Never Have I Ever

by Blakely, Lauren

  The first thing Lucy asks is if she can see Piper.

  “Really? You don’t want to read here in my office while I finish these papers?”

  Lucy laughs, shaking her head. “Her office is filled with pretty things. Yours is so blah it’s like a double serving of blah.”

  “Well, just take me down a few notches, why don’t you?”

  She waves happily and trots down the hall.

  I stand, reach into my wallet, and grab several bills to pay Miranda, a clever, fifty-something woman who’s been taking care of kids in Manhattan for ages. She’s one of those people who knows every activity, every class, and every workshop for kids at every museum. She also knows my sister and worked for her when her kids were younger.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Nolan. I’ll pick her up tomorrow too? I can take her and Henry to the open studio hour at the Whitney Museum.”

  “That would be great.”

  She turns to go then spins back around, a little twinkle in her brown eyes. “Also, one of the ladies at school was asking about you. Hannah’s mother . . .” Her voice trails off, like she’s just going to leave that little chocolate chip right here on the table to see if I’ll pick it up.

  I don’t. Nothing against chocolate chips—or a pretty single mom I’ve run into once or twice at school events—I’m just not interested. “How good of her to inquire.”

  “You know, it might be fun to take the kids to the pottery class together this—”

  “I have plans this weekend. Thank you. See you tomorrow. Same time.”

  Miranda leaves, and a few minutes later, I hear my daughter announce that she now looks like a baby chick and she’s swimming in this dress, then she giggles, and Piper laughs too.

  I smile, liking the sound of Lucy’s laughter.

  2

  Zach

  On Wednesday evening later that week, I’m multitasking, dashing some pepper onto the chicken as I sauté the meat while cradling the phone. “I promise you, Taylor, I’m going to protect your assets like a shark. A tiger shark. The most feared tiger shark in the seas.” I toss in some rosemary, and the pan sizzles. “You started your bistro before the marriage. I know he thinks he’s entitled, but now you have someone tougher on your side, and he won’t want to deal with me.” I add a pinch of salt. “Because he’s going to be an overcooked chicken when I’m done with him.”

  Taylor chuckles lightly on the other end of the line, and it’s the first time I’ve heard my client emit any sort of laugh since she came to me with her case after the “soft touch” attorney she first hired suggested she discuss asset distribution with her soon-to-be ex over a nice Chianti, since Chianti makes everything better. His words, evidently.

  “With a balsamic glaze and skewered with a sprig of rosemary through the heart,” Taylor, who’s a chef, adds.

  “Exactly,” I say as I flip the chicken breast with a spatula. This chicken is a perfect shade of golden because I don’t see the point of cooking unless you can cook well. “New York might be an equitable distribution state, but your restaurant is separate property.”

  My son, Henry, appears in the kitchen and tugs at the hem of my shirt. “Daddy, can you please check my math homework?”

  I turn to the little towhead who’s thrusting a sheet of . . . basic addition? Oh, hell yeah. I can definitely do that.

  “Just a sec, buddy. Let Daddy finish his call,” I tell Henry, and he flashes a gap-toothed grin then runs to the living room. Because why walk when you can run?

  “You really think we can protect the restaurant and still get the apartment?” Taylor asks.

  I add some artichoke hearts and green beans to the dish, stirring as I reassure her. “You started it with your own money, prior to the marriage.” I take a beat before launching into the next topic. “As for the apartment, do you truly want that, given what went down in it?”

  What went down was Taylor’s husband banging his assistant every night while Taylor was making butternut squash soup at the Tribeca restaurant down the street.

  She sighs. “I’ll ask my shrink. My shrink thinks we should try to have a collaborative divorce.”

  I grit my teeth. Of course the shrink thinks that, and in many cases, I recommend it too. But not in this one. “If you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile. Do you want that? You came to me because you didn’t want to settle this over Chianti and candles and affirmations.”

