CHAPTER 11

A quick wash of her hair with Aveda to start the day, then saltwater hairspray and some oil to keep it from drying overmuch. Janet massaged her hair, fingers along her scalp, hair between her digits; the lushness of her hair making it seem longer and fuller than it really was. She imagined doing this as a young woman: her hands trailing down her back, finding curling, luscious softness belying that firm flesh underneath.

Then she picked up her hairbrush and began to pull it through her hair. She wasn’t a young woman.

 

Janet made dried pear arugula salad. Simple, but good practice for something more complex. Mostly it was just hunting down the ingredients, feeding them all to the food processor or the salad bowl, whisking it around, then watering it with apple cider vinaigrette.

The taste was decent, the meal filling.

 

Janet kept few plants. A cacti or other succulent in each room. She enjoyed their self-sufficiency—that without her, they could get along quite well. Not forever, of course. They would die without her. But there was no need to coddle them.

She’d already watered them: the sand collar cactus, the bishop’s cap, the saguaro, all the rest. But she knew that in the active period, they were watered more frequently, they were given fertilizer. She checked again when the active period was.

It was later in the year. Much later.

 

She treated herself to a Greek yogurt. She had a whole carton of them in her refrigerator. It tasted of almosts: almost ice cream, almost fruit, almost milk. When she finished, there was still yogurt skimming the sides of the cup.

 

She called Elizabeth as she opened the bottle of wine they hadn’t finished. The thing was, if she drank it straight from the bottle, that was one less glass she’d have to wash. Smart. She was so fucking smart.

The speaker phone picked up. “Jan? Hey. Didn’t expect you to be back from your trip so soon?”

“Why not? We sold the damn things, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. Good job. You and Wendy celebrating?”

“I’m celebrating.”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t sealed the deal yet. Look, if fucking her is that big a deal, I can always sit in, give you a little constructive criticism…”

“No, no, I fucked her. Just like you said. It was nice. And now we’re moving on. Onward and upward.”

“Okay then.” Elizabeth sounded less than enthused, but Janet couldn’t judge her. She herself didn’t sound especially…anything.

“Elizabeth?”

“Yeah, Jan?”

“I don’t think I was happy with Roberta. I wasn’t sad, but… I wasn’t happy, either.”

“I know, Jan.”

“I know what happy is like. It just isn’t for me.”

“You want me to come over?”

“No. I should be alone now. I’ve had enough practice at it.”

Wendy hated herself and wanted to die.

Naturally, Regan was having a great week.

“Look at how much my husband loves me in floral form!” she cried, hoisting a bouquet like she was Miss America.

“It’s like porn for bees,” Wendy agreed, very happy when it was out of her face.

Regan lugged it over to the dinner table, where she had a glass of water waiting, and she took some posies out of the bouquet and put them there. “I mean, I’m sure he had a coupon or something, this is a lot of flowers to buy when I’d just settle for a dozen roses—”

“You would?” Wendy asked sarcastically. “Geez, get some standards—”

Regan ignored her, smiling over the posies now sitting in a vase on her table. “Go get me some more glasses.”

“Half-full or half-empty?” Wendy quipped, headed to the kitchen.

Regan gathered up a fistful of begonias. “These would look great on the windowsill… Wendy, c’mon!”

Wendy came out of the kitchen with three glasses in either hand, another two caught between her arms and body. “Just for the record, what do you intend to drink out of?”

“I’ll pick up some Dixie cups,” Regan said, taking one glass, filling it with flowers, and setting it picturesquely on the sill. “I could get addicted to this. I think I’m a little high. Let’s put one on the stairs!”

“Let’s!” Wendy agreed with false cheer.

“Okay, fine, you’re in a snit,” Regan conceded as they moved to the staircase. “Do you want to get it off your chest or do you want to be a little shit all day because I’m getting laid tonight? Well, Keith’s getting laid, but I’m doing the honors.”

“Trust me, I’m a professional, I can be a little shit regardless of your sex life. The bluebells would look good there.”

“They would!” Regan agreed, setting a glass between the banisters on the landing of the staircase. “C’mon, I’m really not going to be able to enjoy railing Keith with my favorite sister in mourning.”

“And I’m not going to be able to enjoy food ever again with that mental image.”

Regan stopped to smell the roses—Wendy suddenly got that expression. “No more banter. Come on now.”

Wendy set all the glasses on the landing and sat, drinking from one of them. “What would you do if Keith left you?”

Regan laid the bouquet between them and sat down next to her. “Oh God, what is this?”

“Just tell me.”

“I wouldn’t let him.”

“You wouldn’t let him? How would you stop him?”

Regan guffawed. “Jesus, Well, he wouldn’t want to leave me in the first place, but if he did, I could only assume there’d be something wrong, something he was struggling with—I’d find it and kick its ass and get my husband back.”

“What if it’s not something that you can ass-kick? What if he really wants to go?”

Regan leaned back against the railing, sighing. “You need to schedule this introspective stuff before I get flowers. You’re really harshing my buzz.”

“Hey, you asked.”

