Best Intentions by Emily Listfield Page B

down.
    The donations continue to pile up as each woman digs into her pocket of social connections and effortlessly pulls out a gilded offering.
    Samantha turns to me. “Lisa?”
    â€œI can get Rita Mason to come to someone’s house and cook a dinner for ten.” I have no idea where this came from and I cannot imagine how I will ever be able to talk her into doing this.
    â€œGood.” Samantha smiles and writes this down as if it is a fait accompli. “Why don’t we say for twenty, though?”
    â€œOf course.” Ten extra guests is the least of my problems.
    I barely hear the rest of the conversation. As the meeting closes, Samantha sets the time for our session next week. By then Merdale will have taken over and the thought of coming in late so soon into its reign fills me with dread. Too often I feel as if I spend half my life making excuses—at work, at home, here.
    Out on the street I hail a cab and as it speeds down the West Side Highway past the few remaining trucker bars and seedy diners stubbornly nestled amid all the brazen construction I get out my cell phone and call Deirdre.
    â€œDid I wake you?” I ask. What I really mean is, Did I interrupt some esoteric pornographic act you are currently engaged in with Ben?
    â€œNo. I’m just tired. I had a bit of a rough night.”
    â€œWhy doesn’t that surprise me?”
    â€œThat’s not what I mean. Where are you? I can hardly hear you.”
    â€œIn a cab. I have to meet with some potential client way downtown. Seems a waste to me, I mean what idiot signs on with a company that was just bought, but I promised Carol.”
    â€œYou don’t owe her anything.”
    â€œI know. That’s not why I called.”
    â€œWhat’s up?”
    â€œI need a reality check.” I give her the details of last night, the sex (perhaps I feel I have something to prove in this department), themysterious phone call that Sam failed to explain. “Would you believe him when he said that it was nothing?” I ask.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œThat would be my strategy.”
    â€œThere’s a difference between belief and strategy.”
    â€œOnly if you let there be,” Deirdre replies. “Sam had a perfectly plausible explanation. The worst thing you can do or say is harp on it with him. Sometimes you can push someone so much you propel them right into the thing you’re most scared of.”
    â€œIsn’t that a ‘blame the victim’ mentality?”
    â€œMaybe. But it happens to be true. You’ve got to stop this,” she adds firmly.
    â€œI’m sorry. I wouldn’t want to bore you.”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant, Lisa.”
    â€œI know,” I reply grudgingly. “Listen, I meant to ask you, you’re not bringing Ben to dinner tonight, are you?”
    â€œGod no,” she exclaims. “Though now that you mention it, it is an interesting idea.”
    â€œDeirdre.”
    â€œJust kidding. If Jack was bringing his wife, maybe, but I’m glad that it will just be the four of us. Besides, you know Ben is against enforced integration.”
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œHe still resists every attempt I make to get us out of the little box he has us in. He hasn’t even told his children he’s dating. His ex-wife is practically living with her spinning instructor, for Christ’s sake. You know what I was doing when you called? Writing him an e-mail.”
    â€œWhy is that so strange?”
    â€œWe got into yet another relationship talk last night. Maybe debate is a better word. The point is, after all this time, I still seem to have this need to send a long treatise after every date explaining myself to him or, worse, trying to explain him to himself. I always feel like I have to make a case for us.” She sighs. “It’s okay, I justneed to be patient. Anyway,” she adds, brightening, “at