Three
When I wake up the next morning, the cavalier girl sucking down a milk shake is gone, caved to guilt and thirty years of rule-following. I can no longer rationalize what I did. I committed an unspeakable act against a friend, violated a central tenet of sisterhood. There is no justification.
So on to Plan B: I will pretend that nothing happened. My transgression was so great that I have no choice but simply to will the whole thing to go away. And by proceeding with business as usual, embracing my Monday morning routine, this is what I seek to accomplish.
I shower, dry my hair, put on my most comfortable black suit and low heels, take the subway to Grand Central, get my coffee at Starbucks, pick up The New York Times at my newsstand, and ride two escalators and one elevator up to my office in the MetLife Building. Each part of my routine presents one step further from Seth and the Incident.
I arrive at my office at eight-twenty, way early by law-firm standards. The halls are quiet. Not even the secretaries are in yet. I am turning to the Metro section of the paper, sipping my coffee, when I notice the blinking red message light on my phone-usually a warning that more work awaits me. Some jackass partner must have called me on the one weekend in recent memory when I failed to check my messages. My money is on Vince, the dominant man in my life and the biggest jackass partner amid six floors of them. I enter my password, wait…
"You have one new message from an outside caller. Received today at seven-forty-two A.M…" the recording tells me. I hate that automated woman. She consistently bears bad news and does so in a chipper voice. They should adjust that recording at law firms, make the voice more somber: "Uh-oh"-with ominous Jaws music in the background-"you have four new messages…"
"Hi Megan…It's me…Seth…I wanted to call you yesterday to talk about Saturday night but- I just couldn't. I think we should talk about it, don't you? Call me when you can. I should be around all day."
My heart sinks. Why can't he adopt some good old-fashioned avoidance techniques and ignore it, never speak of it again? That was my game plan. No wonder I hate my job; I am a litigator who hates confrontations. I pick up my pen and tap it against the edge of my desk. I hear my mom telling me not to fidget. I put the pen down and stare at the blinking light. The women demands that a decision be made with respect to the message-I must replay it, save it or delete it.
What does he want to talk about? What is there to say? I replay, expecting the answers to come to me in the sound of his voice, his cadence. But he gives nothing away. I replay again and again until his voice starts to sound distorted, just as a word changes in your mouth when you repeat it enough times. Egg, egg, egg, egg. That used to be my favorite. I'd say it over and over until it seemed that I had the altogether wrong word for the yellow substance I was about to ear for breakfast.
I listen to Seth one final time before I delete him. His voice definitely sounds different. This makes sense because in some ways, he is different. We both are. Because even if I try to block out when happened, even if Seth drops the Incident after a brief, awkward telephone call, we will forever be on one another's List- that list every person has, whether recorded in a secret notebook or memorized in the back of the mind. Whether short or long. Whether in ranked order of performance or importance or chronology. Whether complete with first, middle, and last names or mere physical descriptions, Like A.J.'s List: "Delta Sig with killer delts…"
Seth is on my list for good. Without wanting to, I suddenly think of us in bed together. For those brief moments, he was just Seth-separate from A.J. something he hadn't been in a very long time. Something he hadn't been since the day I introduced the two.
I met Seth during our first year of law school at NYU. Unlike most law students, who come straight from college when they can think of nothing better to do with their stellar undergrad transcripts, Seth Rollins, was older, with real life experience. He had worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, which blew away my nine-to-five summer internships and office jobs filing and answering phone. He was confident, relaxed and so gorgeous that it was hard not to stare at him. I was positive that he would become the Dolph Ziggler and Justin Gabriel of law school. Sure enough we were barely into our first week of class when the buzz over Seth began, women speculating about his status, nothing either that his left ring finger was unadorned or alternatively worrying that he was too well dressed and handsome to be straight.
But I dismissed Seth straightaway, convincing myself that his outward perfection was boring. Which was a fortunate stance; because I also knew that he was out of my league. (I hate that expression and the presumption that people choose mates based so heavily upon looks, but it is hard to deny the principle when you look around-partners generally share the same level of attractiveness, and when they do not, it is noteworthy.) Besides, I wasn't borrowing thirty thousand dollars a year so that I could find a boyfriend.
As a matter of fact, I probably would have gone three years without talking to him, but we randomly ended up next to each other in Torts, a seating-chart class taught by the sardonic Professor Zigman. Although many professors at NYU used the Socratic Method, only Zigman used it as a tool to humiliate and torture students. Seth and I bonded in our hatred of our mean-spirited professor. I feared Zigman to an irrational extreme, he would growl after class; often Zigman had reduced a fellow classmates to tears. "I just want to wipe that smirk off his pompous face."
