The Break(57)

“Here, love,” Louisa says, pulling out the chair opposite her desk, the one where the beautiful actors sit when they come to meet with her. She sits, too, and we stare at each other. It’s surprising how comforting her gaze feels. “June,” she says, her elbows on the desk, her entire pose comfortable to make me comfortable, even though I know her well enough to know she’s nervous. “I know this is your first time working in an office,” she says. “And when I was your age, I wish people had been straighter with me and not talked in circles. You remember what we promised each other that first day we met?”

“That we’d be honest with each other,” I say.

“Exactly,” Louisa says. “And I was caught off guard last night when Harrison sprung your evening plans on me, but I thought about it some more last night. This isn’t a massive agency with compliance rules and contracts; office romances aren’t forbidden unless you date your direct supervisor, which Harrison isn’t. I just—if it’s anything more than friendship—and you don’t have to tell me anything about any of this, I’m just giving you the heads-up if it’s heading in that direction—I just want you to be smart. You have to know that any office romance can complicate things for you.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurt, my stomach so sick.

She shakes her head. “Please don’t be sorry,” she says. “I just want to talk through it with you. I want you to proceed cautiously, that’s all. And there was this time, and I hate to bring this up . . . Harrison was once involved with an assistant, and it went south quickly and dramatically. It was back when he wasn’t sober yet, and people do change. And if I’d made the decision to get sober, the last thing I’d want is people poisoning a love interest I had with stories from my past. But I care about you and I’m telling you what I know. The assistant no longer works here, and she doesn’t even work in entertainment anymore. I think she moved back home to Nebraska, far as I heard. And the specifics of their relationship or how it ended isn’t something Harrison and I have ever talked about, but the young woman was very shaken.”

I don’t even know how to take that.

“I’ll keep it platonic, friendly,” I say, and it comes out easy. Maybe if I hadn’t met Gabe, I would have had a lovely and romantic and uncomplicated evening with Harrison, and it would have felt like a loss to leave it all behind. But that’s not what happened. “Honestly, Louisa, I’m so mixed up that I’d have to take it super slow and just-friends at first anyway,” I say. “Trust me. I’m kind of a head case right now.”

But how am I going to explain that to Harrison? Why would he ever go for that? Is the pleasure of my company really scintillating enough to make up for the fact that I just want to be all slow and friendly about things at first? Doubtful.

“I do trust you,” says Louisa. Tears well in my eyes. “June,” Louisa says, and her hand goes across her desk to lightly rest on mine. “I’ve made you cry, I’m so sorry.”



“It’s not your fault,” I say. “And I appreciate you looking out for me. I like this job and I don’t want to mess anything up.”

“And to be clear, of course people have had office romances here,” Louisa says. “You know about Sharon and Cassie,” she says, talking about two women who are entertainment lawyers at WTA and who got married last year. “But there’s an age difference and power imbalance between you and Harrison. And as a woman who’s been working in this industry a long time, I want to tell you that this isn’t a good idea.”

I nod. I’m still crying, which is not what I want to be doing.

“I just feel this knot in my stomach about it all,” I say. I wish I could tell her how I felt meeting Gabe, and how that hadn’t happened to me before, and that I couldn’t sleep last night because all I could do was picture his face.

Could I tell her that?

No. I couldn’t. Louisa’s married. Won’t she only see it from that perspective? How terrible a woman has to be to want what’s not hers?

I think of my dad with that woman, how loyal he was. The woman was beautiful—but it didn’t matter to him; he did what was right. I’m just scared I’m more like my mother, so messed up with the constant searching for something—the feeling, the want, the adoration.

I’m worried it’s going to kill me.





THIRTY-ONE


Rowan. Friday afternoon. November 11th.


What about June?” I ask Gabe, petulant as a toddler. We’re in the living room. Lila’s on me, finally asleep, and I rub circles on her back as Gabe paces. I ease onto the sofa, but Gabe doesn’t stop moving.

“What’s wrong with you?” I ask. “And what’s going on with the birth certificate? You could have said something before if you didn’t like the idea of using Gray for Lila’s middle name.”

“I did say something,” he says, exasperated, still pacing like a madman. “I’m sorry if you don’t remember, but we talked all the time about using Grace for Lila’s middle name.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, but I don’t sound sorry at all. “I don’t remember.”

He looks away, toward the bay window and out to the gray bricks of the neighboring building. There aren’t many stellar views from the sixth floor. “You don’t remember,” he says into the dead air of our apartment. He turns back to me. “And now here we are.” He rakes his dark hair with his hands like he’s furious, and then he starts to cry.