Whereas stale, old wifey had to pedal her mental wheels hard in order to come up with something other than work and pee accidents to talk about. As for radiating wanton magnetism? That ship left the port the very hour my first pregnancy test came back positive.
“What do you mean, wrong direction ?” He didn’t need to tell me not to yell this time; my words were again a whisper.
He took a deep breath. “I felt like she was paying too much attention to me, and I was liking it too much. I didn’t want to stick around to see if anything more developed. I mean, you and I are working on our marriage right now, and spending time with Christina seemed like . . . the opposite of that.”
What Sanjay had done was the right thing to do. It was exactly how any woman who cared even an iota about her marriage would have wanted her husband to behave in similar circumstances. Yet his acknowledgment made me understand why he had so readily agreed to work on our marriage. We were in more danger than I had realized.
Which was why his first request had been for us to have sex.
“Please don’t be upset with me, Penny,” he said. “I would have preferred not to tell you, but we’re supposed to be honest with each other, right?”
“I’m not upset with you,” I said quietly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
No, I had been the one to screw this all up. Suggesting honesty to improve our relationship. Thinking we could resuscitate our erotic life with a few compulsory rolls in the hay.
Assuming the only cracks in my marriage were the ones I could see.
Sanjay crossed the bedroom to where I was still pacing. When he reached me, he hugged me. “Penny,” he said softly. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
My arms hung limp at my sides; I could not bring myself to embrace him. My husband had kept a secret from me. What else would he soon disclose? I didn’t want to know.
“I’m fine,” I said into his shirt. “And neither are you.”
I was still feeling weepy and defeated when I sat down at my desk later that morning. When I turned on my computer, a notice informed me that Yolanda had scheduled an impromptu meeting with me in half an hour.
Fantastic, I thought, eyeing my to-do list. Couldn’t whatever it was wait until our usual Tuesday meeting with me, her, and Russ? But she’d just gotten back from vacation and probably wanted to lecture me for snapping at her about John Sterling.
I passed Russ’ office on the way to Yolanda’s. His door was open but he wasn’t at his desk. For whatever reason, I stopped and stepped inside.
Russ’ walls were white, just like mine; his furniture was identical to the generic pieces I used. Like me, he had no window. The only real difference was that his space was free of personal items, whereas I had decorated with family photos and taped up Stevie’s and Miles’ artwork.
But upon further inspection, Russ’ office was slightly larger than my own—maybe two feet wider in either direction. How had I not noticed this before? Or maybe I had, and had promptly tossed this information into the mental trash can where I put unfair things that I could not change.
It’s not important, I told myself as I stepped back into the hall. More space wouldn’t buy groceries or pay for car insurance. Besides, what I most needed from a work environment was the ability to generate cash for my family.
When I reached Yolanda’s office, she was not on the phone or looking at her computer. Unless my eyes were deceiving me, she was not doing much of anything. Which was strange.
“Come in,” she called. “Close the door behind you.”
I sat in front of her, wondering what she would say. She leaned back in her Aeron chair and folded her arms. “You made contact with Sterling?” she said.
“Yes. We have a meeting scheduled for next week.”
“Good. I was surprised at your response when I asked you to follow up.”
Now we were getting down to business. “Well, I was surprised you doubted me,” I said in what I hoped was an even tone of voice. “Especially on the heels of the Weingarten donation.”
“You were rather vocal about that as well.”
“I was only trying to highlight my contribution to the medical school and this team. It’s come to my attention that I’ve been downplaying my role and contributions at my own expense.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Penelope, I’m going to come right out and ask.”
I held my breath, expecting her to ask if I wanted to keep my job.
“Are you happy here?”
“Ha-happy?” I stammered. “Why do you ask?”
“I get the impression that you’re not pleased with the way things have been going lately.”
I needed to sound like someone who wasn’t begging to be pink-slipped. I didn’t know how to do that, so I decided to channel Nancy Weingarten. “As you may know, Yolanda, I’ve been going through a period of immense personal stress. I’m sorry if that occasionally surfaces, but I am doing my best to go above and beyond at work, and I feel that I’m still managing to accomplish an awful lot.”
She pursed her lips. “You don’t do face time, which makes some question your commitment to being a team player.”
“I may not go to happy hour very often.” And by often, I meant never. “Still, I’ve been logging fifty hours most weeks, and that’s not including the work I bring home. I’d say I’m very much a team player. For example, I fielded three of Adrian’s donor drafts while he was out sick.”
“You rarely travel.”
“You rarely ask me to. I’m just as available to travel as anyone else on the team.” This was a partial truth, which is known in some circles as a lie. But because Sanjay worked from home—at least for the time being—I could travel more than many working mothers. Not that our office employed them.
She said nothing, so I decided to continue. “I brought in two hundred and thirteen thousand more than anyone in medical development just in the last fiscal year alone.”
Yolanda eyed me as though she was trying to decide what she thought of me. This time, I forced myself to sit with the discomfort instead of filling the space. Unfortunately, this meant I also had to sit with a rapid-fire string of anxious thoughts about how quickly I could get another job and what it would cost to pay for health insurance for four people.
When Yolanda finally spoke again, she sounded more tired than upset. “Is there something that would incentivize your commitment to the medical development team?”
My stomach flipped as I thought of my family rolling their suitcases into Sanjay’s parents’ basement. What incentivized me was keeping my family in our home. But if she was asking, she wasn’t going to fire me—not yet. “Are you saying I’m not committed? Or that I’m underperforming? Because if so, I’m more than willing to work on that.”
“Not at all. I’m trying to unpack your core competencies. There are changes in the works, even if I’m not at liberty to share them yet. For the present moment, I’m trying to pin down the moving pieces and ideate the next steps.”
Yolanda had a corner office—lots of windows. She was good at what she did, and I did not begrudge her those windows. But as I looked out at the tree-filled nature reserve just beyond the building, it seemed to me that all of this—striving and providing and maybe the very act of caring about any of it—was largely pointless. As Jenny’s death had so painfully reminded me, we were all going to die, and the money wouldn’t come with us. Maybe that’s why, as I looked back at my supervisor, I felt strangely calm. I wasn’t being fired. For now, that was enough.
“Thank you,” I said to her. “I’ll work on face time and think about what my core competencies are. Please let me know if there’s something you need from me.”
“How did your interview go?” I had just walked in the door from work to find Sanjay in the kitchen, still dressed in a crisp button-down and tie. He looked relieved that the first thing I asked him wasn’t about Christina. Well, soon enough he would see that I wasn’t ever going to drill him about her. In fact, I was fairly certain I would never say her name aloud again. One confession might lead to another, then another; and before long one of us would be packing a bag, and our next conversation would be in front of a couple of lawyers.
“It went great,” he said, breaking into a grin. “Brian, the guy who would be my supervisor, thought my writing samples were terrific, and I met two other people in the department who are really sharp.” Sharp—this was practically the highest compliment Sanjay gave. “Brian already emailed to ask me to come in for a second interview next week.”
In spite of our morning conversation about She Who Would Not Be Named, it was impossible not to be happy for him. “I’m thrilled for you,” I said.
“Really? You were so hesitant when I told you about it before.”
“I know. But I can tell you’re excited, and that makes me excited, too. Plus, it would be a big relief if there was another steady paycheck coming in.”
He looked pleased. “Thank you. What about you? How was your day?”
It was a simple question—one I hadn’t heard in a while. I hoped he was asking spontaneously instead of because I’d asked him to be more present. “Not great,” I confessed. I told him about my conversation with Yolanda.