“Rings a bell,” I say. Of course I know it. I don’t tell him I was a philosophy major. Partners aren’t interested in LBL, life before law. And, more than that, they like to hear themselves speak, and feel like they are teaching us.
But of course I remember the classic story.
Plato asks his teacher to describe love. And the teacher tells Plato to walk through a field and find the best stalk. When Plato comes back empty-handed, he says he found a great stalk and didn’t pick it because he didn’t know whether there were better ones out there. So, the teacher says that is love. You only realize love’s worth once it’s gone.
Then Plato asks his teacher to define marriage. And the teacher says to go into the field and chop down the tallest tree. Plato comes back with a tree that’s neither healthy nor tall. The teacher asks Plato why he brought back such an ordinary tree and Plato says because of his earlier experience. He didn’t want to come back with nothing. The tree was not bad, so he cut it down. And the teacher says that’s marriage. Love’s an opportunity, but marriage is a compromise.
“I only remember the gist,” Fisher says after a big gulp of bourbon. “Love is like a beautiful wheat field, but marriage is like a dying tree.”
“Ah,” I say, nodding. Guess now’s not the time to ask him about his wife.
“So, you want a family?” Fisher asks, casually, like he’s asking if I want another drink.
“Sure,” I say, perhaps a bit too quickly. I wonder if he’s trying to gauge how many years he and his partners can get out of me before I pop one out.
“So did I,” he says. And I can picture the kids from the pictures in his office.
“You have these dreams,” he says, swallowing. “But the problem is they come true.”
A baby cries.
“Got a mop bucket handy?” Fisher says. And I can’t help but smile.
The hotel lobby is packed.
“What’s the commotion, Cindy?” Fisher asks, eyeing her name tag as we check in.
“A medical malpractice conference,” the lady behind the desk says.
“Better than Candy,” he mumbles to me. “But still no Prudence.”
“So here we are in the throes of a malpractice conference, huh?” I say.
“Doctors and lawyers. Lethal combo,” Fisher says, and asks for directions to the cigar bar.
The cigar bar?
“Too late to work,” he says. “Let’s grab a bite.”
I follow him, noticing for the first time that we are wheeling the same efficient little suitcases. His is just an older model. We travel down a carpeted corridor toward music and the smell of smoke. And I find myself missing Giuliani and his smoking laws.
In Fisher-talk, grabbing a bite apparently means ordering cigars and booze. He orders two Bloody Marys and two cigars. He hands me one of each. I thank him, shove the cigar in my bag, and think of poor Monica Lewinsky. The little place is packed. It’s ironic that a bunch of lawyers and doctors are sitting around smoking and drinking, bantering about professional responsibility and malpractice.
“How do you like it?” Fisher asks as I sip my drink.
“Not spicy enough,” I say.
Through the fog of smoke, I see Fisher smile; the lineup of imperfect teeth glistening with chandelier glow.
In the corner, a fat man and a girl who could be his daughter huddle and laugh.
“That’s not his wife,” Fisher says, instructing me on the obvious. And I mine his words for judgment, for disapproval, but I don’t detect any. “Don’t blame him. Probably has a witch of a wife at home. Let the guy have a little fun.”
“And who are we talking about?”
Fisher shrugs. “You’re young. You’ll learn. Can’t live life with the dying tree. Sometimes you’ve got to visit that pretty little field again.”
And I don’t have to check my handbook on sexual harassment to determine that this isn’t the portrait of appropriate.
I should be offended. Mom would probably throw her drink, or slap a cheek. But I stay put, sipping red vodka, breathing in his precarious words with his cigar smoke.
“Did you always want to be partner?” I ask.
“Hell no,” he says, taking a drag, laughing deeply.
“So how did you get here?” I ask.
“American Airlines Flight 759,” he says, pointing to my glass. “Or have you had too many to remember?”
I smile.
“It just happened. The guys and I started as summers. Worked a little, partied a lot, went to Yankee games, accepted our offers in August.”
I try to imagine a younger Fisher. A little more hair, little less belly. But my imagination fails me and all I can see is the aging boy of a man in front of me, reclining in a deep velvet chair, desperately inhaling cigar smoke in August, numbing the pain that’s evident, quieting dreams forgone. Flirting with the closest thing to him, a person who will listen or pretend to, who will nod at appropriate times and even laugh at a bad joke.
“Before I know it, I’m a seventh year. I have a wife. And she’s pregnant,” he says. “Time to grow up. Time to provide. An inspiring tale, huh?”
And I think of Mom’s words. Growing up is not a fact. It’s a decision.
“Almost as profound as Plato,” I say. And drink some more.
“Don’t squander it,” he says, patting my knee, pulling himself to stand, leaving his dying cigar in the gold ashtray, and heading to the bathroom. “Don’t do what I did. Don’t let this job suck the life from you.”
“Okay,” I say. And wonder if it’s already too late.
My BlackBerry buzzes. And for the first time in too many hours I think of Sage. I didn’t call him when we landed, which is something I always do. The little screen lights up, a small beacon in the dark cave of a bar. And it’s a text message. And not from Sage.
Phelps: What are you up to?
