The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Seventeen
Fia meets Annie and Kavita for a quick bite after work, the three of them having found their calendars empty for the evening. They’re at The Butcher’s Daughter in the West Village, a restaurant once disparagingly described to Fia as ‘just white girls in yoga pants’ by some random (and, incidentally, also white) man in a bar. This had not affected Fia’s opinion of the place one bit. Over the past few years, The Butcher’s Daughter has become one of her favourite dinner spots in the city. She loves this neighbourhood – the shorter buildings, with their colourful awnings and their fire escapes, the sense of familiarity that probably comes as much from episodes of Friends as from anything in her own real life. And in fact, as she looks around the restaurant now, there are all kinds of people here, dotted in between the hanging succulents. It’s a crowd diverse, as seems so often to be the case in Manhattan, in all ways except economically.
By the time Fia, Annie and Kavita have each sipped their way through an Aperol Spritz, they’ve covered Kavita’s ongoing feud with another accountant at her firm (‘She double-emailed me today. Like, within an hour, to check if I’d received her previous one. This an email, Pamela. It’s not a carrier pigeon! It’s not a friggin’ Hogwarts owl! Let’s just go ahead and assume it’s arrived safe and sound, shall we?’). And they’ve dissected Annie’s ever-more-promising new relationship (‘Last night, he talked to me about cycling for a solid fifteen minutes, and I didn’t even really mind. I was willing to overlook it. That’s the level we’re talking about here, I think this might actually be something.’).
Then, as Fia knew it would eventually, the conversation weaves its way in her direction.
‘So. Benjamin,’ is all Kavita says, as the waitress comes to top up their water. Fia cannot recall, in this country, having ever managed to get to the bottom of a glass of water.
‘What about him?’ she replies.
‘What about him?’ Kavita repeats, as though to underline the ridiculousness of such a question. ‘How’d it go with the divorce lawyer today?!’
‘Yeah, we want updates,’ Annie chimes in. ‘If you want to provide them, obviously.’
‘Mmm.’ Fia chews a bite from her Buddha bowl. There is quite a bit of chewing involved.
The basic upshot of today’s meeting can be conveyed fairly briefly, and once she’s done that, it doesn’t take long for her roommates to swoop in, full of solidarity and enthusiasm.
‘And what about that other divorce?’ Annie asks eventually, turning towards the professional once the personal aspects of Fia’s life have been well and truly parsed. ‘For the Instagrammer. Is there really no getting Benjamin off of that one?’
‘Don’t think so. I’ll probably have to broach that with him at some point this week, actually,’ Fia says, letting out a heaving exhale at the reminder. ‘Another special treat that’ll be, I’m sure.’
Kavita waves away the concern, though. ‘Whatever,’ she says, ‘the thing to remember is that’s just short-term pain. Today is a good day.’ She extends her glass in a toast. ‘Here’s to you, girl. Soon to be an official divorcée.’
‘So chic,’ Annie adds.
And even as Fia laughs along, she’s conscious of a slight niggle of discomfort somewhere inside her. Of course, no part of her would ever have hoped for this to be a conversation she’d be having over dinner, aged 30. She would probably once have been all the more horrified to imagine that she would actually be clinking glasses with her friends, letting them amuse her, when the subject arose.
In fact, though, her unease isn’t related to any of that.
‘There is actually one other thing about Benjamin,’ she tells the girls then, feeling antsy. This particular anecdote is not something she’s ever offered up as gossip before – not to anyone at Camp Birchwood, not to her sister, Maeve, when she returned to Dublin that September, not even to George. She very deliberately omitted it, back when she first gave her roommates the rundown on her history with Benjamin.
This evening, though, Fia somehow feels a little dishonest about failing to mention it. Annie and Kavita seem to have been trying to be extra supportive of her lately. She suspects that this very dinner date, for example, might not truly be the result of coincidentally free schedules. It has been unexpectedly touching, feeling cared for in ways that can only be the result of some deliberate, joint planning on their parts.
