by Erica Katz
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Just boy stuff,” she said, so softly I could barely hear her.
“Is the mystery man making you sad?” I asked. Carmen had never actually admitted to me that she was dating somebody at work, and she certainly hadn’t admitted it was Jordan. But she had stopped denying it, too.
“He’s just being a jerk,” she said.
“Can we do lunch tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Great!” I hugged her goodbye and walked quickly to meet Peter. When I reached his side, I looked back at the lobby. Jordan was exiting the elevator bank. I saw him head toward Carmen and greet her, their body language tense.
Ugh, what an asshole. Hadn’t he learned his lesson with Nancy? I hope he didn’t think I was going to clean up another of his messes. Then I thought about what I was doing that evening, and felt like a hypocrite.
The Quality Car driver opened the door for us, and Peter gave the driver an address on Fifth Avenue as he slipped into the Escalade behind me. We sat silently in the bucket seats, a few feet apart, the tension between us palpable. I looked out the window as the misty raindrops, flirting with the idea of coalescing into droplets, drifted downward through the prism of street light. Peter took my hand and led me back in a crouch to the third row, where he kissed me. I had craved his embrace more than I had even realized since we last slept together. I didn’t dare play coy. We never did make it to the restaurant.
When I pushed through my apartment door around eleven, after I had returned from “dinner” with Peter only to order dinner at my desk to keep working, Sam was sitting on the couch, playing a video game with a headset on.
“Hey!” He leaned all the way down to one side as he steered into his virtual turn. “You motherfucker!” he yelled at whatever teenager in Singapore he was competing against.
I stared at him and felt a lump forming in my throat. “I’m going to shower.”
He didn’t hear me, or if he did, he didn’t react.
I let the water rush over my face, then placed my hands in front of me on the cool tile and rested my head against them for support, afraid I’d lose my balance.
Q.It’s clear that you formed friendships with both colleagues and clients. Did you ever feel that you were treated differently because you were a woman, not just because you were a friend or were good at your job?
A.Yes. I think Klasko works hard to promote diversity, and their emphasis includes gender diversity.
Q.How exactly did Klasko “promote” this diversity?
A.I think they aim to promote a diverse range of associates through the ranks, and that I was sometimes given opportunities to work on deals and attend social gatherings because I was female.
Q.Did you ever use your gender to manipulate a situation to your advantage?
A.What do you mean?
Q.Did you ever use your gender as a way to secure work from clients or manipulate your position at the firm?
A.I don’t recall that being my intention at any stage, no.
Chapter 21
I fought the urge to lunge for my phone and let it ring twice before I answered.
“Hey, Peter,” I answered cheerily, pointlessly rustling papers on my desk to sound as though I was in the middle of something.
“Hey, kiddo. What do you think of Vermont this weekend? We could both use a break . . . There’s still snow on the mountain, believe it or not . . .”
I didn’t hear much else, but again I forced myself to wait a beat before answering.
The trees bled into one another in brushstrokes of green and brown as we sped up the Taconic in Peter’s black Range Rover. It was the first time I had ever seen him behind the wheel of a car, and I found it strangely erotic. As I stared out the window, I wondered how exactly I came to be sitting in the passenger seat next to Peter Dunn. I was giddy with the anticipation of a weekend tryst with the man I’d been imagining weekend trysts with since I’d first encountered him.
I needed this weekend. I deserved this weekend.
“Where did you tell your boyfriend you were going?” he asked, snapping me out of my reverie.
“To an M&A team-building retreat at your ski house,” I answered, staring out the window. I wondered if he could sense the fact that I had had sex with Sam that morning. I hadn’t really wanted to, but somehow the guilt of turning him down when it had already been so long was worse than the depravity of doing it. I felt Peter watching me. “What?” I looked over at him.
“Great call,” he said with an approving nod. I knew it had been smart to tell the truth about my location and the fact that I was with Peter, but I hated that I was getting so good at lying.
