A smattering of obligated applause falls flat, but Haines’s smile never falters as he waves Caitlin on to the stage. I start slightly when Dean’s fingers caress the back of my neck, gently massaging the tense muscles. I force an appreciative smile, but it’s like trying to relax a statue. As grateful as I am that he’s here, I could really use Parker whispering snarky comments in my ear.
I feel someone looking at me and glance around, spotting Adrian through the crowd. He gives me a small, apologetic smile and lifts his glass in mock salute. It’s not much in the way of snark, but it’s the best he can do and I nod back my agreement.
“Thank you,” Caitlin says, positioning herself in front of the mic. The combination of white dress and flowing blond hair, coupled with the sun glowing behind her, makes her look like a vision from heaven, sent down to deliver a message that will save the world. What follows instead is a well-rehearsed, articulate, occasionally humorous and always self-promoting speech about the significance of the Fowler case and her personal commitment to the cause.
My eyes roll so far back in my head I nearly fall over. “I need a drink,” I mumble out of the corner of my mouth.
“I need a punching bag,” Dean replies, his low voice sending an apprehensive shiver up my spine.
“And finally,” Caitlin wraps up, those bright red lips curling in a generous smile, “I am delighted to announce the three lawyers I have chosen to work under me on this monumental case.”
My knees lock at the words, as though they know I’m about to need all the support I can get. Never have I heard of someone other than a senior partner making an announcement at one of these things. Small acceptance speeches, parting wishes, sure. But the big things have always belonged to the partners. My gaze flickers to Haines. He’s watching the show with a small half smile, like a doting father might watch his daughter’s ballet recital. He’s proud of her. This is her moment and he made it happen.
I shift my eyes back to Adrian, who’s slowly edging his way closer, struggling to push through the jam-packed crowd. His face is pulled tight, as though he’s in pain, and it’s everything I need to know and far too little, too late.
“Wallace Stein,” Caitlin calls, grinning down at the lawyer she’d abandoned in North Carolina when she came back to try to steal the Camden cases. I watch the sea of people part to let Wallace through, cheeks flushed with alcohol and embarrassment as he joins Caitlin on the stage and accepts a glass of celebratory champagne.
Arthur Wong is the second name, and another round of applause goes up as Arthur, a fellow fourth-year who’d been conducting interviews in Rhode Island, climbs up to stand next to Wallace.
No, I think frantically. No, no, no, no, no.
“Shh,” Dean whispers, and I realize I’ve been praying out loud.
No.
“Rachel Moser,” Caitlin says smoothly, swiveling on a sharp heel to fix her guileless gaze on me, the icy facsimile of a smile stretching her horrible face.
More applause, but this time it sounds pitying, not celebratory. I’m frozen in place as the blood rushes from my head and pools in my feet, weighing me down.
“Better get up there,” Dean says, nudging me gently. “Unless you want to make a run for it?”
My feet lift themselves of their own accord, and I wind my way through the crowd, a long and nauseating walk past sad stares and forced murmurs of congratulations and good luck. My smile feels plastic and brittle, threatening to shatter when Caitlin extends a manicured hand to help me onto the stage, then passes me a glass of champagne. We’re forced to smile and toast, staring at the wall of applauding lawyers, faces alternately jealous, uninterested, pitying and pleased.
I down the champagne, earning a few chuckles, and my heart resumes beating, forcing the blood through my chilled limbs and making me dizzy. Wallace, Arthur and I know each other casually but still we go through the motions, shaking hands and saying how great it is to be working together on the Fowler case. Under Caitlin.
Wallace seems to be faking his enthusiasm, but Arthur is genuinely happy to be here, and I watch as though from a distance as he grins over at his wife, who clutches her hands as though he’s just won a gold medal. I try to find Dean in the crowd but the sea of faces swims in and out of focus and it’s like searching for a particular grain of sand in the ocean. I know he’s out there, but I’ll never find him. And what would I do if I did? Throw myself on his shoulder and bawl my eyes out? Beg him to take me home and turn out the lights and tell me the day didn’t just happen? That I don’t have to show up tomorrow to work on Caitlin’s team, asking her approval and advice on everything I do?
