Ashley kept seeing Rose once or twice a week, enough it was becoming a habit. A bad habit. A cause of distractions, and of odd little insecurities, and a disruption to the comfortable life Ashley had for herself. Almost a risk to it, she sometimes thought, if she ended up feeling too much.
She kept asking David if he minded, and he kept saying no. She pushed, she wanted to be absolutely sure, and he said over and over that he didn’t. That she was having her affair, that everyone had one, and that he was glad he knew about it and she was coming back home.
Practicing law made everyone unbearably cynical, but other than that, David seemed sincere.
“I love you,” she said. “A lot.”
“I know.”
“I’ll stop if you want me to.”
“I know that too.”
“How can you not care?” she said. What she’d been thinking for weeks. “How does it not bother you if I’m having sex with someone else?”
“Honestly?” he said. “It’s not sex.”
Ashley looked at him for a while.
“I know,” he said. “But it just isn’t. I don’t care.”
“Do you think about it?” she said.
“Not really.”
“What about the time I spend with her?”
“You have a friend. I’m glad. We’re busy and don’t spend that much time with each other anyway.”
Ashley nodded, and decided she’d done all she could.
She still felt bad about the deal, as if she’d made him go along with it, in the first place, against his will, but now it was happening, he didn’t seem to care. He said once they felt closer, because she was doing this, finally, and getting it out her system, and in an odd way she understood. Being with Rose was almost like a commitment to David. It meant Ashley actually needed their deal, that she was going to stay.
That made no sense to her, except it did.
She also couldn’t decide what she felt for Rose. She liked Rose a lot, and wanted to be her friend, and none of that was necessarily what she had wanted when this started.
*
Rose rang, and asked if Ashley wanted to have lunch. Ashley went.
Rose rang at odd times, and Ashley did her utmost to move things around to see her. As far as Ashley could work out, Rose worked nights for a while, then days for a while, but also got half-days off sometimes to make up for overtime.
Ashley undid two shirt buttons in the lift. She wore a suit to work. She wore a suit and kept her hair up because she wanted to do everything she could to stop people remembering she was sleeping with a senior partner. When she saw Rose she wanted to look sexy, so she took her hair out and undid the top buttons of her shirt. She was getting used to organizing herself in lifts.
She met Rose in a café near her work. She wasn’t thinking, because she was happy. They’d been getting careless, because they didn’t actually need to worry anyway.
She was holding Rose’s hand, just. Two fingertips twisted into Rose’s underneath the table, both their hands on Ashley’s leg.
They were sitting there, and Ashley might have been smiling a bit too much, and they were caught by the worst possible person.
Rebecca, David’s daughter.
“Hey wicked stepmother,” Rebecca said, and was suddenly beside their table.
Ashley didn’t jump, which she was proud of. For a second Rose looked guilty, then put on a blank cop face.
Ashley let go of Rose’s hand, stood up, and hugged Rebecca. “My friend Rose, David’s daughter Rebecca.”
“Your stepdaughter?”
“She isn’t, because…” Ashley looked at Rose. “Yeah, my stepdaughter.”
Rose held out her hand, and shook Rebecca’s. Rebecca seemed to looking at Rose a little too closely.
“We just ate,” Ashley said. “But sit down if you want, have coffee?”
“I was just going past.” Rebecca said. She was looking from Rose to Ashley, and seemed to be thinking.
As far as Ashley knew, Rebecca didn’t know about the deal with David. Because there was no reason she’d know, and telling her would be about as awkward as just pretending to be having an affair. Rebecca was protective, and liked Ashley, and would probably be furious if she fond out Ashley was cheating.
“Okay,” Ashley said. “We were about to go anyway.”
Rebecca nodded, and said it was nice to meet Rose, and left.
“Shit,” Ashley said. “Fuck. I didn’t want that to happen.”
“She didn’t see,” Rose said.
“You don’t know that,” Ashley said, sharply, then made herself stop. Rose wasn’t someone she wanted to fight with, ever. “Sorry.”
“Wicked?” Rose said after a while.
