He tried to signal Becca, to let her know. She was talking to some of the teachers from her school.
Will waved a spatula.
Someone patted him on his back.
“Calling in the reinforcements?” a voice said.
Will turned around. It was Brian Vann.
Invited at the insistence of Becca.
“You never know,” Becca had said. “You might leave the public defender’s office and want to start a practice. Brian could
help
you.”
Will tried to explain that you don’t start a practice at forty-one. Doesn’t happen.
I made my bed, Will tried to explain. Public defending is dirty, cheap-paying law work. It serves the public good but you’ll never get rich.
Hell, even with Becca’s salary, sometimes it was hard to make two ends meet anywhere near the middle.
How was I to know that the eighties were to be the decade of greed? Missed that boat completely. I always did have a proclivity toward the unfashionable.
“Hello, Brian,” Will said. Will looked at Brian’s Molson bottle, the dark green glass hiding its status.
“Need a fresh one?”
Brian shook his head. “No, just grabbed this one myself. So how are you doing, Willy?” Brian asked, with the concerned, forthright expression of someone who wanted, in intimate detail, the exact status of your life at that moment, from the bedroom to the bankroll.
Will turned back to the burgers.
“Good. Keeping busy. Handling a few interesting —”
“I bet. Say, did you read about John?”
John Fortier was another neighborhood lawyer who was, from all appearances, doing extremely well. He was also at the picnic, sitting and listening to Becca.
“No.”
“He’s been made a full partner in his firm.”
Will nodded. Trying his damnedest to be disinterested.
Brian came closer.
“The grapevine has it that he’s going to be good for half a mil a year, minimum.”
Will smiled. “That’s great.”
Super. Fantastic. Best fucking news I heard all day, Will thought.
As if to confirm that fact, the pleasant part of the day faded as a puffy cloud, a rogue cumulus patrolling the blue ceiling, blotted out the brilliant sun. Gooseflesh rose on Will’s arms, encouraged by the ever-stronger breeze.
“Getting chilly,” he said. To Brian. To himself. He wasn’t sure.
Then he turned to Brian Vann, alighting at last on a strategy to make him go away. “Could you ask Becca to come over? We’re about ready to go here.”
“Oh, sure,” Brian said. And then Will watched him hurry over to Becca, interrupting her in midlaugh.
She looked over at Will, and he guessed that he must look like a forlorn figure, standing by his Gasjet grill, a reluctant soldier in the suburban army.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, walking up to him, her smile now gentle and sweet. It was it special smile that, for all of Becca’s social graces, he knew she reserved only for him. “I was just talking about my new principal .
.
.” She made a small laugh.
“That’s okay.” He pointed down at the grill. “These suckers are ready.”
“Gotcha,” she said, grinning more broadly. “I’ll get the paper plates set out.”
“What a smart girl.”
Her hair was darker than Sharon’s, but it was long and — for these days — unusually straight. She felt no need to crop it to the size of a beanie or whip it into a frenzy of exotic curls that — in another era — would have been called tawdry.
And though she was a bit rounder than when they got married fifteen years ago, she looked appealingly sexy. As he liked to joke with her .
.
.
I guess we’ll keep you around.
The truth of it was more simple.
Without her, he’d be lost.
To his work, to his thoughts, to his dreams.
To himself.
She’s my lifeline to the planet, he knew.
“Don’t
boin
the
boigers
!” she said. Her best imitation of a Brooklyn accent.
An accent that he had lost somewhere between skiing in Vermont and four years of college in Massachusetts.
He smiled and started shoveling the meat patties onto a big metal tray.
“Hors d’oeuvres?”
He looked up. Sharon held her tray of pigs in blankets as if it were a gift from the Magi. She was twelve going on forever.
The only time Will felt hopeless, defeated by life, was when he thought about the future.
What kind of world will she and Beth get?
It’s not just a case of it being
different
.
The world had become a jungle. Dangerous, hostile, thick with vile things that could take her sweetness and squeeze it right out of her.
We should move to fuckin’ New Zealand, he thought.
But then — he had just read a story. They got crack there too. Some local politico helped finance a crack operation run right there, out of Christchurch.
“Oh, cocktail wieners,” he said, gushing. “My fave.” He snatched one and tossed it into the air.
“Dad-deee!” Sharon said, horrified by his gaucheness. But she was smiling, laughing at his trick.
He nearly missed. But he caught the end of the mini-frank and gobbled it like a cormorant tossing back a squirming herring.
“Dad, that’s not how you eat them!”
“Oh, no?” he said in mock surprise.
Sharon shook her head in disapproval.
But Will was saved from a real scolding by Becca, calling their guests to the suddenly set picnic tables.
And he left his post, and carried his spoils to his well-lubricated guests.
“What do you think, Will?” It was Brian Vann again, attempting to lure him into the discussion.
Into a discussion about a subject Will knew nothing about. He looked at Becca, feeling her eyes on him, knowing how uncomfortable he was.
Vann recapitulated. “You see, the SEC claims insider trading, since the corporation counsel did have prior awareness of the sale. But the CEO countered with the fact that his counsel had only heard
speculation
about the possible sale, among a number of other possibilities. It’s a judgment call, the legal team claims. All perfectly legal.”
