The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Twenty-One
Sarge’s Deli and Diner has terracotta floor tiles and burgundy leather seats, strong filter coffee and generous portions. Its walls are lined with photographs of famous faces who may (or, equally likely, may not) have visited through the years. Overhead, glass lightshades – their mosaics of green and yellow pieces – cast the whole place in a slightly jaundiced hue. In short, it could not be further from mushroom toast and latte art, from millennial pink and teal velvet sofas. At times, Fia loves all those things. But she’s always loved it here, too.
From across the booth, Susan Followill’s expression is almost ludicrously pleasant. The basic greetings out of the way, and everyone having already ordered something to eat at the deli counter, this is a woman now ready, in earnest, to begin her tried-and-tested spiel.
Fia takes a deep breath. The contemplation of recent days has clung on, a bit. Maybe, she thinks, she actually can learn a thing or two from this process. In any event, she reminds herself that it is not in her interests to rock the boat too much this afternoon. She cannot have Benjamin storming off, refusing to even participate.
‘So!’ Susan declares. ‘I’m always so interested when I talk to couples – what was it that first attracted you to each other?’
Right away, Fia can sense her insides seizing. It’s not the best start. Denial is on the tip of her tongue – a repudiation of the basic assumption that underpins the question – when suddenly she can sense Benjamin’s eyes on her.
She lets herself sneak a glance in his direction, and the expression on his face, to nine out of ten onlookers, would surely seem entirely neutral – blank, even. Fia can read him very clearly, though. It’s in the very slight twitch of his lips, the minuscule arch of his eyebrow: that hint of challenge – and something else, too.
Just like that, Fia can sense her efforts to stay zen slipping away. She is thrown off her game – aware, suddenly, of the scent of him, even stronger now than it is inside the confines of their office. Why on earth, she wonders, did she chose to slide in alongside him, when another option – across the booth, next to Susan – was equally available to her? She tries to focus on Susan.
‘Uh, what first attracted me to Benjamin?’ she wonders aloud, buying time, letting her voice rise with sarcasm. ‘That’s a hard one. I would say it’s got to be when I told him my name and where I was from, and he said, “Hey, I had no idea you guys spoke such good English”.’
For a brief second, when Fia turns back to him, it looks like Benjamin might be recollecting that moment for the first time ever, even cringing a little. It’s over fast, though. It may never have happened to begin with.
‘And, for me, it would have to be Fia’s sense of humour,’ he tosses back, barely a missed beat. ‘She’s always been so good at taking a joke.’
‘Well, what can I say? Benjamin’s jokes just haven’t always been to my taste,’ Fia replies breezily. Again, her attention is ostensibly concentrated entirely on Susan now. ‘Let me tell you about one time. We were working together, although not in the same job we’re doing now – a different one.’
This – a fairly unremarkable fact, in Fia’s mind – appears to take Susan rather by surprise. If she perhaps wonders why her warring clients seem to repeatedly find ways to work in the same place, she doesn’t voice this aloud. But the look on her face tells Fia that at least slightly more context is needed.
‘It was at a summer camp,’ she supplies briefly. ‘Anyway, I worked our entire evening shift by myself. Benjamin was nowhere to be seen, of course, but that was no big loss. Now, bear in mind that I had just managed to get ten 12-year-old boys settled down for the night. I could practically taste the cold beer that was waiting for me. When guess who comes bounding into the dorm room like Billy Big Bollocks, all “who wants to see a magic trick?”?’ Fia pauses, allowing herself a brief sideways glance. ‘Bingo! Benjamin here. And I won’t bore you with every step of the process, but let’s just say it ended with a bunch of preteen boys effectively holding me hostage, attempting to saw me in half with a baseball bat!’
