Chapter 10
W hen Paley checked in on Piedmont forty minutes later, he was fully immersed in the book.
“Well?” she asked.
“Shh, can’t talk, reading.”
“Come read outside while I work. You’re looking a mite pasty, counselor, and sunshine is good for what ails you.”
“What do you think ails me?” he asked.
“Currently a lack of sunshine,” she answered. She led the way outside. Piedmont settled into a recliner, one he’d forgotten he even possessed, and continued to read. Two hours later, he closed the book and looked around, feeling more than a little as if he had been secretly transported somewhere else during the interim.
“What happened here?” he asked, awed. It was his backyard, but not. Instead it had been transformed into some kind of oasis of every kind of plant and, “Has that tree always been here?”
“No, I planted that so I could make a shade garden with these ferns and lilies,” she said, shading her eyes against the sun. She knelt on the ground, dirt up to her elbows and smudged on her nose.
“You really did all this yourself?” he asked.
“Yes. Is that okay?”
“Yes, it’s just…it’s so pretty. I had no idea it could look this good, nor that I even wanted it to.”
“For the record, you’re the first person I’ve ever heard say ‘nor’ in real life, definitive proof that you are, in fact, a genius,” she said.
He didn’t answer because he was still too busy taking in the landscape. “This is so…this must have taken forever.”
“I told you that you pay me too much for the workload. I spend my copious free time out here.”
“Did I pay for all this stuff?” he asked suspiciously.
She squirmed and looked away. “No. I paid for it.”
“Paley,” he intoned.
“But I love plants, Piedmont. They bring me joy and,” she shrugged helplessly, “no offense, but I thought this space could use some.”
Piedmont was touched in ways he couldn’t articulate. Even though she said she had done it for her, he couldn’t help but feel as if she had also done it for him, because she sensed his sadness, because she knew it would make him feel better to have a space like this. He had never been into gardens before, but he was into beauty, usually in the form of art. It had never occurred to him his own yard could be a work of art. “We should get a sculpture,” he said.
“I could make one,” Paley volunteered. “How do you feel about a bunch of metal hangers twisted together?”
“That’s tempting, but I know an art supplier who could find something, if the hangers don’t work out.”
“Sure, go with the paid professional, play favorites, trample my feelings,” she said, returning to her work.
He watched her for a while in silence, admiring the way she became lost in her task. He doubted she even remembered he was there at the moment, and he liked that about her because it spoke of genuineness. He’d encountered a lot of women who played games. Paley was funny and quirky, but she was artless, wholesome, and real.
“How much longer are you going to be doing this?” he asked.
As he had predicted, she jumped and blinked at him as if remembering he was still there. “Why? Do you think I’ve dug across the English Channel by now?”
“No, but my tummy is rumbly, and I’m hungry.”
“Um, let’s pause to acknowledge the fact that a renowned litigator used the phrase ‘my tummy is rumbly’ in everyday conversation,” she said.
“Tell anyone, and you’ll never dig in this town again,” he promised.
“I’m literally shaking. Wait, actually I am. I think I forgot to eat lunch, which means my tummy is rumbly, too.” She stood and dusted her hands on her pants. “While I was upstairs getting ready, I did some research. I think I’ve located some pizza for his worship to try. Let me place the order, and I’ll go get it.”
“I’ll go with you,” he volunteered.
“If you’re going with me, we might as well eat it there. It’s on the other side of DC,” she said and paused. “I mean, that was presumptuous, sorry. Maybe you’d rather not eat out.” With me, wasn’t said, but it was implied.
“Why would I not?” he asked, daring her to answer. Did she think he was a snob?
“Pizza isn’t exactly five star cuisine, and you’re sort of classy like that,” she said, her tone tentative.
“I’m still a twenty seven year old guy, and twenty seven year old guys like pizza,” he assured her. “Or so I read in the How to Appear Normal To Others manual I purchased from Amazon.”
“Okay, let me get cleaned up,” she said. “Back in a jiffy.”