“Yeah. The burden of a big sister is a heavy one. Okay, you remember when I was pregnant? You were off at UCLA or wherever, building model airplanes?”

Wendy resisted the urge to correct her. “Yeah, I ordered you pickles and ice cream online. That’s what pregnant women like, right? I’m gay, it’s really not my scene.”

“We’ll discuss that if Mac ever gets a little brother.”

“Little sister,” Wendy corrected.

“Anyway. You weren’t here, but when I first got pregnant, Keith really got cold feet.”

“What? I’ll kill him,” Wendy said jokingly.

“No, he had, like, stripper-level daddy issues. He didn’t know if he could be a good father, he thought maybe he wasn’t even a good husband because suddenly we were in this situation where the shit was hitting the fan. He thought maybe it might be best to have a procedure done and then if the relationship didn’t work out, at least we wouldn’t…well, you can imagine we argued a bit.”

“Yeah, you’d think!” Wendy cried. “Where is this coming from? Does he also kill people for a living?”

“It was a long time ago,” Regan assured her. “The point is, I fought for him. I told him that of all the men in the world—and also Angelina Jolie, if she were interested—I was with him, I only wanted him, and the baby would feel the same way. Mac wouldn’t want someone else. I wouldn’t want someone else. We wanted every part of our family.” Regan reached over and nudged Wendy. “Including Vodka Aunt here.”

“I actually prefer tequila.” Wendy grinned.

“So he came around and he studied how to be a good father and I studied how to be a good mother and we did the Lamaze classes and ate a lot of pickles and ice cream—”

“Ha! Told you!”

“Actually, he liked the pickles a lot more than I did. And Mac was born, you were there for that, the rough patch was over, we moved on. It wasn’t the first time we fought, it’s not gonna be the last, but we got through it. And now my arms are full of flowers and I’m waiting for my son to get home. And making fun of my sister a little bit, so I’m feeling that was a good call.”

“Yeah, okay, so you’re a success story. But you seriously never thought to just let him go?”

Regan looked back at her. “Is that what you’re thinking?”

Fucking sister psychic spider-sense bullshit. “No,” Wendy replied, leaning her head back. “Maybe I should be. Maybe she’s right, it’d be best if I found someone better for me and she found someone better for her.”

“And flying cars would make road trips easier,” Regan interjected. “If you love her, you love her. You can’t just swap her out for someone you think is better suited for you. She’s it. I mean, God knows Keith isn’t perfect, but I wouldn’t trade him for…Mr. Darcy or whatever. He’s my guy.”

“Ugh…” Wendy flopped down onto the steps behind her. “You are not making this ‘getting over her’ stuff any easier.”

“Wendy Cedar, you turned your back on your inheritance, raked up a frankly unholy amount of college debt, worked as an intern, and you live in an apartment building that I am honestly not a hundred percent on letting my son visit. Because it’s what you wanted, you fought for it. Now you have this woman—and she’s definitely not good enough for you, you’re my sister—but she means enough to you that you are going—” Regan laughed “—full Enya on the emotional spectrum. And you’re not going to fight for her? Bullshit. You want my permission, you’ve got it. Go kick some ass. I’ll bail you out if you get arrested.”

And suddenly, Wendy was smiling. “You know what I need to do?”

“What?”

Wendy snatched a white rose from the bouquet. “Get her flowers.”

Wendy played with Janet’s glasses on the elevator. Janet had left a pair at her apartment—she definitely had spares, given how she hadn’t broached their inelegant silence to ask for them back—and since then they’d lived in Wendy’s jacket pocket. The longing Wendy had felt for her had been growing unendurable, but now that she’d decided to win her back, there was a sweetness to it. It felt like an itch being scratched.

The elevator dinged. She slipped the glasses back into her pocket.

The key to infiltrating someplace you weren’t supposed to be, as Wendy had learned from sneaking into horror movies from age twelve, was to look as if you knew exactly what you were doing and were absolutely where you belonged. This was hard for any twenty-something to do, but Wendy thought she had the hang of it. She went through Mary Borchard’s division like she was slightly bored of it, an everyday fixture dressed in the same slacks and Oxford shirt and sweater as everyone else. When she got to Marlon, it took him a moment to recognize her.

Marlon was a tall, springy guy with a toothbrush haircut that he either thought was cool or was waiting to loop around back to cool. He’d come up through the intern program with her and they were still friends on Facebook, right alongside everyone Wendy had been in elementary school with.

“Marlon, hey—” she said, dipping into his cubicle. It was about big enough for the both of them, which told Wendy she wasn’t overeating.

“Wendy? What are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story,” Wendy said, crouching down beside his desk. If she stood up, she was tall enough to be seen over the cubicle partitions, because apparently Mary had gotten the things secondhand from the Lollipop Guild. “But you know how I got hired by Janet Lace?”

“Yeah—what’s it like having a job? They pay you? You have insurance?”

“Yes,” Wendy agreed, trying to remember if she’d been quite so underpaid.

“You have dental? You can just go to dentists?”

“Marlon, honestly, if you help me out here, I will get you a job over in my division. Promise.”

Marlon lowered his voice. “Deal! What’s the 411?”

