The Cost of Happiness: A Contemporary Romance (25 page)

Kassie came back from the kitchen with two lite beers. “Well, do you like it? I had so much fun decorating. Mostly thrift store purchases. Then I just go to Pier One Imports and buy everything else.”

“Thanks.” Meghan accepted the beer. “I was just thinking that your apartment and my apartment average out to two rationally decorated apartments.”

From Kassie’s answering grin, Meghan could tell she hadn’t offended her.

Kassie waved at the daybed. “If you move the pillows around, this is actually pretty comfortable.” She flicked on the flat-screen TV. “Oh, good, it’s just starting.”

It was confusing at first—shots of fish tanks, a sonorous voice-over promising “big drama,” then a shot of five people sitting in a sleek, modernist living room.

“Hunh. Why’s Kai back in the Fishbowl?” Kassie said. “She got fished out last time.”

The voice-over mentioned “an explosive revelation involving Lissa not being what she seemed.”

Suddenly, Meghan pointed at the TV. “That’s a classmate of mine. At law school.”

Kassie hit the pause button on the remote, freezing the scene just as Libby Pembroke’s face was reacting to something someone had said. She was in close-up, her eyes half-closed and mouth open.

“No, that’s Lissa. She’s a bartender at a bar over by the river. The Cork something, I think.”

Meghan squinted at the TV. “No, I’m pretty sure that’s Libby. Do people lie on this show?”

Kassie shrugged. “All the time. It’s reality TV, so they behave like asses most of the time. But lie about their names? I wouldn’t have thought so.” She hit Play.

The deep-voiced narration explained, “On last Thursday’s show Kai was fished out. Afterwards, when the cameras were off, Lissa—the bartender from Philadelphia—confessed that she’s actually a student at the prestigious Benjamin Franklin School of Law. She had taken the place of her twin, Lissa, who currently lives in Alaska. We’ll have both twins here for a special interview…after the commercial break.”

“Holy shit,” Kassie said, muting the television. “And you know her? Why would a law student say she was a bartender?”

Meghan was as confused as Kassie. “I have no idea. Libby is the next to last person anyone at school would expect to find on reality TV.”

“Who’s the least likely?”

“Me.” Meghan grinned. “You have to understand. Libby’s almost as quiet and focused in school as I was. They called me ‘The Ghost’ because I was virtually invisible in class.”

“Cool.” Kassie tilted her beer bottle in salute. “So how does a quiet law student end up on
The Fishbowl
?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t even know she was thinking about it. Last I heard, she had found a replacement job in L.A.”

“Replacement?”

“Her summer associate job fell through when the firm dissolved. I think we talked about it, after—” After the moot court final, when Dan was the judge and had chatted with them, only Libby had wandered off, leaving Dan to talk to her alone. That had been more nerve-wracking than the moot court final. And more exhilarating, too. Had she been attracted to him even then? God, how embarrassing.

Kassie started the show again. They’d cut to a set with a couple of chairs on one side and some actor type on the other. Through a window behind the two chairs, they could see a ginormous fish-tank-shaped house. Two women walked over and sat down. They looked absolutely the same—same clothes, same hair, same face. Libby in stereo.

“Wow. Did you know she had a twin?” Kassie asked.

Meghan lifted her hands, palms up. “I had no idea. I didn’t socialize much in school. As far as I know, Libby wasn’t dating or anything. I guess she might have talked to other people about her sister. We aren’t exactly friends, we just know each other from Law Review.”

Back to the show. Meghan found the twins fascinating. Their voices were different, and it was easy to see that Lissa was more vivacious.

Kassie said, “Look—they even laugh the same way.”

“Synchronized laughter—the next Olympic sport,” Meghan deadpanned.

“Ooh, I like it. An entire team of athletes rolling on the floor in perfect rhythm.”

Meghan cracked up at the thought. “Can you imagine the sequined clown costumes?”

“Yes! And they’d have to honk each other’s noses in unison.”

Meghan looked over at Kassie, who held a hand over her mouth as she giggled. How could such a vibrant woman have lived next door all this time and Meghan never noticed her? Kassie was so pretty and friendly. You’d have to be blind to miss her. On the other hand,
blind
wasn’t exactly a stretch for Meghan.

Kassie had to explain who the other Fish were so Meghan could understand what they were talking about. One of the guys—Denny? Dylan? something like that—was quite profane talking about Libby. Meghan smiled, but the whole thing was making her think about how school would be starting in a couple of weeks, and she wouldn’t be there.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Kassie looked alarmed, and not at the muted commercial for car insurance.

“What? Oh.” Meghan realized there were tear tracks on her cheeks, not entirely from laughing. “I’m going to miss school, that’s all.”

“Why can’t you go back in the fall?”

“I owe too much money,” Meghan said. She stood up. “Thanks for the beer, and the TV. I wouldn’t have seen that episode if it hadn’t been for you.”

“But I made you sad.” Kassie made a clown-face frown.

On impulse, Meghan gave her a hug. “No. Not sad. You cheered me up so much. You have no idea.” Somehow Meghan understood she wouldn’t have cried if she hadn’t been laughing just minutes before. It was like the laughter had melted the block of ice she’d been hiding in. She didn’t think she could explain it to Kassie, though.

Back in her apartment, Meghan looked at her plain cream walls and utilitarian furniture. It looked different to her—less “peaceful,” more “dead boring.” Sure the contrast with Kassie’s gypsy caravan was extreme, but even Dan’s apartment, half-unpacked, was more colorful.

Meghan walked back to her front closet. She had—somewhere in here—a tube with…yeah, here it was. She pulled the long cardboard cylinder out of the depths of the closet, behind the winter boots and heavy coats.