“A stepmother? You pretty much have to be.”
*
A few days later Rebecca came over to borrow clothes for a job interview. She and Ashley were the same size, pretty much exactly the same size including shoes, so when Rebecca needed a suit for something she borrowed Ashley’s.
David was in the spare room, running on his treadmill. He had the TV on and music through headphones and would be lost to the world for an hour.
Ashley was sleeping with two people who were both fitter than her, and that was an odd thought.
Rebecca opened the spare room door and said hi, but David didn’t notice. Almost like Rebecca was making sure she wasn’t overheard.
Ashley wondered what was about to happen.
She followed Rebecca to the bedroom, and stood there while Rebecca looked in her wardrobe. Ashley pointed to a charcoal pinstripe.
“It’ll make me look like a lawyer,” Rebecca said.
“This?” Ashley said, and pointed to a lighter grey without a stripe.
“Your friend seemed nice,” Rebecca said. “The other day.”
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “She is.”
“Seemed odd how you were when I walked up. How she looked guilty.”
Ashley didn’t answer.
“And you don’t have many friends,” Rebecca said. “You’re like dad, all work.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
Ashley looked at her. Held out the grey suit. “Wear that.”
“Ashley…”
“I think she has a crush on me,” Ashley said. “I think she has for ages. But I don’t really want to deal with it, okay?”
Don’t play with the big kids, Ashley thought. Don’t try and out-bullshit a lawyer.
Rebecca was looking at her. Ashley held Rebecca’s stare, looked back calmly, couldn’t believe after a lifetime of being David’s daughter Rebecca still thought looking at someone would tell her if they were lying.
After a moment Rebecca nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I had that once. It’s kind of flattering, but kind of weird too.”
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “So I just ignore it. But sometimes she touches me a bit more than she should.”
“You’ll get a rep as a lesbo.”
“Which is probably better than a rep for sleeping my way to the top, so who gives a shit.”
Rebecca grinned and tried on the suit, and seemed to forget about Ashley and Rose.
Ashley was glad. She didn’t want David embarrassed, and she didn’t want anything to happen that might force a crisis, that might make her have to decide what she was actually doing with Rose.
*
After sex, Ashley liked it lie with her hand just touching Rose. Her fingertips just pressing onto Rose’s skin. She lay and watched Rose smoke and thought about what they were becoming.
She thought about narrow misses with Rebecca.
“I like you,” Ashley said. “And I’m getting used to you being around.”
“Okay.”
“I know the situation is tricky, so if there’s anything you want me to do, tell me.”
“Like what?”
“Like anything.”
“Okay.”
They lay there for a while.
“I don’t mind how things are,” Rose said. “Just so you know. I’m busy a lot. I have shit to do. I don’t necessarily want someone who’s around all the time, and I definitely don’t if its another woman.”
Ashley looked at her.
“Don’t look like that,” Rose said. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“I’m not saying anything,” Ashley said.
“Because you’re the same. Basically.”
Ashley kissed her.
“You are,” Rose said.
“I’m not saying anything.”
“It’s not just you who’s using someone for sex.”
“Okay,” Ashley said. “That’s good.”
*
Ashley was at a party with David’s people. All the big firm partners, judges, people from government. Very high-powered, very important people. She wasn’t the youngest person there, not even the youngest lawyer there. She was the youngest who’d been around for a while, though. Trophies came and went, but Ashley stayed. She listened a lot, said hello to people she knew. She was there as David’s partner, not for herself. These people were too far up above her to make networking worthwhile.
Rose rang and said, “Are you busy?”
Ashley found a corner, said, “A party. Kind of.”
“Wearing a party dress?”
“Yep.”
“I want you.”
“I have to stay here for a while.”
“Afterwards?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’m at a bar. With some friends. Can you come?”
There was noise in the background. Shouting, maybe sports on a TV. “Um, maybe. Tell me where, I’ll phone if I can’t.”
Rose did.
“Hey, Rose, who was the last judge who pissed you off. Let someone go you wanted convicted or whatever?”
“Not how it works Ashley.”