Her roommates are not her family – she knows that. And there are times (oh God, are there times) when Fia very much would love to step into a bathroom and not find every inch of it soaked from someone else’s shower. However, there is no question that Annie and Kavita have proven to be complete lifesavers since they found out about Benjamin. They’ve done their best to inject some fun into her life, to be there, to listen – careful, all the while, not to push too far beyond her boundaries. Having already confided in them part way, having had that vulnerability held with such a light touch, she’s inclined to go the whole hog now.
And, beyond any of that, the simple fact is that for the entire afternoon, Fia has been able to hear it resounding in her ears. She’s seen it in her mind’s eye: Benjamin in Susan Followill’s office:
Are you telling me that you guys have never had sex?
It’s probably not accurate to say never.
The two of them had, in fact, had sex within ten days of their very first meeting.
During those ten days, they’d spent a bit of time sizing one another up and then had proceeded apace towards getting on each other’s nerves. Already, they’d had a number of debates as stupid as they were lengthy and, in the process, had ruined more than one perfectly good game of dodgeball for the preteens caught in the crossfire.
All of that was true. But then, there was the other truth:
Benjamin Lowry, right from the very start, was one of the most attractive people Fia Callaghan had ever laid eyes on in real life. Even taking into consideration the people she’d seen on screens, he probably would have been in with a shot. Was it his dark eyes? Was it his sun-bronzed colouring? Was it the smile that seemed to come for free with so many US passports? It was, of course, the combination. And it was, too, the slight asymmetry in his features. It was the sense of his own inattention to maintaining his appearance in any specific way. Camp Birchwood very quickly provided Fia with ample opportunity to see Benjamin in all manner of states – sweaty, sunburned, sick from too many vodka shots. He was no preening Ken doll, that was for sure.
Nevertheless, Fia was absolutely certain that he must be aware of the baseline situation at hand – how could he not have been? It was actually part of what she disliked about him, right off the bat. The bravado, the lack of consideration – it all tied into the same thing: that prom-king, captain-of-the-football-team thing, the particular sort of confidence that could only, in her opinion, have come from knowing all too well that he was extremely hot. In the conventional way.
The lead-up to the whole … encounter – the one between him and her – was not memorable. He was late for some activity, and she went looking for him, rapping sharply on his bedroom door before striding on in. He was lolling on the bed – reading a book, of all things – and she stopped a few paces away from him. Some interaction of their usual flavour followed: no screaming fights, but snappy, snarky, smart-alecky. That was right in their wheelhouse.
She was on the verge of storming off when he grinned and said, ‘You know what your problem is, Irish?’
It was the first time he’d ever called her that.
She leaned back a little and – there was no bun, back in those days – pushed her hair away from her face. This, she thought, should be good.
‘I don’t, Benjamin. Why don’t you enlighten me. What’s my problem?’
‘Your problem is you’re used to being followed. And yet you can’t seem to stop chasing after me, can you?’
The profound arrogance of this statement – not to mention the inaccuracy of it, on both counts – boggled Fia’s mind.
‘Uh huh,’ she muttered dryly, before letting her voice rise, as if in genuine curiosity. ‘Do you know the difference between “chasing after” and “cleaning up after”, Benjamin? It’s actually quite an important distinction.’
He laughed out loud, glancing pointedly around his bedroom. It was small and functional – a double bed, a wardrobe, a few personal effects on the chest of drawers. ‘Look where you are right now,’ he replied, and he let the statement hang there for a moment. ‘… ’S’all I’m sayin’.’
Fia just rolled her eyes, in the special way she’d come to save just for him. She was turning on her heel to leave once and for all, when he leaped up and grabbed her hand. He stopped her in her tracks, forced her to spin back around to face him. And then, without even a second’s pause, he kissed her.
It was a very risky manoeuvre, the sort of thing Fia would have wagered worked so much better on TV than in real life. In real life, when a woman appeared anywhere close to pissed off, she was rarely, in fact, just moments away from being very turned on. More men, in Fia’s opinion, could do with realizing that.
