“You might want to call security,” Wendy told Janet. “I hear they’re very good at removing undesirables.”
Mary darkened, the blow finally cutting through layers of denial and moving into rage. “You know this is bullshit. If I were a man, I’d be CEO by now.”
“No,” Wendy said, sitting down on Janet’s desk. “If you were a man, you’d be an asshole. You’re still an asshole. You treat your employees like shit. You only care about yourself. You nearly bankrupted my family’s company and sent thousands of people into unemployment just for your own ambitions. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking any of this is because you’re a woman. It’s because you’re a piece of shit. Now here. Your severance package.”
She reached into her pocket and flipped something small and shiny Mary’s way.
Mary caught it.
A quarter.
“For the laundromat,” Wendy said.
Mary left between two security guards, about as defeated as she would ever be. That wouldn’t be the end of it. She’d sue for wrongful termination and anything else she could think of, try whatever dirty tricks were left in the book, but she’d lost. Everything else was just how bad her losses would be.
Wendy wasn’t thinking of any of that just then.
Janet had still not said a word.
“I’m sorry about the pictures on my phone—” Wendy started.
“No, no, that’s Mary’s fault. She hacked your phone, that’s not your fault. Wallace Savin is your grandfather.”
“Maternal,” Wendy said. “His daughter married my dad, hence Wendy Cedar…and umm…so I’m in high school and I am the smallest avionics nerd you ever did see. Model airplane club, remote control helicopters, everything, everything. I’m already applying to all these engineering schools and I’m getting acceptance letter after acceptance letter and I realize, why bother? It’s the family business. All I have to do is turn in a job application with one of my parents for a reference and I’m on the top floor. So I have this idea—more of an experiment. I go to college across the country, I don’t tell anyone who my dad is or my mom or my grandfather. And I’m actually really good at this engineering stuff. I mean, I let my parents go half and half on tuition, I’m not crazy, but I get a part-time job to pay for my books, I meet some really cool people who don’t have summer homes, and when I graduate, I put in an application for Savin Aerospace’s intern program. And they choose me. Not because of my mom or my dad, but because of my work. It’s my job, it’s mine. And the shitty apartment I live in is mine. And this really amazing woman that I fell in love with along the way… I really hope she’s mine.”
“Your father’s Jacob Cedar,” Janet said.
“Yeah.”
“He’s on the board of directors.”
“I know.”
“I’m fucking the boss’s daughter.”
“Do you one better, I fucked the boss, okay, so inappropriate, forget I said that, couldn’t resist.”
“For me?” Janet asked. She was crying. Not sobbing, just with a kind of leak below her eyes. “All this…”
Wendy took a deep breath. “I would never ask you to choose between me and your career. But you don’t have to choose.”
“Yes I do. I can’t have this. Me, you—God.” Her elbow planted itself on the desk, her head falling into her outstretched hand.
Wendy took a half-step forward, going to comfort her, but also kept at bay by the sheer despondency of Janet’s grief.
“Trying to seduce a woman half my age, what right do I have…”
“How old are you?” Wendy asked.
“Forty-four.”
“I’m twenty-six, you’re not twice my age or old enough to be my mother unless you were a Teen Mom and you’re the least Teen Mom person I’ve ever met!”
Janet pried her hand away from her face, eyes suddenly red, and seeing her carefully composed face suddenly all knotted up with emotion was as shocking to Wendy as seeing it covered with war paint. “I’m forty-four, I have no children, I’m divorced, and I’m experimenting with bondage five years after it was cool. It’s fucked up. It’s all fucked up.”
“Listen, Janet—Jan…” Wendy hopped up on the desk on Janet’s side, wishing she had the nerve to take Janet’s hand. “Tell me about it. Talk to me.”
Janet took a deep breath. “Tissue.” She held out her hand. “Please, could you just—hand me—”
Wendy realized there was a box of tissues on a file cabinet adjacent to Janet’s desk, but Janet’s desk was so large that Janet couldn’t reach it. She plucked out a swath and handed them to Janet, who first dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose. The soiled tissues went into a wastebasket that was already half-full.
