Good In Bed

by Bromberg, K

  “I do.”

  “I know it wasn’t my fault but…” She cleared her throat. “Anyway. I heard about your new project! In Bel-Air? Sounds so exciting!”

  She wanted—needed—to talk about superficial things. My pitch was on the tip of my tongue when Olivia came out of the bathroom. I expected her to pass us so she could deny we were connected, but she came right up to us.

  “Olivia,” I said, “this is Mandy Bettencourt.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Olivia said.

  “Pleasure.” Mandy directed her attention to me. “I should get back.”

  “Sure,” I said, but when she turned away, I had one more thing to say. “Mandy? Thank you.”

  “Don’t be a stranger.” She gave me a wave and a smile.

  Then I gave Olivia my full attention. “What do you need?”

  She pressed a key into my hand. “Her car’s parked in front of LA Bistro. Black Mini Cooper. License plate ends in 349. Brown leather bag in the trunk. Text me when you’re here.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “One more thing.” She bit her lip. “I have to stay with her. It’s fine. She’ll be fine, but I need to drive her home, and I might stay with her. So, I can’t… I need you to get the bag and go.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I took her chin in my fingers and tilted her head up to see the outline of the distant horizon in her eyes. “Don’t be.”

  She kissed my lips quickly and disappeared behind the door.

  I could love this woman. I just didn’t know how to tell her.

  Chapter 26

  OLIVIA

  Once Linda had on her spare outfit, the anxiety attack subsided. By the time I drove her to her apartment, she seemed back to her old self, but she asked if I’d stay. The fear of another attack could make her nervous enough to bring on another.

  Her spotless one-bedroom was in a U-shaped stucco complex with parking underneath. She’d pulled up the carpets and laid seamless linoleum flooring because it scrubbed easier, and she left the table surfaces free of knickknacks because having them placed perfectly was one less thing to think about.

  “Esther’s going to have a field day,” she said, taking off her shoes as she invoked her therapist.

  “She’s got to earn her keep.” I put my bag under the hall table and kicked off my shoes, lining them up next to Linda’s.

  “Do you think anyone saw?” She pulled out the trench dress and looked at the tiny spot of wine someone near her had spilled next to the chest pocket. “The stain?”

  “No way.” I actually had no way of knowing, but being anything short of completely definitive wasn’t what she needed.

  “I don’t know what made me wear this color.”

  “It’s pretty.”

  “Such an idiot.” She balled it up and stuffed it deep in the garbage.

  “We can hold a crucifixion tomorrow.”

  “Shut up.”

  “At noon.” I sat on the couch while she went into the open kitchen.

  “Fine, just don’t get blood on my shirt. Do you want water or something? I have ginger ale.”

  “That would be nice.”

  “Thank Byron for going to get my bag,” she said with her head in the fridge.

  “I will.”

  “Did you tell him why?” She came out with two green cans. “Ice?”

  “I kind of had to. And yes, please.”

  She pulled out an ice tray and twisted it. “I hate that.” She plucked out cubes and dropped them into two glasses. “I get anxious, then I’m ashamed of that, then I’m ashamed of my shame. Which is shameful. It’s a funhouse mirror of humiliation.”

  “Yeah.”

  “My therapist says all I have to do is break one link in the chain.” She cracked a can. “Find the weakest one and break it. Like it’s so easy.”

  “You’re not embarrassed in front of me. Maybe that’s your link?”

  Linda poured the ginger ale, waited for the fizz to die in both glasses, then topped them up without answering, as if she needed to take that time to think.

  “Esther’s wondered that too.” She handed me a glass and sat on a chair. “Like, why you?”

  “Why me?”

  “You weren’t around when the thing happened.”

  The thing was in sixth grade at her strict Catholic school. Linda had gotten her period early and unexpectedly during church service. She wasn’t allowed to leave until mass was over. So, she’d had to sit in a constant flow for half an hour before methodically lining up with everyone else to go out.

  The teachers had been cruel. The kids took cues from them.

  “You’ll figure it—”

  “Esther asked if you have shame too,” Linda interrupted, staring into her glass. “She thinks I can sense it and that’s why I respond to you.”

  “Huh. That’s—”

  “She thinks if I ask you, it might be a link, but—”

  “Wait—”

  “I don’t want to, and I told her that, because I wouldn’t want anyone asking me. So, forget it. Just forget it. Do you want more ice? I have plenty.”

  “No ice, and yes,” I said, shutting down a desire to tell her that shame was the human condition. First, because she didn’t need to hear that, and second, because it was a platitude I didn’t really believe.

  “Really?”

  I sighed, reaching for a coaster.

  Looking this in the face was something I’d avoided and brushed aside. Linda couldn’t do that for herself, and she needed me to.

  “My thing’s not as clear-cut as yours.” I placed my glass in the exact center of the cork coaster. “And I’m not sure it even makes sense, but if it’ll help you to talk about it…”

  “You don’t have to, but—”

  “Okay.” I slapped my knees. “So. Alviro. The musician.”

  “The asshole you dated for five minutes?”

