Snow Job (2 page)

She wasn’t alone in being won over, of course. Karl was universal y popular, it seemed, able to mingle with any social group he cared to join. It was a type of interpersonal navigation Elyce felt she’d never truly mastered. But once Karl decided she was his, she no longer had to worry about steering her way through things. On their first date she had breezed into one of the finest restaurants in San Francisco, her hand tucked under Karl’s arm and secured by his own, claiming ownership. The maître d’ treated them like royalty, and consequently Elyce felt like a princess. With Karl, for the first time, she felt
cool
. It was a sensation she would happily grow accustomed to over the two and a half years that fol owed.

What had surprised her, and kept surprising her throughout their courtship and marriage, was how connected she felt to Karl. He said he felt the same way, and she had cause to believe him at the time. Not just the things they had in common, like their passion for conservation or the movies they both loved, but the way they looked at things. Their worldview.

In time, Elyce realized she felt cool with Karl because she was so comfortable with him. She felt, with him, that she had final y become herself and liked who she was. She had discovered a softer version of herself that only existed for him. Karl was hard, so she didn’t have to be, and just being around him was like relaxing into a warm bath. She didn’t just enjoy his company, she couldn’t fathom how she had lived so long without it.

Karl seemed to assume, almost from the start, that they would be married after Elyce finished law school. She hardly remembered being introduced as his girlfriend, only as his fiancée, although they had been together a year before he proposed. It had been over a Christmas break, in front of the fireplace in his family’s rambling cabin near Breckenridge, the night before the rest of the Nash clan arrived for the holiday. They’d made love in front of the fire on the vast, wool y hearthrug, and in the morning Karl had been making her breakfast when his parents drove up. His mother Alice had burst into happy tears at the sight of the ring on Elyce’s finger, and at the evident joy on Karl’s and Elyce’s faces.

Alice had cried again when Elyce told her about the separation, something she felt bound to do in person and not over the phone or through Karl. She had taken it even harder than Elyce’s own mother.

Karl had decided to leave his law firm to take over as CEO of Nash & Booker when his father retired, and Alice had been unable to understand Elyce’s objection. “But it’s the family business,” she had said again and again. How could Elyce view as a betrayal something that the rest of the Nashes saw as Karl assuming his rightful place, being a good son? Alice couldn’t understand that although her daughter-in-law had always liked Karl’s family, she had always done so in spite of their industrialist leanings.

Elyce recal ed that conversation often, but this day in particular the memory was crisp in her mind fol owing her confrontation with Karl. She drew to a halt on the Golden Gate Bridge, stuck in traffic that was already unbearable by four o’clock on a Friday. Looking out over the water, she tried to imagine the stretch of inlet up north along the shore of Lake Tahoe where Karl’s company was planning to develop…something.

A pang of guilt struck her then. She knew she should have at least read the proposal before charging into Karl’s office. But the existence of the plan itself had enraged her, never mind the details. As little unspoiled shoreline as the lake had left, to think of building on it at al was unforgivable.

Traffic inched forward, leaving Elyce too much time to think. It al crowded her mind, distracting her from the view she usual y enjoyed so much. She couldn’t help but brood about the tension of the last eleven months, about her tiny house in the woods that stil didn’t feel like home, about the way Karl’s hands stil knew her shape so intimately.

By the time she pul ed to a stop at the end of the long gravel driveway in front of the little cabin at the edge of Muir Woods, it was nearly dark. The temperature had dropped to an unseasonable frostiness. Elyce had barely slotted the key in the front door when she heard the phone ring, and she ran inside to grab it before the machine picked up.

“Andrew?”

“I cal ed your cel phone but it said ‘unavailable’.” He sounded peeved, as if the poor reception had been deliberate on her part. Elyce found it a little flattering that he was grumpy about missing the chance to talk to her.

“Sorry, I know. I was stuck on the bridge in traffic. I never do get good reception there. I just walked through the door. I’ve been in the city al day.”

