Do This For Me

by Eliza Kennedy

  “Not until you promise.” The lines around his mouth were tight with anxiety. His dark eyes were shining. He was the guilty party, but he was suffering, too. I felt a rush of sympathy for him.

  Sympathy? I thought. He betrayed you, and you want to make him feel better? He’s the wrongdoer. The promise breaker.

  What did I owe him? How did this work?

  Aaron got up and sat next to me again. He gripped my hands. “Thank you for giving me another chance. I am going to do whatever it takes to fix this.”

  He kept talking. He was horrified. Disbelieving of his own capacity for awful behavior. Sincerely, comprehensively sorry.

  “Aaron, I need to know…” I felt so weak for having to ask. “Have you seen her again?”

  “Only once. For a work meeting. But listen. If you want me to quit the show, I will.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I mean it, Raney. You’re more important. We’re more important.”

  I could have become his keeper. Insisted on knowing his whereabouts at all times, monitored his phone calls and e-mail. But somehow, I still trusted him. And I couldn’t ask him to quit the show. He loved it too much.

  “I don’t want that. But I don’t want to hear from her husband again, either.”

  He looked pained. “You won’t. I promise. What else do you need?”

  That was the question. I’d come home to talk and to listen. To feel. I’d abandoned my half-baked plan to erase him from my life, but I still needed to understand why he’d done it. Not to kill my love this time, but to save it.

  “We have to talk about why it happened. Maybe we can come up with some ground rules. First principles we can use to guide our conversations.”

  “Ground rules.” He liked the sound of that. “Okay. Here’s one—maybe the most important one. We love each other.”

  “We love each other.”

  “And we’re going to fix this.”

  “We’re going to try.” He looked crestfallen. “That’s the most I can give you right now,” I added.

  “But we’re going to talk through everything.”

  “In good faith, with complete honesty,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Just one thing.” The hint of a smile. “No matter how bad it gets, no tweeting.”

  “Deal’s off.” I started to get up.

  He laughed and pulled me back down. I thought it would be difficult—being next to him, being touched by him. But it wasn’t.

  “Thank you, Raney,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming home.”

  * * *

  —

  We spent the rest of the weekend together as a family. It was normal-ish. Normal with a chance of not-normal. Tense around the edges, electric with things not said. After our hopeful start, Aaron and I fell silent around each other. By Sunday afternoon, I was fantasizing about the office the way most people long for vacation. I was at my desk by seven the next day.

  Around eleven, Andy Templeton strolled in. “Hey, Moore.”

  My irritation level spiked. “What’s up, Templeton?”

  “Not much.” He dropped into a chair and grinned at me. “I was passing by, and I saw you in here, hard at work.” He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankles. “You’re always so hard at work.”

  Andy Templeton and I graduated from law school together. We joined the firm at the same time. He made partner a few years after me. (Not bragging. Stating a fact.) Templeton was friendly and easygoing. Tall and handsome. A phony. A glad-hander. My close personal enemy.

  He glanced at the open binder on my desk. “What are you up to?”

  “Prepping for an oral argument next week.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “And you’re still reviewing cases?”

  He was so obvious, it was almost laughable. “I’m on schedule, Andy. But thanks for your concern.”

  Renfield clomped into the room. She stopped short when she saw him. Gave the back of his head the finger. Clomped out again.

  Templeton picked up a book from a side table and flipped through it. “Marty says you took a case for Hyperium.”

  Associates think the partners don’t gossip. They think we sit up here on forty-five like little gods, pondering eternal questions of law, plotting the downfall of our rivals, hurling the occasional thunderbolt at the mortals cowering below. They’re wrong. Sure, we ponder and plot and hurl, but we also chatter like tree monkeys. The whole partnership was talking about my potentially huge, potentially lucrative new client. No wonder Templeton was sniffing around.

  “A consumer fraud thing, right?” he continued. “Sounds like real trivial shit. But hey—at least it’ll generate income.”

  In public, my partners spoke in reverent tones about the firm’s commitment to pro bono work. But Gaia Café had prompted a lot of grumbling. It was too public and too expensive, costing a few million dollars in attorney time and other resources.

  That’s not what bothered Templeton, though. He was sorry I’d won.

  “Is there something I can do for you, Andy?”

  “So many books.” He was inspecting my shelves. “You don’t do research online?”

  “I’m not crazy about computers.”

  He arranged his bland features in an expression of surprise. “That’s not what I heard.”

  So that’s why he was here.

  He smirked. “I heard that you are, in fact, crazy about computers.”

  Who told him? The IT-type, maybe. I wasn’t concerned. People inside the firm could talk all they liked, but the truth wasn’t likely to jump the walls. Those who’d helped me were complicit. Those who heard the rumors would hesitate to repeat them, knowing how the firm deals with employees who talk out of turn.

  I should have been more worried. But despite the occasional qualm, I still thought I was justified in what I’d done. My sense of grievance made me feel immune to repercussion.

  I wasn’t, of course. But I wouldn’t know that for a long time.

