It occurs to me that I have never heard my father talk about his business. Here I am working at the law firm and I’m not sure what it is he does.
“Yeah, but that’s the point. Those other saps are being represented by garbage. I’m the only one that Vidromek has to worry
about. You get rid of me and my five clients and you’re home free. You can squash the other ones.”
Arturo lowers his voice. “Listen, this is very risky on many counts, as you know. In order for this to work I will have to convince my client that you will be the only exception and that we can do this without anyone else finding out. Then we have to do the paperwork so that it looks good. The risks outweigh the ‘little bonus,’ as you put it.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I don’t want to talk about it here. Talk numbers with Stephen. Whatever he agrees to is okay with me.”
“Hell, Art, don’t make me talk to Holmes. He’s as greedy a little pig as there ever was.”
“That’s why I let him handle little bonuses.”
“Ha, ha. All right. I’m out of this torture chamber, and I’m not just talking about the machines.”
I hear him get off the bike and walk away. My eyes have been closed throughout the conversation. I have been trying to maintain a steady rhythm with my legs but have not been successful. The conversation between Arturo and Mr. Gustafson absorbed me. It reminded me of when I was learning sign language. The kids at Paterson would move their hands so quickly that I would only pick up a word here and there. But there was something else about this conversation. It was like hearing something I wasn’t supposed to hear or seeing a side of my father I was not meant to see.
“Are you awake or did you fall asleep?” I realize Arturo is speaking to me.
I open my eyes. “Awake.”
“Did you hear what Mr. Gustafson and I were talking about?”
For a second I am tempted to say that I did not. Maybe it was the way he asked the question, like he was hoping that I hadn’t. But I say, “Yes, I heard it.”
“And what did you think?”
“Think.”
“About the conversation. What impression did you get? What did you gather?”
“I did not understand all the terms. What does it mean to settle a case?”
“It means that we agree to pay the people that are suing us without going to court. We make an agreement with them. We pay them and they stop suing us.”
“There were words like ‘hate’ and ‘destroy’ used, but there was no anger between Mr. Gustafson and you.”
“That’s right. That’s the way it is. It’s just business. Nothing personal.”
“Vidromek wants you to put Mr. Gustafson’s law firm out of business. Vidromek hates Mr. Gustafson.”
“Not necessarily Mr. Gustafson.”
“‘Hate’ is a very strong term. It is a desire to hurt someone physically or emotionally by word or deed. Did you mean to use that word?”
“Yes. I guess that’s right. They don’t want to hurt him physically but they would like to hurt him financially and…maybe emotionally as well.”
“They want Arturo to hurt Mr. Gustafson financially and maybe emotionally.”
“I am Vidromek’s lawyer, so, yes, I’m the one.”
“Arturo can do that? You can do that?”
“Yes. Sometimes it is necessary. You stopped pedaling. Is something wrong?”
Not too far from the bicycles that Arturo and I are on, there is a water cooler. “Excuse me,” I say. I get down from the bicycle, walk over to the water cooler, and pour water into a paper cup that is shaped like a cone. I can feel my heart beat in my chest and my face is hot, as if it were sunburned. It is not from the bike, I know. I don’t know what has come over me. It is a strange feeling. Like the time when I touched my chest and discovered I had lost the cross Abba gave me just before she died.
“Are you all right?” I feel Arturo’s hand on my shoulder and without thinking I shake myself away from it.
“Yes. I would like to lift the weights now.”
I can feel Arturo looking at me, wondering what I’m thinking. I stop and say to him: “You asked some questions of me before that I did not answer.”
“Which ones?”
“You asked how I was doing at work. Then you asked how I was getting along with Jasmine.”
“That’s right. Good memory.”
“I would like to answer your questions now. I am doing okay at the law firm. I can do the tasks that are given to me, although some of them I do slower than what is expected. I still do not like working there. With regards to your second question: Jasmine and I get along in the sense that we do not disagree with each other and she is kind to me and does not reproach me for the mistakes I make. I am pretty sure that she would still rather have
Belinda. It was not right to give her Marcelo when she had been promised Belinda.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good summary of how things stand. Don’t worry about Belinda. And there is no need for you and Jasmine to be friends or even to talk to each other about anything other than the task at hand. You should make friends with Wendell. He can be helpful to you. Go ahead. Go lift your weights. I’ll come get you when it’s time to go back.”
