The Hazards of Hunting While Heartbroken

by Passananti, Mari

  “Wow. Oscar, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Nobody does. So I don’t usually tell anyone. Olivia knows, and Seiji, my friend from B school. And two of my college friends. That’s about it. Anyway, Richard and June died in a car wreck, when I was seventeen and a half. Their daughter, Jennifer, she’s forty-eight now and an art teacher in Sacramento, managed to get custody of me for the six months until I turned eighteen. She’s the one I call my sister. My biological family is dead to me. Before I left for college, I changed my name to Thornton. Partly to honor Richard and June, but I had planned to do it anyway. Before the accident, I mean. I didn’t want people hearing about Warner Parks in the news and making the connection.”

  He pauses to glance around the restaurant. “Which brings me, after that long and arduous detour, back to your apartment. Don’t worry about the money. I made a small fortune when I sold my story right after business school. Ever hear of a book called Surplus Boys? It was on the bestseller list for months. It’s basically my memoir, as told to a friend of Jennifer’s who ghost wrote it. She changed all the names at my insistence. Too many kids in my situation weren’t nearly as lucky as I was. It felt wrong to lord my triumphs over them. Most of the extra boys never even finished high school, and I know at least two who died of drug overdoses. I have a half-brother serving time for a string of burglaries. One girl who ran away, she was my cousin and she was barely fifteen, hanged herself in her foster family’s basement.” He shakes his head as if trying to erase the mental image. “Anyway, I brought you a copy.”

  He reaches in his briefcase and pulls out a hardcover book with a dusty desert road on the cover. A quotation from a review on the back calls it “a look inside one of the most sinister and secretive cults in modern America... a riveting read... a powerful message of hope and redemption.”

  I’m glad Oscar trusts me enough to tell me all this. Though I can’t help wondering if anybody can be as well adjusted as he seems after enduring such a horrific childhood. Doesn’t that kind of trauma stay with a person? I feel out of my depth as I leaf through the first pages.

  “Zoë? Are you okay? You don’t hate me now, do you?” His face contorts with worry and I realize I’ve checked out of the conversation. It’s the first time since meeting Oscar that I’ve seen even a flicker of insecurity from him. I’m embarrassed to admit it’s reassuring. If he has moments of self-doubt it means he’s not insufferably perfect.

  “Of course I don’t hate you. I’m glad you told me.” I reach across our untouched omelets and touch his hand.

  “Good.” He smiles. “So I know you’ll tear through the book and waste your day researching the FLDS, but just promise me that we won’t have to talk about it all the time.”

  “Of course,” I say, though I suspect it might be a challenge.

  Oscar takes another scan of the restaurant. “One of my colleagues is at the counter,” he whispers. He launches into small talk without missing a beat. “How are things at the office? You know, we had a co-op meeting last night, and I was sorry to miss it. I would have loved to meet the famous Carol Broadwick.”

  “She doesn’t go to those things. She sends one of her lawyers.” I can’t believe the ease with which Oscar changes gears. I wonder what really goes on in his good-looking head. Does he obsess over me like I do about him? Does he think about me while sitting in traffic, or between meetings, or for no reason at all?

  He’s mopping up the remains of his omelet with a triangle of toast, seemingly oblivious to my silly obsessing, when my phone buzzes. Carol. “Speak of the devil,” I say, throwing caution to the wind and letting her roll to voicemail. My stock is high enough with the Niles Townsend deal pending to put her off until I leave Oscar’s earshot in a few minutes.

  Oscar takes care of the check at the counter on the way out, and I feel a familiar twinge of guilt about not paying my way, even though the coffee money means nothing to him. His car is waiting. He’s heading downtown but offers to drop me first. I decline, since the subway will be just as quick at this hour, but mainly because I don’t want to call my boss in front of him. His kisses me goodbye and disappears into the traffic.

