9. Julia #2
The call ends, and the kitchen becomes quiet again.
I look at Mom’s message, then at the blank reply box beneath it.
For once, I lock my phone without typing anything.
It shouldn’t feel like an accomplishment.
Somehow, it does, but then it also doesn’t and I hate the fact that she makes me feel this way.
In the next thirty minutes, I showered, washed yesterday out of my hair and managed to find enough enthusiasm for life to put on makeup and a pair of black heels.
Breakfast happens too, mostly because I can practically hear Tessa bitching at me from wherever she is, although calling a banana and half a piece of toast breakfast feels generous.
Still, food entered my body, coffee entered my bloodstream and I left the house with six minutes to spare, which under the circumstances feels like an achievement worthy of some kind of acknowledgment.
Mom’s message stays unanswered. I think about it twice during the drive and once while waiting for the elevator at work, but by the time the doors open on my floor, my brain has already begun rearranging itself around everything waiting for me.
This is the version of my life I know how to handle.
The law firm occupies two floors of a glass building downtown.
This early in the morning, it’s already operating at the particular level of controlled chaos lawyers consider a healthy working environment.
Phones are ringing, someone is arguing with the printer near the reception, and two paralegals are having a whispered conversation beside the copy room that becomes suspiciously silent when one of the partners walks past them.
I know this place. More importantly, I know who I am in it.
Nobody here needs me to explain something I barely understand myself.
They need schedules coordinated, calls returned, documents prepared, clients handled and deadlines remembered.
Those things have edges. Edges that can be put in order. I can do that. I am good at that.
I’m halfway through answering an email when someone taps twice against the partition beside my desk.
Daniel. He’s been a senior associate at the firm for the last three years, although we met almost five years ago when he was still new enough to spend twenty minutes looking for a conference room that was directly behind him.
Somewhere between late filings, impossible clients and enough shared takeout dinners to qualify as a long-term relationship in several states, he became one of the few people here I willingly spend time with outside the office.
He takes one look at me and his expression changes. “Rough night?”
“Something like that.”
“Therapy?”
I nod. Daniel knows about therapy because Daniel knows most things about me that don’t require opening locked doors. He also knows when not to try.
“You okay?” There it is again.
This time the answer comes easier than my usual phrase. “I’m… tired, but I’m okay. Yesterday was just a lot.”
He studies me for a moment, probably deciding whether to believe me. “Anything you want to talk about?”
For half a second, I consider it. Then I shake my head. “Not here.”
“Fair enough.” He gives the edge of my desk a small tap before straightening. “I’m around if that changes. Otherwise, I’m going to pretend I didn’t notice you look like you slept in your clothes.”
“I did sleep in my clothes.”
“Then I'm impressed by what you've managed to accomplish this morning.”
That gets the smallest smile out of me.
“I showered.” I offer.
“Proud of you.” He accepts with a grin that makes me want to throw a stapler at him. “Go away, Daniel.”
He does with a laugh that early sounds like a promise of coming back to pester me later, just like he always does.
An hour later, I’m buried deeply enough in work that yesterday begins to feel farther away.
Not completely gone, just somewhere else.
And for the next several hours, somewhere else is good enough.
There is a particular comfort in being good at something that doesn’t require me to understand myself first. A client calls angry because she hasn’t received an update and hangs up considerably calmer after I explain what’s actually happening.
One of the junior associates sends me a document containing three different versions of the same company name, which I return with the offending sections highlighted and a request for him to decide which corporation we actually represent before we accidentally invent a fourth.
I catch a scheduling conflict before it becomes a problem, find a document that two other people swear doesn’t exist, and remind one of the partners about a conference call he would otherwise have missed.
None of that is particularly glamorous but all of it makes sense to me.
I've always been good at remembering the things other people forget.
Dates, deadlines, conversations, which client needs a phone call rather than an email and which attorney will say whenever you have time when what they actually mean is before I finish this sentence.
