by Cee Smith
Just then, Henderson walked in, whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Maybe the week off was a bit of a vacation for the partners. Although, I assumed if I was busy working on a case that wasn’t even mine, then they were working just as hard to keep up with their caseloads.
“Oh, hello ladies. How are you this morning?” Kerri and I mumbled our responses, killing the conversation with a simple meeting of eyes. By the time Henderson responded, we were already by the door, readying our escape. I caught my breath out in the hallway and widened my eyes at Kerri. She stopped for a moment too, brushing off her own anxiousness before continuing her way down the hall toward her desk.
The day passed by in a flurry of ruffling papers and people scurrying about. Every time Henderson or Fitz would even walk in the direction of my desk, my spine would stiffen and my breathing would accelerate. I felt like there was a target on my desk, steering everyone to drift my way so I would be on edge for the entirety of the day. It made getting any work done almost impossible. When the workday was finally over, without so much as a look of disappointment directed at me, I knew I was in the clear—at least for the day.
Driving home, I thought over what Kerri had said that morning. Is Joel just waiting for the right time to reach out to me, or is he moving on as if the last week meant nothing to him? I shouldn’t have cared. I wasn’t supposed to care, but lying in bed that morning with Joel being the first thing on my mind, I wondered if he felt alone in his bed that morning, too. Probably not. I’d never been to his place. It was only my house that was now littered with memories, like glitter sticking to every surface, and no matter how much I tried to wash him from my sheets and all surrounding surfaces, he still clung to me.
I turned onto my street and noticed a van parked just outside my house. It was white with dark blue writing on the side, looking like some kind of carpet cleaning service. There was plenty of parking on the street, leaving me slightly annoyed that they just so happened to park directly in front of my home, but as I drove closer, I noticed men stomping across my yard. I pulled into the driveway, deciding not to drive into the garage like usual.
The men continued walking around my yard as I got out of my car. They carried items back and forth between the van, undeterred by my appearance.
“Are you Blaire? Sorry I don’t have a last name,” the man in acid-washed jeans and a sweat-soaked shirt asked while looking down at his clipboard, somehow confused by the absence of my name.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t order…” I spun around, looking at the work they were doing. Some men were vacuuming up the fallen bits of stucco from my front yard, while another pair were slabbing spatulas filled with putty against the side of my house—repairing the damage my house incurred by the storm.
“Looks like you got an admirer. Anyway, I just need a signature. The boys should be done in about a half an hour, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Oh, OK.”
Still stunned by what he said, I absently took the offered pen from his hand, signed, and handed it back to the man before continuing my way to the front door. The path curved around the edge of my house, and I stopped at the vision before me. A tall rectangular vase sat on my stoop with a couple hundred yellow roses covering the bottom of my door. I didn't need to read the card to know who they were from, but that didn't stop me from curiously looking for the card while unlocking the door.
“Do you need help with those?” the man with the clipboard asked as I stared at the mass of flowers that would have to be carried in sideways just to fit them through the door.
“Would you mind?”
“No. Of course not. Here, let me get—” He didn't finish his sentence before he was hunched over, lifting the vase from the ground. I pushed the door open, stepping in first to hold the door open for him. He stepped inside, his eyes moving about the room as he looked for a place to set the flowers down.
“Oh, I'm sorry. Can you just set them over there?” I pointed at the dining room table and watched the flowers bob and sway as he lugged them through the living room before setting them down on the table.
When the door closed behind him, I made my way over to the vase of flowers. Setting my purse down, I plucked the card I'd spotted while I was admiring the flowers when I was outside.
Thank you for your hospitality.
Please call me—
Joel
The same business card I was sure was stuffed inside Kerri's bin was inserted into the envelope. I didn't know what to make of his words. It looked like something he'd have his assistant send me—one more thing to take care of in addition to his dry cleaning and takeout, I presumed. I was offended by the winter-cold language and lack of personality, especially after everything that had happened.
Crumpling the card, I tossed it in the trash just inside the kitchen doorway. Thirsty, I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and ignored the groan of the fridge as it rattled from my enthusiastic close. I grabbed a bag of Chex mix from the pantry and returned to the living room to unwind after a long day. I ripped open the bag and the assortment scattered across the sofa. The more I tried to pick up the mess, the more they crumbled beneath my hands. When I felt the need to take a break from sweeping up crumbs, I finally acknowledged my anger. Except, I wasn’t sure if it was from the fact that I was still mad about his lie or that he didn’t put much effort into a sincere apology. The gifts were nice and unexpected, but just like that card, they lacked personalization.
I didn't know why it bothered me, especially since I didn't expect to ever speak to or hear from him again. The truth I tried so desperately to drown out, but what kept resurfacing with a vengeance, was I didn't want there to be an end to us. I was having a hard time getting my heart on the same page as my head because continuing any kind of communication with him was a sure-fire way to ruin my life and all the hard work I'd put in to make it that far.