He wondered what she meant by “cleaned up,” if she would dress up in a bid to impress him. Did she see this as some kind of date? He hoped not; that could be exceedingly awkward. But when she returned, his fears were laid to rest. She had changed into comfortable-looking jeans and a t-shirt with a hoodie tied around her waist. The t-shirt was more form fitting than most of the clothes she wore, and he was momentarily reminded of their earlier encounter in the basement, when she had worn nothing more than a sports bra and shorts. He spun toward the door and stopped short. “I forgot to order a driver.”
“I’ll drive,” she said.
“If we’re adding chauffer into the mix, I’m going to pay you more,” he threatened.
“Try it, and I’ll take the kale and other vegetables out of all your muffins and replace them with butter. Then, when you’re mysteriously overweight and dealing with high blood pressure and cholesterol, I’ll say, ‘ha, I won. You can never beat me.’ Then I’ll drive you to the hospital because you’ll likely have a heart attack or stroke from my surprise victory.”
“You’ve thought about this diabolical plan a terrifying amount,” he said.
“The mind tends to wander while rowing and digging,” she said.
He sat in the front seat, an odd feeling for him since he was usually in the back seat.
“Why don’t you drive?” she asked.
“I do. I mean, I can, I guess I’ve sort of gotten used to the luxury of being driven. It allows me to do other things, to multitask.” Now that he said it out loud, he realized how privileged and spoiled it sounded. He hadn’t grown up rich; it was only within the last few years he began making serious money. And now he had a fulltime housekeeper and driver. When had he turned into that guy without even noticing?
“Can I ask you a serious question?” Paley said.
Piedmont tensed, as he always did. “Go ahead.”
“Are you going to be mad if this pizza’s no good?” she asked, tossing him a smile to let him know she was teasing.
“Furious,” he answered. “Why do you always do that to me?”
“Do what?”
“Say you’re going to ask something serious and ask something silly,” he explained.
“I’m prepping you for the big one. Someday I’ll ask you an actual serious question, and you’ll be ready.”
She found parking a couple of blocks away from the pizza place, and they walked the remaining distance in companionable silence. Piedmont couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone for pizza. Even with Amelia, they had ordered in. He frowned, wondering what, if anything, that said about him. Was he becoming too uppity to go to a pizza joint? The crowd he ran with would likely never be caught near such an establishment. Paley was right, they chose restaurants by how many stars were attached and how difficult they were to get into, the more difficult the better. He had liked being with Amelia because she wasn’t like that, because she was real and sweet and genuine, unaffected by class and status. But since their breakup, he had fallen into old habits, sometimes feeling as though he spent more time in a tuxedo than out of one. Was that him? Or was he the homespun guy from a small town who happened to have an oversized brain? He never wanted to be the guy who believed his own hype, but he could feel himself slip sliding toward it, toward buying what the press said about The Piedmont Bonvoy, boy wonder, litigator extraordinaire. After the painful breakup with Amelia, the media’s rosy assessment of him had been like a balm to his wounded spirit and pride.
He was so deep in his thoughts he didn’t realize Paley ordered and paid for them until they were sliding into a booth. “What was that?” he asked.
“That was called a counter. It’s where orders are placed,” she said.
“No, you paid. Why did you do that?”
“Because dining and dashing is a crime, and I swore they’d never take me back to prison alive.”
“Can you give a real answer?” he asked.
“Because why not? Who says I can’t pay?”
“Your employer,” he said.
“What else am I going to do with my money? Besides save it, obviously. I have nothing else to spend it on.” The last part was said a little thoughtfully, a little sadly.
“It’s just…”
“I know what it is. It’s that you make ten times more than I do, and you feel bad. But when you make less, little things mean more, you know? To you, paying twenty bucks for pizza isn’t something you have to think about. But I’m coming from a place where twenty bucks is a big deal, where, at my last job, it was three hours of work for me to get that much.”
“But that’s my point. Why would you want to spend it on me?”
“Because I get the sense not a lot of people do. Because you seem as sad as I feel. Because you’re nice, and I like you. Because even though you’re my boss, you sort of feel like a friend. Because you were staring off into space when she gave us the total and it would have been rude to jab you and say, ‘Pay, Wallet Monkey.’”
“Please tell me you wouldn’t actually have called me, ‘Wallet Monkey.’”
“I guess now you’ll never know,” she said.
