The First Affair by Emma McLaughlin Read Free Book Online Page A

bedroom. “Is that Kelly Clarkson? Someone’s calling you!”
    “ Shitshitshit .” She careened past me and answered in the grown-up register previously reserved for professors.
    “What? Oh my God, what’s wrong?” I asked when she reappeared.
    “The Tuesday client meeting got bumped up and they want me to come in right fucking now.”
    “ ‘They’?”
    “ She wants me to come in.”
    “Does your boss know you’re on the other side of the country?”
    Lena shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
    “But we had the rest of the day!” I felt a childish sense of panic.
    “Jamie, seriously?”
    “What? I’m just—”
    “This is my job.” She crossed her arms.
    “I know.”
    “I mean—”
    “What?” I said quickly, but we both knew the thoughts that hung between us. That I didn’t have a job being the kindest. That I made out with my boss’s boss’s boss, the harshest.
    “Nothing, just—I need to check flights. I’m sorry.”
    • • •
    I tagged along to National because my revised plan of reading Gone Girl and changing toenail polish could accommodate the scheduling addition. Slithering her suitcase at full speed around the dawdlers, dressed in the Escada suit she’d wear directly from the airport to the office, Lena looked like she’d fly the plane herself if they let her. Jogging alongside her, dressed in the sweater hoodie and cutoffs that I would wear directly back to an empty apartment, I looked like her assistant. At best.
    With a few minutes to spare before she passed through security, we found chairs across from the monitors. I sipped from my water bottle and we reminisced about when we had everything we needed within a two-block radius—food, post office, library. How an ID swipe granted us access to all of it.
    She pointed to where my phone lit up beside me with a text from Mike’s number. As this was the last moment I wanted to finally tell herabout him, I dropped it in my bag. It had been over between us for so long by college that I’d never mentioned him and as I sat there, I acknowledged to myself that Lena was right. When people talked about high school, about firsts, I’d found it was easier to say nothing at all.
    On the TV overhead, Mrs. Rutland was doing jumping jacks with a group of elementary school students—throwing herself into it until she was flushed and perspiring, with seemingly no consideration to vanity, which only made her more beautiful. A boy who had lost fifty pounds on her Fit for Life program beamed, leaning against her as she put her arm around him.
    My face dropped to my Tretorns as awkwardness settled over us. “I mean, not that it matters,” I said quietly as the broadcast moved on, “because this would never happen again in a million years, but maybe they have an arrangement?”
    “You’re part of an arrangement?” she repeated.
    “No, Lena, I’m not part of anything.”
    “I always think how many wives would be surprised to find out they’re in arrangements .” The same sourness permeated her that did whenever she referenced her father.
    “Lena, this isn’t—I’m not going to break up a—I’m not going to marry him. Jesus.”
    “So that’s that, then?” She sought confirmation.
    “Look, the planets aligned and a rock star grabbed me for five minutes in heaven—two minutes! It’s not like we’re having a thing. I couldn’t even make a thing happen if I wanted to,” I tried to reassure her, despite the fact that, in total honesty, I wanted to. “Nobody can get to that man who isn’t supposed to. I mean, unless he takes to wandering the basement or hanging in the staff ladies’ room.”
    “So if he was, you’d do it again?”
    I stared at her. “This is a pointless conversation.” I stood up, wishing I were wearing pants. “And I’m sure you have to go.”
    Lena pulled out her driver’s license, looking down longer than necessary, and I feared my disclosure had stained something between us. “In the morning