And then, just when I think things can’t get any worse, Caitlin steps up beside me and links her arm through mine, touching her full glass to my empty one. “Congratulations, Rachel,” she says through an insincere smile. “I know this is a big opportunity for you.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her to go fuck herself—or Haines, more likely—but I stifle the words when Sterling, Morgan and the man himself join us. Haines can’t quite meet my eye, but Sterling and Morgan are full of praise and promises about the experience I’ll gain working under such impressive tutelage.
“Can’t wait,” I say, hating myself even as the words slip out. Everyone’s smiling, various shades of sincerity and enthusiasm, and it’s here, on the top of the world, with a view to die for, expensive shoes and champagne in my hand, that I know I have reached my lowest point. This is the most disappointing moment of my life, and I have spent ten years working toward it.
When everyone is done patting everyone else on the back, I ease myself away from the well-wishers and pray desperately to be absorbed anonymously into the crowd. Of course that doesn’t happen. I’m wearing a red dress, for Christ’s sake, and even though this is ostensibly Caitlin’s moment, my name is the one on everyone’s lips. Poor thing, I hear them say. Camden. Bennett. Haines.
It’s taking everything I’ve got not to cry, blinking away tears as fast and furiously as possible, nearly missing Dean in the process. He puts a hand on my arm to stop me but I pull away, muttering, “Let’s get your jacket,” unwilling to pause. If I stop I’ll break down, embarrassing myself even further. Letting everyone know that Caitlin’s victory stings more than their pity.
There’s a bellman stationed next to the elevator, and he pushes the arrow as I approach, catching my first lucky break of the afternoon when the doors glide open immediately. I scurry inside and press the button for the next floor down, realizing only as the doors close that Dean is not with me. I lost him in the crowd. Fortunately I left everyone else behind too, and I’m alone in the shiny elevator, determinedly keeping my gaze on the floor so I don’t have to see my face or my stupid red dress.
I step out on the next floor and claim Dean’s jacket from the coat check, blowing out a shaky breath as I wait for him to join me. The lone elevator that travels to the roof is still making its descent according to the numbers over the doors, and I resist the urge to bite my nails as I watch it pass the twelfth, eleventh and eighth floors before stopping. It carries on uninterrupted to the ground level, then begins its painfully slow ascent, finally returning to the roof.
I’m tapping my toes and doing everything I can not to claw open the doors when the car finally returns. I’m halfway inside when I realize that Dean is not there. I recognize one of the firm investigators and a few other faces, but wave them away with trembling hands.
“Are there stairs to the roof?” I ask the coat-check girl when they’re gone.
“They’re for emergencies only,” she replies, bored.
I’m sweating.
I wipe damp palms on Dean’s jacket and watch the elevator stop on the twentieth floor, then the nineteenth, before crawling down. Why wasn’t he behind me? I’m sure he heard me say we needed to go. He didn’t want to stay there any more than I did. I tell myself to be patient, he’s probably waiting upstairs, ready to go, but something in my belly is gnawing at me, f
estering and ugly.
The coat-check girl is paging through a magazine—and really, what’s she going to do anyway?—as I dart the short distance down to the end of the hall and shove through the heavy fire door. I hike up the fitted skirt of my dress and hurry up the stairs, adjusting myself before exiting onto the rooftop, blinking in the bright sun.
And instantly regretting it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Dean’s voice is raised and angry. “Nobody here is happy for you. All you gotta do is look around. You think this shit is real?”
“I don’t even know what you’re doing here,” Caitlin’s icy voice replies. “Why would Rachel bring you?”
“No,” I mumble desperately, pushing through the crowd. They’re riveted, watching the stage where Dean and Caitlin face off, him huge and menacing, her righteous and pure in her white dress. No one, not even the partners, has mustered the courage to get between them, and everyone is ogling the scene like it’s a horrible piece of theater.
“Because she had a date she wasn’t using to climb up another rung on your company ladder,” Dean spits back.
