The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan

Chapter Nineteen

For a while after that, there is relative quiet between them in the office. Fia gathers up all the papers from her desk, tidying them away carefully into different tabs of a file. Benjamin, surrounded by all his usual debris (or – is it her imagination? – could there be slightly less?) takes her in for a moment. He elects to say nothing, though, about her anal retentiveness or her control freak tendencies or whatever other choice phrase he surely has in mind. And Fia elects not to drag the criticism out of him. Another small sign of progress, perhaps.

‘Oh!’ he says, about a half an hour later, the exclamation seeming to come out of its own accord.

Fia glances over at him.

‘Email from Susan Followill,’ he explains. ‘About our next … meeting.’

Fia can tell, by his deadpan delivery, exactly what he’s referring to. Immediately, she pulls up said email on her computer, her existing client work cast aside altogether as she scans its contents:

Hi Fia and Benjamin,

It was great to meet you both earlier this week. I wanted to reach out in relation to the Exploratory Reconciliation and Reflection Discussion we talked about. As you know, participation in at least one session is a mandatory part of the process here at Followill and Associates. I am attaching a list of some time slots I have available next week.

I find that it is most fruitful to conduct an Exploratory Reconciliation and Reflection Discussion outside the confines of an office environment. Please can you propose a preferred location? Generally, I suggest that couples choose somewhere that has been special to them – a neutral space, associated with good memories for you both, tends to work well. You may also wish to consider the privacy component of any proposed location, given the sensitive nature of the matters to be discussed.

Yours,

Susan

‘I kind of figured maybe this would be the kind of thing we could just put off and put off and then never actually have to do,’ Benjamin says, right as Fia’s coming to the end of the email.

She looks up from her screen, cocking an eyebrow. ‘That’s your speciality, eh?’

As soon as she says it, she wishes she hadn’t. Things between them have been going so weirdly well all day. Why did she feel the need to antagonize him now, right when she most needs his cooperation? She braces herself for an argument.

In fact, though, Benjamin just rolls his eyes. It seems to be as much in annoyance with himself as with her. He did, after all, pretty much walk right into that one.

‘Look, I could live without this, too,’ Fia adds then. ‘But if we have to do it, let’s just get it done.’

Benjamin pauses, clicks his tongue against his teeth. ‘Fine, I guess. Obviously, we don’t have anywhere that’s special to usas a couple, though. And the privacy thing … as long as we’re not around work people, I don’t really care. We could do this in a subway car as far as I’m concerned. We could do it in a diner.’

It’s clear from his tone that Benjamin’s examples are just that – hypothetical rather than real suggestions. A moment later, though, stream-of-consciousness in full flow, he’s doubling back on himself. ‘In fact, you know what? Maybe that’s as good a place as any! How about Sarge’son 3rd Avenue? I’d say their lox bagel tends to put me in a very positive frame of mind.’

Fia’s eyes widen in surprise. In recognition, really. Of course, though, Benjamin doesn’t see that. Instead, he just sees uncertainty. Even distaste, perhaps.

‘Okay, so maybe it’s not going to be your natural habitat,’ he continues, and he’s on a roll now. He seems quite taken with the idea. He’s taken, perhaps, with the mere prospect of winning a concession from her. ‘I know you’re probably not real big on, like, the possibility of a sticky surface. But look at it this way – there’s next to zero chance of us running into anyone from ZOLA.’

That’s true. And, in any case, Fia feels a certain realization dawning upon her for the first time: there is a direct benefit to her in maintaining good relations with Benjamin, in keeping him even somewhat on side. She can let him have this small win.

‘Okay,’ she agrees. ‘Fine. I’ll reply to Susan, figure out a time.’

Benjamin just nods, and there’s a moment of quiet before he speaks again. ‘Well, hey. I guess if this whole situation with the Chestnuts tells us anything, it’s that we’re not the only ones with … stuff to untangle,huh?No matter how well other people might hide the parts that don’t photograph so well.’

Fia makes no reply. She’s never quite thought of it in that way.

Meanwhile, Benjamin is still feeling chatty. ‘It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it?’ he adds. ‘At one point, Alyvia and Jonathan loved each other more than anything – or, y’know, presumably they did. And now look where they are.’

‘I know,’ Fia murmurs. In fact, that’s the one regard in which she can never relate to her divorce clients, the one aspect of their pain and frustration that she has no way into. But, seeing all that anguish up close … it often makes her downright grateful to be single. If she’s being really honest with herself, it may even have some part to play in why she’s single.

She’s been told she has high standards, and perhaps that’s true. What seems to her mere efficiency in eliminating no-hopers has sometimes been deemed unduly ruthless by her friends. Certainly, it’s true that Fia has no time – quite literally no time – to play the numbers game, to treat dating like it’s her second job.

But also, through her actual job, she has seen people at their ugliest, their most mercenary and vicious. Add that to the ways she’s already been left high and dry in her own life? Starting, perhaps, with one Benjamin Lowry, with one very big promise left unfulfilled? It just doesn’t make for an especially optimistic starting point, when faced with a stranger in a bar.

‘Is it enough to put you off dating?’ she asks Benjamin then, affecting a little chuckle.

And, okay, maybe it’s not the most subtle way she could ever possibly have raised the issue. But she’s curious – mildly curious. She’s been mildly curious since Annie’s question in The Butcher’s Daughterthe other night. And, overall, she thinks she should probably get away with it, in the context at hand. She doesn’t feel like she deserves the shit-eating grin that rises to Benjamin’s lips, as though she has just been utterly, pathetically transparent.

He’s opening his mouth to respond when one of the paralegals approaches the office, her presence in the doorway suspending all conversation.

Fia looks up expectantly, tries to switch her brain over to whatever Carole might want to discuss – the distribution of Mr Peterson’s estate, no doubt. The man was hardly cold in the ground before his children began calling ZOLA about the matter constantly.

In fact, however, Carole tosses only the briefest glance in Fia’s direction. ‘Sorry to interrupt you guys,’ she says. ‘Hey, Benjamin, could you come look at the printer real quick? It’s stuck again, and I don’t know what magic you managed to work yesterday.’

Fia could hardly be more startled by this simple request. Apart from anything else, printer-wrangling does not fall even slightly within the realm of a summer associate’s job description. There is an entire IT department at the firm, albeit based all the way down on the forty-sixth floor. More than that, though, it’s the mere fact that Benjamin appears to have made it on to Carole’s radar – both at all, and in an apparently positive context. Carole Lindsay is one of the busiest and most frightening people in the entire office. She typically takes years even to offer fully fledged attorneys her grudging respect, and anyone else – particularly those whose presence at ZOLA is destined to be short-term – she treats with open impatience and/or hostility.

For his part, however, Benjamin doesn’t seem to find any aspect of this present interaction even the slightest bit unusual.

‘Sure, I’ll give it a try,’ he says, rising from his seat to follow Carole out of the office.

As she walks ahead, though, he lingers, turns in the doorframe. Evidently, he has one last word for Fia before he goes. A droll expression spreads across his face: smug and insufferable and the other thing, too, the thing Fia tries not to acknowledge.

‘Oh, and in answer to your question, Irish,’ he says, ‘actually, I’m not seeing anyone right now – thanks for asking, though.’