I move on to the section where the free weights are located. I am not sure if my father and I had the kind of chat he was hoping for, as in father and son spending a little time together talking about nothing in particular.
P
robably the most stressful assignment at the law firm is the filing of documents at the courthouse. The assignment is stressful because the lawyers for some reason are not able to have the documents ready until the last possible second. It takes Jasmine at least thirty minutes going full speed to get the documents over to the courthouse and get the clerk to stamp them with the date and time. It takes me double that time. That is why Jasmine handles the real, real rushes or comes with me, like today.
Once you get to the courthouse you need to go to the Clerk’s Office, where there are always people in line. It seems that waiting until the last minute is a rule universal to all law firms. Jasmine and I are standing behind three other persons looking at the black hands of a white clock tick closer to five. We came together today because Juliet did not get us the documents until 4:35.
“She did it on purpose, I’m sure of it,” Jasmine says. She is talking about Juliet.
“Why would she do that?” I ask. “If the documents are not filed on time, it is Stephen Holmes and his client that are harmed.”
“To get us in trouble. I wouldn’t put it past her. ‘I gave it to them with plenty of time to get there.’” Jasmine imitates Juliet’s high-pitched voice.
I am not worried about filing the papers before five. I have been to the Clerk’s Office with Jasmine before and I have seen the assistant clerk, whose name is Al, talk to Jasmine. He is always very friendly to her. The last time we were here, he accepted her documents at 5:03 but somehow managed to have the time stamped on the documents read 4:59. Now I can see him looking up at Jasmine and smiling as he stamps other people’s documents.
“Is Al your boyfriend?” I ask.
Jasmine looks at me as if I had just appeared out of nowhere. “Noooo,” she says.
“He likes you,” I say.
“Why do you say that?”
“He is always looking at you and smiling at you, and he is nice to you in a way that he is not to other people. When I came by myself last Wednesday, I tried on purpose to see whether he was as nice to me as he is to you and he wasn’t. He did not smile at me. Not even once.”
We move up the line. “Really? Mmm. I always thought he was nice to everyone.”
“Does Jasmine know that she is beautiful?”
“‘Does Jasmine know that she is beautiful?’ What kind of question is that? How is a person supposed to answer that?”
“It is just a question.”
We are going to make it with plenty of time. Al is working incredibly fast. He has just time-stamped fifteen documents from the woman ahead of us in about thirty seconds. He is now nodding and smiling at Jasmine. Jasmine doesn’t seem to be paying any attention to him. Maybe she is thinking about my question.
“How am I supposed to answer that? It’s kind of a stupid question,” she says, but she doesn’t seem to be mad.
We are up next and I decide to watch Al as carefully as possible. I have this way of seeing where my head is down but my eyes move up or sideways. People think I’m not paying attention to them but I am. It is something that I need to work on because it confuses people, but sometimes it is helpful. It allows me to observe undetected.
Al seems nervous in Jasmine’s presence. He holds a document with both hands while he asks how her day has been going and I see the document tremble.
“I’m sorry to get here at the last minute,” Jasmine tells him. “You know how it is.”
“Oh, no problem, my pleasure. No problem at all.” I can actually see Al’s cheeks deepen in color from shades of pink to light red. He seems to be unable to lift his eyes and look at Jasmine directly, as if Jasmine were the sun. Then I turn my gaze toward Jasmine. She is exactly the same with Al as she is with every other person that she talks to. She rarely smiles at anyone. Her concentration is like a laser on whatever it is she is doing. She is courteous with people, says “please” and “thank you” when the occasion requires it, jokes with people or snaps at them when provoked, but she always seems to be reacting rather than initiating and her
reaction is extended only to the point that it is necessary and no further. It is as if the sun did not want to shine too much.
Outside, once we are down the steps of the courthouse, she says, “If we hurry, you can still catch your train.”
