Accidental Life

by Pamela Binnings Ewen

Relief flooded her. “That’s great,” she said. “I’ll get things settled with Sydney. She’ll take over at work while we’re gone.” Instantly she felt better. Time, she just needed time to get used to the idea that she would be . . . was . . . a mother before she announced the news to Peter. Surely there was a way to work this out without sacrificing her career. She would put the thoughts aside. For now.

  “Let’s go out to dinner, Rebbe. I’m already in vacation mode. How about Pascal’s Manalefor barbecued shrimp?”

  She turned to him, smiling. “Yes. Let’s do that.” Suddenly she was hungry. Swinging back to the mirror, she began brushing her hair again and planning what she’d pack to take along. Despite the dull lump of worry that lodged in her chest, she smiled at Peter in the mirror. “We’ll plan the trip tonight.”

  He pushed off the door and glanced at his watch. “Give me half an hour. I’ve got some calls to make. I’ll be down in the study.”

  As he turned away, she longed to reach out, to call him back and unburden herself right then and there—to let him hold her and tell her that everything would be all right. That their lives wouldn’t change all that much; that her career could remain intact, even with a child. That they would work this out together. She twisted around, and called to him before she could stop herself.

  With one hand still on the doorframe, Peter swung back into the doorway, brows lifted, smiling. Their eyes met, and for a split second she almost told him. And then she lifted one shoulder with a little shrug, and put down the brush.

  “Never mind.” She said. “It was nothing.”

  Pascale’s Manale on Napoleon Avenue was, as always, crowded at seven o’clock, even on a Tuesday night. The tiled oyster bar near the door was busy. Customers sat waiting on benches in the corner of the front room under the celebrity photographs and behind the place where the oyster bar stood. The maître d’ looked at them when they came in and nodded, then entered their names on the list. Peter located two seats at the bar for the wait.

  “Busy tonight,” Peter observed. He’d decided to put the case that Mac was working on a back shelf in his mind, for now. It could turn out that this was all just a terrible mistake. He didn’t want this case to put a damper on the excitement about their weekend vacation.

  Peter leaned close to Rebecca, his eyes shining. “I asked Molly this afternoon to make plane reservations for Thursday, late in the day, around five or so.”

  “Sounds great,” she said.

  He pulled back, grinning. “Well I’m looking forward to getting away for a few days. We haven’t done this in a while.”

  She told him about her new office, how large it was, and how quickly the firm had moved her in, and all about the new furniture someone had picked out for her because of the magazine interview.

  “You haven’t told me about that! What magazine?”

  So, she told him all the good news of the day—about the Spin-it people coming down from New York to interview her tomorrow, and about the article, how she’d been picked as one of the top ten women in the legal profession to watch on the national scene.

  With a huge grin he opened his arms wide and pulled her into a hug. “I knew you’d make it in a big way, Rebbe. You’re one amazing woman.” He drew back, looking into her eyes. Then he tipped up her chin and gave her a soft, quick kiss before letting go. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Smiling, she pulled back her hair, twisted it, and let it fall. “Thanks, my love. And I can’t wait for this weekend. I’m ready to go someplace far away, just the two of us.” She paused and picked up the glass of water. “I’ll have to be back by Wednesday next week at the latest though.”

  Peter swung his stool around, facing her. Fingering a lock of her hair, he gazed at her. “No problem, Beauty. We’ll stay at La Sirenuse and relax.” Their honeymoon hotel.

  She saw her love reflected in Peter’s eyes.

  Someone called to Peter from across the room, breaking the connection between them. He waved and shouted something as she turned back toward the bar, eyeing the glittering rows of bottles near the mirror. Perhaps the place, the village, and the same hotel would bring good luck when she broke the news to Peter. Suddenly she couldn’t wait to leave. Four days alone in Positano. She would confide in Peter there, and together, perhaps they could work this out. After all, help could always be hired.

