Love Proof (Laws of Attraction) (33 page)

Bachelor’s in Political Science from University of California,
Berkeley, then law school at Stanford.  Member of the law review.  Twenty-eight
years old, had been practicing law for three years.

Sarah looked over and noticed Joe reading something on his phone.  She
wondered if he was checking up on Sollers, too.

“Now,” Ryan said, “if you wouldn’t mind, Ms. Townsend—do you mind if I
call you Amanda?”

“No,” she said, still sounding slightly nervous, “that’s fine.”

“Great, thanks.  All right, Amanda, if you would, I’d like you to take
me through a typical routine of straightening your hair.  From wet to
beautiful, just like it is right now.  Can you do that for me?”

Sarah admired Ryan’s way with the plaintiff.  He phrased everything as
a request, not a demand.  A “would you,” “can I,” “could you?”  Lawyers like
Paul Chapman were so heavy-handed, they ended up making people say as little as
possible just to try to get by.  But someone like Ryan Sollers could coax a lot
more information from a witness by coming across as polite and curious, with a
few humble and sincere-sounding apologies thrown in here and there.

The guy was good, Sarah thought.  Especially for someone who’d only
been at it for a few years.

She continued her search, looking for any information about cases he
might have been involved in before.  When she didn’t find anything right away,
she realized she should stop focusing on her screen and instead listen to the
testimony.

“So in between,” Ryan was saying, “when you’re unclipping the next
section of hair and getting ready to straighten it, where do you usually put
the hair iron?”

“You know, on the counter right next to me,” Amanda Townsend said.

“Give me a picture,” Ryan said, “if you don’t mind.  What’s your
bathroom counter made out of?  Tile, or maybe a laminate of some kind—do you
know?”

“Um . . . you know, it’s just this blue counter.  It’s whatever came with
my apartment.”

“Okay,” Ryan said, writing something down, “got it.  Now, what do you
usually have on your counter?  Probably some makeup, your toothbrush—give me a
picture, please.”

The young woman described the clutter of items on her counter.

“Great,” Ryan said.  “Thank you.  It sounds like there might not be
much room there.  Do you ever have a hand towel nearby?  Or a washcloth?”

“Sometimes.”

The two of them went back and forth discussing in minute detail
everything that might be on her counter on a typical day.  It was starting to
sound as boring as Chapman’s questions about a plaintiff’s educational history
or where her parents were born.

But then one of Ryan’s questions had Sarah turning to her Internet
search engine once again.

“Do you ever let the hair iron rest on a towel?”

“I don’t know, sometimes.”

“Do you remember if you did that the day it caught on fire?”

Sarah brought up the Atheena instruction manual.  She quickly paged
through to the warnings, and found the one she was looking for:

Never allow appliance to touch any fabric or other
flammable materials.

She continued searching through the instructions for other clues about
what Ryan was asking.

Do not place heated appliance directly on any surface
while it is hot or plugged in.

Do not operate appliance where aerosol spray products
are being used.

Keep away from cosmetics and hair products, as these
may be flammable.

A whole list of warnings, and Ryan Sollers was covering them one by
one, while pretending to have a conversation.

The guy was smooth.

By the time Ryan thanked Ms. Townsend again for her time and her
patience, Sarah realized he’d already asked many of the questions she normally
did.  The only area left to cover was the frequency of use and the period of
time the young woman had owned the product before it caught on fire.

It was only quarter to eleven when the deposition ended.  They wouldn’t
have another one until the afternoon.

“Pretty fast,” Sarah complimented Sollers while Joe and his client were
out of the room.

“Well, there’s not that much to this, is there?” Ryan answered. 
“Shouldn’t take too long.  I’ve been meaning to talk to you and Joe about
that.  I think we might want to revise the deposition schedule, now that I’m
taking over.”

Joe came back into the room.

“I was just telling Sarah,” Ryan continued, “that I’d like to make some
changes to the schedule.  Mr. Chapman was . . . ”

Ryan turned to the court reporter.  “Actually, Wendy, would you mind
leaving us alone in here for a little while?”

“Oh,” she said, looking a little flustered.  “Sure.”

“It’s nothing against you,” Ryan assured her.  “I just have a few
boring details to discuss with the other lawyers here, and I’m sure you’d
rather take an early lunch break than be stuck in here with us.”

Wendy smiled.  “Okay, sure.  Thanks.  I’ll be back at one.”

Ryan waited for her to leave before resuming.  “Paul Chapman has a
different philosophy about this case than I do,” he said.  “I assume I can
speak frankly?”

Sarah and Joe both nodded.  Sarah resisted shooting Burke a look.  What
was Sollers up to?

“Let’s just say his case load isn’t as heavy as mine.  Paul . . . well,
he might be more in need of the billable hours than I am.”

Now Sarah and Joe did exchange a look.  Normally lawyers didn’t talk
about their colleagues to their opponents in a case.

“I’m not interested in spending five days a week flying to every podunk
airport on the map,” Ryan said.  “I have better things to do with my time, as
I’m sure you do, too.  So I’m prepared to cancel the current schedule and
propose a new one where we only fly to cities with major airports, and only
places where there are at least four plaintiffs in the area.  I’m talking about
Dallas, Atlanta, New York City.  No more flying for six hours just to take one
or two depositions in a small town.  What a waste of time and money.”

“I agree,” Sarah said, relieved to find someone sane on the other
side.  “I don’t know if Chapman told you, but I was going to add some cities
myself—”

“He did,” Ryan said.  “That’s why I wanted to discuss it with you first,
Sarah, before I did anything.  And you, too, of course, Joe.  I think we can
make this a lot simpler for all of us.”

