CHAPTER TWENTY
Kate’s stomach sickened with worry. She awoke early and lay in bed, spread-eagled, body and soul too weighed down with inertia to move. She had been filled with a vague aching sense of loss while she imagined Simon reconciled with Rachel, or moving on to a new relationship, as though she’d let something unimaginably precious slip through her fingers, although this was offset by a sense of its inevitability. Although she still had doubts about his conviction and the intensity of his feelings since their encounter on Tuesday, now she was worried for different reasons. It was almost easier if there were insurmountable obstacles. No matter which way things turned out, she was thrown into nadirs of emotional turmoil that threatened to engulf her.
Then, yesterday, just as if it had been preordained, she had been punished for agreeing to have dinner with Simon on Saturday. At least that was how it felt to her. A letter from the Mediation Roster Society had arrived in the mail. She should be relieved, in truth. The complaint could have gone to a formal review. On the other hand, the whole matter might have been dismissed. She knew Rose MacIlhaney was behind it. In retrospect, she was grateful she’d taken the trouble to consult with her mentor back in October. Kate remembered exactly what she’d said in reply.
“It’s a very grey area, Kate. You no longer have a relationship with the man, and haven’t seen each other for a very long time. It’s not likely to affect your judgment regarding your clients, so it’s up to you to decide if your performance is negatively affected in any way by his presence. Only you can answer that.” Affected by his presence, indeed.
Clipped to the Administrator’s letter announcing his referral of the matter to the Practice Advisory Committee was a handwritten note from Rose.
Dear Kate,
I’m sorry I could not shield you from this. However, your thoughtful and sincere appeal made a favourable impression on several members of the executive, myself included. You are capable of working through this difficulty, and both you and I know that you need to. This is an opportunity for you to dig a little deeper and sort these ghosts out once and for all. You won’t regret it, I promise.
Affectionately, Rose.
Hmph. If Sharon’s claim had come as a surprise to Rose, she might have been shocked and disappointed in Kate. As it is, Kate knew she was being subjected to a test. Only Rose could take this situation and make it even more challenging for her. She was reminded of her commitment to Eli. Hopefully she would get only a reprimand, but still, it was humiliating, and it was still possible that, on presentation of the facts, the committee might recommend disciplinary action, even temporary suspension of her license. They had the power and at that point, it was out of Rose’s hands. Her stomach and heart squeezed tight at the thought, as though they had become molten and fused into a solid mass in her middle, like a lump of cooling magma. She slipped one hand out from the duvet and pressed a tight fist against her aching chest. I cannot live without my work. Nevertheless, Rose had raised the stakes.
Oscar twitched in his sleep. She lay listening to the rhythmic wheezing emitting from his coiled body nestled next to her, waiting for his anxious predatory dream to find its resolution before stirring. Her own dreams had been fraught with worry, her nerves shredded.
Bweeeeeeh. Bweeeeeh.
What the hell? She glanced at her bedside alarm clock. 6:34. Who was ringing her buzzer at this hour?
She tried to gently shift Oscar, but he jerked awake and jumped off the bed, freeing her to run to the intercom. “Hello?”
“Kate. I’ve got Starbucks.” It was Alexa, presumably on her way to the office.
A moment later they were sprawled on her sofa with vente lattes and almond croissants. “Hey. Thanks.”
“Nmpmffm,” Alexa replied with her mouth full.
“Nice to see you. What’s the occasion?”
Alexa swallowed and rinsed her mouth with coffee before replying. “It’s ages since I saw you. I’ve only got an hour before work.”
They flopped onto the sofa with their coffees and croissants.
“How’s everything?” Alexa asked between bites.
Kate didn’t know how to answer her. She recounted the news of her letter from the Executive first, as that seemed perhaps the most pressing of her worries.
Alexa chewed and swallowed. “That’s a drag,” she admitted, but said no more.
