Chapter Three
I woke up with a vicious hangover that was as much from humiliation as Amstel Light and mini-bar wine, and remembered Nick in my room, and the way I had acted. It seemed unlikely that it could have gone much worse, but at least I hadn’t met him naked at the door with a rose in my teeth. I would get up and pull myself together. I would be alluring in my moss-green Ellen Tracy sweater set. I would fix this.
But first I would check my texts because my phone was buzzing. At this early hour?
“Where the HELL r u?” It was Emily.
“?? Getting ready.”
This stretched the truth, but the cardinal rule of texting is to keep it short, so I omitted the telling details.
“We started. Hurry your azz!”
Maybe it wasn’t as early as I thought. “On my way.”
Well, beautiful and together were out of the question now, although I don’t know if I could have achieved them under the circumstances, no matter how much time I had. I scrabbled myself together in accordance with hygienic and aesthetic minimums and joined the teambuilding session, day two of two. I hoped I could fake it well enough to fool my co-workers.
I paused outside the open door to the conference room and listened to the presenter. The firm had hired a touchy-feely consultant to help us resolve any issues we had with each other in a positive, constructive way.
“Good luck with that,” I thought. I wondered if he’d help me with my “I want to sleep with my possibly-still-married co-worker who oh yeah by the way hates me” issue.
This was not a kumbaya type of session, though; the consultant was actually quite good. Today we were learning how to talk about what we needed more of and less of from each other. He instructed us to partner up with the person with whom we most needed an effective working relationship.
I breached the entrance to the garishly floral conference room. Within seconds, the pairing off was almost complete. I scanned the room for Emily’s big blonde Texas hair, hoping she had waited for me, but she was with the lead paralegal, taking the activity way too seriously. I glared at her and she shrugged with eyebrows raised, as if to say, “It ain’t my fault if you stand me up and then can’t drag yourself out of bed until noon.” I harrumphed and searched the room for a partner.
As I scanned the space, Nick’s flat eyes slowly locked onto mine. Not good. I, too, kept my face expressionless, a gargantuan effort considering that last night’s mini-bar trail mix wanted back out. I started to turn away, then realized he was walking toward me. I expected him to move past me, until he didn’t.
He said nothing, so I spoke. I couldn’t help it. I always led. No wonder my big brother told me I pushed men away.
“So, you want some more of this?” I tried a self-deprecating smile.
He didn’t smile back. “It seems like the best way to get ‘this’ cleared up, so we’ll have an understanding before we get back to the office.” He waggled his hand back and forth between us. It reminded me of last night, and not in a good way.
We took a seat. The flowers on the wallpaper and the floor weren’t doing a lot to cheer me up. The vines in the carpet suddenly reached up and bound me to my chair by the ankles. No, you blockhead, that’s your imagination and too much booze. Ugh. Unnerving. I rubbed my hands on my forearms, trying to smooth out my goose bumps.
Nick read the instructions aloud. We would take turns going through a list of exercises. First, we would tell each other the things we appreciated; next, the things we needed more or less of; and finally, what we were committed to do more or less of for each other. In case we forgot these instructions, they were block-printed in bold colored marker on flip charts all around the room. I appreciate you, posters, for breaking up this flowery nightmare, I thought.
“You go first, Nick. I think you need to remember what you appreciate about me.” I said it in a playful tone.
He didn’t reciprocate, nor did he hesitate. “I appreciate that you are a professional who does a good job and works hard. You are important to the firm.” Not exactly warm.
“Thank you, Nick. Anything else? You can keep the compliments coming if you want.” I tried another smile, head tilted to the right. My best tilt.
“That’s it.”
This was going swell.
“OK, then, what I appreciate about you is . . . ,” while he was taking the strictly professional route, I refused to be so impersonal, “. . . your creativity and insight, and how well we worked together on the Burnside case.” I channeled B.S.-speak from the atmosphere, a legal version of a bad Dr. Phil episode. “And I appreciate that you don’t have a bar napkin with you today.” Hint, hint—Nick, let’s get past this.
