“You said Have a good day see you tonight. That’s not a conversation! We haven’t had a real conversation in months!” Natalie took a deep breath and looked right into his impassive eyes. “We haven’t been on a date in months. We work in New York City, but we haven’t been to the ballet, or dinner, since last fall. We don’t talk. What makes a marriage if two people don’t spend time together?”
“People change, Nat,” he said.
“I haven’t.”
His eyes glinted behind his glasses. “Really?” he asked mildly, in the tone he used to use when a student’s answer bordered on the ridiculous. She bristled, then swallowed her indignant response as she smoothed her skirt towards her knees. She would not respond to his provocations. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
Dr. Lindstrom cleared her throat. “Are you having sex?”
This time it was Shane’s turn to sit in silence, prompting Natalie to answer. “Not often. Not like we used to.”
Shane looked at the therapist. “I work from six in the morning until nine at night, five days a week, and most of the day Saturday as well.”
“And Sunday afternoons,” Natalie added, wondering when telling the truth started to sound like sniping.
“And Sunday afternoons,” he agreed. “I don’t set the schedule. You’re the one who went to B-school. You knew what I was signing up for when I took the job. We agreed we’d pay the upfront price for me to fast-track to partner. I’m a year away, maybe two,” he said.
“Another year of seventy hour work weeks, minimum, and you working on vacations, if you can take one at all. When we went to Vail last winter the partners were emailing at all hours, too. We don’t talk. We don’t have sex. We don’t have a life together.”
“This is what it takes to make partner, Nat. We agreed on this. It’s a big investment of time and energy up front for a payoff down the road.”
When we have children was the unspoken end cap to that statement. Natalie clamped her lips together. “I didn’t agree to you being gone mentally and physically for years before you made partner.”
“It’s very possible for both partners to have demanding schedules, yet still enjoy a satisfying, committed marriage,” Dr. Lindstrom pointed out. “What characterizes those relationships, however, is a commitment to the marriage, and an equally strong commitment to communicating early, often, and well.” She looked at the clock on the wall and set her notebook on her desk. “We’ll continue next week, but before we meet again I’d like for the two of you to find some time to spend together. It doesn’t have to be a date. Get breakfast, or a coffee, if that’s all the time you have, but do something together and just talk to each other. I’ll see you at the same time next week.”
They rode down in to street level in silence. Shane left his BlackBerry in his pocket, probably because there was no reception in the elevator shaft. “Find some open time in the Gmail calendar and schedule the date,” he said as he watched the numbers tick down.
“I’m not your admin, Shane,” she replied as she rummaged through her purse in search of her Metrocard.
A ding in the tense silence announced their arrival at the first floor. After a moment, Shane said, “Do you have time to—”
“I’ll do it,” she said brusquely, then stalked out of the elevator and across the polished granite floors to the street.
Out on Park Avenue he said, “See you at home,” and turned for the 4/5 to Wall Street.
Again, no kiss. Her mouth tingled suddenly as the sweet pressure of his lips against hers swept through her body’s memory.
“Shane,” she called when he was a couple of steps away. He turned to face her. “You say you’re doing this for us, so I can stay at home when we have kids. But if we don’t fix this now, there won’t be an us after you make partner.”
A muscle tightened in his jaw. The cold breeze caught her hair, restrained in a ponytail, and tugged at his suit jacket. It opened, revealing the tapering line of his torso, clad in a crisp white shirt, his black leather belt gleaming in the belt loops of his suit pants. “Is that a threat, Natalie?”
“No,” she said bleakly. The truth hurt, made her ache inside when she let the possibility of their marriage failing enter her mind, but she couldn’t go on like this. “It’s a fact.”
Chapter Two
McFarlands looked like an episode of Suits Gone Wild, the party raucously close to out of control when Shane took the lull in the conversation to pull his cell phone from his pocket and check for a text from Natalie. Nothing. No missed calls, either. “God damn it, Nat,” he muttered.
The partner announcements had gone out this afternoon at four, and to his utter shock, he was on the list. A year early. A whole fucking year early. Not because he was his father’s son, or his uncles’ nephew, but because he’d earned it. Blood, sweat, and a fine start on an ulcer, but he’d done it.
At what cost?