The Corner Table at Micey's

This story is being posted in four parts due to its length; the fourth and final is written and will follow this one soon.

This picks up after Mallory's explosion at Jim when she thought he was trying to cheat his soon-to-be-ex in the divorce, only to find that Jim wasn't exactly willing to take that lying down.

—C

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"Howdy, stranger." Robin's tone walked a line somewhere between the bubbly friendliness of the last time Jim talked to her and politeness.

"Hi, Robin. Yeah, I've been busy at work. Haven't made it here as much as I should've."

She was coming into the gym as he was on his way out the door. "Have a good workout," he said and slid on his sunglasses against the outside glare.

"Hey, Jim." He turned back. "I wouldn't mind a word."

That's how Mallory deals with it? Sends a friend to do her dirty work.

"I need to get back for a meeting."

As if she were psychic, Robin's next words dashed his suspicion. "I'm not here to play mediator. I'm here for myself. Did you lie to me?"

Jim could see she was troubled at the thought. He could also see it wasn't a rhetorical question; she was looking for an answer. "No, I didn't. But I also didn't lie to you about the meeting just now. I have to go." He could see her parsing his reaction, trying to figure out if he was brushing her off. "You owe me drinks. Pick a time after work ... not Wednesday ... and you can have your word."

"Tomorrow, six-ish, at Mickey's?"

"Tomorrow, six-ish, at the bar in the Marriott. I'm trying to be less locatable at the moment." He could see the wheels turn about that one.

His meeting was with a realtor. When Anthony had headed to the conference with Lori and her attorney last week, Jim had packed up clothing, papers he needed, one or two important keepsakes, and checked himself into the Marriott. But over a hundred bucks a night, plus restaurant charges, for living in a single room wasn't his idea of sustainable. He was trying to work a deal on a condo: rent it until the divorce, then buy.

Anthony had delivered the message to Lori, "You talk through me." Jim knew it wouldn't last, but so far, a blocked phone, a security guard with instructions to deny entry, and a low profile had kept the hound at bay.

Jim was pleased that Robin considered "six-ish" to mean six sharp. He'd spent too much time that day trying to get a customer to see reason, skipped the gym and lunch—

not that Tuesday lunches will be a thing anymore

, he thought—and just wanted to grab a steak and hit the sack.

"What's your poison?" he asked as the gray-clad woman walked up.

"Vodka martini, two olives."

He looked at the server. "Jameson on the rocks for me."

"So," Jim said after they'd had their first sip and Robin showed no signs of starting the conversation. He waited. Finally, barely hiding a smirk, Jim said, "I'm sure they teach you in law school that waiting for the other guy to hang himself is a great tactic. But I've had a long day, and I'm content to sit here quietly and drink."

She acknowledged that with a twitch of her mouth, but still didn't say anything.

Jim shrugged. "Okay, tell Mallory I'm sorry she sees me that way." He started to raise his glass, and then added, "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't shorten that to, 'He's sorry.'"

That got a rise out of her. "I said I wasn't playing mediator. She's talked to me of course, but she needs to handle this on her own. By the same token, I won't deliver any messages for you."

"Fair enough."

"I'm here to resolve why one friend said one thing to me a while back, and another friend claimed she heard something different on Friday. This is about me and you." She paused for a second. "And, if you want to hand me a check for the balance of a hundred ninety-nine bucks before saying anything, I'll accept it."

"I don't need to. I haven't done anything illegal or immoral, and Mallory jumped to conclusions. She could've asked me what was going on. You know, like

you're

doing right now, but—"

"Jim, don't snipe at her to me. As I said, this is about you and me. So tell me the rest of the story."

• • •

"Jim Watson here," he answered the ring.

"Jim, it's Mallory."

There was a short pause and then, without expression, he responded, "What can I do for you, Mallory? Is there something wrong with what we sent you on that last order?"

She ignored his question. "I was going to text you, but that's a bit too impersonal. So, I bit the bullet and was wondering if you'd meet me at Mickey's tonight so that we can talk."

"I'm sorry, Mallory, I have plans."

"How about tomorrow?"

"I'm afraid I have plans then, also."

"Okay." He could hear the frustration in her voice. "When might you be free?"

