As Paige sat beside Evan at Pop, Evan looked up from his phone and said, “Where’s Lauren?”
“She’s closing. Told me to go ahead so you wouldn’t wait here all alone too long.” Paige made a faux sympathetic pouty face.
Evan pocketed his phone and smiled. Paige reflected on how much she valued these friendships. She’d met Lauren shortly after moving back to the city after her time working overseas. As a way to meet people, Paige joined a book club that met at a bar in the Village once a month, which was where she’d met Lauren and Evan. The book club was run by a woman named Eileen who had a literature degree and a lot of pretention, but the books they read were, if not always Paige’s favorite things to read, good for discussion. The three of them, and sometimes Lauren’s friend Lindsay from college, got in the habit of sticking around after the discussion ended to have another drink or three, and that had cemented their friendship.
She did one annual meeting for the bank in New York and finally decided she’d had enough. She had squirreled away enough money to coast for a bit while she figured out what to do next, but as soon as she mentioned this to Lauren, Lauren had insisted Paige come work at the Café.
Paige hadn’t had a single regret—until now. Although Paige’s salary was now a small fraction of what it had been at the bank, Paige had more creative freedom at her job than she’d ever had. Plus, the work was fun. She loved working with her friends and loved the challenge of putting on events that attracted people to the Café. It was a joy to get up and go to work each day.
But now she started to wonder if working for her friend was really one of the smarter decisions she’d made in her life. Working alongside people she loved and respected was great, but once that all seeped into her personal life, things had the potential to get messy.
Evan didn’t work at the Café; he was a freelance graphic designer. He did the odd design job for the Café sometimes, like designs for T-shirts or the logo on the website. And their other friend Lindsay was a food writer, although even she had helped out the Café by connecting Lauren with some of their human food vendors. So it really was a family affair. And Paige did consider this group of people her family, but sleeping with Lauren’s brother put this into some other strange territory. Her mind was still reeling from it.
“Actually,” Paige said to Evan, “before Lauren gets here, I…have a problem.”
Evan leaned forward. “That sounds promising. Something you can’t tell Lauren about? Did something happen at the Café?”
“No, nothing like that. Far worse.”
“Tell me.”
“Do you know Lauren’s brother Josh?”
“Not well. We’ve met a couple of times.”
“So, I had never met him until two nights ago.”
“Oh, did you meet at that feral cat thing? Lauren mentioned you might both be there and wondered if you’d run into each other.”
“Well, we did meet.”
“That sounds ominous. Is he a dick?”
“No. He’s a pretty great guy, actually. But, uh, we had a one-night stand.”
“You…oh.” Evan frowned. “Wow. Normally I’d be all get it, girl, but I don’t know what to do with that. I mean, he’s cute. But he’s Lauren’s brother.”
“I know. Thing is, I didn’t know he was Lauren’s brother until the next morning. I just thought he was a cute guy named Josh who was fun and flirty and easy to get along with. I really liked him. I was kind of looking for his flaws the morning after because he almost seemed too perfect. And of course, he was.”
Evan tilted his head. “Hmm, okay. It’s not like he lied, because he didn’t know you knew Lauren, did he?”
“No, I don’t see how.”
“You could also just…not tell Lauren.”
Paige sighed. “That’s what Josh said.”
“And it might not be a big deal. Lauren might not even care.”
“Well, I wondered about that, but then… Do you remember what happened at the wedding?”
Evan frowned. “A lot of things happened at the wedding.”
“Lauren and the other bridesmaids and I got ready at Lauren’s apartment, so we were all there when she got a call from Josh saying he couldn’t make it. He was supposed to land at LaGuardia that morning because he was coming back from somewhere, but his flight had gotten delayed so much that he wasn’t going to make it back in time for the wedding. And Lauren was devastated at first. Josh was supposed to be a groomsman.”
“Yes, I remember that.”
“But then she got pissed. I totally forgot about her being upset about that until after I left Josh’s apartment, but Lauren went on this huge rant about Josh’s girlfriend and how she was stomping on his heart and how the only reason he went to Chicago at all was a futile last-ditch effort to save the relationship.”
“Sure, okay. It’s coming back to me. What’s your point?”
“Lauren is protective of her brother. She was furious with his ex. I don’t want to be on the other side of that wrath.”
Evan frowned. “Yeah, Lauren really didn’t like her. I do remember that. But she loves you. Why would it go that way?”
“Maybe it will be fine, but…it’s so much potential for drama. And I’m tired of drama in my love life. I just want a nice guy and a drama-free relationship.”
“Well, I won’t tell Lauren.” Evan mimed zipping his lips. “And sex is, you know, a private thing. You’re not obligated to tell Lauren anything. Remember how she dated Caleb for all those weeks without telling us?”