Wendy plucked another tissue to offer to Janet, but she was already gone. Face closed off, bricked over, the redness in the orbits of her eyes and the nostrils of her nose now seeming like graffiti on her composed expression.
Yet she couldn’t quite manage it. That wall she’d put up so many times before had cracks in it. Wendy could see it in her eyes—the thing she’d seen more and more of over the past few days, that Janet had let her see more and more of.
Her sadness.
Janet stood abruptly. Like she was ripping free of something. “I can’t have this. I shouldn’t even want it. This is just another reason…”
And she was moving, so fast and yet so controlled that Wendy thought of a machine overheating, going faster and faster until it broke down. Wendy trailed after her, knowing that Janet didn’t want to be followed, hating that she knew Janet well enough to think that, that she couldn’t be ignorant enough to try and comfort her. Maybe she didn’t know Janet at all.
She heard Elizabeth say, “Jan, the Carson meeting?” through the open door, but the pace of Janet’s footfalls never altered as she left the office.
A moment later, Elizabeth appeared in the door of the office. She closed it behind her. Wendy sat at Janet’s desk, not even feeling the warmth of her. Wendy chewed on her thumbnail and thought of all the worries she’d carried that someone would find out who she was. All her self-doubt that she wasn’t proving anything to her family except how pig-headed she could be, and then there were the small pleasures in earning something and having it be hers. Her job, her work, and something of Janet Lace. And now…
Maybe it was all a waste of time. Especially the Janet Lace part.
“Did you hear any of that?” she asked Elizabeth, as if just noticing her. Fuck, it was getting awkward, brooding with Elizabeth standing in the corner like a lifeguard or something.
“Mostly the entertaining bits with Mary getting her ass kicked. I tried not to catch any of the stuff where you and Janet…yeah.”
“So you got the gist of it?”
“That, and we’ve been shooting the shit about her sex life pretty consistently over the course of our friendship. It’s been pretty dull for the last few years, actually.” Then she ventured a question like she’d been called on in school without her hand raised. “Good on you for tapping that?”
“More or less inappropriate,” Wendy said.
“Yeah…Janet’s used to it. So, uhh…you going to go after her? Seems like your…thing. If you’re not, I am.”
Wendy stood, stretched. The few moments she’d been sitting felt like a thousand years. “Should I? I want this relationship, but she told me in Yuma that it wasn’t right. I don’t want to force something on her…I want to be what she wants. Just because I can’t see the appeal of not having sex with me doesn’t mean…”
Elizabeth held up a finger, went to the drink trolley, and fetched a bottle of cognac. One glass. “This is medicinal,” she said, looking around for glass number two. “I mean, what, you thought dating your boss-slash-employee would be easy?”
Wendy pushed her hands together. “Kinda thought the boss and employee things canceled each other out. Not that I am her boss…”
“You own stock in the company?”
“I own a lot of stocks,
” Wendy said defensively, then winced as that somehow shockingly failed to make it better.
“So you own the company.”
“Only some of it.”
“You own the company, she works for the company, she works for you.”
“Okay, that’s not even the problem.”
Elizabeth found a clean coffee mug. It did not say ‘World’s Best Boss’.
“The problem isn’t the problem,” Elizabeth told her, suddenly fancying herself a philosopher-bartender as she poured. “It’s this, it’s that, it’s that she had an unhappy childhood and her marriage ended badly and her career isn’t going as well as she thought it would and she thinks her thighs are chubby…”
“Bullshit! Her thighs are great!”
Elizabeth handed her the mug. “And if she realizes that, suddenly all her issues go away and the clouds clear up and the sun is shining and the Justice League movie doesn’t suck? No, because she’s got a million things and she doesn’t want to share them and she struggles with them every day. And then she has a million other things that are great and smart and funny—maybe not funny—but she’ll give me the day off and answer her own phone when I have the flu, she’ll take a cut in her own salary before she lets an employee get laid off, and she…” Elizabeth lowered her voice. “She’s actually a really big fan of the Babysitters Club.”