“All the same. Was there one?”
“Why?”
“I’m probably looking at him, that’s all.”
“I don’t dislike lawyers, Ash. We’re all just doing our jobs.”
Ashley grinned. “I’ll see you later on.”
“Okay.”
She went back to David and listened to other people talk for a while. When he was alone, she leaned close and said quietly, “A friend phoned. Asked me to see her. I’ll get away when I can, if that’s okay?”
“Of course. That friend?”
She nodded.
He kissed her and said, “Have fun.”
She looked at him. She was aware of people nearby, of needing to be cautious. “You really are a very good man, you know that?”
He grinned, kissed her again, and went to talk to someone else.
*
Rose’s bar was seedy and loud and filled with noisy people Ashley assumed were other cops. She looked around, then went back outside and phoned Rose. “Do I kiss you?” she said.
“What?”
“I’m here. I just suddenly realized. Around your friends, do I kiss you?”
Silence for a moment.
“Shit. Are you outside?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll come out.”
Rose hung up, then appeared after a minute, holding her cigarettes, looking around. She kissed Ashley, then kissed her again, and said, “Sorry.”
“I know. That’s why I asked.”
“Yeah, sorry. I hadn’t thought.”
“Am I okay like this? It isn’t too weird that you know me?”
“It’s all right,” Rose said. “You don’t need to be that sneaky. I’d just rather not make anything too obvious.”
“Yeah, that’s okay.”
Rose kissed her again and they went inside. The pub seemed a bit rough, but Rose was relaxed. She looked back at Ashley and grinned, and wove her way through people to a table down the back. Ashley crowded up to a table and watched Rose talk and laugh and be herself.
They were nice people. Ashley had been ready to be polite and smile and get out as soon as she could, but they seemed to want to meet her, seemed to welcome her because Rose had brought her there. Ashley listened to them talk and after a while, under the table, Rose held her hand.
After a while Ashley said, “Is everyone here a cop?” and they all said yes.
“Everyone in the whole bar?”
“Pretty much. Or an ex cop. Or a cop’s partner.”
“Shit.”
“Feel out of place?” Rose whispered, and Ashley said, “Shut up.”
Rose grinned and poured more beer from a jug.
Later, Rose went to the bathroom, and one of the other women leaned over and said, “Don’t hurt her.”
Ashley looked up. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Just don’t. Be careful, don’t hurt her.”
Ashley nodded. “I won’t.”
“Good. Or you’ll have half the police in town after you.”
Ashley didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, just sat there.
Rose came back, and everyone kept talking. They all seemed to be talking about people Ashley didn’t know and things she didn’t know about. It had been a long time since she’d been in that situation. After a while, she went to the bathroom and stood in front the mirror, pretending to fiddle with her hair. Just to be on her own.
Rose came in. “Hey, are you okay?”
Ashley nodded.
“You’d been gone a while. I just wanted to check.” There wasn’t much room in front the sink, so Rose stayed over by the door, watching Ashley. “You sure?”
“Yeah, I was just thinking about doing something with my hair.”
“I like it how it is.”
“Yeah,” Ashley said. “So do I, that’s the problem.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.”
Rose watched her for a while, “You haven’t got that many friends, have you?”
Ashley thought about that, then said, “No.”
“It shows.”
“How do you mean?”
“You aren’t used to real people. Outside of work.”
“Fuck you.”
Rose looked at her. “Seriously? You’re angry?”
“Yeah, I am. My life is my life. I want you in it, but don’t get all fucking superior and act like you’re better than me because you have more friends.”
“I don’t have more friends, I have people I know have my back.”
“Meaning what?”
“People you work with will stab you in yours, if they have a chance.”
Ashley thought about that. “Some of them.”
“If you don’t think that, you need to be more careful. Expect trouble more.”
“Because I’m a lawyer?”
“Because you jumped into someone’s bed and got everything you wanted in life.”
“I love him.”
“I know you do, but the spiteful petty fuckwits in the world don’t. It would be the same around here.”
Ashley looked at her. “It fucks me off that you’re clever. I’m always the clever one.”
