by Kerry Clare
And he was giving her none of it.
But of course, she wouldn’t fight him. Refusal was a notion she might entertain, but it was outside her capabilities, which Derek knew even more than she did—otherwise, he never would have let her into his life, his home, his bed. He had always been good at knowing who he could count on—he prided himself on that.
So yes, the meal was over, and the server brought the bill, finally starting to clear the plates. Brooke pulled her wallet from her bag.
He said, “No, I’ll get it,” his hand on her arm to stop her, but she pushed him off. Not gently.
She said. “Don’t.” She didn’t want his hands on her, trying to push her to do what he wanted her to. She pulled out cash.
“I’ll get it,” he said. Insisting, the way he always did, but it was different this time, and she wanted to be the one to insist harder, for him to give in to her for once, even though he didn’t want her money, and he certainly didn’t need it. But she forced it on him anyway, she paid that bill, and she put her coat on, while he looked around again to take note of who’d been observing this production.
He saw her watching and snapped back into character. He said, “Look, if there’s anything I can do—” That insulting and ineffectual line that’s really a polite way of saying, “Honestly, don’t ever call me.” Something you say at funerals to people you hardly know and don’t really want to think about. In a conversation of startling cruelties, nothing else hurt her quite like that. And she could sense the distance, that she had just moved on from someone he’d hold to somebody he didn’t touch anymore. No matter that right now inside her there was a part of him, the potential for a life. But to acknowledge this would be too difficult for his framework. He just couldn’t. Her only choice was to go.
He hurried to put on his own jacket, and came rushing out of the restaurant after her, and she only stopped because she was still waiting for him to tell her he was sorry. That this whole thing was just a stupid mistake, and let’s go home now. Which was why she endured his hug, so stiff and wrong, and it made her feel dirty in a way that their intimate encounters never had. The hug was too much, it wasn’t real, and he didn’t deserve it. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking this was okay, that things could be friendly between them. But she also had to let him have it, because sometimes it’s easiest to take whatever little you’re being offered. Besides, they’d still have to be friendly together at work when all this was done. She was only being pragmatic.
They lingered on the sidewalk. Nothing between them had been resolved, and she could tell he was uncomfortable with this, but his discomfort was giving her the smallest bit of satisfaction.
He said, “You understand the position I’m in.” And Brooke stood there waiting, and listened, because she still was hoping he could say one more thing to make it all okay. But instead Derek was waiting for her permission to enact this heartbreaking, awful betrayal, abandonment. And she couldn’t give it, because she could hardly breathe. If she started talking, she would never stop crying. “It’s impossible,” he said. “You get that, right?”
And she nodded. Because there she was in his gaze where she’d been a thousand times before, and when she was there, she would give him anything. It was the easiest thing just to be in his thrall, and she wanted to reach out and touch him, his face, his jaw. The scars on his neck and chest that he would have hid if he could, even though he’d lived with them on his body for thirty years. And she loved him with them, wholeheartedly. But it still wasn’t enough.
He said, “Listen, if you need money, a ride somewhere. I don’t know.”
“A ride somewhere?” She didn’t even know who he was.
He said, “I don’t want you to think that I’ve just left you high and dry here.”
“Haven’t you?” What else was this? She’d never been higher or drier in her life.
He said, “I think maybe we just got in a little bit over our heads.” Like this was just some sad and lamentable thing, and he’d already moved past it. Not even glancing over his shoulder. He would never look back.
She said, “You’re really serious.” It was incredible, the way he always managed to amaze her—but everything was different now.
He said, “What do you want me to say?” Which was his go-to calculation when dealing with most people, although he didn’t usually say the words aloud.
Brooke said, “Do you really want to know?” He didn’t answer. “I’ll see you at work,” she said, and started down the street. She didn’t know if he watched her go, because she never turned around.
* * *
—
When Carly heard what had happened, she lost her mind, grabbed Brooke’s phone, and dialed Derek’s number, screaming obscenities down the line. And Brooke didn’t even fight to get the phone back from her, because she thought he needed to hear all of it, and she didn’t have the energy to stop her friend. Derek had always said that Carly was a bit much, and now he was finding out just how much. She hung up the phone, and Brooke asked, “What did he say?” And she told her the call had gone to voicemail.
“This is unbelievable,” Carly said. “I thought he was a rat-bastard, but this is lower than my lowest expectation. That absolute shithead.”
“But I get it,” said Brooke. “Looking at it objectively. He’s in an awkward place. I don’t know what else he was supposed to do.”
“Maybe anything?” she suggested, aghast. “Could he have done any less? Literally. He should be here for you.”
“And he was,” said Brooke, remembering those two days. “In his own way. This is complicated for him.”
“It’s more complicated for you,” said Carly.
“But he’s got his principles.” Derek’s arguments felt as ridiculous coming out of her mouth as they’d sounded coming out of his. “Maybe it’s easier for those of us who don’t have any.”
Carly said, “Is there anything this guy has ever done that you can’t misconstrue as noble?”
“It’s not noble,” said Brooke. “I never said it was noble.”
