Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-three
Iris poured Hannah a fresh glass of iced tea, wishing she could make her friend something stronger.
The two friends were huddled close, shrinking Hannah’s spacious, grown-up living room to the dimensions of the summer camp bunk they once happily shared.
Hannah lay back on the couch with a pillow propped under her knees, one arm draped over her belly and the other draped over her eyes, and Iris sat on the ottoman beside her.
Iris tapped Hannah to hand her the glass and helped her to sit upright to take a sip.
Hannah sighed gratefully and held it to her forehead, her face blotchy from tears.
“They suspended him, can you believe that? Without even hearing his side of things!” Hannah rolled the sweating glass across her brow.
A sexual harassment complaint had been made against Mike at the firm, a serious one. An unnamed summer associate had accused Mike of making unwanted sexual advances and, when she didn’t acquiesce, blocking her from receiving an offer from the firm.
“Where’s Mike now?”
“He’s meeting with an employment lawyer, someone his dad knows. But I mean, where’s the due process? How can they do this? They’re lawyers !” Hannah’s eyes flashed with anger, then her face crumpled. “But the timing couldn’t be worse, right before the baby? Like there isn’t enough stress.”
“That’s why you can’t take it all on. I’m sure there’s a process, and it will get resolved in time.”
“It’s all a big misunderstanding! You know Mike, he’s friendly and he loves to joke around, he’s a prankster!
He comes from a big family, everyone’s handsy and always hanging off each other, it doesn’t mean anything.
The younger generations are crazy now, so easily offended.
I sound like a boomer, but I hear it from the teachers at the high school, they call it ‘the victim Olympics.’ I didn’t used to agree, but…
” Hannah covered her face with her hands. “I’m really scared.”
“I know—” Iris began, but Hannah cut her off:
“I’m scared he’s not gonna get a fair shake. This is starting to feel cancel-culturey, you know what I mean?”
“How so?”
Hannah groaned. “I don’t even want to say it.”
“It’s just me.”
“We heard the woman who accused him is Black…”
Iris immediately thought of Toni, the memories of Mike leaning close when she arrived at their office and how quickly Toni shrank away, or Toni saying she was eager to work with different partners, suddenly cast in a new light.
Hannah continued, “And now, you know, normally her race wouldn’t even cross my mind, what difference does it make? I’m a New York City public school teacher, you know I’m not like”—she widened her eyes— “racist.”
“No, I know.” Iris’s thoughts lingered on how she had misread their dynamic.
She had mistaken Toni’s facial expression of shame for complicit guilt, while Mike remained so unbothered, Iris had overlooked that he’d had Toni cornered .
How do men always manage to transfer their shame to the women they abuse?
But Iris refocused on Hannah. “Sorry, but how do you think race is a factor?”
“I just wonder if it is. She’s a young Black woman from an elite law school, it can’t be easy! But maybe past difficulty has made her a little hypersensitive, so Mike says something stupid, and it triggers her?”
Iris frowned. “I guess that’s possible, but…sensitive to sexual harassment?”
“Or maybe another way—college and grad schools value diversity, maybe she’s used to being a favored applicant, you know?
Then she gets to a real-world law firm where the standards are higher, and when she doesn’t get an offer, she jumps to a conclusion—racism, sexism, some ‘-ism’ must be the reason why she wasn’t picked.
And it’s sad, because flimsy accusations like this are unfair to the many real victims of prejudice. ”
It pained Iris to hear her best friend go down this track. This wasn’t the progressive-minded, big-hearted Hannah she knew and loved. “It’s probably more complicated than that. But there are lots of ways a misunderstanding can happen.”
“But will it be treated as a misunderstanding? I’m just afraid the partners will want to look like heroes standing up for diversity and equality against the privileged white guy rather than do a real investigation. But he’s not a demographic, he’s Mike !”
“Hannah, I get what you’re saying. But I’m sure she’s more than her demo too. We don’t have enough information.”
“We know Mike would never do this. But you’re right, we don’t know who the accuser is, they’re protecting her identity.”
Iris faced the cost of her lies of omission, the same she’d foolishly thought would protect Hannah. “Well, I may have met her when I went to Mike’s office for Rapacine’s case, I think she’s his summer associate.”
Hannah shook her head. “No, his summer is Tony.”
Iris kept her voice gentle. “Toni, with an i , short for Antoinette. She’s a Black woman.”
Hannah’s mouth hung open a beat. Then she snapped back, “Okay, so I assumed Toni was a guy, my mistake. But it doesn’t matter, because the accusation isn’t true! This isn’t Mike. I know my husband. He would never do something like this—What, you disagree?”
Iris looked at her questioningly. “I didn’t say anything.”
“I know, but you had, like, a look, a wavering look. What?”
Iris began to protest but stopped. Hannah might not know her husband, but she knew Iris. “I think he’s been under a lot of stress lately, and maybe he hasn’t been entirely himself.”
“What are you saying? Did something happen?”
Iris’s chest was tight. She had envisioned this conversation many times and debated it, mostly on the basis of whether it would hurt Hannah to hear.
But now that the moment had arrived, she realized her hesitation was less altruistic.
Iris was afraid for herself, afraid of losing their friendship.
