Filthy Vows - Alessandra Torre Page 0,49

there. They’d earned that spot, and Lorna’s apple red Bentley was currently parked at an angle between two of them. It was also splattered with bird poo from the family of nine nesting in the branch above her vehicle, which is why we’d wasted the first fifteen minutes of the weekly sales meeting discussing tree trimming and not lead generation, our sales goals, or the broker’s open that was occurring in… I snuck a subtle glance at my watch. Four hours.

“If we could move on, Tyler has an excellent presentation on the new FAR-BAR contract that I think we’ll all benefit from.” Neal swept his good arm toward the thin attorney seated in the middle of the table. Tyler stood, and we all sank a little deeper into our chairs. As unexciting at Lorna’s bird shit debacle was, it was still better than a Tyler soliloquy. I carefully switched the cross of my legs and somehow managed to toe Tim in the calf. “Sorry,” I mouthed.

“Now, wait a minute.” Lorna held up a tan wrist draped in a vintage Cartier watch that, according to office gossip, once belonged to Elton John. “We haven’t solved my issue.”

“We’re going to table the tree trimming conversation until next month,” Neal announced with finality and I was disappointed to see Lorna settle back in her seat, her coral-colored lips pinning shut. Lorna and Neal, according to office lore, had a physical tussle in a weekly meeting two decades ago, an event that sadly occurred before the technology of cell phone cameras.

“The new FAR-BAR contract has several changes that will affect buyer’s rights.” Tyler straightened the lines of his Men’s Warehouse suit and wove through the chairs, heading for the 1980’s projector at the south end of the room. Our brokerage had closed eight hundred million dollars in real estate last year, yet couldn’t invest in a smart TV. He inserted a page under the lamp and cleared his throat. Beside me, I watched Charity open Instagram and scroll through her feed.

Stifling a yawn, I listened to Tyler and sent a grateful prayer up to heaven that I’d never become an attorney. Bored, I ran through the What-Ifs in my life.

What If… Easton hadn’t gotten signed by the Marlins? We wouldn’t have moved to Miami. He wouldn’t have gotten that million-dollar bonus. We wouldn’t have bought a four-thousand square foot house that needed six figures worth of work. Would he have proposed so quickly? Would we have stayed in Tallahassee?

What If… I hadn’t dropped law school? Would I have learned to love the dry documentation, legal loopholes, and intricate details? Would I still have ended up in real estate, just through a different path?

And the always inevitable What If…

What if I hadn’t lost that first baby? What if we’d known that I was pregnant? What if I hadn’t gotten so drunk at graduation? What if I had taken vitamins and cut out sodas and—most importantly—not gone to Wakulla Springs and belly-flopped off the high jump? Would the baby have made it safely to birth? Would we have had more? Would I be pushing a stroller right now, instead of listening to this bullshit?

And just as scary… was that still what I wanted? I was beginning to doubt myself, beginning to question whether my fight to be a mother was out of a misplaced need for security and self-worth and not for a life that I actually wanted. We’d started trying for a baby when Easton was in Marlin blue, our bank account fat, my purpose in life fuzzy and unclear. We didn’t need my income. I was no longer particularly interested in law. I was a new wife, in love with my husband, and craving something that I couldn’t put a finger on. A role. A purpose. Cement that would make our new life and marriage stick.

So we tried for a baby. And when three years of fucking like rabbits didn’t work, we brought in the doctors. And when the doctors didn’t work, I adopted an adorable baby puppy that grew into a drooling, destructive, and unbehaved mess.

“Let’s look at a case study.” Tyler replaced the current page with a new one and the energy in the room sank deeper into despair. Beside me, I watched Charity type OMG followed by six emojis on a cat post that wasn’t worth a simple like. My own phone hummed against my leg and I carefully pulled it free, giving a casual glance around to make sure no