Playing House

by Ruby Lang

  But even as he tried to tell himself this, a voice whispered that he’d avoided bringing this up for fear of this very reaction. How many times could he have steered the conversation to the actual realities of their work—and how many times had he stopped short?

  He hadn’t technically done anything wrong. And yet, he couldn’t precisely say that he was blameless either.

  “Fay, please, say something.”

  Nearby a pigeon cooed and a herd of kids swooped by on bikes.

  “You’re outside?” she asked, almost in a normal tone. It sounded like she was tamping down accusation and anger, but keeping those feelings in check didn’t mean they weren’t there.

  “Yes,” he answered cautiously.

  She was quiet for a minute. “I have to think about this,” she said.

  After they’d hung up civilly but not warmly, Oliver sat his sweaty body on a nearby park bench.

  He knew that he was hurt and annoyed at Fay’s abruptness just then. His response probably did look deceitful, or weak. Maybe he was. That was the problem. He understood where Fay’s mistrust was coming from. But where did that leave his own frustration? Only a few days ago, it seemed like she was an oasis: here was someone who had liked his silly mango rose, had liked the fact that she could talk to him about the things that interested her, who could laugh with him, who had known him for a long time.

  Someone with whom he could see himself falling in love.

  Defeated, he pulled himself off the bench and made his way back to the apartment. Nat was at home, riffling through a pile of unread mail. “On my lunch break—not slacking off, I swear. I just need to grab this—” He held up an envelope triumphantly.

  Oliver took off his shoes and aligned them carefully on the floor. “Relax,” he said shortly. “I’m not going to accuse you of being lazy. Why is everyone in our family so obsessed with working all the time?”

  Instead of turning to leave, Nat put down the envelope and then his phone. “You’re in a mood. Did you get turned down for that job?”

  “No. Maybe.”

  His brother crossed his arms. “Does this have anything to do with the fact that you cut out early on Sunday and didn’t come back ’til early Monday morning?”

  “I didn’t mention to Fay that I was up for a job at her firm.”

  “What? She had no idea this whole time?”

  “None.”

  “Oh, Oliver.”

  “I just—I was going to say something, but I was enjoying myself for the first time in a long time. She liked me. It was nice to be around someone who wasn’t disappointed by me.”

  “No one is disappointed in you.”

  “Oh really, have you met our mother?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, very little makes our mother happy. It’s her natural state to be displeased. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Well, I’m tired of all the little digs about how I could’ve been a lawyer or a doctor. I am never going to make money hand over fist. I am always going to nerd out about cities and communities and all the little ways they work and don’t work. I’m always going to be a quiet kind of person who prefers a quieter life—but that doesn’t make me a failure or unreliable. I would just like to be accepted for that, liked for it.” And for a few minutes, with Fay, he’d thought he was.

  “Hey, novel idea, but maybe you should tell Mom that?”

  “I have in many, many ways.”

  “Then you need to fix it in yourself and part of that means accepting that she’s not going to change—the same way that you’re not going to change.”

  Oliver paused. His brother had been studiously sifting through three pieces of mail for the last five minutes.

  Well, standing up to his mother wouldn’t fix Oliver’s Fay problem.

  “Any other words of wisdom you’d like to impart, little brother?”

  “Yeah, you need to talk things out with this Fay like a grown-up.”

  “This from a person who falls in love with a new guy every couple of weeks and dumps him when he turns up with the wrong color shoes. And what if I don’t feel like a grown-up right now?”

  “All I’m saying is that if Fay’s so different—if you feel like she gets you and she does want a chance to talk it out with you—then you have to treat her differently. Or maybe she’s terrible. I don’t know—you have another chance to find out for sure.”

  He harrumphed noncommittally at his brother.

  “Look, Oliver, I know you worry about turning into Dad—we all do in our own ways, even Macy. Well, the one thing about Dad was that he gave up easily on everyone, including himself. So if you don’t want to be like him and don’t have at least one more conversation with Fay, then you have to live with that for the rest of your lonely, miserable life.”

  “Fuck you, Nat.”

  “Love you, too. And in my humble opinion as a risk analyst, you really do have nothing to lose.”

  “You’re a comfort, bro.”

  “I try.”

  Thursday

  It turned out to be fairly straightforward for Fay to tell her partners about Oliver, even if the relationship wasn’t straightforward in her mind. At around five, she walked into Teddy’s office to ask him if he could meet, and Sulagna was already there, sitting on a corner of his desk and directing Teddy on his latest project.

  Fay cleared her throat. “So, about Oliver Huang’s CV—I have to take myself off of the hiring on this one. I’m...friends with him.”

  Teddy laughed. “And? We all know each other. It’s a small community.”

  But of course, Sulagna picked up on what Fay was trying to hint at. “Friends—or friends?”

  “Wait,” said Teddy. “You mean you’re going out with Oliver Huang?”

  Sulagna was already off and running. “You know, I think Oliver’s a great candidate. I’ve met him a couple of times, too—very personable—plus he fills in our gaps in heritage planning and preservation. I think this is exactly who we need in this position.”