  “Right.” God. What was I about to say? “Well. It was more like five months. But I didn’t tell you because… he had a reputation. Asshole. Like you said. But he had this thing he did when we were in bed, which was…” I cleared my throat. “Assholeish. He was rough, and…”

  “Oh—”

  “And I liked it.”

  “Ah.”

  “And so… you know my father was a terrible person to my mother. And I always told myself I wouldn’t let anyone treat me like that, ever. But there I was, doing the thing with Alviro. So, I told him I wanted us to be secret so it wouldn’t disrupt study group. Which was eighty percent bullshit.” The ginger ale steadily bubbled, releasing its fizz into the air. “But every day I’d think people knew I was with a man as bad as my father. I was convinced they were looking at me and laughing, and it made me… I made me… I humiliated myself. Like I was going to repeat what had happened to my mother and I should be ashamed of repeating the cycle.” A drop of condensation dripped down the glass and darkened the cork underneath. “So, I thought the only way to beat it was to stick with passive-aggressive guys like Shane. Which didn’t work because I have no patience for it and what I wanted was still there, and I was… I am… I’m still ashamed of it.”

  I picked up my glass and sat back. Linda’s feet were curled under her.

  “And so, Byron’s passive-aggressive?”

  “Nope. Just aggressive.”

  She drank her ginger ale and put it on her coaster. “And that’s okay?”

  “Yes. No. But yes. Maybe. Anyway. It’s not a long-term thing, so it doesn’t have to be okay. But I… We’re trying to get me pregnant.”

  “Really?”

  “Might work better than the doctor visits.”

  There was no way Linda could have missed the way my face came alive with prickly heat, and like a gift to me, she said the exact right thing. “I hope it works.”

  “Me too.”

  We sat in silence with our cold drinks. I didn’t know what Linda was thinking, but my mind was
cleansed and acerbic. I could be myself and break the cycle with my children. Lacing together my history and fixations with words had sharpened the lines between what my mind knew and what my heart wanted.

  King of the Assholes.

  Surprisingly decent yet an emotionally unavailable and complex human. Byron Crowne.

  He wasn’t the king of anything except me.

  * * *

  Byron called that morning, but I texted back that I couldn’t talk.

  My better self always knew I shouldn’t care what people thought of me, but the fact had never seeped into my convictions until the night before, when I’d made them porous by being seen with him.

  I didn’t have a map for what had changed inside me or what hadn’t changed about Byron. There was no chart for all the ways this could go.

  Maybe he’d just been a catalyst in my life. Maybe he was there to teach me a lesson and move on.

  But when I imagined giving him up, my heart tightened into a fist.

  “Kimberly needs you,” Amara said when I passed the copy room.

  “What do they want?”

  “They didn’t say except I’m not invited. It’s just you.”

  She raised a penciled black eyebrow, layering the request with meaning I could read like my own shorthand. Amara went everywhere with me as a witness and second set of ears. To disinvite her made the meeting utterly confidential.

  I stood next to her, watching the sliver of light under the feeder move back and forth.

  “Are these the Romaneski briefs?” I asked over the hiss-click of the machine, then lowered my voice to drown the question in the din so only Amara could hear. “Did they say why you have to sit out?”

  “No idea. They’ve been on the phone all morning, but that’s whatever.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  When I got to Kimberly’s office, they pointed at the couches in the corner as their call finished. I sat, gazing out the window. I had to make the right decision about Byron. Whatever this was, I’d deal with it, then call him. He’d want to meet. I’d have to refuse unless I wanted to end up in bed with him. Which I did, but I didn’t.

  Kimberly hung up and stood, buttoning their jacket. “So,” they said, walking over. “A Crowne-sized donation to the judge’s campaign fund means our motion to stay construction’s going to be rejected.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope.” They sat across from me. “A cartoonishly bold move but not a joke.”

  “What about an emergency writ?”

  “For what emergency? But in other news, I just tipped the LA Times.”

  “Great idea.”

  “And that means you need to withdraw and pray there’s no ethics complaint outta the judge.”

  “What?” My spine went straight, and I shifted to the edge of the seat. “Why?”

  “Why,” Kimberly replied without a question. “Let’s see. You’re having a relationship with the developer we’re suing?”

  I had to bite my lips to keep from speaking before I processed what was just said and what wasn’t.

  They said you’re fucking Byron Crowne.

  Did Kimberly know? Or was it a guess? Was my boss trying to tease out an admission or waiting until I lied to drop proof? And how did they find out? When? Was it one of the staff in Santa Barbara? The elevator guy at the Waldorf?

  Who had seen us last night, besides everyone?

  Too many seconds had passed cataloguing moments Byron and I were in public.

  “It’s nothing,” I said.

  Nothing if you didn’t count the baby that wasn’t, the half promises, or the contingency plans. The days we’d planned to screw until we shook hands and relegated ourselves to platonic parenthood.

  “Okay, so let me get this straight. You contacted an opposing party who was repeatedly represented by counsel. Which on its own could get you sanctioned. You went to bed with him while the case was pending, but you didn’t disclose it to me or opposing counsel. Now I’m supposed to let you talk to reporters? Whose job it is to dig up whatever they can about whomever, and when they find out, are under no ethical or legal obligations to pretend they don’t know. Sure. I’ll let them jump down your throat and rearrange your internal organs. You’re right. It’s fine. Not like it’s my job to protect you or anything.”

