In the kitchen, she sat down at the table while he got the coffee machine started. There was something intimate about watching him make coffee, maybe because he didn’t seem to be very good at it. He couldn’t find the pack of filters; he opened the coffee bag from the wrong end. The kitchen looked more dated than ever. For once, there was no morning fog, and the undiluted sunlight picked out every crack in the tile floor, every inch of stained grout.
“I’m sorry I didn’t text yesterday,” Theo said, pouring the grounds into the filter without measuring. “I meant to. But it seemed—I don’t know. I thought it would be better to talk in person.”
“No, I agree,” she said. The nuances of morning-after texting belonged to her life back in New York. What could she have said? Still, she didn’t like how he enunciated each word clearly, as if he were practicing in front of a mirror. She had the distinct sense that she was about to receive a speech.
He started the machine, then turned around and rested his hands on the counter behind him. His expression was inscrutable.
“I don’t know,” he said again. “I guess I wimped out.”
Kate’s throat tightened. The more he talked, the worse it sounded.
“You can just say it.” She could hear a new hardness in her voice. “You don’t want it to happen again.”
“No, wait,” he said, looking alarmed. “That’s not it at all.”
He let go of the counter and came over to sit at the table.
“It’s just that I know I’m your boss,” he said. “And I’m worried that … well, it’s an ethical issue, right?”
Kate wanted to say, You should have thought about that before, but she knew he had. They both had. Preparing to jump the hurdle didn’t make the hurdle disappear.
“I went to see Hal yesterday,” she said.
“Who?”
“Hal Eggers. Your parents’ dealer?”
“Oh.” His brow furrowed. “Why?”
“I met Samantha.”
“Huh?”
“Hal said you dated her.”
Theo shifted in his seat. “Yeah. Briefly.”
“So there wasn’t any ethical issue there?”
“Well, she wasn’t my employee.”
“What about the women on the SFMOMA board? Was that ethical?”
“What, did Hal give you a list of everyone I’ve slept with in the last two years?”
“It sounded like it would be a long list.”
He was silent for a moment. “I guess I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said at last. “Yeah. I got divorced and I went on the rebound. Are you worried that’s what I’m doing with you?”
“I’m just saying, it seems like you have a pattern of sleeping with women who work under you.”
“No.” Theo sounded annoyed now. “None of those women worked under me. Yes, I met them through things related to my parents. I have to deal with a lot of stuff with the estate, so that’s the main way I end up meeting people. Otherwise I’m at work or with Jemima and Oscar. But I’ve never slept with any of my employees. Until now.”
“So I’m supposed to think I’m special.”
“Yes.” Color rose in his cheeks. “You are special. Anyway, I thought this was mutual.”
In the background, the coffee machine was making its spitting noise, and the room was filling with the familiar smell. Kate looked at his hands on the table—strong, tanned, square-cut nails—and then at her own, paler, smaller, blue ink flowering over one knuckle from a broken pen at the bottom of one of Miranda’s boxes.
Then she groaned and buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said through her fingers. “It is mutual. I don’t know why I’m giving you such a hard time. I think I’m just nervous.”
“Because of what happened at your last job?”
“Maybe. No. I don’t think so.” She inhaled and lifted her head. “I guess I’m scared. Aren’t you scared?”
“Yes. Of course.” He hesitated. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t really, a hundred percent, want to do. That’s what I’m most scared of. If you want to go back to normal, pretend Saturday never happened—we can do that. Anytime, we can do that. It’s a standing offer. It’s whatever you want.”
Whatever you want. What didn’t she want? She wanted everything.
She wanted to fuck him and also get paid, but not for the fucking. She wanted someone to come along and smooth over her entire life, and she wanted to stand on her own two feet and stare the world down. She wanted to know all his secrets and share none of her own.