Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) (18 page)

She knew that would be enough to keep her father away from there
forever.  The man could never abide the cold.

While Sarah’s mother busied herself at the stove, Sarah couldn’t help
noticing how worn out she seemed.  Both her parents always looked tired to her
these days.  She wondered if they had always looked that way, and she just
never saw it when she lived at home.  But now that months went by between her
visits, she could see how they aged.  It was one of the reasons she was so
happy when they finally started accepting money from her.  She had visions of
helping them both retire within another few years.  It was just one more dream
she lost on April 6.

“How’s the car running?” her father asked.

“Really well.  No problems.  That was a good find, Dad.  Thanks.”

“I’ll tune it up for you again over Christmas,” he said.  “Don’t take
it to any of those L.A. shops.  They’ll ruin that car if they touch it.”

“I won’t let anyone else near it,” Sarah promised.

Her father nodded and went back to reading the paper.

“So, how’s it going with Joe?” Sarah’s mother asked.

Sarah knew that question would come.  Ever since she told her parents
who her opponent was, Sarah’s mother acted particularly protective.

“It’s fine,” Sarah said.  “It’s not a big deal.  We’re all so exhausted
all the time from the travel, no one even bothers talking to each other very
much.”

She knew she should feel bad about lying that way, but it was better
than the alternative.  If her mother had any hint of what happened with Joe the
day before, she would have lectured Sarah for hours about how untrustworthy he
was, how maybe he was trying to take advantage of their relationship so he
could win his case, how Sarah was too good for him back then and far too good
for him now, and of course he realized that, but too bad, he’d had his chance
and thrown it away, he never should have treated her like that . . .

Only some of which Sarah agreed with.

“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” her mother said, taking the
potatoes off the stove and draining them over a colander.  “If your father ever
left me, I’d never forgive him.  You remember that, Gene.”

“I’ll remember,” he said, winking at Sarah.

“I don’t know how I’d ever be able to sit in a room with him even
once,” Sarah’s mother said, “let alone over and over, week after week.  I’d be
so angry I couldn’t stand it.”

“Oh, come on,” Sarah’s father said.  “Work’s work.  You can’t always
choose who’s on the job with you.”

“That’s right,” Sarah said, grateful that her father was always so
practical.  “I’m just glad to make money again.  I should be out of debt by the
middle of next month.  Then I’m going to start sending you some again. 
Yes
,
I am, Dad,” she said before he could argue.  “When’s the last day off you had? 
Either of you?”

“We’re both taking the whole weekend off,” Sarah’s mother said.

“Good.  That’s progress,” Sarah answered.

“What do you think will happen when your five months are up?” Sarah’s
father asked.

“I’m hoping they’ll offer me a permanent job there.  If not, at least I
have something new on my résumé.  I’ll be fine.  Things are already so much
better.”

Sarah got up from the table before her mother could steer the
conversation in the wrong direction again.  “Want me to mash those?”

“Sure, honey.  Butter and milk in the fridge.”

Sarah and her mother had reached a compromise about her food:  Sarah
wouldn’t eat any meat—not the Thanksgiving turkey or the Christmas ham or any
of the other standard meals her mother made for every holiday, including the
meatloaf Sarah used to love to have any time she came home—but Sarah also
wouldn’t be such a stickler about butter and cream and other dairy products her
mother insisted made every dish of hers as rich and delicious as it was.  So she
accepted the milk in her mashed potatoes.  And the butter dripping on the
rolls.  And every other off-limits item her mother depended on in her cooking.

Sarah could have another green smoothie when she got home.  Until then,
she was in her mother’s work-worn hands.

“Bet that Joe Burke wishes he could see you right now,” Sarah’s mother
said.  “Look how beautiful you are.  He probably hates having to take a few
days off.  I’ll bet he wishes all the time the two of you were still together.”

“He doesn’t,” Sarah said, wanting to shut down the topic once and for
all.  “We’re opponents, Mom, that’s all.  It’s business.  Lawyers have to deal
with this all the time.  Sometimes you get along with the attorney on the other
side, sometimes you don’t.  But everyone’s just working their cases and trying
to win.  I’m sure Joe and I will never even run into each other after this is
all over.  It’ll be like it never happened.”

Sarah’s mother humpfed, but then went back to tending her turkey.  She could
speculate all she wanted about what was going on in Joe Burke’s mind at that
very moment, as long as they didn’t have to talk about it anymore.

Sarah mashed the potatoes, wishing she weren’t wondering the same
thing.

Twenty

“There she is!” Paul Chapman bellowed when Sarah walked into the room. 
“Heard you lost your cookies.  Hope it wasn’t something I said.”

Sarah gave him an unfriendly smile and greeted Marcela instead.

“Thanks for your help last week,” Sarah told her.

“No problem,” Marcela said.  “You looked awful.”

“All better now, though,” Sarah said cheerfully.  “Burke.”  She nodded
to her opponent.

“Sarah.”

Joe’s client sat at attention, hands clasped tightly in front of her,
face tense with anxiety.  Joe whispered to the woman, and she nodded stiffly. 
Sarah felt badly for her.  She knew how stressful legal proceedings could be
for people outside the profession.  Many times she imagined her own parents
having to sit through a deposition or a trial and having to face someone like
Sarah whose sole goal was to pick their testimony apart and make sure they
lost.

But no matter how much sympathy she had for the woman across from
her—particularly since Sarah could still see the damage the hair iron had done
to the woman’s head—she knew it was Joe’s job, not hers, to make his client
feel better.

“Everybody ready?” Chapman asked.  Marcela began typing as Chapman
introduced himself for the record.

Then the new workweek began.  “Ms. Hopkins, where were you born?”

