The Christmas Wedding - James Patterson [8]
“We got it!” Cliff shouted. “We fucking got it!”
“You really think so?” Emily said. As always, she was amazed by her boss’s confidence and swagger. In a way, it was impressive.
“I know we did,” Cliff said. “When you started in on the environmental restrictions for carbon compounds versus full-electric cars, they thought you were the senior senator from Michigan. For a minute there, so did I.”
“I read the material three times,” she said, and could feel herself blush.
She noticed that she and Cliff were walking east on Forty-ninth Street, toward the United Nations building. Not good.
“Let’s stop at the Beekman Hotel. Celebration drink,” he said.
“Let’s wait till we get the business, Cliff.”
“We’ve got it. C’mon. Don’t jinx us, Em. One drink. Call it a pre-celebration.”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten. I have an apartment, here in the city. I have a husband. I’ve got a life beyond Dale, Hardy.”
He stopped walking. So Emily stopped too.
“No, you don’t,” he said with a grin. “You absolutely do not.”
“What are you talking about, Cliff?”
“You don’t have another life. Dale, Hardy is your life. The firm is your husband. The firm is your life. You spend eighty percent of your time there. You work like an animal. You don’t have another life, Emily.”
She didn’t contradict him. His facts were at least partially correct. She didn’t even engage in a discussion.
“Cliff, I’m getting a cab uptown on First Avenue,” she said. She began to walk away.
“Emily!” he called out. “Hold on! Please, wait.”
She froze in place, but she didn’t turn. Cliff was making her nervous now.
Suddenly his arms were around her shoulders. He bent forward and nuzzled her neck. Then he kissed her cheek, and the side of her mouth.
“I’m getting a cab,” Emily said. But she didn’t move.
“Let’s get that drink first,” he said. “The Beekman’s only a block or so away.”
“I’ve got to get going.”
He kissed her on the neck again. For a moment Emily thought: If you don’t respond, if you don’t acknowledge it, if you don’t move, then it really didn’t happen. Right? Then she thought, No. Not right at all. This is definitely happening. Now what do I do about it?
“You’re over the line, Cliff. There’s a cab over there,” she said, and then moved quickly toward First Avenue.
Run, Emily. Run.
Chapter 9
GABY’S SECOND VIDEO, PART ONE
NOW, THIS IS A FIRST! Never before have I sent a video that got three of the four of you to call me the day you received it. I should get married more often. And, oh, yes, I assume that after you called me, you called each other. I love that.
Okay. It’s very early up here in western Mass. All you can see through the den window is darkness. That’s because it’s four-fifteen in the morning.
You see, I’ve been up all night.
Thinking.
Now here goes.
I’ve been thinking about your dad. And…well, that’s what I want to talk to you about.
Even after three years, it’s as if, if we don’t talk about Peter, then he’s not really dead. He’s just gone away for a while. You know what I mean?
Let me tell you a secret I haven’t shared with anybody else. I still reach for him in the middle of the night.
And I sometimes buy lamb chops because they were Peter’s favorite.
Something will happen during the day, say, in my classroom, and I’ll think, oh, I can’t wait to tell Peter and the kids. I know, I’m a sap. The last of the sentimentalists.
I mostly remember good times. Who wants to remember missed mortgage payments and arguments, when there are so many sweet, funny things that we shared?
You know, I just finished reading Freedom, and I do believe Jonathan Franzen writes beautifully, but I think he only has a partial view of what it’s like to live as most of us do. He seems to think that people are empty-headed if they don’t obsess about the obvious absurdities of life and that intelligent people can’t possibly be happy. Well, I don’t believe that’s necessarily true. I think that most people can lead very satisfying lives, as long as they don’t spend too much time staring at their belly buttons and worrying about