𝐇𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐭 || ᴊᴇɴʟɪsᴀ

𝐭 𝐞 𝐧

A few days later, Lisa arrived with sushi right in the middle of a phone argument Mark and I were having about some of his clients’ portfolios. I gestured that she should get a drink and start eating without me, and moved out onto the balcony. The city sounds below rushed up, tunneling through my brain and hammering at the ache behind my eyes.

“When you ask for my advice, Mark and then practically do the opposite, it really pisses me off. Especially when it turns out to be a bad buy.”

“Jen, quit riding me about it.” He was almost whining.

“If you were doing what you should, I wouldn’t be fucking nagging you. You’re making me feel like my mama.”

“I don’t need to be babysat.” I could feel him pouting, even through the phone.

“Yeah, maybe you do. I hate to say it—”

“No you don’t,” he countered.

I drove over the top of him like I was a tank. “Honey, I don’t know what’s going on, but you seem distracted.” For the past few weeks he’d been ducking out of the office at odd times, and had long periods where he was completely uncontactable. I’d overheard someone in the ladies’ room asking if he was all right because “he seemed so weird.”

“Jennie.” His tone was a notch below a warning.

“I’m worried about you. That’s all.” I turned to look back into the house, watching Lisa bent over in my fridge. She turned around, caught me staring and grinned. I grinned back. Guilty as charged.

Mark exhaled. “I know. But you’re my best friend, not my wife. Or my mom.”

“I’m the closest thing you’ve got to a wife, darlin’.”

“I can’t even begin to express how depressing that is.”

“I’m bringing this up as your friend but more importantly as your business partner, Mark.” There was no way I could word it that wasn’t accusatory. “I feel like you’ve been missing things you shouldn’t. And then that trouble with the auditor. Things are dragging on your end, and for someone so concerned about our image, your…ineptitude makes us look bad.”
There was a long pause. So long that I had to ask if he was still there.

“I’m here.” The sound of a lighter sparking came over the line. His deep inhalation. “I told you the auditor stuff was just a fuck up of a report I sent, and I sent an amended one through.”

“Yes. A fuck up,” I said pointedly. “You were late sending the figures through last quarter too, and I had to chase you up.”

“Goddammit, can’t I just relax for once and enjoy the fruits of my labors, Jen?”

“Of course you can, but if you’re not careful you’re going to end up cutting down the fruit tree. And then we’re both screwed.” I slid the balcony door open and stepped inside. “Just think about it?” I decided to leave it there, sensing that mentioning more of his mistakes now would tip him right over the edge.

“I will.”

“Good. I’ve got to go. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah okay. Bye.”

I tossed my phone onto the counter, stretching over to kiss Lisa. “Hi. You smell amazing.” The knot of tension in my shoulders relaxed a fraction.

“Hi yourself.” Despite my indicating she should start, she’d waited.

Standing a few feet away from her, a familiar feeling came over me. The one I had when we were looking at one another, still slick and panting as we came down from our climax. Or when she calmly fixed the toothpaste in her bathroom after I’d used it because she squeezed from the bottom of the tube and I didn’t. The feeling I got when she’d tell me about something of her day, something I would have found annoying but she would laugh about.