The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Fifty-Four
Such an idiot, Fia thinks, as she sprints all the way up Madison Avenue, past 60th Street, 65th Street, 70th …
Really – she crosses onto 5th Avenue, pushing her way through swarms of other pedestrians – this has got to be one of the stupidest things she’s ever done. And that’s saying something.
Nonetheless, she can’t seem to call a halt to the effort. Even amid the crowds and the humidity, even as her skirt and blouse pull restrictively against her skin, her feet seem practically to bounce along the pavement. It is as though, all summer, she’s been in training for precisely this insanity.
Is she half-expecting to spot Benjamin along here somewhere? Maybe so. Her eyes scan the surroundings as she passes 80th Street, 81st, 82nd …
She doesn’t see him anywhere, though.
She makes it all the way to the steps of the Met, to the exact place she’d started her day, and still Benjamin is nowhere in sight.
She slows her pace at last, tries to gather herself as she walks into the museum’s cavernous entrance hall. It’s all marble and limestone; vaulted ceilings and columns, and – again – no Benjamin.
Fia can hear her own breath coming out in pants now. Could he be upstairs already, in the Rose Room with Alyvia et al? Or maybe he hasn’t even arrived yet? Maybe he’s been and gone? As she races through all these possibilities, the ridiculousness of her own behaviour hits her anew. How on earth did she think this would go? Even in her own mind, she doesn’t exactly know.
And then—
‘Benjamin!’
She spots him, over by the information desk, his name tumbling instinctively out of her mouth. She feels almost as if he might be a figment of her imagination. But no – it’s really him. As he turns around, his eyes widen a little at the sight of her.
‘Hi,’ she offers dumbly.
‘Uh … hi,’ he replies, walking closer to her.
And if he wonders why Fia is breathless or slightly sweaty or approaching from the direction of the street, he doesn’t get a chance to ask. She gets in there first. ‘What are you doing here?’
He bristles. ‘It’s my job to be here. I started this thing with Alyvia, every bit as much as you did. I realized I wanted to finish it.’
Fia absorbs that for a second. Maybe, in some other circumstances, it would feel like a triumph – the idea that she has mentored a feckless young summer associate for ten weeks, helped him arrive at a greater sense of his own professional responsibility. As things are, though, Fia just feels herself falter all over again.
‘Is that … is that the only reason you’re here?’ she asks disjointedly.
For a moment, Benjamin says nothing.
‘And I … might have wanted to see you,’ he admits then, practically under his breath, as though the words are being dragged from him. Not quite a grand declaration of love or loyalty.
However, it’s just about enough for Fia to voice the thing she’s been wondering since she spoke to Brett, maybe even since she spoke to Celia.
‘What you said on the roof, that night Celia found us … about us just being a casual hook-up or whatever … did you mean that?’ she asks.
She’s conscious, vaguely, of all sorts of other activity around them, all the hustle and bustle of a usual morning at one of the city’s busiest tourist locations. But, at the same time, from their little patch near the perimeter of the entrance hall, it suddenly seems almost as though they are totally alone. Looking at Benjamin, she has the inescapable sense that his answer to this question could change the rest of her life.
Benjamin just looks back at her for a second. ‘You know I didn’t,’ he mumbles, his dark eyes shifting uncomfortably. It is as if he thinks that her entire purpose here is somehow to humiliate him. Having just run for almost thirty blocks, that’s … aggravating.
‘I don’t know that!’ she snaps, in double-quick time.
‘What?’ he fires right back at her.
‘How was I meant to figure that one out?’
This time, he pauses, as though forcing himself to really digest what she’s saying. ‘Oh my God, Fia, are you serious?’ he asks. ‘For a smart person, you can be unbelievably dumb, you know that?’
Once again, it doesn’t exactly give her the warm fuzzies. If Celia was to be believed, he was much better at compliments via the written word. But the evaluation couldn’t be further from Fia’s mind right now. ‘Well, you have been ignoring me for practically two solid weeks!’ she exclaims.
‘You’ve been ignoring me!’ he all but explodes in return, drawing a few curious looks from people nearby.
Fia, too, is astonished. She’s momentarily stunned into silence, in fact. That’s … technically true, she realizes. Also, somewhere along the way, has she lost sight of the bigger picture here – of the reason she ran almost thirty blocks? She can hardly be blamed, though. Is it necessary, always, for him to rile her like this?
‘And I get it! That’s the thing, I totally get it,’ Benjamin continues, a bit more quietly now. ‘This whole summer, the stakes have always been so much higher for you than they were for me. Everything you’ve worked for … I wouldn’t expect you to jeopardize that for … well, for me.’