"Look, Mallory. If you want to yell at me some more, save it for someone who gives a damn. If you're expecting me to apologize for yelling back, don't hold your breath. If, by some chance, you want to apologize, then please believe that I accept your apology right here and now. Okay? You're forgiven. Now, if there's no problem with the order, I need to go—"

She cut him off. "Jim, give me a few more seconds here."

"I have to go, Mallory. I'm in the middle of something here at work. Take care." With that, he quietly hung up the phone.

• • •

"He hung up on me," Mallory said to Robin over a post-workout meal.

Robin's expression conveyed,

I'm not surprised

, even if she didn't say it.

"I mean, we need to talk. I get that he's not leaving his wife in the poor house, but he's obviously worked some kind of dodge."

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh, come on! First of all, in the years I've known him, it's always been 'his business,' not a 'me and my partners' thing. Second, even if he does have a minority partner, that four-eighty K? He bills us almost two-thirds of that a year, and we're just one of his customers. Even at some low multiple, his company's worth way more than that."

Robin tilted her head to study her friend. "I wasn't clear about my question. What I meant was, why do you say that you need to talk? From what you yourself told me, your opinion of him is pretty clear."

Mallory looked at her like she was crazy. "Because friends talk when there's a problem."

"You mean like you did before you jumped on him with both feet?"

The echo of what Tom had said to her froze Mallory's reply. "

Et tu

, Bruta?" she said finally.

Robin shrugged. "Hon, I know what Michael did to you. I get it. But someday you're going to have to realize that there are other types of guys in the world."

"Easy for you to say with your perfect little marriage."

Robin's eyebrows went up at the snide tone. "It's not perfect. It's good, even maybe very good. But there's no such thing as perfect. We fight."

"Jesus, Robin. I think there's a big difference between arguing about which of you two kitchen-haters isn't doing their share of cooking and shafting someone in a divorce."

Robin's jaw tightened with genuine irritation. "We fight about his job all the time. I want a husband who's not eighteen hundred miles away two weeks out of every month. When I tell him to find something here, he tells me it's not that easy and, besides, he loves his job. I can't just say, 'You've got all the time in the world to look for something else to love here; I can handle the bills,' because that's Emasculation 101. It's a serious issue between us."

Mallory backed down from Robin's challenging stare. "I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted. The point I'm trying to make is that, even though we have shit just like everyone else, DH would never do something like that to me even if 'DH' went back to just being his initials."

"Because you would never let him. Because you're a tough-ass lawyer."

Robin shook her head. "Because

he

would never do that, just like I wouldn't." She paused, then pushed gently. "Hon, I want you to do something. I want you to think back to when you were twenty-two and standing there in front of all those people with a new husband on your arm. And then I want you to remember now what you

knew

then."

Those moments sat in a box on a high shelf in a room of her memory dusty from disuse. First inability because of pain, then conscious decision because of a different sort of pain, finally habit kept them there. Only the lightest touches of, "I was married once. He was killed when someone ran a red light," disturbed the dust.

Habit dies hard, but Robin had always been ... Robin. Her best friend, from that first meeting over three years ago when a storm-tossed Mallory had needed a secure place to set an anchor, to today's steadfast partner in binge-watching on those middle weekends of DH's absences that they'd declared Pajama Weekends.

Now she lifted the lid of the box. Just a little, an inch, no more. Just enough for a few motes of what was inside to escape and swirl around and settle. Some alighted on Bobby, the man who had been on her arm those twelve years ago. One or two found their way forward in time to settle on others. DH.

Robin's right; he wouldn't even if the utterly inconceivable happened between those two.

Tom.

No, not for a second, even when I wounded him.

Jim? Something deep inside whispered that her brain should have listened to her gut, not her ears.

With a sinking feeling, she brought the conversation full circle. "But Jim won't talk to me. Maybe you could talk to him and see if he—"

"No," Robin interrupted.

"But you're his friend too. It wouldn't be weird."

"I've already talked to him."

"You what!"

"I spoke to him a few days ago."

"And?"

Robin shook her head. "I talked to him about something between him and me, not about him and you. You need to deal with this yourself."

They finished their meal silently as Mallory processed that. She got where Robin was coming from. "Mallory told me to tell you that ..." was so middle school.