“Obviously,” Caitlin retorts.
Dean’s hands are fisted at his sides, and though I know he’d never hit her—or pick her up and hurl her over the balcony, like I’ve dreamed of doing—there’s simply no way for him to win this argument. Caitlin and I are approximately the same size; he’s got about six inches and a hundred pounds on her. He’s always going to be the bad guy, no matter his misguided intentions.
“You think you’re better than her?” he snarls. “You think there’s anything you can do that she can’t do better? You’re wrong. You might be willing to fuck your way to the top, but she worked to get here.”
“Ha,” Caitlin snorts, cheeks flushed with anger. “It’s better than fucking my way to the bottom.” Her perfectly arched eyebrow inches up her forehead as she looks Dean from head to toe, bloodred lips curled in a sneer. There are oohs from the audience as the insult finds its mark, barbed arrows piercing Dean’s armor, several finding their place in my heart.
A murmur ripples through the crowd as people register my presence, and Dean and Caitlin turn as one to find me, a beacon of red in my god-awful dress, staring up at them in horror and humiliation.
“There’s your handler now,” Caitlin tells Dean, voice dripping with sugar and sarcasm. “Looks like she tried to dress you up and take you out, and you blew your big chance.”
“Dean, please,” I utter miserably when I see him tense up, preparing to continue the fight. “Please.” A tear breaks free and sneaks down my heated cheeks, my skin flushing to match my dress. “Let’s just go.”
“Go on,” Caitlin says, her voice dangerously soft. “Back to the trailer park for both of you.”
My eyes flutter closed as the implication sets in, as she tells everyone the secret I’ve tried so hard to keep. And even as I realize I don’t care about it as much as I thought I might, Dean’s face twists in fury and his palm lashes out, swiping at a table holding dozens of glimmering glasses of champagne and sending them flying with a terrible crash. Then he stomps off the stage, grabs my wrist and yanks me through the crowd so fast it’s all I can do not to fall.
The bellman is holding the elevator and I can’t meet his eye—can’t meet anybody’s eye—as we step inside, breathing hard. The doors slide shut, trapping us in a descending cocoon of shame and anger. We’re both watching the point where Dean’s fingers still encircle my wrist, and when he releases me it’s to reveal faint red marks on my pale skin.
“Rach—” he begins.
“Don’t,” I say coldly, clamping down as tightly as I can on my rampaging emotions. Already I can feel my hands trembling, knees threatening to give way.
We reach the lobby and I storm out, Dean right behind me. There are cabs waiting at the curb so I choose one at random and climb inside, Dean at my back. I slide all the way across, pressed to the opposite door, putting as much space as possible between us. It’s too late, of course; everyone knows who I brought to the party.
I give the driver my address and we ride in silence. I feel the tension radiating from Dean, though he makes no move to touch or talk to me again. A quick glance from the corner of my eye reveals that he’s looking out the window, jaw working furiously as he tries to keep himself together.
Well, that I can relate to. I’m gripping the door handle so tightly my nails are digging into my palm, and my previously weak muscles are now pulled so taut they feel as if they’re going to snap. I can’t be near him right now. I can’t talk to him. I can’t look at him.
I can’t even remember the last time I was this upset. This humiliated. He’d come to support me and somehow managed to make an already unbearable event even worse. This will go down in Sterling, Morgan & Haines history: the fourth-year who brought her big, angry date to the party and stood by uselessly as he called her new boss a whore. The girl who got fired the very next day.
Oh God. I close my eyes and rest my head against the back of the seat. I’m going to lose my job, no question. No more thirty-second floor. No more Fowler. No more Parker or Baxter or Jose or Adrian. If I’m searching for the positive in all this, there’s no more Caitlin. But that’s hardly a soothing balm for my raw wounds. What do I have if not my job? A decent resume, I suppose. Albeit one that will promptly find its way to the shredder when prospective employers call the office for a reference and hear about the circumstances of my firing.
