The Summer of Good Intentions (43 page)

Of course, as they'd both come to realize quickly, there was no such thing as a game plan for a three-week-old or even a seven-month-old. Having Benjamin had taught them that all the book smarts in the world couldn't help them when it came to giving their baby the love he needed. And, once this realization sunk in, they breathed more easily, trusted themselves. They were the two people in the world who knew their little guy best—all his little quirks and baby pet peeves. It made Rob feel powerful and indispensable in a way he'd never fathomed possible. This little human being depended on him and Lanie totally and completely.
They were it.
They were whom Benjamin got in this life, take it or leave it.

God, how he hoped he didn't screw it up.

As he drove into the office, he ticked through his mental to-do checklist: Get a reservation at someplace nice for their five-year anniversary that was coming up; pick up his dry cleaning (he was out of shirts); and get the final plans for the west wing of the art institute signed off on. He was tired of waiting around for Eli's approval. Eli had only a few years on Rob at the firm, but he always seemed to weigh in at the most inopportune moment. Because he was the lead guy on the project, Eli had to sign off on every little thing. If he didn't like it, Rob might as well start over.

Rob pulled into the garage and turned into his assigned parking space, L01. It always looked to him like LOL, as if someone higher up knew what a joke his job was. As if Frank Hobbs himself, the president of their firm, were saying, “Poor Rob, all that hard work, and not much to show for it.” He knew he was being paranoid, but still. LOL? Really? Did he need a parking slot that mocked him each and every day?

When he stepped out of the car, the cold stung his nose immediately. His breath came out in a white arc. He buttoned his top button and made for the elevator, hearing the
thwack
of his boots on the pavement. The mostly empty garage made it feel like a Saturday. He'd managed to push his guilt aside on the drive into work, but now it crept up on him again as he waited for the elevator. The roads
had
been pretty slick. He probably should have given Lanie and Benjamin a ride. He'd feel better if he called her to check in when he got into the office.

When he stepped off the elevator into the lobby, a wall of white swirling just beyond the window greeted him. Choppy waves cut through the lake below. What was it that T. S. Eliot said about April? “April is the cruelest month”? Or was it March? Or was it Yeats who wrote that? He'd have to ask Lanie tonight. She would know and would laugh at him for pretending to know. But it would be a good laugh, one that was familiar to them, each trying to outsmart the other. It would be nice, he thought, as he headed toward his office, if they could get some of that back, even for one night.

“Good morning, boss. Glad to see you made it in.”

His assistant, Kate, was in a perpetually good mood. He found it to be an exceedingly rare quality the longer he worked in the business. Architects in general seemed to be a dour lot, always playing out worst-case scenarios. For Kate, though, the sky was unfailingly blue, even on a day like today, and while some might find her cheerfulness counterfeit, he was grateful for it. Plus, she always looked professional. He supposed that was a sexist thing to say, but again, another underrated quality as far as he could tell in the new wave of graduates coming out of the university. It was as if young women today felt they had to make a statement with their asymmetrical hairstyles, body piercings, and thrift-shop clothing. Kate, on the other hand, wore her thick black hair straight, in a neat shoulder-length cut. She wasn't pretty in the usual way, yet everything about her exuded competence, helpfulness. He wondered for a brief moment if she had a small tattoo hidden somewhere discreet, like on her hip or the small of her back, then chided himself.

It was none of his damn business.

Once when Lanie had returned from a girls' weekend with her college roommates, she'd asked Rob if she should get a tattoo. His name? A little bird? He'd laughed at the time. It seemed so unlike her. But maybe it had been her attempt to spice things up one last time before they started trying for a baby, a family?

Would she do it now, if he asked?

When he put the question to his buddies—was it typical for the passion to wane around year five—they assured him that he was experiencing the “baby blues.” “We've all been there, dude,” his friends commiserated with him. Things would get back to normal soon enough. “By the time Benjamin's five, at the latest,” his buddy Tom joked. Rob couldn't imagine a five-year stretch of sleep deprivation and next-to-no sex. Sometimes he felt as if Lanie had forgotten he even existed, and then he felt even smaller, like a petulant child hungry for attention.

