The snowflakes were drifting beautifully to the street below as the workday wound down. I was grateful for the electric lights Mr. Thompson had had installed shortly before I had come to work in his office, for their warm glow was marvellous against the slate-grey afternoon sky outside. It was just one of a hundred delights I found in being a working woman in those days when that was still quite unusual. The grey would of course have faded to black by the time I took my leave in an hour or so; but then the wonderful flashy Christmas lights would have taken over and Main Street would be a wonderland out of my childhood dreams of the city. That thought pushed me over the edge into one of my still-frequent reveries about how remarkable it was that those dreams had come true. All except marrying my Edward, of course, but that had proven just as well.
Admiring the view just beyond the window, I wondered about Edward. I wondered what the weather was like in Paris, and if he was in the arms of some other man at just that moment, or hard at work on his painting as I should have been on my legal briefs. Was he painting another nude, I wondered? If so, a woman or a man this time?
I heard Mr. Thompson's office door open just in time to rein my mind back in to my work. Finding some excuse to visit the filing cabinet, I stood up and strode purposefully across the carpet. Jonathan came bounding just behind him. "Snowing again!" he said. "Lovely, isn't it?"
"Too lovely," I agreed. "What I wouldn't give to be out there playing in it!"
"You kids," Mr. Thompson said, his stern tone belying a certain amusement. "Just as well I'm too old to join you, I suppose." He poured some tea from the service by the door. "How is the brief coming, Agnes?"
"I am working on the final draft now," I assured him, rifling through the files in the drawer for nothing in particular. "I'm only checking my sources now."
"Remarkable," he said, checking his watch. "You are nothing if not efficient, Agnes." Turning back to his office, he went on. "I suppose you already know how I had reservations about hiring a lady lawyer. But you have proven me wrong, I must confess. Ever so quick and thorough with every task, and I must say having a female form around here adds some spice to the day."
As usual, he never looked back as he made his patronizing comments while retreating to his office. And so he did not see me flip up my skirt and flash him just before he shut the door behind him.
Jonathan, of course, did see it. He struggled to stifle his laughter until the door was safely shut. "Heavens, Agnes, you're wonderful!" he exclaimed in a loud husky whisper. "You put up with his sexism so well, and now that too!"
"Thank you," I said, not at all uncomfortable with having given him a glimpse at my panties. Jonathan and I, despite his being engaged to my dearest friend, knew one another in the conjugal sense by then, after all. "I do hope I did not make you uncomfortable."
"Not in the least!" he replied. "You know I regret nothing of our weekend in the country, after all."
"Nor I," I agreed. "I learned so very much from both you and Elizabeth, after all."
"Speaking of whom, will you be joining her at the baths this evening?"
"Yes, and I can't wait! Her and Irene."
"Ah, poor Irene," Jonathan said. Her relationship with Benjamin had been the one casualty of our late summer orgy. "I hope she is holding up well?"
"Getting better all the time," I assured him. "But I must admit I am thinking Christmas on her own could be rough."
"Well, she won't really be on her own, will she?" Jonathan asked. "We're all here for one another."
"Of course, but it's hardly the same as what you and Elizabeth have, is it?" I passed over in silence the fact that I did not have any such intimacy with anyone either.
"This is true," Jonathan admitted. "I'm sorry."
I hardly blamed Jonathan for his oversight. I knew all too well – even then, when I was still a bit naïve – how easy it is for those in love to take that wonderful gift for granted. I was, of course, a great deal less naïve by then thanks in large part to Jonathan, Elizabeth and Irene. Our late summer adventure at the seaside had opened a number of doors for me, and four months later I was more comfortable than ever in my single working woman's life back in Westfordshire City. The oppressive support of my family back on the farm, though a pleasant memory, was a lifetime gone from me by now, and with the help of my friends I had put my lingering regrets about my lost fiancé Edward to bed. Quite literally, at that.
For all the fun I had enjoyed in the ensuing months, though, true love had continued to elude me. That was perhaps just as well, for I had been able to empathise with Irene when she needed it the most that fall. After all she and Elizabeth had done to help me through the dark days of the previous spring, I was very relieved, in a sense, to be able to return the favour.
None of us were terribly surprised that Irene and Benjamin's relationship had failed to survive. It had clearly been in trouble prior to our weekend at the seashore, and the shock of all that had transpired had simply been a bridge too far. "He and I both admitted to one another that we wanted something a bit different," Irene had explained to us, dry-eyed but in a rather halting tone, over lunch at Miles several days later. "Neither of us is quite sure what that something is, but we know now we will not find it with one another. We shall always be the best of friends, of course."
Elizabeth and I had both voiced our agreement with that sentiment; but privately I had suspected we would be seeing little of Benjamin from then on. Elizabeth had confirmed her agreement with me later on that evening when we were on our own at home; and sure enough, a month or so later we heard through friends that Benjamin had accepted an overseas transfer from his company. Eerily similar to my loss of Edward, that turn of events had inspired Irene to observe that our exes always seemed to feel compelled to leave the country. "I guess we are truly irresistible, aren't we?" she had asked with the first genuine laugh I had heard from her in some time.
That light hearted poke notwithstanding, the encroachment of autumn and now winter had taken its toll on my mood and, I suspected, Irene's as well. With the impending marriage of Jonathan and Elizabeth in the spring, our circle of friends was due for radical changes already; and the loss of Benjamin had served as both a harbinger and a shock in its own right. While I was now more than capable of standing on my own two feet in the big city, I was not yet persuaded that I cared to do so. The gloomy weather was the perfect analogy for that uncertainty; and it also exacerbated it in the worst way.
Jonathan evidently had been able to see through my giddy defiance of Mr. Thompson that afternoon, for he came to my desk and touched my hand affectionately. "Agnes," he said gently. "I truly am sorry. I know this time of year is a difficult one to be on one's own – I've been there! So has Elizabeth; she can tell you all about that."
I sat back and forced a smile. "I know, Jonathan. That's just the thing, though: soon you and Elizabeth will be wed, and the loss of Benjamin as well...Just when I felt my life had come together in the most wonderful way, now everything is about to change again, just like it did last spring. I do not look forward to going through that again!"