Paige stewed on that for a moment.
“And, you know, being related to Lauren isn’t actually a character flaw,” said Evan.
“But it’s weird, right? I mean, he’s my friend’s brother. And said friend is also my boss. It’s too complicated.”
“But you like him.”
Paige decided to ignore that. “Besides which, he’s a new lawyer at some big firm, so he’s working insane hours and doesn’t have much free time. That’s not really an equation that equals a good, lasting relationship.”
“Yeah, Lauren mentioned he pretty much lived at the office. She’s only seen him twice since he moved here, and they live, like, eight blocks from each other.”
“Not to mention, if we break up, Lauren will totally side with Josh. Blood is thicker than friendship.”
Evan frowned. “I guess.”
“So, see? It’s hopeless.”
“All right. So don’t call him, and we keep this from Lauren, and we all move on with our lives. Is that what you want?”
Was it? No, not really. She wanted to see Josh again and she wanted to see where the relationship could go and she wanted him not to be Lauren’s brother. She sighed. “I guess so.”
Lauren arrived then. Evan mimed zipping his lips again when Lauren wasn’t looking, but she quickly spotted them and walked over to the table. She slid into the booth with a smile. “Caleb is doing the overnight shift and wanted me to pass on that he misses you all but also would not be interfering with, in his words, girl talk.”
Evan laughed. “We’re all grateful for that, but last I checked, I’m not a girl.”
“Yeah, he got a little hung up on that point, too, and preemptively apologized.”
“Well, like any good husband, he seems to have given you permission to talk about him behind his back, so…any hot goss?”
Lauren shook her head. “No, not really. Same old, same old. The most heated conversation we had this week involved him wanting to buy a new chair for the living room and then us disagreeing where to buy it.”
“Wow. What happened to you guys? Your fights used to make armed conflict look like mild disagreement.”
Lauren frowned. “What, you mean back when he was still kind of a dick and we fought all the time? Yeah, we’ve mostly moved past that. Although the fight over where to buy the chair did lead to us having sex on the old chair, so…” Lauren shrugged.
“Whatever makes you happy,” said Evan. “So, since we’re all here and Lauren is a boring married lady now, I have an important love life update.”
Paige looked at the table, suddenly nervous Evan was about to betray her, but then she realized she was being self-centered. Evan probably intended to update them on his own love life.
Which he did. “So, Pablo and that guy with the beard and the glasses who hangs out at the bookstore all the time are definitely a couple.” Pablo was Evan’s longtime crush who worked at the bookstore a few doors down from the Cat Café. For a long time, Pablo’s sexuality and relationship status had been an open question, allowing Evan to live in hope.
“Bummer,” said Lauren. “How can you tell?”
“I bought a book the other day and Pablo introduced the guy as his boyfriend, Chris.”
“That is damning evidence,” said Lauren.
“Should I feel guilty for approaching him about an event I want to do at the Café?” Paige asked.
“No, it’s fine,” said Evan. “I’m the one being a drama queen. He was never really mine. I’d be surprised if he knows my name and doesn’t think of me as the needy guy with good hair.”
Paige looked up at Evan’s light brown hair, which he’d arranged into a bit of a pompadour today. He did have good hair, but she said, “Okay” with a little sarcasm in her voice.
“You’re basically singing ‘On My Own’ like a teenage girl in a high school talent show now,” said Lauren.
“Was that your update?” Paige asked.
“No, actually. I merely intended to illustrate that since the love of my life is off the market, I have decided to move on. Darius called the other day. We’re going out tomorrow night.”
“Darius?” asked Lauren. “Control-freak Darius? Unceremoniously-dumped-you-the-day-before-he-was-supposed-to-meet-your-parents Darius? That guy?”
“He dumped you right before meeting your parents?” said Paige “That’s cold.”
Evan sighed. “He apologized for that. He has an extra ticket to some Broadway show and wanted me to go.”
“You were the fourteenth person he called,” said Paige. “I’ve been on that date before.”
“Well, be that as it may, he says he missed me and wants to make it up to me, and also this show is supposed to be really good. It’s a musical based on some obscure nineteenth-century novel.”
“Sounds thrilling,” said Lauren.
“I hear your tone, but the Times critic gave it a glowing review, and he doesn’t like anything lately. Besides, what can one date hurt? If Darius is still terrible, at least I get to see a Broadway show for free.”
“Fair,” said Paige.
They talked about musicals for a few minutes and Paige ordered a second martini. When it arrived and Paige took her first sip, Lauren asked, “So, Paige, what happened at Mitch’s volunteer thing the other night?”
And…now it was complicated. Paige hated holding things back from her friend, but she said, “It was good. Not the most active. My partner and I only caught one cat.”