“He’s abandoned you.”
“But he said to call if there is anything I need.”
“Like what?”
“Like a drive.”
“Like he’s going to drive you?”
“Well, he can’t,” she said. “I mean, think about it. Derek Murdoch shows up at the abortion clinic. Guests have to sign in. They’d be all over him. A disaster.”
“Might teach him not to be a hypocrite,” said Carly.
“But he’s not, see?” Brooke said. “That’s the whole point. He refuses to be a hypocrite. He’s very consistent.”
“Which is the next best thing to being noble,” said Carly. “What a catch.”
“But I didn’t catch him,” said Brooke. “He got away, or at least I think he did.”
“You mean he ran away,” said Carly. “Because life got real, and Derek never knows how to handle that.”
“I’m starting to think he was gone before it even started,” Brooke said.
“You’re lucky to be rid of him,” Carly told her. “Dodged a bullet. You know that, right?”
But she really didn’t. Days before, she’d had a boyfriend and dreams of a future, however far-fetched, and now all of it was quashed and she was pregnant, alone.
At least she had Carly, who came with her to the appointment and brought her back to her apartment in a taxi afterwards because her place was quieter and more comfortable than The Den of Debauchery, and Brooke curled up on her couch and Carly made her milkshakes and they watched an old movie they both loved, The Legend of Billie Jean. Carly’s roommate had gone to stay at her girlfriend’s, so it was just the two of them, and Brooke was taken care of, if not with fur throw-blankets. There had been plans for Brooke to get out of town that weekend and stay at a cottage with her parents and her sister
, but with her giant sanitary-pad situation, hanging out on a dock didn’t seem so tenable. She told her mother she was sick and stayed on at Carly’s. Derek didn’t call.
Three days after her abortion, when Brooke finally arrived back at her place, where she’d barely been for days and days, a giant bouquet of flowers was sitting on the porch. They were still wrapped in paper, but the flowers were definitively dead, all the petals shed, the stems turned to slime, and the whole package smelled like bog water. It must have been an impressive arrangement once upon a time, and she dug through the remains to unearth the card—Thinking of you, Derek. But of course she hadn’t been home when it arrived, and none of her roommates had thought to bring it in, stepping over it every time they went in or out the door because they were accommodating people. Even if they’d brought the bouquet inside, Brooke didn’t think they had a single vase in their household, or even an empty jam jar.
But it was the gesture that counted, so she texted him to say thank you. A secret text, because she’d promised Carly she wouldn’t get in touch with him, or at least not unless he reached out to her first. But technically the flowers qualified as contact, though when her text yielded no response, she did her best not to be too hopeful after all.
She used up her vacation days, which had been accumulating for over a year now, three whole weeks, and the time off seemed like the healthy thing to do. Restorative. She expected to return to work afterwards like nothing had ever happened, because she didn’t know what else to do with herself. This was her life. Naturally it had occurred to her that maybe it was time to look for another job, and Carly had been urging her in that direction since she resigned from their office years ago, but Brooke had no idea how to go about making the change. Working for Derek was the only career she’d ever had, except for slinging pizza. Starting over would mean going all the way back to the beginning, and she didn’t want to do that.
But it would turn out that she wasn’t actually running this show anyway, because on the morning she was due to arrive back at work, she got a call from Marijke, Derek’s chief of staff, who asked if they could meet for coffee at a little place around the corner. Brooke had always found Marijke intimidating. Everybody did. Brought in to bolster the team after Derek won the leadership, she was very good at her job, no detail ever escaping her. She was in command of everything, which Brooke had never appreciated enough until that morning. Marijke hugged her and asked her how she was doing, because that’s the kind of thing people do, but her concern for Brooke’s well-being wasn’t the reason they were meeting now.
Marijke said, “Now, I realize this is a delicate situation.” And of course she knew. Marijke Holloway knew everything. “And what you’re going through, it’s a personal matter. But a line has been crossed, I think. It just makes things very complicated. And so what I’d like to suggest is a different course of action.”
“I want to come back to work,” Brooke said, too forcefully, not understanding how things could proceed in any other fashion, because her job was her job, and she needed the connection to Derek, not at all ready to break it off just yet. The last three weeks without him had been difficult, such a void, and if he remained part of her life, she could make sense of their story. Declare that maybe it had meant something after all.
But Marijke said, “I’m not really sure that it’s the best idea.” And she went on about how Brooke had had a tough time, and maybe a fresh start would be the best for everyone.
“You’re firing me,” Brooke said, as the realization dawned. She’d seen it before, but never from this side of the table.
Marijke said, “No. Not at all. We’ve made a plan.”
“We?”
“Derek and I.”
“I want to talk to him,” Brooke said.
Marijke said, “This was his idea.” And then she hurried ahead, a torrent of words. “There’s a plan,” she said. “Hear me out.”
Perhaps it would be temporary, she proposed, a break. But in the meantime, it seemed like the best course of action for Brooke to remove herself from the situation for a while. “The stakes are high,” Marijke said. “And we can’t have emotions running over at work. There is too much else to focus on.”
