CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Nadine put a legal pad between us at her dining table and wrote WASHINGTON across the top. I looked at the paper.
“We are not making a business plan,” I said.
“We are making sure neither of us says we can handle something and then acts shocked when it contains days of the week.”
“That sounds like a plan.”
“It is a conversation with columns.”
She drew one line down the middle. On the left, she wrote FACTS. On the right, she wrote FEELINGS and underlined it twice.
“You made a feelings column?” I asked.
“For you.”
“I have feelings without a column.”
“Evidence is limited.”
Saturday rain tapped against the townhouse windows.
The green cabinets were reflected in the dark glass, steady and familiar enough that I sometimes forgot there had been a time when the room was open studs and water.
Nadine had not received an offer. We were discussing the life around a job that might belong to somebody else by Monday.
It still mattered. She wrote three days in Washington beneath facts.
“Likely Tuesday through Thursday,” she said. “Monday and Friday could be here unless I am traveling to another city.”
“Overnight where?”
“A furnished apartment at first. The council provides housing for three months.”
“After?”
“I decide whether to rent.”
“Not we?”
Her pen stopped.
“The apartment would be mine.”
“I understand that.”
“Then why did you say we?”
“Because where you sleep three nights a week affects us.”
“That does not make it a joint lease.”
“I did not say it did.”
The air changed by one degree. This was the point where I used to become precise enough to avoid being honest.
“I do not want to choose the apartment,” I said. “I want to be part of the conversation about how the schedule affects the relationship.”
Nadine studied me. Then she wrote TWO HOMES beneath facts.
“One home,” she said. “One apartment.”
“You will keep clothes there, sleep there, and complain about the plumbing.”
“If the plumbing is bad, I will call somebody who does not date clients.”
“That was one time.”
“It became an investigation.”
“Fair.”
She put the pen down.
“I am scared you will make yourself easy,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“You will tell me to take the job. You will learn the train. You will move meetings. You will never say you are lonely until you are angry at me for not noticing.”
The description was accurate enough to irritate me.
“I am scared you will make the job the only thing allowed to be difficult,” I said.
Her shoulders shifted.
“You will be tired. The board will be demanding. A city director will call. A donor will create an emergency because nobody told him no before lunch. Then I will become the grown man who should understand without needing anything.”
Nadine picked up the pen and wrote that beneath feelings. I looked at her.
“What?”
“You wrote it down.”
“It was specific.”
“I am not asking you to fix it now.”
“I am not fixing. I am recording.”
“That is worse.”
She smiled. The smile did not remove the fear. It made room beside it.
“I do not want to be your weekend man,” I said.
“Then do not.”
“I cannot be in Washington on most Wednesdays.”
“You can be my man on Wednesday without being in my bed.”
“I dislike that sentence.”
“You dislike phones.”
“I use a phone all day.”
“You use it to give instructions and send pictures of hinges.”
“Sometimes doors.”
“I am talking about us.”
“I know.”
She waited. I corrected it.
“You are right. I do not want our relationship reduced to updates between meetings.”
“Neither do I.”
“What do you propose?”
“One ordinary night every week. Not a date we can keep postponing because it does not look important. Dinner, television, laundry, whatever. If I am in Washington, you come sometimes. If you are busy, I come home. We alternate the inconvenience.”
“That is a rule.”
“It is a start.”
“What if the train is delayed?”
“Then we complain together and eat without each other. Nobody acts abandoned by Amtrak.”
I leaned back. Nadine wrote ORDINARY NIGHT. Then she looked at me. “Now you.”
“What?”
“What is changing at Mercer Row?”
“This is about your job.”
“No. This is about our lives. Milan’s proposal matters.”
I told her about the design division, Baltimore pilot, and authority I had given Milan. I told her Cedric wanted a second superintendent and that I had approved the search. I told her our controller had been asking for two years to move more contract review away from my desk.
“You did all that this week?” she asked.
“I approved the first two. The last requires more work.”
“Because of Washington?”
“No.”
She waited.
“Not only because of Washington,” I said.
“That sounds honest.”
“I have been building a company that can survive me while arranging it so every important decision still needs me.”
“Why?”
“Because being needed looks like proof.”
“Of what?”
“That I built it correctly.”
Nadine’s hand moved across the table and rested over mine.
“You built it so people could grow inside it,” she said. “That is different from making sure they never grow past your reach.”
The sentence had enough truth to require silence. I turned my hand and linked our fingers.
“What if you get the offer and hate the job?” I asked.
“Then I decide what to do next. Taking it is not a life sentence.”
“What if you love it?”
“Then we keep telling the truth.”
“That sounds simple.”
“It will not be.”
Rain struck harder against the windows. Nadine stood and carried the legal pad to the kitchen island. I followed. She opened the refrigerator and looked inside.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding dinner.”
“You invited me here to talk.”
“We talked.”
“We did not solve anything.”
She looked over her shoulder. “You are learning.” I took the container from her hand and put it back on the shelf.
“What?” she asked.
“I want you.”
Her expression shifted.
“That was not in the feelings column,” she said.
“It should have been.”
I kissed her before caution returned. The kiss was not an argument ending. Nothing had ended. Her hands came up beneath my sweater, warm against my back. I lifted her onto the island after she pushed the legal pad aside herself. The pen rolled toward the floor and stopped against the fruit bowl.
“Do not drop me,” she said against my mouth.
“I have you.”
“That sounded confident.”
“It is load-bearing.”
She laughed once, then caught my lower lip between hers and made humor unnecessary.
We moved upstairs slowly, not because desire was careful, but because neither of us needed to turn urgency into proof.
In her bedroom, she unbuttoned my shirt while looking directly at me.
No performance. No question hidden inside seduction.
I touched her the way I had learned she liked when she had been holding too much all day: firm enough to make her stay in her body, patient enough not to take over it.
She told me when to slow down. Told me when not to.
By the time I moved between her thighs, the rain had softened and the room had gone quiet except for her breath and the old house settling around us.
Nadine held my face and said my name once.
Not as instruction. As presence. After, she lay across my chest with one leg between mine.
The legal pad remained downstairs with every unsolved fact and feeling exactly where we had left them.
“This does not mean I accepted a job I have not been offered,” she said.
“I understand.”
“It also does not mean you agreed to every train schedule.”
“No.”
“Good.”
She traced one finger along my ribs.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“That I did not want to go downstairs and heat leftovers.”
I looked at her. She smiled against my skin.
“And,” she added, “that I like the man I am planning difficult things with.”
My phone rang on the nightstand. Nadine reached for hers at the same time. It was her phone.
Washington number. Sunday afternoon. She sat up and answered.
I stayed beside her while she listened. When the call ended, she stared at the screen.
“They are offering it to me,” she said.
I felt pride first. Fear followed close enough to touch it.
“Congratulations,” I said.
This time, I meant every part of the word.