Come As You Are

To say she was nervous was an understatement.

The phone lay before her on the table’s dull surface, but she didn’t touch it. She did everything but. Her fingers tapped steadily on either side of it, to no particular rhythm. Her brow and underarms pricked with perspiration. Something pulling at her gut strongly disagreed with her decision. She stared at the yellow post-it stuck on the table next to her phone, not really seeing the ten digit number she’d spent too long trying to track down.

Whitney exhaled aloud. It was a little past noon on a Saturday morning. The low drone of city life leaked in to her one-bedroom apartment. Stark white walls. Second-hand furniture. There was no roommate, just her. Then she frowned. That’s right - not just her.

She pressed her finger over the yellow post-it note, reading the phone number again. To call or not to call - that was the question. She knew she should. She needed to. There’s no where else left to turn. It’s the right thing to do. He’s entitled to know. I need the help.

Her frown morphed into a grimace as she picked up her phone. Dialing a number was much harder under these circumstances, as if the joints in her thumb had all seized to function correctly. Like they were telling her not to. But she nonetheless punched the number in. Only when she went to hit send did Whitney freeze completely. She could feel her heart beat in her thumb, as if pulsing toward the button. Like even her heart was telling her she needed to do this.

She pressed down quickly, gritting her teeth as if she were ripping of a band-aid. The dialing screen popped up and she pressed the phone against her ear.

The line picked up on the second ring. “Hello, you’ve reached Paul Howell’s office. Please hold.”

She held, accompanied by a saxophone wailing nondescript jazz. Whitney had always hated the songs they played to amuse her. On busy phone lines. In elevators. She hated them. Especially when they were only adding to her stockpile of anxiety.

The line clicked and a woman’s voice took the music’s place. “Thank you for waiting. How may I help you today?”

Whitney gnawed the inside of her cheek. “I need to speak with Mr. Howell please.”

There was a small pause. “Mr. Howells is just about to leave for lunch. I can leave a message-”

“Please,” Whitney heard herself plead. She’d finally worked up the courage to call - she wasn’t about to let what she had to say be scrawled onto a notepad and saved for later. “This is important.”

The assistant huffed a breath over the line. “Please hold while I transfer the call.”

More music. Whitney thought she was about to squeeze her phone to pieces when the line picked up again. “This is Paul Howell.”

Okay. Here goes nothing.

Or everything.

“This is Whitney Nash,” she said, her voice shaking with nerves. “I’m calling regarding one of your clients. Maxime Talbot.”

There was pause. Surprise, maybe. “Yes?”

“I, um- I’m calling because…” She closed her eyes and took her leap of faith. “I’m calling to inform you that he has a daughter.”

There was another, much longer pause. As if he were trying to determine whether or not the call could be legitimate. “Who may I ask is calling?”

Whitney gave out her full name, along with a long list of personal and contact information. Some information about the ‘daughter,’ but not much. She was half expected the lawyer to give her the verbal bird and hang up, but there was something in his tone that made her think he took this seriously. Probably because of something in her tone.

“Thank you for calling, Ms. Nash,” Paul said once she had no more information left to offer. “I’ll speak with my client about these…matters, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Whitney ran a hand over her face. “Thank you,” she said weakly. “Thank you so much.” As soon as she ended the call, the phone went clattering to the table. She hardly noticed as she sunk back in her chair, hands over her eyes, and no emotion left to spare.

She shouldn’t have done that.