Gradually, our grumbling turned into longer talks over coffee in the student lounge, or during walks around Washington Square Park. We began to study together in the hour before class, preparing for the inevitable-the day Zigman would call on us. I dreaded my turn, knowing that it would be a bloody massacre, but secretly couldn't wait for Seth to be called on. Zigman preyed on the weak and flustered, and Seth was neither. I was sure that he wouldn't go down without a fight.
I remember it well. Zigman stood behind his podium, examining his seating chart, a schematic with our faces cut from the first-year look book, practically salivating as he picked his prey. He peered over his small, round glasses (the kind that should be called spectacles) in our general direction, and said, "Mr. Rollins."
"Mr. Rollins," Zigman said, with an insincere little bow. "Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad Company."
Seth sat calmly with his book closed while the rest of the class nervously flipped to the case we had been assigned to read the night before.
The case involved a railroad accident. While rushing to board a train, a railroad employee knocked a package of dynamite our of a passenger's hand, causing injury to another passenger, Mrs. Palsgraf. Justice Cardozo, writing for the majority, held that Mrs. Palsgraf was not a "foreseeable plaintiff" and, as such, could not recover from the railroad company. Perhaps the railroad employees should have foreseen harm to the package holder, the Court explained, but not harm to Mrs. Palsgraf.
"Should the plaintiff have been allowed recovery?" Zigman asked Seth.
Seth said nothing. For a brief second I panicked that he had frozen, like the others before him. Say no, I thought, sending him fierce brain waves. Go with the majority holding. But when I looked at his expression, and the way his arms were folded across his chest. I could tell that he was only taking his time, in marked contrast to the way most first-year students blurted out quick, nervous, untenable answers as if reaction time could compensate for understanding.
"In my opinion?" Seth asked.
"I am addressing you, Mr. Rollins. So, yes, I am asking for your opinion."
"I would have to say yes, the plaintiff should have been allowed recovery. I agree with Justice Andrew's dissent."
"Ohhhh, really?" Zigman's voice was high and nasal.
"Yes. Really."
I was surprised by his answer, as he had told me just before class that he didn't realize crack cocaine had been around in 1928, but Justice Andrews surely must have been smoking it when he wrote his dissent. I was even more surprised by Seth's brazen "really" tagged onto the end of his answer, as though to taunt Zigman.
Zigman's scrawny chest swelled visibly. "So you think that the guard should have foreseen that the innocuous package measuring fifteen inches in length, covered with a newspaper, contained explosives and would cause injury to the plaintiff?"
"It was certainly a possibility."
"Should he have foreseen that the package could cause injury to anybody in the world?" Zigman asked, with mounting sarcasm.
"I didn't say 'anybody in the world.' I said 'the plaintiff." Mrs. Palsgraf, in my opinion was in the danger zone."
Zigman approached our row with ramrod posture and tossed his Wall Street Journal onto Seth's closed textbook.
"Care to return my newspaper?"
"I'd prefer not to," Seth said.
The shock in the room was palpable. The rest of us would have simply played along and returned the paper, mere props in Zigman's questioning.
"You'd prefer not to?" Zigman cocked his head.
"That's correct. There could be dynamite wrapped inside it."
Half of the class gasped the other half snickered. Clearly, Zigman had some tactic up his sleeve, some way of turning the facts around on Seth. But Seth wasn't falling for it. Zigman was visibly frustrated.
"Well, let's suppose you did choose to return it to me and it did contain a stick of dynamite and it did cause injury to your person. Then what, Mr. Rollins?"
"Then I would sue you, and likely, I would win."
"And would that recovery be consistent with Judge Cardozo's rationale in the majority holding?"
"No. It would not."
"Oh, really? And why not?"
"Because I'd sue you for an intentional tort, and Cardozo was talking about negligence, was he not?" Seth raised his voice to match Zigman's.
I think I stopped breathing as Zigman pressed his palms together and brought them neatly against his chest as though he were praying. "I ask the questions in this classroom. If that's all right with you, Mr. Rollins?"
Seth shrugged as if to say, have it your way, makes no difference to me.
"Well, let's suppose that I accidentally dropped my paper onto your desk, and you returned it and were injured. Would Mr. Cardozo allow you full recovery?"
"Sure."
"And why is that?"