“Still, that’s something. Did I tell you, my brother Josh went, too? Did you run into him?”
Paige’s stomach flopped. “Uh, yeah, we met.”
Paige could see Evan smiling from behind his martini glass as he sipped and glanced at Lauren. Paige kicked him under the table. That just made him grin wider.
“Did something happen?” Lauren asked looking between Evan and Paige.
“No. Evan’s being stupid. I just… I told Evan I thought Josh was cute. But he’s your brother, so it’s off the table.” Paige hoped for a hole to open beneath her to fall through.
“Yeah. How weird would that be?” said Lauren. “Can you even imagine? So gross.”
“It could be like a Chandler and Monica and Ross thing,” said Evan.
Lauren rolled her eyes. “Not everything in life relates back to Friends.”
“You say that, but I just rewatched the whole series, and I’m pretty sure it does,” said Evan. “Or that’s a sign I need to get out more.”
“Probably that,” said Paige. She looked at Lauren. “It would be weird, I guess.”
“So weird. I mean, he’s…Josh. I doubt he’s a virgin, but I try not to think about him in that context.”
“Right, of course,” said Paige.
“And he just got his heart broken. Can you imagine being with someone for almost three years and living with them for one and planning a future together, and then all of a sudden, she’s like, ‘Just kidding, I’m moving to Chicago’? I mean, I know it’s hard to get a job right out of law school, but she thought her career was more important than Josh.” Lauren shook her head. “He was devastated. She really did a number on him. He was planning to propose, and she up and left him.”
Paige didn’t know what to say; she hadn’t known Josh’s previous relationship was that serious. He hadn’t acted heartbroken when they’d been out, but past relationships hadn’t come up much either.
She really didn’t know him well at all, did she? Was she really thinking about pursuing a relationship? Well, no.
Lauren went on, “And, like, if you guys dated and something went wrong with you two? No, let’s not even think about it.”
“Yup. Putting that whole idea away,” said Paige. And she supposed she had her answer. She liked Josh, but it was just one of those things. Not meant to be. Time to move on.
Although, if he lived in New York, they were bound to run into each other again, weren’t they? Lauren would likely invite him to parties or whatever. So if they dated for a bit and broke up, they’d still have to see each other. That wasn’t ideal. Or maybe that job really would keep him in his office and that wouldn’t be an issue.
She took a sip of her drink and hoped that this would be the end of all of it. Good thing she hadn’t deleted those apps off her phone after all.
* * *
If Josh was reading the brief correctly, his client was indeed guilty of fraud.
Bobby Giardino owned a small chain of shops that sold doors and windows. They’d been airing commercials about some new shatterproof material that they demonstrated by having one of Giardino’s sons whack a window with a big rubber mallet. A woman was suing after a bad storm shattered one of her windows made of this material. Her lawyer had put together an impressive series of documents that showed Giardino’s claims about the windows being shatterproof were bunk, and that the window shown in the commercial had a pane made of a different, more expensive material. If this case ever saw the inside of a courtroom, Giardino would lose for sure.
But Josh had to somehow prove Giardino was not at fault for that window shattering.
Not all of his clients were the good guys.
Josh had once wanted to be a prosecutor who would put people like this out of business or in jail. He’d lucked into an internship at DCL between his second and third year of law school and had liked the job so much, he’d reconsidered his career path. Working with Provost on litigation would give him courtroom experience, after all, and he could prevent the good guys from going to jail or being subjected to frivolous lawsuits. And although a few of Provost’s clients were innocent of wrongdoing, Josh was quickly learning that very few lawsuits were actually frivolous.
An image of Paige came unbidden into his mind. They’d talked some that night about taking the well-paying job to pay down debt and get one’s feet wet before pursuing one’s passion, and Josh still had decades of his career before him. He did not need to spend the rest of his life defending the unscrupulous Bobby Giardinos of the world.
He guessed whatever had happened with Paige was over. That was a shame, because she’d been so great, but on the other hand, it was closing in on eight at night on a Monday and here he still was in the office.
His phone rang and he grabbed it without looking at the caller ID, so he was a little surprised when the caller turned out to be Lauren.
“Oh, hey,” he said. “Was not expecting you.”
“I tried your cell first, but since you didn’t answer I figured you’d be at work.”
Josh’s cell phone was sitting on the corner of his desk. He picked it up and found that the battery had died while he’d been focused on something else. Then he got nervous, because calling the office line seemed like a lot of work to get ahold of him. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to get in touch with you before the week got too crazy and I forgot.”
“Oh. Okay. You could have texted.”
“And you would have ignored it like you ignore all my texts unless I ask you a direct question.”
