Chapter 21
931 Words
“OK, wait. Let me get this straight.” Olivia shook her head. “Just s*x? No romance, no dates, no commitment? And you agreed to this?”
Emma shrugged. “I suggested it.” She took another of Jenny’s amazing zucchini wraps from the tray and tried to act casual; she knew the girls weren’t buying it, though.
“Why, Em?’ Jenny said. “Why would you want something like this? You go from five years of celibacy to what – casual s*x with some guy you picked up in a bar?”
Emma looked at them, trying to think how on earth to explain this to them. She was sure that Liv would understand it, and probably Kat too, to a certain extent. But Jenny… Jenny was scared of men, terrified of s*x, and would no doubt struggle with this.
“You guys know about compartmentalizing, right?” she said.
“Sure.” Kat took a sip of her wine. “Splitting your life up into sections and keeping them totally separate.”
“Exactly. That’s what I’m doing here. My real life – my job, you guys, now cancer – is all in one place, and Dean is separate. He doesn’t know anything about my real life and he’s not even allowed anywhere near it. He’s just a welcome break from my life. He offers me the chance to be – not sick.” She looked at them, almost pleading. “Can you guys get that? He’s the only person right now who doesn’t know about the AML. Even when we aren’t talking about it, I see you all thinking about it. Everyone at work is looking at me like I’m about to drop dead any second. I need one place to go where I’m not Emma with cancer. I’m… Emma the s*x goddess.”
Liv laughed. “I get it, Em. I do.”
“Yeah, me too,” Kat said. She ran her fingers through her hair, which she’d cropped close to her head the day before. “I actually think it’s great. I can see why you’d need a place to get away from it all.”
“What happens when you get visibly sick?” Jenny asked quietly. “After chemo, say, when you’re lying in bed for days?”
“When I have chemo scheduled, I’m going to tell him that I’m traveling for work.”
They all blinked at that.
“Why would a clinical psychologist with a full patient-load be traveling all the time?” Jenny said.
Emma squirmed. “Um. Well… that would be because he doesn’t actually know that I’m a psychologist with a successful local practice.”
“No?” Kat said. “So what does he think you do?”
“He thinks that I’m a PA.”
Liv c****d her head. “Whose PA?”
“Ummmm... yours.”
They stared at her.
“Mine?” Liv said.
“Yep. And hey… you make me work all the time, just so you know. That’s why I look so exhausted sometimes, and why I don’t always eat properly and lose weight, and why I travel so much. I come to all your photo shoots and press stuff, you see.”
Liv laughed again. “My God, Em! Brilliant cover!”
“Yeah?” Emma relaxed and drank some more wine. “Really? You’re not angry that I lied about it?”
“Hell, no.” Liv waved her hand. “I guess that was your cover story at the bar when you picked him up that first time, right? Better to say ‘PA’ when some guy asks what you do, since ‘clinical psychologist’ can be a bit freaky.”
“Exactly,” Emma said. “I mean, it was supposed to be one night, for God’s sake. I didn’t think there would be any follow-up.”
“But since there is, don’t you think you should tell him the truth?” Jenny said. “What’s the harm of telling him your real job now?”
“No harm,” Kat said. “But what good? Look, the guy isn’t her boyfriend, right? This whole thing may just fade to black in two weeks… let Emma enjoy it. Let her be someone else when she’s with Dean. Give her this time away from it all, Jenny. OK?”
Jenny thought about that. “Yeah. Yeah, OK. I can see why you need this.” Her soft blue eyes looked at Emma, worried and kind. “But promise me this, OK? If you do start to develop real feelings for him, or him for you, you’ll tell him the truth. All of it: your job, your illness. Alright?”
“It won’t come to that, Jenny,” Emma said firmly. “It won’t. If my treatment goes well, then I won’t need to compartmentalize my life anymore and I can just let Dean go. If my treatment doesn’t go well, I have the escape hatch in place. Either one of us can end it after one conversation. No recriminations, no explanations. I’ll just go, and he never needs to know what happened to me.”
“Well, it sounds like you have all the bases covered.” Kat shook her head admiringly. “I say, have fun for as long as you can.”
“Yeah, I second that.” Liv raised her wine glass. “Hot guy, lots of mind-blowing s*x, no need to let in the real world? Where do I sign up?”
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