The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Fifty-Three
‘Is Benjamin Lowry here?’ Fia asks someone, the moment she steps out of the lift and onto ZOLA’s rooftop. She barely knows the guy she corners, and she can hear the intensity in her own voice – but so what? She goes from person to person, in fact, asking the very same thing of each one, then the next.
‘Have you seen Benjamin Lowry?’
It’s precisely the sort of undue interest, whether positive or negative, that she’s tried so hard to conceal all summer. Now, though, adrenaline still coursing through her body, she is past caring.
She’s circled the roof terrace twice to no avail, her mind increasingly frantic – where is he? – when she hears her name called.
‘Fia,’ comes the voice from behind her, and as Fia turns, she sees Celia Hannity standing there. Her boss appraises her for a moment, in a way that makes her squirm inside.
‘Come talk to me for a second,’ Celia says then, and Fia has no option but to abandon her existing mission and follow Celia into the lift vestibule – the very same place where she and Benjamin, all those weeks ago, had their first fight of the summer.
Once the glass door is closed behind them, Celia gets right to it.
‘So, I received Benjamin’s mentor evaluation this morning,’ she starts, and Fia senses her whole body tense. As it turns out, though, there’s no need. ‘He had some very nice things to say about you,’ Celia continues. ‘Glowing, in fact.’
Fia just blinks. In the circumstances, she can’t quite tell how Celia wants her to feel about that. Caught on the hop, she’s not sure how she does feel about it. She sets it aside to figure out later. For the moment, she just needs to get through this conversation. She needs to get back out there, find Benjamin, and stay focused on what she wants to say to him about how he’s treated her. She can’t be distracted by the vague mention of some flattery on a form.
‘Well, I didn’t put him up to it, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ she replies then. ‘I haven’t even seen him since … that night.’
She’s conscious it may not seem a hugely plausible claim, given what Celia has likely just witnessed on the terrace – namely, her desperate attempt to hunt down none other than the man in question. In fact, though, Celia doesn’t mention it.
‘Benjamin told me when he dropped off the evaluation that the divorce is … handled,’ she says instead. ‘And that his plans for after law school don’t involve ZOLA.’
Fia nods. None of this is news to her.
‘So, that’s good news. You know one weird thing, though?’ Celia says then, her voice rising in curiosity, as though this recollection is just returning to her. ‘He spelled your name wrong the whole way through the evaluation! Like, every single time. I can’t even remember how, exactly, but it was wild!’
And, as the other woman lets out a little chuckle, Fia can hardly help the way her breath seems to hitch in her chest.
Fiadh.
Why does the idea of him remembering that – reclaiming it, on her behalf – seem to make something ache inside her? Why does it strike her as ten times more meaningful than any other complimentary thing he might have written about her? She tries to push the questions aside. More confusion, she decides, to pull apart later.
On her end, Celia certainly doesn’t seem inclined to spend any further time on the subject now. ‘Anyhow,’ she continues. ‘I’ve given it a lot of thought and, all things considered, there’s probably no need to report that little … incident to Human Resources. I’ve written a nice recommendation for Benjamin, so he can leave happy today, and once he’s gone, you can just … carry on as normal.’
In response, Fia lets out a strangled little sound from the back of her throat. Relief. Immediately, the sensation floods through her like liquid. Should she end up going back to Dublin, it’s not going to be in disgrace. She’s not going to have to tell her parents she was fired and why – and ask them for a few quid to tide her over, to boot. The whole thing makes her feel almost dizzy, as if she’s temporarily floating outside her own body.
But then, amid the relief, there seems to be something else, too. It takes a second to make itself fully known, like a whisper getting louder in her ears: does she want to just carry on as normal? Does she want to pretend as though this summer never happened? She cannot help thinking about Fiadh – the person she was before she ever set foot in America, the person she really is, at her core. If she is destined to stay at ZOLA’s New York office – if she’s going to keep spending upwards of ten hours a day inside this building – it strikes her that she’d like to figure out how to be slightly more herself while she’s at it.
‘You know what? Maybe you should report me,’ she hears herself say then.
Celia’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘What?’
‘… I don’t want to be here on a favour,’ Fia replies, the truth of this fact solidifying in her brain even as she declares it. ‘I don’t want to owe anybody anything. Just, when you do tell HR, maybe say something about my work, too, will you?’
Celia offers nothing in response, apparently entirely unprepared for this turn of events. A large part of Fia can hardly believe it herself.
‘I should have told you about the marriage right at the beginning,’ she says. ‘There’s no getting around that. I just should have.’
‘You’re damn right you should have.’
‘And I shouldn’t have got … entangled with Benjamin, while he worked here. Everything I did or didn’t do … that stuff didn’t just happen, even though sometimes it felt that way. I chose it.’
Fia pauses, sucks in a breath. This is awful, every second of it – frightening and humbling and awful. Not for the first time today, though, she finds that there is a certain power, merely in admitting out loud what is true.
