Four
“She’s so maddening, you know?” Daphne asked from her perch atop the kitchen counter.
“I don’t,” Hugh said, his back to her as he faced the stove. “I’ve known you for roughly twenty years, and I can’t recall you ever mentioning anyone named Gillian.”
“And why would I? I hadn’t thought of her in over a decade. She means nothing to me, or at least she didn’t, until she busted into my office with her smug attitude couched as professionalism. It’s possible to be a professional and not frigid. You do it all the time.”
“Thank you for noticing, but from the sound of things your interaction was hardly business casual. You literally knocked the woman over, then dropped a bomb on her.”
“I didn’t drop a bomb. My job is not a bomb.”
“Of course not.” He took a few slices of bacon from the pan, and breaking one in half, handed a piece to her. She was being pacified, and she knew it, but in this case, she didn’t mind. Hugh could pacify someone with comfort and care, not condescension.
“And another thing.” She picked up again, waving the bacon around as if conducting a symphony. “She always manages to be vaguely condescending without being rude enough to call her out. At one point she offered to help me ‘process’ or ‘make meaning’ or something, as if I can’t do that on my own.”
He turned back to the stove, either to resume his work or hide whatever expression the news sparked.
“Are you smiling?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” He upped his British accent in faux formality.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Never.” He kept the same tone as he dropped bits of chicken into the bacon grease. “She sounds like an absolute horror.”
Daphne sighed and swung her legs lightly, bare heels bouncing off the cabinets below her with a muffled thump.
“She is, but she doesn’t show it, which drives me nuts.
It’s always driven me nuts. Like, if you think you’re better than me, fine.
You’re welcome to your opinion even if I don’t care about it, but don’t do this fake …
I don’t know how to describe it, like, do you know how people talk to you when they think you’re simpleminded?
Like they feel a responsibility or sense of charity? ”
“No one ever speaks to me that way, but I’ve had to use the methodology on clients a time or two.”
She stilled. “Shit. That’s it.”
Hugh glanced over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.
“She used her therapy face on me.”
He grimaced.
“I thought maybe she was trying to manage her own emotions, but now I think she was trying to manage mine! She did this thing where her face went completely still, but not blank. She still looked like she was giving me her full attention, which was weird in and of itself, because Gillian never gave anyone her full attention, but, like, she also wasn’t engaging what I said.
She had this glaze of neutrality, like she was watching from behind plate glass, you know? ”
“Yes, dear. She used her therapy face on you, and it worked. She didn’t give you anything to push back on.”
“Damn it,” Daphne said emphatically. “You’re right.”
“As per usual. And it bothered you because you wanted to get a rise out of her.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said calmly. “You needled her on purpose, because you expected her to react badly to hearing what you do for a living, and from everything you’ve told me, it was a fair assumption. Except in trying to preemptively defend your professionalism, it sounds like you might’ve challenged hers.”
“What? I did not.”
He went back to browning the chicken. “You said you made a dig at her ability to learn whatever she needed to be successful.”
“It’s the truth. She’s always been good at anything to help her get ahead. Some people would see that as a compliment.”
“A compliment implying her standard of care is put on to achieve an end. Then you headed off any questions or conversation by challenging her to a staring contest when you suggested your news might go beyond her substantial ability to hold her cool.”
She scrunched up her face but didn’t argue, because she had done that.
“It’s fine,” he continued lightly. “She pushed your buttons, you pushed hers, and you have plenty of experience with women who look and talk like this Gillian being catty about what you do. I actually think it was smart of you to engage the therapist side of her, not the seventeen-year-old It Girl side of her. If you two must work around each other, it’s not exactly unfortunate to know she’s good at her job. ”
She flashed back to Gillian’s openness and gravity when talking about her own practice.
There was no doubting her genuineness in the moment, and even Daphne found it easy to understand why people would put their trust in that version of her.
Hell, if she hadn’t known all the other sides of Gillian, she might’ve been taken in.
Maybe that’s what bothered Daphne the most. Seeing a new side of Gillian, thoughtful, passionate, authentic in her clear affection for her clients and colleagues, had the power to change something between them.