I calmed down enough to finish picking up the crumbs still dotting my couch while I convinced myself I was making the right decision. Even if I was completely over the fact that he lied to me, I wasn’t about to risk my job for him. I’d sacrificed a lot for this job—my life back home, nights out with friends. Who knows how many friends I could've made or relationships I could’ve had instead of spending my nights researching cases?
All of my routines felt foreign without Joel around. I couldn't explain it, but in the week I'd spent with him, I'd seen a side of myself I had all but forgotten. Wasn't that what my ex, Chase, complained about? Where I considered myself focused and driven, he considered me boring and methodical. Clearly, I had the capability to have fun and live life outside of my job; maybe I just hadn't found the one person who would make me want to do that. Of course, it just so happened to be that the one person who could bring out the fun, carefree side of me would be the one person who, above all else, I shouldn't have any contact with outside of my job. Hell, seeing as how I wasn't assigned to that specific case, I wasn't so sure that I should have had any contact with him at all.
Before I knew it, the show I had been staring at for the last hour was ending, and if anyone would have asked me what it was about, or who was in it for that matter, I wouldn't have been able to say. The bag that I'd been dipping my hand into without thought as to what I was putting in my mouth was now empty, and I sat all alone on my couch in work clothes that now looked as strained as I felt.
“Please call me,” he wrote, but I wondered if he was actually waiting for my call. Is his night just as shitty as mine while he waits by the phone for me to call him? What did he expect? To pick up where we’d left off? Thank him for the flowers and the help with my house? Who was I kidding? If things were different, I’d be inviting him over to show him how thankful I really was. I doubted he was waiting around for my call anyway—not Playboy Joel who probably had a phone full of numbers for women waiting and eager to fill in the new vacancy. Now that things were back to normal, we both could return to reality, where he wouldn’t spend a second
night with me and I wouldn’t have the time of day for him. Except, the memories of him were too intense, his image circulating through my body like blood in my veins, only pulsing faster with each thought.
I needed sleep. Needed a break from that house. From work. From green eyes and conjured smiles. I needed a break from reality.
Even in my sleep I dreamed of him, of a night that felt endless, with warm air that lapped at my skin like rushing waves and writhing bodies that seemed to evoke a need in me that couldn’t be relieved. It was just like that night in the club—I seemed to be stuck in a liquor haze where everything was euphoric, but none of it was real. I watched the words unfurl from his lips, how they looked soft and plump, how the words made his mouth pinch together and purse. It looked like he was inadvertently blowing air kisses. I mentally grabbed hold of those kisses, pocketing them for later while taking note of what he actually said.
“Do you come here often?”
Real Joel wouldn’t use a line as tired as that, but I went along anyway.
“No. You?” I asked, already knowing the truth. Joel looked too comfortable there. How he sat at the bar like a king on his thrown, while everyone seemed to move around him like court jesters, there for his amusement.
“Only when I’m looking for a luscious piece of ass. I think it’s safe to say I found her.”
And like every other night, just when I was getting to the good part, my alarm went off.
Chapter Three
Kerri wandered over to my desk just before noon, an occurrence not uncommon. It was her expression that gave me pause. She looked pensive, with her perfectly drawn-on eyebrows furrowed, showcasing the lines creasing her forehead. A web of primed and concealed lines danced out from the edges of her eyes—revealing her true age.
“Did you already hear?”
“Hear what?” I asked, now pushing aside all the work that had accumulated over the last week. It wasn’t often Kerri came to my desk without that sparkle of exuberance that made her light up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.
“Sarah just penciled in an appointment for Lara to come down to the office today. Henderson is going to council her over the next steps. Have you heard anything from Joel?”
“He sent me flowers and repaired my house.”
She looked hopeful, filled with a glee that I just couldn’t muster. The look vanished from her face when I continued, “Oh, and he gave me his card.”
“What do you mean, he gave you his card? Like his business card? Ew.”
“I know. He told me to call him, but what’s there to say?”
“Are you still going to help Henderson with the case?”
“Yeah. I need this. This could be the one that seals the deal. Will Sarah be taking notes in the meeting?”
“She or Darcy. Why? Do you want me to have them send over a copy?”
“If you don’t mind,” I said, batting my eyelashes and widening my smile.
“Quit your flirting. It’s wasted on me…unless you’ve got something in your pants I don’t know about.”
“Ew. Gross, Kerri. Get out of here.” I shooed her away from my desk, and she gave me a wink over her shoulder as she sauntered away. On the outside I may have been all smiles and giggles, but on the inside I was cringing. This would be the first time I would find myself possibly face to face with Joel’s ex, Lara, and this wouldn’t be a typical run-in of exes. Partly because she had no idea who I was, but more so because if Joel didn’t agree to paying damages out of court, we would be helping her nail him to the wall. And during the six months I’d been at the firm, we’d rarely lost a case.
This wouldn’t be the first time I would see Lara without the bruises marring her face. I couldn’t stop myself from looking her up after the blow-up with Joel and my phone call with Kerri. From what I knew about her, her life seemed to have turned around the moment she started dating Joel a year ago. The earlier images of her spanned from cut-off shorts and spaghetti-strapped shirts to Gucci dresses and Louboutin shoes. I watched Lara transform from trailer-park peasant to couture queen as I clicked through photo after photo. With each click I wondered if the evolution of Lara was precipitated by Joel or if he was responsible for the change.
