Ask Again Later Read Free Page B

leftover New York strip—and I let him get away!
    Sam has this funny way of seeming more real on the phone than he is in person. Not more real, but more himself. He feels safer the farther away he is. He’s like me, in this state of paralyzed limbo. It’s the dance of avoidance that happens when your wife leaves you and you meet a woman whose father walked out on her. You are locked in perfect step.
    If it were going to happen, it would have already happened. (Admittedly, even while I’m thinking this, I’m hoping it’s not true. It’s too simplistic, and when you apply the statement to almost any situation, frankly, it doesn’t hold up. I mean, what does its not having happened yet have to do with preventing it from happening in the future? Nothing! Is it a predictor of things to come? Who knows! I don’t want the statement to be true, of course. It’s just true for now. That gets my hopes up, which just lets me down, so I need to stick with this thinking—you see.)

The Lump
    I WANT TO LEAP through the phone and kiss Sam. I want to thank him for being honest about how he feels and the things he regrets. The phone rings again. I skip the small talk. The hellos. I just answer and speak:
    â€œIt’s not personal. It’s situational. I’d be all over you if I didn’t have to sit across from you at every meeting,” I say. “Let’s not forget the Christmas party. One kiss and I get called into HR and am asked to reread and sign the non-fraternization policy again—in front of a witness this time. I felt like I was twelve. My feeling is if I’m working seventy hours a week, and I have the energy to kiss anyone, including a coworker, my stamina should be applauded. I should get some kind of bonus for compartmentalizing my life so beautifully and to the firm’s advantage. Our timing has always been off, Sam.”
    I never go out on a limb, but it feels breezy and wonderful out here; I’m weightless, unburdened! And at the same time it’s starting to seem…eerily silent.
    â€œHello?” I say.
    I want Sam to reassure me. Tell me that we make our own timing. Everything will be okay.
    â€œWell, kudos to you, honey,” my mom says. “That’s just good common sense. In my day, relations with a coworker were considered dirty, even cheap.”
    Of course I don’t confess that “dirty” may well be the allure of it. And “cheap” only sweetens the pot.
    â€œRelations?” I say.
    â€œIt’s none of my business,” my mother says. “I wish I’d slept around when I was young and had a different body and done all sorts of things I’d be ashamed of now, too. Who’s HR?”
    â€œI’m not sleeping around,” I say. I knew no good could come from my answering the phone this early in the morning. Why had I second-guessed myself? Only people on a mission make calls at that hour. The kind of people who have been pacing their kitchen waiting for six-thirty to arrive. There’s no adequate preparation for that kind of ambush.
    â€œEmily, you’re a grown woman; do as you please,” my mom says.
    â€œI am doing as I please. Why are you calling so early? Is something wrong?” I ask.
    â€œYou’re going to have to call in sick today,” Mom says. “I really need you.”
    The requests for me to call in sick happen regularly and usually mean someone bailed on lunch, or golf, or a spa day. She needs a seat-filler. The notion of paying in full for something she failed to cancel twenty-four hours in advance is one of her bigger beefs.
    Someone will pay. Usually, it’s me. Even in high school it was an issue. I’d sleep through the alarm and she’dgleefully meet me in the kitchen at ten A.M ., asking what “neat” thing we should do that day. I was tardy or absent from nursery school a record forty-seven times…and it was only a