  “Surely you have better things to do than listen to gossip, Andy.” I raised my eyebrows. “Or maybe you don’t?”

  Before he could respond, the phone rang. A few seconds later, Renfield barged in. “Mickey Singer on line one.”

  Looking thwarted, Templeton followed her out. I picked up the phone. “Hi, Singer.”

  I heard a heavy sigh. “You don’t call, you don’t write. I’m beginning to think it’s over.”

  “I left a message with your secretary on Friday.”

  “You did? See, this is why you should text. We could have been chatting about scintillating legal issues all weekend.”

  Singer was right—he did have a good voice. Warm. Slightly hoarse. Confiding. I pictured him behind a sleek desk in some modern office, gazing out the window or surfing the Internet while we talked. Surrounded by, what? Pictures of his family? I tried to remember if he’d been wearing a wedding ring.

  Why was I thinking about this? I told him about a few helpful cases Amanda had found and recommended we move to dismiss the complaint.

  “I love it!” he declared. “Let’s celebrate. What are you doing for lunch?”

  “You want to celebrate because we’re filing a motion?”

  “I’m going to let you in on a little secret, counselor. I am one profoundly lazy bastard. If you draft this little motion of yours, I’m going to have to spend time reading it, offering comments, pretending that I’m adding value to the process. At the very least, you owe me a sandwich.”

  Lazy? He was too engaged in our discussion the other day. And he was diligently following up now. Which meant he was one of those self-deprecating types. He probably thought he was oh-so-so charming, with his wit, and his attractive voice. He probably thought he could win people over by writing funny texts.

  And…demanding sandwiches.


  I woke my computer and checked my e-mail. “I don’t really do lunch.”

  “What does that mean? You don’t eat?”

  “I eat. I just don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  “Different foods, from different food groups, arranged enticingly on a plate,” he said. “That’s a, quote, big deal?”

  Renfield came in with a FedEx. “I feel like this whole food situation has gotten out of control,” I said. “The eating. The talking about eating. The trends and the movements and the fetishizing of restaurants. It’s food.”

  “Eating is fun. Talking about eating is fun.”

  “Eh.” I deleted an e-mail.

  “Let’s make this simple. Don’t eat. But come with me. I want the experience of sitting across from you when you’re not tearing someone a new asshole.”

  That made me laugh. Renfield poked her head through the doorway and gawped at me. I waved her away. “Has Xander recovered?”

  “He’s in an ashram in New Mexico, processing the trauma. But about lunch.”

  This was the kind of thing Marty was always nagging me about. Taking clients out, wining and dining them. Hyperium was a big deal. I should be wooing this guy.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” I said. “I have a Second Circuit argument coming up.”

  “Even better! I’d love to watch you browbeat a panel of federal judges.”

  I laughed again. Then I looked up. My entire team was clustered in the doorway, watching me.

  “I have to go,” I said hurriedly. “We’ll send you a draft of the motion later this week.”

  I hung up and rifled through the papers on my desk, feeling the sudden urge to appear meaningfully occupied. “Come on in, everybody,” I said. “Come right in.”

  After the meeting, I scrolled through my texts until I got to the exchange with Singer from the previous week. I found Jonathan in his office, shopping for ties online.

  “Fuck paisley,” he muttered.

  I held out my phone. “Interpret these texts.”

  “Huh?”

  “I want to know if this person is flirting with me.”

  “He’s not,” Jonathan said.

  “You haven’t even looked at them.”

  “I don’t have to.” He clicked on a tie. “Nobody flirts with you.”

  “That’s what I thought! Still.” I pressed the phone on him.

  He took his time reading. At last: “It’s possible. What’s this about shoe repair?”

  “Nothing. That’s—”

  Wally shambled in. “Greetings, my fuzzy ducklings! What am I missing?”

  “Attempted flirtation, by an unknown assailant.” Jonathan passed him the phone.

  Wally peered at the screen through his reading glasses. “Oh yeah. She totally wants you.”

  He tried to return the phone to Jonathan, but he pointed at me. Wally’s eyes bulged. “These were written to you?”

  Now I was annoyed. “Is it so unlikely?”

  “You don’t exactly invite this kind of attention,” Jonathan said.

  “I know, but you guys act like—”

  “Shh, children.” Wally adjusted his reading glasses. “Papa’s working.”

  He reread the texts, mouthing the words. Then he nodded briskly. “My ruling stands. He’s flirting, for sure.”

  “No way,” I said.

  “This shoe business? It’s obviously a sex thing.”

  “It’s not. It’s—”

  “Yup,” Wally said. “Hot dog’s got a big-time foot fetish. Who is he?”

  “Nobody. And he’s not flirting.”

  Wally scrolled up the screen. “ ‘I bet you’ve got hidden talents’? Come on. This guy wants a little Raney on his parade, know what I mean?”

  “He wants to be singing in the Rane,” Jonathan added.

  “He wants to Rane you in.”

