The Girlfriend (The Boss)

by Abigail Barnette

  We stepped out into the short hallway, Emma frowning slightly. “You’ve yet to refrain from completely mortifying me with the details of your relationship with my father, and I doubt anything you could tell me would be worse than hearing you shout, ‘fuck me harder’ at the very top of your lungs, so why not?”

  I wished I had been drinking something when she said that, because a spit take would have been completely appropriate. But she’d put me at ease. I was starting to see a pattern with her. She would say the most horrible, awkward thing possible right out of the gate, almost as if she were getting it over with.

  I owed her the same in return. “We did get pregnant. I had an abortion the week before Christmas.”

  “Wow.” Emma stopped in front of the door to the pool and turned to face me. “I don’t know what to say to that. He didn’t pressure you to—”

  “No.” I shook my head emphatically. “I actually think he wanted to keep the baby. I don’t think. I know he wanted to keep it. But no, he never once suggested I should keep it for him.”

  “Well.” Emma pursed her lips. “Good job, Dad.”

  She opened the door and gestured for me to go ahead of her. But I felt awful, like I’d crossed a boundary between us that I should have thought about before. She wasn’t Holli. She wasn’t my bestest buddy I could just spill all of this to. “You know, you don’t have to hang out with me. I’m sure you have friends and stuff. Better things to do than listen to your dad’s girlfriend talk about personal problems you don’t care to hear.”

  “Nonsense.” She shook her head adamantly. “Sophie, you’re not really like my dad’s girlfriend. If you hadn’t figured it out already, he sees you as pretty permanent. You take care of all his medical and household stuff, he’s open with you in a way I’ve never seen him with another woman... You’re not his girlfriend. You’re kind of his family right now. I suppose that makes you, in a completely dysfunctional way, my family as well.”

  My heart felt like it was going to fall out, from shock more than anything. And even though we were wearing bathing suits and it was incredibly weird, I hugged her. A genuine hug, not one I felt obligated to give her.

  “Yes, well,” she said when she stepped back. “Come on.”

  The hot tub was amazing. It could fit eight people and was sunken into some elevated marble steps. I turned on the bubbles and we eased into the hot water with matching happy sighs.

  “I’ll be totally honest with you,” Emma said, leaning back in the molded plastic seat. “When I first met you, I did think you were some gold-digging bimbo.”

  “Thanks,” I said dryly.

  “Well, look at the facts. You were his assistant, for god’s sake. But seeing how you care for him... just the fact that you’re not running away from all this cancer nonsense speaks highly of you.”

  “I don’t think it does.” I didn’t want to dissuade her from her revised opinion of me, but I hated the thought that people wanted to give me some kind of credit for staying with Neil despite his illness. “I love him. Walking away was never an option. Not because I’m a good person; I honestly couldn’t blame someone if they wanted to walk away from this type of situation. But I just know that for me, leaving him alone was never on the table.”

  We lapsed into an awkward silence.

  “Sorry I told your mom to shut up,” I blurted.

  “She was well out of line,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes. “Between you and me, I think my mother has some... issues where my dad is concerned.”

  “Oh?” I said, when what I wanted to say was, “no shit?”

  I flicked some of the surface bubbles with my index finger and held my tongue.

  “Don’t play dumb, Sophie. You had to notice.” Sometimes, Emma could sound so much like her father, it was eerie.

  “Well, what are the issues? I don’t know a lot of Neil’s history where your mom is involved. All I know is that they got pregnant, and they split up before you were born.”

  “After,” she clarified. “But not much after. According to my mom, they were going to try to ‘make it work’ for my sake, but then she called off the whole thing. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair to you,’” Emma said with an exaggerated frown and air quotes. “The only thing they could agree on was wanting what was best for me. They do better as friends.”

  “Your mom doesn’t think so,” I said with a snort, and then I wished I’d never said it.

  If Emma took offense, she hid it well. “I’ve noticed that, myself. Mum is content to be dad’s friend and business partner most of the time. But the moment he has a serious girlfriend, she becomes insanely jealous. She hated Elizabeth.”

  “That might have just been because she could see it was a bad match,” I suggested, trying not to condemn Valerie without knowing her better.

  “It was because dad was serious about her,” Emma insisted. “She hates you, too.”

  “I got that memo, thanks.” I closed my eyes and leaned back. I hoped we never went back to New York; I liked the hot tub too much.

  “Don’t let mom bully you or intimidate you,” Emma advised. “I love her, but that woman can be vicious. Just ignore her, don’t let her bait you, and don’t give her any information about your relationship with my dad.”

  “Okay, now you’re sounding paranoid.” I forced myself to laugh. But Emma wouldn’t be telling me this stuff if she didn’t really believe her mom was a threat.

  Well, the best way to neutralize a threat would be to remain unthreatened.

  “She’s done things in the past. I don’t know what her motivation was, but... promise you’ll never tell dad that I told you this?”

  I nodded, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to actually hear what Emma was about to tell me.