“Did you see him?”

“Yes, of course.”

“And is he going to stop the project?”

“No, of course. It’s money.” Even as she said it, she felt strangely disloyal talking about Karl with Andrew that way.

She knew Karl was about more than the bottom line. “Are we stil on for tonight?”

“Natural y. I’l wine and dine you, and you can tel me al about your encounter with the enemy.”

The enemy.
Was that what Karl was now? Not just the ex, but the enemy? It sounded wrong, somehow. Elyce chuckled uneasily. “How about we don’t talk shop?”

“Up to you,” Andrew agreed. “I’l pick you up around seven, seven thirty?”

“Sounds good. Where are we going?” She knew he wouldn’t tel her, he never did.

“You’l find out. Dress casual though.”

“Don’t I always?”

She decided on jeans and suede boots, a warm garnet-colored turtleneck and a camel wool blazer she’d had, and adored, since her first year out of law school. The jacket’s color was just darker than the honey and caramel tones of her hair, and she had always liked the way the hues blended where the longest layers of her hair waved down around her shoulders.

She was just debating whether to add an amusing striped knitted scarf in festive jewel tones when she heard the gravely crunch of Andrew’s tires on the driveway, fol owed shortly by his knock on her door. She threw the scarf around her neck and grabbed her bag, greeting him at the door with a smile and the highly polite kiss on the cheek they’d started venturing the past few weeks. Whether it would turn into more, she stil hadn’t decided.

Andrew had decided to make a quest of their dinners, an ongoing hunt for the finest seafood in Sausalito. Their

“working meals” had gradual y become more and more openly social and he had final y asked Elyce out on a Friday night, with no pretense that work had anything to do with it. Although it hadn’t gone far yet, Elyce felt excited about the prospect of seeing somebody new.

They usual y talked shop anyway. Andrew nearly always talked about the environment, about the cases he was working

on

for

Climate

Defense,

the

nonprofit

environmental lobbying group he’d founded and which Elyce’s firm was currently representing. One of his favorite things to do was list the many evils of the corporate developers who threatened the fragile ecology of northern California with their money-grubbing schemes to pave it al over and reap the profits. Elyce admired his passion, though it made her feel slightly guilty. Lately she had tried to match it, bringing a new fervor to her work, but in her heart of hearts she found it a little exhausting.

She thought she should strive to become that better person she pretended to be around Andrew, that person who threw her body and soul into the fight to save the planet and had no time for any lesser, frivolous concerns. Stil , going out for burgers or pizza or catching a Giants game on one of their almost-dates would have been a nice change.

The candlelight from the hurricane lamp on the table gleamed, reflecting a distracting pattern across the lenses of Andrew’s steel-rimmed glasses. He was stabbing his gril ed salmon skeptical y, looking for hints of dryness. His standards were high, and though he never sent the food back, Elyce had known him to leave the plate virtual y untouched if the meal didn’t meet his expectations. It was another thing she admired about him, that sort of determination. If the food wasn’t horrible, Elyce knew she would probably eat it once it was in front of her, even if she had hoped for better.

“How’s yours?” he asked, glancing across the table at Elyce’s seafood
en brochette
. She was nearly finished.

“Delicious,” she said, meaning it. “The scal ops are especial y good.” She took another bite, relishing the taste and texture. Savory and juicy, just firm enough to provide a little resistance to bite into…heavenly. The salmon and prawns were equal y delectable.

“This isn’t bad,” he admitted, taking a cautious bite of the salmon. “I’m thinking about cutting out even fish though.

Real y, it would be better.”

While she might try to emulate other areas of Andrew’s commitment, Elyce knew vegetarianism would never be a path she would voluntarily choose. She liked meat too much, but she hadn’t yet mentioned her weakness for steak to Andrew. Instead of commenting on his diet plans, she smiled and asked him how his recent trip home to Il inois for Thanksgiving had gone.