“Shut up!”
“She has the entire series in this chest she keeps hidden. Have you been to her apartment?” Wendy shook her head. “Keep your eyes open. And make her take you to her apartment, you’ve been her bitch, you deserve to sleep in her bed. Jesus, what’s wrong with you? You’re making us all look bad.”
Wendy laughed and drank, and made a somewhat gratified, somewhat pained noise when it hit.
“Okay, you can hold your liquor. I’m starting to approve of you.” Elizabeth took the mug back and drained it. “Boss isn’t here. I haven’t goofed off like this in five years…my point is, all this shit she has? It’s her shit. It doesn’t go away just because she’s gone down on you—”
“She hasn’t gone down on me—”
“Fuck you, get that shit. Are you a lesbian or aren’t you?” Elizabeth slammed the mug down on the desk. “Making us look bad…listen, she is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and she is also one of those Indiana Jones boulders of neuroses and regrets and just, just bullshit. You take the one, you take the other. She can’t just toss this away because it’s inconvenient for you. Even if she’d love to…be worthy of you.” Elizabeth sighed and poured again. “You’re young and beautiful and now you’re rich. She doesn’t want you to waste yourself on her.”
Wendy held up her hands. “Okay, I get it; Dr. Phil, no more drinks—”
“This is for me.”
Wendy ignored her. “Janet could be getting on a plane to Bora Bora right now, so could you just tell me if she loves me or not? Did she tell you? Did she say those exact words?”
“Wendy, over the past few months, she’s said everything about you. All our conversations have had you in them. Either she’s crazy about you or she’s going to murder you.”
Wendy made a weighing motion with her hands. “Fuck it. I’m going after her.”
“She’ll be at the park.”
Wendy didn’t take the time to go around Elizabeth, just jumped up on the desk, jumped off the other side, and was out the door.
She thought she heard Elizabeth asking for a raise as she left.
It was a lovely day in the park. Janet could tell from the office—see the blue sky, the white clouds, the green grass. But she didn’t really know. That only came from sitting on a bench, feeling the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin and hearing the discordant little harmony formed out in nature. Running feet, walking dogs, snatches of conversation, even the cars in the distance, a part of the world along with the birds and the rushing wind.
Roberta Olsen, formerly Roberta Lace-Olsen, was walking with her girlfriend. It had the slowness and comfort of a walk that was entirely unself-conscious. No neurotic notions of exercise or enjoying nature or a feeling of obligation, just a desire to enjoy the day and the company in equal measure. As she walked, her girlfriend told her a story, hands gesturing to and fro, her overly-animated face miming expressions, and Roberta laughing, laughing, laughing, until she had to pull her girl into an embrace as if to stop her from joking even more.
Janet watched them from the park bench. She wondered if it had ever been so easy. Her discomfort had nothing to do with seeing them together. That provoked little reaction in Janet that wasn’t scientific. But her office had been her castle—not her home, never her home, her home and Bobbi’s—and now it was unsafe. Wendy had invaded it, revealed it to have been compromised so insidiously that Janet had never even noticed, and she couldn’t reconcile its sanctity from Wendy’s hold on it.
Wendy had come looking for her, found her, she was looking at her even now. Trying to think of something to say to her while her eyes reminded Janet how possessed she was. Her own skin felt half Wendy’s. So much of it touched by her, still hungering for her…Janet was losing too much, giving up too much that she had hoped to hold in reserve, safe and sound where it couldn’t be lost, but Wendy had been ravenous for it. And Janet hadn’t had the will to stop her. She’d signed over so much of herself that she wondered if there was any left. She worried that if there was, it went with Roberta, already too far away for her to feel.
She’d gone to the park to feel safe. It didn’t feel that way. Not with Roberta there.
