Jenny looked at herself in the mirror. The black tuxedo gown looked as wonderful as it had six months ago at Blake’s opening gala. But Jenny herself could see that she looked even better than she had that night. It was love and happiness, and she wore it well.
The event wasn’t even black tie. She had figured what the hell. Might as go out with a bang.
Blake appeared beside her, snaking her arm around Jenny’s waist and kissing her cheek. They looked at themselves and at one another in the mirror. They fit together perfectly, Jenny thought. Their magnetic pull was evident and made their coupling seem balanced, like an Archimedean solid.
Still, Blake’s touch could tip her over in a minute. Blake started unzipping the side of Jenny’s dress and slipped her fingers underneath the fabric. Jenny got goose bumps and stepped away. “I’m not going to show up smelling of sex,” she said to Blake, who laughed.
“Probably prudent, especially since your parents will be there.”
They walked to Petit Robert, the hot summer night carrying with it a bit of the chill of fall. Blake had promised they’d be out of Boston by November, in Europe for the winter, missing the snow this year, missing the T shutdowns and snow farms and frozen, gray, chunky-iced streets.
Lydia had rented out the whole place and forced the firm to pay. “It’s just a few of your billable hours, for Christ’s sake, so we are having escargot and champagne.” When Jenny and Blake arrived, the place was already nearly full. Lawyers and staff from the firm, Amy, Davis, and her parents, standing in a corner by the back, looking uncomfortable, but willing—eager, even, with glasses of wine, the bar area of the restaurant covered in balloons, and the long railway dining room just crowded enough to feel perfectly festive. On the chalkboard, instead of an announcement about the usual leek soup special, there was a note: Future Dr. O’Toole! Above that was a huge banner, which looked professionally printed by their in-house trial graphics department, said Goodbye and Good Luck, Jenny! Her official firm portrait had been reproduced almost to life-size. Decorations around the banner, apropos of nothing, floated a few formulas, e=mc2—A physics formula? Jenny thought, laughing—and such. Yes, this had Lydia written all over it.
Blake seemed to see the sweetness of it, too, and squeezed Jenny’s hand in tender acknowledgment. Jenny pulled her to where her parents stood by the windows of the dining room. “Blenny!” Jenny’s mother yelled, combining their names like a celebrity couple. She hugged them both, and Blake broke into one of her enormous, room-enveloping smiles. Jenny couldn’t help but bask in it with pride.
“Not Blakeniffer? Or Jake?” Jenny said to her mother, raising her eyebrows at Blake, who laughed.
“We’re coming to your show!” Jenny’s mother squealed. Blake’s eyes went wide for a moment. Jenny squeezed her arm. “They’re going the week of closing.”
“Jenny told us to wait and see the final product when there’s nothing left on the walls. So we’re doing as she says.”
“So you have some modesty left?” Blake whispered in Jenny’s ear. Her warm breath tingled her spine.
“Just a little,” she replied, surreptitiously squeezing Blake’s ass.
Jenny’s father, not noticing—or pretending not to notice—their sidebar, cleared his throat and turned to Blake. He was a little red from the wine already, but jolly, looking like his arthritis was in a good spell. “It’s like Buddhist monks, what you’re doing? I saw something about a mandala on WGBH. Very interesting. The monks just got rid of the whole thing when they were done.”
“Yes, very much like that, I suppose, but the difference is that the drawings I made were not initially made to be destroyed. The mandalas are an act of devotion; the art is in the process of making the mandala. It was never meant to be permanent. My show makes the decomposition, rather than the composition, the focus.”
“Ah, okay, I see,” Blake’s father said, a little too loudly, and then went silent. Jenny got the sense he had been saving up the mandala tidbit for days, relieved to have something to say, and now it was gone. Nonetheless, the four of them stood smiling at one another companionably. Blake and her father had some kind of strange chemistry. When she and Jenny went over there for dinner, Blake and her father often disappeared into the sitting room together, quietly drinking whiskey, unbothered by the silence.
The sound of clinking glass turned their heads toward the front of the restaurant, where Michael was standing, teetering on a chair. “Hear ye, hear ye,” he was saying. Her stomach clenched. Michael had barely spoken to her since she told him she was quitting. He sent junior associates to her office so she could train them but never showed up to make the introductions himself.
The crowd settled down. Jenny held Blake’s hand tight, willing some of her nervousness to flow into her.
“As many of you know, I’ve worked with Jenny for five years now. I know her to be a supremely intelligent, nearly unflappable, strong, and gracious coworker. She is unafraid. She has integrity. Honesty. Qualities which make her a lousy lawyer.”
The room laughed, and Jenny did too, feeling both elation and surprise. He’s being nice, right when I’m leaving, she thought. Figures. Michael continued, “No, of course, she is an excellent lawyer. She just wants to be something different. Jenny, I look forward to hiring you as a trial expert someday, no matter what your rates are. And if you turn me down, I’ll know I have a rotten case. Thank you. Here’s to your future.”
