2. Some Conversation, No Contemplation

The corners of Elena's mouth lifted behind her cup as they crossed their legs simultaneously under the table and kicked each other. Simone lifted an eyebrow and tried to hide her own smile behind an oversized mug. When Elena's brow also went up they had no choice: they burst into helpless laughter.

"What have I told you about making me laugh when I have something hot in my hands?" Simone demanded.

"I don't know. I think you were snorting too hard at the time for me to understand you."

Simone flicked croissant crust at her.

The moment passed. Both women shifted to her respective right. Elena cradled her cappuccino, inches away from her mouth. Simone pushed a long smooth curl behind her ear and stared out at the street past Elena's shoulder.

While they had this moment of pretending not to be aware of each other, Elena studied the woman before her. Where she herself was a warm bronze, Simone was pale porcelain. Where Elena had tried to tame her voluminous curls by straightening and cutting her hair, Simone's curled and brushed her shoulder blades. And at scarcely one meter six, she made Elena feel tall and imposing.

It made it difficult to understand how—

Elena turned her head, looking into the dim interior of the café and the waiters moving within. Her chin-length hair swung into her eyes. She pushed it back and sipped her cappuccino. When she turned back, Simone was studying her: "How is he?"

She pushed her hair behind her ear, again. It was too short to really stay. "Good. And with you?"

Simone nodded. Pushed a curl behind her own ear. "Good."

"And how's work?"

"The same. It could always be better." Simone dabbed at the croissant flakes on her plate with her index finger. "And you? How's school? You're almost done, aren't you?"

Elena nodded. "Working on my thesis even now. My brain's ready to drip out of my ears."

"I know the feeling."

"Hmm."

They were sipping their respective beverages when the waiter came with the bill. Elena put down her cup and reached for it. Simone was faster. "I've got it this time."

"Really it's—"

"You're a struggling university student—"

"Graduate student."

"—whose husband is often away from home."

"On business. Rather lucrative business," she added, cutting her eyes toward the interior of the café.

"The point is you have a cover to maintain. And I specialize in maintaining covers."

Their eyes met and held. Elena rolled her eyes and made a rude sound as she relinquished her rights to the bill. "Only because it's you."

Simone gave a smirking half smile and Elena's breath caught. Who had gotten the smile from whom, she wondered as she watched the other woman bend over the tile-inlaid table and scribble out her name. Their waiter, apparently, had been watching. He appeared at her elbow the moment the pen left the paper.

"Let's get out of here," Elena said as soon as he disappeared. "Besides, you owe me."

"Oh?" Simone raised an eyebrow, studying her. "What do I owe you?"

"Shoes. Remember two weeks ago when you had to back out on me because something 'came up'?"

Simone pursed her lips. "My strained shoulders certainly remember. So you want to go shoe shopping? You had this planned even before I called, didn't you?" she asked as Elena rose.

"No one's going to hold those beautiful shoes for us if we don't get moving."

Rolling her eyes, Simone stood.

*

They were standing shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, admiring the display and trying to determine if they wanted to patronize the boutique.

"I'm pregnant."

Simone met her eyes in the window. "You haven't told, Michael. Why?"

Elena shrugged, but said, "I thought you should know first."

"He's going to be thrilled." Simone returned to looking at the fanciful shoes.

Elena glanced down at the tiny woman. Then back at the shoes. They slowly made their way across the face of the windows, moving from one side of the entrance to the others. "But how do you feel about it?" she asked finally.

"Let's go inside."

*

"It's been a month. You still haven't told Michael. Why?"

Wide-eyed, Elena looked up from the round rack of clothes. "How do you—?" She stopped nodding to herself. "Right. You would have been briefed."

"And he would have told me."

"Of course."

Their eyes met.

"What are you waiting for?"

Elena dropped her eyes, rummaging through the rack again. As she thought she might, Simone stood still as Elena worked her way around. When they were standing shoulder to shoulder – managing it only because Simone was in heels – Elena picked up a shimmering gold cardigan that, while not her style, would give the Chinese woman's skin a warm glow. She held it near Simone's face. "I'm thinking of terminating it."

"What?"

"I'm thinking of terminating the pregnancy," Elena said slowly. Simone's next question was written across her face, so Elena answered it: "Because…because I don't know if I can do this. To Michael. To you. To this baby. What am I going to do if—"

Simone snatched the cardigan from her and stuffed it back in the rack. "No ifs," she hissed. "You can't play that game. That's the one we play. You don't know how happy this will make Michael. We can't have children, Elena."

"I know."

"This will be his only chance."

"But you can't—"

"Don't think about me. Don't consider me. You are married to Michael. You are married to Michael."

"But—"

"But I can't do that for him. I don't have that option. He's lost everything else. Don't deny him this chance," Simone said, searching Elena's eyes.

*

Michael dropped a kiss on Elena's shoulder as he crouched beside her chair. "You're picking up all my bad habits."

Smiling, she twisted in her seat to face him. "Why do you say that?"

He gestured broadly to her seated at the computer desk. "Usually I'm the one who brings work home and stays up all night doing it."

"Speaking of which, what are you doing up? You were sound asleep when I climbed out of bed."

He placed his large hands warm against her waist. "I got cold." When Elena smirked at him, he gestured to the computer screen with his chin. "What are you working on so late?"

"I couldn't sleep so I decided to grade some papers."

He kissed her bare knee. "A teaching assistant's job is never done."

"And more and more of the students are starting to email their papers instead of submitting them in class, so I decided to check the department inbox—"

"Anything?"

Elena chuckled with dulled humor. "More than I expected. I hope we have plenty of paper in the printer. And an extra ink cartridge. We're low if I remember correctly."

