same words.
Fuck him.
In the car, Maurice is his usual jovial self. “Come on, boss, you have to tell me what happened last night.”
“Didn’t you see how I was limping on the way to the car? Shouldn’t that be some indication? I doubt I’ll walk normally again for a week.”
“Boss, I’m not buying that and I don’t like the way you joke about it.”
“Well, I’m not faking the limp,” I said. “My back is absolutely killing me.” It really is. Has been for two months, and it’s getting worse. Another reminder of my advancing age, as though being fixed up with somebody’s grandfather isn’t excruciating enough.
“Katherine, I know I have no right to demand anything, considering I work for you and not the other way around, but I have overstepped my bounds before and I’m going to do it again: I demand to know what happened last night.”
“Actually, Maurice, if you must know, it was very disappointing, and I went home feeling sad and alone.”
That stopped him cold.
“Boss, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it,” I said, “that’s over. I have big news.”
“Good news, I hope?”
“I think so. I’m going on vacation.”
I was still watching him in the rearview. A look of confusion replaced his embarrassment, which was a welcome change.
“Really?” he said. “I can’t recall you ever going on vacation.”
“Neither can I, and that seems like a bad thing,” I said. “I’m leaving this afternoon.”
“Where are you going, boss?”
“Out West, my friend,” I said. “Colorado.”
I HATE PHILLIP’S ASSISTANT. Her name is Danielle LaPierre, which, as I am fond of saying, is French for “the Peter.” And, as I am also fond of saying, the name suits her, because if any woman can be referred to as a dick, it would be Danielle. Any time I am waiting to meet with Phillip, she inevitably buddies up to me and chats my ear off, always on the same topic.
Men.
Danielle is a forty-ish divorcée, attractive enough, no kids, and she is obsessed with finding a husband before, as she charmingly puts it, “it’s too late.” And the way she speaks with me always leaves the distinct impression that she views us as in the same boat. That is annoying, but it is not what really bothers me about her.
What really bothers me is I do not know if Danielle knows of my past with Phillip. I suspect she does, if only because Danielle is the sort of woman who knows everything you might hope she did not. And if she does know, then there is no doubt she subtly rubs it in my face all the time. She loves to tell me stories of the extravagant vacations Phillip takes with his family, or the sweet little gifts he surprises his wife with “just because.” If she does know of our past, I hope you’d agree that Danielle is a cold-blooded bitch, but because I am not certain that she knows and probably never will be, I am always left to wonder, and that makes the time I have to spend with her almost too much to bear.
In recent months, I have taken to amusing myself when I talk to Danielle by inventing boyfriends, and then bringing each of them to a sudden and stunning demise. “Alex” was transferred to Juneau, Alaska. “Henry” was decapitated when his car was broadsided by a freight train. “Stanley” accidentally stumbled upon a mafia killing and was placed in the federal witness protection program.
On this day after my birthday, I was telling Danielle the stunning news about “Milton,” who was found dead in his bathroom after accidentally allowing a shortwave radio to slip into the tub while he was taking a bath.
“He hated showers,” I sniffled.
That was when Phillip arrived.
“Come on in, Kat,” he said.
He never calls me Katherine anymore, and I never call him Phillip. I suppose those are our respective nods to our past together, we’ll always have those names in the way Bogey and Bergman will always have Paris. Now we are “Kat and Phil,” which sounds more like a pair of Army buddies than it does old sweethearts.
“What’s shakin’?” he asked, sliding out of his suit jacket and hanging it over the back of his chair.
“Not much, I’m well,” I said.
He stopped, looked at me, and turned his head sideways, the way a dog might if it hears a sound it doesn’t trust.
“Somethin’ up?” he asked. “You don’t seem right.”
“No, I’m good,” I said. Phil looked at me for a minute without saying anything, and to fill the