Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Thirty-one

“Ooh,” Angie said. “You don’t look good.”

Sarah’s eyes were red and puffy from the effort of not crying. Her sinuses were swollen, too, and her throat felt thick with unspent tears. But she refused to do it, she thought. Not this time, and not over him. Not anymore.

Sarah handed Angie an envelope of cash. “I can’t work out today, but I wanted to make sure I brought you this. I just got a job offer this morning, so I should be able to pay back everything by the end of the year.”

“Congratulations!” Angie said. “That explains why you look so depressed.”

“Yeah, well . . . it’s been a rough day.”

“You have an hour,” Angie said. “Use it however you want. I was going to make you do squats and lifts, but if you’d rather talk . . . ”

“No, thanks,” Sarah said, turning to go. “Let’s just reschedule for next Saturday. Or sooner, if things . . . ” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She still didn’t want to accept what might happen.

She sank onto the bench just inside the door. Three other trainers were in the room, working with their clients. Sarah’s shoulders slumped. She felt as feeble as the first time she ever came in there.

“Come on,” Angie said. “I’m starving. If you’re not working out now, I’m going to eat. Come keep me company.”

Angie headed for her office, just off the weight room, and a few moments later Sarah followed. She sat in one of the chairs across from Angie’s desk and waited while her trainer microwaved her lunch.

“Want some?” Angie offered.

Sarah shook her head.

“So . . . work is good,” Angie said. “Job offer—that’s great. Still traveling all the time?”

“Yeah. Leaving again tomorrow.”

“Hm.” Angie studied her for a few more seconds, then said, “So. I can keep asking these stupid questions until you get around to telling me what’s wrong, or you can just cut to it and tell me.”

“I’m not trying to be mysterious,” Sarah said. “I just really can’t talk about it. It’s complicated. And confidential, I’m afraid.”

“Okay, so just give me the basic outline,” Angie said. “You don’t have to worry—we’re in the Zone of Silence in here. More sacred than attorney-client privilege. No one can make a trainer talk against our will.”

Sarah sighed. “Basic outline. Okay.” She lowered her voice to make sure no one in the other room might hear. “It’s about Joe. You remember.”

“Of course,” Angie said. “Scumbag broke your heart and now you’re making him suffer.”

“Yeah, well . . . that didn’t exactly work out the way I planned. Things have sort of . . . progressed.”

Angie raised her eyebrows. “I see. So this is complicated.”

“Right. And then last night he finally told me why he broke up with me before. And even though I don’t agree with his reason, I understand it. And I can . . . forgive it. But then this morning I found out something else that might change everything again. I just don’t know.”

“Hm. Interesting.” Angie unscrewed the lid on her thermos and poured a dark red liquid with flecks of green in it into two cups. She handed one to Sarah.

“No, thanks, really—”

“Drink it,” Angie said. “And have a bar, too.” She threw Sarah one of the few energy bars Sarah could stand, one made with peanut butter and pretzels. “You’re looking too skinny again. Eat up.”

Sarah knew there was no use arguing. She also knew Angie might be right. So even though she had no desire to put anything into her belly, she ripped open the package and took a bite, then washed it down with Angie’s smoothie. Both tasted surprisingly soothing.

“So let’s back up a second,” Angie said. She paused to take a bite of her own lunch, a mixture of brown rice and assorted vegetables. “As of last night, good guy, right?”

“Good enough,” Sarah said.

“But then this morning,” Angie said, “bad guy again.”

“Maybe.”

“Why maybe?”

“Because I can’t be sure,” Sarah said. “Not until a certain thing happens. But it could happen very soon.”

“So why not ask him?” Angie said, spearing a piece of broccoli.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not supposed to know,” Sarah said. “It’s confidential.”

“But you do know,” Angie pointed out, “so it can’t be that confidential.”

“But . . . ” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Because maybe Angie was right. If Sarah knew about it—if Mickey and Calvin and the three associates in that room now knew about it—how secret could it be?

It reminded Sarah of one of her mother’s favorite sayings: A secret is something you tell only one person at a time. Sarah wasn’t under any kind of legal restriction. She wasn’t a member of a grand jury, sworn to secrecy until the indictments were handed down. She heard about it through office gossip, just like Mickey had heard about it from a gossiping pal of his. Maybe she had as much freedom as Mickey did to talk about it if she wanted to.

If she wanted to.

“I’m just not sure I should confront him about it.”

Angie rolled her eyes. “Come on, Sarah. Man up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you acting like you’re so weak all of the sudden?” Angie asked. “Okay, let me tell you a story.”

Sarah settled back into her chair and sipped some more of her smoothie. She always enjoyed Angie’s stories. They were usually inspiring vignettes about some burly endurance athlete whose memoir Angie was currently reading.

This time, however, the story was about Sarah.

“When you first came in here,” Angie said, “I thought you’d never make it through a whole hour. You were a complete weakling—”

“Thanks a lot.”

“This is also the Zone of Truth,” Angie said, “so take it. Anyway, you practically crawled out of here that first day, remember?”

“I believe the phrase is ‘literally crawled out of here,’” Sarah said. “I think I was on all fours all the way out to my car.”

“I thought you’d never show up again,” Angie said. “I’ve had plenty of new clients just like you, pretending to be all gung-ho at the beginning, then dying during their first workout, and never coming back. I thought for sure you’d be one of them.”

Sarah shrugged. “What can I say? I obviously love pain.”

“No, it’s because you commit,” Angie answered. “You make a decision and you see it through. You get where I’m going with this?”