“Same as ever,” he shrugged, smiling wryly. “Nobody got too drunk this time, which was nice. Mom pitched a fit because I once again refused to eat the turkey. I mean, come on, it was a big factory-name bird, probably pumped ful of antibiotics while it was alive and preservatives once it was dead. I wasn’t going
near
that thing. And my Dad told me again how, since I was wasting my MBA anyway on al this hippie bul shit, I should just come home and get into the construction business like a real man.”

“Perish the thought. Are you sure you’re related to these people? Maybe you were switched at birth, and your real parents are living somewhere within a ten-mile radius of this restaurant,” she teased.

“Exactly. That is usual y how I feel. At least after a few days there. At first it’s never too bad. Wel , it must not be
that
bad…I mean, I keep going back. But…I don’t know.

This has always felt more like home to me than Il inois.”

Elyce swiped the last of her rice through the last of her sauce, using the side of her fork to scoop it up neatly. “This real y was good. I ate too much though, as usual.”

Andrew smiled, just the corners of his mouth quirking up as he glanced at her a little longer than casual y. “You could stand to eat a few heavy meals. I mean…um, that didn’t come out like a compliment, did it? It was supposed to. I mean, you’re thin. In a good way. Um. Damn.”

Elyce giggled, feeling suddenly giddy with the possibility of being with someone again, of getting compliments, of doing things together for the first time.

“That’s okay. I’l take it as a compliment. You should quit while you’re ahead, Andrew.”

“I think that’s a good idea. I could try to tel you that you look gorgeous tonight and end up saying you look very neat and clean. That wouldn’t go down too wel .”

“How almost-sweet,” she replied dryly.

“I don’t do sweet wel , I admit. But I’m wil ing to make the effort.” Andrew chuckled, sipping at his wine with a crooked smile. “Oh, the other big family revelation, which sort of ties in with my being clearly inept at dating, is that my older brother evidently assumes I must be gay, since I’m not married and I live in San Francisco.”

“And you do love show tunes,” Elyce pointed out, trying not to snicker.

“The final nail in my lavender-satin-lined coffin,” Andrew agreed. “Or no, I guess the final nail was the fact that I got a cat.”

“You got a cat? When?”

“Yeah. Didn’t I tel you? She was my birthday present to myself last month. Wel , actual y I had to plan it about a year in advance, because the waiting list is pretty long. I hated having to leave her at the pet boarding place over Thanksgiving. I think I may try to bring her with me over Christmas.” He reached into his back pocket and pul ed out his wal et, flipping to a picture of a smal calico kitten sitting on a red velvet pet bed. “See? She’s hypoal ergenic. Cost a fortune, but I always wanted one and she doesn’t trigger my asthma.”

Elyce looked dutiful y at the kitten picture but thought longingly of “her” dog, Astro, who was most likely curled in front of the fireplace at home. Or rather, at the house in Russian Hil that she and Karl had shared when they were married. No longer her home.

And not where Karl was currently located either, she realized with a start when she lifted her eyes from the photo.

Instead, Karl was at the entrance to the restaurant, frowning in her direction even as his sister Emily raised her hand in a delighted wave.

Elyce supposed, as she waved back and smiled, that she should just be grateful his entire family wasn’t there.

Only Emily and her husband Scott, and Karl’s younger brother Wil with his wife Kel y. Roughly half the family. A grownups’ night out, evidently, as her nieces and nephew were nowhere to be seen.

The Nashes looked striking, as always, standing there together like a group of modern-day Vikings. Al of them took after their Norwegian forbears, tal and broad-shouldered with golden skin and golden-bronze hair and cheekbones to die for. Scott was a bit darker in coloring but other than that, he could have been a Nash too, he looked so true to the type. And Kel y was, if anything, even more Nordic-looking than the Nash kin, with a shimmering fal of platinum-blonde hair that remained straight even in the worst humidity. It was only their personalities that saved them al from being universal y despised. They looked like movie stars but they were al too likeable to hate for it.