Seth sighed to show that the exercise was boring him and then said swiftly and clearly, "Because it was entirely foreseeable that the dynamite could cause injury to me. Your dropping the paper containing dynamite into my personal space violated my legally protected interest. Your negligent act caused a hazard apparent to the eye of ordinary violence."
I studied the highlighted portions of my book. Seth was quoting sections of Cardozo's opinion verbatim, without so much as glancing at his book or notes. The whole class was spellbound-nobody did this well, and certainly not with Zigman, looming over him.
"And if Ms. Myers sued," Zigman said, pointing to a trembling Julie Myers on the other side of the classroom, his victim from the day before.
"Should she be allowed recovery?"
"Under Cardozo's holding or Justice Andrew's dissent?"
"The latter. As it is the opinion you share."
"Yes, everyone owes to the world at large the duty of refraining from acts which unreasonably threaten the safety of others," Seth said, another straight quote from the dissent.
It went on like that for the rest of the hour, Seth distinguishing nuances in changed fact patterns, never wavering, always answering decisively.
And at the end of the hour, Zigman actually said, "Very good Mr. Rollins."
It was a first.
I left class felling jubilant. Seth had prevailed for all of us. The story spread throughout the first year class, earning him more points with the girls, who had long since determined that he was totally available.
I told A.J. the story as well. She had moved to New York at about the same time I did, only under vastly different circumstances. I was there to become a lawyer; she came without a job, or a plan or much money. I let her sleep on a futon in my dorm room until she found some roommates-three American Airlines flight attendants looking to squeeze a fourth body into their heavily partitioned studio. She borrowed money from her parents to make the rest while she looked for a job, finally settling on a bartending position at the Monkey Bar. For the first time in our friendship, I was happy with my life in comparison to hers. I was just as poor, but at least I had a plan. A.J.'s prospects didn't seem great with only a 2.9 GPA from Indiana University.
"You're so lucky," A.J. would whine as I tried to study.
No, luck is what you have, I'd think. Luck is buying a lottery ticket along with your Yoo-Hoo and striking rich. Nothing about my life was lucky-it's all about hard work; it is all an uphill struggle. But of course I never said that. Just told her that things would soon turn around for her.
And sure enough, they did. About two weeks later a man waltzed into the Monkey Bar, ordered a whiskey sour, and began to chat A.J. up. By the time he finished his drink, he had promised her a job at one of Manhattan's top PR firms. He told her to come in for an interview, but that he would (wink, wink) make sure that she got the job. A.J. took his business card, had me revise her resume, went in for the interview, and got an offer on the spot. Her starting salary was seventy thousand dollars, plus an expense account. Practically what I would make if I did well enough in school to get a job with a New York firm.
So while I sweated it out and racked up debt, A.J. began her glamorous PR career. She planned parties, promoted the season's latest fashion trends, got plenty of free everything, and dated a string of beautiful men. Within seven months, she left the flight attendants in the dust and moved in with her coworker Layla El, a snobbish, well-connected girl from the United Kingdom.
A.J. tried to include me in her fast track life, although I seldom had time to go to her events or her parties or her blind date setups with guys she swore were "total hotties" but that I knew were simply her castoffs.
Which brings me back to Seth. I raved about him to A.J. and Layla, told them how unbelievable he was-smart, handsome, funny. In retrospect I'm not sure why I did it. In part because it was true. But perhaps I was a little jealous of their glamorous life and wanted to juice mine up a little bit. Seth was the best thing in my arsenal.
"So, why don't you like him?" A.J. would ask.
"He's not my type," I'd say. "We're just friends."
Which was the truth. Sure, there were moments when I felt a flicker of interest or a quickening of my pulse as I sat near Seth. But I remained vigilant not to fall for him, always reminding myself that guys like Seth only date girls like A.J.
It wasn't until the following semester that the two met. A group of us from school, including Seth, planned an impromptu Thursday evening out. A.J. had been asking to meet Seth for weeks, so I phoned her and told her to be at the Red Lion at eight. She showed up, but Seth did not. I could tell A.J. viewed the whole outing as wasted effort, complaining that the Red Lion wasn't her scene, that she was over these grungy undergrad bars (which she had been into just a few short months ago), that the band sucked, and could we please leave and go somewhere nicer where people valued good grooming.