My desk was located on the second floor adjacent to the elevators, so anyone exiting the elevator would only be able to see me if they glanced back or if they were specifically looking for me.
Luckily, when Lara exited, she didn’t glance back, which gave me the opportunity to look at her without feeling awkward that I’d been staring at her petite 5'4" frame. Her hair was glossy black, like patent leather, cut just above the collar of her blouse in an inverted bob, without so much as a hair out of place. She was polished in every sense of the word. Her blouse and skirt were unwrinkled—a feat that seemed impossible if she’d driven anywhere in this Vegas heat. The seams of her stockings weren’t askew in any way, and her shoes looked like she popped them out of the box just before exiting the elevator. She was everything I imagined one of Joel’s girlfriends to look like. Manicured—in a way that I could never, nor would ever want to be.
The marble floors echoed her arrival, and it could have been a figment of my imagination, but it felt unusually quiet the moment the elevator dinged her arrival. There was no flurry of activity, no papers rustling or keyboards being pounded by acrylic nails. The room was perfectly vacant. The quiet was confining, stifling, distracting. It drew more attention to her presence than I cared for. I wanted to be lost in my work so much so that I didn’t notice her arrival or departure. There was no apparent reason for my discomfort, but her being there brought out the guilt like a sinner at church. Would she be able to see what I’d done? Would she know I was with Joel? She could get me fired. Blackballed from practicing law not only in Vegas but maybe all of Nevada. I’d have to take the Bar wherever I ended up because I’d be forced to move. Lara may not have known my secret, but my precarious future was in her hands.
With my nerves on high-alert, feeling like they’d combust from the tension, I got back to work—the work that I was actually being paid to do, not the work that I’d been obsessing over ever since Henderson & Fitz took Lara on as a client.
Twenty minutes later, I was just settling into a groove of fact-checking when my desk phone rang.
“Don’t hang up.”
It was the voice I’d been missing for days, and the one I least expected to hear on the other end of my work phone.
“Are you crazy? Are you trying to get me fired?” My eyes swung around the room as if anyone walking by would know who I was speaking to just by how panicked my voice sounded. But I have to admit, it is nice to hear from him, especially after that impersonal card he left. I banished those thoughts as Joel stammered on with words that flitted through my ears like bees whipping through a garden. I should have hung up. I shouldn’t have cared why he was calling or what he had to say. They could be tracing this call. At the time, I didn’t really know who they were, but it was enough to snap my mind into thinking straight—something that was obviously hard to do when it came to Joel. It seemed I only needed to hear his voice for my brain to check out, flipping the closed sign to alert all other thoughts that my brain would no longer be servicing them for the time being.
“I’ll call you back. Let me call you right back.” My words rushed out over his. I hung up, ignoring the frantic sound of his voice and his desperation to keep me on the phone. His words were gibberish in my tunnel vision to hang up. I breathed a sigh of relief that I was able to actually cut ties with him, and also because I hadn’t been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.
I stared at the phone log on my receiver for minutes while I thought about calling him back. If I didn’t call him back, I was sure he’d just hit redial. Whatever he had to say, I was going to hear it, one way or another. So I figured I’d get it over with and call him; at least there was a fail-safe in place. If I didn’t like where the conversation was going, I could just say I had to go for some work
emergency or another, and he would be none-the-wiser.
My feet danced against the marble floor beneath my chair, releasing the nervous energy like raindrops beating against metal roofs. The phone only rang once before he answered.
“What do you want, Joel?” I whispered his name before continuing at my normal level, “I thought I was pretty clear that we had nothing left to say.”
“I don’t want to get you in any trouble, but I wanted to hear your voice. You don’t miss me?” The desperate plea I’d heard only moments before had been replaced with a voice I was used to, familiar with. One that whispered words between my thighs late at night. Just thinking about that voice stirred up a different kind of desperation.
An exhausted breath left my lips, but I didn’t get a chance to respond before he was cutting me off again.
“You don’t really need to answer that. I know the truth. Did you get my flowers?”
“Yes, I got your flowers. Thank you.”
“Did you see the card?”
“You mean your business card? Yes, Joel, I got the card. What do you want? Some of us actually have work to do. Not everyone can skip work to hide away in their mansions.”
“I thought you liked your job. Would you rather be hiding in my mansion with me? I can make arrangements.” He chuckled as if he hadn’t a care in the world, as if his ex weren’t in our offices right now going over a plan to destroy him—or at the very least, leave him destitute—as if he hadn’t just buried the last member of his immediate family only three weeks ago. I couldn’t decide whether he was delusional or just genuinely that lighthearted. Whatever it was, I could use some of that, especially if anyone were to catch me on the phone with him.
“Joel…”
“OK, OK. I want to see you.”
“We’ve already been over this.”
“No. You talked, I listened, and now it’s my turn to talk and you to listen. In person.”