Reconcilable Differences: A 'Having It All' Novel (32 page)

“Thank you, yes.” She pulled out a chair and sat down,
hunting in her case for the documents. Turning to D'arcy, she said, “Well. This
is it.” She thumped them down on the table.

D’arcy’s full lips puckered thoughtfully, the corners
curling up slowly, and she nodded.

“Are you glad you chose mediation?”

“You know I am. I don’t know where we would have ended up
without your help.”

Kate shook her head. “You two did all the work, believe
me.”

Eli joined them and set a mug of tea down in front of
Kate, the tag of the tea bag dangling over the side. “Hope that’s okay.”

She looked up, offering him a smile of thanks and lifted
the steaming mug to her nose. Once he’d taken a seat, she walked them through
the final changes, opened the agreements to the final page, and turned them
around, indicating where to sign. “I guess you have figured out by now that in
cases such as these the document ends up being more a symbol of the process
that you’ve worked through. Just a reminder, even if you never pull it out of
the envelope again.” She studied them pensively. From now on, they were on
their own. She felt like a mother bird tossing her chicks out of the nest. They
would soar or perish, but there was no more that she could do for them.

“You’ve got to be kidding. You know I’m going to have to
shake this in Eli’s face to get him to cook dinner once in awhile,” laughed
D'arcy.

“There’s a better way, you know,” said Kate.

Eli looked alarmed. “What’s that?”

Kate looked pointedly at him and replied, “Stop feeding
him.”

“Ah,” he laughed. “But you know what that leads to.”

Kate pressed her lips together, remembering. “Well pizza,
beer and chocolate may do well enough for you and I, but now you have a family
to feed.” They chuckled together.

D’arcy’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

Kate answered. “I had the great pleasure of dining with
Eli at his studio last month,” she laughed. “It was most—interesting.”

“My sympathies. I had to hire a backhoe to shovel it
out.” D’arcy’s grimace said it all.

“That reminds me, Kate,” Eli angled a sharp eye on her,
suddenly sober. “What about our pact? I’ve kept my end of the bargain. You’re
not backing out are you?”

Kate remained silent, pondering. Yes, Simon was coming
for dinner on Saturday, but what then? She’d given in to his persistent urging,
but with the case ending, would she agree to see him again? If only she didn’t
feel so ambivalent. Finally, she spoke. “I’m in so much trouble I don’t know
what I’m going to do.”

She stared intently at D'arcy. “You mustn’t let on you
know. Especially to Sharon. Even though this is basically over. But I’ll tell
you, since you know so much already, Eli.”

They both leaned in.

She waffled and then confessed in a subdued voice. “I
said he could come for dinner Saturday. To talk.” She threw both hands up in
resignation.

“Hah!”

Eli’s eyebrows shot up as D’arcy’s lowered in a scowl.
“Simon, I suppose you mean? What kind of trouble?” she asked.

“Sharon has filed a complaint against me with my
professional organization—claiming conflict of interest and breach of standards
of conduct. I don’t know what will happen now. Disciplinary action is still
possible.”

“That bitch!” Eli muttered

She didn’t mention the cover note from her mentor, who
sat on the executive. Rose was apparently concerned about her. Reading between
the lines, it was clear she might have been dealt with more harshly without Rose’s
intervention. It still remained to be seen whether she would be found guilty
and disciplined, or not.

“How long has this been going on?” D'arcy asked.

“The complaint or the affair?” Eli joked.

“There is no affair!” Kate felt her colour rising.

The smirk on Eli’s face argued otherwise. “He’s coming
for dinner?”

“Stop it. You’re horrible. I meant the complaint, of
course.” D'arcy slapped softly at him.

“Since mid-November I guess, about a week after we broke
off sessions. Remember I told you she had suspicions.”

“Based on what, though?”

Kate shrugged. “Just feelings. There really hasn’t been
much going on at all.” She pulled a face in response to Eli’s skeptical
expression. “A—a lot of tension mainly. I think she’s been watching Simon
pretty closely though. She seems to claim some sort of proprietary interest.”

“
I
knew it, though. I mean, I don’t mean to make your case worse,” Eli hedged.
“But I had a feeling right away that Simon had something… ” Eli waved a hand
vaguely in the air. “…going on with both you and Sharon. I spoke to him about
it. That’s when he confessed you knew each other back in college.”

D'arcy shook her head. “I never saw a thing.”

