“Serious?” I ask.
“Very,” she answers. “Was,” she modifies. “Was very. At least I thought. Now it’s …” she tails off.
“Over.”
“Takes two to tango,” she says. “He isn’t interested in dancing anymore.”
“Well … these things happen.”
“They never happened to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was in love with him.” A silent pause. “I thought I was in love with him. Maybe I just wanted to be in love with him. It doesn’t matter anyway; not now.”
“How did he feel?”
“He said he was.” Another pause. She’s hearing herself as she tells me; some of this may be coming to her for the first time, even as she articulates it out loud, now. “He probably was. He’s not much of a dissembler, even if he is a chicken-shit son of a bitch.”
That’s the girl—get mad. Healthiest thing in the world. It isn’t your fault.
“Okay,” I say. “You had an affair …”
“Not just an affair, for Christsakes! An affair with a married man, who happens to be my boss.”
“It generally isn’t considered an affair if one or both of you isn’t married,” I inform her. “Otherwise it’s just fucking.”
“Oh …”
“So you had an affair with this guy at work …”
“My boss …”
“With your boss, which, by the way, is the most common kind …”
“Thanks. In other words I’m not even special,” she complains, starting to fall back into self-deprecation.
“You’re special, Patricia,” I assure her. “It’s just your affair that isn’t.”
“Whatever. I don’t see much difference.”
“You will,” I say. “Someday, when you’re over it.”
“Wonderful,” she exclaims bitterly.
Fuck. Why are you laying this on my head, lady? We’re divorced, remember? Long, long time. I’m not supposed to have to put up with this kind of shit anymore. I’ve got enough shit of my own to handle.
I don’t say that. I can’t. She is the mother of my child, now and forever. I will always be there for her, if only because I have to be there for Claudia.
“So you and your boss had an affair,” I continue, bringing it back to the center, “and it’s over. What does that have to do with your being fired?”
“Because we both can’t be in the same workplace anymore,” she says. “It’s too uncomfortable.”
“Too uncomfortable? Come on.”
“It is. That’s what he told me.”
“
He
told
you?
”
“When he told me he was letting me go.”
“Which was when?”
“This morning … last night … I mean we talked about it last night but then we talked about it again this morning. That’s when he said he was going to have to.”
She starts sniffling again. I wait until she gets it under control.
“He’s firing you because he’s uncomfortable having you around?” I ask, as gently as possible.
She nods over the phone. “It’s too hard on him. He says he can’t work with me around. He can’t take the guilt—that’s what he tells me—told me,” she says, putting it already in the past. “He feels uncomfortable whenever he sees me. Because he still wants me,” she adds. “He told me that.”
“Well. Isn’t that a crying shame.”
“What?” she asks.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Is there an echo on this line? You. How do
you
feel?” I say to her.
“Awful.”
“Besides that. Could you still do your work? Seeing him around, still wanting him?”
“It’s hard.”
“Can you?”
“Yes,” she answers finally. She had to think about it. “I’d still get my work done.”
“So the bottom line is he’s firing you because you make him uncomfortable. Nothing to do with your performance on the job.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then,” I say, “I’ve got a very easy answer to this problem.”
I hear the pause.
“You do?”
“Yes.” I take a moment; I am, first and foremost, a litigator. “Let
him
quit.”
“I don’t think I heard you.”
“Yes you did.”
“Did you say ‘let
him
quit’?”
“See? You did hear me.”
Another pause.
“That’s … impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because … it just is.”
Again: “Why?”
“Because. It’s his firm. He’s the boss. He hired me. He can fire me.”
“The fuck he can!”
“Will. It’s his firm. He’s the senior senior.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s the fucking Pope,” I tell her. “He can’t fire you for that.”
“Well,” she says timidly, after another pause. “If you’re talking legally …”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking. I’m a lawyer, that’s the talk I talk.”
Silence.
“Who hit on who first?” I ask.
“Who …”
“Come on, Patricia. If you want me to help you, don’t waste my time.”
“He did.”
“It wasn’t mutual.”