Sarah glanced at Joe again, and saw him regarding Ryan with an odd
expression on his face.  Was it suspicion?  Wariness?  She couldn’t quite read
it.

“Let’s take a break now,” Ryan said, “and I’ll have my office e-mail me
the proposed schedule over lunch.  Does that sound all right?”

He smiled at both of them.  Sarah noticed Joe did not return the smile.

“Now,” Ryan said, standing, “Sarah, can I buy you lunch?  Sorry, Joe,
defense side only.”

“Sure,” Joe said, “no problem.”  But something about his tone didn’t
sound right to Sarah.  Something was up.

“Sarah, I understand you’re a vegetarian?” Ryan asked, moving now
toward the door.  He held it open for her while she took her time putting her
laptop away.  She continued wondering if Joe was trying to send her a signal of
some kind, or if he just didn’t particularly like Sollers.

“I am,” she said.  “Where’d you hear that?”

Ryan smiled.  “I always do my homework.  We’ll see you at one,” he told
Joe as they finally left the room.

“Sushi all right?” Ryan asked.  “I noticed there’s a place nearby.  I
used to date a vegetarian girl.  Sushi was always our compromise, since we
could both get what we wanted.”

“Sure,” Sarah said.  “Fine.”

But she was still distracted by Joe’s reaction.  Did he think Ryan was
hitting on her—was that it?  He had to know Ryan was no threat.  But men could
get strange ideas sometimes, Sarah thought, and maybe Joe still wasn’t feeling
secure enough about where she stood.  She’d have to make herself crystal clear
next time they were alone together.  Just the thought of it made her have to
hide a smile.

They had been so domestic that morning, both of them getting ready for the
workday, Joe shaving next to her at the sink while Sarah went through the
process of straightening her hair once again, since he had showered it back to
kinky the night before.

“I don’t know how you can still use that,” he’d said, shaking his head at
the Atheena in her hand.

“I bought mine three years ago,” Sarah said.  “There’s no danger.”

But then she realized she’d already said too much.  Granted, he was
leaving the case in just two days, and even his replacement would find out
about her strategy eventually, but Sarah knew better than to tip her hand this
early.  The man standing next to her in the bathroom wasn’t her lover at that
moment, he was still her opponent.  And Sarah had no desire to violate the
rules of the game.

In fact, in a way, it made it more fun to know that months would go by
before he would ever hear about what she came up with.  She relished the idea
of springing it on him one night after work, announcing that she’d gotten Mason
Manufacturing dismissed from the case.  That would be worth a celebration or
two.

“This place look all right?” Ryan asked her as they approached the
small restaurant.

“Sure,” she said.  “Fine.”

She checked off her selections on the order card, choosing an avocado
roll and another with fried tofu.  Ryan handed both cards to the server, then
motioned toward the tables.

“You choose,” he said, then he rested his hand lightly against Sarah’s
back as she passed him.

She took a longer stride to move out of range of his touch.  Maybe
Joe’s suspicions were right.

“So,” she said, adopting her most professional tone as Ryan slipped
into the booth across from her.  “How’d you end up with this assignment?  I
can’t imagine you volunteered.”

“Oh, you know,” he said modestly, “low man on the pole.  I do what I’m
told.”

Sarah took in the confident posture and smooth easiness of the man
across from her.  “Somehow I doubt that,” she said.

Ryan shrugged.  “Never say no when another lawyer asks you for a favor. 
There’ll always come a time when they have to pay you back.”

That sounded more like it, Sarah thought.  A young lawyer with a clear
vision of what he needed to do to get ahead.  She could certainly understand
that.

“So, I assume you did your homework, too,” Ryan said.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you typing away.  I assume it wasn’t a letter home.  What did
you find out?”

Sarah saw no reason to lie.  She gave him the brief history she’d
uncovered.

“Did you get to the track scholarship?” Ryan asked.

“No.”

Ryan nodded.  “Ran my way into UC Berkeley.  But once the coaches and I
agreed I probably wasn’t the next great 800-meter Olympian, I started looking
around for something less competitive.”

“So of course you chose law,” Sarah said.

“Naturally.  How about you?  Graduated from high school in only three
years, got your insurance agent’s license at eighteen, so I’m guessing you
worked your way through college, probably a combination of savings and maybe academic
scholarship to pay for law school—what am I missing?”

Sarah laughed.  “Well, you really did do your homework.  The insurance
agent thing—that had to be hard to find.  I don’t think anybody knows about
that anymore.”

“Just have to know where to look,” Ryan said.

Their lunches arrived, and both spent some time mixing wasabi and soy
sauce and otherwise tending to their plates.  But finally when they had both
downed a few rolls, Ryan looked across the booth at her again.

“You’re very pretty.  That must be a hazard.”

“How so?” Sarah asked, her voice decidedly chillier than before.

Ryan smiled.  “It’s still a man’s game, isn’t it?  Even though I heard
law schools are admitting about fifty-fifty, you still don’t see that many
females in the top spots.  Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t know, Ryan, why do you think it is?”  Sarah hated discussions
like this—as if she were expected to account for the success, or lack thereof,
of every other woman lawyer.

“It’ll happen,” Ryan said.  “Old institutions are slow.  Look at
politics—it’s taken forever for the women to catch up.  And it’s not because
they’re not capable—obviously they are.”

Saying what people want to hear?
Sarah thought. 
Check.
  Clearly the guy was
skilled at reading his audience and feeding it all the right lines.  He was no
amateur at manipulation.

Which made Sarah wonder what was behind this lunch in the first place.

“So,” she said, “is this just a friendly get-to-know-you, or is there
something else I should know?”