She said, “There is an opportunity.” A job, back in Lanark. Not at his local office, no, that was still too close. It was another position. “Derek pulled some strings, and they’re basically offering it to you.” The pay was not much lower than her job right now, but living expenses were so much lower outside of the city that it was basically a promotion. “I think this will be good for you,” Marijke said. “It will give you some time and perspective, space. For both of you.”
“This is Derek’s plan?” Brooke asked. “To send me away?”
“It’s not like that,” she said. “But I do think it’s the best thing to do going forward.”
“And Derek does too?”
“It’s all too much right now,” she said. “For both of you. Working in the office, how are you going to move on?”
“He sent me flowers,” said Brooke.
“I sent the flowers,” said Marijke. She wasn’t budging. This was happening. Brooke could rail against it, but all it meant was that she’d be stranded, unemployed. She’d become inconvenient and they were shipping her out of town. Everything she’d known about herself and her life had turned out to be wrong. “It’s for the best,” Marijke said. “I understand what you’re going through and I know it’s really hard, but you’re going to recover from this. I promise, you will. But not if you stay here. It’s going to take so much longer if you do, and it’s not great for office morale.”
“This is about office morale?”
“We don’t need the drama,” said Marijke.
“There won’t be drama.”
“There’s always drama, Brooke,” said Marijke. “This is not my first rodeo. It’s why workplace relationships are advised against. You were told. It’s in the employee code of conduct. And everybody always thinks that they’re the exception, that it will be different this time.” She said, “You’ve been lucky, really.”
“Lucky?” Brooke would have laughed if there’d been anything funny about this.
Marijke said, “He cares about you. He does. He wants to make things right. We want to make sure you’re okay, give you a rest from things. Which is above and beyond what’s required. He wants to do the decent thing.”
“I think it’s too late for that.”
“It is what it is,” said Marijke, who saw the world as a series of contractual obligations. She had a legal background, and was adept at the small print, both reading it and writing it. She had Brooke here. “I can arrange for someone to clear out your desk,” she said. “The library is flexible on the start date. They’ll be emailing you a contract this morning.” She was finished—her iced coffee was drained to the dregs and she’d folded her paper straw wrapper into a tiny cube. “The day is yours,” she told Brooke. “Make the most of it.” And then she got up and gave Brooke a quick hug around the shoulders, and left her there, heading on her way.
* * *
—
It felt like a show, her life then—though a show past closing night, and now the set was being dismantled all around her. The door and the walls and the entire horizon—pieces of plywood held up by jacks. She’d lost her boyfriend, her job, her social circle and her purpose, all alone now on an empty stage with all the lights off, and nobody was watching.
It was her last night in her room, everything packed up in boxes. Subletting had been easy—their house had a revolving door—but she was going to miss it here. It didn’t seem properly real that she was leaving everything behind, and if she’d comprehended it properly, she probably wouldn’t have been able to go.
“But you know that you don’t have to,” Carly had reminded her the week before. Carly was the only person who knew the whole story. She would have lik
ed to invite Brooke to move to her place, to sleep on the couch even, except that she was just days away from leaving herself, departing for a six-month contract in Guatemala. Carly’s room was packed up in boxes too, but she was actually excited about where she was going. “We could figure something out, though,” she said. “You’re not obligated to go where he sends you.”
Brooke said, “But I don’t know what else to do. And it’s helpful, really, to have everything set.” Derek and Marijke had made everything simple, and she felt too broken down to summon resistance, or to engineer her own way out of this trap. Her parents were confused by the new and mysterious developments in her life, by how little she was telling them about why her plans had changed—but they were hardly going to protest the good news that she was coming home.
She wasn’t ready to be finished with Derek yet, and that was her secret shame. Even now that she’d seen who he was, and after what he’d done to her, when no self-respecting woman would have granted him her time, he was still on her mind. She had all the time in the world to miss him, and worry about him, feel responsible, even, for what she’d driven him to, because he wouldn’t have liked the person he’d been that morning in the restaurant. Surely he wouldn’t feel comfortable, either, leaving things between them as they were. She was still waiting for him to come in and save her, but maybe he already had?
Maybe it was for the best, was what she was thinking, everything that had happened, what they’d orchestrated: her soft landing, and a chance to get away. Maybe he knew what she needed right now, and she told him this in another secret text, though he’d never replied to the first one.
She’d written, “Thanks for everything—really. Job, etc. My dad’s coming to pick me up tomorrow.”
Not expecting him to reply—or at least this is what she’d tell someone if they asked her, if she were forced to explain herself. Though this would be disingenuous, because of course, she wanted him to reply, but she was also sure he wouldn’t—so wasn’t it the same? It was almost like she hadn’t texted him at all. Except, she knew, regardless of his response, if he got a text from her, at least she’d be on his mind. Maybe this was as close as it was possible for them to be right now. She didn’t want to disappear from Derek’s life or have him gone from hers, because it would mean that everything they’d been through had meant nothing at all.