Beside her, Benjamin lets out an unrestrained snort of laughter. Evidently, he’s not a bit sorry about that one, even to this day. And, when it comes to anecdotes, he’s not about to be outdone. ‘Susan,’ he says intently, ‘would you believe that Fia and I were once out on a lake, and she sai—’
Susan, however, halts him with a gently raised hand. ‘Okay. Maybe this isn’t especially productive for anybody right now, huh?’
Across the table, neither Fia nor Benjamin say anything, both suddenly like reprimanded children. And is it weird that Fia feels slightly … disappointed? The two of them were just getting going; they were just ramping up that rhythm and pace. Furthermore, she has no idea what incident he was about to recall. The thought that she, too, might have said and done things in the past of which she now has no memory … that’s a bit disorienting.
‘So, I know you guys were married in … unconventional circumstances,’ Susan continues calmly. ‘And we’re going to come on to talk about challenges in a moment. But what would you say was the biggest success of your marriage?’
Fia lets out a hearty, satirical sort of laugh. Magnanimity, moderation – prudent as those things would doubtless be, they’ve gone entirely out the window now. They just seem to be incredibly hard to achieve in Benjamin’s presence. Apart from anything else, it strikes her that the alternatives are so much more fun.
‘Pass,’ she says drily, at the exact same moment as Benjamin says, ‘I’ll let Fia answer that one.’
She turns to him swiftly. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He just rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, come on.’
‘No. What do you mean by that?’
He shrugs, in that maddening would-be casual way of his. ‘You talk a good game, Fia. “All these years I’ve been helpless and trapped—”’
‘I have been!’ she interrupts, though it goes entirely ignored.
‘—But I’d say that green card’s been working out pretty good for you so far, huh? If anything, you should be thanking me!’
Fia doesn’t give herself time to grasp the full implications of this. ‘Thanking you?!’ she finds herself all but shrieking in response.
And he is, now, every bit as emphatic as she is incredulous. ‘Yes! Thanking me!’
‘How d’you figure that one?’
‘You’ve probably been in the US long enough by now, right? You’ll probably qualify for some sort of residency-based permit, once we’re divorced? If anyone’s done their research, I’m sure it’s you. But let’s face it, Irish: you wouldn’t even be here – much less would you be able to stay here – if it weren’t for me. If it weren’t for us getting married – and maybe more to the point, us having stayed married, all this time.’
When he’s finished, even Benjamin himself seems a bit surprised by this little speech – the density of it, the frankness. For her part, Fia is nothing short of stunned. In under a minute, it’s as though the conversation has somehow got away from her altogether, as if she’s being dragged along behind it at speed.
‘Hang on,’ she manages eventually. ‘Are you saying … Benjamin.’ She pauses, hardly able to help the little grunt of disbelief that escapes her. ‘Do you think I married you for a green card?’
Benjamin does not seem to register her tone. ‘I don’t think you married me for one,’ he replies gruffly. ‘But look at you now: feet under the desk at a big US firm? I think even you’d have to admit it’s been a hell of a silver lining.’
Fia remains so completely astonished that it takes her another moment to formulate a response. ‘I’m in the US on a work visa,’ she says then, keeping each word slow and simple for Benjamin’s benefit.
And she can practically hear the cogs begin to turn in his mind, in real time. She can practically see him wrestling with this new information – deciding whether or not to accept it, feeling his former sense of triumph slipping away.
His response, when it comes, is staccato and flustered. ‘But … but! You said, that day we had the meeting with Alyvia Chestnut … you said you’d worked at ZOLA for eight years!’
Fia barely remembers that. Nonetheless, she’s unperturbed. ‘Yeah. Four years in the Dublin office, and then I came here. Fully legally, I might add, on an Intra-Company Transfer Visa.’
Benjamin looks utterly dumbfounded now – somehow indignant and embarrassed at once, and the combination is undeniably comedic. Or at least, Fia thinks it is. All of a sudden, she can’t help the peal of laughter that bubbles up and escapes her, reverberating through her whole body.