“I am driving home with Arturo today.” It is time again for a periodic assessment of Marcelo’s progress.
“Your father works late.” I notice that Jasmine is not walking at her usual fast pace.
“I brought a book to read.”
Jasmine nods. We walk side by side without talking. It occurs to me that at this very moment Jasmine is thinking. What is she thinking about? Does she see her thoughts go by on a screen the way I see mine?
“What are you reading?”
Her question startles me. I was expecting our trip back to the law firm to be in silence as it usually is. But also, it is not a question that I thought Jasmine would ever ask me. “It is a book that Rabbi Heschel lent to me. It is called
God in Search of Man.
It is written by a man named Abraham Joshua Heschel, but Rabbi Heschel is not related to him.”
“Who’s Rabbi Heschel? I thought you were Catholic. I’ve seen you pray the Rosary at your desk…when you thought no one was looking.”
“Oh,” I say. I feel a sensation of heat travel through my body. It is as if I have been caught doing something bad. How strange that I now feel this way about something I always thought was good.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell your father,” she says, smiling. She must have seen a look of worry on my face.
I nod. I am grateful that she saw me say the Rosary and did not say anything to me at the time. “My family goes to Catholic church. Not all the family, Aurora does not come with us. She is religious in her own way. She just doesn’t go to church. Ever since Marcelo was a child he has liked to read about religions. Rabbi Heschel works with Aurora at St. Elizabeth’s. I go to see her every couple of weeks. We talk about the religious texts I read. Sometimes we concentrate on particular texts and sometimes we jump around. Now we are reading the Psalms.”
“My mother loved the Psalms. She had many of them memorized,” she says.
“I memorize many of them myself,” I say. It is great to talk about my special interest. I warn myself not to monopolize the conversation, like I tend to do when talking about what I love the most, but to ask questions as well. I wonder if Jasmine is religious, but then I think of something else I want to ask her. “You used the past tense when you talked about your mother. You said your mother
loved
the Psalms.”
“She died four years ago.” Jasmine is looking at a red stoplight. When people tell you that a relative of theirs has died, you are supposed to say that you are sorry. I am about to say that when Jasmine says, “You are doing better in the mailroom.”
She is changing the subject, but sometimes people need to do that, to avoid memories that are painful. I follow along with her. “Is Marcelo better than Belinda?”
“No.” Jasmine’s response is very quick, quicker than I expected. Then she adds, “But Marcelo’s work is okay.” I can see a smile trying to form on her lips, but then it disappears. “Are you liking it better? Working at the law firm, I mean?”
“No.” It surprises me that my “no” is as quick as Jasmine’s. Then I think of asking, “Does Jasmine like working at the law firm?”
“Ehhh.” Again her response is immediate.
“What does ‘ehhh’ mean?” I wrinkle my nose when I say this, the same way she did.
“It means it’s okay. It means it’s a job. All things considered, it’s not so bad. There are worse jobs. When I started working there a couple of years ago, I was the assistant to this older woman, Rose, who had been doing the job since your father founded the firm. Then about a year after I started working there, Rose retired to be with her husband. I applied for her job. I had seen Rose do her job and I knew I could do it, but a lot of people in the firm didn’t think an eighteen-year-old was old enough to handle the responsibility of paying bills on time, sending out invoices for legal work, keeping track of supplies, all those things we do. I convinced your father to let me try and he gave me a chance.”
“You did not disappoint him.”
“There have been moments. It was hard with Ron. He was only there six months but it was difficult. He was older than me, and it was difficult to be a boss and earn someone’s respect.”
Jasmine and I walk in silence for a full block. I think of the words that are written on the wall in front of my desk.
“Ron didn’t like to work at the firm.”
“No.” I see Jasmine look at me as if she’s trying to make a decision. When she speaks, she speaks in a way I’ve never heard her speak before. Tentative. That’s what I think of when I hear her speak. “There’s a park nearby that I like to go to. Do you want to go? I want to show you something. You’ll be back in time to
meet up with your father, but you probably won’t have time to read your book. Is that all right?”