The Love Wars

by Heller, L. Alison

“So, I was thinking I should sit at her table for dinner.”

  “You’re going to sit over there?”

  He gives me a strange look. “You’re okay with this, right? It’s why I came tonight.”

  “Yeah, of course.” I can tell my tone is harsh.

  He looks about to say something but doesn’t and walks away. At my table, Henry and the litigation guy are talking about junior years abroad. I’m guessing this is because it’s the last time either one of them left the office for more than three consecutive days.

  Everett comes over to our table. His eyes light up when he sees the empty seat next to me. “Is this free?”

  Henry looks at me.

  “As free as it could possibly be,” I say, gesturing to the chair with a flourish.

  Henry gives me his own strange look and turns to Everett. “You making the rounds?”

  “Exactly. I like to circulate at functions like this,” says Everett. “So, how is everyone doing?”

  “Great,” Henry and I say in unison.

  “Good,” says Everett, not picking up on our flat tones. “Molly, did you see what the box office winner was last night? I know you’re into those stats.”

  Everett proceeds to prattle on about the detective sequel that beat out the animated sequel, apparently to the shock of him and Factsination! screens everywhere. I turn my head slightly in order to watch Caleb and Marissa. They’re absorbed in conversation, their foreheads leaned in together, laughing pretty hard for people discussing corporate structuring. I’ve never noticed just how curvy she is. Of course, she doesn’t usually strut around the firm in a strapless emerald green cocktail dress.

  One of the Trusts and Estates associates starts talking about her year in Cologne. Everett asks her about the beer, and Henry leans next to me and follows my gaze. “What’s happening there?”

  “He wanted to talk to her about a deal.”

  He gives a skeptical look just as Marissa throws back her head and laughs so loudly we can hear it over the din. “Is it serious between you guys?”

  “Nope. A loose end from college.”

  “Then don’t worry about it,” he says, his tone brusque.

  “Well, all right, then.” I tear my eyes away from the Caleb-Marissa tête-à-tête. “Where’s Julie?”

  “Not here,” he says in a way that stops me from asking any follow-up questions, and imagining Henry heartbroken, I feel a twinge of protectiveness.

  I try again. “So, you did a semester in Spain? That’s cool.”

  “Verdad,” he says, turning away from me and focusing his attention on the Trusts and Estates associates, who are talking with Everett about the headiness of the bouquet on a sparkling Shiraz.

  A painful two hours later, Dominic Pizaro starts his welcome speech. He’s so glad to be able to share his slice of paradise with us and so grateful for all the hard work we do every year. How nice to spend time together as a family, without the pressure of the office. Everett leans forward in rapt attention, but almost everyone else is hunched over a BlackBerry, ignoring Dominic’s remarks in favor of dealing with some pressure from the office.

  When the servers start bringing around dessert—the ubiquitous molten chocolate cake—I know it’s finally safe to leave. Caleb and Marissa are nowhere to be seen, having disappeared somewhere prior to Dominic’s remarks. At least those two are getting a release from the pressures of the office.

  I nudge Henry. “I’m going,” I whisper. Not that he’ll care. He’s basically been ignoring me all evening.

  “Wait,” he says, turning away from patio furniture or whatever mind-numbing thing he’s been discussing with the litigation partner. “How are you getting home?”

  “I’ll try to get a ride with Liz and Rachel. Or I’ll just take the train.”

  He looks at his watch. “It’s past ten.”

  “Trains run past ten.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  “I don’t want to make you leave early.”

  He gives me a look that says he’d be happy to leave. “You have everything? You need to say good-bye to anyone”—he glances at Caleb’s jacket on the back of my chair—“or return anything?”

  “Nope,” I say. “You?”

  “Nope.”

  He gets up.

  As I start to rise out of my seat, Everett grabs my arm. “Where are you going?” he says, his voice urgent and low. “You can’t leave before Lillian does.”

  “Do me a favor, man,” says Henry, leaning down. “I’m leaving, but I’m worried about missing more remarks. Will you cover for me?”