Sarah bit off another bite of bar. “Is this your ‘quitters never win, winners never quit’ lecture?”

“Hey, it’s what I do,” Angie said. “Feel free to tell me something lawyerly later like, ‘Always read your contracts before you sign them.’” She smiled and softened her voice. “Sarah. I’ve known you a whole year now. And I’ve seen you go through the absolute worst period in your life, wouldn’t you say?”

Sarah nodded.

“You are one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” Angie said. “And I don’t mean physically—I know a lot of people, myself included, who could kick your scrawny butt—but I mean ferocious, you know? Never say die. What’s that line from Winston Churchill? ‘Never give up, never, never, never . . . ’ infinity,” she said, whirling her wrist, “‘give up.’ That’s you. So why should this situation be any different?”

Sarah sighed deeply. “Because it’s him. And I’ve already been through this once before. You have no idea how hard I’ve been working to stay immune to him these past few months. To make myself Joe-proof. But there’s always this . . . connection, you know? It’s more than attraction, it’s . . . a familiarity, I guess. Like we’re family.”

“That sounds good,” Angie said.

“But it’s not,” Sarah answered. “Not if this new thing is true. I can’t ever be with someone like that.”

“So it’s really that bad?”

“It really is,” Sarah said. “Bad for a lot of reasons. Including the fact that it means he’s not the kind of man I thought he was.”

“But you don’t know yet if he did whatever it is you think he might have done.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Angie said. “Except that the Sarah I know would never be afraid to get right up in somebody’s grill and ask them what’s going on. I hate it when people try to guess what someone else is thinking or what they might have done. Just get it over with and ask him, and then you’ll know once and for all. Come on, Henley, don’t be such a wuss.”

Sarah couldn’t help but laugh. She had come in there prepared to feel as awful as she had for the few hours before that, but now she knew she couldn’t sustain it.

Because Angie had a point, Sarah thought. If Joe could finally tell her everything he had last night, he could damn well tell her the truth about this.

And the advantage of confronting him was that she’d get to see his reaction face-to-face, and know for herself whether he was telling the truth.

The downside was that the truth might be something she didn’t want to hear.

It was the opposite of Flourish, Sarah realized: something she didn’t want, but knew she needed nevertheless.

“Thanks, Coach.” Sarah stood and threw her wrapper in the trash. “This might turn out to be a total disaster, but I think you’re right.”

Angie glanced at the clock. “You still have half an hour. Feel like burning up your quads?”

Sarah blew out a breath. “Yeah, I think I do.”

***

“What do you want for dinner?” Joe asked when she returned his call later that afternoon. She had just emerged from a long, hot, therapeutic shower and had at least an hour of hair drying and straightening to look forward to.

“Something light,” Sarah said. Even though the snack she had at Angie’s felt good at the time, Sarah doubted she would be able to eat too much for dinner. Not when she knew what subject they were going to discuss.

“Tell you what,” Joe said. “I’ll even eat something vegan with you tonight. Tell me where you like to go and what to order, and I’ll bring it over.”

He really was so sweet, Sarah thought. His continuing campaign to be nice to her. She wondered how he’d feel in just a few hours when Sarah laid out her evidence.

She gave him the name of her favorite nearby restaurant, and told him to get the lasagna and bring her the adzuki bean burger. Then she tried not to think too much as she went through the laborious process of taming her hair.

By the time he arrived, takeout containers in hand, Sarah felt she looked calm and put together in her jersey lounge pants, gray cami, and a long gray sweater that tied around the waist. Joe looked far too good in his Levi’s and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

He kissed her the moment she shut the door behind him. The arm around her waist lifted her to the tips of her toes. How she’d love for him to put the containers down, Sarah thought, lift her all the way up, and carry her to her bedroom. They could do that first, then talk later.

It was an idea she seriously considered.

But then what? Lie there in the afterglow, and hand him the pleading she had printed out? “Hey, Joe, by the way, I meant to talk to you about this . . . ”

Man up. Sarah knew what she had to do.

“Sit down for a minute,” she said, taking the food from him and setting it on her kitchen counter. She could hear the tension in her voice, could feel her heart knocking against her chest. Please let him have an explanation.

Joe looked around the room. “This is nice,” he said. “It’s you. It’s just what I expected.”

“Nicer than the last place you saw, at least,” Sarah said. The guest house where she lived during law school was just one room with a tiny bathroom off to the side.

“No, that was you, too,” Joe said. “I never wanted to leave.”

He sat on her white couch and reached for her. Sarah took a step back. He wasn’t going to make this any easier for her, she realized. She had to get right to it.

She had spent the afternoon on the Internet, searching for what she needed. She finally tracked down the pleadings in the case from the court clerk’s website, and printed out the first page of the complaint Joe’s law firm had filed. The page showing the names of the parties involved.

She handed the printout to Joe. And waited for his reaction.

He stared at the paper for too long, Sarah thought, before finally looking up at her.

“What do you want to know?”

“Is there something you need to tell me?” she asked.

“How much do you know?” he returned.

“Burke—”

“Uh-oh,” he said, “we’re back to Burke.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I don’t think it is, either,” he said. “In fact, it’s worse than you’ve probably guessed.”

Sarah sank onto the couch, keeping to the side away from him. “Then tell me. Because so far my imagination is doing a pretty good job of freaking me out. You could go to prison, Joe.”

“I’m not going to prison,” he said. “But first of all, tell me how you heard.”

“From Mickey. At that meeting this morning. He heard it from some buddy of his. But Burke, damn it, tell me—are you dirty here?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not. But I’m in it. And it’s about to get a lot worse.”