The Job by Douglas Kennedy

ever since sitting down together two hours earlier, there hadn’t been a nanosecond’s lull in the conversation. I knew that we had clicked. Whatever the reason, I suddenly looked up at her and blurted out:
    “You know, I’m going to marry you.”
    After this dumb revelation, there was a very long silence-during which I really did pray for the floor beneath my feet to open up and swallow me whole. But Lizzie didn’t seem even remotely nonplussed by my drunken proposal. Instead, she kept running her finger across the top of my hand, while working hard to control her
    Finally she graced me with a tipsy smile and said, “You really do have a lot to learn about salesmanship.”
    “Sorry, sorry, sorry. That was the all-time stupidest comment in recorded history….”
    “Shut up and kiss me,” she said.
    Much later that night, at her tiny studio apartment on Nineteenth and Second, she turned to me in bed and said, “You see, persistence does pay off.”
    “So does playing hard to get.”
    “Wise guy,” she said with a laugh.
    “I give as good as I get.”
    “You mean, just like me.”
    “Old Irish saying: There’s a pair of us in it.”
    “Oh, is there?”
    I put my arms around her and drew her close.
    “I think so,” I said.
    She snuggled against me.
    “Well see.”
    It had been four and a half years since that first drunken night together, and there was still “a pair of us in it.” Don’t get me wrong-I’ve never been one of those smug clowns who waxes lyrical about how he has the “perfect partnership.” We are, after all, different people. Lizzie has a very black-and-white view of the world, a belief that the line between right and wrong is a clearly defined one. And though I also like to consider myself an ethical guy, I tend to see several angles lurking behind every situation.
    So, though we’d been all but inseparable since that initial dinner (and were married in 1994), we had hit the inevitable bouts of turbulence… and just the month before we had negotiated our way through a rough passage that (had it been allowed to fester) could have swamped us. But what marriage hasn’t weathered bad weather, right? And, at heart, I knew we were in it for the long haul because… well, put it this way: Words like don’t or you can’t or I won’t allow it had never passed between us. We don’t compete professionally, or play mind-fuck games of one-upmanship. We actually like each other. More tellingly, we still have the capacity to amuse each other. And how many couples can say that after nearly five years together?
    Of course, we do have differences of opinion. Like on the matter flan and Geena. I like Geena, and enjoy lan in small doses. Of course, I like to banter with him. But whereas Lizzie takes his name-dropping in stride, I always find myself competing with the guy. Maybe that’s because, at heart, I am secretly impressed by the fact that he went to the same school as John F. Kennedy, Jr.” had recently written a lengthy profile of Peter Jennings for Mirabella, and seemed to know everybody of journalistic and literary importance in New York.
    That’s a fundamental difference between Lizzie and myself-she doesn’t get overawed by everything cutting edge-that world, according to New York magazine, that dictates what you should be eating, drinking, watching, reading, or talking about. Of course, she thrives on “being in the know” and occupying the inside metropolitan track, which is such an elemental part of public relations work. But unlike me, she never fears the loss of her power to convince. Nor does she feel the need to prove her credentials as a heavy-hitter by always flashing the AMEX Gold Card.
    “We’ll take care of that,” I offered as the check arrived.
    Lizzie’s lips tightened, but she said nothing.
    “Ned, it’s a fortune here,” Geena said.
    “At least let us split it.”
    I fingered open the half-folded bill that the waiter had placed in front of me. Three hundred