  Everett cocks his head. “You shouldn’t miss anything. There’s usually not remarks after Dominic.”

  “But if there are. Can you tell me what’s said? You know, just because this is my first retreat as a partner and what if someone asks me about it? I’d be really grateful.”

  Everett nods solemnly.

  Henry meets my eyes. “Okay, Molly. You hear that? Because I know you have to leave too. Everett’ll tell us if we miss anything. You comfortable with that?”

  “Thanks, Everett.” Before he can answer, I bolt after Henry, leaving Caleb’s jacket on the chair behind me.

  __________

  Henry doesn’t say much in the car, so I fiddle with the radio, landing on a top forty station. He winces and pushes a button, rejecting my selection.

  Music fills the car. I listen for a moment, not recognizing it.

  “Who is this?”

  “Guster.”

  “It’s good.”

  Henry nods. I imagine him browsing through albums and purchasing songs. I glance at the backseat and picture him lacing up the running shoes that are peeking out of the navy duffel bag there, or filling the stainless steel water bottle that’s been rolling around on the floor under my seat, making repetitive clanks.

  We drive down I-95 without talking, so I listen to the music.

  You’ve dreamed a thousand dreams, none seem to stick in your mind

  Two points for honesty

  It must make you sad to know that nobody cares at all

  “Very uplifting,” I say.

  Henry gives a wry smile.

  “What?”

  “It’s just a little ironic.”

  “How so?”

  “Well. I’ve always thought this song is about having the guts and effort to go for it.”

  “Like a Gatorade commercial?”

  “Whatever, Molly.”

  “No, seriously. And your point is?”

  “Nothing. No point at all.”

  “So, what are your plans for tomorrow?” I say as he downshifts off the FDR.

  “Um, work,” he says, an edge to his voice to let me know it’s a stupid question.

  “Okay. So, can I ask you some Walker questions or is it off-limits now?”

  “Why would it be off-limits?”

  “You haven’t seemed that interested, you know, since you made partner.”

  He snorts.

  I drop it. The rest of the car ride passes in silence.

  As he finally turns onto my block, I unclick my seat belt and open the car door. “Okay,” I say, one foot out of the door, “what’s with the attitude?”

  “Me?” He takes his eyes off the road and looks at me. “What’s with my attitude?”

  “Yeah. You. What’s with your attitude? You’ve been hostile all night.”

  He whistles. “That’s quite an accusation, coming from you, Molly.”

  “What does that even mean? I’ve been fine tonight.”

  He snorts again.

  “Oh my God. Did you just snort at me? I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been the slightest bit hostile to you.”

  “Molly, take a look at yourself. You show up late to the retreat. You can’t stand being there—”

  “Neither can you, Henry. We were both saying how miserable it is. You said—”

  “Yes, Molly, I know what I said. But I was joking. I was making
the best of it. You just mope around, so caught up in your own complications, you don’t even see it. You bring that—” Henry stops midrant and clenches his teeth, his jaw tendon pulsing through his skin. “I just don’t know if I can deal with all of this anymore.”

  “All of this?” My voice sounds far away. “What’s all of this? You mean you can’t deal with me.”

  Henry doesn’t correct me and I sit stunned for a second, unable to think of anything biting or sophisticated to say. “Jesus, Henry. That’s really mean.”

  He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something else. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. I close the door with a slam.

  32

  ____

  where everybody knows my name

  I’m in Fern’s apartment, command central for Walker v. Walker, and increasingly the only place I feel remotely effective as a human being. In the weeks since the beach retreat, Henry and I have avoided each other so successfully it’s as though we’re motivated by a restraining order. Home has become a depressing mountain of paper, each pile a reprimand.

  Being at Fern’s feels like living that sitcom theme song, where I push open the door into a room where everybody knows my name and is glad I came. There’s snacking and camaraderie, support and shared interests. Our first meeting, way back over a year ago, had been late at night in one of the conference rooms at my rented office suites. Fern had looked around at the mismatched gray and blue chairs, threadbare red carpet and artless white walls and offered up her place for the next meeting.