The cab stops in front of my apartment and there’s a terrible moment of discomfort as I open my eyes and try to orient myself. The driver has turned to look at Dean, and I belatedly remember he doesn’t have any money. “Here,” I mutter, digging bills out of my purse. I don’t want to spend any more time with Dean, but he can’t very well afford a cab ride home.
Dean glances at me, uncertain for once.
“Get out,” I say, pushing his shoulder. “Come up.” That’s not really what I mean though, is it? Come up? Come up and get your stuff and then get out. Take a bus back to Camden where you belong and I don’t. Enjoy the view from the twenty-first floor, because it’ll be your last, just like tomorrow will be the last time I look at the city from the thirty-second floor. Assuming they even let me in the building.
Another tense elevator ride and we’re inside my pristine, cold apartment, bright with the afternoon light. It’s not quite six o’clock; too early for the world to end, yet that’s exactly how it feels. As though everything is coming to a head and there’s no way to survive it.
“Rachel,” Dean says, his second word in twenty minutes.
I drop my clutch on the kitchen island but don’t turn around. I fold my arms across my middle, as though that will somehow hold off the shivers that roll over me as I stare out the window at a city that doesn’t care my life just fell apart.
“What?” I say finally.
“Turn around.”
It takes a second but when I do, it’s worth it. It’s worth it to see the pain cross Dean’s face when he sees the look on mine, to know his little performance cost me everything. Then the pain vanishes as he composes himself, shutting off his feelings the way he might before stepping into the ring, knowing the blows are coming.
“You want me to apologize?” he asks eventually.
“What would that change?”
The expected shrug. “You tell me.”
“No. I don’t want an apology.”
“Then what?”
“What do you think, Dean?” It takes everything I’ve got not to start sobbing, shallow and stupid. “You just ruined everything.”
He runs a hand across the back of his neck as he watches me. There’s only ten feet between us, but it may as well be ten years. We’re the same angry strangers facing each other all over again. “What’d you lose, Rachel?”
“My job, for starters.”
“They’re not going to fire you.”
“What would you know?”
Color rises in h
is cheeks, but he ignores the insult. “I heard everyone talking about you this afternoon. They think you’re good. Caitlin knows you’re good. Why do you think she had to blow that guy to get the job?”
“Who cares why she did it?” I snap. “The point is she has a job, and as of tomorrow, I won’t. I know you hate me for building this life for myself, but I like it. It’s important to me. And you couldn’t make it through an afternoon without tearing it all down.”
“Jesus Christ, would you listen to yourself?”
“Is there something wrong with your memory?” It’s almost a shriek. “You called my new boss a whore in front of the entire company! Then you broke fifty glasses of champagne and soaked twice as many people!”
“They’ll live.”
“I never asked you for anything, Dean. Not until today. And even then it was simple. Just don’t do one thing. Do you remember what that was?”
“You have to be fucking kidding me.”
“Don’t say anything to Caitlin. That’s the only—”
“One thing?” Dean takes a menacing step toward me, then stops himself. “One thing, that’s all you asked me? Bullshit.” He ticks up his fingers as he adds items to his long list of grievances. “Don’t come to the party. Don’t talk to anybody. Don’t swear. Don’t look anyone in the eye. Don’t embarrass me by being yourself. Just fuck me and go home and show up next time I want someone to shove their cock into me.”
He’s being crude on purpose, and I cringe inwardly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of showing it. “I never said all that.”
“You said enough. You think you hide how you feel, Rachel? You’re fucking kidding yourself.”
The words are a slap in the face. I’m not ashamed of Dean. I’ve never told him he embarrasses me. And I swear I’ve done nothing to make him feel that way. I haven’t. I wouldn’t. I know all too well the crippling discomfort that comes with feeling like every bite of food, every line of inane conversation, marks you as less than. I’d spent the first two years of college trying desperately to fit in, lose my trailer park accent, trade in my clothes for the jeans and makeup everyone else was wearing. I can still feel the sting of humiliation when I’d slipped up, caught someone’s odd stare as they wondered how I’d managed to sneak inside, put on a costume and tried to fit in with people better than me. I haven’t made Dean feel that way. Have I?
Time Served Page 29
