A Good Marriage(30)
“Yeah, well, to each his own,” I said casually, like I knew all about such things. “Is somebody from your office somehow getting the papers to hold off on sharing all that?”
“Come on, you know as well as I do we can’t keep the papers from doing what they want.” His tone was thick with sarcasm. “It is pretty ironic, though, you’ve got to admit. All those Park Slope Parents with their homemade organic kale baby food catching STDs from each other—” He exhaled, the sound like helium being let out of a balloon. “Ah, sorry. I’m not usually this much of an asshole. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even half over.”
And I didn’t have time for any more small talk. “Ideally, I’d like to get ahold of the ADA assigned, so I can touch base about reasonable bail. Even unreasonable bail would be fine. Anything so my client can avoid getting assaulted again at Rikers.”
“I’ll ask around, see if I can get you a name,” he said, notably also unfazed by the mention of Zach’s assault.
“That would be helpful, thanks.”
“Anything for Paul,” he said. “He’s been trying to get me over to that firm of his for years. I think he wants to build some mini criminal defense empire. You like it there?”
“It’s great,” I said, because that was the only right answer under the circumstances. My tone, though, was appropriately flat.
“Right,” Steve said skeptically. “I love Paul. But I’m not sure I’d want to work for his ass.”
“Why?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Because that fucker is a maniac. He’ll always be five steps ahead,” he said. “And I’m not a big fan of choking on dust.”
By the time I finally opened our apartment door, I’d completely lost my momentum. There was no longer time for some big showdown with Sam; I really did need to be getting to Zach’s to call Case’s camp. Besides, I’d already waited, what, years to draw my line in the sand. What was a few more hours?
I expected to be greeted by the usual smell of strong coffee and the quiet lilt of the Gaelic music that Sam had taken to listening to lately. Inspiration to get him in the “writing mood,” he said. Since he’d gotten fired from Men’s Health, every few weeks it was a new genre, always instrumental, usually somewhat obscure. The Gaelic had been on tap for the past month or so, though it didn’t seem to be doing much good. Sam wasn’t banging out the pages of his book the way I’d have hoped for someone with so much free time.
“Sam!” I called out. “Hello?”
He wasn’t asleep at nearly two in the afternoon, was he?
“Sam!” I called again, even louder, as I headed for the bedroom.
When I finally pushed open the door, the bed was empty and neatly made. The sharply flattened sheets, the crisp edge of the comforter folded back, it was an obvious act of contrition: perfectly executed guilt origami.
“Sam!” I called one last time before I turned out of the bedroom and headed down the short hall. Where was he? And what exactly had he been feeling so regretful about when he woke up and made the bed?
When I reached the living room, there was still no Sam. But his laptop was there, open on our small, round dining table, the screen dark in slumber. I closed the top and smoothed my fingers over the round sticker at the center, a recent purchase recalling a years-ago marathon it was difficult to believe Sam had ever run. But he believed he would run another someday soon. And so in his mind at least he remained a marathoner. Such was the nature of Sam’s faith—unreasonable and intoxicating. There were some notebooks stacked to the left side of his computer and a small pack of matches to the right, with “Enid’s” printed on them. Sam hadn’t also started smoking, had he? He hated smoking. Maybe he’d just kept them as a keepsake. But a keepsake of what? Luckily, there was no name or number jotted down on the inside cover.
I took a deep breath and reopened his laptop, then typed in his password—LizzieLOVE. Sam had gotten his new computer the day after he’d thrown up in Mary Jo’s living room during her annual Kentucky Derby party. The password had been a small part of a much longer apology. It had worked, too. I was always so willing to accept anything that might get us back to that perfect place where we’d begun.
The party where Sam and I met wasn’t even a law school party. I’d gone along with a friend who had a friend who knew someone who claimed there would be lots of attractive eligible medical students in attendance, which had sounded like both a totally stupid reason to go to a party and a wildly appealing one. Also, the party was in The Rittenhouse, a fancy building right off the Philadelphia square, a nice change of pace from the dingy apartments the law school parties were always in.
I’d been at the party an hour, nursing a beer, when I first spotted Sam’s shaggy hair, two-day growth of beard, and iridescent blue eyes across the room. He was extremely good-looking, but it was the way his whole face lit up when he smiled that made my heart leap. It was electric. When he finally looked my way, and kept on looking, it was like my scalp had been set on fire.
I felt the color in my cheeks rise as he finally made his way over to introduce himself.
“You don’t look like a doctor,” he said.
“What does that mean?” I asked, afraid that he was about to say something dumb like I was too pretty for that, which would ruin everything.