She filled Alexa in on the progress of Eli and Darcy’s case, always careful not to reveal personal details, and the fact that Simon was pushing to spend more time with her, even though the timing was especially bad.
“Anyway, the other bit is… ” she glanced at Alexa, contrite. “I gave in and agreed to have dinner with him on Saturday night,” she added quickly, “at my place.” She winced, anticipating Alexa’s reaction.
She shrugged and took a sip of her coffee.
Kate continued to stare at her, waiting for a response, a scolding, something.
Alex looked up. “What? You want me to warn you that you’re setting yourself up for temptation, what with you being all Martha Stewart-y cooking a nice meal at home?”
Kate wrinkled her nose. Is that what she was doing? Seducing Simon?
“Why is this so hard?” Alexa said. “If I thought this much about a relationship before I got involved with someone, my sex life would be non-existent.”
“I’m not talking about sex, Alex, I’m talking about love.”
Alex rolled her eyes and took a long slurp of her latte. “Love shmove.”
Kate smacked her friend’s arm, almost spilling her coffee. “That’s your idea of help?”
Alexa gave her a wry smile.
“What I’ve been thinking about is, this whole obsession thing. How the mind works.”
Alexa sipped and munched and nodded.
“I’ve never spent so much energy thinking about another man.”
“I know.”
“So. Is it that there’s something inevitable about me and Simon? Am I destined always to love him? Is it fated, or something?”
Alexa’s eyebrows went up dramatically.
“Don’t answer that. I know you’re skeptical about my spiritual meanderings.”
Alexa huffed through her nose in acknowledgement of this truth.
“Or maybe I’m utterly deluded. What it comes down to is the nature of truth, the nature of knowledge. It’s a metaphysical question. How am I ever to know? What criteria should I use? And does it even matter when you’re talking about emotion?”
Alexa crossed her eyes at Kate, and Kate retaliated by thumping her with a cushion.
“Remind me why we’re best friends again,” Alexa said.
Kate pursed her lips. “Because we’re good for each other. If we were the same, we’d both be impossible, with nobody to contradict us or call our bullshit.”
“I’m calling your bullshit, sister. If I have a bullshit card, I’m playing it now. I’ve never heard you indulge yourself in your metaphysical mumbo-jumbo quite like this before. And if I have to listen to much more, you’re going to owe me bigtime.”
“Shut up and listen,” Kate replied. “I need to air these thoughts before they drive me mad.”
Alex set down her empty coffee cup and reclined, putting her feet up on the spool coffee table that she loved to hate, feigning boredom.
“Over the years, I convinced myself that my obsession with Simon was based only on a reality that existed inside my own head.” Kate spiraled a hand around her head. “Some kind of unfulfilled, doubtless neurotic, need. Romantic, yes, but delusional. As you know, Simon wasn’t a part of my life, and as far as I knew, he never would be.”
Alexa closed her eyes and laid her head back. “Go on.”
“I learned to survive and to rely on myself. But a part of me never forgot that love I felt. No other experience could compare to it. He haunted my dreams. And so… I guess, I could never really be happy with anyone else. Never happy without him, or the construction of him that I carried in my mind.”
<
br /> Alexa opened her eyes and glanced at her phone. “I have a meeting in a half hour, honey.”
“I’ll be quick.”
Alexa smiled, indulgent.
“There’s the rub. I want to be whole and feel complete without him. Without anybody. Not just independence. Not just love. But wholeness. Somehow, somewhere along the road I left a part of myself behind, and now nothing feels right.”
It was her nature to believe in abstractions, however unrealistic. Even her emotional life was fueled by ideas. She could be moved to agonizing or passionate tears by music, art, drama, nature, acts of kindness, and even random events. Hers was the type of personality that looked for and found deep philosophical meaning in ordinary things. Her world was not material or existential but spiritual, intellectual. She couldn’t help it.
“So the question I’m asking myself is, is this real because I feel it, or do I feel it because it is real? “
Alexa sighed. “You don’t really expect an answer, I hope.”