Kate was disheartened to hear that Eli noticed the
strange attraction between she and Simon almost immediately. It was no wonder
then, that Sharon had noticed it too, and become… jealous? Is that what it was?
It dismayed Kate that she’d hidden her emotions so poorly. Hardly the objective
professional she prided herself on being.

Eli shrugged. “Call me a sensitive guy.”

D'arcy elbowed him, shaking her head. Turning to Kate,
she sobered. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“Not right now, but thanks. We’ll see what the Practice
Advisory Committee comes back with. If I’m suspended you can have me for
dinner.”

“We’ll do that anyway,” laughed Eli.

“Eli, how can you be so cruel? Why do you think this is
funny?” D'arcy scolded.

“You’ll see. It’s not
funny
.
I’m just… encouraged. Everything will work out just fine. It was meant to be.”
The smile he gave Kate was warm and knowing, almost conspiratorial.

“How can
you
be so sure when
I
‘m not?”

By
the time she was through meeting
with D'arcy and Eli, Kate had to rush to meet Alexa on time, striding briskly
the few blocks to
Emile’s
on Broadway. The weather was changeable. She squinted at the indecisive wispy and
tumbled clouds that pulled apart in all directions like candy floss, moved by
unseen forces high in the stratosphere. Despite the early hour, a band of clear
sky to the Western horizon showed tints of mauve and orange with a cool white
sun hovering low in the winter sky like an alabaster bowl.

In spite of everything, Kate felt oddly buoyed by D’arcy’s
sympathy and Eli’s mulish encouragement.

When she arrived, Alexa was waiting for her at the
restaurant on the corner, a small atmospheric French bistro that Alexa favoured
on the nights she came home late from the office.

The place was narrow, as French bistros ought to be,
lined in gleaming varnished wainscoting with old posters from the French stage
pinned above, interspersed with charming
objets
,
such as taxidermy grouse and cracked crockery. The
maitre’d
nodded in
their direction, and after allowing a few moments for them to settle, sidled
over with menus and a warm accented welcome in a voice as slippery and gravelly
as Georges Brassens. She slid into a chocolate leather banquette behind a veil
of thick crisp white linen, smiling at him and glancing around.

Other guests were sparse but there were a few business
types nodding over papers, and one solitary well-heeled middle aged woman, who
looked to be a friend of the maitre‘d, for he stopped by her table frequently
and exchanged more than a few hushed words in French, his sonorous voice
rumbling like a truck.

The aromas of bacon fat and delicately stewed meats
reminded Kate of long-forbidden temptations. She scanned the menu
du jour
. It seemed almost a
crime to order quiche when there were so many other fabulous choices, yet Kate
knew no one made it better, and she craved it today.

After ordering a carafe of white wine and their food,
they sat for a few minutes in silent appraisal of each other’s mood.

“Well,” Kate said. “How goes it with ‘the partner’?”

Alexa sighed and shrugged. “Oh, he’s gone back home this
week, apparently.” She said this without conviction.

Kate shook her head, feeling cross with Alexa’s stagnant
romantic life and low expectations. “You’re wasting your life on that deadbeat.
Time to cut him loose and find yourself a real relationship.”

A slow sardonic smile spread across Alexa’s face. “Like
you, for example?”

Kate found herself fidgeting, and squirming, not quite
able to hold Alexa’s gaze.

“Okay. Let’s have it. Are you worried about that letter?”

Kate filled her lungs and let out a long, slow sigh that
crested on an almost-whimper in her throat. So many things were compounding at
once, she could hardly find the words. “Yes and no. But that’s not what’s
bothering me. I just came from the final meeting with my clients, and they said
something…”

Kate related the meeting with her clients and their
inexplicable support and empathy with her and Simon. “It’s almost as if hubby’s
cheering us on.” Alexa’s reaction was equally enigmatic, regarding Kate through
narrowed hazel eyes. “It’s rather ironic given the ethics complaint.”

Alexa took a thoughtful sip of her wine, and jabbed her
grilled pate with her fork, waiting. Jane Birkin warbled softly in the
background, filling the lull with the whispered innuendo of her melody, an
intimation of longing and melancholy. Kate frowned. The French had a way of
making everything so trenchant.

“How well do they know you?”

Kate open her mouth to reply, then shook her head. They
didn’t really, did they? But for that one evening with Eli, she’d not shared
anything personal with them. As was often the case, she ruefully considered,
she knew so much about her clients that her empathy gave the
sense
of intimacy, when in truth
there was none. “Oh, Alex. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Maybe I need to
hear people saying, ‘Oh, you’re so perfect for each other! I’m so happy for
you,’ to justify my own irrational feelings.”

