Chapter 6 #2
Janie nibbled on her lower lip, trying to decide whether or not to press for more detail. He obviously had some personal experience that had left a mark, if his expression was anything to go by. Perhaps focusing on someone else’s story might allow Janie some temporary relief from her own.
“So how do you know Rosie Morgan?”
Janie looked up to see Katherine by their table, holding two glasses of wine. She glanced back at Austin, and he rolled his eyes. The mist of melancholy had dissipated, and his nose twitched as if to indicate a bad smell.
“It’s something I’m doing pro bono,” Janie said. “She’s a new client.”
Katherine half-sneered. “I’m sure you could find more worthy people to fulfill your ethical duty. Has Phillip signed off on it?”
Janie arched her eyebrow. “I have full autonomy to choose whom I provide free legal advice to. I don’t need Phillip’s permission.”
Katherine huffed. “You do if you want to make partner before you’re fifty.”
“I think you might be mistaken, Katherine,” Austin said.
Janie dropped her shoulders slightly, glad for his intervention.
“Whatever,” Katherine said and held out one of the glasses to Janie. “You look like you need this.”
Janie gestured to the table. “Thank you, but no. I only just got a refill.”
Katherine put it on their table anyway and gave Janie her signature smile as she took the seat between her and Austin without asking. “It’s a ninety-dollar glass of Sangiovese. It can breathe while you finish,” she wrinkled her nose in the direction of Janie’s wine, “whatever that is.”
Janie lost her desire to drink at all and looked at the door, half-hoping for a disgruntled client to burst into the bar and end them all. No one would mourn a roomful of dead lawyers.
“How did you end up with Rosie Morgan as a pro bono client anyway?”
Janie sighed at Katherine’s persistence and the reminder of how she knew Rosie.
“She’s a friend of a friend,” she said, knowing that, unlike with Austin, she really didn’t have the right to call Rosie or Shay a friend.
But “my estranged wife’s best friend’s best friend’s current fuck buddy” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and it’d be far too much personal information to share with a vampire like Katherine.
“You need new friends.” Katherine scoffed and leaned in, far too close. “Seriously, you should stay away from her.”
Janie tried to tamp down her piqued curiosity. How had Katherine managed to twist events in her own mind that her ex-wife’s best friend was the enemy, someone to warn everyone about? “Funny, Rosie said a similar thing about you. She mentioned something about you cheating on your wife.”
Katherine recoiled slightly before recovering her arrogant air of composure. “My ex-wife was a dead fish in bed.” She shrugged and gave that stupid smile again. “And I’d be doing gay women city-wide a disservice if I kept my talents to myself.”
Janie had to look away but saw Austin mouth, “Oh my god,” as he wiped his hand over his mouth, clearly to stop himself from laughing in Katherine’s face.
How had sweet Lori fallen for this schtick?
She was so much better off with Gabe. “You’ve got a pretty high opinion of yourself,” Janie said, deciding to engage since it was taking her mind off other things.
Katherine looked smug. “Ask around. It’s not my opinion: it’s everyone else’s.
You can always find out for yourself to be sure,” she said and winked.
“You’re bound to get bored of looking after three little rug rats.
Screaming, shitting nipple-suckers.” She laughed loudly and shook her head.
“You’re way too sophisticated to end up being a tired old soccer mom. ”
The words struck Janie’s heart like an electric shock. “What do you know about being a mother, you censorious cunt?”
Austin reached across the table, but Janie had already pushed her chair back and was standing over Katherine, barely controlling her desire to smash the glass of ninety-dollar wine in Katherine’s face.
“You should stick to chasing twenty-somethings looking for a sugar daddy, you sad little Peter Pan. Emphasis on the little,” Janie said, remembering something Lori had said about the size difference between her ex-wife and Gabe and knowing it was something Katherine tried to compensate for with elevator shoes.
“You’re such a patriarchal cliché, clinging to your youth by fucking girls half your age.
You should know they’re only doing it to climb the corporate ladder.
They laugh about you in the break room, about how easy it is to seduce the desperate old mini butch into getting them a promotion or a salary bump.
” The red mist began to clear a little, and the sad, almost frightened look in Katherine’s eyes made Janie hit pause on her diatribe.
She glanced at Austin, who looked like he’d just seen Dr. Jekyll turn into Hyde, and beyond him, her colleagues and lawyers from other firms wore varying expressions of surprise, amusement, and disdain.
Janie gathered her phone and purse. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Austin,” she said.
“Wait,” he said and began to rise from his chair. “I’ll come with you.”
She shook her head. “There’s no need. I have to go,” she said and headed out of the bar with her back straight and her gaze focused on the door, ignoring the whisperings that would be winding their way across tomorrow’s grapevine.
Have to go where? her inner voice taunted.
She couldn’t go home. Home was where Hannah and the triplets were, and she couldn’t go back there, no matter how much she wanted to.
What were they doing right now? How was Hannah coping on her own?
Just fine without you, obviously. The truth didn’t just hurt, it wounded and scarred.
But better her than her children or her wife.
Janie choked back the tears as she ordered a Lyft.
Where are you going? the app asked. Her finger hovered over Home for far too long, until she was able to draw it away and type in the name of the hotel apartment where she was staying.
Home… She might never have a home again.