  Her voice is stretched thin when she answers with a shaky “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. But look, if you decide you want to be able to hold hands with him when this is done, I’ll send you down that path. If you want to make sure he stares down at the carcass of his dead marriage with regret and pain—as much pain as you felt when you first found those filthy, disgusting text messages he sent to his assistant—I can march down this path.”

  A small laugh is her answer. “The dead carcass path.” She takes a deep breath. “Does that mean you’ll rip him to shreds?”

  Well, that isn’t entirely what a good divorce attorney does, but the perception sometimes is what matters. “If you want him torn to shreds, I’ll do my damnedest. Now listen, I need to finish up this chicken and veggie masterpiece before the residents grow too restless. We’ll meet on Friday, review everything, and finalize whether you want the kumbaya path or the carcass-torn-to-tatters route.”

  I say goodbye as my daughter yanks open the utensil drawer, reaches for forks, and sets the counter without even being asked.

  I put the phone down and gesture to Lucy, amazed. “Fine. I’ll admit it. You’re a perfect child.”

  As she slides a butter knife neatly to the right of a plate, she stares at me, her blue eyes inquisitive. “Daddy, why do you want to rip everyone to shreds?”

  Ah, I long for the days when I didn’t have to have after-hours conversations with clients in front of my kids. But then again, I long for a lot of things I can’t have anymore.

  I turn off the burner, kneel, and dot a kiss to Lucy’s forehead. “Because it’s how I pay for your school, and for your brother’s school. Because it’s how I pay for our life. Because it’s how I afford everything.”

  “By being mean?”

  I bare my teeth. “Daddy’s a shark.” I pretend to nibble her arm.

  She squeals. “Ouch, ouch. Don’t eat my whole arm.”

  I take another bite of her elbow. “I only want half of it, I swear.”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “Now, Daddy, is half my arm equitable distribution?”

  My jaw drops. Holy shit. My ten-year-old is starting to understand the finer details of New York divorce law.

  “Daddy, can you check my math now?” Henry shouts from the living room. “Lucy wouldn’t do it.”

  Lucy heaves the indignant sigh of an almost tween. “I told you I would do it as soon as I set the table. You’re such a dweebmeister.”

  Dweeb is a popular insult now? Or rather, dweebmeister? I’ve barely mastered Instagram lingo, and now I have to learn trash talk. “Henry, my man, bring it on.” I smack my palm against the island counter, and he motors on over, shoving the paper at me as I serve the chicken and veggies.

  “But what if Taylor’s husband doesn’t deserve being ripped to shreds?”

  I look up from the paper, meeting Lucy’s curious gaze as I keep pace with our ping-pong conversation. “But what if he does?” I toss back. “He was a bad husband. That’s not cool, is it?”

  She shakes her head, her brunette ponytail swishing back and forth. “No. That’s totally not cool. You should be a good husband. You were a good husband, right?”

  “Of course he was,” Henry answers, picking up his fork. “He was the best, right, Daddy?”

  “Obviously.” I set down the math paper, focusing on that, on questions with clear-cut answers. “What’s fifty-two plus eighteen?”

  “Seventy, obviously,” Lucy answers.

  “Luce, let Henry answer.”

  “It’s seventy, obviously,” he says, mimi
cking her.

  I stab my finger against the page. “Just fix that one problem and everything is perfect.”

  I sit down to join them, and we eat, catching up on the details about life in second and fourth grades, respectively.

  After Lucy finishes her chicken and puts down her fork, she furrows her brow. “Hannah’s older sister told us at recess that we need to get tampons soon. Do I need to get tampons?”

  I freeze, fork midair, jaw hanging open. Where in the single parent handbook does it say your prepubescent daughter is going to ask about period supplies well before she’s supposed to?

  “You just turned ten, sweetie pie,” I say, dodging the question, because holy fuck. Is ten when girls get their periods?

  I grab my phone and google it.

  Average onset of menses—okay, seriously, who names this shit? That is the worst medical term ever—is twelve and a half. I have time.

  I put the phone down. “First of all, not yet. But when you do, we’ll deal with it, okay?”

