Nick met Evelyn Fox at the mall. He had first contacted her through the personals in Boston magazine or maybe it was that new match.com site. He wasn’t actually sure but he’d apparently given her his office number and just when things were busy in the office and more intense with Caroline and Noah, she’d talked to  his secretary who  immediately put her through. Nick had been furious, but he’d also been rational enough to know that despite his desire to be angry with someone, he had himself put these events into motion. While  he mastered his impatience long enough to arrange a face-to-face meeting with her, he was certain it was a waste of time

And it was.

He had planned to park on the north side of the mall close to the restaurant where they were meeting but there was some sort of “Mall Days Sale”  going on and no available spaces anywhere near where he wanted to enter. Faced with the prospect of having to leave his car in the hinterlands and hike through the blustery sleet, he was tempted to just skip out and forget the entire rendezvous. But that would be rude and she did have his office number. Instead, he locked his car and crossed the slush, unsuccessfully avoiding icy puddles as he pushed into the crowd and bright lights. His cell phone buzzed  but he ignored it. There were all these people milling about inside and the music sounded louder, harsher, the lighting more garish than expected. Once inside he stomped his sodden feet and wondered what he was doing here and how he’d ever recognize one woman,  Evelyn Fox, in this scramble.

  But he did. Or she did. This middle-aged woman suddenly materialized beside him,  touched his arm and introduced herself.  He was immediately flustered. All he could do was hope his face did not reveal his disappointment. She was old, for  Christ’s sake, forty if not older. And why do these women lie about their weight he wondered. It’s not as though they can perpetuate the myth. But she was competent. She had already been into Ruby Tuesday’s and secured a single stool at the bar. The place was so crowded that even the  stool in the dimly lit bar area was an oasis.  Nick gave the hostess a tip to get them the first available table, hoping they would have a quick civilized exchange and then part. Soon he found himself across the table from a woman who could best be described as matronly. She had an age spot on her left temple and the beginnings of a  spare chin.  She had probably once been pretty enough but now she’d surrendered to the excesses of makeup and jewelry older women wear to disguise the truth of their slack jaws and deeply etched laugh lines. Who are they kidding,  he wondered.

Oddly enough she told him the truth. Not immediately, but after a few minutes of very tedious good manners and a few sips of a cheap Chardonnay, she told him that she had a confession to make; she had lied about her age.

   “Men do it all the time,” she announced and he felt challenged to defend his entire gender. “How old are you?  Be truthful, Nick, this is ‘fess up time.”

“Forty-nine,” he’d lied, and excused himself by politely not pointing out that she had also lied about her weight.

“So, we’re the same age,” she responded triumphantly. “ And I must add,  almost all men lie about their height, so that doesn’t count,” she’d laughed either demonically or conspiratorially, he couldn’t tell which. Feeling the weight of their mutual inadequacies, he chose the latter.

“Well, I guess you’re right. We are neither of us but we claim to be. It can be a bit discouraging, can’t it?” she continued. 

“Indeed it can,” he agreed. 

So they shared a glass of wine and exchanged their stories, not stories of their childhoods or their midlife dreams but stories of their divorces and of dating in the impersonal world of cyberspace and the glossies. As the wine mellowed him Nick found he liked this pleasant maternal woman. He’d never see her again, of course, but he felt comfortable and was unwilling to surrender that comfort for the empty evening that stretched out before him. So he asked Evelyn if she’d like to stay for dinner. His cell phone ring before she could answer. This time Nick answered. It was Caroline.

“Nick, can I come over? I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to talk to someone!”

“I have company, Caroline. I’m not even home. Aren’t your parents there? Didn’t you tell me they  were coming to dinner?” 

He smiled at Evelyn, then moved away from the table, hoping to hear his ex-wife better.

“Oh, yes, I tried to have a nice dinner but you know what happened. My father started lecturing me and I got so exasperated that I just left …”

Pursued by adolescent demons, thought Nick, looking back at the bland, inquiring face of Evelyn Fox. She gestured that she would go, but he shook his head. He’d be damned if he’d let Caroline drive her out.

“Where are you?” he asked his ex-wife

“I’m in a phone booth on Boyle St and it’s sleeting!” she wailed.  “And I think I broke my ankle! It’s swelling up and hurts so much!”

 Nick raised his hand to his forehead with forbearance. He had forgotten this part. Envision me, soaking wet, wounded and forsaken, she demands silently, so she can demand aloud,  “Are you sure you can’t come over? My parents are still there with the children. I cannot go back there.”

“I have company,”  he repeated enigmatically. He was baffled by the saccharin in her voice. Was she coming on to him, he wondered. He forced deliberate patience to enter the exchange. “I’m not even home I told you.” 

Over the heads of a few diners, he could see Evelyn was becoming uncomfortable. She had placated the waitress but was clearly self-conscious.

“Do you have time for just one story?” she pleaded.

“Yes, just one story. What happened to your ankle?”