Me: Not too much. You?
Phelps: In a smoky bar, getting my drink on. Missing you.
My heart jumps.
Me: Oh.
Phelps: Purple is a good color for you. Or is it navy??
I look up, scan the small room, and there he is at the bar, mere yards away, grinning behind a glowing pint of Guinness.
Fisher returns, rescues his cigar. “You and that thing. You chatting with your man about this creepy old geezer?”
“Something like that,” I say.
Phelps: Ah, so you traded up?
I smile.
Phelps: Room 547. Maybe I’ll see you later when u lose the old man?
After billing a few more drinks to our clients, we stumble to the elevator, pulling two generations of suitcases behind us.
He walks me to my room and waits as I find my key. “Shall we have a nightcap?”
I look at him, the bloodshot eyes, the stray mustache hairs probably left over from a hasty morning shave.
“Better not,” he says, answering his own question, looking down. “Could be trouble.”
Before turning to go, he kisses me on the cheek. “Good night, Quinn. You’re a good kid.” And he disappears down the long hallway, the nutty smell of cigar smoke trailing behind him.
Once he’s gone, I retrace my steps. Back onto that elevator and press 5. I walk slowly, 553, 551, 549…547. I knock softly, as if this is any less of an action.
“I knew you’d come,” a voice says. And then he opens the door. And he’s mere inches away, smiling like nothing ever happened.
“Still not lacking in the confidence department?”
“Guess not,” he says.
Silence.
He insists I come in for a drink, that we hardly got a chance to talk in January. Knowing I will blame everything on the cocktails, I enter.
Phelps heads straight for the minibar and fiddles with the little key. “It’s one of those ones with a motion sensor that charges you for everything you touch,” he says. “The curse of technology.”
“Then don’t touch,” I say, looking around the dark room.
But he already has a fistful of mini bottles and a Toblerone bar. “Nothing wrong with a late night snack,” he mumbles.
“Don’t need the calories; I’m getting married soon,” I remind him.
“Screw calories. You look incredible,” he says, handing me a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a square of chocolate.
I look at the little bottle, start peeling away at the black label. “Who is this Jack Daniel? Wouldn’t it be cool to have a drink named after you?”
“I know it would be delicious,” Phelps says, smiling. “But would it be The Prudence or The Quinn?”
Before I know it, most of the minibar contents are scattered between us on the beige bed; a tin of cashews, a jar of gummy bears, bottles of water and champagne.
Phelps feeds me a pretzel. And before I finish chewing, he’s kissing me. And I’m kissing him back. He rolls on top of me, kicking bags and bottles to the carpet below.
And we’re naked. This doesn’t feel as wrong as it should because I’ve been here before. So many times. Like a memory. Like a dream.
But real.
“You still on the pill?” he has the prudence to mumble.
Before I have a chance to answer, his tongue is back in my mouth and it seems he’s presumed a positive response to his romantic question.
When we’re finished, we lie there like we always used to, toes touching, staring up at the ceiling. There’s a crack running between the two overhead fixtures we never turned on.
“When is she due?”
“Any day,” he says, looking away.
“And here you are,” I say, looking at him, searching those eyes for sadness, for remorse, for love.
“Here I am,” he says.
“Good thing you inquired about the birth control situation. Did you ever think to ask her that one?”
“I do love her,” he says, and all I can think of is dying trees and lonely stalks.
“I’m sure you do. You don’t have to justify it to me,” I say. “And I love him.”
“I’m sure you do. You don’t have to justify it to me.”
“Why did you do it?” I ask. “You didn’t have to marry her. It’s practically in vogue these days to have a baby out of wedlock.”
He doesn’t answer me. “Why’d you?” he asks.
“Why did I get engaged?”
“No,” he says. “Why did you leave?”
Why did I leave him? And I don’t have a good answer for him. Or for myself. Perhaps because boredom settled like fog over our yuppie existence? Perhaps because it isn’t prudent to waste time on a first love? Because we all know first loves don’t last. Or do they?
“I don’t know,” I say, and as I say it, I wonder if it is a copout, or simply the truth. But then I think of Mom, her wisdom that reasons often manifest after the fact, that the architecture of decisions is often only perceptible in retrospect. So I qualify these words. “I don’t know yet.”
And then he asks me the question he’s never asked: “Had you already met him?”
I look at him, at his pleading blue eyes, the scar above his lip where I snagged him on that fateful fishing trip.
“Do you want to know the answer to that?” I ask him.
“I guess I have it,” he says. He looks down and plays with his ring finger. No ring.
“Where’s the ring?” I say.
“I wear it most of the time,” he says, still staring down, playing with that finger.
“Just not when sleeping with women who aren’t your wife?” I say, climbing out of bed, shielding my naked body—the body he’s seen countless times before, the body he’s just consumed along with a mini fridge full of junk—with a filthy hotel bedsheet. “Might as well be a heart-shaped tub.”
He buries his head in his hands.
“The good husband,” I say.
He throws his legs over his side of the bed, facing away from me, collects his boxers from the carpet—Brooks Brothers, plaid, an old birthday gift from me—puts one leg through and then the other. “Yes, the good husband.”
