THE BAR WAS EMPTY EXCEPT FOR THE CIGARETTE SMOKE hanging in the air from the ceiling to the sawdust-covered floor. The bartender—a heavy, splotchy old guy—ignored John for five minutes before shambling over to take his order. The only other patron was a wrinkled bag of skin collapsed on the bar.
Walter walked in, throwing weak autumn daylight across the room until the door closed behind him. Walter looked down at his shoes on the sawdust floor, then at John.
“You’re kidding me, right?” Walter asked as he stood next to John.
The bar was an asshole in the wall at the edge of plausible walking distance from the firm. There were twenty better bars closer to the office, and nobody from the firm would live this close to Chinatown. As far as John could imagine, he and Jessica were the only two people from the firm who knew the place existed.
“I thought you couldn’t risk being seen with me. Nobody we know would ever walk into this place.”
“My suit is going to smell like piss and cigarettes the rest of the day.”
“I’m going to be honest with you, Walter, that’s probably an improvement.”
Once, Walter may have laughed at that joke. Now he shook his head and pulled out his wallet.
“Let me pay, John, and we can go to a real place.”
“Why don’t you take a seat?”
“I don’t want whatever is on these chairs to get on my pants.”
“Fine, then stand. What do you want to drink?”
“Bring me something imported in a bottle,” Walter called to the bartender. Then, to John, “Because I can’t imagine any glass in this place is clean.”
John raised a worn glass filmed with scratches and filled with whiskey to Walter before taking a sip. “It just needs to be clean enough.”
They didn’t speak again until the bartender dropped a Heineken and walked back down to read a Post splayed open at the opposite end of the bar.
“I won’t tell you that you have friends in the building, John. But there are guys who are pushing for a fair outcome for you. It’s the only reason you haven’t been voted out yet. Gerry clerked for Marshall, so he’s blabbing on about due process and whatever. Everyone thinks it’s bullshit, but he has a vote. The rest of them can see themselves in the same pile of shit you’re in. Well, probably not the murder trial, but they’ve fucked enough secretaries and associates to not want that to be grounds for ouster from the partnership—at least not without a fair payment.”
“So they know they’re no better than me.”
“They weren’t accused of killing someone.”
“The offer Geoff made, it wasn’t a fair offer.”
“They’re preparing a complaint.” Walter sketched a circle on the bar in condensation with the butt of his bottle. “It’s almost ready to file.”
“It better be ready soon, or it’s going to have to be a cross-claim.”
“You hired a lawyer? Who? Nobody worth anything would sue the firm.”
John looked down at his wrinkled shirt and jeans, then to Walter’s suit. John’s old leather jacket hung from the back of his chair. “Do I look like I need anybody worth anything? I just need someone who is going to plead all the right salacious details and talk to the Post and the News.”
“Nobody would ever hire you after that.”
“They’re not exactly lined up right now.”
Walter sighed and pulled a pack of Marlboros from his jacket. He took two out and handed one to John. They lit the cigarettes.
“They’re going to roll over you, John. No judge is going to be sympathetic to you. You’re a stain on the bar. You think you’ll get a jury who wants to find for you instead of us?”
“You keep saying ‘they,’ Walter. You not a part of the firm anymore?”
“I’m your friend, John. I’d pay you. But they don’t listen to me.”
“You’re my friend? What would you do? If you were me?”
“I’d take the money. Buy some property. Collect rent. Something where I didn’t have to show my face again.”
John shook his head. “That’s not for me.”
“John—”
“There has to be a way, not for me to come back. But let’s say I take the money. There has to be another firm that can use me. I’m one of like ten lawyers with my expertise and experience—”
“Listen to yourself. Any firm takes you or tries to put you on a deal, they may as well shoot themselves in the head. You said it yourself, there are nine other guys who can do what you do. You made partner because you’re Chinese and Geoff thought that might help us with the Japs because he doesn’t care to distinguish between Orientals. And fuck him, he was right, we got those clients now. And they’re not going to jump across the street if you do. I’m telling you as your friend, you got no future as a lawyer. Put it out of your mind and think about something else.”
Walter sucked down the rest of his bottle and held it up to the bartender.
#
The jowly old bartender walked over to Jessica.
“This guy bothering you?”
“No,” she said, putting her hand on John’s arm. “He’s with me. And he wants a whiskey.”