“The 41—never mind. My boss thinks your boss is misrepresenting the RadarVoid system, so I need a copy of all the test results on it, unedited.”

Marlon’s brow furrowed. “God…they might be on the cloud servers. No one ever deletes the old files from the draft folder—and you think Borchard is lying about this stuff?”

“Suspect.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t surprise me. The woman’s a witch, works us like dogs, doesn’t even learn our names, barely recognizes any of us. She has these nicknames and I don’t think bread rises around her.”

“What?”

Marlon was typing frantically. “You know, witchcraft? Horses sweating, cream going sour, bread not rising? I brought some creamer from home and it went sour in the office refrigerator! After one day!”

“That is definitely a Warlock or Warlock II: The Armageddon type situation,” Wendy agreed. “Found it yet?”

“Yeah, she ordered something like fifty tests done. You want all of them?”

“Each and every.”

“All right.” Marlon picked up a USB drive from his desk and plugged it in. “If there are any other files on this, don’t open them?”

“Not even a little bit,” Wendy promised.

She heard the hard drive in Marlon’s tower buzz as it started spinning, grinding the data down into the thumb drive. And then she heard heels on the hardwood floor.

Wendy threw herself under the desk as Mary Borchard leaned over the cubicle partition, staring down at Marlon.

“Bradley, where’s the JW report? I assigned it to you two hours ago. You didn’t go to lunch, did you?”

Marlon nonchalantly rolled his chair in front of his desk’s footspace. Wendy could’ve kissed him. Just not when she was under his desk.

“No ma’am—it’s Marlon, actually—and I sent the JW report to your e-mail.”

“Not finished, you didn’t include the PCS file.”

Wendy looked over at the computer tower next to her, in a special slot of the desk opposite the drawers on Marlon’s right. She could see the green light on the thumb drive blinking as it loaded. She knew the model—once the light went out, the file transfer was complete.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to include the PCS file—you didn’t ask for it, and that’s Bill’s job—”

“Should I have to tell you every aspect of your job? If I want the JW report, of course I want the PCS file too! Either have it in my inbox by the time I walk back to my office or security will be showing you the way out! They’re very good at removing undesirables from the premises.”

“Yes, ma’am, right away—”

“What’s the matter with you, anyway? You seem sweatier than usual. I’d like to think that’s all me, but somehow I doubt it.”

Wendy heard typing above her. The green light of the thumb drive was out. If she grabbed it, checkmate. Even if Mary caught her, she could smuggle it out. But if Mary caught her, noticed the thumb drive—hell, if she was smart enough to have security search her—she’d assume Janet was behind it.

Not exactly the peace offering Wendy wanted to send.

“It’s just I heard there was an opening in Upper Atmosphere,” Marlon was saying, “and I was thinking that maybe you could write me a letter of recommendation if I decided to, er, go for it.”

“I think the only thing you could get me to recommend you for is a vasectomy, but it does seem a little pointless. Are you ready to send the PCS file, or should I insult you a little more to give you time to do your job?”

“It’s sent! It’s sent!”

“Good,” Mary said, and Wendy swiped for the thumb drive, yanking it from its USB port and jamming it under the tongue of her shoe.

“What was that?” Mary demanded.

“What was what?”

Wendy heard a few footsteps as Mary came around for a better look. “What’s under your desk?”

She pulled her hair into a ponytail, ripping an elastic from her wrist to tie it off. Slammed on Janet’s glasses. Affected a broad Jersey accent as she crawled out on her hands and knees. “Oh hi, boss lady, you must be Marlon’s boss, he talks about ya all the time—”

Mary stared in a way that made Wendy feel as if she were on a slide. “Who the hell are you? You don’t have clearance to be in here.”

“Oh, no, I’m Marlon’s girlfriend. Jocelyn? He’s mentioned me? Listen, this is super embarrassing, know I’m not supposed to be here, but it’s his birthday and I thought who’d it hurt to come over and wish him a happy birthday? Y’know? A really happy birthday?”

“Uh-huh. Get out.”

Wendy got to her feet. “I’m really sorry, Mrs. B, Marlon said you’d understand.” She put an arm around him. “I just love my little guy so much!”

Mary crossed her arms. “Well then—Marlon—since you see fit to attend to personal business on my time, I’m sure you won’t mind attending to my business on your time. Saturday and Sunday. Be here. And your friend had better be gone by the time I’ve called security. Which I’m doing right now.”

Wendy smiled ruefully at Marlon as soon as she was gone. “Sorry,” she said under her breath.

“Don’t be, I was working this weekend anyway. Plus, if anyone overheard that, I could be very popular around here.”

Wendy did think someone gave her a thumbs up as she left.

One plus to having a girlfriend, even a presently head-up-her-ass girlfriend—no more gay bars. Wendy got to meet with Tina at a café. It was nice. Quiet music, drinks with names that weren’t euphemisms for anything, actual chairs to sit in. It was like going to grandmother’s house, with bottle service.

Wendy liked it. She was getting too old to pretend to be good at dancing.

