After I settled into my regular chair the next day, I dived into more conversation. “You don’t drink,” I said.
“Not at the office, at least,” he said, with a wink.
“But you don’t drink at all. You never have at any of the parties or events,” I said, because I’d been curious about this for some time. He drank water or iced tea at my house. He never had the wine or champagne my mom served.
“That is true.”
“Why is that, may I ask?”
“My mom was an alcoholic,” he said, speaking plainly. He didn’t try to avoid it. He simply owned it. His truth.
“Did she ever stop?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Drank till the day she died.”
“And you just decided you didn’t want to be like that?”
“Don’t want to be like that at all. So I never touch the stuff. Never have, never wanted to.”
“I’m the same. I mean, obviously, I can’t drink. But I don’t want to be buzzed. It just seems …” I trailed off, and he nodded.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “It’s just not your thing? It’s not you, right?”
“Exactly,” I said, and the way his eyes were steady on me told me he understood everything. “I don’t want something else controlling me. I want to be aware of everything.”
“Yeah, that’s how it is for me too. I don’t want to be beholden to something. I don’t want to be chained up.”
“Did she drink the whole time you were growing up?”
“She did,” he said heavily. “She was a great mom, don’t get me wrong. She was always there after school, did homework with me, took me to her shows, came to my games, cheered and clapped the loudest, and brought all her actor friends along to my games too. She was this sort of big personality, always laughing, always singing, always wanting the spotlight. Know the type?”
Did I know the type? I was raised by the type. “I think I can picture that.”
Noah
The next day it was India for Lords and Ladies, and I picked up where we’d left off.
“Do you ever want to write, like your mom?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Never. I don’t even watch TV.”
I laughed, and tapped my pen on the desk. “That is awesome,” I said, shaking my head in admiration.
“Really? It’s awesome that I don’t watch TV?” she asked, quirking up an eyebrow.
“Hell, yeah,” I said, dropping the pen, and leaning back in my chair. A warmth spread through me because talking to her was easy, it was peaceful, it was fun. It was free of obligations or expectations. “It’s just so different from everyone else I deal with. All everyone wants to talk about is TV, or some new deal, or script, or what have you.”
“Do you want to talk about TV? I can pretend I watch,” she said, tilting her head, her eyes sparkling in a playful way.
“No,” I said, drawing it out, like a pronouncement. “Let’s not talk about TV.”
She didn’t answer right away, and I watched her, waiting. She sat up straighter in the chair, fidgeted briefly with the cuffs on her blue shirt, then raised her face.
“We could talk about Chess,” she offered, saying it like it was ours, like it was the connective tissue between us. Her voice rose, and my heart fluttered.
In that moment, everything slowed. I considered what was coming next, and whether I was going to step over the line. I wasn’t a teacher falling for a student, I wasn’t a doctor tangoing with a patient, but I wasn’t immune to risk either. Jewel mattered to me. She was the foundation of my client list. She should have been top of mind. But she was nowhere in my head or my heart then. Kennedy was, filling me up, making me feel things I didn’t want to stop feeling.
I had more to lose than Kennedy did. I had, in retrospect, everything to lose. I stood up, walked to the door and gently closed it.
Her cheeks were turning red. My mouth was dry.
I didn’t return to my desk. Instead, I sat down in the chair across from her. “Kennedy,” I started, the words threatening to stick. But I was an adult. I was the adult. I had to act like one and at least discuss the elephant in the room. “Do you really think you should keep coming by here?”
She looked crushed as her lips curved down. “You don’t think I should?”
“I just wonder if it’s a good idea,” I said, trying to be careful with each word.
“You don’t like it when I come by with the papers and stuff?” she asked, as if she felt foolish. That was the last thing I wanted her to feel. I leaned forward, reaching for her, but then pulled back my hand. We weren’t there yet. I didn’t have permission to touch her knee or to hold her hand.
But reassure her of my feelings? That I could do. “I do like it,” I said quietly, telling the truth. “That's kind of the problem.”
Her smile reappeared for a second, then she seemed to rein it in. “Why is it a problem?”
“I just think it could complicate things. You know, professionally,” I said. Admittedly, I might not have been resisting too hard, but this was the best I could do.
“Maybe I should come here and talk about professional stuff then,” she said playfully.
I smiled. “You’re the only one who comes around and doesn’t want to talk about that stuff. That might be why I like your visits so much.”