The bartender looked at her hand, then at John, then at how well they were dressed. He turned to pour the drink.
“You’re late,” Jessica said.
“Had to call Jane before I left.”
“This isn’t the kind of place where a girl like me should wait by herself for very long at this time of night.”
John looked around. It wasn’t quite eleven yet. The bar was half full of sullen-faced old men, a couple of off-duty cops, and a pudgy woman whose black-and-gray roots contrasted starkly against her blond dye job. The sawdust on the floor clumped in drifts near the corners.
“Then why are we here?” John asked. “We could have met anywhere else.”
“This is fun. Nobody will stumble across us here.”
“Nobody is going to find our bodies here.”
Jessica laughed, then leaned in close. “Come on. Loosen up.”
The bartender brought his drink, and John drank half of it in a single sip. Jess slipped an arm inside his jacket and around his waist.
“I missed you,” she said.
“You saw me earlier.”
“I know. But not like this.”
“Like what?”
“Where we can stand this close to each other.”
Every place where her body touched his—from the press of her hip, to the firmness of her breast, to her small hand resting just underneath his ribs—smoldered like charcoal under ash.
“I love standing this close to you,” he said.
He remembered when he and Jane used to stand like this, for no reason other than they couldn’t bear to be in the same room without standing like this. John took another sip of his whiskey and pushed the thought from his mind.
The bartender dropped two more drinks without waiting for them to order, then another two. The third round came as John finished a story about Jane.
“So we’re in the park, and she’s chasing Brennan, who I think was about three or four. Just in circles. I’m holding Hunter, who was tiny. His skin was so soft. Have you ever smelled a baby’s skin? I don’t know where it comes from. It’s not soap. I miss that scent. It smelled like happiness. Anyway, she’s chasing Brennan, and I remember—you know, there were some complications with Brennan. The whole birth and labor was scary. Jane was afraid. But she was also so calm about the whole situation. Maybe it was because she saw how nervous I was. But there she was, this person I thought I knew so well, and there’s this whole new piece of her I’d never seen, this calm in a crisis. It reminded me of the beginning, you know? When you’re first dating and you find something new every day that you come to love about a person. And then you think you know everything there is to love about a person. And then she surprises you. Or reminds you.”
John blinked a few times.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His face darkened. “I forget where I was going with this.”
“It’s wonderful how much you love them.” Jessica slipped a hand into his. “I mean it, John. Did you ever wonder why I haven’t asked you to leave them for me? I mean, aside from the dirty talking.”
“Because you’re married, too?”
She began to roll her eyes, but a thought interrupted, and she shrugged instead. “Yes. I guess. When we married, I was so in love with Mark. I knew he was immature, but I figured we would grow up together, then grow old together. He’s really smart, you know. And I know he thinks I’m not as smart as he is. He doesn’t hide it. At first, maybe he thought it was cute. I guess I looked at it like he was taking care of me. But then I grew up, and it was patronizing. And for him, well, it’s not cute anymore when I’m ‘wrong.’ I know he feels contempt for me. He’d never admit it. But it’s laced into every word he says to me. It poisons the way he looks at me. It infects my skin when he touches me. And isn’t that where we’d end up, too?”
John looked at her intently but didn’t answer.
“Maybe not exactly there,” she said, “but in the neighborhood. Because eventually I’ll want to hurt you. And you’ll want to hurt me.”
“You’ve mentioned … Does Mark …”
“We hurt each other,” she said. “When we drink, sometimes it gets physical. It’s not serious. It’s like we can’t figure out whether to fight or fuck each other. I’m not proud of it.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“It’s usually me who starts it.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Jessica said. “To me. I can’t touch a man without wanting to hurt him.”
“Again, it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Jess scoffed. “Do you know what I love most about you?”
John’s breath caught for a moment, the dread tight in his throat, like he had watched someone step in front of a bus. They had never spoken the rule, but it had become their central tenet. However apparent it was, even during their weekend away, if they didn’t admit to it, they wouldn’t have to grapple with what love might portend.
Jessica continued as if oblivious to the slip. “You have hope. And it’s not only the hope in your kids. You love her so much; you’ll stay and try no matter what. I’m so jealous of that. I want to steal it. I just want to be around that kind of hope. Because I don’t feel it except for when I’m with you. That maybe I’ll have that someday. But if you left them for me? What then? I’d eventually feel the same contempt for you that Mark feels for me.”
