by Wendy Chen
He went back out to her living room, turned on the television and his laptop, and waited.
“Hi honey, I’m home,” Kate joked as she clumsily staggered into her apartment with multiple bags of food from her favorite Indian restaurant. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got nearly everything on the menu.” Adam got up to take the bags from her, and she went through her usual routine of dropping her work bag on the floor and her keys, ring, and phone in a little tray by the door.
“Do you always look like that when you go to work?” Adam remarked as they unloaded the food onto her little dining table. He didn’t seem to be judgmental, just curious. Kate laughed a little, noticing how different they looked—she in her usual chignon, full makeup, fitted skirt, and stilettos; he with his hair in his eyes, wearing a grey crewneck T-shirt with some logo across the chest of a company she’d never heard of, and jeans that may well have been the same ones he wore last night. He was barefoot, having left his flip-flops by the door.
“Always,” she replied. “But I would probably be more comfortable chowing down on all this food if I changed.” Kate went into her bedroom, threw her work clothes in the pile designated for dry cleaning, and put on her usual loungewear: a jersey knit tank top with matching shorts. She had washed the city grime off her face and was pulling her hair back into a loose braid as she walked barefoot out to have dinner.
“It’s a complete transformation!” Adam said when he looked up from trying to find plates.
She went to get the plates herself, closing all the cabinet doors that he had left open in his search. “Sorry, I’m not trying to impress you,” she smiled and gave him a mock “model pose” with her hand behind her head and lips pursed.
“Clearly not,” Adam said under his breath and turned his back to her to go sit at the table.
Did I offend him? Kate wondered. She felt a little bad about her casualness. Adam had never been one to have a lot of girlfriends, and she just didn’t picture him as the guy picking up a girl at a bar, or even a guy that girls flirted with. She didn’t know anything about his breakup with his ex—what was her name, it started with a C. Maybe whatever happened with her made him sensitive about his boy-next-door vibe.
Kate poured each of them a glass of wine, thinking how nice it was that she wouldn’t have to worry about trying to recork the leftover at the end of the meal. They started by each talking about their days—of course, Adam was never big on details, but she gathered that he had gotten around the city some. She eventually felt comfortable enough to ask about his ex—she had to admit to some curiosity over this woman who had caught, and possibly broken, his heart.
They continued to eat—and drink—while Adam told her about Claudia. She was the sister of a friend he had started up a company with, and had come to bring them dinner on one of the many nights they worked late at his friend’s apartment. “Pretty soon she was coming by all the time, and then we started dating. We got engaged, but then it didn’t work out.” He pressed his lips into a thin line and looked down at his food. “It was for the best.”
“Are you still friends?”
Adam shook his head, still keeping his gaze down.
“Are you still friends with her brother?”
Adam shrugged and took a large bite of chicken, as if to avoid answering. He had never been one to talk about his feelings. Still, Kate felt like he was being extra closed off. Maybe she had been reading this wrong, and he didn’t feel that old “legacy friend” comfort and closeness that she felt. Or maybe this Claudia really did a number on him and he was still battered from it.
“So what about you?” he asked when he was finally done chewing and had swallowed. “Tell me about the guy you’re marrying.”
Kate needed a big gulp of wine for this one. It was a perfectly reasonable question—she just hadn’t been prepared to answer. “Well, he’s a guy from school,” she began. She ripped off another piece of naan, dipped it in some mango chutney, and chewed slowly.
“You told me that already,” Adam said, watching her closely.
Kate had thought she would continue along with her usual storyline, as if Adam was just any other friend. But he wasn’t. He was her oldest friend, and had been her closest and dearest for a long time. Sure, it was a long time ago, but seeing him again last night and then today made all those feelings come back again. There was nothing she couldn’t tell him then, and she still trusted him now. “He’s a good friend,” she continued.
“I should hope so.” Adam sat back in his chair now, waiting for her to finish speaking.
There was no turning back now. It was obvious that Adam knew something was off about her “engagement.” And she’d certainly had enough wine to loosen her tongue a little. So she spilled it—it wasn’t a very long or complicated story. She even told him that she and Alberto slept together sometimes, so it wasn’t like he was a stranger to her. At that detail, Adam flushed a little, and Kate had to remember that sex just wasn’t one of the things they used to talk about. “Just don’t tell Linda. Or your family,” Kate concluded.
“I won’t,” Adam said, glancing away. “You know I don’t talk to my family.”
His brow furrowed ever so slightly as he ran his hand through his hair. And there it was again: that look of a little sadness and vulnerability that reminded her of her high school best friend. Adam was the youngest of five brothers, with a stay-at-home mom and a dad who worked long hours but still took the boys to ball games on weekends. But his was far from the idyllic big family life that Kate had always wished for as an only child. Adam was the youngest, the smallest, the smartest, and his mother’s favorite, which meant he was belittled and beaten up by his meathead brothers. Even his father thought he had been too “coddled” by his mother, was outwardly disappointed when Adam didn’t have the physique or interest in playing football the way the rest of the “Ward Men” did. Adam’s home life was constantly tense, and it didn’t even end when his brothers graduated from high school. They had all gone to local colleges or trade schools, found local jobs and local girls to marry, and were “home” at their parents’ house all the time. His entire family was relieved when Adam decided to go to Stanford for college.