“I don’t ignore them. I’m just…busy, and not everything seems to require an answer. I mean, I got that article you sent me about the best takeout restaurants in Midtown. I didn’t think you needed a response. I did try the falafel place from the article today, though. It was pretty tasty.”
She let out the long-suffering sigh of the older sister. “How was the feral cat event?”
And there was Paige in his head again. Best not to mention that, though. “Educational. A little scary. That Mitch guy is intense.”
Lauren laughed. “Yeah, I know. Any of the cats bite you?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“A little.”
“No such luck. The group trapped a few cats, a couple of which had already been tagged. But I actually had a good time.”
“Did you run into my friend Paige? She was there that night, too. She mentioned you’d met.”
Oof. Had he run into her? She’d vanished while he’d been in the shower the morning after, which he supposed he deserved. He’d been a little aloof when she’d started flipping out about him being related to Lauren. He didn’t really see the problem. He supposed it might get awkward if they started dating and something went awry, but it was just one night of very good sex, not a marriage proposal.
“Uh, yeah. I met her. She seems great.”
“She is.”
Then Josh remembered something from the night he’d had dinner with Lauren and Caleb. “Wait, is Paige the one with questionable taste in men who you had to rescue from a bad date the other night?”
“Yeah, that’s her. She has every other part of her life together, but her love life is a hot mess. I guess we can’t all be perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“I love Paige, I do. She’s gorgeous and put together. She’s had a ton of career success because she’s really good at what she does. I mean, she only works for me because she hated working in corporate America, which, who can blame her? She’s also one of the nicest people I’ve ever known, so I can’t even resent her for those things. She deserves a great guy. Not sure why she thinks she’ll find him on a dating app.”
“Stranger things have happened. I’ve heard it’s hard to meet people in this city even if you’re not a person who works all the time. Plenty of great people use dating apps. Just because you are happily married now—”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. It’s just that…”
Josh had to fight to listen to Lauren, because the facts clicked into place. Paige worked for Lauren. They were friends and Paige was the events manager at the Cat Café that Lauren managed. He’d known that intellectually, but listening to Lauren talk about Paige made him truly understand. Wow, had Josh stumbled in it. No wonder Paige had vanished from his apartment once she figured out who he was.
As a way to test the water, Josh said, “I liked her.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, would it really be that weird if I asked her out?”
“What about Megan?”
“What about her? We broke up six months ago. Or seven, I don’t know. A while ago.” And Josh really did not want to talk about Megan. She’d hardly popped into his head at all in the last few days, which felt like a sign he was finally moving on. Although he couldn’t even hear her name without acid boiling up in his throat, so maybe he wasn’t that over her.
“Paige is a good person. She deserves more than a rebound, that’s all.”
Josh could sense Lauren’s disapproval and decided not to push it. “It was just a hypothetical question. As you’ve noticed since you called me on my office line, I pretty much live here.”
“All right,” said Lauren, her tone indicating she knew something he didn’t. “I’m actually calling because Paige is doing this fundraiser cocktail party thing at the Cat Café next week. I wondered if you wanted to come or if you could talk your law firm into a big donation. I mean, in the spirit of ‘giving back to the community’ or whatever.”
“Sure, I can run that by my boss. What are you raising funds for?”
“There’s a no-kill shelter in Park Slope that had part of its facility damaged in that bad storm a few weeks ago. So we’re helping them out by raising some money for the repairs. And Paige wants part of whatever we raise to do some youth programming at the café.”
“Okay. I think I can sell that. Or hell, I’ll donate. It’s not like I have time to spend any of my hard-earned money, except on rent and takeout.” Then what Lauren had just said sank in. “Wait, youth programming?”
“Paige read about a cat café in San Francisco that does crafts with cats or something. I’m letting her run with it. Anyway, if you can get out of jail long enough to come by, it’s next Tuesday evening at the Cat Café.”
“I’ll try. No promises. I had to work all weekend to make up for taking off for the feral cat thing.”
“How does that make sense? A whole weekend in exchange for one night?”
“It… I don’t know. Stuff piles up around here. Time is a flat circle.”
“How many of your colleagues burn out before the end of the first year?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing a lot. I figure if I can just hold on until the end of my first year, it will get better. Maybe. Hopefully. I mean, they’ll have a whole new group of naive associates to torture by then.”
“Well, I hope I see you Tuesday, but I understand if you can’t make it. I can promise cute cats and an open bar if that entices you at all.”
“That does sound appealing.” Plus Paige would be there. He hadn’t decided what to do with that, and the smart thing would be to let her go, but he wanted to see her. He’d figure it out when he got there.
“Cool. Well, try not to kill yourself at work. I’ll let you get back to it. Love you, Josh.”
“Love you too, Sis. I’ll really try for Tuesday. If work doesn’t kill me first.”