Kate sighed. “I don’t know what to do, or even what to think. The foundations of my carefully reconstructed world are threatening to crumble— have been crumbling ever since Simon crashed back into my life in October.”
“Remember what I said last week? I don’t know how you come up with this stuff, but what if all your focus on finding the perfect mate is an excuse to avoid making a commitment because of your fear of intimacy and commitment?”
Kate groaned and flung herself back against the sofa cushions. “Why can’t I be normal? Surely most women don’t go through this.”
“I guarantee it. But because Simon is Simon, the man you’ve always wanted, you have to dream up extra complicated reasons why you can’t have him.”
“You’re right. Thank you.”
“Hey don’t mention it. That’s what I live for.” She grinned and stood up, preparing to leave.
Kate knew it was the years of obsession, the grief, the depression and the healing that had taught her to intellectualize and analyze her feelings to death. Ultimately there was no answer to whether Simon was her true soul mate, if such a thing existed, despite the appeal of having one person to provide her with validation, to know her and love her for her essential self. But in the end, it was no help. You were left with your gut feelings. With fear, with love and with trust.
~*~
Because their attorneys had already initialed the document, and she needed only D'arcy and Eli’s signatures on the final resolution agreement, she was meeting them at their condo apartment on the West Side. Five copies of the lengthy document weighed down her briefcase and gave her mission a satisfying sense of finality, offsetting in some small way the weight of worry she carried as well. Afterwards, she was meeting Alex for a much-needed girls’ lunch, the first in awhile. If she couldn’t figure out what to do, Alexa was usually able to help her see straight.
She couldn’t be happier with the case, despite the setbacks. D'arcy and Eli had worked through some trying challenges, and she knew they were going to reap the benefits for years to come. It would be challenging, but then, what marriage was not?
Not that I have any first hand experience, she thought wistfully, commitment-phobe that I am. All things considered, she seemed to have gotten a slow start in life. By the time she’d sorted through her psychological difficulties and her career, her school friends had already gone through a couple of waves of settling down and having families. Except, thankfully, for Alexa. I’m thirty-four years old! Was there romance and a family life still ahead? Or was she too burdened with fears ever to make a relationship work? That’s what she’d told Jay. The truth was that life with Jay would always feel like a compromise. And she didn’t think she was the type to settle.
Eli greeted her at the door with his now-familiar grin of contentment. It looked somehow out of place in his swarthy, unshaven face, as though it hadn’t yet decided whether to stay, as though his happiness was a source of embarrassment or surprise. She could hardly wait to see him as a proud father. He was as like to burst at the seams. “Kate! Good to see you. Come in.” Instead of his uniform of jeans and leather jacket, he was comfortably clad in baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt decorated with holes and paint splatters. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had slept in them. His feet were bare, despite the cold season, and his long hair unbound and unruly. He took her coat.
She followed Eli upstairs and into a sleek, contemporary interior with modern furniture. The lines were clean and the colour palette subdued and neutral, in black and tan. It was tasteful and it somehow suited both D'arcy and Eli.
D'arcy shuffled in from another room, glowing. “Hi. How are you?” D'arcy leaned across her swollen belly to kiss Kate’s cheek.
“Good, thanks,” she replied, smiling at D’arcy’s glowing complexion. “You look great.”
“Thanks. I feel pretty good, too.” D'arcy gestured ahead of her toward the open living area. “Come in, sit down.”
Kate moved toward the glass dining table, and stood, smiling and waiting for them to join her.
“Cup of tea?” enquired Eli.
“You own tea bags?” teased Kate.
“Hm.” He smiled sheepishly. “We knew you were coming, eh?” It was nice to see him in their comfortable, domestic setting. He seemed at ease.
“Thank you, yes.” She pulled out a chair and sat down, hunting in her case for the documents. Turning to D'arcy, she said, “Well. This is it.” She thumped them down on the table.
D’arcy’s full lips puckered thoughtfully, the corners curling up slowly, and she nodded.