  When I call Carol back, she, as usual, doesn’t pause for pleasantries. “It’s done. He accepted.” I can’t see her, but I know her eyes are gleaming the way they always do when she’s counting her money.

  Even though I feel like squealing and jumping for joy, I force my voice to stay level and professional. “That’s great. I think this move will catapult Niles’ career.”

  “Plus the client is happy, happy, happy,” Carol practically sings. She’s not raising her voice, or berating me for savoring a success while neglecting the pipeline for the future. It’s bizarre. Then she says something even more out of character. “Nice job, Zoë.” She hangs up as I’m stammering, “Thank you.”

  “When it rains, it pours,” Angela says moments later, once I’ve related the details of my brief but momentous conversation with Carol. “It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about men or job offers or money. A little action always attracts more.”

  “I was hardly rolling in it before today. I’ve only placed two junior people since Brendan left, but luckily, placing Niles puts me in another league altogether. I can’t thank you enough for sending him my way.”

  “Don’t mention it. And don’t change the subject. I wasn’t talking about you making placements. I meant, now that you have no money issues, because you’re not planning to pay rent to Oscar, more money will come your way. That’s always the way it goes.”

  “Interesting theory.”

  “It does explain why the rich keep getting richer,” she muses. “Anyway, Susie is thrilled. She was all worried that she’d overplayed her hand when she called you and demanded more money. She says Niles would murder her if he knew, and she wasn’t sure she could get away with playing the hormonal card on this one.”

  “Good thing I was smart enough not to mention it to him.” My other line beeps. “Have to take that. It’s the man himself.”

  I switch over and say congratulations before Niles has the chance to say anything.

  “Thank you,” he says. “But I’m afraid we have a logistical problem.”

  This stops me dead in my tracks. A heavy set man in a blue suit crashes into me on the stairs to 33rd Street Station, sloshes coffee on his hand and curses me, the Starbucks people, and Jesus, before barreling past me into Manhattan’s underworld.

  “What kind of logistical problem?” I try to ask as levelly as possible, but I’m sure he can detect the waver in my voice.

  “My firm wants me gone today. In fact, I’m standing on the sidewalk outside my old building with my secretary. They had security escort us both out.”

  I start to exhale. “Remember? We talked about this. Firms remove their ex-partners unceremoniously all the time.” I had given Niles a heads up that this could happen, and I told him to download his contacts, somewhere other than his work issued BlackBerry, to take with him before giving notice. Junior associates may get cakes and going away parties, but defecting partners almost always get ejected immediately. Even the stodgiest law firms operate with lightning efficiency when it comes to locking people off their computer networks and confiscating their communication devices. “Didn’t you warn your poor assistant?”

  “She knew something was up with me, but for some reason, she never assumed she would be part of the deal. When I asked her last night to follow me to Cutler, she was surprised.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure nobody enjoys being manhandled by security. But listen, Niles. I will take care of everything. I’ll have the Cutler people send movers over today to pack and deliver your office. You’ll be up and running this afternoon. I’ll let them know you’re on your way now.”

  “Um, Zoë, could we hold off on that for a few hours?”

  My stomach lurches. I rack my brain for the prefabricated speech I most dread delivering: What To Say When the Candidate Changes His Mind (After Acceptin
g an Offer from One of Carol’s Very Important Clients).

  I’m about to explain to Niles that he cannot march back into his old firm and throw himself on the mercy of the managing partner. He’s damaged goods. He’s thought about resigning, and indeed has resigned, once. The other partners will never look at him the same way again. And for that matter, why would he want to go back upstairs? They just forcibly removed him and his secretary, a loyal servant of nearly two decades, from the building in front of hundreds of gawkers and passersby who might or might not know them.

  Before I can say any of this, Niles hisses into his phone, “Susie’s ovulating.”

  “Again?” It comes out before I can stop it.

  “I guess it happens every four weeks or so. And I need to be there this afternoon at three.”

