Do This For Me Read online

  Brave? Not really. Jonathan knew he couldn’t hurt my feelings, just as I couldn’t hurt his. We were all that way, those of us who had come up through the associate ranks together. We’d spent hours parsing ambiguous praise from our overlords, arguing arcane points of procedure and supporting one another in times of trouble—the death of my grandmother, the end of Jonathan’s first marriage, the mistake that nearly got Wally fired. We were a family, a diverse, slightly demented tribe with vicious in-jokes and perpetual grievances and undying loyalty. Complete honesty was what we wanted, and what we knew to expect from each other.

  “So I’m no beauty queen,” I said. “It’s not like anything’s changed.”

  Jonathan wasn’t buying it. “We’re getting older. Everyone needs to make more of an effort. I remember a time when you were almost—almost—fuckable. Now look at you. No makeup. Boring clothes. Your hair is, like…I don’t even know what that is.”

  “You’re being so sexist right now,” I told him.

  “Uh, sorry, no. Sexist would be me pussyfooting around and not telling you the truth, because you’re a girl and you might get your feelings hurt.” He jerked his head toward Wally. “I’d be equally straightforward with this foul slob.”

  “I’m as beautiful as an angel,” Wally said.

  “You have a busted face and clown hair,” Jonathan informed him. “How you convince your wife to sleep with you is an utter mystery to me.”

  Wally smiled at him serenely. “I’ll give you a hint, my boy. One word. Four syllables. Rhymes with ‘schmunnilingus.’ ”

  “You are being sexist,” I said. “Listen to what you’re saying, Jonathan. I’m a woman, and my life has gone haywire. Why? Because I don’t pay enough attention to my appearance. I’m supposed to change, to make myself more attractive—if not for Aaron, because of Aaron.”

  “Duck and cover, Tatey,” Wally advised him.

  “That’s not what I’m saying,” Jonathan said. “I’m saying—”

  “It’s outrageous,” I said. “I reject it. I reject that narrative.”

  “Good for you,” Wally said. “You’re right—we only see one side of you. To Aaron, you may have been the shit. You may have been the hottest thing going.”

  “Exactly!” I paused. “But then why did he cheat?”

  Wally glanced at Jonathan, Jonathan at Wally. They turned to me, helpless.

  “We have no idea.”

  TEN

  I was hurrying down Chapel Street when my phone rang. I fished it out of my backpack. “I’m almost there.”

  “What about O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Aaron said.

  I entered the shop and scanned the shelves. “Checked out.” I’d walked too fast, and now I started to cough.

  “Are you still sick? What did the doctor say?”

  “I haven’t gone yet.”

  “Raney,” he chided me. “You’re not taking care of yourself.”

  “What’s the point, when you’re not here?”

  I’d meant to sound playful. It came out pathetic. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I feel the same way.”

  I was in a video store in New Haven. Aaron was in a video store in Palo Alto. Both are long gone, no doubt. But for a few months back in 2001, we more or less kept them in business.

  “How’s the weather?” I asked.

  “Warm. Sunny. I hate it. Do they have Scream 2?”

  I asked. The guy behind the counter shook his head. “Checked out,” I told Aaron.

  We were renting a movie. Specifically, we were renting two copies of the same movie, which we would then take back to our separate apartments and watch, staying on the phone the entire time. That way, we could talk, and laugh, and pretend that the other was right there beside us, instead of three hours and three thousand miles away.

  “What about American Beauty?” I said.

  “We saw it in the theater, remember?”

  In the four years since we met, Aaron and I had been pretty much inseparable. Evenings, weekends, holidays and school breaks—if we weren’t in class, we were together. After we graduated, he followed me to Yale and did a year of postgraduate work while I started law school.

  Now we were apart. A month earlier he’d moved to California to start his Ph.D. program. The change was abrupt, and upsetting. We had postcards and letters, e-mails and phone calls. We’d have visits, too, but those hadn’t started yet.

  In the meantime, Aaron came up with Transcontinental Movie Night. This would be our seventh venture. It was fun, for the two hours it lasted. It provided the illusion of normalcy, of togetherness. But when the credits rolled, and we hung up, the separation was worse than ever.

  “I hate this,” I whispered.

  He sighed. “Me too.”

  His departure had made me realize that my life, which had seemed continuous, coherent, was actually two lives: the life before Aaron, and the life that started when he came up to me at that party. The life before was…well, it was a little dull. I had friends. I had a species of fun. But my attention was always focused on what was coming. The next exam, the next scholarship application, the next acceptance letter.

  Aaron made me ease up and look around. He made me laugh. He showed me a world I’d been too busy to notice. I still worked hard, I still focused on the future, but when I was finished, Aaron was there.

  Until now.

  “How could you leave?” I blurted out.

  The guy behind the counter looked up. I pushed through the door, brushing away my tears.

  “Oh, Raney.” Aaron’s voice was so kind. “I didn’t leave. Not really. This is temporary. It’s—”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing without you!”

  “We should have picked the same school,” he said. “What were we thinking?”

