Drift (Lengths) (7 page)

8  LYDIA

“What are you talking about?” Cece and I are in the backyard after dinner at our parents.’ Despite several attempts to smooth things over after the way I talked to her the other day, my sister has been pretty hard to reach out to.

But she has said a few vague things about Isaac. Like she knows something I don’t.

Like if she was meaner, she’d use what she knows as a weapon against me. If we were closer, she’d probably have a heart-to-heart with me. But we’re in that tricky place because we’re sisters—like it or not—but not quite friends.

“Isaac. Just...was that night at the museum just an innocent thing?” she asks, and I can’t tell if her mouth is twisted with annoyance because she’s remembering the events of that night or because she doesn’t want to come out and say what she’s saying.

“It was an innocent thing, I swear.” I take a long pull of the sweetish Carta Blanca my brothers never pick up. Luckily it was my turn to bring beer.

“What was innocent?” My brother, Cohen comes by, his wife, Maren, over his shoulder, squealing and kicking. “Lydia doesn’t have an innocent bone in her body.” He sets Maren down, and I hand her a beer as she pushes her dark bangs out of her eyes.

Which sparkle when she looks at my stupid, know-it-all brother. Like he’s the most amazing thing she’s ever seen.

“I’m not
not
-innocent,” I object in an argumentative voice so typical of the ‘me’ they know: of Lydia the lawyer. I wonder if I should spill, but I don’t really know what’s going on anyway. And it’s more comfortable to be who I’ve always been than to try to explain that I’m not quite who they think I am anymore.

My siblings sneer. Maren smiles.

Sweet Maren. I definitely lucked out in the sister-in-law department.

Well, so far anyway.

Our younger brother, Enzo, will most likely have a marriage worthy of an episode of the
Jose Luis Sin Censura
show...which is basically the Mexican version of
The Jerry Springer Show
. Our abuela is seriously addicted, and I still watch with her whenever I make the drive down to Orange Cove, where she lives in a tiny ranch surrounded by her beehives. I love the comfortable chaos that I always experience when I visit her.

“Sure, you’re innocent. Like that witch who gave Snow White the apple,” Cohen snickers.

Cece frowns. “Drop it, Cohen.”

The three of us stare at her. Cece is the most laid back of all of us, so for her to be snippy to
anyone
—especially Cohen, who she just might love the most—is strange.

“Are you okay, Cece?” I ask.

“Are
you
?” Cece narrows her eyes at me. “I stopped by the law office this afternoon.”

It takes me three tries to get the damn beer bottle on the patio table. “Why?” I whisper.

“Because you did all of that advocacy work with the domestic abuse shelter. I have a student who needs help, and I came to the offices immediately after she spoke to me.”

I feel my throat go into lockdown. I’d been so busy hating Richard’s guts and ignoring my old life, I’d forgotten that there were so many loose ends I could never leave undone. So many things I had a hand in starting, but may have no chance to finish.

“I will get your friend help,” I vow. I know that I can call Leslie and John, and they’ll make time to see it’s done.

“It’s fine. John was really helpful, and he already got things going.” Cece glances at Cohen, his arm tight around Maren’s slim waist. She doesn’t know if she should say this in front of him.

I let my crashing, bursting head fall into my hands and mutter, “It’s fine. How long was I really going to be able to keep this going anyway?”

“What the hell am I missing?” Cohen growls out, his eyes darting from me to Cece.

I lift my face and raise my eyebrows at Cece. She wanted to open this Pandora’s Box. Well, she can be my damn guest.

“I...I don’t know what to say, Lyd. I never even thought you wouldn’t be there. No one would say much to me. They kept saying I should ask you.
I went straight in and to your office, but it’s kind of cleaned out. Richard was still there. Wait. Is this because of him?” Cece’s voice shakes with anger.

“Because of Richard?” Cohen asks. “What the hell did that fucking
dickhole do now? I thought I heard you two were broken up. Please don’t tell me the best news I’ve heard in weeks isn’t actually true.”