Jessica ran a finger underneath her eye and blinked.
“Why not find someone else you can feel that with?” John asked.
“If this is what every marriage is, why go through the trouble of trying to find a better one? Nobody is happy, so why not just do what I promised? But a part of me looks at you and thinks, if you can do it, I can do it. I can hope like you. I can be a good person, too.”
John didn’t recognize the man she described. His mouth was dry.
“But it’s not real, right?” Jess said before downing the remains of her drink.
He gulped the rest of his and held the glass up for another drink.
#
John examined his glass in the dull light streaming from the doorway. Maybe Walter had a point. They were hopelessly filthy. When the bartender dropped Walter’s second beer, John slid the glass to him.
“Another. In this glass please.”
Walter swigged half his beer.
“As a friend,” Walter said, “do you want to talk to me about her?”
“Talk about what?”
Walter shrugged. “Have it your way. The trial made it seem like you two were in love.”
The bartender tossed some ice in John’s glass, grabbed a bottle of bourbon off the shelf, and poured until the ice crowned over the thin surface of the alcohol. John salivated; he wanted to drink so badly.
“I don’t think you did it, John,” Walter said. “Honestly.” “Thanks, but I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m probably the only person you can talk to about this.” John turned to fully regard Walter. Walter’s eyes were fixed on the bottles behind the bar. “I’ll deny it if you ever say so, but I knew. Maybe you thought you were being careful in the office, but I knew.”
“No. Maybe you see it now after the fact, but no way you knew at the time.”
Walter turned to him, his face as soft and kind as John had ever seen it. “I saw her leaving your office once. I was dropping by to ask you about that tax issue on that settlement I was structuring. I guess she’d left a file on your guest chair, so I moved it to sit down while I waited for you to get back from the bathroom.”
“You looked at it?”
Walter rolled his eyes. “No. A slip of paper fell out.”
John already knew—he remembered the slip of paper, placed inside a folder, before the first time they met in Cathy’s apartment—but he asked, “What was it?”
“An address. Some place in Spanish Harlem. And a personal note.”
John pictured her handwriting, both the address and the unsigned note: I’m so wet for you. Walter had known for months before the end. His mind racing with the implications, John didn’t notice the bartender return with his refilled glass.
“Once I knew,” Walter said, pushing John’s glass to him, “the signs were easy to catch. The little things like how she would find excuses to visit your office or the fact that you left exactly five minutes apart on nights you would meet.”
“You knew when we left?” John asked without touching his drink.
“Come on, John, it was a mystery. And the two of you were my closest friends there. It was fun to figure it out. To be part of the secret, especially since neither of you knew that I knew. A secret within a secret. Why didn’t you say anything to me?”
“Why didn’t I say anything to you?” John asked, eyebrows raised.
“I was your partner, your friend, John. This is the kind of thing friends tell each other. A lot of guys would even brag about it, to be honest. The other partners, they don’t share stuff like this with me. But you and me? We worked together more than ten years. How many drinks in better bars than this?”
“What else did you know?”
Walter waved the question away. “Just those little breadcrumbs I mentioned. It seemed like you guys were probably already, um, you know, pretty into it before I even noticed anything.” John ran a hand over his face, trying to clear his mind.
“Look, we don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.” Walter placed a hand softly on John’s shoulder. “But I see you suffering, man. And it’s not just because of the firm or the trial. I know what it’s like to be lonely, too.”
Walter paused for a moment to let his words sink in, then squeezed John’s shoulder and let his hand drop. “Do you want to talk about how it started? With Jessica?”
“What does it matter?”
“She must have liked you, seen something special in you. Maybe remembering why she chose you would make you feel better now? Or maybe it was just she was unhappy, too. Maybe you had that in common?”
John finally sipped his whiskey. “I should go.”
Walter cocked his head at him.
“Fair enough, but if you change your mind, I’m around.”
John drained the rest of his glass in a sip. His throat burned and eyes teared. He coughed once.
“Walter,” he said and coughed again, “we never talked about the kind of stuff you’re asking about. What does it matter to you anyway?”
A wince passed like a squall across Walter’s face. He sipped his beer to obscure it. “We were friends, too. I’m sure you know that. And it’s just …” Walter looked down at the filthy bar. “You’re not the only one who misses her.”
Walter turned to flag the bartender for another beer.
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry for your loss.” John grabbed his jacket and walked out.