Inside the tube were rolled up posters, artwork she’d bought in high school. She’d had them on the walls at college, but never bothered to unpack them here. She pulled them out and unrolled them.

A Tiffany stained glass window in rich autumnal shades. A Steuben collection of elaborate hand-blown crystal paperweights. An Edward Steichen photograph of the Flatiron Building.

Then she got to the last one. A cartoon by Ronald Searle, who did these wonderful pen-and-ink cats. This was a picture within the picture. In the foreground, a black-and-white cat, its back to the viewer, climbing a ladder to the spot where the paper had been torn back to reveal a scene in glorious color—an English cottage surrounded by flowers, with a fluffy white girl cat just waiting for him to join her. Only he never can.

She carefully piled the posters on top of each other. She couldn’t afford to get frames, but with some of that low-tack adhesive, she could put them up. The Tiffany over her tiny dining table, the Steichen in the living room and the Steuben paperweights over her desk. The Searle, the one that made her chest ache? That had better go in the bedroom.

She felt so much like that cat on the ladder, never allowed into the world of color, scent, love.

Wait—she’d had all those things this past few weeks. Color at Dan’s and at Kassie’s. Scents, the garlic and wine, and that funny whiff of incense lingering in Kassie’s living room. And love? Well, companionship, certainly.

Maybe the cat does make it into that other world, after all.

Meghan could guess how high the work in her other cases would have piled up in her absence, so she came in early the next morning, shut her door, and plowed in.

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Your closed door is intimidating me. How busy are you, really? Be honest.

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

If you opened the door, you would see 8-foot tall piles of Redwelds, with only my whimpers as evidence that I’m in here too.

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

Do I need to send in a rescue party?

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

I think Hercules had to clean the Augean Stables on his own, so I should just get on with it. I should be able to clear a path to my door in ::eyes stacks assessingly:: oh, maybe six weeks…

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

The hell with the rescue party—I’ll come join you! Six weeks with nothing but you and some Redwelds sounds divine. (For the purposes of this inappropriate email, adequate food and a quilt are assumed.) (And a path to the bathrooms.)

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

A stack of files, a set of interrogatories, and thou?

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]

The modern-day love poem…

Meghan smiled, then minimized her email program. It looked from the stack of files she’d done that she was maybe halfway through.

The door opened. “Knock knock?”

Vicky. Oh joy. Meghan put a sticky note next to the paragraph she’d been reviewing, then swiveled around.

Remember that she lives alone with an ailing mother…

The redhead smirked. “Did Dan get everything sorted out? I bet you feel stupid right about now.”

Oh, right. The trip to Ohio was to fix some mistake. “It was a complication we didn’t need, that’s for sure.” Meghan waved a hand vaguely. “What can I do for you? As you can see, I’ve got a backlog of files to deal with.”

“That’s why I’m here. I need the updated database.”

“Sure. May I email it to you, or do you need it walked up to your office?”

Vicky eyed the files with a frown. “You have it done?”

Of course I did your work first because I knew you’d demand it as soon as you decently could. You’re distressingly predictable
.

Meghan sighed.
Her mother, remember?

“Only just got the last one inputted, oh, five minutes ago.” Meghan smiled mildly.

Vicky’s mouth gaped open for a second, then snapped shut. “Fine. Yes, please walk it up to me.”

The sound of the door closing was almost a slam.

Meghan sent the document to the printer. Total waste of paper, printing it out, but she knew better than to point out how Vicky could access it online. While the printer kicked out the sheets, Meghan made up a label for a new three-ring binder, punched all the pages, inserted them in the binder, then walked it up to the forty-second floor.

Vicky’s door was shut, so Meghan gave the binder to Vicky’s assistant. “I believe she wants it immediately.”

“Yeah, well that nice new partner’s in with her right now, so she doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

Meghan chuckled. “Okay, thanks, Nabila.”

When Meghan got back to her desk, she sent an email to Vicky telling her that the database was on Nabila’s desk.

A few hours later, there was another knock on her door.

“Come in,” she called without looking up.

“I’m disappointed. I was expecting a fort made up of three-inch thick legal files.” Dan slipped in and shut the door very quietly.

“Nearly done.” Meghan pointed to the final half-dozen files left to review. Then she pointed to a stainless steel wire mesh cart piled high on both levels with every sort of legal file. “That’s what I’ve been working on all day.”

Dan sat in the chair. “I got to see Sycophanta’s face when Nabila handed her the binder you made for her. You are an evil woman.”

“Oh, she was just annoyed because she wanted me to admit I hadn’t gotten her stuff done yet. Little does she know, I came in early just to work on her case files.”

His eyes glinted like sunlight on a calm lake. “Let me guess. You had her stuff done before she even got in this morning.”

Meghan pursed her lips. “Pretty much.”

“Wow. Remind me never to be on your shit list. You’d be a tough opponent.”

She tilted her head. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I think.”

“Intended as a compliment, I assure you. So. When can you be ready to leave?”

“Why?” She looked at the clock. Not even seven. “I wasn’t planning on leaving soon.”

“Did you have lunch?”

Meghan scowled at him. “No.”

Dan stood and paced, at least to the extent that her small office allowed. “You’re too—strike that. I worry that you—no. I know I don’t get a vote, but am I at least allowed to be concerned?”

Oh, lord. The “you’re too thin” talk. “You’re like my neighbor, Kassie. She nags at me to eat better.”

“Sounds like I’d like her.”

“You would.” Meghan smiled at the thought of Kassie and Dan meeting. “She’d love to meet you. She can tell when I’ve slept over at your place because my hair looks different.”