  That seems sufficient for her. “Sounds good.”

  And it’ll have to be good enough for me since it buys me enough time to research the hell out of how to handle that.

  “Daddy, are you still a shark?” Henry asks.

  Lucy sighs as if she just can’t take him asking that again. “Of course he’s still a shark, Henry. He’s the sharkiest shark in Manhattan.”

  “Can’t you be a lion instead?” Henry bares his teeth, tosses his head back, and emits a roar. A very high-pitched Tiny Tim one.

  I ruffle his hair as I swing behind him to pick up plates. “When it comes to you, I’ll be your lion, your shark, and your king cobra. You’ve always got me on your side. Now, help clean.”

  Henry wiggles back and forth, sticking out his tongue like a snake and hissing.

  “Henry, don’t do that,” Lucy chides as she slides a plate into the dishwasher.

  “Do what?”

  “Pretend to be a snake.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t care for snakes,” Lucy says primly.

  “But I’m not really a snake.” Henry points out with the cool and unassailable logic of a seven-year-old.

  “True, he’s not a snake, Luce,” I add.

  “But we have an understanding, gentlemen.” Since she declared herself “woman of the house,” it’s become important to her to put us men in our place.

  “And what is that? I don’t recall a memo of understanding about snakes.” I scratch my head. “Can you show it to me?”

  “We had a verbal agreement. We don’t play with real snakes or pretend snakes. We don’t pretend to be snakes in any way, shape, or form. Don’t you boys know that?”

  Henry rinses his plate. “Fine, then Daddy can be a bear.”

  “Mama bears are fierce,” Lucy points out.

  I offer a smile, one that’s filled with far too many memories. “They are. They’re the fiercest thing I’ve ever known.”

  3

  Piper

  My heels click against the sidewalk as I press my cell phone harder to my ear, as if that will emphasize my point to the person on the other end. “No. The artichokes need to have just the right amount of purple to their leaves. They need to be the center of the centerpiece, surrounded by the dahlias and the daisies. But none of those filler leaves or twigs. Bud, you know that.”

  Bud sighs from the other end of Manhattan. “I just wish you didn’t hate twigs so much.”

  “I have nothing against twigs. I love twigs. Twigs come from trees, and trees are awesome.” I scan the concrete jungle around me as I march up treeless Park Avenue on Thursday afternoon. “What I wouldn’t give to hug a tree right now. Yet, I don’t want tree branches in my farm-to-table centerpieces.”

  “Farm to table,” he groans. “The worst combination of three words ever created. It’s made my job as a florist a living Hades.”

  I laugh. “Remember the good old days when couples just wanted mums or stargazer lilies?”

  He shudders over the phone line. “No one ever wanted stargazer lilies.”

  “Fine, peonies,” I concede.

  He sighs wistfully. “What I wouldn’t give for peonies to make a comeback. Just this morning I had to try to make an attractive arrangement out of kumquat, cabbage, and brussels sprouts for a wedding this weekend in Prospect Park.”

  I scrunch my brow, trying to picture that unusual assemblage. “I’m getting stuck on the brussels sprouts. I think I’m going to require a photo.”

  “Never. It’s like a photo of all my pain. I’ve had to become a fruit and vegetable broker these last few years. I became a florist because I like to arrange flowers. You know, lilies, mums, roses. Not cabbage patches.”

  “Are you sure you weren’t tempted to eat the brussels sprouts? Just steal a few from the arrangement?”

  “Raw brussels sprouts? No, thank you. They’re only in the arrangement because they’re in season. It’s like the bride is showing off that she knows what veggies are growing this time of year. I might have to retire soon.”

  I cringe at the thought. He’s my best florist. “Look on the bright side. All I’m asking you for are purple-leafed artichokes. And you know I’ll Instagram the hell out of them,” I say, dangling my Insta-following at him, since it’s not too shabby for a wedding planner.

  My other line beeps, and the screen flashes that it’s Jonathan from the Luxe Hotel, who’s next on my call list. “Bud, give me one minute. I’ll be right back. And we’ll plot the future of artichokes.” I switch to the other line as the May sun beats down on me.

