"Wynn?" He sounded puzzled, and she shut her eyes against the image the tone evoked in her mind.
"Evan," she said, trying her best to sound impassive, nonjudgmental. "I saw it all. Maybe it really is right for us." She paused as a thought swam through the percolating mess of her emotions, and said,"You got the Maianbrenner account?"
"Yes! I won it yesterday. They didn't let me know until the last minute, and then, Jonathan took the office out for drinks. Didn't you get my text?"
"No..." She staggered back, slid off the end of the hotel bed, feeling the blankets crumple to the floor under her bottom.
"But," she argued, the litigator in her surging to the forefront, to her defense,"you missed the picnic I brought you."
"I told you I had a lunch meeting," he reminded her. "And it's company policy, no phones in the boardroom, especially after the Lieberman disaster last year."
Oh God, had it all been her fault? A stupid misunderstanding?
"I texted you that I was sorry. Then I told you," he continued, his tone buoyant,"that Jon was taking us all out for drinks. How the hell are you in Seattle, Wynn?" The worry was back, thick as cream.
"But you haven't explained the important part," she said, clawing her way back to the top of her logic. "Why were you researching divorce, Evan? We fought and you stomped out and then you ditched me and that's not like you and then I saw "divorce" on your Mac Air. I know you want a baby and I know you don't care that I've got the promotion of a lifetime..." She gasped a breath, shocked at how out of air she was and how quickly the words were running together, forming an accusation.
"I never said I didn't care about the promotion!" he said, his tone thunderous. "I was happy for you! Just I've had so much on my plate with trying to seduce Maianbrenner and you - you just aren't ever going to keep your promises, are you, Wynn? You know how much I want a family, but you just keep holding out! Marriage first, you said, then we'd work on getting a house, and Wynn, you're thirty! I don't want to be an old dad!" She held the phone away from her ear, slapped the cup down on the counter. "I want children while I can enjoy them," the air by her ear exploded, and she gripped the phone, wishing she dared open one of the hotel windows and pitch it into the aquamarine depths of the pool below.
Undaunted by her fury, he continued, but she was no longer listening.
"You know how I feel about how your parents died," she protested,"and you know how hard I worked for this damn degree. I worked damn hard for this promotion, too, and I am not giving it up to some spoiled little boy who wants a...a toy! I don't have time yet for a baby and you know you need to grow up! You want something and it always has to be right now with you! You don't have an ounce of patience."
"You keep putting obstacles in your own way," he roared back. "You make promises to get what you want and then you can't pay up. You need to grow up, Jemima Winslow - grow up and see what you're missing every time you think you need to run right out and jump into the latest bandwagon just to prove you aren't that desperate poor girl who hadn't ever been out of Bumfuck, Georgia before she won a scholarship to Yale! Your clothes might have trendy labels but they didn't change who you were. And that job isn't changing who you're becoming," he raged.
She did all she could think of: she hung up.
Shaking and pale, she huddled in the blankets at the foot of her rented bed, staring at the phone as if it had birthed an adder. When she could rise, she was shocked to find that she had not cried: did that mean she was done crying? The phone rang again, playing a bouncy tune that Evan had insisted she'd love. She had, but now, the sound just reminded her of him. Scrabbling over the scratchy sheets, she stabbed the Mute command, and "Check Yes, Juliet" faded mercifully from audibility. Drawing a breath, she flopped backwards, but a sharp knock at the door made her scream before she could stifle the sound.
"Housekeeping!" followed the knock, and Wynn peeled herself off the floor. How had it gotten that late? Opening the door, she glanced up at a buxom older woman wearing a green uniform polo emblazoned with the hotel logo.
"Just the bed," she mumbled, red-cheeked, at the maid. "I'm going to go renew. Another night, I mean."
Fleeing the tumbled bed, silenced phone, staring maid, and scattered clothing, she went in search of breakfast, stopping only to renew the room another night. The taxi driver's taste in restaurants was plebian, but the simple fare was soothing. She picked oatmeal and, on a whim, pecan pancakes. Although the nut was native to her home state of Georgia, she had shunned all reminders of growing up in the South, hot and destitute and hopeless. Searching her memory, she realized she hadn't even been back to Savannah - which was hardly Bumfuck anywhere - since she'd graduated from Yale. But Evan, she argued with herself - that had been Evan's doing. When his own parents had died in their junior year, she had not wanted to parade hers in front of him. All right, and for more than one reason, too. Evan had been so sophisticated, so...rich...and her family had no trouble using toothpicks in public.