“It's natural. She's fallen in love with your son. Give her time. Once he hits the terrible twos, she'll remember what a well-mannered guy you are and how much she loves a man who doesn't throw his peas across the table.” Rob tried to take what comfort he could from those words.

“Good morning to you, too,” Kate tried again.

“Sorry. My mind's somewhere else.” He brushed the snow from his overcoat, then rifled through the mail laid out on the ledge above her desk for his review. “Let it snow, let it snow, huh?”

“I said to Mark yesterday, it smells like snow. I bet it's going to snow.” She took a sip of her coffee, leaving maroon lipstick marks on the rim. “I can always tell. So, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Rob sighed. “There's already both?” He glanced at his watch. It was only eight thirty.

She nodded. “Bad?”

“Okay. The bad news is that Eli doesn't like your latest tweaks to the west wing. Says it feels old-fashioned. He wants something more ‘in tune with kids today,' whatever that means.” She rolled her eyes.

“Shit,” Rob said under his breath. Kate had lost no time in telling him what she thought of Eli a few weeks after she'd been hired. “He's a chauvinistic pig. Looks at my boobs every time he talks to me.” (Rob had stared intently at Kate's face when she said this.)

“It would be one thing if he was hot, but he's just a nerdy guy.” Rob had wanted to ask how it would be different, how that would make it okay. But he bit his tongue.

True, Eli was a little pathetic in the way those kids in school who never quite fit in were. He imagined Eli wearing button-down shirts in high school, no date at the prom. But Eli was also the kind of guy who was going to end up with a boatload of money, and he'd caught Hobbs's eye out of the gate. Rob agreed he was a smart architect, anal in his calculations and drawings, but he lacked what Rob liked to think of as architectural intuition. No sense for how the space would work once people were
actually in it
. Their team had been struggling to refine the plans for Madison's new art institute for weeks. Every time it seemed as if they were in the home stretch, Eli threw them a curve ball. “Let's get Walter on the phone, shall we?”

“I've already got a conference call set up for ten thirty.”

Rob smiled. “Figures.”

“Now for the good news: Lanie called. She says court is shutting down early today, and she'll be able to pick up Benjamin from day care this afternoon. So you're off the hook.”

“Oh,” Rob's heart sunk just a bit. Why hadn't she just called his cell? Then he remembered he'd forgotten to charge it last night. It was dead in his pocket.

“Not good news?” Kate asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I was looking forward to cutting out early myself today, with this crap weather.”

“Well,
I'm
not stopping you.” She turned back to her computer. “Don't worry. I'll cover for you, like I always do,” she added, her nails clicking away at the keys.

“Your boss is such an ass. I don't know how you stand him.”

“You and me both,” Kate said matter-of-factly. Then, when Rob paused for a moment: “Well, are you going to do
any
work today?”

“Probably not.” He grabbed his coffee and walked into his office, directly across the way. He dropped his briefcase on the cluttered desk, hung his coat on the hook behind the door, plugged in his cell. The snow outside the window was blowing hard now, almost horizontally, and when he touched his finger to the pane he pulled it quickly back from the cold. He sat down at his drawing board and retrieved the plans from the drawer. Etching upon etching detailed all the modifications they'd already made to the west wing, meant to be devoted to a children's museum. He'd see what he could do to appease Eli without redrafting it completely. As with so much in life, it was a matter of two steps forward, one step back. Eventually, he had faith that they would get there.

Then he remembered he'd meant to call Lanie, make sure she and Benjamin had made it in all right. He picked up his desk phone and started punching the numbers.

When he heard her voice, he smiled. “Hey,” he began.

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© CLAUDIA STARKEY

WENDY FRANCIS
is the author of
Three Good Things
and a former book editor whose work has appeared in
The Huffington Post
and
The Improper Bostonian
. She lives outside Boston with her husband and son.

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Also by Wendy Francis

Three Good Things