  Teddy said, “But won’t it be awkward for Fay?”

  “Of course it won’t. We’ll make sure Oliver’s not working with Fay. He’s supposed to be supporting your projects anyway, Ted.”

  This was getting away from her. Everything Sulagna said about Oliver was certainly true and she was glad Sulagna picked up on his talents—she’d thought the same herself just the other day.

  But Fay had come in here to take herself out of the hiring process and instead, she’d actually highlighted Oliver’s candidacy. Their firm was too small to have a full-time HR manager and their freelance consultants had been disasters; Sulagna clearly felt that the need to hire was so urgent that she was going to jump at the opening that Fay had created.

  But Fay didn’t know what she wanted. When confronted with only the possibility of seeing him in their offices, she was hit with a sudden wave of regret, so huge and seemingly out of proportion that she had to put her hand to her chest. What would happen if he were around every day? How would she deal with it?

  This wasn’t exactly something she could admit to her partners right now. If she told them that yes, she would be uncomfortable working with Oliver, then she’d be threatening Oliver’s chance at the position. She did want him to have a job; he’d be good at it, and because, if she could put her stupid feelings aside, his knowledge would fill in a lot of gaps at Milieu. He ought to have mentioned it to her, yes, but maybe she had cut off conversation about work. They had talked about planning without talking about their day-to-day specifically and part of that had been a deliberate choice for her. After all, she’d talked about the firm, and the personalities, and the meetings and clients with Jeremy, and the whole time it turned out he didn’t care about it. It sounded like such a small thing—a man not paying attention to his wife as she talked about her day. But apparently, it was eno
ugh to crack her open, to seed a small fissure in her confidence.

  But, of course, none of this was appropriate to tell Sulagna and Teddy right now—the conversation they were having was already veering into the inappropriately personal. And she knew, also, that if they hired Oliver it might be awkward, but not because of anything on his part. He would be considerate. Because that was how he always was.

  Teddy said, “We haven’t interviewed him yet.”

  But unless Fay said something right now, that interview was looking more and more like a formality.

  She said nothing.

  Later that night, over FaceTime, Renata said, “So he’s going to be working with you.”

  “They haven’t interviewed him.”

  “But he’s going to get the job.”

  Fay sighed. “Yes, and he’s exactly what we need, and if I’d been using my brain instead of—well, when I met him on the house tour, I would’ve tried to steal him from Greenblatt. Except Greenblatt was already gone, and I wasn’t thinking about jobs at all when I was with him—maybe he was. Maybe he got close because he thought I’d get him a position.”

  “No. No insecurity. We talked about this. And one way out of that thinking is to know that he must be genuinely interested. Fay, do you really need me to do that girlfriend thing where I tell you how fierce and awesome you are—and then you don’t believe me? Because you are, and he doesn’t deserve you, and no one ever will. But here’s what I also know: you’re both obsessed with your subject. And I can see how you both probably got busy talking about how much Harlem has changed and wondering aloud whether or not small business ownership went up on 125th Street or whether or not chains have dampened local activity, and all that shit that I have to listen to when I’m around your crew.”

  Fay shifted uncomfortably. “Are you bored by it?”

  “I’ve learned a lot. It taught me a new way of thinking about cities and towns, from top to bottom. Zoning.”

  “Oh God, you really are bored by it.”

  “Sometimes. But I don’t make a secret of it. And I do like how much all of you think about your line of work, how much you care about it. I don’t care much about estate law half the time. But that’s not the point. Speaking as your friend, if he makes you uncomfortable, do not hire him. If you really think he cozied up to you just for a job, do not hire him, especially if it makes you doubt everything he says. If you think that it will make your coworkers and employees wary because they know that you dated him, do not hire him. It doesn’t matter if he needs a job. It doesn’t matter if he’s a perfect fit otherwise.”

  “But the other partners think it’ll be fine.”

  “The other partners didn’t sleep with him.”

  And that was Renata, cutting right to the heart of it. Would Fay ever truly be able to look at Oliver Huang again and think of him as nothing more than a colleague?

  “Honey, you need to ask yourself what you want him to be to you and why exactly you need that.”

  “I want someone—someone serious, and who works hard, and who makes his opinions and all his wants clear. I mean, this is someone I am supposed to know. All those years and it comes down to nothing. Just like Jeremy. I lived with someone for so long, and it turned out he didn’t actually give a shit about me.”

  “Hey, it’s only really been a week you were dating though, right? You don’t know him yet. And just because Jeremy pretended to care about things doesn’t mean Oliver is.”

  “No, don’t give me that pitying look, Renata. I can see it even over this crappy screen. I am over the marriage. But this fear? This is something else entirely. This small niggling insecurity is going to crop up at the worst moments for the rest of my life. And I hate that I have it now.” She sighed. “I mean maybe, maybe Oliver didn’t have designs on me. His CV was in our mailbox for months. When I asked him to come out with me this time—I thought he genuinely enjoyed spending time with me.”

  “Of course he did.”