“So here’s the thing,” Wendy said, “if a guy hits on you, first you turn him down, right? See if he’s okay with rejection. Better to know that now than when he’s hitting you up for anal.”

“That’s not a real thing people do,” Tina said.

“Yes, it is, it totally works! It’s like getting a mammogram. Wouldn’t you rather know than wonder?”

“Okay, how many dates have you been on that you’re suddenly the master of relationships? That is why we’re in a place that plays actual music, right? Or did you just woman up and make peace with dying alone?”

“Does it have to be one or the other?” Wendy reached into her purse and brought out her tablet. “But let’s set aside my expertise at having sex and being in love, and go to your expertise in radar shit.”

“Whoa, whoa—” Tina held up her hands. “You know I don’t have security clearance for any of this?”

“You don’t need it. It’s proprietary technology, hasn’t been sold to the military yet. As far as they’re concerned, it might as well be Microsoft Flight Simulator.”

“That’s some flimsy shit right there.”

“Tina, c’mon, no one knows this stuff better than you. Just look it over and tell me if I’m on the right track. After you tell me which track I should be on.”

Tina groaned and took Wendy’s tablet. “You’re picking up the tab.”

“Yes. Oh hey—” Wendy slightly inclined her eyes to Tina’s left. “Hottie on your six, coming your way.”

“How would you know?”

“Just because I’m not ordering doesn’t mean I can’t read the menu. Remember, turn him down first.”

“This is stupid—”

“Trust me!”

The man put his hand on the table. “Hi there. Tom Willis. Mind if I buy you a drink, miss? You look like you’re running on empty.”

“That’s all right,” Tina said. “I’m just not in the mood right now.”

The man shrugged. “All right. Enjoy your evening.”

“Hey there,” someone said, and Wendy turned around to see a woman gesturing from the neighboring table. “If that money’s burning a hole in your pocket, I could use a refill.”

“Sure thing,” the man said, moving over. “What’ll it be?”

Wendy turned back around to find Tina glaring at her.

“Barkeep,” she called, “could I get a bottle of your finest brandy? Thanks.”

First thing the next morning, Wendy rued how fucking bright it was. But second thing, she rode to the office. “Janet, you are not going to believe—”

Her seat was taken. By Mary Borchard. “Mary. Hi there. I knew I recognized you from somewhere. ”

Wendy only let herself be abashed for a half-second. Then she slapped the tablet down on Janet’s desk. “I know what you’re up to.”

“Do you now?” Mary asked.

Wendy faced Janet. “RadarVoid works too well. It doesn’t just screw up the instrumentation of computers targeting it, it messes with everything. Other helicopters can’t engage their targets. Planes can’t accurately drop ordinance. As soon as the Hawkowl’s in the area, the entire C2 breaks down.”

Mary wasn’t fazed in the slightest. “That was a problem in initial tests, but we corrected it.”

Janet spoke for the first time. “You mean you changed the tests not to check for that. Then you mixed them all together so no one would ask why you ordered multiple series of tests.”

Mary shrugged. “So this is it, then? You found a few bugs in my program—is that really why your little helper monkey’s been sniffing around my people? Well, I’ll raise you.”

She picked up a file folder from Janet’s desk, dropped it on top of Wendy’s tablet.

“What’s that?” Wendy asked. No one answered. She reached for it—

“Don’t,” Janet said, but Wendy ignored her.

They were pictures.

Blown-up, glossy, perfect reproductions of the pictures Janet had sent to Wendy. In exchange for her fingers.

“I’m sure it would interest the higher-ups very much to know that Janet here is sleeping with someone in a different security classification. One whom she’s let run amok with proprietary technology. It really doesn’t take long to look like corporate espionage, if not counterintelligence.”

Wendy tightened her fists into neutron stars. “You wanna see counterintelligence, lady?”

Janet held up a hand and Wendy froze. “You must know this’ll come out, Mary. As soon as the military finds out the tech doesn’t work, the contract won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“But it’ll still be printed,” Mary said. “And thanks to you, Wendy, everyone will know the sale was made on the strength of the RadarVoid system. I’ve already gotten offers from Boeing and Lockheed. So years from now, when the Hawkowl is in production and I’m making eight figures at a new company, I don’t think it’ll really matter what happens to Savin Aerospace. For any of us.”

“Fuck you,” Wendy said.

Mary stared into Janet. “Is that your answer, too? Savin’s a sinking ship, but you can get in the lifeboat with me. That tablet won’t change anything, but it’s still aggravation I don’t need. Make sure no one sees it and I can get you through the door right behind me.”

Janet sat still as a statue behind her desk. It seemed to take a great deal of effort for her to rotate her chair, for her to be turning from side to side, lost in thought. And it took her a long time to raise her downcast eyes.

“You heard her,” she told Mary. “This company’s been good to me. I’ve devoted my life to it. I’m not going to help slit its throat so you can get a corner office.”

“Fine. Don’t help. Watch its throat get slit anyway.” Mary rose from her seat. “Tests that you obtained, how? And that you checked, where? I have my sources, I would’ve known if you’d gone through any of the right channels. All that tablet has on it is supposition from God knows where based on God knows what, fucking up a sale that’s already being made, and no one’s going to hit the brakes on a billion-dollar contract just on your say-so. Especially once they find out you’ve been fucking the intern here.”