  I slumped down on a bench. “We weren’t.”

  “I’ll come back.” He sounded resolute. It cheered me, even though I knew it was impossible. Stanford had wooed him. He was going to be a star.

  “You can’t,” I said. “You need to be there, and I need to be here. But it’s hard.”

  “Only for a few years. We’ll see each other every other month, and be together in the summers. It’s bad now, but we’ll get used to it.”

  “No, we won’t,” I grumbled.

  “Okay, we won’t. But it will get easier. And one day it will end, and we’ll be together.”

  “You’re coming for Columbus Day, right?”

  “Already bought a ticket.”

  “Let’s not watch a movie tonight.”

  “Fine by me,” he said. “We’ll just talk.”

  I felt my cough rising up again. I fought it down. I’d go to the doctor tomorrow.

  “I’m here, Raney,” he said. “I’m not there, but I’m here. With you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * *

  —

  Thursday morning. A team meeting in my office.

  “Where are we on the Griswold stipulation?” I asked.

  Stephen consulted his notes. Rahsaan lounged on the window ledge. Amanda perched on the sofa, all eagerness and pen at the ready. Jisun, my fourth-year and secret favorite, sat in the chair opposite Stephen, blade straight and missing nothing.

  We discussed the stipulation, then moved on to the next case. I half listened. After thinking over what Wally and Jonathan had said, I’d gone back to Brooklyn last night, taken off my clothes and inspected myself in the mirror.

  On the plus side? I was basically normal looking. No strange tics or obvious flaws. My hazel eyes were pretty. I had decent teeth. And despite years of sleep deprivation, lack of exercise and poor eating habits, I managed to look young for my age.

  On the minus side? I was basically normal looking. My hair, which used to be stra
wberry blonde, had faded to a kind of sad beige. It was frizzy and indifferently cut. My face was…a face. My body was scrawny in some places, flabby in others. Breasts: meh. Bottom: meh.

  Overall assessment: meh.

  I wasn’t insecure about my looks. I was secure in the fact that I didn’t have any. I’d known I was plain since the second grade. That was the year Derek Frasier sat next to me. He was such a cute kid. Black hair, blue eyes. Freckles. He’d always ignored me. One day, he leaned into the aisle.

  “I went to the zoo this weekend,” he said.

  I smiled, surprised, uncertain. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I saw a frog there that looked just like you.”

  Then he laughed, showing me his even, white teeth.

  I went home that afternoon and spent some time in front of the mirror. I could see what he was talking about. My eyes were too big for my round face. My mouth was wide, my chin pointed. I loosened my tight pigtails so that my hair fluffed out around my face.

  Didn’t help.

  Every girl has this story, right? Every girl has been teased about her face, or her height, or her hair, or her weight. I got over it. My strengths lay elsewhere.

  Stephen and Rahsaan were arguing about deposition scheduling. My phone pinged.

  —How’s everything?

  I didn’t recognize the number. My stomach did a flip. Was it Tom Nicholson, back to wreak more havoc? I took a deep breath and typed:

  —Who is this?

  —Mickey Singer. From Hyperium.

  What a relief. Now I could be annoyed for a completely different reason. I hate texting with clients. It’s too informal. Want to confirm a call or set up a meeting? Fine. But let’s not conduct substantive discussions on tiny screens with our thumbs.

  He wrote again:

  —Have you beaten our foe into submission yet?

  What a comedian.

  —I spoke with plaintiff’s counsel yesterday. He agreed to an extension of our time to answer the complaint. We confirmed with a letter.

  —Great. Can you forward it to me?

  Singer wanted a copy of a two-line letter memorializing a three-minute conversation? Before I could answer, he wrote again.

  —Have your minions had any luck w/ legal research?

  I needed to shut this down.

  —Will call you with update in 10.

  —Why, you miss the sound of my voice?

  That made me laugh. My associates looked at me with surprise. I didn’t feel like explaining, so I said, “Who wants to help with a presentation for the city bar association on the useless new class action rules?”

  “Way to sell it,” Rahsaan said. They all laughed. Amanda raised her hand.

  “Thanks. Jisun, tell us about progress in the Starworth case.”

  —I’m afraid I don’t remember your voice.

  —No? Most people find it appealing. Inspiring.

  —Fascinating.

  —That too.

  —I offered to call because texting is a waste of time.

  —What?? Texting is fun!

  —You know my hourly rate, right?

  —$900 or something outrageous like that.

  —$920. Applies to texting.

  —Does it also apply to shoe repair? I’ve got a loafer with a worn-out heel…

  “—and I told him if they refused, we’d file a motion to compel,” Jisun concluded.

  I tore my eyes away from my phone. “Nicely done. Let me know if I need to follow up.”

  —Sorry. Can’t help you with that.

  —I bet you can. I bet you’ve got hidden talents.

  I studied the bubble of text. Was Singer flirting with me? I looked up, feeling absurdly guilty, as if my screen was projected overhead for all to see. My associates were paying no attention, of course.

  I started to reply. I stopped.

  He wasn’t flirting with me. Nobody flirted with me.

