Chapter Twenty-Six
Chap-ter Twenty-Six
T hat night, af-ter wa-ter-ing the white jas-mine, she’d rushed to get dressed and raced to tem-ple. Walk-ing in five min-utes late, she tried to slide into her seat un-ob-tru-sively while the rabbi was read-ing one of the open-ing prayers. A move-ment to her left caused her to look up just as Adam slid into the seat next to her. Her mouth dropped.
“What are you do-ing here?” she hissed.
He leaned for-ward, pulled out the prayer book and opened it to the cor-rect page. Hand-ing it to her, he reached for an-other book for him-self be-fore an-swer-ing her.
“At-tend-ing ser-vices.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
He looked over at her and held her gaze for a mo-ment. “Then don’t. It’s rude to talk through ser-vices any-way.”
God, he was in-fu-ri-at-ing. She’d move, but that would call at-ten-tion to her and to him, and she’d al-ready walked in five min-utes late.
For the rest of the ser-vice, Dina couldn’t fo-cus on any-thing but Adam—his prox-im-ity to her, his smell, his deep voice slightly off-key. When they dav-ened in prayer and bowed be-fore the ark, she no-ticed the tips of his shoes, highly pol-ished, like him. When they stood, his shoul-der brushed against hers, as if he knew how hard it was for her to be away from him.
When the ser-vice fi-nally ended, he turned to her.
“Shab-bat Shalom, Dina.”
It was the tra-di-tional thing to say to each other on Shab-bat. It would be rude not to re-spond.
“Shab-bat Shalom, Adam.”
He turned and walked out of the sanc-tu-ary and into the so-cial hall for the oneg. She fol-lowed him, de-spite her de-sire to make a run for it. Un-for-tu-nately, Re-becca and her fam-ily weren’t here tonight and the rabbi had seen her, so if she left, it would be ob-vi-ous. She sighed and took her cup of wine to say the prayers. When they fin-ished, Adam took her empty cup and threw it away for her, even though she hadn’t asked him to. Af-ter the prayer over the chal-lah, the rabbi walked over to her.
“Hello, Dina.”
“Shab-bat Shalom, rabbi.”
Adam leaned for-ward. “Shab-bat Shalom, rabbi. I’m Adam.”
The rabbi looked be-tween the two of them. “Nice to meet you, Adam. I think I’ve seen you here be-fore with Dina?”
Dina’s cheeks heated.
“Yes. She’s an-gry at me right now, and we’re not to-gether, but I’m hop-ing to change that.”
Dina couldn’t pre-vent her jaw from drop-ping.
The rabbi’s eyes twin-kled with amuse-ment. “I like your hon-esty,” she said, with a wink at Dina. “But per-haps you should be talk-ing to her in-stead of me.”
“I in-tend to,” he said, pin-ning Dina with a look that promised he’d get his way. “But in the mean-time, I’m wait-ing.”
“Go-ing to be wait-ing a long time,” Dina mut-tered un-der her breath.
The rabbi chuck-led. “Well, as it says in Pirkei Avot , ‘Do not be con-temp-tu-ous of any per-son, and don’t re-move your-self from any-thing, for ev-ery per-son has his mo-ment and ev-ery-thing has its place.’ Good luck, Dina.”
The rabbi walked away, leav-ing Dina and Adam alone.
“I don’t ap-pre-ci-ate your speak-ing about me to my rabbi,” she said to Adam, look-ing straight ahead and count-ing the stripes in the wall-pa-per on the far wall. Any-thing to avoid his gaze.
“You used to not like when I kept our re-la-tion-ship quiet,” he said. She could feel the air around her con-strict as he took a step closer to her, an al-most phys-i-cal charge zing-ing be-tween his chest and her arm.
“I am not get-ting back to-gether with you,” she said, open-ing and clos-ing her hands at her sides as she wished for some-thing to do with them, other than stran-gling him. There were too many wit-nesses.
“I just want to talk to you.”
“You al-ready are. And I’m not in-ter-ested in hav-ing a con-ver-sa-tion with some-one who doesn’t trust me.”
“Then I’ll wait,” he said and took a step back. A cool-ness wrapped around her like a shawl, and for a brief mo-ment she wanted to pull him closer to her. But that would be ridicu-lous. Be-cause she was still an-gry at him.
A man Dina rec-og-nized as some-one from Broth-er-hood ap-proached.
“Hi, I’m Dave,” he said to Adam and held out his hand as he nod-ded to Dina. “Wel-come to Tem-ple Tik-vah. Are you in-ter-ested in Broth-er-hood events? We have a break-fast com-ing up in a week.”
Adam shook Dave’s hand. “Oh yeah? That sounds great. I’d love in-for-ma-tion about it. I’m Adam Man-del, by the way, a friend of Dina’s.”
“Nice to meet you. Dina, the break-fast is ac-tu-ally open to ev-ery-one, if you’d like to join us.”