  “Mum took Elizabeth out for lunch to ‘celebrate her engagement’ and told Elizabeth some outrageous lies about dad. Elizabeth came home and they got into a huge fight. It was absolutely ridiculous garbage about how he’s allegedly gay or something and slept with my uncle Stephen before he’d dated mum. Totally unbelievable bullshit, but Elizabeth felt hugely betrayed and came home and they almost called off the wedding.”

  I opened my eyes to stare up at the ceiling and its shimmering mosaic of ancient Roman ladies bathing. From a past conversation between Neil and Rudy, I’d gathered that there had been some involvement between Neil and Valerie’s brother Stephen, but Emma wouldn’t want to hear it. Neil was clearly not out to his daughter about the fact he was bisexual, and it wasn’t my place to do the outing. “Considering how that relationship ended, maybe it would have been for the best?”

  “No kidding.” Emma sighed and lifted her toes out of the water to wiggle them. “Just... be careful. I love my mum. But it’s like she has some mean streak in her that can’t stand to see my dad happy.”

  “Because she still loves him?”

  “I don’t think she does. She has Bertie, and they’ve been together for ages. I don’t think it’s a matter of wanting my father back, but punishing him for not wanting her.” Emma tilted her head. “Sad, really. I think my father deserves to be happy.”

  “Well, I hope I make him happy.” There wasn’t much more I could say to that.

  “You do.” She considered a moment. “I don’t know why, because you’re simply awful.”

  I splashed her, and our conversation devolved into juvenile water-based combat.

  It was strange, but somehow, in a single day, my contentious relationship with Emma had become a refuge of solace.

  * * * *

  Emma went to bed long before I did. I was still so wounded and confused by the exchange with Neil and Valerie and the lawyer that I couldn’t sleep.

  I felt like such an asshole for being mad at him. After all, he’d just meant to protect me. He hadn’t seen the evening the way Valerie obviously had, or I had. I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favor by getting some kind of safety net set up for me, whether I wanted it or not.

  I went to the library, to the
little table in the corner where I’d dug in and made a space for myself. I moved my coffee cup aside. I’d given the housekeeping staff strict instructions not to wash it, ever, much to Neil’s chagrin.

  My evening swim with Emma had given me comfort and someone to talk to, but I couldn’t tell her everything. Her father was seriously ill. She didn’t want to hear me talk about my fears of losing him, and I shouldn’t burden her with them, anyway. Being the partner of someone fighting a possibly terminal illness was incredibly isolating.

  I stared at the screen. Maybe I was going about the writing thing all wrong. I’d been so concerned with numbers and figures, trying to fit my and Neil’s experiences in around those statistics. I needed to narrow my focus. Everyone knew what cancer was already. What they probably didn’t know was what we were living.

  Drumming my fingers lightly over the keys, I considered an opening line.

  My boyfriend might be dying.

  No. I wasn’t going to lead with that. Neil might be the one who had cancer, but I wasn’t writing about him. I should write about what it was like to be in a relationship that had cancer. I deleted the opening line and started again.

  Even when I’m with my boyfriend, we’re never alone. We always have cancer with us. When we get up in the morning, it’s either to take a pain pill or make an appointment. When we go to bed at night, cancer is between us like an uncomfortable, saggy spot in the mattress. If we sleep together at all.

  I read and re-read what I’d written before continuing.

  When Neil and I started dating, I had no idea he was sick. It’s not the type of thing you tell someone on a first date. His cancer - chronic myelogenous leukemia - can be managed for years without chemotherapy. It just happened to pick two months into our relationship to demand more attention.

  My boyfriend has spent more time in a relationship with cancer than he has with me.

  I stopped. I almost closed my laptop. This was far more personal than I had planned on getting. And it was painful. I didn’t want to think about this stuff, when I had to deal with the reality of it.

  Shut it down, Scaife, I told myself. I was either going to end up crying or binge eating by the time I was done. Would whatever I wrote be worth putting myself through the emotional pain?

  I hadn’t been so great at avoiding emotional pain so far, I reasoned. And it wasn’t like emotional pain was necessarily a bad thing. Maybe I’d been trying too hard to take everything in stride, when I really needed more cathartic meltdowns.

  Cathartic meltdowns that Neil does not see, I warned myself. I hadn’t wanted to argue with him tonight, but it hadn’t seemed like something I could have put off. And now that I knew how difficult it was for him to think of me mourning him, I couldn’t burden him. When he was better— since I was in the rare frame of mind where I actually believed he could get better— then I would tell him how scared I had been, how the thought of losing him kept me up all night and made my guts all twisty.

  Okay, maybe some of that was my nocturnal coffee consumption.

  I was still hard at work when the clock on the mantel startled me with three loud tolls. I was more surprised when Neil came in just a few minutes later.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he said wearily. When he sat on the sofa, the corners of his eyes pinched. His muscles were always achy at the beginning of week three, or so said the notes I had made about him.

  Another note I’d made was “exhausted, can’t sleep.” I’d stayed up with him through a few nights like this already.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Um.” I squinted at my screen. I’m working out my issues over your potentially fatal disease. “An article about... living with someone who has cancer. But I want to finish it first and see what you thought about it. I don’t want to over-share personal stuff.”