  Stephen tapped his pen on his legal pad. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Great.” I dropped my phone into a drawer. “Thanks, everyone.”

  * * *

  —

  A few hours later, Cameron entered my office, sat down, clicked his pen and opened a binder with a flourish.

  “Infidelity,” he announced.

  I eased into my favorite thinking posture: chair tilted back, feet on my desk.

  “The existing therapeutic-slash-sociological literature classifies extramarital affairs as falling into six different categories.”

  “Six is a lot,” I remarked.

  He held up an ink-stained finger. “First, you’ve got your conflict avoidance affair. This is when one partner doesn’t know how to deal with bad shit—can’t communicate, can’t solve problems—and signals his or her dissatisfaction by having sex with someone else.”

  “Aaron and I had no communication problems. Next?”

  He held up a second finger. “The intimacy avoidance affair. Here, one spouse is terrified of opening up to the other emotionally, so he or she creates barriers to intimacy by having sex with someone else.”

  “Not Aaron. He’s earnest, forthcoming. Totally sincere.”

  Cameron turned a page. “Okay, how about number three, the exit affair? One partner wants outsies and forces it by having sex with someone else.”

  “Can’t be. He’s begging me to take him back.”

  “Here’s number four: the double-life affair. This is when someone has a comfortable, basically content marriage, at the same time that they’re conducting a long-term romance on the side.”

  “It only happened once. And again, that doesn’t sound like Aaron.”

  Cameron made a note. “Number five. The entitlement affair. This is when one spouse is powerful, perhaps well known. He thinks he can do as he pleases, which—”

  “That can’t be it,” I said.

  Cameron eyed me uncertainly. “Feel free to speak your mind,” I told him.

  “Well…” He shifted in his chair. “He won a Pulitzer. He’s got a TV show. He’s kind of famous, right? Maybe he felt like he could—”

  “He didn’t,” I said. “He wouldn’t.”

  Don’t think it hadn’t occurred to me. Something highly unusual had happened to Aaron. He’d become someone. A well-known writer and speaker. A personality. People cared about what he said, and did, and thought. He had geeky groupies. He was regularly turned into memes.

  I saw how the public responded to him—but I also saw how he responded to fame. Far from becoming arrogant, or overly impressed with himself, he seemed uncomfortable. Vaguely embarrassed. He loved his work, he loved insects, and the planet. Adulation was not his thing.

  “Let’s move on,” I said.

  Cameron turned another page. “Finally, you’ve got your sex addicts—people who are psychologically compelled to screw around.”

  “Impossible. Aaron likes sex, of course, but he had no need to go elsewhere for it. We had plenty of sex. We…”

  I stopped. I was crossing a line. Of course, I’d recently engaged Cameron to help me burn Aaron’s life down, and now I was employing him as my personal infidelity researcher. Crossing lines was becoming something of a habit. Still, this felt different.

  “You don’t need to hear about my sex life.”

  “It’s no big deal, Boss. We’re talking about infidelity, after all. Sex is bound to pop up.” Cameron smiled. “No pun intended.”

  I was confused. “How is that a pun?”

  His smile faded. “I…I don’t know,” he stammered. “It isn’t.”

  I frowned at the ceiling. “Nothing in your taxonomy seems to fit my case.”

  “Have you…” He cleared his throat. “I mean, have you asked him?”

  I sat up, drawing my chair close to my desk. “Not yet. But I will, obviously. This is a good start. Keep going.
Focus on the question of why.”

  He scribbled quickly. I thought of something Wally had said.

  “What’s a rim job?”

  Cameron’s pen froze.

  “Cameron?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “You’ve never heard of it?”

  “Nope!”

  “Sounds automotive, doesn’t it?”

  “Um, yeah!”

  “I should ask my friend Sarah.”

  “You should,” he said. “You should definitely ask Sarah.”

  * * *

  —

  That night, Jorge picked me up on the way back from Westchester. “How was your day?” I asked the girls.

  “Eh,” said Maisie, frowning at her phone.

  “So-so,” said Kate, staring out the window.

  “Is everything all right?”

  Maisie drooped against the seat. “This commute is a huge bummer, Mom.”

  “We spend half the day in the car,” Kate added.

  Just the opening I was looking for. “Why don’t we find you a school in the city? Park Slope has some fantastic—”

  “No!”

  I backed off. Maisie’s attention returned to her screen.

  “Dad’s been disinvited to a bunch of conferences,” she said. “There are, like, a million online petitions trying to get PBS to drop his show.”

  I pulled a binder out of my bag and opened it. I felt Kate’s eyes on me.

  “Do you think maybe you should do something about that, Mom?”

  Before I could answer, we arrived at the house. A man in a navy jumpsuit was standing on the stoop, nose pressed to the window. I hurried up the steps. “Can I help you?”

  He turned to me. Mustachioed. Red-faced. His breast pocket said “Department of Buildings.” He was holding a clipboard.

  A clipboard. That’s never a good sign.

  “You the owner?” he said. “Mind if I take a look around?”