  I feel like asking him why the hell he didn’t take care of this, err, personal matter, and resign this evening after their doctor’s appointment. But of course I don’t. Instead I say, “I’m going to hold off on telling the Cutler folks you’ve resigned until this afternoon. They’ll either send the movers tonight or first thing in the morning, but probably tonight. That should give you plenty of time for your appointment, and your secretary can take today off to recover from the shock, or have her nails done, or whatever.”

  “You make it sound simple.” Niles Townsend, a hotshot securities litigator who could have gone to work at almost any firm in the entire United States, suddenly sounds like an unsure little kid.

  “That’s because it is pretty straightforward. And I do this for a living,” I say brightly.

  “I’m not so worried about the movers, actually.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “When I get anxious, or have a stressful day, I can’t, well, you know...”

  Oh, God. Don’t say it.

  “...perform.” He says it. Out loud.

  And then, because I am a moron, I say, “I’m sure you’ll rise to the occasion.”

  Silence on the other end of the line. Then, “You did not just say that.”

  SIXTEEN

  “You did not say that to the poor bastard.” Oscar pauses with his wine glass midway between the table and his mouth and looks at me with an expression that manages to convey both amusement and disbelief.

  “I’m afraid it came out before I realized what I was saying.” I swirl my own wine, taking care not to swish red stains over the rim and onto the white table cloth. True connoisseurs twirl their wine to bring out the bouquet. In my case, it’s more of a nervous habit that I’ve come to view as the adult version of peeling the labels off beer bottles.

  “What did he say?” Oscar leans in across the table. It’s a louder than usual night at normally serene Anissa. As much as I want to be out with my guy, I desperately want to get home and tear into Surplus Boys. I thought about starting it at lunch, but I decided I want to read it in one, or at most two, sittings.

  “Silence. For like a minute. Then he changed the subject. But the worst part was that he called me back a few hours later to say that he couldn’t perform this afternoon, and that he had to go back tonight because his wife had already taken the trigger injection, or something like that, and she had threatened to castrate him with an ice cream scoop if she stuck herself again for nothing.”

  “Thank you for sharing that lovely image. I have to say, I feel for the guy.”

  “People wish they had his problems. He’s sniveling about making $1.2 million dollars and having an orgasm in a cup, when his poor wife is half insane on hormones.” This latest bit of perspective came from Marvin, whose sister is doing the IVF thing. It sounds like about as much fun as being stranded at some Godforsaken Midwestern airport on a layover with Carol. On a Friday night. Of a three day weekend.

  “That’s colorful,” Oscar says, and I immediately regret phrasing my thoughts so crassly. I forget he’s still sort of new. I should have my interview manners, and vocabulary, in use. Or should I? We’re sleeping together more nights than not, and he just presented me with an entire apartment, which hardly qualifies as a normal early-in-the-relationship gift. I know I’m a dating novice, but shouldn’t we be letting our real selves shine through at this stage? I’m starting to feel a bit pathetic about not knowing how to proceed. It’s as if we’re simultaneously settled down and newly dating. To an objective observer, our arrangement must seem a bit unorthodox.

  But it appears to be working for me and Oscar, so instead of steering into dangerous terrain by introducing a potentially toxic topic, I do the cowardly thing. “Sorry. I was just repeating the way Marvin, my colleague, explained his sister’s experience with the fertility medicine ordeal. So, anyway, because of Niles and Susie’s treatment schedule, I had to do a tap dance and explain to the increasingly anxious recruiting director at Cutler & Boone that the firm’s newest partner would report for duty tomorrow, bright and early, instead of today, as originally announced. I justified the delay by calling a friend who works in the hiring department at a firm downstairs from Niles’ old one. I explained the whole tawdry situation and asked her to book all the service elevators for the afternoon so Niles’ movers couldn’t start until later.”

  “Ingenious, my darling.” Oscar laughs out loud. The skin around his eyes crinkles like it always does when he’s smiling, and I can’t help thinking that my guy is so much more attractive than the emaciated underwear models Marvin bedded at the Feminist Majority fundraiser.