I watched his large palm rest gently on the ball of the gear selector of the automatic car, sensing from his grip that he must have a stick shift back in his garage in Westchester. I wanted to know what kind of car it was. I wanted to know everything about him. I wanted to stop lying to Sam, and I wanted a weekend with Peter to turn into a full week with Peter. I took my finger and traced swirls around his scars, picturing him young, on the docks in Cape Cod. I imagined him still with the same wide, pure smile.
“I wasn’t the most well-behaved kid.”
“Hmm?” I turned my head to him lazily, still lost in my daydream.
“I used to have my hands slapped with a ruler every time I acted up in Catholic school.”
I stared at him as my mental image of him as a child vanished. Why would he have told me the scars were from oyster shucking? What was it Vivienne had said? Nobody is ever what they seem. I checked the clock. We were only two hours into a four-and-a-half-hour drive, with a weekend and a drive back stretching before us. I wasn’t about to press him on his inconsistent testimony. So I shoved it out of my mind.
We entered the house through the pristine garage, which smelled subtly of pine and peppermint, and the main floor was as lovely as I remembered it. The image of Sam and me playing drunk Scrabble and laughing popped into my head. I had a glimpse of us eating cold pizza in the hot tub. I thought of us making love on Peter’s bed. Despite the cold mountain air, I felt my wool sweater constricting around my body, and when I freed myself from it, Peter mistook my guilty sweat for something else.
As soon as Peter’s hands were on me, though, nothing else mattered. We spilled from his enormous rain shower to the plush carpeting of his bedroom; we tumbled from his bed straight into the hot tub. Tired and satisfied, we were both quiet as we pushed our backs up against the jets.
“We need dinner,” he finally said. “There’s a great gastropub in town. Great beers on tap, and they do the best Korean-style braised short rib I’ve ever had.”
“It’s five o’clock,” I said, calling my phone to life. “Early-bird special.”
“Honestly, Alex, I’m sick and tired of you always reminding me how old I am.” Peter smiled, splashing the hot water up toward my neck. I laughed in delight as I slung my legs around his waist. “Okay, seriously, we really do need to eat.”
By the time we walked into the restaurant at five thirty, we grabbed the last two seats at the bar. “Post-ski rush,” he said knowingly.
It seemed bizarre to me that Peter wasn’t more concerned about being seen in this small town with somebody who wasn’t his wife, but I was enjoying it all the same. He ordered us pints of beer and lobster tacos and tuna tartare, and we split short ribs and creamy polenta for our entrees. I’d only gotten one bite into the soft, unctuous meat when Peter got a call and excused himself with an eye roll that let me know he had to take it. I was almost through my second beer when he came back to the bar, wireless headphones in his ears, and muted his phone.
“Do me a favor and call a car to Starlight. You can bill it to—”
“Got it,” I told him. By this point, I called cars to the Starlight for Stag River almost weekly. I was glad to be useful to the client, however minorly, but in this moment my mind drifted to that night the driver had reprimanded me. “Yo
u know, the Quality drivers hate making the Starlight Diner run. Isn’t that so weird?”
Peter turned his entire body toward me as he stood beside me. “Why do you say that?”
“One of them told me so,” I said, and shrugged. He stared at me as though expecting me to continue.
“That’s beyond unprofessional. It’s not up to the drivers to like a specific route. Can you send me the name of the person who said it?”
I nodded, knowing I wouldn’t. However much my interaction with the driver unsettled me, I didn’t want to get the guy fired.
Peter looked back down at his phone. “I’ve got to get back to this—Gary is really flipping out.” He nodded in the direction of the short ribs and opened his mouth. I placed a forkful on his tongue. “Thanks for saving me that one bite,” he joked.
“You snooze, you lose,” I said, sipping my beer. He leaned in to me and gave me a brief kiss before heading back outside, and I sat basking in the glow of it until I noticed the bartender staring at me, stone-faced. He knows, I thought. If he doesn’t actually know Peter’s wife personally, he knows this is an affair. I’m sure he’s seen a million girls just like me in this town. I picked up my phone and called a car to the diner.