He looked at Evelyn, aware he was being  most unfair to her but lacking the necessary energy to assertively resist Caroline,   a forty-year-old woman now huddled in a phone booth where she had ended up after  stalking out of her own house in the middle of a screaming match with her father, one of her dinner guests.  A grown woman who was his ex-wife, mother of his only child, who might well be coming on to him. Could that be? Goddammit, she was so panoramic in her inappropriateness.

“I actually had to fire Simon Wade, that lawyer Daddy got me without knowing anything about how difficult he is. He doesn’t even do the work himself but foisted me off to some green associate who does not even know what he’s doing!”

“When did you fire him?” Nick asked, his forbearance now laced with despair.  This was so predictable. Caroline’s impulsivity results in a lengthy process becoming lengthier and more fraught. For Noah. 

“Nick, don’t you start.  I had to fire him. He was so rude to me. This is my divorce.”

“Yes, but lawyers are the ones who have to manage it for you. Caroline. It’s just like Investments. You wouldn’t think of managing your own portfolio, would you? You might oversee it a bit, but you would have the good sense to listen to the experts. The same is true of real estate.  You’ve always said that people who try to market their own property are just fools. With this, too.  You have to let the experts handle it for you. It’s especially true with this divorce stuff. You know you have some experience with these problems before. You just can’t keep firing lawyers. You’ll be ripped apart by this thing and it will  just take that much longer.” He meant for Noah it will.

“But he gave me to an associate, Nick. This young guy who got snotty when I called him at home one day when Hugh was late to pick up Allie and I wanted to know if I could take her with me instead of waiting like I was at Hugh’s disposal, which is exactly what Hugh thinks! Oh Nicky,” she whimpered.  “It seems like everyone is against me! Plus, my ankle is killing me. I’m sure it’s broken.” 

Nick was disgusted but also completely sure she was coming on to him and that he had to be very, very careful. 

“Cal, I’m not against you. Come on. You know you only feel this way because things are looking so bleak just now. In the morning you’ll have some resilience. There’s nothing new or catastrophic in all this. You’ve had difficulties with lawyers before and you’ve been having arguments with your dad for almost forty years. Don’t blow everything out of proportion.” He counseled with patience and solicitude that was complete artifice. 

“Nicky,  sometimes it’s so nice to listen to you. Just like the old days. You were always so good with advice.”

That disconcerted him momentarily. The last thing he wanted her to think was it he was dangling a romantic or even a nostalgic subtext.

“Even that will pass,” he answered with levity. “You’ll be back to thinking I’m a perfect bastard in the clear light tomorrow morning, I guarantee it,” he forced the humor to ring in his voice but he was still concerned enough so that he let in an impulsive regrettable largess. “Why don’t I call Win Abrams for you in the morning, Cal? Maybe he’ll consider representing you. You know he’s the best.”

“Abrams? You’d get Abrams for me, Nick? How wonderful! I thought you couldn’t do that because he represented you when we divorced. And I know he was the best.” If this was a thinly-veiled attempt to criticize the final settlement of their own divorce, Nick circumvented it without allowing it to register.

“I don’t know the story on that, but I’ll find out. What is important now is to end this thing quickly for Noah’s sake and your own. For Allie and you as well. Abrams can do that and I’m sure he will willingly if the case looks lucrative enough, which I suppose it is. I’ll look into it in the morning and call you. Now go home.  No, stay right there and I’ll call a cab to swing by for you.”

“Okay, I will. I feel so much better. But my ankle is just throbbing. Nicky, can’t you come get me? I might need to go to the ER. No, it’s okay. Send a cab. You’ve been such a help already.  Thank you.”

He clicked off the phone and leaned his head against the wall. What had he done? So much for the custody issue. Abrams but not represent them both. He rubbed his eyes. A passing diner jostled him. He’d have to make the best of it, salvage what he could from the goodwill it would bring from Caroline and act as a mediator so that she didn’t fire Win or drive him to fire her. Shit, here he was straightening out Caroline’s chaotic life and he didn’t really even want to talk to the woman. Abruptly, he remembered Evelyn Fox.

She was gone.

Oh well, he supposed he had been rude and should call her. Maybe in the morning. She wasn’t anyone he was going to see again anyway. Too old. Too maternal. Right now he was exhausted and just wanted to escape into sleep. Maybe this resolution was really for the best. For Noah, how long could he go on witnessing these battles without becoming battle-scarred? Actually, that was close to the way he was behaving. What did they call it? PTSD? Post-traumatic stress. Goddammit, how can I keep my child from the wars? How can I protect him or at least arm him? Then he shuttered with discomfort remembering the incident with Hugh’s gun, remembering Columbine.

Nick pulled his collar up and headed out into the sleet in search of his car. He forgot about Evelyn Fox; in the morning he would set himself to the task of talking with Win Abrams about representing Caroline in her divorce. But first, he’d head over to Boyle St and rescue his ex-wife and her injured ankle. Maybe he’d have a chance to see Noah before he went to bed.

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