  Picturing the terraced buildings on the sides of the steep cliffs rising from the Tyrrhenian Sea, she let her thoughts flow to the ancient quiet village in Italy that for a few days would be a refuge. At a distance, from a boat in the water looking back, the town had a dreamy Moorish look, the buildings and houses all built close together and rectangular, all washed in white almost blinding in the sun, one atop the other. Then, at dusk, when colors deepen when the sun goes down, the vertical village turning amber, almost golden, like a scene on a Paul Gauguin canvas.

  She slipped her hand into Peter’s. He looked at her and smiled.

  “Your table’s ready, Mr. Peter.” The voice came from behind them. They both turned. The elderly waiter stood a few feet away.

  “Thank you,” Peter said, standing. He placed his hand on the small of her back as they followed the waiter to a table.

  The waiter brought white bibs and they ate barbecued shrimp, peeling back the shells and dipping the shrimp into the spicy buttery sauce while they planned the trip. As they ate and laughed and talked, waves of emotion swept through her, laughter and happiness and anticipation, warring with a clandestine feeling of despair and creeping desperation. But, she concealed that part from Peter. The only thing that she was certain of from moment to moment right now, she realized, was that she could not imagine living the remainder of her life without Peter at her side.

  Oh how she loved him. She would have to have the child, because she could not lose him.

  She could not.

  9

  The next morning, Wednesday, Rebecca took an early phone call with Warren Williams, chief financial officer of Roberts Engineering, the new client that she’d brought on board. They were discussing his idea of investing in a gold mine in Nevada. Rose Marie stuck her head in and signaled that the New York people were here from the magazine. Rebecca nodded and held up one finger, listening. A moment later she hung up the phone and turned back to Rose Marie. “They’re already here?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re a little early.” Rebecca stood and smoothed her skirt. “Do I look all right?”

  “You look fine. Great, actually.” Rose Marie headed for the door. “They’re upstairs in reception. I’ll go get them.”

  A few minutes later Rose Marie guided two men through her office door. Both were dressed for cold weather. She stood and the first one, the smaller of the two, stuck out his hand and introduced himself as Tom Marfrey. She said she was glad to meet him and shook his hand, looking over his shoulder at the man trailing behind him carrying a light on a tall stand.

  Tom Marfrey turned and said, “This is Arthur Timmons, our camera.”

  “Art,” the cameraman said, giving her a nod. She watched as he stepped into the office, sweeping his eyes over the angles and corners, the shadows and light with a purposeful look. Turning back to Tom, she caught him inspecting her. She supposed she’d passed his test because he began to shed the heavy coat. “We’ll set up and get a few shots before we do the interview,” he said.

  She took Tom’s coat and put it in the closet near the door.

  Closing the door and turning around, she bumped into Art. “Excuse me,” he said, pushing past her with the light. She stepped aside to give him room. He set down the light, then tossed his own coat over the chair in front of her desk, and then went back out into the hallway.

  She walked to her desk and sat on the edge to get out of the way, bracing her hands behind her. “Just tell me what you need.”

  Rose Marie appeared in the doorway
. “Just watching,” she said when Rebecca glanced her way.

  Tom stood in the middle of the room, hands on his hips, turning, studying the area. “It’ll take us a few minutes to set up.” He glanced at Rebecca. “This is a nice office. Good light.”

  “Would you like coffee or Coke-Cola?” Rose Marie asked.

  “No thanks. We had breakfast at the hotel.”

  Rose Marie shuffled aside as Art reappeared carrying a camera tripod this time. Tom motioned to his right, toward the windows. “Can you shoot from there?”

  Rebecca wandered out into the hallway with her secretary while they discussed the lighting. Leaning against Rose Marie’s typewriter, she folded her arms and looked down the row of desks outside the attorney’s offices.

