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She smiles at me, it wavers the closer she gets, likely because I’m not smiling back. “Morning, Rose. Is my husband in?”
I shake my head, ignoring her use of the word husband despite how badly I want to correct her. I am an awful person. “He’s in a meeting with designers for the new home solar advertisements. He won’t be back for…” I check my watch. “Maybe forty minutes or so?”
Her smile fades entirely and her eyes close. “Well, that explains why he hasn’t been answering my calls.”
“Are you okay?” I ask kindly, hating how tired and down she seems. “Can I get you a coffee?”
“I’d love a coffee,” she replies, shocking me because she has always turned me down before. She sits in the seat opposite my desk as I call for an intern to fetch us drinks and cake. In the beginning, I was always too shy to get anybody to do anything for me, but now that I basically run this entire office, I have so many people at my disposal. None of them dare say no because I guess I’m sort of their boss now. I oversee faculty productivity and morale. So far, we are a well-oiled machine.
“How’s Maria?” I ask gently, rocking slightly in my chair.
“She’s amazing. She keeps asking about you. We haven’t seen you in a while.”
“After the Pax thing I worried that it wouldn’t be safe.”
She nods with understanding. “Has he been in touch since he got demoted?”
“Surprisingly he didn’t even acknowledge me until this morning.” I think back to how he entered the elevator after me and then panicked because he swore he hadn’t seen me. I do believe it was a mistake and he just wasn’t paying attention because his panic seemed genuine. Meanwhile I pressed my back to the elevator wall and tried not to visibly tremble. “He was nice… weirdly so… he told me I look nice and that he’s sorry for everything that happened and how he’s been seeing a therapist to work through his issues.”
“Well, that’s good. That hopefully means he’s calming down and won’t terrorize you anymore.”
“Here’s hoping. Then maybe I can start seeing Maria again.”
“You can always visit with her at the house,” she puts in and my heart sinks further. “You went from visiting almost daily to never coming at all.”
“I didn’t realize you’d noticed,” I jest, smiling at the woman whose life I’ve stolen. I feel like such a snake but it’s only a few more days and then she’ll know and there won’t be any more sneaking and lying.
I start tapping to help calm my breathing. It helps.
“Of course I noticed,” she replies with a slight smile. “I’ve been noticing a lot of things these days since my husband asked me for a divorce.”
That gets my heart going. I force myself to keep my eyes on hers.
“What do you mean?”
“Just little things here and there, the way I’ve been treating people,” she admits, not talking about the affair at all so hopefully she doesn’t know about that. “When the love of your life suddenly loses interest in you, you start looking at where you went wrong. I got comfy in my cushy, spoiled lifestyle. I neglected my husband, my child, his family…”
“I’m sure you’re not all to blame,” I mumble, pushing back the guilt I feel. She eyes my hand and frowns. I twist my fingers together instead and smile a reassuring smile that feels more like a grimace.
“Of course not, but I am the majority reason and I’ve accepted that. I just worry that I’ve accepted it too late.” Her eyes fill with tears. I look behind me as she talks, wishing Ezra would exit the elevator right now. “I don’t want to lose my family. I never thought I would and that’s my own fault. I took them for granted.”
“Don’t,” I beg, feeling my own eyes burn. “Please.”
She looks at me, confusion in her eyes. “Sorry, I know we’ve never really spoken, and I feel terrible just suddenly acting like your best friend and offloading on you like it’s my right. My husband is your boss, this isn’t appropriate.”
“No… that’s not… it’s just sad.”
She looks at her phone and watches me tap my fingers on the desk. “I realized that I don’t have many friends either and all of the people who should be good friends are terrible, and all the people who could be amazing friends I tossed away like trash.”
“Time to find some new ones?”
“If only it were that simple.”
The elevator doors ping open and Billy the intern steps out with two coffees and a paper bag.
“Thank you, you are an absolute lifesaver,” I say to him, smiling and handing him a twenty to pay for it. He’s a welcome break from all this emotion.
“I put it on Mr. Conti’s credit,” he replies sheepishly. “Was I not supposed to?”