She plas-tered a smile on her face. “Thanks, I’ll think about it.”
As Dave walked away, she stalked to the door. This was ridicu-lous. She couldn’t take any more of it.
Adam rushed to keep up with her, his long legs mak-ing it easy.
“Leave me alone, Adam. You’ve had your fun.”
He jumped for-ward un-til he could block her way. She thought about skirt-ing around him, but he folded his arms and looked at her like he’d like noth-ing bet-ter than to pick her up and dan-gle her in the air if she tried to get away.
“I’m not hav-ing fun, Dina. I’m try-ing to apol-o-gize. But you won’t let me.”
“No you’re not. You’re try-ing to make an im-pres-sion—with me and those ridicu-lous flow-ers, with my rabbi and with ev-ery-one at my tem-ple. But what you don’t get is I’m not in-ter-ested. I’m done. So you need to stop and leave me alone.”
She re-moved her heels and ran out of the syn-a-gogue, leav-ing Adam in the shad-ows.
On Mon-day, Adam passed the li-brary on his way to his fa-ther’s of-fice. He shook his head as he re-mem-bered Fri-day night in the syn-a-gogue. For a man who’d re-fused to al-low a woman to ever walk out on him again, he sure was fail-ing when it came to Dina. Be-cause she’d walked out on him twice so far.
Each time she left, the in-vis-i-ble bands around his chest tight-ened. And this lat-est time had left him with the knowl-edge that not only wasn’t there any-thing he could do about it, most likely, he was go-ing to have to suf-fer through it sev-eral more times, be-cause as he’d said to her rabbi, he was hop-ing she’d come back to him and he was go-ing to be pa-tient. And you didn’t lie to a rabbi.
He parked his car in the park-ing garage, in the spa-ces des-ig-nated for vis-i-tors to his fa-ther’s firm and swal-lowed the bile the rose in his throat. His fa-ther’s sec-re-tary had called him to this com-mand per-for-mance, in a suit, no less. He pulled on his blue silk tie be-fore read-just-ing it in the rearview mir-ror, left his car and took the el-e-va-tor up to the firm’s floor. There was no need to give his name to the re-cep-tion-ist, but he did any-way. There was noth-ing stop-ping him from walk-ing in like he be-longed—ex-cept he didn’t. So he waited for di-rec-tion and tried to keep his toe from tap-ping or his fin-gers from fid-dling with his tie.
A mo-ment later, his fa-ther’s sec-re-tary opened the door. “Come on in, Adam. Your fa-ther is in the con-fer-ence room.”
Adam fol-lowed her down the war-ren of hall-ways to the glassed-in con-fer-ence room. At the head of the teak ta-ble was his fa-ther. Seated around the ta-ble were the se-nior part-ners and stand-ing be-hind them were the part-ners and ju-nior part-ners. Adam swal-lowed as his throat went dry. When she opened the door, there was no other re-course than to en-ter. James was there as well.
Great, I’ve been in-vited to watch James as he’s given the ju-nior part-ner po-si-tion. Thanks, Dad.
He leaned against the wall, hop-ing not to be no-ticed.
His fa-ther rose and the room grew silent.
“About a month ago, a for-mer para-le-gal claimed—for the sec-ond time—that my son had not given her a mo-tion to file. Two dif-fer-ent cases, two dif-fer-ent out-comes, nei-ther of them good. De-spite my son’s protests oth-er-wise, she swore he’d never given her the ma-te-rial. She also said he was throw-ing her un-der the bus. As a re-sult, the en-tire para-le-gal de-part-ment banded to-gether in her de-fense. She had a plau-si-ble story, he had a prob-lem-atic rep-u-ta-tion and while there was no way to ver-ify her claim, there was no way to re-fute it, ei-ther. And so I, as the head of this firm, fired my son. I put the well-be-ing of this firm above my love for my son,” he paused and cleared his throat be-fore con-tin-u-ing, “some-thing for which I will be for-ever ashamed.”
Adam’s pulse pounded in his ears. It was the only sound, as the rest of the room was silent.
Noah looked down, be-fore rais-ing his head and meet-ing the gaze of ev-ery-one in the room. When he reached Adam, he paused, nod-ded and con-tin-ued.
“It took an-other woman, my son’s ex-girl-friend, to make me see the er-ror of my ways. In the process, she pro-vided proof—proof I should have been able to find—that Adam is com-pletely in-no-cent. His ac-cuser made up the story in or-der to try to get an-other man in this firm the pro-mo-tion, and hope-fully, to get him in-ter-ested in her.”
Adam stag-gered and reached be-hind him to hold onto the wall. His fa-ther had just ad-mit-ted a mis-take to ev-ery-one in this room.