Another one follows, and another, until it’s an uncontrollable, self-perpetuating thing. She throws her head back with it, tears leaking from her eyes, the noise drawing glances from other diners. Fia herself knows this is probably a disproportionate reaction, but that very knowledge, in fact, seems only to make her cackle all the more. Plus, the expression on Benjamin’s face – oh God, the expression on his face! – is just too much, too hilarious.
Even Susan’s valiant efforts to interject, to redirect the conversation, make no difference.
‘But … I don’t understand!’ Fia manages eventually, once her laughter has slowed to a wheeze. ‘Why would I have hounded you about getting divorced – for months – if I secretly wanted to stay married? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Ben! Can you even get a spouse visa without the two of you, like, literally showing up somewhere to be interrogated by an immigration officer?’
Unbelievably, Benjamin doesn’t seem to have answers to these questions. It seems like they have never even occurred to him. He just shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Why didn’t you say anything about this before?!’ she continues.
‘I did!’ he splutters.
‘You did not!’
Even as she speaks, though, certain moments come back to her in flashes. Benjamin absolutely hadn’t declared this theory aloud before. Fia knows she would remember that. Had there been a few loaded accusations here and there, though – a few complaints grumbled under his breath?
She has to admit she’s just never been much interested in pulling at those threads. Even now, she’s momentarily distracted before she can really get into the specifics – it’s the waiter, arriving with their food. Plain white plates clink down onto the wooden table, and Fia wastes no time before reaching for her sandwich. She’s postponed lunch for this, and she’s ravenous.
She’s wolfed down a few glorious mouthfuls by the time she clocks that Susan is looking curiously across the table.
‘Pretty good, huh?’ Susan says, with a little smile.
In truth, Fia is just about restraining a moan. ‘Oh my God,’ she replies, ‘this is the best corned beef and pastrami in the city, bar none. Just never lets you down – I don’t know what they do to it.’
She hears her own words aloud, as if they’ve come from someone else’s mouth. And once again, she’d swear she can feel the very second Benjamin twists his neck to look over at her. She twists hers to look at him, their eyes meeting.
He is still mid-bite, a lick of cream cheese having escaped his bagel and made it to his upper lip. Evidently, he, too, has dived right in, approached this meal like he was in some sort of contest. Perhaps, she realizes, it was their very synchronicity that amused Susan.
For a few seconds, silence. He swallows, frowning a little now, as though he’s slowly putting two and two together.
‘You come here,’ he says quietly, no question about it.
‘Uh, yeah,’ Fia replies, and though she didn’t necessarily intend to reveal that information, some part of her is glad he knows. She caught his little dig, last week, to the effect that she’d surely be far too high and mighty for a place like this.
‘Oh,’ is all he can seem to muster in response now.
And, yes, to be able to shock Benjamin Lowry twice, within a matter of minutes … undeniably that’s pretty satisfying. It’s a slightly uncomfortable feeling, too, though.
‘And you come here,’ she finds herself saying, a little disjointedly – because that’s the source of discomfort, really. It’s the having something in common. She just doesn’t have much practice in that, with him.
Benjamin nods. ‘Yeah,’ he replies gruffly.
Fia supposes she has, at least, had a little longer than him to digest the coincidence. Still, though. How strange, that one of her favourite places in the city – this tiny place, on an unremarkable block – should apparently be one of his favourites, too. How extra strange to imagine that they could even have run into one another here, over the years. If she’d missed her subway one morning, arrived a little later than planned, if he’d decided to linger over an extra cup of coffee – that’s all it would have taken.
Then, as if with the wave of a wand, the snap of someone’s fingers, she’s bounced right out of such thoughts, back into the present moment. She remembers Susan’s existence, and the reason they’re all here at Sarge’s in the first place.
Another sudden peal of laughter escapes unbidden as she raises her coffee cup to her lips. ‘Seriously, I just can’t believe that all this time, you’ve been thinking I needed you for a visa!’