But, in this particular case …
Well, in this particular case, who was to say what combination of factors was in the mix? Surprise. Youth. The one Fia knew was least flattering to her, but was perhaps the most significant, was that – again – Benjamin Lowry was undeniably extremely hot. In the conventional way. And there were moments in life when you discovered that you were not better than other people – not smarter, not more principled, not any less susceptible to an undesirable desire. This was one of those moments for Fia. Benjamin’s breath on her neck, his hands on her skin … somehow those proved enough for her to set aside, at least temporarily, her distinct misgivings about his personality.
She found herself kissing him back – truly, it was like she was moving on nothing but pure instinct – and then clothes were coming off, and it turned out that despite the myriad ways she and Benjamin had already proven extremely incompatible, there were certain things they could do well.
Somehow, they found nothing over which to feud, here. Yes, she thoroughly enjoyed the way his eyes entirely glazed over, the moment she first so much as edged her fingertips under the waistband of his shorts. And yes, he did seem very pleased with himself when she cried out his name, begged him for more. There was no shortage, then, of teasing between the two of them, no shortage of a delicious form of torment, of one-upmanship, even – of showing off.
But it was not a battle. How could it be, really, when everything she wanted and everything he wanted … it all turned out to be one and the same. With each new movement – each smile, each strangled gasp – Benjamin’s pleasure actually felt like it was Fia’s. And hers seemed, too, like the ultimate source of his. What a revelation that was.
Afterwards, they lay together on his bed, each staring up at the ceiling, each breathing raggedly. Fia’s mind raced. Obviously, she had always imagined that Americans would be better at sex. That Benjamin would prove to be so very good at it, though … it was almost irritating.
This thought, in combination with the melty, tingling sort of feeling in her limbs, suddenly struck her as very amusing.
‘Ohhh, I must have lost my mind,’ she said then, practically to herself, the words mumbled hazily, mid-laugh.
And, as she turned over on her side to look at Benjamin, she wasn’t above admitting that it was the most positive she’d ever felt towards him – the most positive by a long shot.
He turned to look at her, too, his face flushed, holding her gaze for a second. Evidently, he was getting to grips with the new reality himself – with the unexpectedness of what had just happened, the undeniability of it.
Or maybe he very much wasn’t doing any of that. Because then he told her, quiet and sure, ‘This will never happen again.’
At once, Fia felt as if she’d had a bucket of cold water chucked over her. Meltiness? Gone. Tingling? She couldn’t even imagine it. In a flash, though, the shock subsided, and then it wasn’t so much the substance of what he’d said that bothered her: it was that he’d robbed her of the chance to say it first.
She pulled herself upwards in bed, staring down at him now, all wide eyes and sarcasm. ‘Do you promise?’
And just like that, normal service between them resumed. It never did happen again.
‘Oh my God!’ Kavita says, when Fia’s finished telling the story – or sketching out the skeleton of it, at least. ‘That is just … I mean! Oh my God! This changes everything!’
Fia can’t help but laugh at her roommate’s exuberance. ‘I mean, it doesn’t really, though,’ she replies.
‘Well, for one thing, I feel like we need to get eyes on him now. Don’t you, Annie? How could we make that happen?’
‘Hmm. We could swing by the office for lunch some day?’ Annie suggests. ‘Or remember the time I crashed your Thursday night office drinks, Fia, ’cause it happened to be right by my chiropractor? That could work.’
‘Ooh, yes, I like that!’ Kavita jumps back in. ‘We could just happen to be in the area – drop in, conduct a little light judgement on old Benji, talk you up. In fact, even better! You know what you should do?’
‘What?’ Fia replies indulgently, as their server arrives with another round of Aperol Spritzes. It’s perfect timing. They seem to be descending further and further into the conversational rabbit hole here, but in a way that undeniably does feel a little bit fun – certainly more than she might have anticipated it would.
