Lump by Nathan Whitlock

Author:Nathan Whitlock [Whitlock, Nathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Family Life / General
ISBN: 9781459751309
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2023-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

“Phil Spector,” Andy says, interrupting him. “I had a friend who worked on that trial. Were there rumours of something?”

“About Phil Spector?”

The lawyer chuckles hard enough to lose himself in a cough. “About you, about you. You and this Bianca. Phil Spector, that’s good … But were there rumours about you two?”

“I don’t think so. We got along and would hang out sometimes. That’s it.”

“You’d hang out.”

Donovan flinches a little at getting called out on one of the sustaining myths he has told himself about the situation with Bianca. It’s as if he showed the man a cardboard refrigerator box and called it a time machine.

“Whatever — we’d talk. We were friendly. That’s it.”

What he doesn’t tell Andy: Everyone else in the office was boring in comparison. The place was mostly filled with pleasant drones who lived an hour outside of the city. No one else wore dresses that fit them like gift wrapping. No one had skin that was brushed and oiled to perfection. No one had breasts as big as babies.

“Before this party, there was nothing. No actual complaints made. You didn’t get a warning of any kind, formal or informal.”

“Nothing. It was all the party.”

“This is important — you need to be one hundred percent clear — there was nothing whatsoever communicated to you before this party that related to your relationship with this girl.”

This girl. Donovan smiles at how easily Andy says it. He is employing fantasy language in order to make himself understood. He’s playing along. Bianca’s a girl, and Donovan’s a boy. Two silly kids having a fling.

“Nothing.”

•••

In the boardroom, with the overhead lights dimmed, Bianca’s face was glowing. She was wearing a white dress, and her skin looked even darker against the brightness of the material. The raw fact of her beauty lodged in Donovan’s mind, and he could not shake it. The dress was sleeveless — he wanted to reach out and touch her bare arms with just the tips of his fingers. Just a touch. It seemed criminal not to.

And so he did. While she was taking a sip of wine, he reached over and pressed very lightly against the side of her arm, up near her shoulder.

“Just checking — I wanted to make sure it was real.”

The joke made no sense, but Bianca laughed. Someone from her department came up to ask her a question, barely acknowledging Donovan, and he slipped away with his beer to make another few rounds. He chatted a bit with the head designer — a comfortable-sweater-and-baby-fat kind of older gay guy. They talked about some Dolly Parton Christmas thing he and his partner watch every year on Christmas Eve. Nobody could accuse Donovan of focusing on Bianca, though the whole time he was moving, he stayed aware of her location in the room. He tracked her from the food table to the corner where a few HR people were sitting and eating cake, then to a group of young women from her part of the office, who began to dance in a tight circle on the other side of the boardroom table.

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