I know how to read a room before I walk fully into it, how to recognize the difference between someone who needs help and someone who needs to be left alone.
I am aware of the fact that some of those skills came from certain places, but I make an executive decision not to examine that before lunch.
That can be left for Kai to unpack in therapy.
By noon, I’m still tired, my neck still hurts every time I turn too quickly, and twice I catch myself reading the same paragraph without absorbing a word, but I work around it.
I eat lunch at my desk, answer Tessa’s “Alive?” text with a photograph of my sandwich as proof that I have followed instructions and leave Mom’s message exactly where it is. Somehow the world doesn’t end.
By four forty-five, I’m tired in an entirely different way that is familiar, earned and manageable. I’m over a document that needs to be filed when a coffee cup appears beside my keyboard. I recognize the order written on the side before I look up. Michael.
“That’s either very thoughtful or very ominous.” I murmur, keeping my eyes glued to the screen just a moment longer before I look up at him.
“Can it be both?” he asks, and there is something almost apologetic in his smile as he pulls out the chair beside my desk.
“Before you accuse me of bribery, I should tell you that I was already downstairs, and after watching you survive today almost entirely on whatever was in that sandwich, I decided caffeine was the more humane option.”
“You noticed what I had for lunch?”
“I notice quite a lot about you, Julia.” The answer is delivered so naturally that it takes me a second to process while Michael simply holds my gaze.
Well, all right, then.
I reach for the coffee. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He doesn’t immediately tell me why he’s here. Instead, he settles into the chair, his suit jacket unbuttoned and his tie loosened slightly from the way it looked this morning when I saw him walking down the hallway.
Michael is somewhere in his late thirties, tall, dark blond and attractive in the polished, grown-man way that becomes increasingly difficult to ignore when he’s sitting three feet away telling me he notices things about me.
Unfortunately for the both of us, he is also a partner at the firm where my salary originates.
“Now tell me what happened,” I say.
His mouth curves. “Opposing counsel sent revised exhibits about half an hour ago. Nothing substantially changed, but they renumbered enough of them that the deposition binders need to be reorganized before tomorrow morning. I’ve already sent Lauren home because her daughter has a recital tonight, which leaves four binders and an unfortunately short amount of time. ”
“How unfortunately short?” I ask, thinking how thoughtful of him it was to let Lauren leave when she did. She was excited about that recital since she mentioned it two weeks ago.
“Nine tomorrow morning.”
I exhale and take another drink of coffee while mentally rearranging the evening I apparently no longer have. Not that I had anything exciting planned other than maybe waterboarding my plants.
“I can get them done.”
“I know you can. That’s never really in question with you.”
There’s something about the way he says it that makes my eyes lift to his again. Michael rests one forearm against the arm of the chair.
“I can stay and help. I realize my previous attempt at organizing exhibits permanently damaged your faith in my abilities, but I’m willing to work under supervision.”
“You have a dinner tonight.” I smile.
I know this because managing his files sometimes also means managing his schedule as well.
“I do.” He nods almost unnoticeably.
“Then go to your dinner. I can handle this.”
“I’m sure you can, but I’m not offering because I think you need rescuing.” The word catches my attention.
Michael seems to notice, because he pauses before continuing. “I’m offering because I’d rather spend the next few hours here with you than spend them at the dinner I’m supposed to go to.”
There’s no joke attached to it, no smile inviting me to pretend he means something else.
I lean back slightly in my chair. “Michael.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I think so.” His expression softens, but he doesn’t look away.
“I also think I’ve spent several months being so careful not to make you uncomfortable that I’ve probably made my intentions unnecessarily ambiguous.
I’m fairly certain that I’d rather not insult either of us by continuing to pretend I only stop at your desk because I have questions about my calendar. ”
Despite everything, a small laugh slips out of me. “I don’t actually manage your calendar.”
“Exactly, you sometimes do. Which makes some of my visits particularly difficult to justify.”
Okay, I have to hand it to him, that was smooth.