Authors: L. Alison Heller
I stand uncertainly for a moment in the hall of the courtroom with no momentum to go anywhere. For a split second, I contemplate just camping out here, in the Brooklyn courthouse. I wonder
how long I could stay. After several moments, I force myself outside to one of the empty benches lining the plaza. It’s a calm, beautiful summer day, the kind that would otherwise make me feel carefree and hopeful: sun, a warm breeze, happy little bird chirps.
Outside, people lazily circle the white tents of a farmers’ market, canvas bags slung over their shoulders. I watch a man in army pants examining apricots like it’s the most important thing in his world—pick up, discard, pick up, discard—and feel a stab of envy for the apparent simplicity of his life.
I press the third speed-dial button on my phone and pray that one of the boppy college kids doesn’t answer. I can’t handle making small talk about their fall break trip to New York.
“Cheddar and Better. How can we tantalize you?”
Ugh. They have to change that greeting. “Hi, Dad.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing, why?”
“Oh, thank God. It’s the middle of a workday, so I thought—”
“Well, actually. Something did sort of happen.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He exhales. “Okay.” His tone is gentle as he waits a few seconds. “Can you help me out a little here?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
I hear the muffling of his hand on the mouthpiece and his whisper to someone named Bryce that he should handle something involving a delivery of heirloom ketchup.
Neither of us says anything for what feels like several minutes.
“Okay, so, the thing is I might need to come home, Dad.”
He speaks quickly. “That’s okay, Molly. Of course that’s okay. Come on home.”
“And I might need a job.”
“That’s fine, kid. We have jobs.”
Pause.
“I’m sorry.”
He makes his tone light, which must take a lot of effort. “Whatever happened, it’s okay.”
I scrunch my eyes shut, trying to cauterize the path of the warm tears I feel swarming my eyes. It’s not okay. I have failed. I have gravely miscalculated, ignoring the pull of obligation that has defined me for as long as I can remember. And now everything is broken.
Worse, I know from my dad’s light tone that he doesn’t quite understand. So even though I’m not supposed to mention it out loud, I need him to know. Right now. “The thing is, I might not ever—” I swallow. “I might be somewhat of a lost investment for you guys. I might never help pay you back.”
There is a long silence, during which I picture him examining his pride, seeing if he can suture together what I’ve just filleted. When he speaks, though, he doesn’t sound embarrassed in the least. “Oh, don’t worry about that.”
My mom, who at some point must have picked up the extension in the storeroom, repeats the sentiment. “Not your job, Molly. You understand? That has never been your job.” And then, softly apologetic, she says, “We should’ve told her that, Bill. We should’ve made sure to tell her that.”
We sit in still silence, me on my bench, the two of them in different rooms, both having stopped the constant motion—the packing and unpacking, the greeting, the ordering, the filing—to talk to me. When Bryce’s voice interrupts again, my dad tells him to shush and there’s some whispered conversation about coffee bean grinders.
“Thanks. I’ll call you guys later tonight.”
I hang up and imagine moving back to Hillsborough until I’m debt free: twenty years of eating cheese straws and yogurt-covered
pretzels. Snap out of the self-pity party, Molly. I clap and shrug my shoulders a few times. The little kid on the adjacent bench giggles and imitates me, sending his snack pack of Cheerios flying. “Jacksonnn, what are you doing?” says his nanny. “Stop that, Jackson. Naught-ee!”
The move kind of works, though. I find the energy to get up and take the few steps toward the subway.
____
I
t’s not as bad as it could be, I tell myself when I see my computer. The screen is black except for the familiar prompt for my log-in and password, meaning—thank frigging God—I logged off the computer early this morning before leaving for court. Meaning that Lillian was not privy to my personal e-mails.
Once I celebrate this little gift, though, it’s hard to stay upbeat. Looking around, I can picture—as if in one of those shaky camera dramatizations—Lillian yanking open the file folders that had been neatly piled on my desk, toppling papers like a spread deck of cards. She’s left some of my desk drawers open and overturned my Bacon Payne Summer Swing Cruise coffee mug so that there are gel pens and highlighters sprawled all over the desk. Several random sticky notes are on the floor, curled up defensively.
It feels no less invasive than that time in fourth grade when my mom and I came home from my softball game on a Saturday afternoon and found out we’d been robbed: broken window, drawers emptied of clothing, books strewn on the floor. I know part of the point behind Lillian’s tirade, though, is that my office is her office; my case files are her case files.
Liz’s office is empty; so is Henry’s. Against my better judgment, I walk in to leave a note for him. Searching for a pad of
paper on his desk, I see it, a yellow note stuck to his keyboard with the message “Julie called.” There’s a little heart over the
i
.
Great, true love for Henry.
I retreat quickly.