  “All right. I’m listening.” He lay back on the couch. He’d come downstairs wearing just his pajama bottoms. Chemo bloat had given him a little pot belly, and though no power on earth would move me to point it out to him, I secretly found it adorable.

  “You’re half undressed. Are you coming down from a fever?” I stood and went to his side, despite his annoyed muttering.

  “No, I just got warm. You’re changing the subject on purpose.”

  “Oh, I was not.” I rolled my eyes. “Look, it’s not finished yet. I promise, I’ll show it to you when it is. But I don’t even know what I’m going to do with it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find somewhere to sell it. You’re a very good writer, Sophie.”

  I looked up. “When have you read anything I’ve written? I never wrote a full-length piece in Porteras.”

  “Oh, um… Can I say, for this one very small, but very embarrassing infraction, that I would like to forget I mentioned anything? Just this once? I will never ask for this favor again.”

  Whatever it was Neil was ashamed to admit to me, it had to be good. This was the man who’d fucked me like a beast and made me ride home with no panties on our first date. What could he possibly be embarrassed about?

  He was so going to tell me.

  I didn’t have to ask. I just folded my arms across my chest and pursed my lips, and he said, with a heavy sigh, “All right. I googled you and found some articles you’d written for your college newspaper. I realize that this technically qualifies as stalking you. But my motives were pure.”

  “And those were?” I shifted, tightening my arms a little, pushing my boobs up slightly.

  He laughed, clearly relieved at my silliness. “Curiosity. Burning curiosity, probably born from my need for total control.”

  “You’re making my job so easy on this end.” I couldn’t pretend that I’d thought what he’d done was all that bad. “Everyone Googles the person they’re fucking. It’s why you get their names.”

  “Did you Google me?”

  “I did. And you’re a knight?” Finally, an opening to ask about that! “It’s kind of intimidating to find out your boyfriend is a knight from Wikipedia.”

  “It’s not that impressive, they pass them out like hard candy if you pay enough in taxes.” He could barely keep a straight face. “Besides, I’m just an MBE.”

  “I’m an American. I don’t know what that means,” I chirped happily.

  He shook his head in playful exasperation. “The difference is—”

  “What makes me an American, and I’d like it to stay that way.” I leaned forward and kissed him.

  “You knew quite a lot about me, then, when you decided to get into this mess. I can’t help but feel a bit relieved.”

  I sat back on my heels. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I sometimes feel guilty. I feel like I’ve thrown you into a rather deep pool.” He cut me off as I began to protest. “I know. You can handle anything. And I truly believe that you can. But I’ve worried that I was unfair to you, bringing you here, into a totally different way of life on so many levels.”

  “And that’s why you wanted to give me money in your will?”

  “I’m not just talking about the money, or cancer. You haven’t had many serious relationships. And while you’ve had a lot of sexual experience, you’ve never been a sub to anyone the way you are to me.”

  I realized I was nervously clicking my nails on my bottom teeth, and I stopped myself. “It sounds like you’re saying I’m in over my head, and you regret this.”

  “No. Never.” He took my hand and brought it to his lips, giving me the gentlest kiss. “I wouldn’t trade a moment of what we’ve had. I just wish that it didn’t have to change us.”

  “I think it’s making us better.”

  “I suppose what I should have said was, I hate the thought that I might die, and that it would change you. You would become a version of Sophie that I would never know. One I can’t properly imagine.” He shook the dark thought away. “I’ve been framing everyone in my life this way lately. Trying to imagine what they would feel if I were gone. And I’ve thought about the baby.”<
br />
  “The b—” The word died on my lips.

  He looked me in the eye, nothing but the best intentions written across his features. “If this is hard for you to hear...”

  It would be. But it might have been harder for him not to say it. “Not at all.”

  His uncertain smile informed me that he wasn’t believing a word. But he went on. “I think about what would be happening if you were pregnant right now. Maybe I wouldn’t have lived to see my child born. And you would have been alone. That would change you. Maybe it would have destroyed the Sophie I left behind. That absolutely terrified me. So I thought if I gave you the money... if you could keep living the life I would have given you...”

  I laid a comforting hand on his arm. “You thought if you did that, I wouldn’t be changed at all.”

  “Yes,” he admitted with a sniff. “I know it’s stupid. I know that you love me and you would be crushed by my death. I’ve known that, even before you admitted it. I shouldn’t have let our argument go so far.”

  “You hurt me.” I wasn’t going to let him forget that right now, or forgive him so close to the transgression. “You made me look like a fool in front of Valerie. If it had been anyone else... but it was Valerie.”

  “You really hate her,” he said with a wavering smile.

  I shrugged. “Yup. Don’t do that to me again, okay?”

  “All right. From now on, I will not involve Valerie in personal business without consulting you.” He considered a moment. “This excludes business at Elwood and Stern, of course. I’m not going to run to you for permission over every little teleconference.”

  “Well, obviously.” I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Sophie, I want to make this very clear. Valerie is not a threat to our relationship.” He held up his hand to keep me from leaping in. “I have made some very unwise decisions in my life. My relationship with Valerie was one of them. The only good thing that came of dating each other was Emma.”