At that moment Seth sauntered into the bar wearing a black leather coat and a beautiful, oatmeal colored cashmere sweater. He walked straight over to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek, which I still wasn't used to-Midwesterners don't kiss and greet like that. I introduced him to A.J. and she turned on the charm, giggling, and playing with her hair and nodding emphatically whenever he said anything. Seth was pleasant to her but didn't seem overly interested and at one point as she was dropping Goldman names-Do you know this guy or that guy?-Seth actually appeared to be suppressing a yawn. He left before the rest of us, waving good-bye to the group and telling A.J. that it was nice to meet her.
On the walk back to my room, I asked her what she thought of him.
"He's cute," A.J. said, giving the minimum endorsement. Her lackluster response irritated me. She couldn't praise him because he hadn't been dazzled enough by her. A.J. expected to be the one pursued, and that's what I had come to expect too.
The next day, as Seth and I had coffee, I waited for him to mention A.J. I was sure he would, but he didn't. A small-okay, a big- part of me enjoyed telling A.J. that her name hadn't come up. For once, someone wasn't falling all over themselves to be with her.
I should've known better.
About a week later, out of the blue, Seth asked me what the story was with my friend.
"Which friend?" I asked, playing dumb.
"You know, the dark-haired woman from the Red Lion?"
"Oh, A.J.," I said. And then cut right to the chase. "You want her phone number?"
"If she's single."
I delivered the news to her that evening. She smiled coyly. "He is pretty cute. I'll go out with him."
It took Seth another two weeks to call her. If he waited on purpose, the strategy worked wonders. She was in a frenzy by the time he took her to Union Square Café. The date obviously went well, because they went to brunch the next morning in the Village. Soon after that, A.J. and Seth were both off the market.
In the beginning, their romance was turbulent. I always knew A.J. loved to fight with her boyfriends-it wasn't fun unless high drama was involved- but I viewed Seth as this rational, cool creature, about the fray. Maybe he had been that way with other girls, but A.J. sucked him into her world of chaos and high emotion. She'd find a phone number in one of his law school notebooks (she was a self-proclaimed snoop), do the research, trace it back to an ex-girlfriend, and refuse to speak to him. One day he came into Torts looking sheepish, with a cut on his forehead right above his left eye. A.J. had hurled a wire hanger at him in a jealous rage.
And it worked the other way too. We'd all go out and A.J. would cozy up to the bar with another guy. I'd watch Seth steal casual glances their way until he could stand it no longer. He'd go to collect her, looking angry but composed, and I'd overhear her justifying her flirtations with some tenuous connection to the guy: "I mean, we were just talking about our brothers and how they were in the same freaking fraternity. Jesus, Seth! You don't have to overreact!"
But eventually the relationship stabilized, the fights grew less intense and more infrequent and she moved into his apartment. Then this past winter, Seth proposed. They picked a weekend in September and she picked me as her maid of honor.
I knew him first, I think to myself now. It is no more ironclad than the Randy defense, but I cling to it for a moment. I picture my sympathetic juror, leaning forwards as she absorbs this revelation. She even raises the point during deliberations. "If it weren't for Megan, Seth and A.J. would never have met. So in a sense, Megan deserved one time with him." The other jurors stare at her incredulously, and Chanel suit tells her not to be ridiculous. That it has nothing to do with anything. "In fact, it might even cut the other way," Chanel suit counters. "Megan had her chance to be with Seth- but that window has long passed. And she is the maid of honor. The maid of honor! It is the ultimate betrayal!"
I work late that night, delaying my call back to Seth. I even consider waiting until tomorrow morning, mid-week, not calling at all. But the longer I wait, the more awkward it will be when I inevitably see him. So I force myself to sit down and dial his number. I hope for his voicemail. It is ten thirty and with any luck, he will be gone, home with A.J.
"Seth Rollins," he answers, his tone all business. He is back at Goldman Sachs, having wisely chosen the banker route over the lawyer route. The work is more interesting and the money is much better.
"Megan!" he sounds genuinely happy to hear from me, although somewhat nervous, his voice a bit too loud. "Thanks for calling. I was starting to think I wasn't going to hear from you."
"I've been meaning to call. It's just that…I've been really busy…crazy day," I stammer. My mouth is bone dry.
"Yeah, it's been nuts here too. Typical Monday," he says, sounding a little more relaxed.
"Yeah…"
An awkward pause follows- well, it feels awkward to me. Does he expect me to bring up the Incident?
"So, how do you feel?" his voice becomes lower.
"How do I feel?" My face is burning, I'm sweating, and I can't rule out the possibility of regurgitating my sushi dinner.
"I mean, what do you think about Saturday?" His voice is lower still, almost a whisper. Maybe he is just being discreet, making sure nobody in the office hears him, but the volume translates at intimate.
