Guess That Is How I Know You

Chapter XXXI

July 27, 2017

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" That seemed to have been the only sentence I could muster to say all week long as Eve prepared a surprise birthday party for Cecilia.

Evelyn was too much her own person to let anyone else tell her what to do, and it was no surprise she did not care to listen to me when I presented my doubts about her plan.

"I know what I am doing. You would be wise to help me. Or do I have to remind you I am still your supervisor for another six months?" She loved to throw the power card around whenever it suited her, not that I minded though, I had gotten to know her enough to realize her threats were nothing but empty words.

I was glad to help her anyhow. As long as it did not backfire on me in the end, there was nothing I would enjoy more than to help her surprise Cecilia on her birthday.

I have no idea how, but the woman had managed to gather a handful of Cecilia's friends from her earlier days of travelling Europe. That in itself should have been considered a hell of a birthday present.

But the soon to be PhD Professor Evelyn Mace thought that was not enough. Reason why she forced me into helping her arrange a surprise party for Cecilia's birthday.

Lucy, much like myself did not think it was the best course of action. We all knew far too well how the older Bailey reacted to change. But the younger sister too was forced into helping set everything in place.

For it to be a surprise, Eve had decided to throw the gathering—as she would say—at her place.

Her apartment was big enough for the twenty or so guests to mingle. I wondered if her plans had more of a selfish reason as she had recently remodeled the place.

While the three of us sneaked around for a week to try and get everything ready before today, Cecilia seemed completely unaware of what was being planned behind her back.

Although she did mention my mother seemed unusually attached to her offspring—I had figured if I used my mother as an excuse to leave the apartment without her, she would not care half as much.

I must admit most of my doubts about this party had to do with Cecilia and I being seen together as a couple by pretty much everyone she considered a friend.

It was one thing for Evelyn and Lucy to be aware of our relationship. It was another whole different thing for all those people I had never even heard of—who seemed to know a completely different and more adventurous side of my girlfriend—to realize she was with someone almost twenty years younger.

She was always so worried about what people would think of her age when compared to mine, but she never realized it was a two-way street.

Cecilia was a year short of forty and I was only twenty-one. The last thing I needed was to hear these recently found friends of hers mocking how mature I must be, or how old my spirit seemed.

I despised those cliché statements, and I would hate for them to ruin Cecilia's birthday. It was bad enough she would be reminded about her aging.

I was not naïve. I knew she was growing old. I knew the difference would only be more visible each year. I also knew it was getting increasingly closer to my graduation and as soon as I started job hunting it would not be long for the rumors to reach the law firms' corridors.

Cecilia did not practice anymore, but she had left her mark and it was hard for other lawyers to not know who she was when half of them had been her students and the other half had, in at least one occasion, faced her on the other side of a deal.