More Than Pen Pals by Dana Wilkerson
four
Ithrow open the door to Murphy, Hamilton, and Walker so forcefully it ricochets off its backstop and almost smacks back into me. The receptionist lets out a screech from behind her desk.
“Sorry, Annette,” I mutter as I march by.
I want to slam my office door, but I don’t need anyone else wondering what I’m so worked up about. I pride myself on my ability to stay calm in any situation, and I’m currently anything but composed.
I sink into my leather desk chair and drop my head into my hands. How? How is this real?
The one person I’ve ever felt completely safe opening up to in my life is a fraud, which fills my throat with bile. Unlike my brother, I’ve never had many friends. In fact, I don’t want many. I do want some, though, but I’ve always had trouble keeping them. They always complain about my pragmatic way of looking at the world. They tell me it brings them down. And in high school, college, and law school I was a year or two younger than everyone else in my class, which didn’t help matters. I wasn’t even of legal drinking age until after I started law school. Not that I had much interest in partying, anyway. I mostly kept to myself and focused on getting all my work done so I could graduate and get out into the working world where I could make a difference.
A knock sounds on my office door, and it opens. I know it’s my brother without looking up. Nobody else would dare to come in without me giving permission first.
Randall closes the door and drops into one of the dark blue wingback chairs in front of my mahogany desk. He props an ankle on the opposite knee, links his hands behind his head, and peruses me.
“Want to tell me what happened back there?” he asks.
“No.”
“Of course you don’t.”
My shoulders tense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You never talk about anything important.”
“This isn’t important.”
“It’s not?” He puts his hands on his knees and leans toward me. “You sure?”
I sigh. “Leave me alone, Randy.” The nickname slips out. He’s never let anyone but me call him that, and I now only use it when I’m upset and can’t stop myself.
He sits back in his chair. “Nope. Not gonna happen.”
We stare at each other for a good twenty seconds before my brother says, “I’m not leaving until you tell me about it.”
“About what?”
He doesn’t reply.
“Fine,” I say. “That woman was my pen pal.”
His expression doesn’t change. “I figured as much. And how do you feel about that?”
I roll my eyes. “How do you think I feel?”
“I have an idea, but I want to hear you say it.”
“I’m pissed, all right?” I practically shout. “She deceived me for four years. I told …” I shake my head.
“You told her what?” he prompts when I don’t finish my thought.
“I told her things I never told anyone else. Some of what I wrote I never would’ve said if I knew she was a girl.” I briefly close my eyes. “Especially if I knew she was that girl.”
His eyebrows raise. “What girl?”
Why did I let that slip out? No doubt my brother will keep trying to pry it out of me, so I tell him. “Les has a twin brother—Shannon. He … she sent several pictures of them throughout the years. I thought she,” I wave my hand in the general direction of Carter-Jenkins PR, “was the boy and Shannon was the girl. Apparently, I had it backward, and she never told me.”
“And considering she’s drop-dead gorgeous, I’m guessing at fourteen she wasn’t ugly. You had a crush on her, didn’t you?” Randall wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“See?” I point at him. “That right there—that’s why I could never tell you things. That’s why I told Les … Leslie instead.”
“What couldn’t you tell me about?”
I sigh. How have I gotten into this conversation? “About girls—about my feelings.” I take a deep breath and force myself to look him in the eye. “You always made fun of me.”
Randall’s jaw drops. “Are you serious? I was joking around.”
“That’s not how it felt back then.” I decide if I’m being open for once, I should go for broke. “Or now.”
He slumps in his chair. “I’m sorry, man. Why have you never told me? I would’ve stopped.”
I shrug. “I don’t know.” I’m not avoiding an answer. I truly don’t know.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re going to forget this ever happened?”
“Yes.” I stab the desk with my finger as I say it.
“You’re not going to talk to her?”
“No.”
“Did you talk to her on the way over here? Did she catch up with you after you ran out?” He moves his fingers in a running motion but then stops and cringes when he realizes he’s making fun of me. “Sorry.” His old habit will die hard.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I didn’t run out.”
“Close to it. But did you talk to her?”
“Kind of.”
“What does that mean?”
I tell him about the conversation.
“And you’re not going to dinner with this knockout woman? Are you dead inside?”
“I don’t care what she looks like. She’s a liar.”
“You’rea liar. You do care what she looks like.”
My brother isn’t wrong. Leslie is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen—she looks a little like Michelle Pfeiffer, only better—and I can still feel the imprint of her hand where she touched my arm, which makes the whole situation worse, if that’s possible. I refuse to be attracted to the woman who betrayed me.
“You can’t avoid her,” Randall says. “You’re over at Carter-Jenkins all the time.”
I close my eyes. Doing legal work to help cover up the questionable actions of a bunch of celebrities is a far cry from my dream job, but when I joined the law firm, my dad assigned me to Carter-Jenkins PR. He told me if I could successfully handle their legal counsel for three years, he’d let me do something I thought was more worthwhile. It feels like hazing, and there are days I want to tell my father where he can stuff the public relations nonsense, but I’m determined to make it through the next year so I can do what I really want to do.
My mind wanders to wondering how Leslie ended up in PR. That wasn’t her dream.
“You’ll probably have to work with her,” Randall says.
My eyes pop open. He’s doing his best to hold back a smirk.
“Didn’t think of that, did you?”