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“Relax, please. I won’t kill you, and if you get off on watching sweating men jackhammer concrete, I’ll still find you gorgeous.”
My shoulders fall, relieved he’s broken the awkward tension. I don’t know what’s wrong with me around him. It’s almost like I’m desperate to make this work somehow, scared if I don’t, I’ll fall into a familiar spiral and struggle to break free, again.
“We should order,” he suggests. “How long do I have you?”
“Me? For however long you want.”
Shit. Another lie. The pile of work on my desk is astronomical, and about an hour before walking in here, Nikki dumped a new case on my desk she wants me to review before I leave. I’m expecting to pull an all-nighter, the only way I can stay on top of my workload and life.
“Um, okay, sorry, maybe long enough for a latte?”
The waitress makes her way over and takes our order. Julian orders an espresso, and then gives me a brief explanation how he became addicted during his last trip to Sicily.
“Wow, so you travel a lot. What is it you do?” I ask.
“Journalism. I write pieces for a few magazines and occasionally some of the well-known newspapers, depends on what the trend is at the time.”
The waitress returns, placing our beverages on the table, then leaves quickly.
“And you?”
“Family law,” I reply, wrapping my hands around the hot cup in front of me.
“I didn’t peg you for a lawyer but admire your tenacity.” Bringing the small glass toward his lips, he drinks the espresso in almost one go. “Tell me how you became a lawyer? Is there a reason behind it? And where did you study?”
This question isn’t one I haven’t been asked before. Truth be told, I’ve explained it more than I can count, nailed the story to a tee, leaving out various components which are deemed unnecessary to relive, especially to a stranger.
I begin to explain to him how it all started, and how my childhood felt like a turbulent rollercoaster ride from my mother’s repeated absences until she left for good, serving my father with divorce papers.
“Explains why you chose family law,” Julian says, sympathetically.
“I’d seen the worst side of them come out. They didn’t think I could understand their adult conversations, but I knew what was going on.”
“Then Yale, impressive and hard to get into?”
“Says the Harvard graduate,” I tease, welcoming the change of topic. Julian raises his brow, watching curiously until I realize I gave away my secret. “Fine, I may have stalked your Facebook profile.”
His soft chuckles ease my embarrassment. Raising my cup toward my lips, I take another sip, relishing in the caffeine fix my body so desperately needs.
“What can I say? I’m a woman of many talents,” I gloat with a smile.
We both laugh, and though the light-hearted banter is a refreshing change, I push away the feelings which crawl their way to the surface every time my mind wanders to a time in my past where darkness prevailed, and nothing, absolutely nothing, could take away the pain which had consumed me.
I clear my throat, hoping Julian doesn’t notice my change in demeanor.
“I met my good friend, Nicole, or Nikki as I call her, at Yale. We were both studying law, and after years of working for some awful employers, we took the plunge and opened Mason & Romano, a boutique law firm.”
“That’s quite some risk and at such a young age.”
“Yes, I know. I studied nonstop. It’s all I did for pretty much most of my twenties,” I tell him, reflecting on the long hours with my eyes on textbooks which led to compromised eyesight and having to wear glasses when I read. “Nikki and her husband were raising a young child. The juggling act of parenthood and thriving careers was harder than each of them expected.”
I go on to tell Julian about the decision to move to the city. Rocky was fortunate to have had a contact in the media industry and got a job almost immediately as a sports commentator. He can talk all day about sports, something I’ve now grown accustomed to.
Nikki and I both found jobs at separate firms. The first year was grueling, and I had questioned my decision several times. But somewhere along the way, I realized I was making a difference. I was passionate about working in law and loved my job, except for my seedy boss. I ignored his inappropriate comments about my attire and the way he said my hair smelled good when I walked past him. It was all kinds of wrong, and it made me uncomfortable.
“Fortunately enough, a solution presented itself late one Sunday afternoon while hanging in the playground. It came from Nikki at her wits end juggling motherhood,” I tell him, reliving the memory.
“Will called his nanny Mommy the other day,” Nikki spoke softly as she watched Will play in the sandpit with the other children. “Charlie, I can’t do this anymore, work twelve-hour days and never see my son.”