Maybe a part of her wanted to test those boundaries, not to break them so much as to see how far they extended and how much they could hold.
If Gillian had offered her the same level of consideration, it might’ve been the start of something new.
If she’d blown her cool, at least it would’ve confirmed who Daphne was dealing with, and yes, she may’ve taken satisfaction in that.
Instead, she was suspended in some sort of conversational purgatory, unsure of where she stood while Gillian got to lift her chin and walk away, smugly secure in her own superiority whether it was warranted or not.
“Do you know the last thing she said to me?” Her face flamed again.
“After you told her you made no promises not to mattress tackle her again?”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine, not my best moment, but I was unsettled, and maybe I wanted her to be, too.”
He scooted the chicken out of the pan and dumped some mushrooms in its place before turning to face her fully, revealing his apron with a giant rooster across the front. “And how’d that work out for you, Love?”
She frowned before admitting, “She said we were both back on-brand.”
He nodded. “I suppose familiar footing is better than no footing at all.”
She opened her mouth, unsure if she wanted to argue or accept his premise, but she never got to make up her mind as the back door flew open.
“I’m home!”
“There’s my girl,” Hugh exclaimed, and Daphne hopped off the counter as Izzy flew past her and into his arms. “How was your day?”
“Great.” Izzy squeezed him tightly with one arm as she reached past him with the other to snag a piece of chicken off the counter. “I’m going to go out for the fencing team.”
“The fencing team?” He stood back to look her up and down dramatically, and Daphne did her best to wait patiently for her hug.
“Why yes, fencing, of course. Why have I never seen it before? You’re perfect for the sport.
Between your mother’s speed and intuition and my own rapier wit, I think you were born for it. ”
“Papa.” Izzy rolled her eyes but grinned. “I thought you said I was born for horseback riding.”
He dropped a kiss atop her head. “Greatness can come in many arenas. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some—”
“—have greatness thrust upon them,” she finished for him with a little laugh. “I know. Shakespeare. What’s for dinner?”
“Chicken and mushroom puff pies.”
Izzy’s eyes went wide. “Really? Why?”
“Because it’s my favorite,” Daphne said, “and hello, nothing to see here, just your mother still unhugged.”
Izzy managed to look mildly chagrinned as she wrapped her arms around Daphne’s waist. Daphne rested her chin lightly against her daughter’s dark curls, so much like her own, and noticed, not for the first time, that she no longer had to stoop over to do so.
Izzy stood back and met her eyes. “Did something happen?”
“What? No.”
“It’s okay,” Izzy said, the exuberance filling her voice a moment earlier now gone. “I know Papa always makes your favorite foods to perk you up. Was it a bad day?”
Daphne’s chest tightened, both at the assumption and the truth behind it.
It felt entirely too close to assumptions Gillian had likely made, and while she could rail against hers, she had no defense against Izzy’s.
Right or wrong, the opinion of her little girl meant the world, so she straightened and caught her by the shoulders. “Nothing’s wrong.”
Izzy eyed her with more suspicion than belief.
“Seriously, something did happen, but it was funny. I had a little kerfuffle getting the mattress into the office, and I had to ask my new neighbor to help me, and it fell over, taking us with it.”
Izzy smiled slightly. “Are they okay?”
“Oh yeah. Better than okay,” Daphne admitted, as if the fact didn’t still burn a little. “She didn’t even mess up her hair. I was in the midst of noticing how completely great she looked, given the circumstances, when I realized I’d seen her somewhere before.”
“Where?” Izzy asked at the same time Hugh said, “You left out the good-looking part earlier.”
“School.” Daphne focused solely on her daughter, realizing she’d been only a year or two older than Izzy the first time she’d seen Gillian.
“Were you friends?”
She shook her head slightly, not wanting to dive back into negativity. “Nope, Gillian and I didn’t run with the same crowds. We’re very different people, but you know what?”
“What?”
She forced a smile. “Sometimes different is a good thing.”
“That session was a triumph, and what’s more—” Robin burst through the door to the waiting room already rolling at full steam.