As though in embarrassment, his eyes flick away from hers, lingering a moment on the pale, tiled floor. Then, he seems to force himself to meet her gaze again, letting out a heavy sigh. ‘This past couple weeks, at the office, I’ve just been following your lead. Trying not make things worse. And that night on the roof, with Celia … same thing. I just said what I thought would help you the most. Did it help?’
For a few seconds, Fia offers no reply. Most of her brain – most of every single cell in her body – seems to be occupied by absorbing this new reality: the fear and the thrill of it. ‘Mmm. Jury’s out,’ she manages vaguely. ‘I’ll explain later.’
In response, she watches Benjamin weigh up whether to press the matter, watches him decide against it. Instead, he glances down at her feet. ‘Why are you wearing sneakers?’ he asks.
And, all at once – out of absolutely nowhere, really – Fia can see herself in a white T-shirt on a Saturday morning, sitting opposite Benjamin at Sarge’s Diner. She can see herself lying in the chipped bathtub up at the cabin, with him perched on the lid of the toilet seat, just there to talk to her – just there to irritate her, probably. It’s astonishing, how these pictures seem to form totally of their own accord, like dreams she didn’t know she had.
But, about her trainers. ‘… I’ll explain that later, too,’ she says.
This time, Benjamin lets out an irritated huff. ‘Is there anything you don’t want to explain later?’
And as Fia looks across at him, the answer is suddenly so simple. ‘I think I’m in love with you,’ she says.
It takes her own breath away, saying those words out loud, and hearing them seems to have much the same effect on Benjamin. For an agonizingly long moment, he just stares at her, his mouth falling open slightly.
And then, in a glorious split second, he’s reaching for her, his mouth pressed to hers. Arms flying, lips parting, it’s a desperate, perfect collision of a kiss. It makes every inch of Fia’s skin prickle, her mind and body feeling finally – finally – in total alignment again. Inside this huge hall, there are people scurrying around them in all directions, and for the first time all summer, she doesn’t care one bit who sees.
‘I’m completely in love with you,’ Benjamin returns, once they’ve pulled apart for air.
Fia can feel her face flushing. How impossible that seems. And yet, gazing at him now, she knows for sure that it is true. His eyes seem darker and deeper than ever, his pupils slightly blown. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get sick of that look in his eyes – the wildness of it.
‘I could end up being the absolute worst thing that ever happens to you,’ she replies then. She’s not being cute, not making a joke. She’s deadly serious.
‘Well, back at you,’ he answers.
And that’s also true. Doesn’t Fia know it all too well? It is nothing short ofterrifying, the degree to which Benjamin Lowry seems to be able to influence her emotional life. This summer has brought more fluctuation, in that regard, than she’s ever known. And how abjectly awful she’s felt, this past fortnight, when it seemed like he’d tossed her aside. The whole experience shocked her system completely. Heartbreak. She’s ready to name it now, no matter her reluctance to do so before. It does seem a bit like insanity, to willingly submit to the potential, somewhere down the line, for more of that.
She doesn’t entirely know if she can withstand it. But then, she thinks about George – about the fact that she’s already had her heart slightly mutilated once. She’s already known what it is to have to reshape her life in the demise of something. She’s survived that. She’s perhaps even seen the growth that can come from it. And, on balance, yeah – she thinks it was worth it. Given the choice, she’d do it all again.
So it is that she looks up at Benjamin, a droll expression on her face.
‘Well, you know me,’ she says. ‘I like to take a risk every now and then.’
He just laughs, loud and hearty, leaning down towards her again. This time, they kiss more giddily, smiling against each other’s lips, hands nudging playfully at each other. They stand there entwined for far longer than Fia cares to estimate.
‘… So, you think we should go find Alyvia and Jonathan?’ Benjamin asks eventually, glancing upwards to the Met’s balcony.
‘Honestly, I think Susan has it all under control,’ Fia answers. ‘Let’s face it, we might even be the last two people on earth whose input she would want this morning.’
‘Well, we are divorced now,’ Benjamin says.
‘We are,’ Fia agrees quietly. It feels a little strange to talk about that, this late in the game. Benjamin still looks nothing but happy, though.
‘And look how well we’re getting along,’ he replies. ‘If you ask me, Susan Followill should be begging us to show the Chestnuts how it’s done! I’m telling you, she’ll want to put us on her website.’
Fia smiles along, but the question that follows is a sincere one. ‘How did you feel, when the divorce came through?’