  It’s a definite step up. Since her divorce from Robert, Fern has lived in a two-bedroom in an old building in Beekman Place, a jewel of a neighborhood with charming town houses dotting quiet streets. The trees have started to leaf out this week, and the explosion of green makes me feel as though I’ve stumbled outside of Manhattan, into a cottage with Indian rugs in vibrant colors covering the knotty-planked wood floor, and an actual fireplace anchoring the sitting room. The couch design must have been certified by a therapist: its arms curl around its heavily cushioned back so that sitting there is like being hugged.

  Right now Fern’s boss, Brian Flannery, and I are perched there, where I’ve been prepping him for his testimony as a character witness for Fern for the past couple of hours. I can tell Brian’s not feeling lulled by the couch’s affirmations. He leans forward, his elbows on his khaki-clad knees, swaying his back in a side-to-side fidget until I look up from my legal pad. “So, that’s it. Your testimony will probably be on Wednesday, so keep the time free.”

  “Freaking finally,” Brian says, getting up and reaching his arms over his head until there’s an audible pop somewhere on his body. He nods, satisfied, and looks at his watch. “Not much of my Sunday left.” I know it’s an act. Fern has required flexible hours for court dates, visits and meetings, and Brian hasn’t missed a beat. I wonder what Bacon Payne would look like if Brian were in charge of corporate culture.

  “Sorry, and thanks.” I rip out my notes and bring them over to the dining room table where Jenny, Brian’s daughter, is sitting on the floor, papers all around her.

  “These go at the front,” I say as Jenny nods, her ponytail bobbing against the hood of her yellow terry sweatshirt.

  Every day, I thank the heavens for Jenny. A junior at Baruch College, she is interested in law school—poor soul—and wants some extra pocket money for a trip to France this summer. For thirty dollars an hour, she has become our document queen; since she started, our files have been tucked away in Bankers Boxes in proper-looking rows with uniformly typed labels, grouped in anticipated order of presentation. Jenny is neat and clean down to her gestures: folded hands, brisk nods, small, quick steps. I imagine her whole life is organized; her countertops probably have no evidence of daily preparation; deodorant, hairbrush, jewelry, are all probably returned to their place in a clutter-free drawer immediately after use.

  Brian chucks Jenny’s shoulder in farewell. Then he lopes over to Fern, who is exiting through the swinging kitchen door, carrying a container of hummus and a bowl of baby carrots, to give her a quick cheek-peck good-bye.

  “Is this a good breaking point? Sandwiches?” Fern says.

  Fern is a big believer in constant feeding. This, at one o’clock, is her third food offering of the day.

  “Yeah, let’s take twenty minutes and eat. Then”—I point to Fern’s sister, Lolly—“you’re up.”

  “About time. I have been so looking forward to this.” Lolly rubs her hands together in mock anticipation. “I assume that I’ll get to testify about my plans to superglue that bastard’s nuts to cable wires.”

  Fern winces and Lolly and I exchange smirks, both committed to zealously hating Robert Walker on her behalf. We’ve speculated in front of Fern about her lack of venom toward Robert, our theories ranging from abused-spouse syndrome to her being blessed with a saintlike compassion, to her simply being too tired and broken by him to muster hatred. Last month at Fern’s, I’d been reviewing the motion papers and Lolly, who’d been sitting quietly on the couch leafing through them after me, threw one—Risa’s motion to disqualify Emily Freed—across the room.

  Fern had stuck her head in from the kitchen. “Everything okay in here?”

  “This gets me insane, you know that? Why are you so…placid?”

  Fern sat down on the coffee table. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Tell us something. Something mean and nasty about Robert.”

  “That’s not going to help anything.”

  They both looked at me and I shrugged. “It might.”

  “Okay,” said Fern. “Okay. This would kill him and I don’t know if he still does it, but”—she pointed delicately to her crotch—“down there. He dyes his hair.”