“You’re a fucking control freak.”
“I know.”
They looked at each other.
“Still want me?” Ashley said.
“Of course.”
Someone tried to open the door but Rose held it shut, shouted, “Wait.”
Ashley looked at her. “I always wanted someone to do that while I had a crisis.”
Rose grinned. “Come and sit down for a bit. Then we’ll go.”
Ashley nodded and followed Rose back to the table. Rose kept talking, but now had her hand on Ashley’s leg. After a while Rose leaned over and whispered, “This isn’t really a secret for you, is it?”
“No, why?”
Rose put her arm around Ashley, pulled her close, kissed her. The other people at the table noticed, but didn’t seem to care.
“They all know,” Rose said. “If it wasn’t fucking obvious when you came in. So relax. Secrets are safe here.”
Ashley looked at her for a while, then reached over and picked up the jug and poured herself another beer. “Let’s stay for a bit.”
Rose nodded. “Okay.”
*
Two days later Ashley phoned Rose and said, “Come up to my office.”
“Why?”
“You can’t see my house yet, but you can see my office. I’m here all the time anyway.”
“Except how I’m not at your house because your boyfriend won’t like it, and you work with your boyfriend…”
“He’s a partner.” Ashley realized that might not be clear. “A partner in the firm.”
“Yeah, I understood. I have a partner too, you dick.”
Ashley had to think about that for a moment.
“It’s a big firm,” Ashley said. “Five floors. David’s like two floors up from me. And I have meetings with all sorts of people all the time. And if he happens to see you, it’s no big deal anyway. It’s not like a thing, its just me being polite. I’m letting you two settle down a bit before you meet each other.”
“You think about this shit, don’t you.”
“All the time. Will you?”
“I’m thinking about it. Can I kiss you?”
“Inside my actual office. Not where anyone can see. Because David’s a partner here and that might be awkward.”
“I get it,” Rose said. “Okay, yeah. I’ll come visit.”
Ashley met her at the lift, and led her through to her office. Rose looked at the cubicle farm and said quietly, “Who are these guys?”
“Paralegals. Researchers and shit.”
They passed Mia, Ashley’s assistant, and Rose got thoughtful. She waited until they were inside and the door was shut, then said, “Who’s she?”
“My assistant.”
“Like she answers you phone, tells you when you have a meeting.”
Ashley nodded.
Rose was looking at her oddly.
“What?” Ashley said.
“Nah, just you’re a grown-up, that’s all.”
Rose was glancing around, thinking, and seemed impressed. There had always been an odd power balance between them, Ashley thought. Rose was more in charge. Ashley needed Rose willing to go along with her situation, and Rose picked the times and places they met. That gave Rose power. Maybe this would help, Ashley though. Maybe Rose would start to see Ashley as someone with a life of her own, not just some spoiled mistress.
Rose left after a while, but phoned Ashley later that afternoon. Mia put the call through. “That’s cool,” Rose said.
“That someone answers the phone?”
“Yeah.”
“If I rung you at work…”
“Well yeah, but you have your own assistant. Bye.”
Rose hung up, and rang straight back, and said, “Do you ever get sick of that?”
“Of what?” Ashley put her on speaker and started writing annotations in the margin of a brief.
“Being told who’s calling?”
“She didn’t. We have caller ID. She assumed you were getting wet about me having a PA and just put it through.”
“Seriously?”
“No, but she did just put it through. Since you’d just rung.”
“I know a guy who was an assistant.”
“Stop it.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Just stop.”
“He got fired. By the person he answered phones for.”
“I don’t think I can do that. I think HR has to.”
“The boss asked for him to be transferred. For telling someone important she was at lunch when she wasn’t meant to be.”
“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t do that.”
“He was new.”
“Ah.”
“But really, do you ever get sick of that? Having someone answer your phone?”
“I’m kind of used to it.”
Silence for a moment.
“Um,” Ashley said. “Did you want something?”
“Nope. Just to say hi.”
“Hi. And bye. I have shit to do.”