Kate and Adam moved to the sofa to finish their wine. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing with this whole marriage thing?” Adam asked. Surprisingly, Kate didn’t feel annoyed with the way he questioned her judgment.
“I don’t see myself getting married for the traditional reasons,” she answered. “I don’t see myself wanting kids. I don’t even see myself being monogamous, quite frankly. Going downtown to sign a marriage certificate to help out a friend is as good a reason as any as far as I see it.” Adam frowned slightly. “I’m not like other women, I know that. And as diverse as this city is, I’m still in a pretty traditional career field. It helps to have people think my personal life is becoming more traditional, too.” She wasn’t sure if he would understand this part and continued on, explaining how their boss would invite other colleagues to kids’ birthday parties or other family-oriented events in an attempt to show a well-balanced work atmosphere, but how he would exclude her, saying he was sure she had more exciting things to do. And of course, she did have more exciting things to do, but she also missed on the career networking and face time that she felt gave others a leg up.
“My boss hosts a dinner every quarter as a thank-you to the spouses and significant others who support the long hours of his employees. Now that I have a fiancé, I get to go.” The fact that her boss was actually a jerk who used these events as an excuse to justify his irrational demands on the job and just seemed to enjoy a certain amount of brownnosing was moot. Alberto was going to help her get an in with the boss.
Adam was still silent during her whole explanation. She wished he would say something. Was he disappointed in her? Surely he understood how much her career meant to her. “You know what the business world is like. Appearances count.”
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��It seems like you’ve thought about this a lot,” he finally said.
“Well, not at first.” Had she admitted that out loud before? “At first it was just something I put out there when Alberto was telling me about his visa expiring. But then the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. And then I bought some ring from a street vendor in the Village. And all of a sudden, I was the topic of conversation at work—in a good way!”
Adam nodded. “I just hope this works out the way you want it to.”
“It will,” she said, partly to him, partly to herself. “He hasn’t pushed me into this, if that’s what you think.”
“I don’t think that. I don’t think anyone could push you into anything.” He smiled and looked directly at her then, and the tenderness in his blue eyes pierced her.
How did he still know her so well? “If I change my mind, it’ll be fine. Alberto will be fine, and we would still be friends. I know what I’m doing.”
Adam nodded again. “You always seem to.”
They finished the wine and realized it was getting late. “I’ve got my run in the morning,” Kate yawned.
“Mind if I join you?”
“Since when do you run?”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” His lips quirked up in a challenging smirk.
“I’m out the door at 5:30 sharp.”
“Meet you in the lobby.”
“You’re really here,” Kate mumbled when she saw Adam waiting for her in the lobby. “At least you aren’t wearing flip-flops.”
“Good morning to you too, Sunshine,” Adam said brightly. She was still not a morning person apparently.
“Are you still on West Coast time or something?”
“I don’t need a lot of sleep, remember?”
She responded with something like a grunt and headed out the door, leaving Adam to follow her. Once outside, she said, “I’m used to running alone.” She put her earphones in her ears. “I like to run alone.”
Adam just smiled. “No problem.” He started to jog, just a couple of paces behind her, watching the swing of her braid side to side, enjoying the rhythm as she hit her stride. He was happy to give her the space and simply enjoyed being near her. She had good running form—he guessed they both became a little more athletic after high school somehow. He gulped, watching her behind, trying not to think too many dirty thoughts. It was the same last night after she had changed out of her work clothes—had she even been wearing a bra? It was different for him to be thinking of her this way. Yet he couldn’t help it. She had been his best friend, and now? He wanted more. Definitely more.
Hearing her side of the engagement story was tough for him last night. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy that she wasn’t in love with someone else or sad for her that she didn’t think she’d find love for herself. When had she become so jaded? She really thought she had a great life, the high-powered career, going out all the time, hooking up with a new man every week. He tried not to think about the men. Was she happy?
He stood next to her at a corner as they waited for a light. She glanced at him, as if to say, “You’re still here?” He just smiled at her again. Those laps he did in the pool every so often apparently came in handy toward building some endurance.
They continued on their run. The looks Kate got from other morning runners were not lost on Adam, particularly the ones from other men, young or old. Adam glared at them and realized something. If not this Alberto guy and his need for a green card, then someone else. Some other guy, not Adam, could be the one who convinced Kate that there was more to life, more to love, than a one-night stand. He hated this possibility, hated it more than the possibility that she might actually be married in a few months.
By the time they returned to her building, she was in a much better mood. He was a lot more winded than she was, which added to her amusement. “Still competitive,” he panted.