Benjamin shifts into seriousness too. ‘I don’t know. I can’t describe it,’ he says, as she nods in agreement. ‘I think it’s good, though,’ he continues. ‘No more baggage, you know? No more blame.’
And Fia finds she agrees with him there, as well. This ending – the same one that she has, whether consciously or unconsciously, probably spent most of her twenties waiting for – feels suddenly like a new beginning. In a flash, all the anxiety she’s harboured about turning thirty seems to melt away. If anything, she finds herself almost excited by the number. She feels like she’s earned it. She wouldn’t, she realizes, go backwards for anything.
‘Anyhow, are you saying you want to play hooky from work right now?’ Benjamin asks then, a grin twitching at his lips.
Fia cocks an eyebrow. ‘I mean, no, I’m saying maybe if we came back in an hour, that would be fi—’
‘Because, if that’s what you’re telling me – as my superior – then, what can I do?’ he continues, his voice rising in pure delight. ‘Yes, Fia, I will go boating with you in the Central Park lake, if I absolutely must.’
She can’t help it, she laughs out loud at that, letting her hand find his. ‘… So, just to be clear, you’re not still hung up on Jessy?’ she finds herself asking, a moment later, while they walk towards the exit.
For a second, Benjamin looks genuinely confused, the expression soon giving way to amusement. ‘Jessy my girlfriend from college who broke up with me in a branch of American Eagle Outfitters seven years ago? That Jessy? No.’
‘I’m just checking!’ Fia squeaks in protest. And then, it’s as though she’s compelled to lay it all out on the table, everything that could possibly screw this thing up: ‘Also, I have to tell you that I might not even want to stay in New York – like, long-term, I mean, no matter what happens with ZOLA. I might, but I don’t know, it’s just very complic—’
‘So, you like New York when you’re here, except for sometimes not so much,’ Benjamin interjects, as they step out into the fresh air now. ‘And then you like Dublin when you’re there, except for sometimes not so much. That about cover it?’
Fia feels the wind somewhat taken out of her sails. ‘… Um, yeah.’
In fact, that’s precisely it. Hasn’t she seen before, more than once, how he seems to be able to distil things down to their simplest form?
He shrugs, with the very same casualness that would once have driven her almost to violence. ‘That’s just geography,’ he says, and he stops still, turning to her at the top of the steps outside the museum. ‘I’m going to lay this out for you, okay? I don’t know how – or when – it happened that my idea of a perfect day started to look like you.’ He pauses for breath, his cheeks pinkening slightly. ‘And that’s you in an office in Midtown, you in Dublin with your family, you up at the cabin in Greenport … You’re the only person I fight with, but you’re the only person – really, seriously, the only person – that I can sit in silence with. I literally just want to be where you are, Fia. I don’t know how to say it any other way. You want to move to Ireland – hell, once I’m done with law school, I’ll move to Ireland. We’ll just … figure it out. If you want to.’
Something – everything – inside Fia whispers yes.
I do.
She must say it out loud, in fact, because she watches Benjamin’s reaction spread across his face, like pure joy.
He loops his arm around her, the two of them perfectly in sync at last as they make their way down the steps, towards the entrance to Central Park. All around, it’s people and yellow cabs, greenery and construction work, sunshine and the faint whiff of warm garbage. It’s New York City in the last weeks of summer.
‘Did you mean that about Dublin?’ Fia can’t help but ask, a few minutes later. They’ve made it into the park by now, and with the din of the city muted, she can hear how her own voice comes out sounding bashful. ‘You would really consider living there?’
‘Sure,’ he replies easily. ‘I’d try it out, at least. Obviously there’s the whole immigration situation, though. I can’t imagine your fine country lets just anyone in.’ He pauses, a smile tugging at his lips anew. ‘We may need to get remarried.’
Fia lets that notion register for a moment, raises an eyebrow slyly. ‘What, purely for the visa?’
Benjamin holds her gaze, as undaunted as he has ever been.
‘Purely for the visa,’ he agrees then, all breeziness.
And, as Fia laughs, the sound rising like a song, something catches her eye.
Beside them, on the corner, there are a few pedicabs waiting for customers. There’s a guy selling postcards and another offering caricatures and a little carousel of tourism brochures. Visit the Statue of Liberty! one of them reads, accompanied by a glossy photograph of a helicopter from which Fia can well imagine plummeting to her death.
She’s not one bit keener to take this tour than she was to take a similar-ish one, long ago. But then, she thinks, such leaflets really are multipurpose. So very useful for all the big decisions in life, for any proposals a person might or might not eventually have for another. She reaches for one as they pass, slips it into her pocket.
Just in case.