Ashley hung up, then sat there and looked at the phone. It rung again. She picked it up.
“That’s so fucking cool,” Rose said again, and hung up.
Sometimes, after that, Rose came over to her building for lunch. As far as Ashley could tell, so she could stand in the lobby and phone to say she’d wait in the lobby. And to walk through it, and to be around the buzz of a big firm. To be impressed, Ashley hoped, by what Ashley did. It was nice. She forgot sometimes to be impressed by where she worked.
It was nice she could impress Rose, since Rose impressed her so much.
*
Ashley got home one evening and decided it felt like the right time. She sat at the kitchen counter and waited for David, and when he got home said, “Do you want to meet Rose?”
He looked at her, took off his jacket, and came and sat next to her. “Do you want me to?”
“I think I do. It feels a bit much like sneaking around at the moment. And this has gone on longer than I thought it would.”
“I suppose it has.”
“If you don’t mind.”
“No,” he said. “No at all.”
“If you still don’t mind. Any of it.”
“Not at all.”
“Because I don’t throw it in your face?”
He shrugged.
“I’m trying to be careful. Especially at work.”
“I know. I’m grateful.”
Ashley leaned over and kissed him.
“You can watch us if you want to,” she said.
David looked at her. “How would she feel about that?”
“I’ll talk her into it.”
“I think I’d rather not. But thank you.”
Ashley grinned. “I’m not sure I was serious.”
“I’m not sure you were either.”
*
Ashley thought for a while before she asked Rose. She thought about what Rose meant to her, and how fair she was being to both Rose and David, and where everything might end up, if nothing disastrous happened to make this end.
She had no idea where it might end up, she decided, but it was already a long way from having sex a few times with another woman to get over being afraid of commitment.
And David still didn’t seem to mind. And Rose still didn’t seem to either.
Ashley was lucky. She was getting closer to both of them, and it might not have all started out the best way it could have, but it was turning into something important to her.
“Do you want to meet him?” Ashley said one evening at Rose’s house. “Meet David?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re both in my life, and should know each other.”
“One day.”
“Do you want to meet him soon?”
Rose sat and thought. “Is it likely to be a big drama?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so.”
“Just talk, say hi?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“It won’t be complicated. No crazy shit?”
“I’ll make sure. I promise.”
“Then okay.”
Ashley kissed her. “Thank you.”
“But nothing weird, no strange conversations.”
Ashley nodded.
“And you know we’ll be breaking up if he doesn’t like me, don’t you?”
Ashley lay there for a moment, wondering. “That won’t happen,” she said.
“Yeah right,” Rose said.
Ashley just looked at her for a moment, and wasn’t sure what to think.
*
Ashley went and met Rose at the lift, to kiss her, and in case Rose wanted to talk first. “Are you okay?” she said. “And thank you.”
“Fine,” Rose said, except she had her police face on, so she probably wasn’t.
“It’s just him meeting my friend,” Ashley said. “And you meeting your friend’s partner.”
“Sure. Except it isn’t, is it?”
“Thank you. For doing this.”
“It’s fine.”
“Um,” Ashley said. “Could you not touch me much, okay? I said the same to him. Don’t worry if you forget, but just to make it less weird for everyone.”
Rose nodded. “But this is just meeting a friend.”
“I’m sorry,” Ashley said. “I really am. Do you not want to?”
“I’m here. Let’s go.”
Ashley stood where she was and looked at Rose.
“It’s you who’ll regret it if this all goes wrong,” Rose said. “Since you’ll lose your bit on the side.”
“I told you, that isn’t going to happen.”
Rose just looked at her.
“We don’t have to do this.”
“Come on,” Rose said.
They went to the door, went inside. Rose and David shook hands. Ashley sat away from both of them, and watched them watch each other. Neither seemed especially jealous or hostile. David wasn’t, and Rose had no reason to be, but Ashley was still a little wary.
It actually seemed to work. They actually seemed to get on. Both were careful, and polite, and were trying hard for Ashley’s sake.
She wasn’t sure why she deserved this, but it actually seemed to be working.