She feared that Hannah wouldn’t believe her, and even if she did, couldn’t forgive her.
“Tell me,” Hannah commanded.
Iris’s hands shook as she told the story.
“At the end of Mike’s birthday party, everyone had left, you fell asleep on the couch, so I got you to bed.
And then it was just Mike and me. I was helping clean up in the kitchen—” She could see each beat so vividly, and she didn’t want to leave out any detail that could help Hannah understand.
“And remember, I was wearing that halter dress that was tied at my neck? So, I was bent forward loading the dishwasher, and he…undid my dress at the back.”
“As a joke,” Hannah provided, but her eyes were less certain.
“That’s what I thought. I didn’t like it, but I laughed, because it was a weird joke. And he said he’d fix it, and I let him, because I couldn’t hold the front up and untangle and retie it at the same time. And so he did. Tie it.”
“Oh-kay.”
“But then he took me by the shoulders and turned me around and he kissed me, by force.”
“What?” Hannah’s eyes flared.
“He pinned me against the counter and kissed me. It happened so fast, it took me completely by surprise.”
“Then what happened?”
“I hit him.”
Hannah’s jaw dropped. “He had a red welt on his cheek the next morning. He said he hit a cabinet door by accident. That was you ?”
“I didn’t mean to, it was just animal instinct. I whacked him, and I told him off, and he said it was a dumb, drunken impulse, and I went home.”
Hannah put her head in her hands.
“Please, I need you to know I didn’t want it to happen and I didn’t reciprocate. I would never, ever do that to you. I don’t know why he thought I’d be open to it, if he thought at all—”
“And you didn’t tell me?” Tears sprang to Hannah’s eyes.
Iris, too, fought back tears. “I didn’t know what the right thing to do was, please, I went back and forth, I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“This is a huge thing to keep from me.”
“I didn’t know what good it would do! I thought it was just a fluke. It was a party, his party, he’d definitely drunk too much. It seemed out of character for him. I know he loves you like crazy, so—”
“Wait. You were wearing the perfume that night. Weren’t you?”
“Yeah—for Ben, like you and I planned.”
“But it’s not like it only works on ex-boyfriends. It works on all men.”
“Yes, that’s another reason I didn’t tell you! I thought it could have provoked him, accidentally. Like, it was my fault.”
Hannah closed her eyes, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
Iris’s entire body shivered with adrenaline. She felt certain Hannah was going to end their friendship over this. It would be a more painful breakup than Ben by miles. Hannah was her chosen family.
Hannah’s lips trembled. “You’re my best friend, Iris. I consider you a sister.”
Iris’s heart twisted in agony. “I know, please believe that’s why I would never—”
Hannah held up her hand, silencing Iris. She looked livid. “How could he? I don’t care if you were buck naked and begging to suck his dick, my husband should not even look at my best friend like that. That’s a bright red line.”
Iris was dumbstruck. “You’re not mad?”
“Of course I’m mad, I’m fucking furious! But at Mike, not at you. Come over here, I’m too pregnant to get up to hug you.”
Iris squeezed beside her on the couch to accept her friend’s embrace. She didn’t realize how much she’d been holding in until she let go. Her relief was overwhelming. She sobbed in Hannah’s arms.
“Aw, honey, I know it wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you, truly,” Hannah said.
The tidal wave of emotion passed, and Iris dried her face before pulling back to where her best friend could see. She needed to be strong for Hannah now, not the other way around. She managed to croak out a “Thank you” and blew her nose.
Hannah gave her shoulder a last squeeze before she slumped back on the couch.
She pressed her hands over her eyes like a child wanting to keep the baddies out.
When that didn’t work, a groan of frustration erupted.
“If Mike doesn’t respect that line in our own home, with me asleep in the other room, how can I believe he’d toe the line at work?
Help me up, I need to move.” Iris got her to her feet and Hannah began to pace. “Does this mean it’s fucking true ?”
Iris didn’t know how to answer.
Hannah’s hands flew to her mouth. “Omigod, he had me sounding like a racist bitch making excuses for him. I’m so embarrassed.”
“I know you didn’t mean it. This is a lot to take in. Did you ask Mike about the allegations?”
“Of course I did! I’m not looking the other way, Iris, I asked him directly, and he told me there’s nothing to it.
At all. He was completely blindsided.” Hannah rubbed her stomach.
“And he was drinking a lot at his birthday, he always overdoes it. I mean, he was trashed when he tried to kiss you, right?”
Iris gave the answer her friend needed. “He wasn’t sober.”
“And I’m not saying that makes what he did to you okay, it doesn’t. But it’s an important distinction. And he’s obviously sober at work. So.”
Iris could only watch as her friend’s clarity unraveled. “You don’t believe he harassed her.”
“I can’t.” Hannah shook her head. “It can’t be true. Not right now.”
“Whatever happens, you can handle. I’ll help you.”
“I can’t have a family without him, Iris.”
“You can, though.”
“I don’t want to.”
Iris looked down at the floor.
“This can’t be true of my daughter’s father.”
At that, Iris’s eyes filmed with a more tender emotion. “It’s a girl?”
Hannah met her gaze with a face torn between joy and agony, the last secret between the best friends now revealed.