  “He hopes his kingdom will—”

  “Stop!” I grabbed the phone. “You guys don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Wally looked sly. “Here’s a question. Do you want him to be flirting with you?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then why,” Jonathan inquired, “are you asking?”

  “I don’t know! I…forget it.” I went back to my office.

  THIRTEEN

  “I can’t light the pilot,” I muttered.

  Aaron glanced around the kitchen. “There must be instructions here somewhere.”

  The movers were gone. The girls were in the backyard. We were alone in our new house.

  The place was elegant, spacious, immaculate. I’d wanted something pristine after growing up in a falling-down house, and enduring years of cramped apartments in New Haven and Manhattan. Six months earlier, we’d found it: a center-hall colonial on a rolling lot. I was a newly minted partner. Aaron was teaching steadily. Still, the mortgage was staggering. Marty told us not to worry. To take the leap.

  I tried the pilot again. Nothing.

  “I bet there’s a manual online.” Aaron reached for his phone.

  I stretched out on the floor and groaned.

  “Uh-oh,” he said.

  “We have to go back to the city, Aaron. Right now.”

  He sat down beside me. I felt his fingers stroking my hair.

  He said, “Tell me your troubles.”

  Where to begin? Everything was cascading down on me at once. “One. This is too much house for us.”

  “We did the math, honey. We can afford it, thanks to you.”

  “Okay, two. What if I fail? What if they fire me?”

  “Isn’t the point of being a partner that they can’t fire you?”

  “No! They can kick me out with a two-thirds vote.”

  “Three-thirds voted to kick you in, Rane. You’ve never failed. You won’t start now.” Aaron paused. “Did you look up that two-thirds thing?”

  “Maybe,” I admitted. “Here’s three: what if the girls hate their new school? Four: what if they love their new school and become shallow, status-obsessed rich kids? What are we doing in this fancy suburb? You grew up on a farm. I grew up in Brooklyn.”

  “We’ll adapt,” he assured me. “I’ll keep cows on the lawn, and you can run a bodega out of the garage. The neighbors are going to love us.”

  “Aaron.”

  “Sorry.” He stroked my hair. “Keep going.”

  The back door slammed. Two pairs of light-up sneakers stopped a few feet from my head.

  “Where’s Monopoly?” asked Kate.

  “Why is Mommy on the floor?” asked Maisie.

  “Your toys are in your boxes, which are upstairs in your rooms,” Aaron told them.

  I raised my head so I could see their faces. “You have three acres of lawn and your own swing set. You want to play a board game?”

  “Yes,” Kate said. “Also, can we share a room?”

  “This house is huge,” Maisie added. “And scary.”

  I clutched my head with both hands. “What have we done?”

  Aaron ushered them out. Then he eased my head into his lap. I looked up into his patient, loving face. “Five. Everything is changing.”

  “Nothing is changing,” he said.

  “But—”

  “You will not fail. Our daughters will not become assholes. We will make this our home, and we will belong here.”

  This is what I needed. To talk, to spill everything, while Aaron listened and sympathized and told me how it really was. This is what comforted me.

  Though I had a few follow-up questions.

  “Will you keep packing my lunch every day?”

  “If you want me to.”

  “Will you include a note?”

  He smiled down at me. “Always.”
>
  “I love you,” I said. “You make me make sense.”

  He touched my cheek. “It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.”

  “What about the stove?”

  “We’ll fix it tomorrow. Tonight we’re going out.”

  “Where?”

  “There must be a pizza place around here. We’ll drive around until we find it.” He pulled me to my feet and kissed me. “That’ll give me time to tell you this idea I have for a book I want to write. I think you might like it.”

  * * *

  —

  My eyes flew open seconds before the alarm. Aaron was asleep. Chest rising and falling, one arm flung over his head. He was far from me, on the opposite side of the mattress. We usually slept close together, near the middle. But in the days since my return, space had opened up between us in bed. We didn’t plan it, but we patrolled it diligently. No stray limbs, no sudden feints. It was wide, white and smooth—a three-hundred-thread-count demilitarized zone.

  I left the bedroom. Poked my head into the girls’ room. Still breathing.

  In the kitchen, I put the kettle on. Checked my e-mail. Nothing important. I placed a call.

  Far away, I heard a phone ring. Once. Twice. Then, “Raney?”

  “Why did you do it, Aaron?”

  “Where are you?” His voice was thick with sleep.

  “In the kitchen.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “We’re supposed to be talking,” I said. “I thought it might be easier on the phone.”

  I heard the rustle of sheets. “I’m coming down.”

  I sighed. “Okay.”

  I made chai. I flipped the switch on the coffeemaker. I was at the table when he came in. He picked up the tin on the counter, squinting at it curiously. “Since when do you drink chai?”

  “Tell me how it happened, Aaron.”

  He sat down. He ran his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends, a habit in moments of stress. Then he rested his arms on the table and looked at me.

  “I’ve thought about this a lot. The best way I’ve found to explain the feelings I was having, and the thoughts I was thinking that led me to do what I did, is this: I woke up one day, and you weren’t there.”