“Is that what you want me to say?” Alexa asked.

Kate ignored her and focused on her salad and quiche for
a few minutes, chewing slowly, savouring the creamy, rich texture. Was that
really it? Could she trust the opinion of virtual strangers who knew nothing of
her relationship with Simon, or her painful past? How could they know what was
going to make her happy?

“Anyway, I’ve been having second thoughts about having
him over for dinner.” She glanced at Alexa. “And third thought, and–“

“Just do it, already. Stop thinking so hard.”

Kate ploughed ahead. “Am I supposed to stay single
forever? Where will I ever find a man as good as Simon again? Who will
understand me if he doesn’t?”

“Shut up about that already! How is that going to make
your life any easier? Have a go with Simon. Enjoy the moment. If it doesn’t
work out, so what? You’re a beautiful, intelligent and still young woman, Kate,
and there are, contrary to what you seem to believe, still lots of fish in the
sea.”

The pressure to make sensible choices made her anxious.
Kate almost anticipated a familiar dizzy, fainting spell, but took a deep
breath and realized she hadn’t had one in a while. In fact, she really was
getting a handle on her overwhelming emotions. “But what if–“ A faint buzzing in
her head drowned out the music and she froze mid-sentence.

Alexa made an exasperated sound in her throat. “I love
you Kate and I’ll always be here for you, but you’re driving even me completely
nuts. Instead of analyzing everything to death, just go forward, swing with the
punches, live and see how things turn out. Have a little faith that you’ll be
able to judge as you’re going along. It’s just dinner, for goodness sake. He’s
not proposing marriage.”

The buzzing grew louder, more insistent, almost like it
was coming from outside her head, not inside. Kate consciously slowed her
breathing.
Shanti-mukti-shanti-mukti.
But what of love?
What
of my undying love for Simon
?

The buzzing finally took the shape of the muffled
insolent refrain of Alexa’s silenced cell phone. Kate shook her head in
confusion.

Alexa pounced at her bag, plunged her arm into its
depths, and removed a plastic bottle of spring water, her car keys and a
hairbrush before emerging with the phone, tucking it under her dark hair.
“Yes?” A pause. “Oh, hi, Krystof.” Her eyes darted to Kate and down at her
plate. Alexa fingered her knife, turning it over and over, it’s polished
surface glinting in the sunlight. Alexa’s colour rose. “Tonight? Sure, sure I
can. Okay.” Alexa closed the phone and set it down, her eyes meeting Kate’s.
Kate lifted her eyebrows in sardonic query. “He wants me to work late.” Alexa’s
shoulder jerked up, and the shadow of a sad apologetic smile skipped across her
face.

Kate pressed her lips together.

Alexa continued. “Do you remember our first conversation
about this back in October, after Simon had surfaced, and you had your first
panic attack? I think I was more excited than you were. Even though we trashed
him that day, I was kind of hopeful that you’d hook up.” Alexa’s gaze drifted
to the street scene out the window, her throaty voice softening to a purr. “I
spent so many years watching you worship him, and…” she raised a clenched fist,
“…hoping it would work out for you, I think I lost sight of reality, too. You
made a beautiful couple, and seemed so much in love, even though it ended up
short-lived.” Alexa lifted her glass and sipped wine, pensive. “You know I’m
not romantic, but who wouldn’t wish your dreams to come true, most of all me?
You know I love you like a sister.”

“You’re contradicting yourself. On the one hand, you say
follow your dreams, and on the other, go with the flow. What about your thing
with Krystof? He’s married, has a kid. Do you not have hopes that your
relationship with him will become something more?”

Alexa shook her head. “Nah. That’s what I mean. We’re
just biding our time together, enjoying each other’s company. I don’t think about
what it means or how long it will last. I don’t care. In fact, I know it won’t–”

“But…

“It’s for the moment. If feels good. I know I’ll be all right.
I don’t have to have all the answers. You need to be more like that. If being
with Simon, or just thinking about being with Simon, causes you all this
stress… well then, don’t do it. Just drop it.”

Kate’s heart squeezed. “I’m not like that.”

Alexa set down her glass and reached across to grip
Kate’s hand. Kate looked down, fixing her gaze on the wide amber and silver
ring that Alexa always wore, strong, bold and uncomplicated like her friend.
“I’ve been a poor friend these past few months. This has been an
earth-shattering event in your life, and who could understand that better than
me? But I’ve been preoccupied.” She slowly rocked her head back and forth, her
moss-smoked eyes shot with gold sparks intent on Kate’s. “I don’t blame you for
slipping back into your old fantasies.”