“I liked him. I found him … I find him attractive. Still. But he’s married, I wouldn’t start something.” She pauses. “You know me.”
Do I ever.
“Yeh. It’s not your style, going after married men.”
“No.”
“Just wanted to make sure. You’ve been going through lots of changes this past year.”
“Not this,” she assures me.
“Yeh, I know.” That goes too deep. “Okay. So your married boss made a play for you, you turned him down … did you?”
“The first time.”
“Right. You turned him down but he kept trying. Because he couldn’t help himself. He had to be with you.”
“That’s what he said. Practically word for word,” she adds, hearing the ironic cynicism.
What mortal shits men are.
“And his marriage was starting to go bad,” I continue.
“It is bad,” she says.
“This is public knowledge?”
“He told me.”
Fucking Joby. No straight shooter he after all.
“He was going to leave her,” I say. “Whether you were in the picture or not. His marriage was over.”
“You know all the lines, don’t you?” she asks, anger in her voice.
“I know them, but I’ve never used them. Not those.”
“Sorry.”
“And you believed him,” I continue.
Total honesty: “I wanted to.”
My heart breaks for her, long distance.
“I’m sorry, Patricia.”
“It’s not your fault,” she says softly. I can hear the tears starting to creep into her voice again.
“No crying,” I plead. “Not now.”
“Okay.” Gathering herself. “All right.”
“My gender,” I say. “I’m apologizing for my gender.”
“Yes. For that, yes.”
“Patricia …”
“What, Will?”
“Do you want to hold onto your job? Keep working there?”
“Yes, of course. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.”
“And you can do quality work even with him around? Even with him in your face?”
“Yes.” With some determination, the first time I’ve heard that in her voice. “It wouldn’t be easy, at least not now, but of course I could. I’m a professional.”
Where have I heard that line before?
“Who knows about this?” I ask.
“The affair? Or that he’s firing me?”
“Either. Both. The affair.”
“No one … that I know of,” she says. “I mean I didn’t tell anyone. We were extremely discreet.”
But of course. Married senior partners having affairs with coworkers are usually extremely discreet.
“I’m sure he didn’t tell anyone,” she assures me; perversely assures herself.
“Including his wife,” I say.
“Definitely not his wife.”
I nod; I feel good, talking to her like this, giving her wise counsel.
“You should tell his wife,” I inform her.
“Will!”
“You owe it to her,” I say. “As one woman to another.”
“I don’t think so,” she answers reluctantly, after a decent pause. I’m setting wheels turning.
“You don’t think she should know that her husband’s fucking around on her?” I ask.
“Well …”
“With a junior member of his firm? Who he personally hired, from hundreds of miles away?”
“He didn’t hire me so he could … have sex with me,” she says.
I can hear the bell going off in her head: did he? Was that why? How far back does this go? Was I always just a piece of ass, from the first time I walked in his office, looking for a job? Was it any part, even one percent?
“Of course not,” I say reassuringly. “But it did happen. And as one caring woman to another, maybe she should be told,” I tell Patricia. “For her own good,” I add.
“I don’t know how good it would be for her,” Patricia says. “I think it would devastate her.”
“Then maybe ol’ Joby should’ve thought of that before he started having an affair with you,” I say.
She doesn’t answer.
“What about the other senior partners? Shouldn’t they be told?” I ask.
“Are you serious?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” I say. “This is the kind of thing that can ruin a firm. Not the affair per se,” I add, “that happens, we’re none of us perfect. The lying, the bullshit. Taking advantage of a junior partner.”
“He didn’t take advantage of me … not really. I went into it with my eyes open,” she says.
“The hell you did,” I say. “You fell for him and you had every reason to believe he fell for you and he played you for a fool and now that it’s over he’s dumping you, and not only dumping you, but depriving you of your livelihood. If that isn’t fucking somebody over, kiddo, I don’t know what is.”
I can hear her thinking. “If you put it that way …”
“This is the twentieth century, Patricia. Practically the twenty-first. Haven’t you heard of sexual harassment?”
