Page 104 of February

Monica put the phone down and looked up at Bridgette.

“Hey,” Bridgette said in a tone that worried Monica.

“How did it go?”

“I guess it’s complicated, but we’re going to keep talking this morning before they make any official decisions. They told me they could give me a few days, but then they started asking more questions.”

“What can I do?” Monica asked.

“Just sit here, looking gorgeous,” Bridgette teased with a wink. “I’m going to go back in there and try to take in all the questions they ask so that I can formulate my plan of attack later.”

“I can help.”

“I know you can. But I think I need to do at least this part on my own. Maybe this afternoon, we can go over everything.”

“I can work out here on other stuff for now,” Monica said. “But Sophie called. She wanted to know if I wanted to go to lunch with her today.”

“Oh. You should go.”

“I told her I needed to check on things here first, and if Idogo, I told her I’d bring you.”

Bridgette smiled and said, “Go to lunch with your friend. I think I’ll be having lunch in the conference room with my parents today.”

“You sure? I can skip it.” Monica reached out to take Bridgette’s hand, but she caught Dan returning to his desk, so she stopped and put her hand back in her own lap.

“No, go. Have some fun.”

“Ihavebeen having fun,” Monica said with two lifted eyebrows aimed at Bridgette.

“Me too.” Bridgette chuckled. “Maybe we can do dinner and drinks tonight, just you and me. We can go out, but not stay out late or anything.”

“Whatever you want,” Monica replied.

“Are you being nice to me because of what I’m going through here?”

“No, I’m being nice to you because…” Monica turned to see Dan looking at both of them. “I’m a nice person.”

Bridgette laughed and said, “Yes, you are averynice person.” She then took a few steps back and added, “I’ll talk to you later, nice person.”

“I know a great place in the Quarter. It’s one of my favorites,” Dan said. “If you two are going out later, I can recommend somewhere.”

“I think we’ll be okay. Bridge probably has a few places she’d recommend as well.”

“Yeah, but I know a bartender who gets me happy-hour prices all the time. I just need to be there to order for you.”

“Dan?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a lesbian,” Monica said.

His face registered the shock.

“Yeah… So, enjoy your happy-hour drinks, okay? I’m going to get back to work, though.”

A few hours later, Monica left the office without Bridgette, which felt strange to her. She had spent most of the morning working on getting her inbox down to a reasonable numberof unread messages and checking in with her assistant. She also watched through the conference room window as Bridgette appeared to be frustrated at times, happy at others, and angry at a few as well. Monica didn’t know what to make of that. Bridgette’s mother went to the bathroom first, but the door was closed between Monica and Bridgette with her father, who continued talking. When Bridgette went to the break room to get coffee later, her mom went with her, so Monica wasn’t able to get an update by the time she had to leave to meet Sophie.

“Over here,” Sophie said as she waved her hand for Monica to see through the crowd that had gathered in the restaurant lobby.

---