“I’m not fantasizing. I’m trying to deal with my life.”

Alexa wiped her mouth and stuffed everything back into
her bag. “Well, whatever makes you happy. That’s the best advice I can give you.
It’s just that you always seem to make yourself suffer. It’s not necessary.”

“I still need to decide what to do.”

“If you can’t deal with it, then cancel the dinner—it’ll
only confuse you more. You have the strength. You don’t need him. It’s not
supposed to be this hard. Let it go, Kate.”

Can’t deal with it? Alexa made it sound like Kate was
both immature and weak. Is that what her best friend really thought of her?

“Do I
have
to walk away from Simon to prove that
I’m strong?” That sounded almost like a cliché. In a roundabout, paper-bag-princess
sort of way. But it wasn’t that simple.

She’d show her.

She
was
strong. And if she was a little crazy for love, well, who wasn’t? Even Alexa
couldn’t extract herself from a destructive affair with her married boss after
three years of getting jerked around like a puppet, despite her protestations.
She was in no position to give relationship advice. It seemed Kate would have
to figure this one out on her own. Kate wasn’t like Alexa and she’d have to
rely on herself to know what to do.

~*~

Kate
finally understood there was no
one she could turn to who could help her decide what to do about Simon.

She’d held off calling him to cancel their dinner date.
There’s no rush. I might as well think it
through.
He would understand, wouldn’t he? Her emotions frayed,
she’d gone to an hour and a half long yoga class Saturday morning in search of
serenity, but found herself less than satisfied at the end of it, tears somehow
held just at bay, as though the meditation had allowed deeply buried feelings
and thoughts nearer the surface. With nerves that felt raw, she reached for the
phone.

It rang just as her hand closed over it.

“Hello, honey! How are you?” came the familiar distracted
voice.

“Mom.” She tensed, her defenses going up unconsciously.
Her voice always came out sounding tight and strangled when talking with Mom.

“I’m fine. Busy, of course. How are you?”

“I’m super, honey. I’m so glad I caught you. Can you join
us for dinner tonight? I’m making lasagna.”

Ah. The moment of truth. She sunk into a chair. “Uh.
Thanks, Mom. But I'm have a friend for dinner.” Well, at least for the moment
that was still true.
I can still
change my mind.

“Oh! Is it with that nice tall architect, what’s his
name…?”

Like she forgot his name for just one minute. Mom had
been hinting about Jay for almost two years. Why didn’t she just come out and
say what she was thinking?
Hurry
up and get married you social deviant. I want more grandchildren before it’s
too late!
Kate sighed heavily. Mom didn’t need to know the details.
“You’re thinking of someone else. Nope. I’m not seeing Jay-the-digital-artist.”

“Oh. I see. Well, okay then.” How is it her mother was
able to inflict guilt with so few words, like little poison darts. “We don’t
see much of you, honey.”

“I’m pretty busy with work. I’ve just brought a really
great couple to reconciliation,” she announced hopefully, twirling the fringe
on a placemat.

“Uh huh. That’s nice. Did you get the email from Stuart
with the kids’ Christmas wish list? Are you planning to come to San Francisco
with us for Christmas?”

More guilt. She stood up, tapped her foot. “I don’t know,
Mom. Probably not. I can’t leave… ” she let her excuse trail. Mom wouldn’t
understand her anxiety over the Executive review, and she sure wasn’t going to
open that can of worms. She straightened the placemat, lined up a haphazard
stack of mail.

“Yes, of course. Your clients need you. Would you like us
to take a package for you?”

Kate nibbled her fingernail thoughtfully. “No, it’s okay,
thanks. I shipped it. Well, I’d better go. Say hi to Dad for me. Call me before
you go.” Kate hung up the phone and sighed again, her fingers tapping an uneasy
tattoo on the tabletop. It wasn’t too late to call Simon and cancel the dinner.
He’d be disappointed, perhaps even angry. But she could always say she’d come
down with a cold and just postpone it until… Or maybe after her disciplinary
hearing, she would feel… Aah!
Will
I ever know my own mind?

Part of her was soaring with happiness in expectation of
his visit, his comforting companionship, perhaps even his renewed attentions.
Was that the naïve and deluded part? But there was still that small helpless
creature cowering inside of her, fearful, insecure and uncertain. And it
couldn’t be ignored. It was whining so loudly it made her chest hurt. She had
to
do
something. She
picked up the mail and moved it over to her desk.