Will winced. Why is he doing this? he wondered. Is he trying to embarrass me?
“It’s way out of my field,” Will said, wiping his mouth.
Brian was at least four Molson Goldens on his way to lugubriousness. He pressed on.
“But that’s exactly what I mean. You’re out of the corporate rat race —”
We all know what that means, don’t we? Will thought.
“You’d have a good legal opinion on the matter, as an outsider.”
Will nodded, feeling the trap close, irresistibly tight.
Vann waited. Then he said: “So what do you say?”
Will cleared his throat.
Stand back everyone and hear the lowly paid, onetime idealistic public defender speak on a matter that he has no knowledge of.
Crack I know. I knew four different ways to process the shit, a dozen ways it can be brought into the country. I know how a human mule forces the condoms full of raw cocaine into his stomach, making, for once, their dumb-ass lives finally worth something.
And I know about guns, not that I’ve ever fired one. But I know what people in the inner city favor as a weapon — a police magnum, if they can get it. But any compact 35mm handgun will do. I know how many drunk drivers are on the road each Friday and Saturday night and how many of them are tooling around in unlicensed cars without insurance.
I know about men who beat women and children. Every day, until something really bad happens and they sit there, shaking, talking to me.
They got rights too, I tell myself.
And sometimes all I want to do is blow them all to hell, all of their fucked-up, twisted lives, filled with drugs and weapons and pain and stolen cars.
Blow ‘em the hell away.
While I pack up my family and go .
.
. where?
Not New Zealand.
A town called Alice? Down under .
.
. and sinking fast. Or Ireland, where the potato famine reigns eternal? Or Japan, where the stressed-out businessmen read S&M comics like Rapeman?
Mars. Ice Station Zebra?
Face it, kiddies, there’s no way out of here.
Despite what the Joker said to the Thief.
“Well,” Will said slowly, realizing that everyone was listening for one of his infrequent excursions into the chatter of human concourse called conversation, “I think that if anybody is dealing stocks, bonds — junk or otherwise — and they have any inside information of any kind and they use it .
.
. well, I think that you can probably get their ass thrown in jail.”
Will took a slug of his now putridly warm beer. He realized that there was silence.
Wrong answer, he guessed. That wasn’t the answer that everyone was clamoring to hear.
Brian nodded. Then, as his look of dismay melted away, he forced a big grin onto his tanned face.
Aruba, Jamaica.
That’s where the big bucks take ya .
.
.
“Right. Sure, Will. With the right prosecuting DA, with a crackerjack government lawyer.” He paused for effect. So that everyone could realize the unlikelihood of that happening. “But with the best legal help money can buy, I don’t see how any company would have to spend more than a few minutes worrying about it.”
“Not that we’d recommend it,” Fortier, new VP with stock options to burn, added.
People laughed at his witticism.
Which Will didn’t see as a witticism at all.
He rubbed his eyes, retiring to his role as ex-chef and member of peanut gallery.
When he took his hand off his eyes, he saw Becca looking at him, her smile small, and sad now. Knowing what he was feeling.
Which is what? he thought. What the fuck exactly am I feeling?
He looked at Beth playing with the other kids, tossing a Frisbee with a hole in it, running around, dashing in between the long shadows of the house.
What am I thinking?
That I have to do something about my life. Make some time for friends. Do things .
.
. play golf, racquetball, something to shake me out of my funk.
And maybe — go on, he told himself, admit it .
.
. you’ve been thinking about it .
.
.
Maybe ask for some corporate work on the side. Some legal stuff, a handout from Vann that would bring some extra money in the house.
So they could upgrade one of the cars.
Maybe finish the family room that still looked like a garage.
He smiled back at Becca.
Here I am, he thought.
This is my life.
And — for some reason — I don’t feel too happy about it …
He got up to clear the table. Becca didn’t stop him. She understood.
He just hoped that nobody suggested that they move inside, and let the picnic roll on into the evening.
But like a lot of his wishes lately, that one didn’t come true either.
* * *
Becca combed her wet hair, pulling the brush through in smooth, gentle strokes with her head tilted to the side.
Will picked up the remote control and flicked to the National League play-off game. It looked as if the Mets were about to go down to another loss to the Cubs. Then the series would be tied 3-3.
“Was it terrible for you?” Becca said.
Will grunted, kicking off his sneakers, undoing his jeans, watching Frank Viola trying to pitch his way out of what had been a disastrous inning.
Take him out, Bud, Will urged the manager.
Another pitch. A ball. And then — the telepathy worked as Bud Harrelson oh-so-slowly crawled out of the dugout and ambled over to Viola.
A tad too late, Will thought.
“Well, was it?”
Will turned to her.
“Was it what?”
“Terrible. The picnic.”
He shook his head. “No. It was fine.” Then — a look of concern —”Did something go wrong? Something happen?”
She shook her head. Her robe slipped open a bit. The kids were sound asleep, exhausted from all the playing and partying that kept them up past their bedtimes.