“Of course, but …”
“But me no buts. He can’t fire you because he doesn’t feel like fucking you anymore …”
“Oh he still feels like doing that …”
“Because of whatever. He’s afraid to divorce his wife, he’s afraid he’ll get hurt in the firm, he’s afraid it’ll cost him money, whatever. It doesn’t matter. He flat-out can’t do it.”
“So … what do I do?”
“Has he talked to anyone about firing you?”
There’s a pause. “I don’t think so,” she says, somewhat tentatively.
“Maybe?”
“No.” More positive. “We talked about it over drinks last night.”
“Over drinks?” I blurt.
“I didn’t know,” she answers defensively. “I thought it was same as always.”
“What a prick. I’m sorry,” I say, “but that’s crap.”
Softly: “I know. I felt like throwing my drink in his face.”
“Good you didn’t. For now. Anyway, so far it’s just you and him. And me,” I throw in.
“Yes. He wants it to be as smooth—that’s wrong, as contained as we—he—can make it. He doesn’t want to hurt my career …”
“Ha!” I interject.
“He just doesn’t want me in the same firm. He’s going to help me get another job first. And then …”
“A nice smooth-over, amicable parting. For the public.”
“Something like that.” Even as she mouths the words, she hears their hollowness, their hypocrisy.
Shades of my own experience with Andy and Fred. There is symmetry in the universe, more and more I’m convinced of that.
“So … what should I do?” she concludes, practically begging me on her hands and knees over the wire. “I can’t stay here, Will. Not for long. It’s been hell, just this one day. I can’t take a week or however long it takes me to get another job. If I can get one,” she adds, “remotely as good as this one.”
“Very simple,” I say. “What you do is, you go into his office, you close the door, you tell him politely to ask his secretary to hold all his calls, which he will do with alacrity, and then you tell him that you like your job and you’ve decided to keep it. That you are keeping it. You have no intention of doing him harm in any way. You don’t want any money, you don’t want his wife to know about what happened, ditto his partners, all you want is to be allowed to do the job he hired you to do without being discriminated against because of the difference between the two of you, the difference of the one XY chromosome. That if he acts professionally in this matter, so will you, and it will be a closed chapter. Very calmly and professionally, you tell him this. And very calmly and professionally, you also inform him that if this is not acceptable to him, for any reason, you will have no alternative but to tell his wife what happened, and his partners, and the Washington State bar association, and maybe even a reporter or two. You don’t want to do this, make sure he knows that, because you don’t, but you’re not going to let him fire you. It’s your job and he can’t kiss you off because he wants those perfect tits and his Protestant guilt won’t let him. He’s got a problem, and you’re not going to let him compound it by scapegoating someone who’s doing her job, who uprooted herself and her child, who destroyed her child’s ongoing relationship with her father, who misses her terribly …”
“Will,” she says, interrupting. “You know I feel awful about that.”
“Yes, I do. I’m saying I want him to know.” And you, too, Patricia. You, too.
“In other words,” I conclude, “you are not going to put up with this shit. Not one ounce worth. If push comes to shove, you will file a sexual-harassment case against him and his high-falutin’ firm. Period, over and out.”
“I don’t know, Will …”
“You’d rather be fired.”
“No! … I mean … I’m scared. You know how I hate confrontations.”
“It’s your life.”
“Maybe I should have stayed in the appeals division,” she laments. “Maybe that’s where I belong.”
Ah so. Now we’re getting at the truth behind the truth. The innate fear that deep down she is an unworthy piece of shit who doesn’t deserve this. She’s been doing government work all her life, you start to think that’s where you belong forever. You lose your balls.
But it isn’t true. Any of us deserves it as much as anyone else, I swear to you, Patricia, you do. You wouldn’t be there otherwise. So don’t crap out on me, Patricia, I beg silently. Don’t crap out on yourself. On our daughter.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “But I don’t think so. That’s just my opinion, but I don’t think so.”
There’s a pause.
“All right,” she says finally. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good.”
“I’m glad we talked,” she says.
“So am I. And I know you’ll come to the right decision. Whatever it is.”