Maybe she'd been wrong to cut them out of her life for a man so...temperamental!
A glance at the diner clock told her that the day was waning quickly. Retrieving her phone, she ruthlessly deleted the messages, then, with the aid of a borrowed copy of the Seattle Dex, she began to call, seeking to meet her own needs. Scheduling apartment tours at two and four, she skipped ahead in the book, moving from Apartments to Attorneys. One lacquered nail ran down the tightly jammed print, stopping at a square ad that announced "Divorce our Specialty."
Closing her eyes in a silent prayer, she sighed, and opened them again so she could dial.
"Peter J. Barrett, Attorney at Law's office," answered a soft voice, far too feminine to belong to the opposite gender. "Marisol speaking. How might I direct your call?"
"I need to set up an appointment to discuss a divorce," Wynn blurted, her fingers wound tightly in the length of her tunic top.
"Yes, ma'am," Marisol said, her voice smooth and as untroubled as a deep lake. "Mr. Barrett has openings on Tuesday, if you'd like."
"That's a...I mean," Wynn said, her logic and her tongue equally tangled,"Is there anything sooner? I would like this done quickly." If she didn't get it done now, she suspected she wouldn't at all, and what would come of that? At any time she'd felt a doubt or a pang about Evan, she'd soothed it away, trusted in her faith, and things had come out mostly all right. This new wrinkle was untenable, though, and...oh hell, how long had Marisol been talking?
"Tuesday is his earliest appointment," the woman stated firmly. "Your name? And a number I could reach you at?"
Wynn gave both, wincing as she spelled out "Jemima." While Aunt Mimi was certainly her favorite relative, Wynn would have preferred another legacy from the woman - anything, in fact, but a name that put most people in the mood for pancakes. The secretary read back her information, and Wynn pressed "end" on her phone, slipping it back into her purse. Was she doing the right thing? And...what if she wasn't? Impulsively, she picked up the phone, dialed his number, and lifted the handset to her ear. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Voicemail.
She hung up without speaking, troubled, and sighed. If she wanted to find Olive Street before two, she'd have to find a map and a bus stop quickly. There was no sense waiting about for him, was there? He'd made it clear what his priorities were, hadn't he? Shrugging, she fastened the buttons on her coat against the coolness of the breezy October day, and crossed the lobby to the kiosk that held the bus route information. Seattle's busses were far better organized than New York's, and she soon found what she needed.
The afternoon passed in a whirl: she chose the first apartment, a loft that her brownstone apartment could have fit into twice for only a trifle more in cost. Olive Street overlooked the heart of Seattle, but the empty rooms were cold and she felt vulnerable as she paused before the oak sills of the fifth-story window. Cheering herself up with the thought of new furniture, some art prints, and certainly drapes to frame the misty view of the Sound that her new harbor boasted, she congratulated herself on choosing a home so close to her workplace. She could take the bus, which would save on the cost of taxis, and then there was the park she could see to the west, for exercise. It would be another savings if she didn't have to join a gym. Tonight there was a bed for her at the Marriott, but she needed to find something more permanent, and quickly. The deposits on her new apartment had been a trifle alarming, but she had enough - and a modest amount, she felt, with which to start over again.
Trouble was, though, she thought, staring wistfully out of a bus window as the city slid by in a haze of green and golden October sunshine, she didn't want to start over alone. Evan would love Seattle: the hills, the trees, the secluded feeling of serenity that laid over the metropolis like the blanket of pristine snow capping Mount Rainier. Impulsively, she lifted her phone, thumbed into the camera controls, and took a picture of the city nestled under its protective mountain. Affixing it to an email, she winged it on its way to Evan. Frowning down at her phone, which conspicuously had no flashing message light, she wondered where the hell he was. For a man about to be divorced, he was certainly taking things better than she felt she could.
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