“Are you glad you chose mediation?”
“You know I am. I don’t know where we would have ended up without your help.”
Kate shook her head. “You two did all the work, believe me.”
Eli joined them and set a mug of tea down in front of Kate, the tag of the tea bag dangling over the side. “Hope that’s okay.”
She looked up, offering him a smile of thanks and lifted the steaming mug to her nose. Once he’d taken a seat, she walked them through the final changes, opened the agreements to the final page, and turned them around, indicating where to sign. “I guess you have figured out by now that in cases such as these the document ends up being more a symbol of the process that you’ve worked through. Just a reminder, even if you never pull it out of the envelope again.” She studied them pensively. From now on, they were on their own. She felt like a mother bird tossing her chicks out of the nest. They would soar or perish, but there was no more that she could do for them.
“You’ve got to be kidding. You know I’m going to have to shake this in Eli’s face to get him to cook dinner once in awhile,” laughed D'arcy.
“There’s a better way, you know,” said Kate.
Eli looked alarmed. “What’s that?”
Kate looked pointedly at him and replied, “Stop feeding him.”
“Ah,” he laughed. “But you know what that leads to.”
Kate pressed her lips together, remembering. “Well pizza, beer and chocolate may do well enough for you and I, but now you have a family to feed.” They chuckled together.
D’arcy’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
Kate answered. “I had the great pleasure of dining with Eli at his studio last month,” she laughed. “It was most—interesting.”
“My sympathies. I had to hire a backhoe to shovel it out.” D’arcy’s grimace said it all.
“That reminds me, Kate,” Eli angled a sharp eye on her, suddenly sober. “What about our pact? I’ve kept my end of the bargain. You’re not backing out are you?”
Kate remained silent, pondering. Yes, Simon was coming for dinner on Saturday, but what then? She’d given in to his persistent urging, but with the case ending, would she agree to see him again? If only she didn’t feel so ambivalent. Finally, she spoke. “I’m in so much trouble I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
She stared intently at D'arcy. “You mustn’t
let on you know. Especially to Sharon. Even though this is basically over. But I’ll tell you, since you know so much already, Eli.”
They both leaned in.
She waffled and then confessed in a subdued voice. “I said he could come for dinner Saturday. To talk.” She threw both hands up in resignation.
“Hah!”
Eli’s eyebrows shot up as D’arcy’s lowered in a scowl. “Simon, I suppose you mean? What kind of trouble?” she asked.
“Sharon has filed a complaint against me with my professional organization—claiming conflict of interest and breach of standards of conduct. I don’t know what will happen now. Disciplinary action is still possible.”
“That bitch!” Eli muttered
She didn’t mention the cover note from her mentor, who sat on the executive. Rose was apparently concerned about her. Reading between the lines, it was clear she might have been dealt with more harshly without Rose’s intervention. It still remained to be seen whether she would be found guilty and disciplined, or not.
“How long has this been going on?” D'arcy asked.
“The complaint or the affair?” Eli joked.
“There is no affair!” Kate felt her colour rising.
The smirk on Eli’s face argued otherwise. “He’s coming for dinner?”
“Stop it. You’re horrible. I meant the complaint, of course.” D'arcy slapped softly at him.
“Since mid-November I guess, about a week after we broke off sessions. Remember I told you she had suspicions.”
“Based on what, though?”
Kate shrugged. “Just feelings. There really hasn’t been much going on at all.” She pulled a face in response to Eli’s skeptical expression. “A—a lot of tension mainly. I think she’s been watching Simon pretty closely though. She seems to claim some sort of proprietary interest.”
“I knew it, though. I mean, I don’t mean to make your case worse,” Eli hedged. “But I had a feeling right away that Simon had something… ” Eli waved a hand vaguely in the air. “…going on with both you and Sharon. I spoke to him about it. That’s when he confessed you knew each other back in college.”
Reconcilable Differences: A 'Having It All' Novel Page 31