“Hey! I’m a structural dynamics engineer, bitch.”

Janet silenced her with a gesture. “People will listen. We’ll take this all the way to the CEO if we have to.”

“‘We’”? Mary mimicked. “I’m sure your intern is good for a lot of things, but getting a come-to-Jesus with the Old Man isn’t one of them.”

Wendy walked up to her.

“What?” Mary asked. “Are you going to hit me now? Go ahead, completely destroy your own credibility. I’ll sue you for every cent you’ve got. I can always use change for the laundromat.”

“Excuse me,” Wendy said, and stepped past her. To Janet’s desk. She picked up the phone. “Need to borrow this. Local call.” She punched in a number, fast with memorization, then waited while it rung.

Mary watched: amused at first, then impatient to see what her play was.

“It’s ringing,” Wendy said, then straightened as the other end picked up. “Hi, Grandpa? You told me to call you if I had any trouble? Well, I’m pretty sure this qualifies…”

She took two minutes to lay it out. She was pretty succinct. Mary only had time to look at Janet and ask “What the fuck is she doing?” once.

Then Wendy put her hand over the receiver and spoke to Mary. “He wants to talk to you.”

Mary reacted to the phone being held out to her as if it were a loaded gun. Then she shook her head dubiously and took it, sneering at Wendy as she lifted it to her ear. “Yes?”

The Old Man was even more succinct. A moment later, Mary lowered the phone, a dial tone issuing from it.

“I’m fired.”

Wendy took the phone from her and dropped it back in its cradle.

Mary shook her head. “That’s it? You just—you make a phone call and I’m…no, you can’t just…I have connections, I, I’m…”

“You might want to call security,” Wendy told Janet. “I hear they’re very good at removing undesirables.”

Mary darkened, the blow finally cutting through layers of denial and moving into rage. “You know this is bullshit. If I were a man, I’d be CEO by now.”

“No,” Wendy said, sitting down on Janet’s desk. “If you were a man, you’d be an asshole. You’re still an asshole. You treat your employees like shit. You only care about yourself. You nearly bankrupted my family’s company and sent thousands of people into unemployment just for your own ambitions. Don’t flatter yourself by thinking any of this is because you’re a woman. It’s because you’re a piece of shit. Now here. Your severance package.”

She reached into her pocket and flipped something small and shiny Mary’s way.

Mary caught it.

A quarter.

“For the laundromat,” Wendy said.

Mary left between two security guards, about as defeated as she would ever be. That wouldn’t be the end of it. She’d sue for wrongful termination and anything else she could think of, try whatever dirty tricks were left in the book, but she’d lost. Everything else was just how bad her losses would be.

Wendy wasn’t thinking of any of that just then.

Janet had still not said a word.

“I’m sorry about the pictures on my phone—” Wendy started.

“No, no, that’s Mary’s fault. She hacked your phone, that’s not your fault. Wallace Savin is your grandfather.”

“Maternal,” Wendy said. “His daughter married my dad, hence Wendy Cedar…and umm…so I’m in high school and I am the smallest avionics nerd you ever did see. Model airplane club, remote control helicopters, everything, everything. I’m already applying to all these engineering schools and I’m getting acceptance letter after acceptance letter and I realize, why bother? It’s the family business. All I have to do is turn in a job application with one of my parents for a reference and I’m on the top floor. So I have this idea—more of an experiment. I go to college across the country, I don’t tell anyone who my dad is or my mom or my grandfather. And I’m actually really good at this engineering stuff. I mean, I let my parents go half and half on tuition, I’m not crazy, but I get a part-time job to pay for my books, I meet some really cool people who don’t have summer homes, and when I graduate, I put in an application for Savin Aerospace’s intern program. And they choose me. Not because of my mom or my dad, but because of my work. It’s my job, it’s mine. And the shitty apartment I live in is mine. And this really amazing woman that I fell in love with along the way… I really hope she’s mine.”

“Your father’s Jacob Cedar,” Janet said.

“Yeah.”

“He’s on the board of directors.”

“I know.”

“I’m fucking the boss’s daughter.”

“Do you one better, I fucked the boss, okay, so inappropriate, forget I said that, couldn’t resist.”

“For me?” Janet asked. She was crying. Not sobbing, just with a kind of leak below her eyes. “All this…”

Wendy took a deep breath. “I would never ask you to choose between me and your career. But you don’t have to choose.”

“Yes I do. I can’t have this. Me, you—God.” Her elbow planted itself on the desk, her head falling into her outstretched hand.

Wendy took a half-step forward, going to comfort her, but also kept at bay by the sheer despondency of Janet’s grief.

“Trying to seduce a woman half my age, what right do I have…”

“How old are you?” Wendy asked.

“Forty-four.”

“I’m twenty-six, you’re not twice my age or old enough to be my mother unless you were a Teen Mom and you’re the least Teen Mom person I’ve ever met!”