Fuck it, she should probably say something before Wendy got bored and left. “Are you supposed to be a Secret Service agent or something? Sit down. For God’s sake, I’m not a deer.”
Sheepishly—as much as she seemed capable of sheepishness—Wendy came out from behind the tree she’d been somewhat hiding behind, somewhat leaning on, and collapsed onto the other side of the bench with a kind of relief. Janet guessed she thought the hard part was over.
“I was going to write you another e-mail, but then I remembered you’re old, so I thought you’d prefer talking in person.”
Janet replied, “Funny.”
“Yes, I am. Thanks for noticing.” Whatever brave face Wendy was putting up, died in the wake of Janet’s apathy. She folded her arms, played with her hair a little, she let Janet stew. Gave her time to tell her to go away.
Janet would’ve, only she wanted something from her. She didn’t know what. Maybe some kind of closure. Something to make it okay that they weren’t going to see each other anymore.
“I didn’t follow you,” Wendy said, her voice slightly bright with false cheer, and it wasn’t even very cheerful. Her eyes sought Janet’s, but didn’t find them. “Elizabeth told me where you were. And it’s been an hour, so… I wanted to make sure you hadn’t hit your head or anything. Gotten amnesia.”
“What’s that?” Janet said by rote.
Wendy smiled at her. Janet wished she could look at her. But she felt more fragile than ever—more in touch with her own weakness. She could see the breadth of it, all its dimensions, how far down it went. But then, Wendy already knew.
The least she could do was hold up her end of the conversation. “I assume Elizabeth gave you a pep talk too?”
“Full disclosure: I also got one from my sister, so a double pep talk.”
“And I’m guessing Elizabeth told you I just need to open up and let you in and be happy, everyone wants to be happy…”
“Actually, it was about how being a little closed off and withdrawn is just who you are. But being alone isn’t. You don’t have to bury everything.”
Wendy left the words hanging, for once not pressing, not poking, not prodding, but letting Janet process. Janet looked out, down maybe a hundred feet to the pond, where Roberta was buying a pretzel from the vendor. One to be shared.
“Are you worried about the meeting with Carson? Think it’d be shallow to bring it up?” Wendy winced, worried she’d put her foot in her mout
h, and Janet wanted to reassure her, tell her how cute it was, actually… She didn’t. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll tell you just so I can think I’m considerate. As it turns out, the CEO thinks everyone has been working so hard that they deserve a break, so he ordered pizza for the whole company. It’s a one-time thing, though. Don’t expect pizza every week.”
“All to get me out of a meeting.” Janet felt a tear rebel against her control, and wiped her eye. Wendy saw it and didn’t react, maybe didn’t even think how weak she was, not even being able to have a simple conversation. “Not that it’s come up, but this is why I don’t recommend employees date shareholders. It conjures thoughts of nepotism.”
“I’m not a nepot!” Wendy insisted. She slid along the bench. “I mean—I am Wendy Cedar, but I’m just Wendy Cedar. You know?”
“That’s not the point. That’s not even the issue. You were right. I am scared. Scared for you. Look at you, Wendy Cedar. You’re young and smart and ambitious. You deserve the whole world. You could win it. Why do you want to be saddled with me? I’m not even good enough for her.”
Wendy followed her eyes out to the couple, just like any other, and Janet almost laughed at the thought that she probably couldn’t even tell which one was Roberta. Someone who could mean so much to her, go through so much with her, and now—a stranger.
“She’s moving away soon,” Janet continued. “It’s a shame, she loved this park. I wish I could let her have it.”
“And you?”
Janet shook her head. “I loved the way she loved it.
But Wendy understood. “You know, I did some reading about the Kee Bird. It’s still in Greenland. You can go there and look at it, it’s very well-preserved. It’s still standing, Janet. Even if it can’t fly. Even if some people aren’t interested in it. Isn’t that impressive enough? Still being there after over seventy years?”
“That’s a very sentimental way to look at an old bucket of bolts,” Janet told her.
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