  Tom came to the doorway and motioned. “Let’s get started.” As she entered the office, he gestured toward the sofa. “Sit right over there. Art will do the shots with you sitting on the sofa first, and around the office. Then, when we’re ready to start the interview, you’ll sit in this chair, and I’ll sit here on the sofa, facing you and we’ll just talk.”

  “All right.” Rebecca took the spot he’d indicated on the sofa and sat down. She crossed her legs and watched Art setting up the camera near the windows.

  “The light’s fierce in here,” Art said, peering through the lens. “We weren’t prepared for this sunshine. We left gray skies and cold wind behind yesterday out of LaGuardia.”

  “The weather here is always like this,” Rebecca said.

  Tom let out a laugh. “We sound like tourists, huh? I’ve been here in August.” Hands on his hips, he looked at Ray then studied her position, then turned in a circle taking in the entire room. At last, facing her again, he said, “Oh, and we’ll need some shots in a conference room. Can you arrange that?”

  Rebecca said sure, and stepped out of the office to tell Rose Marie. Art followed her out and walked on down the hallway. She asked Rose Marie to try to get the executive conference room on the eighteenth floor for the pictures, if it was free. Walking back into the office, she had to step aside again for Art, who came in this time carrying two large silver-looking umbrellas. To filter the light, he said. He opened the umbrellas in the middle of the room, and angled them around the interview area they’d chosen.

  Tom and Rebecca sat together in the corner while Art looked through the camera and moved the umbrellas around several times. When Art said, ready, Tom stood up and walked to stand behind him, telling her the photographs would take about twenty minutes. Art said he’d do a few test shots. Then he’d take a series of photos with her sitting on the sofa, first.

  Tom sat behind her desk scribbling in a notebook while Art took the first pictures. He guided her into different poses, talking and clicking, sometimes with a small camera and sometimes with the larger camera set on the tripod, which he moved around. They took shots of her in front of the bookcase, and then Tom moved and Rebecca sat behind her desk and pretended to be writing, talking on the phone, and Art took pictures there.

  When the photography was finished, Tom walked toward her, waving his hand at the rows of leather bound books. “What are all those?”

  She moved to the chair, as he’d earlier instructed and looked over at the bookcases. “Oh, that’s my work.” Tom took a seat on the sofa beside her. “Six years of transactions I’ve worked on here at Mangen & Morris are recorded in those.” She smiled. “Each one brings back memories.”

  He set a black-cased tape recorder on the coffee table, and looked at her. “Do you mind? This is more efficient.”

  “That’s fine.”

  He checked the tape, then turned it on. “Okay. We were talking about the books in your office and you said that each one brings back a memory. Are they good ones?

  She grinned. “Yes. Great memories.” The camera clicking surprised her.

  From behind the camera, Art gave her a thumbs-up. “Good smile,” he said. Leaning around the camera, he twisted the lens. “You’re the first one we’ve interviewed for this article who’s smiled when explaining that.”

  “Well those volumes represent six years of my life.” Doug will love this, she thought. An article in Spin-it was such good publicity for the firm. And for her, too.

  “That’s a good quote, about the books.” Tom settled back and crossed his legs. “We’ll use it. That’s what readers what to know, how you like your work. How you feel about things. What’s it like to be you, and what it took to get here.” He looked at Art and Art nodded. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

  The first question was no surprise; it was the one everyone asked first. “When did you decide you wanted to be a lawyer, and why?”

  She gave him her best smile, knowing that she’d never tell the whole story. In fact, she’d called Mama on Sunday to give her the news that she’d made partner, thinking maybe this once, just this one time there’d be a response, something more than, “Oh, that’s nice,” before launching into a stream of regret over the loss of her baby twenty years ago, and how Elise would have chosen another path . . . or something worse.

  Unspoken were the words—Elise was gone, and that was Rebecca’s fault. Now, she roused herself, looking at Tom and holding onto the smile.