As Robin finished the last bite of her pie, she tried to ease some of the tension off of her friend's face. She leaned across the table and whispered so that no one else in the place would hear. "Maybe not Emasculation 101. Maybe it's 102. I always let DH know I'm hot for what's under those clothes, so 101 is a non-starter." She giggled and Mallory's face creased in a smile.

• • •

Sitting in a hotel room sucked. You could only watch so much pay-per-view. He'd seen all the movies Marriott had this month that looked even remotely interesting, and the repetitive "ooh, aah, ooh" of porn somehow seemed twice as fake when you weren't not-snickering at it with a partner. So, he'd taken to stopping in Mickey's to help out. Most weekday evenings found him there for a while at least.

Now, as he got out of his car in the side alley, his head turned at the loud, "God damn it, Brandon! Leave me alone!" from the parking lot across the street. Looking over, he saw Mallory standing in front of the gym door, just coming from a late workout. She was facing a large guy who had his hands up in a just-want-to-talk gesture.

She diverted to walk around the guy. He stepped to block her, hands still up.

Whoa! What the hell?

Despite his resentment of Mallory, Jim wasn't okay with someone accosting her. He turned from the side door of Mickey's and stepped out of the alley. Just as he did, the gym door opened and a trainer stepped out, followed by another.

Their voices carried in the still air. "Hey, not cool. Let her go to her car."

Faced with two men almost as big as he was, Brandon hesitated. Jim could see the frustration on his face, but Brandon didn't interfere further as Mallory slid around him and headed for her car. As she reached it, she looked over and saw Jim standing at the curb. She could tell he had been prepared to intervene and had stopped only when help appeared from closer. She started to change course and head toward him, but he just gave her a curt nod, turned, and walked into Mickey's.

He saw her head poke in the door a minute later but pretended he didn't. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her take in that he was busy behind the bar and retreat.

It was an evening of people checking for him. Around eight, he was perched on a stool inside the back ell of the bar when he saw Lori come in, followed by a man he didn't know. He saw her give a quick look around the tables. An indefinable tension went out of her body, and she took one of the front tables, her back to the room while her companion sat across from her.

Hoping I was here so she could rub my nose in it

, was his judgment.

Relaxing now that she doesn't have to put on a performance. Staying because maybe word will filter back to me.

Jim studied the man: forty-ish, reasonably good-looking, well-if-casually dressed.

Doesn't quite seem her style for lovers. Maybe this one is intended to appear more husband-material type. My replacement.

He contemplated his reaction. It took two seconds for brain and gut to reach a consensus.

Whatever

.

Tongue in cheek, he said nothing to Tom or Shannon and tried to decide whether to stop by her table. The decision was taken out of his hands. She stood to head back to the restrooms. As she did, she glanced over at the bar, met his eyes, and froze. Her jaw tightened.

Wrong move, Lori. If you want to make me jealous, sweetly oozing pity for the discarded man is the classic play.

Without a word, she headed down the hallway. On the way back, she stopped at the far end of the bar. He could see her glaring at him out of the corner of his eye. He debated letting her call out for him to come over but decided he didn't need to be petty.

"Hello, Lori."

"What are you doing?"

"Working."

"It's not Wednesday."

"I come in a few other days now."

She was speechless for a brief moment but rallied quickly. A snarky expression appeared. "Taking a second job to start building up the cash you'll need for all the fines when the court figures it out?"

"Figures what out?"

"You know, asshole."

She wasn't stupid. She didn't think he was. There was no point in playing this game other than to irritate her, and why bother? "My financial statement was accurate. Now, do you want a drink or are we done?" He was already walking away as he said it.

• • •

Jim found Mallory leaning on the hood of his car when he came out of work the next day. His face creased in irritation.

"What do you want, Mallory?"

"I want you to allow me to apologize for my—" He started to interrupt, and she held up her hand. "You asked what I wanted. Now please let me answer the question."

"Fine," he said, nodding curtly.

"I want you to allow me to apologize because I understand you've talked to Robin." She jerked the upheld hand in emphasis as his interruption started again. "And knowing Robin, the fact that she's still speaking pleasantly about you and telling me that I should talk to you means that I probably screwed up. Then I would like you to tell me why I've screwed up. I'm not looking for private details, but we're friends, and right now I'm pretty"—she hesitated over a word choice—"concerned."