  “Jonathan, I bet you’re calling to tell me you’ll have the Raphael Room for a ten percent discount, since I’m your best client?” I flutter my lashes, even though he can’t see me.

  “You’re killing me.” He heaves a sigh. A most dramatic sigh. “And you say you want it in September?”

  “Naturally. I know that’s tight, but I’m sure you’ll find it’s free, say, the second weekend?”

  “Why do I bend over backward for you?” I can hear him flipping through the pages on his register. He’s one of those old-school guys who prefers a datebook rather than a computer calendar.

  “Because you’re flexible. And because you love me.”

  “No. Because you bring me the best brides.”

  “Whose photos you use to advertise your hotel as one of the city’s premier wedding sites,” I add, reminding him of why I deserve the date of choice, plus a discount.

  “Then it’s yours.”

  I pump a fist. “I love you madly, Jonathan. More than any other hotel event manager in the city.”

  “I bet that’s what you say to all the boys when they give you their best rooms.”

  “Keep giving me good rates, and you’ll be at the top of my list.”

  “That’s the only place any event manager wants to be.”

  And that’s how I like it. I want the hotel managers, restaurateurs, and wedding venue coordinators wanting to partner with me. Most do, and I’ve worked my ass off to reach this point.

  I say goodbye and return to Bud Rose, diving right back into the thick of it. “Bud, I feel for you. But the world is changing, and you either change with it or get left behind, sweetie. You don’t want to be left behind, do you?” I ask, since he seems to need a pep talk, and that’s the least I can do for my main flower wizard.

  “I don’t. You’re right,” he admits.

  “Good. Then the way I see it is this: there’s no one on the eastern seaboard who can arrange pomegranates, artichokes, figs, and mums like you, with your floral artistry. So embrace the farm-to-table change.”

  He chuckles. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

  “Wonderful. Right now, I need to get a decent price on the artichoke arrangement.”

  He huffs. “I can give you a ten percent discount if you let me add twigs.”

  I huff right back. “You can add twigs for fifteen percent.”

  After a few m
inutes of Manhattan-style negotiation, wheeling and dealing as I weave my way through crowds of New Yorkers barking on cell phones, we agree on twigs and terms.

  “Long live artichokes,” I say.

  “And figs and brussels sprouts.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  I hang up, and a few minutes later, I reach my destination, pushing open the door and sweeping in to see my favorite man. I give Adrien a kiss on each cheek. “I missed you.”

  He pats my hair. “Your hair missed me. It’s been four weeks. That’s far too long.” He flicks the ends of my locks. “When are you going to let me give you red highlights? I swear your hair is calling out for it.” He leans in close, pretending to whisper to my brown hair. “Give me red color. Please make me more beautiful.”

  I clutch my hair, keeping it out of his grasp. “Never.”

  He sighs heavily. “Darling, some wine-red highlights will only make you more beautiful.”

  I scoff. “I don’t aspire to beauty.”

  “What do you aspire to, then? Greatness? Dominance? Becoming an all-powerful force of nature? Oh wait, you already are.”

  I smile. He knows me so well. “The last one, of course. At least, I try to achieve it.”

  He squeezes my shoulder affectionately as he guides me to the chair by the basin. “Speaking of, how are my brides doing?”

  I love that he feels the same ownership of them as I do. That he refers to them as his, just as I refer to them as mine. We’ve worked on countless weddings together over the years, and he is my comrade in arms.

  “Fabulous,” I say, and I rattle off the names of some of the brides he’s styled. “Marie just found out she’s pregnant.”

  He coos in delight. “And you had to be a last-minute bridesmaid for her too.”

  I stepped in at that wedding when her best friend from China wasn’t going to make it in time. “Connecting flights are the worst.”

  “And how is Brenna? She looked so lovely in that A-line dress.”

  “She just had twins, and she could probably fit in that dress again soon if she wanted.”