EMILY
We were on the bus to UPenn. My mom was on her phone, as usual, probably texting Valentina something important. After breakfast we’d gone up to the room and had the following stellar conversation:
Mom said, “I never thought I’d say this, but Dani isn’t as bad as I thought.”
“Really?” I replied.
She nodded.
“Well,” I said, “Alice is still a total bitch.”
But now, on the bus, Mom was ignoring me again. I thought about David Millar, the night before. Normally, and I don’t mean to sound weird, most people I meet with my mom are more interested in me. They’re being polite, usually, but they ask about school, or these days about college, or about social media or whatever. The guy last night looked right through me and was only interested in my mom. I looked at her now, staring at her phone, and tried to imagine what she was like in college. Apparently she was sexy and unpredictable, two words I would never have applied to her.
“Mom,” I said.
“Yes?” She turned away from her phone and smiled at me.
“Do you miss being . . . single?”
She frowned. “I am single . . .”
“I meant, without a kid.”
She shrugged. “No. I love being a mom, even if you don’t like having a mom.”
I turned back to the window. “I like having a mom. What kind of thing to say is that? I love you.”
“I know. I love you, too.” She paused. “Are you still thinking about last night?”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. My throat had gone tight again, for no good reason I could see.
She put her hand on my leg and squeezed. “Don’t worry about it. I promise not to desert you and run off to the Peace Corps.”
I felt the tension ease a bit. “Are you sure? You’re not secretly harboring a desire to build latrines in the developing world?”
“Well, obviously that would be fun, but no, I’m quite happy with things as they are.”
I nodded. “Me, too.”
We rode the rest of the way to UPenn in silence. But it was nice.
There is no way I’m ever getting into Penn, not even sure why they include Ivies on the tour; it’s depressing. However, we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for lunch, and it might be my new favorite place. There was half an hour before lunch, so I wandered off to look at this one thing I’d seen on the website. They have an entire room from a nineteenth-century town house, and I wanted to see it. The room was beautifully furnished and ornate, filled with vases and sculptures, richly colored furniture and rugs. I read the card on the wall: Apparently the room had belonged to a woman who survived the sinking of the Titanic. She’d probably been full of beans, but her drawing room was kind of cold.
“The tapestry at the back tells the story of Cupid and Psyche, you know.”
I turned and there was Will, standing behind me with his arms folded. He continued, “The way I heard it, Venus was jealous of Psyche’s good looks so she sent her son, Cupid, the god of love, to make her fall in love with the biggest loser he could find. However, Cupid fell for her himself, hid her away so he could seduce her, and eventually, after much drama, was able to make her immortal and date her, you know, on the regular.”
I laughed. “That’s how you heard it?”
He nodded. “That’s the story.”
“I thought Cupid was a fat little cherub with an arrow.”
“Yeah, but before he was that, he was a totally fit guy who hooked up with Psyche.”
“Huh.”
We were silent for a moment, then Will said, “Is this what your bedroom’s like at home?”
I turned and grinned at him, nodding. “Yeah, exactly.”
“Mine, too, except mine’s more red and gold, you know.”
“More regal?”
“That’s what the decorator was going for.”
We turned and started walking slowly along the galleries. “Are you enjoying the trip?” I asked, suddenly aware of his arm swinging next to mine. He was deeply cute, and we did seem to keep ending up talking all the time. I guess Alice’s plan wasn’t working out the way she’d hoped. Sorry . . . not sorry.
“Yeah, it’s interesting.” Will smiled at me. “It’s like visiting a series of really big high schools, where the kids are taller and the subjects are harder.”
I laughed. “I really hope college is more different than that. My mom always makes it sound like an incredible adventure of new people and casual sex.”
Will looked puzzled. “She’s excited for you to have casual sex?”
“Well, not explicitly. But she says things like college is a great time to get to know lots and lots of different people, and then she’ll look at me meaningfully, which is, like, the most embarrassing thing ever.”
“Wow, that’s super awkward.”
“Yup. She means well, I guess . . .”
“My dad gave me a giant box of condoms and said, ‘Pants off, jacket on, end of story.’”
I raised my eyebrows. “Wow, also awkward.”
“Very.”
“At least it was a big box. Awkward, but optimistic.”
Will smiled at me, my god the dimple. “He bought them at Costco, he lives for bulk savings.”
“Interesting. My mother is more of the ‘get a good one that will last a long time’ shopper.” I made a face. “Not really applicable to condoms.”
We’d reached a gallery where many Mary Cassatt paintings were hanging, and paused before a sketch of a mother and child.
“It’s hard to imagine my mother being young like that,” I said, nodding my head at the picture. “I mean, I can only remember because I see the photos, right?” I wondered whether to tell him about my mom’s ex-boyfriend the night before, but decided it was too weird. But looking at the picture, I realized the guy still saw my mom like that—not a drawing, obviously, but a young woman. He couldn’t see her any other way, any more than I could see her as anything other than my mom.
My phone buzzed. “Speak of the devil, my mom’s bugging me to come eat.”