“You held your own,” she said, barely out of breath with her hands on her hips. “I’m impressed.”
“I’ll get better at this.”
“Planning to come along again?”
“I’m thinking I might stay in town for a while.” He paused to catch his breath and see her reaction. She didn’t seem unhappy with the news, but not jumping for joy either. “My meetings have gone well. I need to jump on the opportunity while I can.”
She smiled. “I’ll see you tonight then?” She turned toward the elevator after he gave her a nod.
Chapter 6
It was Friday evening, and Kate was in a foul mood. It was her boss’s fault. OK, the market closed in a god-awful low. So everyone in the office had a right to be in a foul mood. But the MD was being a complete jerk, making the team stay late to brainstorm how they were going to get more investors and more money, just because his own wife and kids happened to be out of town and he had nothing better to do.
Adam texted her:
Dinner tonight?
Kate responded:
Stuck at work
She had been looking forward to dinner and then heading down to Alberto’s show afterward. She still wasn’t sure how long Adam was going to be in town—he was elusive about that and apparently had few enough commitments at home that he was keeping his trip open-ended. But now she was stuck in a conference room, staring across a table at a bunch of other people who all would rather be somewhere else, while their managing director drew on a white board. She wasn’t at this firm to make friends and didn’t believe she could really have friends at work—it was just too competitive. But sometimes she liked to look around a room like this and imagine the lives of her colleagues.
There was Jim, the classic Wall Street type in a well-cut suit, with a house in Connecticut, a stay-at-home wife, and two children. He would have called his wife hours ago to say that he wouldn’t make it to date night/soccer practice/neighborhood barbecue.
Stephen was next to him, an older version of the same, whose kids were now out of the house and who only called him for money. It was well-known within the firm that he was having an affair with one of the investor relations girls, who was barely older than his kids. The MD practically gave him a slap on the back in encouragement when those rumors came out—and he also used the information to guilt Stephen to do his bidding.
There were three lap dogs, as Kate liked to refer to them. Recent MBA grads who were hungry—hungry for approval, hungry to be able to pay off their student loans, hungry for the next promotion. She had been one of them herself not that long ago, and she felt for them. They were still trying to figure out their lives, how to balance the demanding work hours with their desire for a social life. Kate was fairly certain the woman had a serious boyfriend. She would be trying to figure out how to balance work with her desire for a family. She would be trying too hard to figure out her life’s priorities. It would take them a few years, just as it had taken her. At least one of them would quit for a lower pressure job with fewer hours, in an attempt to have a relationship.
And then there were the mid-level women, just herself and Rachel, who was several years older than she was. Rachel was hardly competition, though, having taken herself out of the workforce for a couple of years when her kids were younger. Kate did not want to be Rachel at all, looking at her watch every few minutes, while she missed something at home. Their MD would sometimes make snide comments to Rachel if she asked for time off, asking if she had something better to do, or would her stay-at-home husband be able to handle things for her?
Kate sometimes wondered what her colleagues thought of her. She tried not to give them too much information, thus the daily uniform, the shark exterior. The more their MD tried to socialize with her, the more closed she had become, seeing how he used personal information against the others. So then she decided that her colleagues would only know what she wanted them to know. At first, it behooved her to be somewhat of the party girl at the office because her MD thought she was “fun.” She never reall
y showed her true self, never flirted around colleagues or anything like that. But her willingness to go to a strip club with male colleagues and clients was somehow considered an asset to the firm. More recently, though, she felt like her fun status hindered her career trajectory, so her engagement came at the right time.
She sat straighter in her seat. She was still hungry like the lap dogs. She had just learned a thing or two over the years that could help her stand out without having to stomach being a constant brownnoser. Let her boss think that she was settling down now, that she needed to continue to be a breadwinner, no, a rainmaker, in order to support herself or to pay for an extravagant wedding. She nodded at whatever it was the boss was saying, staring at his white board diagram as if there was nothing better than sitting in this room on a Friday night. The boss at least took notice and actually made eye contact with her when he said excitedly, “See, you get it! That’s the key here in this little downturn.”
Little downturn? It’s another recession, you idiot. She smiled brightly.
“Fear and Greed,” the boss said. “Now our clients are in a state of fear. We’ve got to get back to greed.”
Finally, finally, an hour and a half later, they were released.
Kate decided to stop home to quickly change her clothes and was surprised that Adam was still there. It reminded her a bit of high school, when she would come home late from glee club practice and he would be hanging out in her kitchen with her dad in order to escape his own family. She headed to her bedroom to change into jeans and a tank top. There was no time to do her hair, really, so she just brushed it out and pulled it into a high, loose bun. “You want to come with to see Alberto’s band?” she called out to Adam. “I’m meeting some friends there—they want to meet you!” She came out to the living room to hear his response. “What kind of place is it? Should I change?” he asked.