Everyone raised their glasses, and Jenny felt like she was floating or like her insides were floating out of her body. She wanted to pin it all down, stop time, hold the feeling of happiness and possibility in her palm. She looked at Blake. Blake was the closest thing to a physical manifestation of her happiness.
Jenny’s hand instinctively went to her chest, where she had tucked the ring in her bra. She was going to give it to Blake sometime in the next few days. She was looking for the right moment. They were leaving for Prague in a week, and she wanted it on Blake’s finger when they boarded the plane. She wanted her “yes” before they began their next adventure.
It was a simple ring, just a recycled gold band, but Jenny knew that’s all it needed to be. Jenny was taking a few months off, then starting her economics program and working as a freelancer with one of the economic consulting firms she’d worked with as a lawyer. Blake had said, “Whatever city you end up in, I’ll come with you. There are people to draw there. There’s always art to be made.”
Blake’s MacArthur buzz was growing. A new profile in ArtForum referred to her as starting a movement: Pacifist Destructivism. Blake had laughed at that and flopped down on Jenny’s bed. “Whatever pays the bills, my sweet,” she said, kissing Jenny’s stomach playfully. They had been splitting their time between New York and Boston, spending only a few nights apart at a time. And for the next several months, they’d be traveling together. Blake had gotten a travel grant and Jenny renewed her passport.
The night flowed well. She could see the envy on her colleagues’ faces, except, of course, for Lydia, who still loved her job, and whose only emotion was sadness at missing Jenny. “Who am I going to make fun of Michael with?” she said.
“There’s always someone willing to do that,” Jenny answered and pulled her in for a close hug. “Thanks for everything. For the party. For being my friend.”
Lydia had a tear in her eye. “Anytime. I’m happy for you.” Taking Blake’s hand, Lydia said, “So, you guys getting hitched?”
Jenny almost jumped back. She hadn’t told anyone about the ring! She composed herself enough to answer, “Not yet.”
Leaving, her mother had invited Blake to dinner for that weekend (“I’ll make lentils,” she said), and her father, again with the proprietary, hard handshake, looked Blake square in the eye and said, “See you soon. She makes a hell of a stew.” Jenny almost laughed, but kept her composure, waving to her parents as they slowly got into the cab the restaurant had called for them, one rickety limb after rickety limb.
By the end, when most everyone had left, Jenny was dying to take off her stockings, her bra, and sit with Blake on the couch debriefing everything. She patted her chest again, felt the cool round ring there. She would wait for the morning and maybe put it on a saucer with her coffee mug.
Michael went to hug Jenny goodbye, but she thrust out her hand to shake instead. He seemed almost relieved and gave her a real smile. “Well done, staying through July, you’ll get half your bonus,” he said, and took a moment to squeeze her shoulder. “Thanks for everything,” were his final, quiet words, and she watched him go.
Lydia handed Blake and Jenny each a small vase with short roses, packed tight. The centerpieces. “Take them, they are yours,” she said with a flourish.
“We’re not going to be home for more than a day,” Jenny protested.
“Just take.” Lydia almost glared. Stepping off the curb, she pointed at Blake, who was carrying an armful of Jenny’s goodbye gifts. “You’re good together,” she said, and blew them both a kiss.
Blake and Jenny would have held hands on the walk home, but they had too much to carry. Flowers, coats, and the pair of heels that it took Jenny two blisters to realize were too tight, so she’d spent the rest of the night barefoot. The hem of her dress carried not only the old rip from the Albie gala but was now also dirty.
“Gorgeous night.”
“It is.” The moon was almost full, and the air was the perfect temperature. It felt quiet, too, but not in a deserted way. It just felt calm. Jenny looked over at Blake, who seemed to be concentrating on something on the sidewalk. Blake stopped, suddenly, looking down.
“Hon, what’s wrong?” Jenny asked.
Blake shook her head. “Nothing, I just…”
Blake placed the vase down on the sidewalk, as if that finished her thought. She dumped out the water and gathered a few of the roses in her fist. She put her other hand in her pocket, and then, keeping it there, knelt in front of Jenny on the sidewalk.
Jenny knew what was happening, or at least her heart knew. Her head hadn’t caught up yet. She felt like her whole body was going to float up into the sky like a balloon.
Blake pulled her hand out of her pocket and held a sparkling ring up to Jenny. It looked like it was a collage of smooth shards of gold and crystal. Even in the dark of night, the ring was picking up the lights all around them and reflecting them back. The glowing moon seemed to be inside of it.
“Jenny, will you marry me?”
Jenny didn’t answer, but knelt down on the sidewalk too, and her dress, with its gorgeous black silken fabric, scarred by the small rip in its hem, pooled around her as she did. She fished her hand into her bra, making Blake laugh, and handed Blake the simple band.
“Yes,” Jenny said, “if you’ll marry me.”
Blake nodded, the dimple on her cheek showing deep, her eyes sparkling like they were filled with a city of tiny LEDs. She took the ring from Jenny. “I will,” she said, putting the gold band on her finger. The gold shone, too, grabbing the light of the moon and the surrounding buildings. “Yes, I will.”