We spent Saturday in the spa, and as far as I could tell, the only actual break Peter took from his phone was for his sixty-minute massage. I was bracing myself for the announcement that came around four o’clock that afternoon while we were in robes on his couch, each on our laptops.
“Alex, I’m so sorry, but I have to get back to the city. But I want to take you for dinner tonight. Can we just head out first thing tomorrow? I know we were planning to . . .”
“Of course. I expected this,” I said, and smiled softly. I was surprised it had taken so long to suggest leaving early, and I was even more surprised he still wanted to spend Saturday night. We went to the local steakhouse for a decadent dinner and a bottle of red wine, and we were both peacefully asleep immediately upon our heads hitting the pillows, without so much as the suggestion of sex. We woke up at six on Sunday morning and headed back to the city just as dawn was breaking.
“I love that you get it.” Peter kept his eyes on the road as he spoke.
“Hmm?” I answered, slowly sipping at the coffee we had stopped for.
“Leaving early would have been a fight with my wife. It’s really nice for me that you get it.” He placed his palm on my knee. I nodded, thinking the same was true from my perspective. We drove home alternating between work discussions, singing along to 1970s music on the radio, and me reading Peter’s emails to him and him dictating his responses to me. I felt a new level of intimacy between us that came from sleeping next to but not with Peter.
I made Peter drop me a block from my apartment, just in case Sam was outside. As he pulled up to the corner of Twentieth and Eighth, he cleared his throat. “Hey. You know, Gary keeps telling me to remind you that we’re his guests at the Private Equity Fights Hunger gala at the Met in a few weeks.”
“I can’t wait!” My cheeks flushed, and my mind raced with the anticipation of another backseat rendezvous, this time in black tie. I smiled back at Peter and gave him a small wave. He held up his palm to me as he drove away.
I was dragging my small rolling suitcase down the bumpy city sidewalk, replaying the amazing, though abbreviated, weekend over in my mind, when a baritone voice punctured my thoughts. “Looks like you could use a hand.”
I looked up, prepared to stare straight through whatever asshole was bothering me, and saw two men, one of them beaming in my direction. He seemed much taller than I remembered, perhaps because I had only ever worn heels around him. He was wearing sweats, and his skin glowed, like he was coming from a tough workout.
“Derrick!” I took my hand off my suitcase and wrapped my arms around his neck as he bent low into me to return the embrace.
I turned to his friend. “I’m Alex.”
“Sean,” he said, stretching his hand out to me, his smooth pale skin almost glowing. I shook it as he turned to Derrick. “You two catch up. I’ll meet you back—” He stopped his sentence short and took off down the street.
“It’s good to see you. How are you? You look so good!” I gushed.
“I am good!” He nodded convincingly. “It took a minute to regain my footing, but now I’m good. Are you heading home? Can I help you to your door?”
I was too exhausted to protest, and he lifted my rolling suitcase effortlessly and fell into step alongside me.
“So believe it or not, I’m working for the Brady campaign on new gun-control policies to present to Congress,” he told me. “I’ve never been happier. It’s pretty amazing how people act dumb, make mistakes, and then we wind up in the exact position we need to be in. It’s a subconscious life-saving technique, I guess.”
“I’m so happy for you,” I said, squeezing his forearm so he knew I meant it. We walked in silence a few more paces before I slowed my gait. “This is my block,” I said, pointing east as we turned. “I wanted to call you so many times. And I tried to find you on social media . . .” I trailed off, covering my eyes to shield them from the sun’s glare.
“Yeah, I just needed to disappear for a bit to recharge. And to figure out who I was again. I was so tired of being who everybody wanted me to be at Klasko. The black playboy, the token diversity seat at a table with clients, the voice for all minorities at the firm. It was exhausting. And I didn’t feel like I fit the mold for any of them, but I think I tried so hard to be those things that I went overboard.”
I nodded. “I get it.”