  “Mostly,” she said, folding her arms and settling back, “it was just good luck.” That wasn’t true either, of course. She’d worked nonstop for thirteen years to get here, four years undergraduate, three in law school, six as an associate. But her tone, practiced and breezy carried her now. They talked for an hour about how it was to be a young woman partner in a major law firm when, at times, she was the only woman in the room.

  “What do you like best about practicing corporate law?”

  She pursed her lips and thought about the question. After a few seconds passed, she said, “I’ve worked on so many different areas of business over the years and my practice is constantly challenging. One day you could be financing a new resort hotel, the next you’re working with investors in gold mining, or international shipping.” She spread her hands. “The variety is fascinating.”

  “You like the challenges.”

  They talked about the little problems women still had to face—the private clubs where clients dined at lunch and women were not yet allowed. Problems that men in the profession had probably never given any thought, but that she and Amalise had worked through over the years. And they talked about the psychological rewards, the feelings that you’ve accomplished something, that your work has helped clients reach their goals at the end of a transaction.

  Tom said that he could see in her manner, in her tone of voice and the expressions on her face when she talked about her work, how much she loved what she was doing.

  And he was right, she replied.

  Rose Marie stuck her head through the door and informed them that the conference room was reserved only until noon.

  Rebecca glanced at her watch and then at Rose Marie. “Thanks,” she said. It was eleven thirty. “We’ll take the elevator. It’s on the eighteenth floor,” she said to Tom.

  Tom glanced at Art. “Are you ready to go on up?”

  Art was packing up the umbrellas. “Yep. You take the tripod and camera. I’ll carry these, and come back for the rest.”

  Tom leaned toward the tape recorder, and then suddenly straightened up again, turning back to her. “One more thing. Before we wrap this up I have a question: Thinking back to the time when women first got the vote, and some struck out on their own. Back in the 1920s. How would you compare the issues that generation of women faced in the business world, in comparison to your own?”

  “Today?” Rebecca looked around at her lovely new office, and then back at Tom. “It’s kind of like the moonshot, you know. Once NASA got things going in the sixties, we landed on the moon within the decade. That’s where we are today, we women. We’re on the moon. Now we’ll shoot for the stars if we wa
nt to. Or some of us will choose to work at home. But either way, because our grandmothers and mothers got things started, now we have choices.”

  “Any tips for making it in a man’s world?”

  She smiled. “Keep wearing lipstick. It’s our world, too.”

  Tom laughed and wrote that down. Then he switched off the recorder. Art picked up the closed umbrellas and they followed him out.

  “Are you free to have lunch with us after this?” Tom said as they walked toward the elevator. “Our flight’s at four.”

  “Sure. I’m free until one thirty. My secretary can book us a table at Brennan’s, or we can take our chances with the line at Galatoire’s.” She gave him a sideways look. “I’ll treat. I have my own credit card now.”

  10

  The next morning Rebecca and Peter each packed for the trip and Peter put the suitcases in his car. She would spend the morning in her office and he’d wrap things up in his and pick her up downtown at two o’clock. Their flight left at four in the afternoon, giving them plenty of time to check in and relax.

  At the office she was happy to find that Sydney was already working with the transaction team to finalize the bond documents for the closing. Changes to the Offering Memorandum had been agreed on by all parties. After a quick call with the chief financial officer of her client, the issuer of the bonds, Rebecca strolled down the hallway to Amalise’s new office.

  She stood at the door before entering, watching Amalise. She was fully absorbed in her work, reading and making notes in the margin. She thought about the differences between the two of them. While she, Rebecca, put all her energy into a transaction until it was completed, Amalise seemed able to divide hers up between home and work. That talent had helped Amalise make it through the darkness of an earlier marriage that had left her a widow. And, she guessed, maybe that’s what made her arrangement with Jude such a success.

  With a quick series of raps on the door, she walked into the office.

  Amalise looked up and Rebecca could almost see her clearing her mind, shifting her attention completely from one thing to the other as she put the pencil down on the desk and smiled. “Hey. Come on in.” She straightened and leaned back in the chair.