‘You should bring a guy to one of those things!’ Kavita says.
Fia snorts. ‘Like who?’
‘I don’t know, whoever. What a bummer that Hot Irish Guy is in, like, Ireland, huh? He would have been perfect.’
At the mention of Ryan Sieman, Fia wonders idly what the situation will be with him once she gets to Dublin for this year’s Summer Summit. From one of their encounters to the next, there is always the possibility that Ryan will have found a girl, settled down, etc.
He sent her a text last week, actually. She’s somehow forgotten about it, until right this moment. Maybe that was a good sign, him having reached out. It was brief and out-of-the-blue, though – the sort of message that could have been flirty or could equally have been merely friendly. ‘Breadcrumbing’, she’s heard this is called now. There is a term for everything these days. Fia didn’t respond to the text, but not on account of any wider strategizing. She had simply – if she remembers rightly – been in the office at the time, distracted by some low-level dispute with Benjamin.
Her friends, meanwhile, aren’t giving Ryan a second thought, focused instead on what more local gentleman might serve as suitable show pony for Benjamin’s benefit.
‘You could probably just find someone on the apps,’ Annie continues, as Fia reaches for a sip of her fresh drink.
All three of them are, or have been from time to time, on the apps. Bumble, Hinge, Happn, Tinder, Coffee Meets Bagel, Thursday … it seems like a new one springs up every other month. Annie’s current guy, in fact, was sourced via one of said apps. So, in among the very many men who are ‘fluent in sarcasm’, who are out there posting pictures of kids that aren’t theirs, who are allegedly in open relationships, who like to photograph themselves oily and shirtless at the gym … somewhere in that mix, there apparently remain some hidden gems.
For her own part, Fia’s enthusiasm waxes and wanes. Dating apps feel unavoidable – just another piece of the pie that makes up a modern existence. And, like HelloFresh meal kits and Amazon shopping and TaskRabbit handymen, sometimes they can be convenient. Does Fia still believe in them as a mechanism by which she, personally, is likely to find a lifelong romantic relationship? Probably no. Not really. She’s not sure she sees that happening for her, full stop.
In any event, this is all by the by.
‘I think you’re both totally missing the point here,’ she tells the others, though at this stage, she’s not honestly sure what is the point. ‘I’m not out to … I dunno, make Benjamin jealous or whatever.’
‘Well, no. I mean, obviously that’s not your main goal,’ Kavita replies. ‘And I do still think he’s an asshole. But, girl, come on.’ She cocks an eyebrow. ‘If this is somebody who’s a snack and who you once had excellent sex with … I don’t know, call me crazy, but I think it wouldn’t hurt for him to also be a little jealous.’
Together, they all laugh into their drinks – they downright giggle, in fact, in a fashion that their respective clients and co-workers could probably never imagine but that feels, in this moment, like it’s who they really are.
‘Wait,’ Annie says then. ‘Is he single? Benjamin.’
‘I assume so. I mean, if he’s in any sort of relationship, it can’t be a serious one, can it?’
‘Why not?’
‘’Cause otherwise he would have divorced me a long time ago,’ Fia replies.
Annie tilts her head a little in acknowledgement. ‘Good point.’
And now that Fia thinks about it, is it a little sad, that both she and Benjamin have evidently gone almost an entire decade without really falling in love? Maybe. But she pushes that thought away, reminds herself that something can be disappointing without being defining.
Being (mostly) single has not felt at all defining for her, in these past years.
Has it even, really, been all that disappointing? In fact, she’s been inclined to think there are a lot of upsides.
And, more so than anything else, there is the principle of the thing:
It may be true that Fia was born pretty squarely in between the years 1981 and 1994. It may be true that she lives in one of the world’s largest metropolises, and that she has plenty of bad days, in along with the good ones.
But these are merely discrete facts. She will not let them glom together, deepen and distend until they somehow flatten her. Whatever else Fia Callaghan is or might ever be, she simply refuses be a sad millennial girl in a city.