“No offense, but you don’t.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” I said, slumping. “But I do get being stereotyped . . . as the ‘good girl.’ And I get the urge to break out of it.”
His expression invited me to continue.
“I just got back from a weekend with Peter Dunn at his ski house. I had him drop me off a block away in case my boyfriend was outside our building.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at Derrick as I spoke.
“Just you and Peter?”
I bit my lower lip to keep the tears at bay, and was only able to manage a small shrug.
“Must have been so terrible for you, playing the part of the good girl who got all the attention from clients and partners,” Derrick said, his tone gently mocking me as his lips formed a half smile.
I felt a laugh escape my mouth even as tears spilled out the corners of my eyes. “I just blew up my entire life. I don’t even know why I did it. It was a good life.” I looked up at my building and imagined Sam inside, waiting for me. “I don’t even know why I’m crying, because the most fucked-up thing is, I’ve never been happier. I’m the only person on earth who feels like she’s living her best life while having an affair.”
“Life is fucked up sometimes,” Derrick said, then paused. “My life was super messy a few months ago, but things settle. They always do.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “When I left Klasko, my dad got wind of what happened, and I could have denied it, but I came clean. You know his one and only question? He asked if the hooker they caught me with was a woman. I could see the relief in his eyes when I told him yes. So screwed up.” I gave him a snort of sympathetic disgust. “The hooker was just . . . a show. That guy was my boyfriend,” he continued, gesturing down the block.
I wiped my nose and smiled. “He’s cute.”
“You’re not surprised?”
“I sort of always wondered if you were gay. But I didn’t know until Carmen and I met your ex-boyfriend at Bergdorf’s.”
“James? Carmen met him, too? Fuck!” Derrick ran his palm over his head in annoyance. “Now I bet everybody knows. Whatever, it doesn’t matter now.” He sounded a bit like he was convincing himself. “I don’t have to worry what those people think anymore. And I’m all about living a more authentic life now anyway.” He seemed more certain of it in that moment.
There was so much I wanted to ask him. Why didn’t you want people to kno
w? Are you sure your father wouldn’t come around? Did you feel like Klasko wouldn’t be okay with it?
“She’d never say anything, Derrick. And I obviously wouldn’t, either.”
He shrugged. “By the way, Peter is super hot.”
I put my hands over my heart, pumping my arms in and out, mocking my own schoolgirl crush, and we dissolved into laughter.
“You’re the only person I’ve told.”
He bowed his head. “I’m honored.”
I hugged him close and held on for a few moments too long, but when I released him he looked at me for a moment before wrapping me up in his arms once again. I laughed and kissed his cheek and gave him my number and strict instructions to use it.
When I came into the apartment, Sam was sitting on the couch. “Hey! Sorry you needed to cut the retreat short. How was the drive?” he asked, without looking up from the papers spread out before him on the coffee table.
Because he wasn’t really asking, I didn’t really answer. “Hmm.” I walked over to the couch, where he looked up at me with a smile. I gave him a kiss as I took in the mess of Excel printouts in front of him. “What is this?”
“We have interest from a private equity company, and they want to meet tomorrow, so I’m just making sure I know all of our financials cold.”
“That’s great!” I sat down next to him. “Which one?”
“High Tower Capital,” he said, searching my face for recognition. I’d never heard of them. Which wasn’t a good thing for Sam. I smiled and nodded enthusiastically but said nothing. He opted not to press my knowledge of them. “Actually, it’s a four o’clock meeting. They want to go to dinner after. But I would rather go with you if you’re free, since I haven’t seen you enough lately.” I saw uncertainty flash in his eyes and instantly recalled his nerves the first time he’d asked me out, in the sticky bar in Cambridge where we met. In New York, I should have wanted to have a celebratory dinner with him too. I should have been missing him all weekend. But I didn’t. And I hadn’t. I wanted to lock Peter’s office door and screw him in his office chair. I wanted to go drinking with Jordan and the National guys, if they were around. I wanted to laugh too much, spend too much, stay out too late.