20. Beau
BEAU
Celeste comes to my office thirty-eight days after Ivy's birth.
I see her through the glass before the receptionist calls.
She stands in the lobby wearing the camel coat open over her stomach. Two clients sit near the entrance. An employee coming back from lunch slows when he recognizes her.
Months ago, I would have moved the conversation into my office to protect her privacy. I would have told myself closing the door was courtesy.
“The courtyard,” I tell the receptionist. “Leave both doors open.”
Celeste notices.
“Am I dangerous now?” she asks when she reaches me.
“No. We are not speaking alone.”
Her mouth tightens. “Because Heidi told you not to?”
“Because I should have done it before she ever had to ask.”
She wants me to retract the word emotional relationship. She says the phrase makes her look predatory and makes the calls sound sordid.
“They were secret,” I say.
“You needed me too.”
“I used you to feel important. That does not make what I did to Heidi less mine.”
Celeste says she has the real messages and can show people I cared.
“You told me things you never told her,” Celeste says.
“I told you things I should have told my wife.”
“That means they mattered.”
“They mattered because I hid them.”
She takes out her phone. I recognize the thread before she opens it.
“You said you remembered our house.”
“I remembered a plan we made when we were younger.”
“You said everyone wonders.”
“I left you room to hear a promise because I liked what you believed about me.”
She looks as if I have struck her.
“So now none of it was real?”
“The calls were real. The secrecy was real. My selfishness was real. A future with you was not.”
I understand then that she does not need to invent an affair. Selective truth will do more damage because the messages are mine.
Celeste lowers her voice when two employees cross the courtyard. “You told me I could always call.”
“I did.”
“You said Heidi did not understand what it was like to have everyone depend on you.”
I remember saying something close to that after a site problem. I had wanted Celeste to admire the burden. At home, Heidi had asked me to turn off my phone and eat dinner.
“If you publish it, include what you asked and the dates,” I say.
“So you can make me look desperate?”
“So neither of us can use a crop as innocence.”
“You will not be admitted here again,” I tell her.
Celeste laughs once. “You're banning a pregnant woman from a building?”
“I'm telling my staff you do not have access to my office.”
“Because you're afraid of what I'll say.”
“No. Because arriving here forces employees into a personal conflict they did not choose.”
She glances through the glass. Two people are pretending not to watch.
“You used to care whether I was embarrassed.”
“I cared more about preventing your embarrassment than protecting my wife's dignity.”
The words make her step back.
“I am not doing that again.”
I hold the courtyard door open. She walks through it without saying goodbye.
I remain in the courtyard while she crosses the lobby. Only after the outer lobby doors close behind her do I notice my hands are shaking.
From the courtyard doorway, I tell the receptionist Celeste is not to be admitted again and ask her to preserve the office-camera record.
I stay where the cameras can see me and call Heidi before returning to my office.
“Celeste came here,” I say.
Heidi is quiet. “Inside your office?”
“No. The receptionist called me. We spoke in the glass courtyard with both doors open.”
Her breath leaves slowly.
I tell her about the messages and Celeste's threat to publish them.
“What did you say?”
I repeat it as closely as I can, including the parts where I admitted leaving room for Celeste to believe what pleased me.
“Do you think she will post them?” Heidi asks.
“Yes.”
“Then I need the complete thread again. Digital, with the dates visible.”
“I'll send it before I leave work.”
“Thank you.”
The politeness hurts. I do not ask her to soften it.