“I wasn’t born rich,” he informed her.
“You seem to have settled in with aplomb.”
“Ouch.”
“What? That wasn’t an insult. I could never fit in the way you do. There must be so many unspoken rules.”
“There are,” he agreed.
“What’s the best part of being nouveau riche?” she asked.
“Actually having money to buy things without that ever-present gnawing worry of homelessness and poverty,” he said.
“What’s the worst thing?”
“Never knowing if people want to be with me for me or my money and status,” he said.
“I get that a lot, too. People invite me over and I get all excited, and then it turns out they want me to clean something for them. I feel so icky and used,” she said.
“You’re a lying goofball,” he said.
Their pizza arrived, and they ate in silence a few minutes, both suddenly desperately hungry. He wondered, as he ate, what went wrong with Paley’s marriage. She seemed fun and warm and sweet, totally non-crazy, as far as he could tell. She was cute and could cook. What wasn’t to love? On the other hand, having never been married, maybe it was harder than he realized. Maybe the constancy of living with someone, of seeing their sweaty socks in the laundry and hearing them snore night after night, took a toll and began to erode the very foundation of a relationship. Everyone said marriage was hard. If the high divorce rate was any indication, it must be true. And yet people continued to do it. Piedmont himself had wanted to, had even bought the ring. Unfortunately Amelia beat him to the punch, albeit with another man.
He wanted to ask her, all of a sudden, what happened to her marriage. But he couldn’t figure out how and still maintain the hands-off fun vibe they’d been sharing. So far the day had been casual, even though they’d spent it fully together. But they had talked about nonsensically silly things, never delving too far into the other’s psyche. Tell me about your ruined marriage, was definitely not silly or nonsensical.
Paley received a text, read it with a smile, and responded. “BFF,” she replied to his quizzical expression.
“It’s hard to take you seriously as an adult when you say, ‘BFF,” he said.
“It’s hard to take you seriously as an adult when you have pizza sauce on your cheek,” she returned. “What do you call your best friend?”
“Imaginary,” he said, scrubbing at the spot of sauce on his cheek.
“I know you have friends; I know you go out,” she said, almost accusingly.
“I do have friends; I do go out, but I’ve never had what you’d call a best friend. The closest I ever came was…” he trailed off, not wanting to mention Amelia.
“A lost love?” she guessed.
He nodded.
“That’s sweet-slash-sad.” She and Aaron hadn’t been best friends. She had been attracted to him, and they’d shared good chemistry, but he had never been to her what Mattie was. That should have been a clue, probably. It occurred to her Mattie and Piedmont would probably get along well. They were cut from the same cloth, both ambitious, smart, hardworking, yet fun and sweet. “You should meet my best friend sometime. I think you guys would hit it off.”
He tensed. “That’s nice, but I’m not really into fix ups.”
She coughed on her sip of soda, nearly spraying the table. He thought Mattie was a girl. “Good to know.”
They lingered over pizza a long time, and when they got home, neither knew how to end it. Piedmont usually worked until late and ate a warmed over supper alone. Paley usually read until she fell asleep. They stood awkwardly in the entryway, Paley trying to decide if she should go upstairs to her room or offer to spend more time with him. For the first time all day, she wasn’t able to read what he was thinking or wanting from her.
Piedmont was similarly uncertain. He was reluctant for the day to end, reluctant for the encroaching loneliness to make a return. One of the reasons he threw himself into his job was because he had no reason not to. With Amelia, he had found more balance, more reasons to get away and take time off. Without her, he worked almost incessantly. Today had been a pleasant reminder of what it was like to have a life outside his office, and he was loathe for it to be over.
Finally Paley took a breath. “Do you want to watch a movie in your stately entertainment room? If not, please tell me no and I promise I’ll only cry a little and sulk for four days.”
“Now that I know what a temptation it is for you to tamper with my food, there’s no way I’m saying no. I’ll choose the movie, you make some popcorn.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with feigned meekness. She turned and went toward the kitchen. Piedmont stood still, resisting the urge to follow. Despite what he’d said about her going one way and him the other, the space between them suddenly felt empty. Get it together, Bonvoy, he commanded himself before spinning to head down the stairs.