His face was somewhere between impassive and obdurate.

Finally, when he still didn't respond, she got a little desperate. "Please, Jim. I've been glad to listen to you for months ... please listen to me now."

He didn't like the guilt card she had just played, but he had to admit it was somewhat valid. "I'm busy tonight and have plans tomorrow. I'll meet you Friday at the usual time."

Those plans were Addison. She'd called. "I have to be in Binghamton for a meeting Friday. If I get to Pennsy Thursday night, you willing to put a smile on my face? I'll have to leave at the crack of dawn."

"You know that you sound like a tourist when you say that?"

"Say what?"

"Pennsy. It's P-A. Not Pennsylvania. Not Pennsy. Not Pennsyltucky. P-A."

Addison burst out laughing. "Okay. I'm a tourist. But I'm a tourist who wants to get laid by a native. You up?"

• • •

"Jim, I'm flying blind here because I don't know exactly how I screwed up," Mallory said.

"You screwed up by accusing me of trying to cheat Lori. I'm not and you had no evidence that I was."

"I heard—"

He cut her off. "You heard a fragment of a conversation," he said flatly.

The truth of that was undeniable.

Just apologize, bitch

, Mallory told herself. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off on you like that, especially when I walked into the middle of things." Jim just shrugged and took a sip of his drink. "Will you tell me the real story?"

"Why?"

"Because we're friends."

Jim's eyebrows went up, not in surprise, more as if to say,

Really?

"We've hit a pothole," she wheedled. "The way to get over that is for me to learn the truth and then feel horribly, horribly guilty."

The attempt at humor worked a little; Jim's lips twitched.

"Please?"

Their dinners arrived. Mallory was surprised to see his was a salad instead of a cheeseburger. The look of distaste he gave it didn't surprise her. He sprinkled a little vinegar and ground some pepper. Spearing a cherry tomato, he said, "Lori has a rough idea of how much the company is worth. Based on that, she expected she'd get about four times what she will probably end up with. What she didn't know is that I own only a quarter of the company."

Mallory was surprised herself, but she didn't say anything.

"She's upset. First, about the dollars. Second, because she intended to use my difficulty in finding a million to buy her out as leverage to get me to break off the divorce proceedings. She told me flat out that the alternative was to spend my time slaving away just to pay her and the banks."

The callousness of that statement delivered so matter-of-factly rocked Mallory.

"Her plan to destroy me—" He checked himself, trying to be fair. "Or rather, to force me to stay in a dead marriage backfired when her attorney accepted my financial statement with no more than a comment about a standard accountant's review.

"That came on top of ten minutes before when Anthony, my attorney, corrected a misapprehension her attorney had. Apparently, Lori had been slightly imprecise about dates. I've been seeing someone casually, and Anthony had to point out that it started

after

I had Lori served with papers and moved into the guest room. That removed it as grounds for an adultery charge on her part."

Jim met Mallory's eyes squarely. "That's why we were laughing. Her manipulations fell through and left her attorney floundering and irritated at her client."

The sinking feeling Mallory had had ever since her conversation with Robin, the one that said,

You stepped in it

, got stronger. "I thought the company was all yours too."

"Nope, only a quarter of it. I run it, but I have partners."

Just as she started to ask why Lori wouldn't know that fact, Jim asked her a question. "What did I do that would make you think I'd act like that?"

I don't want to answer that, though something tells me I'm going to.

She temporized. "Men in the middle of a divorce are generally emotional time bombs. You don't seem that way, just annoyed. And I suddenly wondered if I was misinterpreting 'relaxed' for 'cold.'"

Jim blinked. "I

was

an emotional time bomb. But I've known about Lori's unfaithfulness for a year. I'm over it."

She was shocked. Way back that first week, when Jim had admitted that he hadn't just found out about his wife, she'd revised her guess of the timeline to about a month. A year was a shock. Her immediate gut reaction was to fall back into suspicion.

She could see Jim watching her expression, judging the thoughts being telegraphed by her face.

Is he trying to decide whether to reveal something sneaky on his part or trying to decide why he bothers talking to me?