KeyParty by Jayne Kingston

ever
wanted to be was a doctor.
    She gave his wrist a gentle squeeze before she withdrew her
hand. “You’ll forgive me for being a little excited to see you looking the way
you did with her. I’ve been waiting to see that look on your face for a long
time.”
    He didn’t want to know what she thought she’d seen, so he
didn’t ask.
    “Did you get her the interview?”
    He shook his head. “We ran into each other at a mutual
friend’s party the weekend before.” There was absolutely no reason to mention
what kind of party it had been. “She had the interview lined up long before
that.”
    “You know the rules if she gets hired, Ben.”
    He took another long drink of tea and wished it was whiskey.
    He knew the rules. No fraternizing among employees, no
exceptions.
    “I’ve only seen her a couple of times since the party.” Oh,
how he’d seen her.
    They’d gone out twice since the night he’d taken her back to
his apartment. The first time they were supposed to see a movie, but they’d
talked through dinner and missed the start time. So they’d moved to the corner
bar near Jude and Petra’s and kept talking until the bartender called last
call. After a long, hot goodnight kiss on the front stoop, he’d successfully
gotten in his car and made the short drive back to his apartment alone.
    They’d gone out for pizza and beer a couple of nights later,
him with the honest intention of going home alone once again, but his car
refused to go any farther than around the block. He’d circled around and found
her standing on the front stoop where he’d left her, waiting for him to come
back. So he’d parked and gone inside.
    “I’ll call it off if she gets hired,” he said with zero
conviction.
    His mother’s sigh echoed the way he felt. “I think that
would be sad.”
    He shrugged. “It’s the way things are.”
    “Well, it might be time to ease up on the rules now that
there are two centers. Or they could modify the rule that no one sitting on the
board can be involved with another board member or senior staffer. It’s Paul’s
fault that they had to add that rule in the first place. Let him suffer. The
rest of the board is happily married.”
    Paul Zimmerman, along with his brother Tom and Ben’s stepdad
Tracy, was one of the founding members of the Chicago Cardiac Health and
Wellness Center. Paul’s first wife Marlene had also been a founding member.
According to legend, the center had just started to gain some momentum when
Paul and Marlene’s marriage came apart in spectacular fashion. Their divorce and
the battle over which of them would get to remain working at the center caused
an ugly divide among the staff members that nearly prompted Tom and Tracy to
close the doors and start over from scratch.
    “Happily married to people who don’t work at the center,” he
amended.
    She smiled at him. “I don’t believe for a moment that no one
out of the dozens of people who work there have never gotten romantically
involved. When you’re in medicine, especially when you’re fresh out of school
and working day and night, the only people you meet are your peers. It has to
be happening.”
    “If it is they’re being really discreet.”
    She stirred the straw in her tea distractedly. “So maybe you
could be discreet.”
    He coughed up a surprised laugh. “Are you telling me I
should lie to my dad, your husband? Who you don’t keep a damn thing from, I
might add.”
    She let her head drop to the back of the chair and gave him
a small smile.
    “Of course I’m not.” She looked out over her backyard. “I
just like her.”
    “After one handshake and ten seconds of conversation?”
    She nodded. “Your dad seems to like her as well. He tells me
she has a second interview at the wellness center.”
    “Does he know we’ve been seeing each other?”
    She looked at him, eyebrows raised. “I wasn’t sure myself
until a few minutes ago. And it’s not my place to tell him your business. But
you