Michael studied her face for a long moment. She let him. "There's something else. You can't be that worried about office supplies. I promise I'll buy you more in the morning. I don't have to go in tomorrow."

"I know."

"Then what's wrong?"

"There's a message on the department notice-board. From a colleague. Obviously." She paused, knowing that he would let the silence persist until she was ready to go on. "She's had to take an unexpected leave and…she's pretty sure she won't be back until next semester."

"You were…close?"

Elena smiled at the skepticism that laced Michael's voice. Little wonder: he knew more about the people she considered herself close to than she did. "Not exactly. But we were friendly."

"Then what—"

"She's going to miss the pregnancy."

Michael's hands clenched convulsively around her waist, but otherwise he was still as stone. Elena met his blank eyes with the words of Simone's email echoing in her mind. "Yesterday I went on and on about Michael…"

"We're going to have a baby," she told him.

"…but you deserve this chance too. Don't deny yourself."

Michael lowered his head until his forehead rested on the lowest part of her sternum, his breath hot and fast through her nightshirt. His arms encircled her waist, bringing her closer, until Elena was made to open her legs and cross her arms over his shoulders or use her body as a barrier between them.

*

"These are newer?"

Smiling, Elena nodded as Simone tucked a long curl behind her ear and flipped through the photos in her hand. There were another three envelopes of pictures – weighed down by a salt shaker, the edge of a plate and Simone's elbow – chronicling the last year of Elena's life. She had another six envelopes in the oversized sack she was passing off as a handbag, but the four at hand represented the best of the time the two women had spent apart. Or so Elena hoped. She'd chosen carefully, trying not to lord the new life she and Michael shared over Simone.

Simone had determined that the pregnancy would put the growing Samuelle family under too much surveillance for the two women to safely meet. And so they hadn't. There were occasional emails, but the communication form was so easy to intercept that their messages were necessarily insubstantial. Over the course of the year Elena had found herself missing the petite Chinese woman more and more. There were no calls to reassure her that her husband was coming home, that the mission had gone off well. No one to ask if her personal tails had been changed lately. Or how to ditch them for an hour or two.

No one to share her pregnancy fears, all her pregnancy fears, with.

No one to interpret Michael's more quixotic and cryptic moods.

No one else who had full disclosure.

Simone looked up. "None of Michael?"

Why she had thought Simone wouldn't notice, Elena didn't know. Simone was trained to notice. "I thought it'd be better—"

"It was a good choice."

Their eyes met. Simone went back to looking at the pictures.

*

A petite Asian woman drops into the seat across from her. She quirks an eyebrow as if she has been studying her. "This whole thing might have been a lot easier if you weren't so pretty."

Elena blinks. She'd heard a lot about rude Americans, but this was her first personal experience with one. "Pardon? Do I know—"

The woman extends a hand. Manners dictate that Elena take it. "Simone," the woman says when she does. "Simone Samuelle."

Elena drops the hand as if it's a live snake. "What—"

"Michael's other wife. Although since I'm a legal non-entity I guess that makes you the real wife and me the mistress."

Elena stares at her, dumbfounded. And this Simone person seems content to let her. It takes her a moment but Elena eventually finds her voice: "How dare you? I don't know who you are but—"

"No," Simone interrupts sharply. " No, you know who I am. Michael said you were a smart girl. You had to have wondered where he was, who he was seeing." She shakes her head, looking out of the café onto the street. "You can't have missed that the things he's telling you don't exactly add up."

"So you're telling me he's been with you?" Elena asks, examining the other woman now and wishing that she had gotten a better look at her before Simone sat down.

Simone snorts and brings her eyes forward. "Not hardly."

"So…you're here to tell me to back off? You had him first and—"

"Not that either. I couldn't tell you to back off any more than Michael could walk away from your marriage. The same way he couldn't have not married you."

Elena's eyes narrow. "I don't understand."

"Of course not. But I'm about to explain it to you." Raising a hand, Simone attracts the attention of a waiter.

When he leaves, Elena says, "Explain what? How I should let him go since he apparently can't walk away? Why?" She knows she is angry, furious. She can feel the hot flashes of color in her face.

"If only it was that easy," Simone says with an earnest pain that douses some of Elena's anger. "I am going to explain why he can't walk away, but not so that you'll get a divorce. That's…" she shakes her head. "That's, surprise, surprise, the last thing I want. No I'm going to tell you why – tell you everything, full disclosure – because he loves you."

*

Elena's hand hovered over the telephone. She had just gotten off with Michael's "secretary." He had been called out of town unexpectedly, but should be home as expected tomorrow. She'd said thank you and hung up. And here she was…waiting. Waiting for a call that she knew wouldn't come. Not ever again.

"Mama?"

Elena turned around. Adam was sitting in the doorway. She'd actually forgotten about him, which made it all worse.

Plastering a smile on her face, Elena swooped down on her son. "Hello, my love! What are you doing up, hmm? Did the telly wake you?"

"Telly!"

Elena nodded at her young son. "Yes, the telephone."

When she'd gotten his arms around her neck she stood up with him and settled him on her hip. "How would you like to go next door and spend the night with Flora and her mummy and daddy?"

"Floor!"

"Flora," she gently corrected as she turned them around and walked back to her bedroom.

Adam nodded. "Floor."

Elena gave him a true smile. "I love you."

She got a pudgy fist to her mouth. Which she grabbed and kissed. Sure that he had a tight grip on her, Elena took the telephone from beside the bed. "Come, m'love, let's get you ready while I call Flora, hmm?"

"Floor!"

"Yes, darling." And while Adam was being pampered and coddled by the neighbor's girl, she could mourn the loss of her best friend.