“Gotta eat. It’s not like you’ve got a lot of reserve, you’re like a bird.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you making an uninvited comment on my physical appearance?”
Will shrugged, unconcerned. “Yeah, if comparing you to a hollow-boned but beautiful creature is unwelcome.”
I stuffed my phone back in my pocket. “I’ll have to think about it.”
He grinned and looped his arm through mine. “Well, let’s eat while you think.”
Emily disappeared off into the museum, muttering about something she wanted to see, and I trailed to the Museum Café with the other parents. Valentina had needed help while I was on the bus, but there were no more texts from her. It was time to check email again.
I scrolled past the usual school communications, invitations to donate to worthy causes, and reminders of meetings I’m not physically available to attend, and came to rest on one from Arthur Ostergren. Jesus, I’m not even on his account. I just happened to be handy.
“Dear Ms. Burnstein,” it read, which was a reasonable start. “Please contact me privately at your earliest convenience.”
I sighed. He’s not an idiot; he must understand that asking for privacy over corporate email is dumb. I started to write back, then looked at the time and decided to call. Hopefully he’d be at lunch; then I could leave a message and ignore his call back, and we could go back and forth like that until I returned to Los Angeles and could actually focus on work. Look at me, devious corporate superstar.
He picked up immediately. Damn him.
“Ah, Ms. Burnstein, how good of you to call.”
I realized it’s not so much Bond villain as it is Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
“No problem, Mr. Ostergren. How can I help you?”
Around me the other parents and kids were getting lunch, and now I was hungry. There were a few mothers with young kids, too, and I found myself watching them enviously. The days when a trip to a museum would fill the space before a nap or dinner, when simply being in such a big place would keep Emily amused for ages, those days were dreamy and, now, long gone.
Mr. Ostergren cleared his throat. “Well, it’s rather a delicate matter.”
Oh crap, he was being sued for sexual harassment.
“Well, perhaps one of your own lawyers would be . . .”
He interrupted me. “No, that’s the point. I wanted to ask if you would be at all interested in leaving Lexington to take a position as our corporate counsel.”
I watched a toddler throwing a tantrum on the other side of the café. His mother was simply sitting there, watching him sympathetically, giving him space. I would have traded places with her in a heartbeat.
“Uh, well, that’s a surprising question, Mr. Ostergren. You know very little about me.” I thought of something else. “Are you unhappy with our services? I’m sure John would be happy to . . .”
“No, I’m not unhappy, per se, but I’m trying to acquire a competitor, and for the amount I pay in fees, I could have someone in house.” He huffed. “It turns out the competitor has an in-house counsel, and she’s been making my life pretty difficult during the acquisition process.”
“Well, if you make the acquisition, presumably she’ll become your in-house counsel. Problem solved.”
He said firmly, “No, I want one of my own.”
I’m sure he didn’t realize how childish he sounded. I chewed my lip. This was a problem. I didn’t want to offend him and potentially lose a client, but of course I might be leaving the firm, in which case I could use the job, but then on the third hand, stealing a client isn’t a good way to start a new firm, although on the fourth hand, if I were just his in-house counsel then it was less . . . I stopped thinking; it was all a bit too much.
He had continued. “After we met, I googled you. You have a very impressive résumé.”
“I do?”
“Yes. Graduated near the top of your class at Columbia Law, a year or two in Washington as an associate at a very good firm, then out to Los Angeles, youngest partner at Lexington, several landmark cases and state precedents. For a single woman, it’s all very impressive.”
I took a breath. Why was there always that qualification? What if every time I commented on a man’s success I said, for someone whose genitalia is dangerously housed outside of their bodies, it’s a reasonable effort. I chose to deflect.
“It probably would have been harder if I’d had someone else’s career to consider.”
“Possibly.”
“I do have a child, Mr. Ostergren. Leaving Los Angeles isn’t possible for me right now, I’m sorry.”
There was a pause while he considered this. The toddler on the other side of the café had calmed down and was happily playing with a plastic dinosaur, and for a moment I met the eyes of the other mother. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. Congratulations, my expression said, and, Thanks, said hers. Complete conversation, three seconds.
“Well, that’s acceptable. You don’t have to move to Baltimore right away. You could work remotely, there’s not really any need to relocate.” He had clearly realized he would save on relocation costs and was warming to this idea.
“Uh, I don’t know, Mr. Ostergren. Your firm specializes in international shipping, it’s not an area of law I’m very familiar with.”
“You’ll learn.” He paused. “I’m a good judge of people, Ms. Burnstein. I know you can do it. I assure you the salary would be attractive, the benefits comprehensive.” Then he mentioned a sum of money far in excess of what I was currently making, which, I won’t deny, changed the tenor of the conversation somewhat.
“Mr. Ostergren, I’m very flattered you even thought to ask me. I need to think about it for a while. I’ll get back to you next week, once I’m in LA again. Will that work?”
“Certainly, Ms. Burnstein.”
I hung up, then texted Emily that she needed to come eat something.
Good lord.