***

Sarah had packed better for Montana.  She checked the weather in
Missoula ahead of time, saw that it would be cold and rainy, and packed tights
to wear under all her suits, a full-length raincoat that would cover her past
her knees, and the hat and gloves she’d picked up at the Walmart in Salt Lake
City.  She was done seeming frail and incompetent, too stupid to anticipate the
conditions and know how to keep herself insulated and dry.

She also packed a set of resistance bands she borrowed from Angie so
she could do some strength-training in her room in addition to running on hotel
treadmills every morning.  She needed to reclaim her healthy body.  Needed to
regain her balance.

With Joe as much as anything else.

It was the last week in November already, which meant she had survived
eight full weeks of their grueling pace on the road.  Montana and back to Utah and
on to Idaho this week, Oregon next, then Washington and Minnesota before they
all took a holiday break.  A week and a half off, then back to work in January.

Looking at the schedule, Sarah couldn’t imagine how Mickey’s boss
thought she’d be done by the end of February.  Sarah always knew she wouldn’t
be traveling to every single state—that would have taken months and months
more, and the class certification hearing was already set for March—but still,
now that she was on the hunt, she wished she could gather as much information
as possible.

Maybe another temporary attorney in her position wouldn’t have bothered
working the case so hard, but Sarah couldn’t help it.  She needed to go for the
A.  It had nothing to do with beating Burke any more, and everything to do with
her own pride and satisfaction.

Sarah asked her questions, and they let Ms. Hopkins go.  Chapman had
been speedier this time, and it was only eleven o’clock when they took their
break.

“Wow, at this rate,” Sarah said, “we could actually fit in three
depositions every day.”  She said it sarcastically, but she was really feeling
out the room.

When neither Chapman nor Burke took the bait, Sarah said, “I’m
serious.  Let’s think about adding more depos.  I’d like to make it to the east
coast by mid-January.”

“Why?” Joe asked.

Sarah turned to face him.  He looked tired.  He’d looked tired all
morning.

“I’d like to do more discovery before the hearing,” she said.  “If the
three of us can agree to that now, then great.  If not, I’ll file a motion with
the judge.  But either way, I want to talk to more of your clients, Burke.  I’m
sure you’re not trying to hide anything.”

There it is,
she thought.  He didn’t look so tired now.  He looked angry.

“On the record,” he said to Marcela.  The court reporter had to quickly
set down her muffin and coffee, and prepare to type again.  “Counsel for the
plaintiff stipulates to expanding discovery to include additional depositions of
parties.  Names of deponents, locations, dates, and times to be determined upon
consultation with opposing attorneys.”

He glanced at Marcela.  “Off the record.”  Then he leveled his gaze at
Sarah.  “Satisfied?”

“What do you say, Paul?” she asked, turning away from Joe’s eyes.  “Now
that you’re warmed up, ready for a marathon?”

Chapman bit down on a danish.  “Don’t know why you have to make it so
hard, Sarah.”

“I don’t know,” she answered, “maybe because they’re paying me?”

She’d already drawn up a preliminary schedule while Chapman droned on
that morning.  She showed the other two lawyers how they could fit in at least
five more states, all in the Midwest and on the east coast, between then and
the end of February.

Chapman glanced at the court reporter to make sure they were still off
the record.

“You know it’s going to settle,” he said out of the side of his mouth
as if letting them in on a secret.  “Don’t know why you’re going to all this
trouble.”

Burke smiled, but Sarah knew that look:  Joe’s
You’re a complete
idiot
look.  “Of course we’ll entertain any offers your client wants to
make, Paul,” he said.  “And since I expect the judge to certify this as a class
action, you should probably make me an offer soon, before that happens.  But
until then, if we’re in it, we’re in it.  I don’t object to Sarah talking to every
single one of my clients if she wants to.”

Sarah noticed he didn’t look at her.  He wasn’t doing this for her
benefit, she supposed, he was just reacting to the procedural aspects of the
case, the same way he would if there had been any other attorney on the other
side.

Chapman sighed.  “All right, if you two are such gluttons.  But I may
start sending an associate to some of these.  I still have work to do back at
the office, you know.  I don’t even get my weekends anymore.”

“You poor man,” Sarah couldn’t resist saying.  “Whereas I go straight
from the airport to a spa every Friday night.”

“See?” Chapman said to Joe, pointing at Sarah.

“I have the pink toenails to prove it,” Sarah added.  She and her
mother had enjoyed a ladies’ pampering night over Thanksgiving, and it was the
first time in months any nail of Sarah’s had seen any color.  Now that she
thought about it, the idea of going from LAX to a spa sounded so heavenly—and
out of reach—she wished she’d never brought it up.

“I’m going to lunch,” Joe said.  “We’re back at one o’clock.”

***

The man stayed true to his word, Sarah thought.  He barely looked at
her if there weren’t some reason associated with the case, and he’d certainly
been keeping his distance all day long.  On the way back from lunch she saw him
waiting to cross the street, and she knew he saw her, too.  But he didn’t wait
for her, didn’t try to initiate any kind of conversation, just pulled his suit
coat tighter against the wind and strode back toward the hotel.

Sarah didn’t know what she expected.  No, that wasn’t true, she told
herself.  What she expected was some kind of recognition that she was wearing
their
hat,
their
gloves, maybe pull some kind of comment out of him, even if
it was sarcastic.  Anything to acknowledge that yes, they had their moments the
week before, and no, neither of them had forgotten.

But midway through Chapman’s ridiculous questioning of Burke’s next
client, Sarah snapped out of it and realized what she was doing.

I’m chasing him again.  I’m following him to the
library, begging him to talk to me, and there he is with that girl, and he’s
about to grab her ass—

“Your witness,” Chapman said abruptly.