  I accept his compliment graciously and don’t add that I must really be learning something from Carol. As recently as a year ago, such a ruse would have never crossed my mind.

  Oscar tops off my wine just as the waiter returns with our fabulous looking, Gourmet magazine cover-worthy food. He presents my swordfish, a perfectly grilled steak balanced on some potato creation and topped with grilled asparagus, and the woman to my left, who looks about my age and isn’t dressed like the type who eats in Manhattan’s finer restaurants on a regular basis, makes a loud and snide remark about my dinner being “a complete environmental disaster.”

  “I thought that was sea bass.” Oscar doesn’t look up from his plate, but he says it loudly enough that there’s no mistake he means for her to hear. She says nothing, and feigns fascination with her poached pear salad. Oscar prods, “Isn’t it sea bass that’s over fished?” Still no response. The woman reaches for the pepper as Oscar asks, “And Atlantic cod, if I recall correctly?” I can’t decide if I should be happy he’s sticking up for me, or worried that he’s escalating a scene.

  The woman’s face starts to flush. I sit frozen and hope Oscar shuts up before she notices his veal, which honestly bothers me a little, too. Just when it appears he’s about to needle our dinner neighbor into an unseemly confrontation, something across the room catches his eye. I turn around to see whatever he sees and there’s Olivia, looking gorgeous in a fabulous green wrap draped over a simple black sheath. With thousands upon thousands of eateries in this city, she has to be here? She’s with a slim blond man slightly her senior, and she hasn’t noticed us watching her. Oscar stiffens as the hostess marches them towards our table. The former couple greet each other tersely and Olivia introduces her new husband, Jean-Luc. She looks so enamored of him, that I want to jump for joy. I may not be the most perceptive person ever, but it’s obvious Olivia has no designs on Oscar.

  Oscar stands halfway up to shake hands. “Congratulations,” he offers gruffly. “This is my girlfriend, Zoë Clark.”

  “We’ve met, as you probably know. How lovely to see you again, Zoë.” I’m not sure whether Olivia means to sound patronizing, and in the moment I don’t really care. I smile, offer my hand and get through the so-nice-to-meet-you with Jean-Luc before the emotional side of my brain hijacks control from the rational side, and the little voice in my head loses her head and starts gushing at me. “Girlfriend! Oscar called me his girlfriend! So we’re official. No dating others. That’s what girlfriend means. The apartment was a grand gesture, and now he’s publicly introducing me th
is way. To his ex-wife. This is huge.”

  I’m so lost in my private moment of jubilation that it takes me a second to catch up to the fact that everyone else looks uncomfortable and ready to move along.

  “We’re meeting the Bainbridges,” Olivia finally announces, as if it’s important for Oscar to know that.

  “How nice for you,” Oscar says, acidly. I study my plate with too much interest and wonder why Olivia seems hell bent on lingering when it’s clear neither half of the former couple is enjoying the interaction. Jean-Luc looks to the hostess for an escape route, and she leads them to a table out of our line of sight.

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize she’d suddenly be everywhere. It’s like no place is safe,” Oscar says. He stabs at his dinner. “I’m better off without her, but it still feels weird that she’s just installed her new guy into our old life, like he’s version 2.0 or something.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  I’m trying to find a tactful way to phrase the question of whether “girlfriend” means no sleeping with other women. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure it does, but it would be awfully nice to be certain.

  Oscar, however, has warmed to the theme of his past. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she’s seeing the Bainbridges. We met them at a cocktail party at Seiji Takamura’s house five or six years ago. Trudy and Olivia hit it off. Trudy sort of adopted Olivia as a daughter she’d never have, but the four of us used to get together once in a while.” He pauses for a second, and I can tell he’s visualizing this snapshot of domestic contentment from a life he’s lost. He catches himself. “Anyway, Olivia kept them in the split. As you can see.”