Page 59 of Just One Look
“Isn’t that a little rude?” Elizabeth asked. “Luka’s sitting right here. He’s also your brother.”
“Luka’s heard it before,” Luka said. He’d used to laugh when they said things like that. He wasn’t bothering to laugh anymore. It wasn’t all that funny.
“All right,” Elizabeth said. “I guess we’re not talking about the breakup, then. I have the sense that it’s looming over the table, but I could be wrong. I’m often wrong. And if it was, what, fifteen years ago, how do you even remember? I’ll share about my own latest breakup, though, how’s that? That might break the ice, especially since it was the catalyst for my coming here. The storyline was that I worked too much and wasn’t present for the relationship, because when I get home, I tend to be tired. I’m sure he was right, since that’s also what a few other men have said. Come to think of it, it’s whateveryother man has said, unless they’re surgeons as well, in which case the relationship doesn’t go anywhere anyway, becausenobodyhas time for it, so you just have sex occasionally until you drift apart or he finds somebody else, and usually go back to being friends, because you may not have made that much of an impression, and everybody’s very busy anyway. Extremely good for the ego. There we go. Does everybody feel better now?”
“I told you,” Sofia said. “Men are useless.”
“Or,” Luka said, “it was that the bloke couldn’t handle your job and your commitment to it, and maybe how good you are at it. Could be you work as much as you need to for the job you’ve got.”
“Thank you,” she said, then looked down at her Scotch glass. “I finished this, by the way. I want another one. I should probably have dinner with it, though. Drinks don’t normally go to my head, but this one is. Maybe it’s all the perfume, the olfactory fatigue. I wonder if that could make me fatigued in general, and more susceptible to other stimuli, the same way you get if you’re in a crowded party with music and lots of loud talking. Well, the same wayIget. Introverts unite.”
“Could be,” Luka said.
“You probably have the same issue,” she told him. “Not the drinking or the introversion, obviously. The relationship one. Women tell you that you’re not present for the relationship, right? Because you’re gone all the time, like you said, and you’re committed to the job, because it’s demanding, and there’s no way to do it well unless you’re exactly that committed.”
“How do you know it’s demanding?” he asked. “People generally think it’s a doddle. Get paid hundreds of thousands to train in the gym a bit, fly all over the world, and chuck a ball around some with your mates in between your eighty minutes max per week on the pitch?”
“If the job requires you to ignore the kind of pain you get with a cervical disc rupture,” she said, “it’s demanding. You’re also still playing an extremely high-contact sport at the highest level at what must be a fairly advanced age. That can’t be typical.”
“Yeh, I’m old,” he said, finishing off his beer. “It’s been mentioned.”
“Also,” Sofia said, “to be present for the relationship, he’d have tohavea relationship. I told you. We’re not good at that anyway, and he’s worse.”
“Really?” Elizabeth didn’t ask Sofia. She askedhim.She was direct, that was certain. Possibly the most direct person he’d ever met. “Because the way you shopped for perfume with me … you were present forthat.”
“That was because he wanted to sleep with you,” Sofia said. “Or because heissleeping with you. Sorry, but do you actually not know that?”
Elizabeth said, “I’ve slept with more than a few men, and none of them ever took me perfume shopping. It’s dinner, normally, if you’re lucky. Dinner’s the big effort. Dinner’s thetopeffort.”
Piper said, “I’ll just … I’ll go,” and set down her half-finished glass.
Elizabeth said, “No. Please don’t. I’m sorry. This isn’t working out well. We should exchange phone numbers or something.”
“No,” Piper said. “Probably not. I always admired you so much.” Yes, her voice was shaking again. “I knew you didn’t care for me as much, though, because I’m a bit silly compared to you. And look at us now. I’m a PR, and you’re a surgeon!”
“A neurosurgeon,” Sofia put in. Again, not helpfully.
Piper blinked at that, wavered, then said, as if it took all her courage, “You don’t have to … you don’t have to show that you’re stronger than me and have done better than me. I already know. And I know you hate me,” she told Luka. “I was scared, though. I’m still scared. Birdie’s not scared to say anything, and I’m scared to sayeverything.Well, if you want revenge, you’ve got it, because I’m divorced. I’m divorced, I’ve got a daughter who’s so … she’s the best thing ever, and Andy barely bothers to spend time with her on his days. I see my little girl trying to be prettier, trying to be sweeter so her daddy will love her, and I want to tell her—no. Just don’t. Just stop. It doesn’t work. Being pretty doesn’t stop anybody from leaving, and being sweet just means you’re always trying harder than the other person. It just means you’re desperate, and they can see it. It doesn’t … it doesn’twork.”
She stood up, almost knocking over her chair in her haste, and Luka stood, too. He needed to say something. He needed todosomething. The trouble was, he couldn’t think what. It was like that first night, with her crying in his arms.
Life didn’t scare him anymore. Life didn’t hurt. He didn’t let it. Her face, her words were doing both. He said, “Wait. Piper. Sit down.”
Elizabeth was up, too, saying, “I’m sorry. Let’s go someplace else. We can … we can talk.”
Piper shook her head violently, and then she headed out the door. Bone-deep beautiful. Perfectly pulled together. And all alone.
Half the men in the bar watched her go. He was guessing that didn’t help much.