‘But I’m good at my job,’ she continues. And then, lest she be accused of outsized entitlement, ‘I’m not saying I could run the place or that I’m some kind of special case. I know you could probably get fifty of me within the week. And I appreciate everything that people at ZOLA have done for me – you especially. But I have worked my arse off for this firm, for the guts of a decade. I do think I’m at the stage, now, where I’m contributing something. And, surely, there has to be some point where it starts to get even a tiny bit more like a two-way street – where you get some kind of loyalty back.’
This feels, in one way, like such a basic statement, such a very modest hope to claim. And yet, somehow, it also feels incredibly bold – by some, she’s sure, it would be viewed as nothing less than impertinent.
Fia lets her eyes shift, gathering whatever courage she has left in her. Then she looks back up at Celia squarely. ‘So, I suppose we’ll see. I’m really not a snowflake – but I’m also not a machine. I’ve made some mistakes this summer … ones that have impacted absolutely nobody except me, but still. If it ends up that you need to fire me for them, then … I don’t know. I suppose you need to fire me.’
And just like that, as Fia offers a little nod of conclusion and reaches for the handle of the vestibule door, Celia Hannity becomes the second person she’s left speechless in her wake this morning. She’s beginning to get a taste for it, she thinks. Even as heat blooms furiously in her cheeks, she’s readier than she’s ever been to make it a hat-trick.
Weaving her way through clusters of people on the patio, though, her eyes darting about, she does begin to feel a little less sure about the speech she’s prepared for Benjamin.
There are no two ways about it – that name thing has rattled her. Maybe she’s reading far too much into the addition of two extra letters, but it just … it seems suspiciously like the behaviour of someone who knows her, properly. Someone who cares.
She’s passing by the makeshift bar area when Brett Sallinger stops her, a mimosa in an outstretched hand.
‘Hey, Fia! I think you might need one of these, huh?’
As it happens, Fia suddenly feels like that’s absolutely true, although she’s not sure how Brett would know it.
‘What do you mean?’ she asks, accepting the proffered glass and taking a large gulp from it. The champagne to orange juice ratio is perhaps not as she would ideally wish it.
‘What do I mean? Benjamin Lowry, that’s what I mean!’ Brett replies animatedly. ‘Before he moved into my office, I thought great guy, you know? Smart, obviously going places, not to mention a Knicks fan. What’s not to like? But honestly, these past two weeks? Talk about a sad sack! Tell me, how’d you get through two whole months of it? I feel like I might be depressed by osmosis or something.’
Fia frowns. ‘You mean he’s been …’ She trails off, words failing her as she processes this latest information.
‘Brooding?’ Brett fills in. ‘Miserable? A total downer? Yeah. All of the above. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’s done the work I’ve asked him to – but, my God, I’m pretty sure the homeless guy on my block is in a better mood.’
Again, Fia’s eyes scan the terrace urgently. It is as though, in her mind, puzzle pieces are slotting together. Or, very nearly, at least. The need to see Benjamin is every bit as great as it was when she marched away from George just an hour previously but suddenly it is altogether different, too. She can feel the frisson of the shift.
‘Where is he now?’ she asks Brett.
Brett takes a leisurely sip from his own drink. ‘You just missed him – he took off about fifteen minutes ago. Get this, he wanted to go to the Natural History Museum! Or no, the Met!’
‘… Benjamin’s gone to the Met,’ Fia repeats. It’s more of a statement than a question, like something she’s telling herself, trying to help her own brain absorb.
‘I know, can you believe it?! I guess he’s checked out completely by now, just feels like taking in some culture?’ His voice lowers a little. ‘These summer associates, am I right? And Benjamin’s not even a Gen Z! Needless to say, I’m not expecting him back in the office today.’
Fia ignores most of this. ‘Was he taking the subway? Or a cab?’
Brett frowns now, as though, for the first time, he might be noticing something a little irregular about Fia – some aspect of her behaviour or countenance that isn’t quite as he normally sees it. Impassivity, self-possession, any attempt at sophistication … Fia herself would acknowledge that all those things are probably long gone.
‘Uh … walking, I think,’ Brett replies. ‘Said something about clearing his head – I don’t know.’
Fia takes that in for a moment, tries to calculate where Benjamin might be by now. She thinks about the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading Uptown, about the ever-delayed subway trains. Even if she started walking right this second, the likelihood is that Benjamin will soon arrive at the Met, and she won’t be there.
And, if that’s the case … maybe she’s crazy, but somehow, she doesn’t know if he’ll hang around too long.
Then, in a flash, another thought occurs to her.
Downstairs, in her little office – on the very chair where Benjamin used to sit, actually – there is currently a plastic bag. In that bag, there are a range of items: an empty water bottle, a Tupperware lunchbox she hasn’t cleaned out in days – and her running shoes.