  “To match his?” Lolly clapped loudly. “That same beach boy wanna-be brown?”

  “Yep.”

  We giggled, the three of us, for about five minutes, until Lolly stopped and sat straight up. “That was good, Fern. That was a start, but it wasn’t really mad.”

  “Please, you two make me sound like some sort of martyr. I’ve gotten mad.”

  Lolly eyed her. “Name once in your life.”

  “How about when you forgot to put gas in the car and we got stuck on Carson Street and missed curfew?”

  “Seriously?” Lolly had said. “That was high school. Your last example of being angry is from twenty-five years ago.”

  “Maybe I don’t get angry,” Fern said. “I get sad. And that makes anger seem, I don’t know, too hard.”

  Lolly and I had both shut up.

  Now we examine the sandwich offerings and I’ve reached out to grab some turkey and cranberry relish on rustic-looking bread when Fern’s buzzer sounds. “It’s Marie,” Fern says. “She has something this afternoon, so she needs to prep with Molly now.”

  Lolly shrugs. “I’m here all day. What do I care?”

  Marie Washington opens the door, wheeling a black hard-shelled bag behind her along with a hurried, formal air that alters the mood of the room, as though a teacher just walked in on the rest of us lip-synching Britney Spears songs in the girls’ bathroom. A corporate lawyer by training, Marie met both Fern and Robert when all three of them worked in the executive offices at CBS. Now she’s the vice president of marketing at Bakers Brands, a conglomerate with fancy offices on Park Avenue, and the only mutual friend of the Walkers who chose Fern. As she shrugs out of her camel trench coat, I drop the cranberry-spread sandwich and introduce myself. She looks a bit surprised as she adjusts the sleeves of her black suit. Then she recovers, her even features breaking into a warm smile.

  “Can we do this now?” She pushes her cropped bangs off her forehead. “I have to fly out to Minneapolis in a few hours. Sorry for the rush.”

  “Of course.” We sink into the huggy couch to walk through the points of Marie’s testimony. She’s the most engaged witness I’ve prepped, nodding, offering suggestions and asking questions about the case. After about an hour,
we’re alone, Fern having disappeared into the bedroom to take a phone call and Lolly having gone outside for a smoke break.

  Marie has obviously been waiting for this moment. As soon as the door clicks behind Lolly, she leans in and lowers her voice. “So, Molly. I think it’s great you’re doing this. Fern loves you and is so grateful. Meeting you, I’m just a little surprised at how”—she pauses—“young you are, especially for a case this big. How long have you practiced law?”

  I feel my cheeks start to color. “Almost five years.”

  “Wow, that’s all? Um, where did you go to law school?”

  I tell her.

  “Oh, okay, okay. Excellent school.” I can see Marie relax a little, relieved that I didn’t announce that I got a correspondence degree from Our Lady of Jurisprudence in Virgin Gorda. “And you’re out on your own?”

  I nod. Technically true.

  “So, where did you work before that?”

  “Bacon Payne.”

  Marie gives a knowing smirk. “Break in Pain. Great firm. I started at Crowder Withersby myself. So, what made you leave? The hours? The lack of humanity?”

  I nod vigorously. “Tell me about it. So, how was Crowder? I have some friends there now.”

  “No, really. When did you leave?”

  I pause. “I still work there, actually.”

  “Wait. I don’t understand. I thought you were out on your own.”

  “I am. I started my own firm and I’m associated with Bacon Payne.”

  “How is that even possible? You work both places? What does Bacon Payne think about that?”

  “They don’t know, actually.”

  She inhales sharply and looks down. I can tell she’s trying not to raise her voice, which now sounds a little as though she’s been strangled.

  “Okay. And how many other cases do you have, as you work full-time for Bacon Payne and part-time for my best friend?”

  “Oh, no other cases. Really, I—there’s just this arrangement with Fern.”

  Marie stares in disbelief as I tell her the story: how hard it was for Fern to find an attorney, how Lillian refused to take the case. I leave out the part about the Payne-ment. I already feel fool enough.