The Things We Cherished Read Free Page A

ten-dollar cocktails.
    “Can I help you?” the hostess asked without interest. Charlotte did not answer but scanned the room, spotting Brian at a table to the rear. That was unexpected; early was not his style, the notion ofwaiting for others unpalatable to him. As she approached, he stood, hurriedly tucking a BlackBerry into his jacket pocket.
    “Thanks for joining me,” he said, sounding like he meant it.
    She studied the menu the waitress handed her as she sat, grateful for the reprieve. “Grey Goose martini, up, extra olives,” she said. She did not usually drink hard liquor on a work night, but the circumstances called for an exception.
    “Same,” he said, surprising her again. Brian was strictly a beer drinker, or had been anyway.
    “So you’re in town for a case?” she asked when the waitress had returned with their drinks and taken their dinner order, a lobster pad thai for her, sesame tuna for him. He did not, she noticed, order an appetizer, further evidence of his hurry to get back to New York and Danielle. Pain stabbed at her stomach as she relived the rejection of a decade ago all over again. But she had not asked for this meeting, she reminded herself; he wanted to see her. “Depositions?” She was suddenly aware of her own Philadelphia accent, the way she seemed to have gone vocally native again in the years since she had returned.
    “Just passing through,” he replied, his own pronunciation devoid of geographical markings. “I had a meeting in Washington this morning.” He was usually so precise, but there was a vagueness now to his words that made her wonder if he was telling the truth. Had he come down from New York just to speak with her?
    “How have you been?” he asked, and if the question was just a pleasantry, a necessary step to get where he wanted to go, he gave no indication—his face and voice conveyed genuine curiosity. He had always had the ability to make anyone think he was on their side, sincerely concerned with their best interests—which was exactly what made him so dangerous. She had not suspected anythingwas wrong, until the very moment he told her he was leaving for someone else.
    “Great,” she replied, a beat too quickly. She suddenly felt naked, exposed. “I’m working with juveniles …” She almost tuned herself out as she rattled on, wearing her job like a cloak. But the work, about which she was usually so passionate, sounded provincial, unsophisticated. “And you?”
    “Fine. I just came off a two-month securities trial and we, that is, Dani …” He hesitated, as though for a moment he had forgotten the impropriety of speaking about his wife to the woman he had left for her. As though Charlotte were anyone. “Anyway, a vacation would be nice. Maybe Aspen.”
    Charlotte imagined the two of them swooshing through the powder in perfect unison. She had always been a train wreck on skis, a menace to herself and those around her. “But then this new matter came up,” he added, as she took a large swallow of her drink, steeling herself. “That’s why I wanted to see you.”
    “Me?” she blurted out, louder than intended, nearly choking on the liquid. Brian was a securities litigator, defending lawsuits for the biggest brokerage houses in the country. What kind of matter could he possibly want to discuss with her?
    He took a sip of martini, grimacing. “It’s a pro bono matter.”
    Charlotte faltered, caught off guard. Pro bono work had never been Brian’s thing—he had empathy for the less fortunate on an abstract, policy level, a sort of noblesse oblige inherent in his liberal, upper-class background. But he couldn’t deal with the messiness that surrounded the actual clientele, the ambiguity of the individual cases. What had he gotten himself into now? It must be something high profile, she decided, a death penalty case, perhaps. Her annoyance rose. Firms were taking those on with increasingfrequency because of the good press that usually