Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

Good. She needed to know that if they were working together, it would be all business.

He talked for fifteen minutes, culling Wilson Temple’s dissertation down to a brisk recitation of the salient facts. A few times, his peripheral vision caught the flip of yellow paper after Gina’s furious jotting had filled it with writing. When he finished, he swiveled back to face her and grabbed one of the black stress balls that littered his office. He flipped it idly between his hands as he waited for her to finish writing.

She looked up at him when she was done.

“Any questions?” he asked.

She looked uncertain, like she had too many to admit or maybe none at all.

“I think I need to digest this a little. I’m sure I’ll have questions down the line.”

“Good, good. Questions are good. Never be afraid to ask questions.”

She nodded, uncertain whether to respond. He squeezed the ball with his left hand, exhaled.

“And look, Gina, I know we’ve had a few laughs the past few weeks and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you. I think you have a very bright future at the firm and I’d like it very much if we became friends and I was able to help your career here.”

“Me too, Peter. Nothing…”

“Let me finish.”

He paused, let the room realign with the new vibe between them.

“The thing is, I take my work very seriously, as you should. And while I don’t mind a little joke here or there, the work has to come first. If the work isn’t good, isn’t top rate in fact, it doesn’t matter that we’re friends or that we’re both from Staten Island. We won’t continue working together if the work isn’t professional.”

She swallowed, nodding sheepishly.

“Of course, Peter, I mean Mr. Amendola.”

“You can still call me Peter.”

“Okay, Peter. Of course, I will do the best I can. I’ll work as hard as I can on this case.”

Her eyes welled up. Peter wondered whether he’d been a little too harsh.

“It’s okay, Gina. We can still have a laugh, but the work…”

“Comes first. Got it,” she said and wiped away an incipient tear.

“I’ll let you know when we get the documents,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Great. Thank you.”

She stood and he noticed that she was wearing a shortish skirt and patterned black stockings. Someone needed to tell this girl what was and wasn’t appropriate to wear to work. Not him. Maybe he could enlist a female partner. He tried not to watch her rear as she walked to the door, but his eyes wouldn’t listen. She turned at the door, nearly caught him in a lecherous stare. She drummed the tip of her pen against pressed lips.

“I’m sorry again, Peter.”

“No worries, Gina. Looking forward to working with you.”

Her face broke into a faint smile and she walked out of his office, her fingers waggling behind her in a coquettish good-bye.

It had gone exactly as he’d planned. He’d reestablished a professional atmosphere, put the kibosh on the flirting. Now he could get back to work. He scrolled through his e-mail, opened one from a needy client, and started to read it. He read the e-mail twice, but he wasn’t absorbing anything; he suddenly couldn’t concentrate. He tried to banish her from his thoughts, but there she was, marching back into his office in those damn stockings, draping herself over his desk, hiking her skirt up, and begging him to take her from behind. He closed his eyes and tried to shake her out of his head, but that did nothing. She was right in front of him, slick and eager and not taking no for an answer

His face felt warm. His heart was pounding and he felt blood course through his body and congregate in his groin. His penis stiffened against his leg, an erection that recalled his teenage years when the sight of Amy Landini in a bathing suit could produce a rigidity so complete that it seemed to shrink the rest of him, to literally reduce him behind his cock. But this hard-on was even more intense, fueled by a fantasy that he felt powerless to resist. This was something that needed to be addressed, here and now, never mind that he was at work and it was two o’clock in the afternoon. He needed to get to the bathroom.

He stood too quickly and his erection hit the underside of his desk. He doubled over, gasping for breath, the pit of his groin in agony. The pain spread up to his stomach, sent tingling missives down his legs. He lowered himself onto the floor to let the pain pass. He breathed gingerly for a minute as the pain lessened. He was still hard, still needed release, but his agony had exiled the fantasy and instilled a wincing silence in his head.

A familiar voice filled the void.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

* * *

Peter arrives at the bar before Wade, orders a Grey Goose martini. He takes a few hearty sips and feels his troubles start to recede. The bar — an oasis of calm below the madness of Grand Central — isn’t crowded. A few tourists, a few midtown traders who had a rough Monday. Peter traps an olive between his teeth and pulls the spear away, separating the orb from its two companions.

He hasn’t seen Wade in months. They’ve been friends since college, though they weren’t particularly close at school. They belonged to the same large group of friends, one of those guys who was always around but you never really talked to. But when Peter and Lindsay moved back to New York after law school, they rented a place on the same block as Wade on the Upper East Side. They ran into him randomly on the day they moved in. Wade even helped them with the move. Lindsay liked him; he was quieter and more thoughtful than Peter’s other college friends, who were mostly football players still living like college kids, only with a bit of money to fuel their weekends. Male friendship is a product of the simplest things. Does he live nearby? Does my girlfriend or wife like him? It was easy to become friends with Wade, so it happened.

He’d done well for himself in the past ten years. Worked at a small hedge fund, was one of the top guys now. The fund bet against the market in 2007 and ’08, made a small fortune. Wade told Peter that he’d done the same in his personal accounts. When Peter asked him what kind of money he was talking about, he was surprised to hear that the amount in question was seven figures, not six. Such catastrophic leaps in net worth were unavailable to lawyers, even big-firm partners. Still, he was happy for Wade. Ninety-five percent happy. Wade had laughed at Peter’s slack-jawed expression, said it was a little bit of smarts and a lot of luck. Peter raised a doubtful eyebrow. Wade had buried his wife in 2008, so it was tough to think of him as lucky.

Peter takes another generous sip of booze, plucks another olive from the spear. He misses Morgan, Wade’s wife. She was a spitfire, gregarious and bighearted. Peals of laughter exploded from her. The type of girl who reached across tables to give high fives. Her joviality pulled Wade out of his shell, ever so slightly, exposed his quick-wittedness. They’d gotten engaged shortly after Peter made partner. The four of them had gone out for a raucous, celebratory dinner, a pregnant Lindsay playing nursemaid to three lushes. Lindsay didn’t like Morgan, they never grew close as Peter and Wade had hoped. She made up her mind after that drunken dinner.

“She’s a bit much,” Lindsay said to Peter on the car ride home.

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“That’s because she’s beautiful. If she were ugly, you’d think she was obnoxious.”

Peter let it go. Once Linds made up her mind, there was no talking her out of it.

* * *

Wade hustles into the stool next to Peter, all apologies. Ran into someone on the street, couldn’t get away. Peter doesn’t mind. He’s halfway through a second martini and starting to feel serene.