Janet pried her hand away from her face, eyes suddenly red, and seeing her carefully composed face suddenly all knotted up with emotion was as shocking to Wendy as seeing it covered with war paint. “I’m forty-four, I have no children, I’m divorced, and I’m experimenting with bondage five years after it was cool. It’s fucked up. It’s all fucked up.”

“Listen, Janet—Jan…” Wendy hopped up on the desk on Janet’s side, wishing she had the nerve to take Janet’s hand. “Tell me about it. Talk to me.”

Janet took a deep breath. “Tissue.” She held out her hand. “Please, could you just—hand me—”

Wendy realized there was a box of tissues on a file cabinet adjacent to Janet’s desk, but Janet’s desk was so large that Janet couldn’t reach it. She plucked out a swath and handed them to Janet, who first dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose. The soiled tissues went into a wastebasket that was already half-full.

Wendy plucked another tissue to offer to Janet, but she was already gone. Face closed off, bricked over, the redness in the orbits of her eyes and the nostrils of her nose now seeming like graffiti on her composed expression.

Yet she couldn’t quite manage it. That wall she’d put up so many times before had cracks in it. Wendy could see it in her eyes—the thing she’d seen more and more of over the past few days, that Janet had let her see more and more of.

Her sadness.

Janet stood abruptly. Like she was ripping free of something. “I can’t have this. I shouldn’t even want it. This is just another reason…”

And she was moving, so fast and yet so controlled that Wendy thought of a machine overheating, going faster and faster until it broke down. Wendy trailed after her, knowing that Janet didn’t want to be followed, hating that she knew Janet well enough to think that, that she couldn’t be ignorant enough to try and comfort her. Maybe she didn’t know Janet at all.

She heard Elizabeth say, “Jan, the Carson meeting?” through the open door, but the pace of Janet’s footfalls never altered as she left the office.

A moment later, Elizabeth appeared in the door of the office. She closed it behind her. Wendy sat at Janet’s desk, not even feeling the warmth of her. Wendy chewed on her thumbnail and thought of all the worries she’d carried that someone would find out who she was. All her self-doubt that she wasn’t proving anything to her family except how pig-headed she could be, and then there were the small pleasures in earning something and having it be hers. Her job, her work, and something of Janet Lace. And now…

Maybe it was all a waste of time. Especially the Janet Lace part.

“Did you hear any of that?” she asked Elizabeth, as if just noticing her. Fuck, it was getting awkward, brooding with Elizabeth standing in the corner like a lifeguard or something.

“Mostly the entertaining bits with Mary getting her ass kicked. I tried not to catch any of the stuff where you and Janet…yeah.”

“So you got the gist of it?”

“That, and we’ve been shooting the shit about her sex life pretty consistently over the course of our friendship. It’s been pretty dull for the last few years, actually.” Then she ventured a question like she’d been called on in school without her hand raised. “Good on you for tapping that?”

“More or less inappropriate,” Wendy said.

“Yeah…Janet’s used to it. So, uhh…you going to go after her? Seems like your…thing. If you’re not, I am.”

Wendy stood, stretched. The few moments she’d been sitting felt like a thousand years. “Should I? I want this relationship, but she told me in Yuma that it wasn’t right. I don’t want to force something on her…I want to be what she wants. Just because I can’t see the appeal of not having sex with me doesn’t mean…”

Elizabeth held up a finger, went to the drink trolley, and fetched a bottle of cognac. One glass. “This is medicinal,” she said, looking around for glass number two. “I mean, what, you thought dating your boss-slash-employee would be easy?”

Wendy pushed her hands together. “Kinda thought the boss and employee things canceled each other out. Not that I am her boss…”

“You own stock in the company?”

“I own a lot of stocks,” Wendy said defensively, then winced as that somehow shockingly failed to make it better.

“So you own the company.”

“Only some of it.”

“You own the company, she works for the company, she works for you.”

“Okay, that’s not even the problem.”

Elizabeth found a clean coffee mug. It did not say ‘World’s Best Boss’.

“The problem isn’t the problem,” Elizabeth told her, suddenly fancying herself a philosopher-bartender as she poured. “It’s this, it’s that, it’s that she had an unhappy childhood and her marriage ended badly and her career isn’t going as well as she thought it would and she thinks her thighs are chubby…”

“Bullshit! Her thighs are great!”

Elizabeth handed her the mug. “And if she realizes that, suddenly all her issues go away and the clouds clear up and the sun is shining and the Justice League movie doesn’t suck? No, because she’s got a million things and she doesn’t want to share them and she struggles with them every day. And then she has a million other things that are great and smart and funny—maybe not funny—but she’ll give me the day off and answer her own phone when I have the flu, she’ll take a cut in her own salary before she lets an employee get laid off, and she…” Elizabeth lowered her voice. “She’s actually a really big fan of the Babysitters Club.”

“Shut up!”

“She has the entire series in this chest she keeps hidden. Have you been to her apartment?” Wendy shook her head. “Keep your eyes open. And make her take you to her apartment, you’ve been her bitch, you deserve to sleep in her bed. Jesus, what’s wrong with you? You’re making us all look bad.”