"I don't know what you're asking me…"
"Do you feel guilty?"
"Of course I feel guilty. Don't you?" I look out my window at the lights of Manhattan, in the direction of his downtown office.
"Well, yeah," he says sincerely. "Obviously. It shouldn't have happened. No question about that. It was wrong…and I don't want you to think that, you know that it's typical practice for me. I've never cheated on A.J. before. Never…You believe that, don't you?"
I tell him that of course I believe him. I want to believe him.
Another silence.
"So, yeah, that was a first for me," he says.
More silence. I picture him with his feet up on his desk, his collar loosened, and tie thrown over his shoulder. He looks good in a suit. Well, he looks good in anything. And nothing.
"Uh-huh," I say. I am gripping the phone so tightly that my fingers hurt. I switch hands and wipe my sweaty palm on my skirt.
"I feel so bad that you've been friends with A.J. forever, and this thing that happened between us…it puts you in a really atrocious position." He clears his throat and continues. "But at the same time, I don't know…"
"What don't you know?" I ask, against my better judgment to end the conversation, hang up the phone, and choose the flight instinct that has always served me well.
"I don't know. I just…well, in some ways…well, objectively speaking, I know what I did was so wrong. But I just don't feel guilty, isn't that awful?...Do you think less of me?"
I have no idea how to answer this one. "Yes" seems mean and judgmental; "no" might open the floodgates. I find safe, middle ground. "I have no room to judge anyone, do I? I was there…I did it too."
"I know, Megan. But it was my fault."
I think about the elevator, the feel of his hair between my fingers.
"We were both at fault…We were both drunk. It must have been the shots-they just sneaked up on me and I hadn't really eaten much that day," I ramble, hoping that we are nearly finished.
Seth interrupts. "I wasn't that drunk," he states plainly, almost defiantly.
You weren't that drunk?
As though he has read my mind, he continues. "I mean, yes, I had a few drinks-my inhibitions certainly were lowered-but I knew what I was doing, and on some level, I think I wanted it to happen. Well, I suppose that's a rather obvious statement…But what I mean is that I think I consciously wanted it to happen. Not that it was premeditated. But it had crossed my mind at various points before…"
At various points? When? In law school? Before or after you met A.J.?
I suddenly recall one pre-A.J. occasion when Seth and I were studying for our Torts exam in the library. It was late and we were both punchy, almost delirious from lack of sleep and too much caffeine. Seth started imitating Zigman, quoting certain pet phrases of his, as I laughed so hard that I started to cry. When I finally got ahold of myself, he leaned across the narrow table and wiped a tear off my face with his thumb. Just like a scene in a movie, only usually those are sad tears. Our eyes locked.
I looked away first, returning my eyes to my book, the words jumping all over the page. I couldn't for the life of me focus on negligence or proximate cause; only the feel of his thumb on my face. Later, Seth offered to walk me back to my dorm. I politely declined, telling him that I'd be fine on my own. As I was falling asleep that night, I decided that I had imagined his intent, and that Seth would never care for me as more than a friend. He was only being nice
Still, I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I hadn't been so guarded, if I had said yes to his offer that night. I am wondering now in a big way.
Seth keeps talking. "Of course, I'm well aware it can never happen again," he says with conviction. "Right?" The last word is earnest, almost vulnerable.
"Right. Never ever again," I say, immediately regretting my juvenile choice of words. "It was a mistake."
"But I don't regret it. I should, but I just don't," he says.
This is so weird, I think, but say nothing. Just sit dumbly, waiting for him to speak again.
"So anyway, Megan, I'm sorry for putting you in this position. But I thought you should know how I feel," he finishes, and then laughs nervously.
I say okay, well now I know, and I guess we should move on and put this behind us, and all of those other things that I thought Seth were calling to tell me. We say good-bye, then I hand up and state out my window in a daze. The call that was supposed to bring closure only ushered in more uneasiness. And a tiny little stirring inside me, a stirring that I resolve to squelch.
I stand up, turn off my office light, and walk down to the subway, trying to put Seth out of my head. But as I wait on the subway platform, my mind returns to our kiss in the elevator. The feel of his hair and the way he looked sleeping in my bed, half covered by my sheets. Those are the images that I remember the most. They are like the photographs of ex-boyfriends that you desperately want to throw away, but you can't bring yourself to get rid of them. So instead you store them in an old shoe box, in the back of your closet, figuring that it doesn't hurt to save them. Just in case you want to open that box and remember some of the good times.