  “How can you know that though? With Jeremy, I didn’t see how he lied to me—and to himself. I thought I was finally getting the hang of this, Renata. I thought I was over my slump. I gel penned my letting go of my feelings into a bullet journal and even bought the right washi tape for it, like we’re supposed to do in the strong woman handbook.

  “But it wasn’t enough, was it? With Oliver, I started looking forward to things again. It was so playful, what we were doing. How often do I get to do that? Just...pretend and play? But if it turns out he wasn’t serious and just wanted a job? I don’t know.”

  “How he feels about you or why he did it can’t take away the fact that you had felt good and had fun in the time you’ve been with him. And the truth is, I guess you’ll never really know unless you ask him.”

  “Oh, I’ll ask him, all right.”

  Just not now.

  Chapter Seven

  Tuesday

  Teddy and Sulagna regarded Oliver across the conference room table with curious bird-bright eyes, hunting for crumbs of information.

  Clearly, they knew about him and Fay. Worse, they seemed to want gossip.

  Oliver tried not to cough or fidget. How much of his discomfort was due to the fact that he was at a job interview, and how much was due to the fact that the partners knew that he had something with Fay, he wasn’t sure. He kept his mouth shut because to open it would have been inappropriate—and because he didn’t want to talk about it with them, dammit. But his silence didn’t seem to disappoint them. Sulagna volunteered that Fay was out meeting clients today and wouldn’t have sat in on this interview anyway.

  “Not that you’d be working under her,” Sulagna added.

  He wasn’t sure that they knew that he and Fay had argued—or most likely that it was over. He’d had a longer “relationship” with Sally Chin than with Fay. Oliver hadn’t heard from her all week—nor did he try to talk to her. Yet, somehow, he’d expected Fay to give him a final word.

  But then, if they hired him, it wouldn’t quite be final, would it? It was a small firm. And they couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t work together, no matter what Teddy and Sulagna insisted. Even if they both hid in their offices all day or went to see clients, there were all the other ways they come upon one another: at the elevator, at the coffeemaker, passing in the halls. He had worked with people he’d broken up with before. It was almost inevitable given that he ran in such small professional circles. But somehow this was different—maybe because he’d poured more hope into this brief moment they’d had—because hope meant more to him nowadays—and because she had seemed to do so, too.

  At least the senior partners didn’t seem malicious in their curiosity. If anything, they seemed eager and happy to learn more about him. They were friendly.

  Fay was lucky to have people who seemed to genuinely care about her. No—he corrected himself—she’d worked hard and surrounded herself with good people whom she could trust in the workplace and as friends.

  On Wednesday afternoon, he got the phone call from Teddy with the offer. They tussled amicably over salary, and Teddy hung up, promising that papers would be sent out Friday before the Fourth of July weekend or Tuesday at the latest. They took for granted that Oliver would accept, but even though it was the opportunity that he’d wanted for months, he found himself hesitating.

  It would be stupid to say no. If their relationship, brief as it was, meant so little to Fay that she’d not bothered with even a brush-off phone call, then she’d be just fine seeing him all the time.

  Yet, he was sure it had meant more to her—it sure as hell had been significant for him. He couldn’t find it in himself to breathe it out, to let it roll over him like all the regular disappointments that came from bring a grown up. Being with Fay hadn’t simply made him enjoy again—it showed that life was enjoyable. And that was also how he knew Fay cared; she didn’t do things for no reason—it
was something he loved about her, about getting to know her.

  Of course, he could call her to end it himself, put them both out of limbo. He had to make a decision, but he figured he had time until those offer papers came.

  He plunged himself into his consulting project that night and worked through Saturday—whether or not he accepted the job, he was at least going to wrap up this quick contract. Working was better than brooding. In fact, all that time, he found the job absorbing enough that he could occasionally forget.

  Until he remembered that he couldn’t talk about it with her.

  On Fourth of July Monday, he drove out with Nat to Forest Hills to see their mother and Macy.

  Nat suggested they go out to lunch instead of lying around the house. He, of course, came up with the name of a posh spot somewhere back in Manhattan—a prospect that made Oliver groan. They’d just come from there and holiday midday traffic through Queens wouldn’t be ideal. But luckily, Ma insisted she wanted to go to Chen’s Taiwanese in Elmhurst, their old neighborhood. She bristled at getting in the car—she’d never gotten used to driving around—but once they arrived and got out, she gazed around her with an unreadable expression. “Do you miss it?” he found himself asking.

  “Yes.”

  She said it without her usual snap, and it was so sad and odd that he put his arm around her for a moment.

  It didn’t last long.

  His mother, never able to stand still, moved out from underneath the comfort of his arm. Oliver tried not to take it personally.

  Through lunch, old friends and acquaintances kept coming up. Ma gave them tight smiles but she said very little. Maybe she wasn’t used to all of this chatter anymore; he could sympathize. He wasn’t sure how often she’d left the house this week while Macy was away. He felt a small prick of guilt. He’d been busy, but he should have checked on her. Then again, his mom would have sniped if he’d come along to interrupt her. Or maybe she’d ask him why he wasn’t out looking for a job, as if that involved walking the streets, cap in hand. Not that he even owned a cap—she’d probably yell at him for wasting money on one.