  “I don’t need protection.”

  “Yes, Olivia, it’s all about you.”

  My goose was cooked, as the saying went. I’d lost a battle I hadn’t even known I was fighting but one I should have seen coming.

  “I should have told you,” I said.

  “That is correct. And I can tell you now, like I got a looking glass right to the future, that you’re never going to hold back a meeting—casual, accidental, or otherwise—that can hurt this organization again.”

  They were right. Shamefully, I’d been so focused on myself I’d lost sight of the bigger picture. In more ways than one, I didn’t know who I was anymore.

  “Right.” I stood. “I withdraw. But I need to stay on as a consultant.”

  “Why?”

  They’d asked a simple, one-word question that had a million answers. I wanted to see what happened in real time. I wanted to finish what I’d started. I wanted to be there the moment one of us lost the lawsuit and won our choice to be together or not.

  “This case relates to Haldor v. City of LA, which I litigated. I can be of use.”

  “Fine.” Kimberly went behind her desk. “But you are not to advise in strategic decisions. Contact with the team assigned to this case goes through me. You will have no contact with opposing counsel. Not a paralegal. Not the bathroom lady at any of their gyms. Don’t make me fire you.”

  That was it. We were done here except for the one important thing Kimberly might tell me now and never again.

  “Who told you? Was it the Bettencourts?”

  “No. Crowne’s people brought it in yesterday afternoon. I waited for you to come clean, and you didn’t. Then the LA Times started sniffing around. So…” They spread their hands in defenselessness. “Here we are.”

  Here we were. The mark on my neck throbbed from betrayal. “Thank you.”

  I left the office, taking confident steps to the bathroom, where I locked myself in a stall with my back to the wall.

  That. Fucking. Asshole.

  For a silver-spoon-fed rich boy raised in an ivory tower, Crowne was a scrappy fighter. He hadn’t beaten me with dirty backroom dealing, but with upfront, ethical behavior I should have exhibited.

  The ringer on my phone echoed on the tile walls.

  Byron.

  Maybe he wasn’t the shitty one. Maybe I was.

  He’d exposed how alike we were, and I despised him for it.

  I stared the screen, where his name boiled a bitterness on the back of my tongue.

  Now was my chance to tell him to fuck off. He wasn’t worthy. He was shit.

  My finger hovered over the green button that would accept his call.

  I couldn’t do it. He’d have an explanation. I needed a piece of my anger to turn outward, or I’d burn myself so hard I’d turn to carbon. I’d humiliated myself in front of him, and now I was humiliated in front of my colleagues because of him.

  This is on you.

  You didn’t walk away.

  You let yourself be seen last night.

  I was enraged at myself, but he’d betrayed me.

  I hung on to that and rejected his call.

  Chapter 27

  BYRON

  I had a fraught relationship with patience. With building permits, legal actions, and architects, I had infinite amounts of it.

  With Olivia’s habit of rejecting my calls… less so.

  “Mr. Crowne?” Clarissa peeked into my office. “Logan on two.”

  “Thanks.” I picked up the phone. “I’m busy.”

  “Heads up,” Logan said. “PR got a call from the LA Times about some campaign contributions.”

  “They’re trying to
do a rectal. Don’t spread your cheeks open.”

  “Thanks for the image.” Street noise rose from his side, and a car door was closed. “And you’re welcome.”

  “For?”

  “For plugging your ass.”

  He’d entered a building. Echoes. Marble. Must have been Crowne HQ.

  “How?”

  “We’d already disclosed your relationship with Olivia. She’s been removed from the case.”

  I rubbed my eyes so hard I saw stars. “You inch-dicked little shitstain.”

  “Truth is the best protection. When—not if, but when—the LA Times finds out… you won’t have to explain anything, and neither will Olivia. So. Done. All good. You can bring her around anytime now.”

  All good. Olivia wasn’t fighting me anymore, which took the air right out of the balloon.

  “Is that it, Logan? Or is there more I should kill you over?”

  “Not before lunch.”

  He beat me to hanging up.

  What now? What the fuck now?

  My palatial office was a tiny prison, and my suit was a straitjacket.

  She’d think I’d disclosed and hadn’t told her last night.

  I had to move. Stretch. My thoughts came in questions with the rat-a-tat speed of a machine gun, and I made my feet on the stairs match their cadence.

  She didn’t answer when I called the first time.

  Did she think I’d push a disclosure without telling her first?

  I knew what a colossal asshole I could be, but she didn’t.

  Or maybe she did.

  How much had I hung on her opinion of me?

  She didn’t answer when I called the second time. Or the tenth.

  This I didn’t know how to manage. Samantha hadn’t iced me out. She’d breathed hot fire and put me out with her tears. I had her down to a science. She’d never turned her back on me like this. Not until her last hours, leaving me upstairs while she…

  Why wasn’t she picking up?

  At least… just to yell, berate, argue, or apologize.

  Nothing. As if this was all nothing.

  Fuck my chest for hurting. It was something.