“Prior to the ac-cu-sa-tions, both Adam and James were be-ing con-sid-ered for ju-nior part-ner. The ac-cu-sa-tion, and his sub-se-quent dis-missal, re-moved my son from con-sid-er-a-tion. The ac-cuser’s re-tal-i-a-tion in-cluded poi-son-ing other firms against my son, mak-ing it im-pos-si-ble for him to find an-other job.”
Ev-ery-one turned to look at each other, and Adam saw the shock on their faces. A few, who no-ticed him, looked sym-pa-thetic. Some, like Paul and John, who had avoided him, looked em-bar-rassed.
“As of to-day, we are su-ing Ash-ley Pe-ters for slan-der. We are tak-ing out a full-page ad in all the ma-jor law pub-li-ca-tions re-fut-ing the charges, stand-ing be-hind Adam and restor-ing his rep-u-ta-tion. I will be ask-ing Adam for a list of all the firms he’s sub-mit-ted ré-sumés to and will per-son-ally call their man-ag-ing part-ners to ex-plain the sit-u-a-tion. Then Adam will have a choice. He can re-turn to work here as a ju-nior part-ner—James, you will keep your new ti-tle as well, how-ever you will be on pro-ba-tion be-cause of your ties to Ash-ley—or he can work for any other firm he chooses. The choice will be his. But should he choose to re-join us, he will be wel-comed by all with open arms.”
One by one, ev-ery-one in the room be-gan to clap, un-til the sound of hands to-gether was deaf-en-ing. Those who were seated, rose. Those who knew Adam was in the room turned to-ward him and even-tu-ally, ev-ery-one was clap-ping at him. He bowed his head un-til the room si-lenced. Then, he walked to his fa-ther.
“You and I have had our dif-fer-ences over the years,” he said, “ and I sus-pect we will con-tinue to have them. But it takes an hon-or-able man to pub-licly ad-mit when he’s wrong. I ap-pre-ci-ate what you’ve said, and I’d be happy to ac-cept the po-si-tion of ju-nior part-ner here. How-ever, as much as I owe my fa-ther re-spect for what he has said to-day, I would not be here if it weren’t for Dina Ja-cobs. She be-lieved in me from the very be-gin-ning, even when our re-la-tion-ship was new and she could have eas-ily walked away and as-sumed the worst. But she didn’t. And af-ter we broke up, which was com-pletely my fault, she had a choice. She could have kept her knowl-edge to her-self, writ-ten me off and for-got-ten all about me. But in-stead, she went to my fa-ther. Now, as I’m sure all of you have fig-ured out, my fa-ther isn’t the eas-i-est man to con-front.”
A smat-ter-ing of laugh-ter met Adam’s re-mark and he smiled.
“But she didn’t let him in-tim-i-date her. She went to him and told him of his er-ror, and she did it in a way that made him lis-ten to her and even be-lieve her. I’m sure most of you will be-lieve me when I say that’s not an easy thing to do. But she did it.”
He looked at his fa-ther and for the first time saw ad-mi-ra-tion—for him.
“My fa-ther’s big-gest re-gret might be not be-liev-ing in me, but mine is not be-liev-ing in Dina. You all gave me a stand-ing ova-tion wel-com-ing me back. My wish for my time here is not only do I con-tinue to re-main wor-thy of your wel-come, but I con-tinue to learn from you all—to be-lieve in peo-ple and to give them sec-ond chances. Thank you.”
En mass, peo-ple crowded around him, shak-ing his hand and con-grat-u-lat-ing him. Ev-ery-one said he had guts to make that speech. Most said they’d al-ways be-lieved in him, even though he knew they lied. A few apol-o-gized and those were the peo-ple he val-ued in the of-fice. But the one per-son he wished more than any-thing could have heard him wasn’t here.
And she was the only one who mat-tered.
Dina sat in the wait-ing room of her doc-tor’s of-fice, pass-ing the time on her phone while wait-ing for her phys-i-cal. She scrolled through so-cial me-dia, up-dated Goodreads and moved on to In-sta-gram. With the wait-ing room packed, the doc-tor was al-ready be-hind, and Dina moved on to Red-dit.
And stopped.
One of the high-lighted videos caught her eye. It was Adam, speak-ing to a crowd. She stared at it. His fa-ther was next to him. The video had been liked sev-eral hun-dred times.
She should ig-nore it. Who cared what it was about?
She did.
She pressed play, low-ered the vol-ume and held her phone to her ear.
Tears streamed down her face.
This man who was so con-cerned about his im-age was con-fess-ing to ev-ery-one he worked with what a hor-ri-ble per-son he’d been to her. She wasn’t there, he wasn’t do-ing it for ef-fect. He was sim-ply own-ing up to his mis-take pub-licly.
And there was noth-ing sim-ple about it.
She re-played it two more times, try-ing to find some-thing to dis-like about it. But there was noth-ing. Of all his ges-tures—the texts, the phone calls and the ridicu-lous num-ber of flow-ers and herbs—this was the one that got her.
And she could no longer ig-nore him.