No chance. “Now we do the next part, more and less of.” He ran his hands through his hair. Uh oh. “What I want you to do more of is let Gino know when you need support from me, and he and I will work it out. What I want you to do less of is,” he hesitated, then said, “corner me.”
Did I hear that wrong, or had Nick just dumped me? And accused me of stalking him? In so many words. Even after the difficult end to our evening, the professional dropkick seemed extreme. Was he suggesting I had sexually harassed him? I went from zero to sixty on the rage meter in less than a second. Oops.
“You don’t want to work with me anymore? I CORNER you? We have one hard personal conversation, and you refuse to work with me?”
“Can you please keep your voice down?” he hissed. I threw up my hands. He took that as a yes and went on. “I just want to minimize our contact,” he said. His voice matched his eyes.
“That’s absurd.” Nick’s hand went up, and I ratcheted back my volume. “We’re a great team. It’s a huge benefit to this firm when we work together. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Is it all because of last night?”
One hundred eyes were watching me crumble into emotional rubble. No, that was just paranoia. My hands reached for my collar and tried to tug it open further.
“I’m not going to talk about why. I just need some space. If you’ve got a problem with me, you need to take it to Gino.”
Decision and self-control time. If I made a bigger scene, I’d embarrass him, and then I would never be able to fix it. I had spent half of last night reconciling myself to there never being an “us,” no Nick and Katie. I disliked practicing law, but in the last year, I had loved working with Nick. Working with him was better than nothing. It might even be enough. But if he took that away, all I’d have left was me and the thoughts I didn’t want to think.
I had to be realistic, too. I was important to the firm, but Nick’s soon-to-be-ex-father-in-law was our biggest client. This rift had to stay between Nick and me. There would be no “going to Gino” for me. Besides, what would I say to him? “Gino, Nick won’t work with me because he thinks I want to sleep with him. Make him be nice to me or I’ll throw a temper tantrum.”
I spoke in measured words. “I guess I have no choice. I will honor your wishes, but let me be one hundred percent clear: This is your decision. I don’t understand it, and it’s not what I want. I also promise to be honest with you. I’ll start that right now.” It seemed like a good place to start, since I’d lied to him last night and he knew it. “This hurts me. You’re treating me like you hate me. We had a regrettable moment this weekend. I think we should talk about this again back at the office.”
“I won’t feel any differently there,” Nick said. He stood halfway up, but I stopped him.
“Hold on. I get to say what I would like you to do more and less of.”
He sat back down. I ignored the stabbing pain in my stomach and spoke. “I would like you to do more keeping an open mind and less judging and making knee-jerk decisions.”
“OK.”
“OK, you commit to that?”
“OK, I heard you.”
We stared at each other for several more seconds. Then Nick got up. The feet of his chair made a horrible “shcreek” noise against the steel-wool hotel carpet. I cringed. My cringe timing wa
s bad, based on the tightening of his lips and brows. He stalked off.
I stayed rooted to my chair.
A little while later—seconds? minutes?—Emily interrupted my impression of a block of ice.
“Earth to Katie. It’s break time. Are you coming?” she asked. Her voice was snippy, but less so than her texts earlier.
I glanced up at her. She was all long legs, in cowboy boots and blue jeans that she had topped with a Gap denim jacket and purple cotton-knit shirt. “Um, thanks, no, I’ll meet you back in here,” I said.
Emily walked out of the conference room with a group of paralegals. I beelined for the bar. What drink was respectable at ten a.m.? I ordered a Bloody Mary, a drink I’d never tried. Who knew how good Bloody Marys were? The first one worked well for me, so I got another. With the help of my new friend Bloody Mary, I decided I could repair things with Nick. Only I couldn’t find him.
When we returned from break, I cornered Emily. “Have you seen Nick?” I asked her.
Emily sighed. “He left. I heard him tell Gino he had a family emergency.”
A bust.
The rest of the day passed. I don’t remember much of it. I think I made appropriate facial expressions and comments when required. Or maybe I didn’t. My washing-machine mind was churning with thoughts of Nick.
Sometime that afternoon, Emily drove me home in my practical old silver Accord. The day became the night, and the night became more of the day, and when I woke up the next day to the sound of my brother’s voice, I was sprawled across my living room couch.
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