’t call her, much less show up at her apartment like this, out of nowhere. She knew she had a way higher chance of actually talking to Monica if she went through with this shitty plan, but would it be worth it starting the conversation by chasing Monica when she didn’t want to be chased, annoying her, making her angry? Maybe Monica was super busy, anyway.