There’s nothing wrong with a late night snack.
But I fear that an ex is like that state-of-the-art minibar. No harm in looking. But if you touch, you’ll have to pay.
Chapter 22
I open my eyes. Phelps sits next to me on the bed, staring. Like he always used to.
“You still sleep with your mouth open,” he says. “You look like a trout.”
“Trouble sleeping?” I ask.
“No. Best sleep I’ve gotten in years,” he says, standing, opening drapes. Summer sun slices in on us. “Hard to sleep through your pocketbook symphony though. That thing’s been buzzing all morning.”
“Shit,” I say, checking my watch, scrambling for my things.
“Let me guess. Hot coffee date with the old man?”
“Something like that,” I say, escaping to the bathroom. The lights are harsh, highlighting every smudge and wrinkle. I splash cold water on my face. I scan the countertop and see the familiar lineup. Old Spice, shaving cream, Q-tips…Ro gaine…I grab the bottle and take it out to him, smiling.
His cheeks turn pink and he grabs it from me. “She doesn’t want me to be bald,” he explains.
“I wouldn’t care if you were bald,” I say.
“I know,” he says, looking down. “That’s the problem.”
When I leave his hotel room, he follows me out, onto that same elevator, a few floors down. He trails behind me as I find my own hotel room door, the one I never opened. And he walks me inside.
“You can go now,” I say, avoiding his eye, heading for the phone on the bedside that’s blinking red.
He ignores me. “Your room’s exactly the same,” he marvels, looking around.
“They’re all the same,” I say. “They always are.”
As I dial down to the front desk, Phelps grabs my hand, squeezes hard, and whispers, “No regrets.”
“No regrets,” I say back. And wonder if I mean it.
And then he’s gone.
A guy at the front desk answers, “Good morning, Ms. O’Malley. It seems there’s been an incident.”
No shit. For a moment I wonder how this clerk knows about my latest indiscretion.
“Mr. William Fisher was taken to a local hospital a few hours ago,” he says. “He asked that we contact you.”
I hang up. In the small bathroom, predictably blanketed in beige marble, I splash cold water on my face. And cry. And as I cry, I wonder why exactly I am crying. Is it because I have just ruined my future by dipping into my past? Is it because my boss has been hospitalized? Is it because I am finally seeing the true reflection of a pathetic creature? Is it perhaps simpler than any of these things? Or is it all these things—the confluence of adult crises—commitment and infidelity and sickness and loss? Is it the realization that there is no going back?
In the lobby of the hospital, I buy two coffees.
A nurse leads me down a dim corridor on the cardiac floor. “He’s in there,” she says, pointing to a door that’s slightly ajar.
I hesitate and knock. For a moment, all I hear is the buzzing from some machine and a toilet flushing in the distance.
“Come in,” he says in a strong voice, those two words I’ve heard so many times when I’ve knocked on his office door.
But this time when I walk in, he’s not behind his vast desk, clicking his fancy pen. This morning, he’s a different man. No pinstripes or designer tie. The color’s gone from his face; he’s horizontal and hooked up to a number of tubes.
His cigar bar wisdom finds me now. And the pat and predictable words, bequeathed from one generation to another, echo in my head. Don’t do what I did. Don’t let this job suck the life from you.
“It’s a good look, huh?” he says, managing a laugh.
“Not bad.”
“A few cocktails and one bloody cigar and see what happens?” he whispers, smiling. “The gods are punishing me.”
“The price y
ou must pay for being King Porterhouse,” I say. And together we laugh—mine high and nervous, his deep. But the harmony ends and we’re left with a vulnerable expanse of quiet. I stand next to his bed, put my hand on his arm. “You okay?”
“Sure thing, kid,” he says matter-of-factly, a bit too quickly, with the detectable defiance of a seasoned attorney who’s not quite telling the truth. Or who doesn’t quite know it.
What he should say, it seems, what we so rarely have the courage to say: “I don’t know.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
And now Fisher really laughs, shaking in his bed, making those tubes dance. And I’m relieved to see some color again in his cheeks.
“What’s wrong? Where do I begin? Today, nothing but a little old-fashioned heart attack,” he says. “They’ve been mumbling about bypass.”
He says these words without much affect, as if he’s delivering the facts of a case.
“Are we double fisting again?” he says, nodding toward the twin cups of coffee I’m still grasping.
I hand him a coffee, which is likely an imprudent beverage for a cardiac patient. “Half and half, two sugars.”
He smiles and nods.
“A good lawyer pays attention to details,” I say.
“Channeling the lady lawyers of latter day,” he says. “Good girl.”
I think he catches me staring at the tubes that snake across him, and the small black and green screen, the ever-changing peaks and valleys of a threatened vitality.
Don’t let this job suck the life from you.
“You can get out of this god-awful state. You aren’t trapped here like I am,” he says, tugging on his IV.
“I think I’ll stay awhile,” I say, smiling, settling into the fake leather armchair in the corner, the one patently meant for husbands and wives. I scroll through my BlackBerry, and offer a clumsy joke: “Any chance we can bill this time to the client?”
Life After Yes Page 20