“Noooo. Really? I can’t believe she didn’t tell me!”
“Exactly,” I said. “How’m I supposed to feel, my partner having sex with one of my best friends?”
“It’s kind of a good match, though,” Yuki was saying, taking a left, the car speeding downhill, causing my stomach contents to slosh.
“She’s always liked him,” Yuki said, “but who doesn’t? Wait a minute, Linds. Have I missed the obvious here?”
I rolled down the window, and the wind hit my face. Yuki was asking me, “Do you want me to pull over? Are you sick?”
“I’m fine,” I belched.
“Okay, so what’s this about? Your partner’s dating your friend. Why is that a problem?”
I rolled up the window, just left it cracked about an inch. “Rich and I. We’ve had a couple of moments,” I heard myself say.
Yuki’s mouth dropped open as she headed the car across a straightaway, stopping at a light, then swiveling her head so she could look at me.
“Define ‘moments.’ ”
Suddenly I was telling Yuki everything: about the near miss Conklin and I’d had when a case took us to Los Angeles. I told her how we’d stopped before things went too far, and how the chemistry just wouldn’t let up. That it had been sparking even when my apartment burned down, when I’d moved in with Joe. Even a week ago when Conklin had planted a steamy kiss on my lips by the car.
I was still talking when we pulled into the underground garage beneath Yuki’s apartment building. She shut off the engine and turned to face me.
“Are you in love with him?”
“In love? I don’t know what to call it, but we have something special…”
“So this isn’t about Cindy. This is about Conklin.”
I shrugged.
“You have something pretty special with Conklin that you have turned down repeatedly and have no intention of acting on, isn’t that right?”
I was drunk and I was being interrogated by my friend the prosecutor. I had no defense.
“We’ve talked about it,” I said. “It was my choice, and I’m glad that we’ve never done anything that would destroy Joe.”
“So how do you feel about Joe? Tell me the truth.”
“I love him.”
“Prove it to me, because right now, I don’t get it.”
I excused myself, got out of the car, walked over to the huge trash can by the elevator, and threw my guts up. Yuki was there with a Wet-Nap, an arm around my waist, a packet of gum.
But she didn’t let me off the hook.
We went back to the car and resumed our places, and she said, “Tell me the whole truth and nothing but.”
I told her that when I’d met Joe it had been that thunderbolt right between the eyes, and it had been mutual. And since that day, Joe had never let me down. That he’d changed his whole life to be with me. That he was not only my lover but my best friend, too, the person I could be real with. That the only fear I ever had about my love for Joe was taking the next step with him, because it would be for good.
“If we get married, I can never leave him,” I said.
“And that’s a bad thing?” Yuki asked me.
“It’s a scary thing.”
“I’m no expert, but isn’t ‘scary’ appropriate when you’ve been traumatized? When someone you love has died?”