“We are. Broken up. But what happened at work...it’s not...well, it’s not
entirely
because of Richard,” I amend and sigh. And try to figure out the swiftest, least brutal Cliff Notes version of my life/career meltdown. “Richard and I hadn’t made our relationship office knowledge yet, and we got found out. In pretty much the worst way possible.”

Maren sucks her breath in, and her baby blue eyes give me a look of raw sympathy. She strokes my brother’s arm to halt the string of obscenities we all realize he was about to unleash.

“Cohen, just stop. You remember how hard it was for us when your father hired me in the office. And we were able to be open about it from the beginning. And you were the owner’s son! It’s just awkward to be dating and working together.”

“Yeah, but I was proud as
hell to be your man, and I didn’t give a damn how
awkward
it was for anybody else. I loved having everyone know you were mine.” My brother stares into Maren’s eyes like he’s about to devour her. I have to look away.

“Barbarian,” Cece mutters, then cracks a half smile my way. It’s the first sign of peace since our argument at the gallery: I’ll take it.

“Freaking adorable barbarian,” I add.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but
seriously
. It really is strangely sweet.” Cece’s smile gets a little bigger.

“So what happened?” Cohen asks, hardly able to tear his eyes away from Maren. “Did old
Dickey get pissed when the cat was out of the bag? Are you working from home because he’s bent out of shape and throwing a tantrum like a damn toddler?”

“It’s complicated.” I guess I hoped saying that would squash some of my family’s interest, but I think it only heightened it. They all lean in. “We were,
ahem
, meeting for lunch at a hotel—”

“Wait. Hold up.” Cohen puts both hands in the air and his mouth kind of swings in the breeze before he collects himself and snaps it back shut. “Am I hearing right? Am I actually hearing that my
straight-laced big sister was having a little
afternoon delight
on the job?”

“Why do you look so shocked?” Maren asks, poking him in the ribs with her elbow. “I got more than one text to meet you in the warehouse on your lunch break.”

Cece gasps. “So that’s why all those rugs were opened and unrolled in that corner behind the fountains? Ew! Guys, seriously? Papi made me roll them back up. I should have worn rubber gloves.”

I take a sip of my beer, letting the light taste of licorice roll over my tongue. “
Come on, Cece! Like you’ve never had a nooner before? You’re at one of the most liberal colleges in the country. I find it very hard to believe all those poets and artists aren’t going at it like characters in some D.H. Lawrence novel.”

My sister’s blush and giggle let us all know
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
is probably a decent approximation of the amount of sex going on in those little offices lined with dusty books and dying ferns.

“Well,
if
I ever did—not saying I have, just
if
—I would do it on the desk like a civilized person. And use a Lysol wipe after.” She glares at my brother, who wraps his arm around his blushing wife’s shoulders and grins wide.

“Oh, we never said we only did it on the rugs. There are some great desks in the warehouse, too. And some sturdy chairs. A couple chest freezers that are just the right height
—”

“Enough!” Cece claps her hands over her ears. “Remind me to spray anything down before I touch it next time Papi begs me to cover a shift in the back.”

Maren bites her lips and turns her face into Cohen’s shoulder. “I cannot believe you’re telling your sisters all this,” she hisses.

He laughs and kisses the top of her head. “They’re just ragging on me because you’re here. My siblings are infamous for this kind of shit. You have no idea how many times we walked in on Enzo and some half-naked girl in a utility closet at the synagogue.”

“Or Gen getting hot and heavy in some parked car she had her loser boyfriend pull down the street so Papi wouldn’t see,” I add. “It’s fine, Maren. All the Rodriguezes have the same crazy sex drive.”

“Even Lyd, apparently,” Cohen says, pointing to me with the neck of his beer bottle. “I gotta say, I thought the whole reason you were dating that
asshole was because you figured he wouldn’t mind if you were too busy with lawyer shit to jump his ancient bones.”

