Page 104 of Love Is an Art
“But there must have been something specific that made you want to become a public interest lawyer,” I say.
“Must there?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Because otherwise, you’d be happy with working as a corporate lawyer and doing some pro bono on the side.”
She glances at me sharply. “Yes. You’re right.” She blinks.
“But I didn’t pass the test for you to tell me?”
“It’s not a test per se. But it’s not something I’m sharing willy-nilly.”
She checks the recipe page and hands me some leeks to cut up. Bowls of chopped-up onions, fennel, radicchio, and shredded apple cluster all over the counter. I wash the broccoli in the colander. As the leeks boil in a pot of water, she puts on a pot of rice.
“Can’t you tell me?” I ask.
“If I recall correctly, you never did tell me something embarrassing about yourself.”
“I thought my telling you that my ex cheated on me for three months, and I didn’t suspect a thing, was pretty embarrassing. And I didn’t believe my best friend, Ben, when he told me he’d seen her with another guy.”
“What made you believe it, then?”
I look away and grip the counter. I was so stupid. So naïve.
“I caught her in the lie. And then she told me. She saw Ben when he saw her, and she wanted to admit it before Ben told me—in case that helped make her appear less guilty. And there were clues. I felt so stupid that I’d missed them.” Like scented candles by her bed in her apartment. We didn’t use them when we made love.
She hugs me from behind, resting her head against my back. That warmth. Offering solace. No judgment. Leaving me my privacy. My hands clasp hers.
“I don’t think you see the clues when you’re the party in love,” Tessa says. “I was devastated when Wyatt dumped me out of the blue. But like I said, in retrospect, there were clues.”
“There are always clues afterward,” I say.
I turn around to face her as she drops her arms and looks up at me. I add, “And now I’m paranoid. I feel like my office is bugged. I have this boss who doesn’t like me, I’m up for this transfer, and he seems to know everything about me—before I even know it myself.”
“Well, we can go in and search for bugs.” She removes the leeks from the boiling water and starts forming the meatballs and plopping them into the water.
I love that she says that like it’s totally normal.
“Do you know how to do that?” I ask.
“No. But I sawCrash Landing on Youon Netflix. The main character searches for bugs planted by the North Korean government, and we can look at YouTube videos. I studied YouTube videos to learn how to paint.”
“That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence.”
She snorts. Then she sets me to making the fennel dish in a saucepan next to her. I stir the fennel.
“I know he’s not bugging me,” I say. “There’s always a good reason for how he finds out before me. But since discovering that Paisley was cheating on me—and that I had no idea—I feel like I have a hard time trusting people. And I feel bad about that.”
“You can’t always trust people,” she says.
“No. But you can’t live your life not trusting people either.” At least that’s what I keep telling myself.
She takes the meatballs out and combines them with the curry leek sauce she’s been making. The dish turns this yellow-green color.
I set the table as Tessa finishes up the last of the dinner preparations. It feels like a long time since I’ve sat across the table from someone. Despite all my joking around with Sebastian about the benefits of being single, I’ve missed this. Among other things. She sets the dishes down. I pour us some wine as we each take a seat. Brit curls up at my feet.
“Bon appétit,” I say, and we each take a bite. It’s good.
“I guess I decided to become a lawyer in high school,” she says. “My best friend came to me one day in tears because she and her mom were going to lose their apartment. Her dad had died a few years before. They had a rent-controlled apartment, and the landlord was trying to kick them out by not providing heat. Then the mom fell for this guy, and he told her to move out because he didn’t like to see her without heat. But moving out almost lost them their apartment. FLAFL stepped in and saved it for them. It turned out the man had been paid off by the landlord. That’s when I wanted to work for FLAFL. I wanted to be a lawyer so I knew how to protect myself. And others. Because you can’t always trust people.”