Wendy laughed and drank, and made a somewhat gratified, somewhat pained noise when it hit.

“Okay, you can hold your liquor. I’m starting to approve of you.” Elizabeth took the mug back and drained it. “Boss isn’t here. I haven’t goofed off like this in five years…my point is, all this shit she has? It’s her shit. It doesn’t go away just because she’s gone down on you—”

“She hasn’t gone down on me—”

“Fuck you, get that shit. Are you a lesbian or aren’t you?” Elizabeth slammed the mug down on the desk. “Making us look bad…listen, she is the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and she is also one of those Indiana Jones boulders of neuroses and regrets and just, just bullshit. You take the one, you take the other. She can’t just toss this away because it’s inconvenient for you. Even if she’d love to…be worthy of you.” Elizabeth sighed and poured again. “You’re young and beautiful and now you’re rich. She doesn’t want you to waste yourself on her.”

Wendy held up her hands. “Okay, I get it; Dr. Phil, no more drinks—”

“This is for me.”

Wendy ignored her. “Janet could be getting on a plane to Bora Bora right now, so could you just tell me if she loves me or not? Did she tell you? Did she say those exact words?”

“Wendy, over the past few months, she’s said everything about you. All our conversations have had you in them. Either she’s crazy about you or she’s going to murder you.”

Wendy made a weighing motion with her hands. “Fuck it. I’m going after her.”

“She’ll be at the park.”

Wendy didn’t take the time to go around Elizabeth, just jumped up on the desk, jumped off the other side, and was out the door.

She thought she heard Elizabeth asking for a raise as she left.

It was a lovely day in the park. Janet could tell from the office—see the blue sky, the white clouds, the green grass. But she didn’t really know. That only came from sitting on a bench, feeling the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin and hearing the discordant little harmony formed out in nature. Running feet, walking dogs, snatches of conversation, even the cars in the distance, a part of the world along with the birds and the rushing wind.

Roberta Olsen, formerly Roberta Lace-Olsen, was walking with her girlfriend. It had the slowness and comfort of a walk that was entirely unself-conscious. No neurotic notions of exercise or enjoying nature or a feeling of obligation, just a desire to enjoy the day and the company in equal measure. As she walked, her girlfriend told her a story, hands gesturing to and fro, her overly-animated face miming expressions, and Roberta laughing, laughing, laughing, until she had to pull her girl into an embrace as if to stop her from joking even more.

Janet watched them from the park bench. She wondered if it had ever been so easy. Her discomfort had nothing to do with seeing them together. That provoked little reaction in Janet that wasn’t scientific. But her office had been her castle—not her home, never her home, her home and Bobbi’s—and now it was unsafe. Wendy had invaded it, revealed it to have been compromised so insidiously that Janet had never even noticed, and she couldn’t reconcile its sanctity from Wendy’s hold on it.

Wendy had come looking for her, found her, she was looking at her even now. Trying to think of something to say to her while her eyes reminded Janet how possessed she was. Her own skin felt half Wendy’s. So much of it touched by her, still hungering for her…Janet was losing too much, giving up too much that she had hoped to hold in reserve, safe and sound where it couldn’t be lost, but Wendy had been ravenous for it. And Janet hadn’t had the will to stop her. She’d signed over so much of herself that she wondered if there was any left. She worried that if there was, it went with Roberta, already too far away for her to feel.

She’d gone to the park to feel safe. It didn’t feel that way. Not with Roberta there.

Fuck it, she should probably say something before Wendy got bored and left. “Are you supposed to be a Secret Service agent or something? Sit down. For God’s sake, I’m not a deer.”

Sheepishly—as much as she seemed capable of sheepishness—Wendy came out from behind the tree she’d been somewhat hiding behind, somewhat leaning on, and collapsed onto the other side of the bench with a kind of relief. Janet guessed she thought the hard part was over.

“I was going to write you another e-mail, but then I remembered you’re old, so I thought you’d prefer talking in person.”

Janet replied, “Funny.”

“Yes, I am. Thanks for noticing.” Whatever brave face Wendy was putting up, died in the wake of Janet’s apathy. She folded her arms, played with her hair a little, she let Janet stew. Gave her time to tell her to go away.

Janet would’ve, only she wanted something from her. She didn’t know what. Maybe some kind of closure. Something to make it okay that they weren’t going to see each other anymore.

“I didn’t follow you,” Wendy said, her voice slightly bright with false cheer, and it wasn’t even very cheerful. Her eyes sought Janet’s, but didn’t find them. “Elizabeth told me where you were. And it’s been an hour, so… I wanted to make sure you hadn’t hit your head or anything. Gotten amnesia.”

“What’s that?” Janet said by rote.

Wendy smiled at her. Janet wished she could look at her. But she felt more fragile than ever—more in touch with her own weakness. She could see the breadth of it, all its dimensions, how far down it went. But then, Wendy already knew.

The least she could do was hold up her end of the conversation. “I assume Elizabeth gave you a pep talk too?”

“Full disclosure: I also got one from my sister, so a double pep talk.”