“He isn’t ancient,” I protest. “He’s only in his forties, Cohen.”

Cohen raises his eyebrows and takes a long pull from his beer bottle. “Well, he acted like he was a crotchety old man. Damn, Grandpa Beckett even bitched to me that Richard was too much of an old, whiny dick for him to deal with.”

“But what does this all have to do with you not being at work?”
Cece asks, bringing the conversation back to the topic I least want to talk about. “If you were
both
caught, why is he at work and you’re not?”

“It’s...really, it’s complicated,” I say, exhausted before I start.

Cohen drags a lawn chair over, sits, nestles Maren onto his lap, and holds his arms out. “I know I’m not as brilliant as you, smarty pants, but I’m pretty sure I can keep up. Just go slow and don’t use too many big words.”

My family stares at me, and I have no choice. I try to make it like ripping off a
Band-Aid.

“He was supposed to drop some important client papers in the mail. But he forgot them in the hotel. I told him I’d drop them, and I’m the one who signed for them. It wound up he didn’t follow protocol and the paperwork wasn’t registered correctly. It looked like
I
messed up because I signed off on it.” I twist my hands, now slick with sweat and shaky. “And the client whose case we were working on saw me at the hotel with Richard, but she didn’t recognize him. Only me. And that was the day we messed up the paperwork, so she accused me of having an affair while I was supposed to be on her case.”

“But Richard fucked it up?” Cohen asks, sitting up and looking at me with hot, angry eyes. “And he was there with you. Why didn’t he step forward and take responsibility?”

The amazing thing is, this question truly baffles Cohen. He just can’t bend his brain around the idea that some men are so self-centered, it would never occur to them to risk their necks for someone they see as expendable.

Conveniently, wonderfully expendable.

Richard, I’m sure, is happy he got away with it and even happier to have a patsy who took the fall for him and kept her mouth shut.

“The firm suspended me for the client’s benefit. This case is pretty huge, and they don’t want any feathers ruffled. I’m collecting my salary, though I have no option for overtime or bonuses. I’ll probably be brought back on
soon.”

I close my eyes like a kid making a wish. Damn, I
hope
I’ll be brought back.

“They suspended you, but not him?” Cece asks between gritted teeth.

“It’s an ‘all hands on deck’ situation with this case. They need him. Hell, they need me. I was the unlucky one who got recognized.” I look at their faces, and see a varied mixture of shock and anger. I feel like a bigger loser than I did before. “It will work out. It will. I’m a good lawyer. I play by the rules. They know I was on my personal time when Richard and I were at that hotel. They know this was all just a huge misunderstanding.”

I mean, I hope they know all that. The smart thing to do would be to go find out, but I’m in this very, very stupid ‘ignorance is bliss’ trance right now, and I just...I don’t want to find out anything that will shake me more than I’ve already been shaken.

“So they know Richard is the one who actually fucked up the paperwork, right?” Cohen asks.

“Um…” I look down at my beer.

“Lydia,” Cece says, her voice heavy with disappointed. “You didn’t tell them? You let them think it was you? This is your reputation on the line. Your work.”

“I know,” I say, nodding along in part because I really do agree with everything she’s saying. I also want her to stop talking, because knowing she’s right doesn’t mean there’s a damn thing I can do about it. “When I was standing there, in the room with my co-workers and my boss
—Richard included—it just felt like tattling to reveal what Richard did. Especially because I wasn’t sure he’d back me up, and, technically speaking, my signature was the last on that envelope.”

“If it came down to ‘he said, she said,’ you didn’t have the evidence,” Maren says softly.

“Exactly. So I’m just riding it out right now and hoping that my work and my diligence speak for itself.” And maybe that Richard gets involved in some shady case and has to be put into a witness protection program somewhere remote...like South Dakota or Wyoming. Or maybe that he falls hard for a Vegas show girl and decides to give up law and deal blackjack professionally.