Guilt

'I know. I know that.' She sighed. 'God, I'm such a bitch.'

'I haven't really noticed that. Are you being hard on Joe?'

'Not yet. I think that's why I needed to call you.'

'For my permission for you to be hard on your boyfriend? I don't think so.' He couldn't bring himself to call Avery her fiance. Also, he wanted to deliver the subliminal message – boyfriends were temporary and insubstantial.

'I don't want to be a nag all the time. That's just it. I'm not an unhappy person. Don't laugh. I'm really not.'

'I'm not laughing.'

'But now, I can't seem to accept… if I talk to Joe, everything I say lately comes out like I'm not being supportive of his career. I probably shouldn't even be talking to you.'

'You can stop saying that, Christina. I'm glad you called. I'm just not sure what I can do. The decision's already been made.' The drink was kicking in – he eased himself down onto a barstool, relaxing.

'I guess I'm not asking you as the managing partner, Mark. And I don't know if I'm presuming. But you've been… I feel like you' ve been a friend, is that all right? And I need to have a friend who can talk about this, who can understand both sides.'

'All right, then I'll take off my managing partner's hat.' He lowered his voice. 'I'm touched that you thought of me. And I really don't know if I can be of any help, but I'm listening.'

The good husband, Dooher was finishing a second drink at the table in the kitchen nook, confiding to his wife about the call. 'So the poor kid's in a bind. What's she going to do?'

Sheila was drinking her de-caf. 'This is the really stunning girl from the party, isn't it? Christina?'

'That was her.'

'And she called you?'

He pointed a finger, broke a sardonic grin. 'Actually, the truth is she wanted me to leave you for her. Said she couldn't live another moment without me and I can't say I blame her. But I had to tell her I was taken.' He reached across the table and took his wife's hand. 'Happily.'

'Are you?'

A reassuring squeeze, eye contact. 'Completely, Sheila. What kind of question is that? You know that.'

'I know, but lately…'

'Lately we haven't exactly been flying. Okay. We've pulled out of dives before. We're going to do it again.' He shrugged. 'Of course, she was devastated, but she's young. She'll get over it. Probably.'

Sheila was shaking her head.'To think that someone who looks like she does could have problems…'

'People have problems, She. You did – we did – especially when we were young, trying to figure everything out.'

'But I never looked like her.'

'Not like, but every bit as good.'

His wife beamed and covered his hand with both of hers. 'You've got a half-hour to cut this flattery out. I mean it.' She let go of his hand, picked up her cup and sipped. 'Aren't you glad we're not starting out now, you and I? I don't know how these kids do it. I mean, in our day, if you'd been transferred I'd have gone with you, no questions asked. In fact, I did go. Berkeley, then waited through Vietnam, then LA, then back here.'

'I remember. And you never complained.'

She couldn't stop smiling at him. He was getting back to his old self, the little compliments, the kindnesses. 'Well, complained sometimes, but never thinking I wouldn't go with you. Now – these girls nowadays – I mean women of course, they're women -I mean, she must be in her mid-twenties if she's getting out of law school – we had all our kids by that age, do you realize that?'

'We were unusually wise and mature. Still are.'

'But now look at what this girl is dealing with. And all because she wants her precious career. And what's a career? Who wants to have to work your whole life?'

'She wants to be able to work, Sheila. There's a difference. Maybe she'll need to. It's hard to say nowadays. It's a different world.'

'I think it's a damn shame. I'd tell her to just go with her man, and the rest will take care of itself.'

Dooher's face broke into a conspiratorial smile. 'I don't think I could put it exactly like that. She'd think I was the last of the reactionary pigs. Well, maybe not the last.'

'But you wouldn't be wrong.'

'Maybe not, but I'm afraid in today's social environment it's one of life's little truths that she's going to have to discover for herself.'

'So what's she going to do? What did you advise her?'

'I was punctiliously PC – told her, if it were me, I'd stay here and do a great job this summer, study for the Bar and pass it, be supportive of what Joe was doing. If they're in love, it'll work out eventually, maybe sooner. Lots of people get separated by jobs, by life. The ones that are meant to make it, make it. It doesn't have to be a crisis.'

She took his hand again. 'You know, Mark, sometimes I forget what a romantic you are.'

He shrugged it off. 'I'm just trying to be a good boss. They're both valuable assets to the firm – if they're not happy they won't be productive.'

'Oh, and that's it? All this paternal advice is simply an ingenious management technique?'

'Essentially.' He tipped up his glass. 'Mostly.'

She shook her head, smiling. 'Yes,' she said, 'I'm sure.' Motioning to his empty glass, she asked if she could get him another one.

He hesitated. 'I'm not trying to be an enabler here, but would you consider joining me?'

She still wasn't anywhere near telling him about the Nardil, her anti-depressant drug. She didn't think she'd ever get to there. But Mark was relaxed, in a sensitive mood, open to her. She'd gone back to her wine over the past few weeks and there'd been no ill-effects. Now Mark wanted her to join him for a nightcap. If she said no, the mood would be gone, and she wasn't going to risk that.

Midnight.

Sam Duncan sat up abruptly, terrifying Quayle, who'd been asleep in bed with her. The dog yipped twice, then whimpered, and she reached out a hand to calm him, bringing him over the blankets on to her lap.

Petting the dog absently, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She hated it when she couldn't sleep, and she' d made a resolution that she wasn't going to drink even a drop of anything to make her nod off. The last time she'd had a drink was St Patrick's Day, and look where that had gotten her.

To right here.

The couple who lived in the unit above her – Janet and Wayne – were silent now, though from the sound of it, they'd had a hell of a good night. Actually, it had been like one of those scenes in the movies where the couple next door let out all the stops and just completely went for it. Perhaps Janet and Wayne didn't realize that Sam had come home. Maybe they didn't think sound carried that well through the old building. Regardless, they put on some show – pretty much the complete range of the audio spectrum – vocals, screams, thuds, creaking springs, sighs and moans, you name it. In the movies, it was often pretty funny.

For Sam, tonight, it wasn't. It was damn near tragic, she thought.

But she wasn't going to panic. She was a mature woman and if fate had not supplied her with a mate after all this time, she had dealt with it, made a successful life for herself. The men had come and gone, a few steadies, a fiance once for a couple of weeks, but for the past four or five years, she'd simply decided to stop pursuing it, stop worrying about it, concentrate on her career and let whatever was going to happen in her love-life simply happen. The problem was that nothing significant had happened.

Not until Wes Farrell.

She hadn't been with him more than two hours, but in that time – stupidly, without any reason or explanation – she'd felt more alive, simply better, than she could remember. There was just a whole different quality to the way they'd related – complete ease, immediate rapport, sexual attraction, attitude, humor. Of course, she'd been half in the bag. But the half that hadn't been thought it remembered pretty well.