“And I’m guessing Elizabeth told you I just need to open up and let you in and be happy, everyone wants to be happy…”

“Actually, it was about how being a little closed off and withdrawn is just who you are. But being alone isn’t. You don’t have to bury everything.”

Wendy left the words hanging, for once not pressing, not poking, not prodding, but letting Janet process. Janet looked out, down maybe a hundred feet to the pond, where Roberta was buying a pretzel from the vendor. One to be shared.

“Are you worried about the meeting with Carson? Think it’d be shallow to bring it up?” Wendy winced, worried she’d put her foot in her mouth, and Janet wanted to reassure her, tell her how cute it was, actually… She didn’t. “Doesn’t matter, I’ll tell you just so I can think I’m considerate. As it turns out, the CEO thinks everyone has been working so hard that they deserve a break, so he ordered pizza for the whole company. It’s a one-time thing, though. Don’t expect pizza every week.”

“All to get me out of a meeting.” Janet felt a tear rebel against her control, and wiped her eye. Wendy saw it and didn’t react, maybe didn’t even think how weak she was, not even being able to have a simple conversation. “Not that it’s come up, but this is why I don’t recommend employees date shareholders. It conjures thoughts of nepotism.”

“I’m not a nepot!” Wendy insisted. She slid along the bench. “I mean—I am Wendy Cedar, but I’m just Wendy Cedar. You know?”

“That’s not the point. That’s not even the issue. You were right. I am scared. Scared for you. Look at you, Wendy Cedar. You’re young and smart and ambitious. You deserve the whole world. You could win it. Why do you want to be saddled with me? I’m not even good enough for her.”

Wendy followed her eyes out to the couple, just like any other, and Janet almost laughed at the thought that she probably couldn’t even tell which one was Roberta. Someone who could mean so much to her, go through so much with her, and now—a stranger.

“She’s moving away soon,” Janet continued. “It’s a shame, she loved this park. I wish I could let her have it.”

“And you?”

Janet shook her head. “I loved the way she loved it.

But Wendy understood. “You know, I did some reading about the Kee Bird. It’s still in Greenland. You can go there and look at it, it’s very well-preserved. It’s still standing, Janet. Even if it can’t fly. Even if some people aren’t interested in it. Isn’t that impressive enough? Still being there after over seventy years?”

“That’s a very sentimental way to look at an old bucket of bolts,” Janet told her.

“And you have a very cynical way of looking at an antique. Makes you wonder why you’re looking at it in the first place.” Wendy reached out and put her hand on the bench between them, baiting that demon thought. So close, it was so close, it was right there.

She had the audacity not to look affronted when Janet didn’t take it.

“I’m not sure,” Wendy said. “I might be totally off-base. And if I’m wrong—or even if I’m right—you don’t have to say anything. But I think you’d like to talk about her. And whatever it is, I am so fucking okay with hearing it.”

“You really can’t get enough of me tormenting you, huh?”

Wendy smiled. She kept doing that, making it harder for Janet to convince herself she didn’t want her.

Making it impossible.

Janet bowed her head. She could see Roberta without looking at her. “I kept changing. And she kept changing. And finally I wasn’t hers anymore. I guess she isn’t mine either, now. Wendy, I want you to be happy. And you think we will be, and maybe you’re right, but for how long? Ten years? Twenty? No matter how happy we were together—how happy you thought you were—you’re better off without me. It’s no way to live, being satisfied with whatever dregs of love I can offer.”

“You can love a lot more than you think. I’ve seen it.” Wendy held herself there—Janet could see the twitches in her muscles as she wanted, as she needed to be held, the same way Janet did, but she wouldn’t move. She just kept her hand laying there on the bench, an offering. “So in ten years I’ll fight for you. And in twenty years I’ll fight for you. At the end of time, I’ll fight for you. Because you don’t make me happy. You are my happiness. And I think I’m yours. Even if you aren’t, like, physically capable of laughing…”

Janet proved her wrong, in a short burst like a flock of birds taking wing. Her eyes darted to Wendy’s hand on the bench. It was still there.

Wendy bit back a smile, but Janet could see her chewing on it. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you were a hugger,” Wendy said. “I fell in love with you this way. I’m not asking you not to change. I’m saying I would like to see who you’re changing into.”

Janet couldn’t do that. She just couldn’t do it. Agree to a life with Wendy, living together, having everything that was her shared… She couldn’t give Wendy anything she wanted. She tried, she wanted to force the possibility into her brain, but she would think of Roberta and knew, knew it would end with her right back here. Watching Wendy with someone else. She couldn’t commit to that. But she could reach out and take Wendy’s hand. And hope Wendy could wait until tomorrow for more.

“Just this once, I really have to hug you,” Wendy said.

Janet shook her head. “Hurry up then, you goose.”

Wendy stood up and did. Janet buried her smile in Wendy’s throat.

Maybe it was a smile so rare that it demanded attention, because when she stopped looking down Wendy’s back, she looked out into the distance and saw Roberta, seeing her. She held her hand up in whatever greeting she could manage. Roberta waved at her. She waved good-bye.

“You know yoga doesn’t have any proven health benefits?” Wendy said in her ear. “The science just isn’t there.”