Jane is in her office. She looks up when she sees me walk by. “Oh, hi,” she says, her voice bright, “good to see you! How are things?”
I want whatever that girl is on.
Rachel’s door is closed, so I knock tentatively. She’s on the phone, but when she sees me, she waves me in, motioning for me to shut the door. She wraps up her phone call with a series of brisk “Yeps,” holding up her finger in the gesture for
Don’t move.
Finally off the phone, she shakes her head slowly and looks at me with an exaggeratedly stunned expression on her face. “Where the hell have you been?” she whispers like she’s talking to a fugitive, which I guess she is, in a sense.
“Down at court. In Brooklyn.”
She inhales deeply and nods. “Oh, okay. I knew it. I told Liz you weren’t dumb enough to just go AWOL like that. I can’t believe Kim spaced a court date. Scary.”
“Actually, it wasn’t Kim’s screwup.”
She squints. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s not one of the firm’s cases.”
Quick headshake. “Still don’t understand.”
“The case is mine. It’s a very long story. No one knew.”
“You’ve been secretively doing your own case on the side? Since when?”
“About a year and a half ago. I didn’t tell because I thought I’d incriminate you.”
Rachel rolls her eyes, visibly ticked. “Ummmm. O-kay. What is this, Langley? Is your client Jason Bourne?”
I half laugh.
“No, really, who’s your client?”
I feel my face get red and I tell her the whole story.
__________
W
hen I’m done, she whistles. “Wow, what Lillian did today was mild compared to what she’d do if she knew that. She’d probably stroke out.”
“Was it awful today?” I say.
“Um, a little intense. Liz and I were able to piece most of it together. Lillian was in one of those bored moods where she just wanted to play. She kept pacing the halls, buzzing us to come in, having little tea parties. She asked for you a couple times and then, at some point, she started to get angry about it. Kim said you had court all day and Lillian wanted to know which case. Kim didn’t remember and looked on the calendar and they had a whole big thing in the hall.” Rachel grimaces. “Anyway, then Lillian went into your office.”
“What did she say?”
“Ah, well, you can imagine. Just where were you and this wasn’t the type of shit any decent associate would do. And how you’ve been kind of absent lately, you’re not a team player, you only care about yourself. Um, you know…. Just that kind of stuff.” From her rushed tone, I can tell that this is a whitewashed version of events.
“And?”
Rachel’s cheeks color a little. “She said some mumbo jumbo about you coming from nothing and not being able to hack it in the real world.”
“Oh.” For some reason—inexplicable, given my disdain for Lillian—this cuts to the gut.
“Then there was screaming, door slamming, the whole thing. Did you have anything incriminating in your office?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Good, because she was in there for a while.”
“Yeah, I just saw it. Total tornado. I half expected to see ‘Surrender, Dorothy’ written on the ceiling.”
We laugh, weakly and briefly.
“So, how long do you think I have?” We both know what I mean.
“Not sure.”
“What should I do?”
“Grovel maybe? That didn’t work for Hope, but…” She trails off. “You do have some time because, you know, she’s out for bugville all next week.”
“Oh, bugville, right.” I had totally forgotten. Lillian is joining Roger in Australia this week for some sort of association-of- stick-insect bonanza. She made a big deal about how, for once, this trip she would just be Mrs. Fields. She was going to book tons of appointments at some posh spa and overload on their hibiscus facials. Or aromatherapy massages. Or something.
“You forgot about her vacation?” Rachel looks like I have just asked her whether you need fault grounds to get divorced in New York. “You really are in your own world.”
“I know. I’m a mess.”
__________
I
say good-bye to Rachel and go find Kim to ask for Lillian’s travel plans. She makes fleeting eye contact with me, which is not a good sign of my shelf life. She pauses—the first time I’ve seen Kim do that—before answering in slow, measured tones that Lillian’s flight doesn’t leave until very late tonight, but it might not be the best idea for me to call right now.
I had been ready to throw in the towel a few hours ago, but now that I’m here, there’s a tiny, idiotic ember of hope in my belly. I’m so close. Just three weeks until my fifth anniversary. Three more weeks in which I should be able to draw things out and put up with whatever Lillian throws at me. I have to give it a shot.
Lillian picks up on the second ring, obviously thinking it’s Kim. “So, can she do Tuesday instead?” She’s eating something, based on the smacks and crunches from her end of the phone.
“Lillian, it’s Molly,” I say quickly.
Silence. The chewing noises stop as abruptly as if she’s spit out her fat-free bagel chips.
“Listen, I heard you were looking for me and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here and I just wanted to apologize. Is there anything I can do?”
Silence.
“I know I let you down. I promise to keep Kim in the loop in the future.”
Silence.
I know that she’s waiting for an explanation. I wish I had the balls to blithely hang up, but I don’t. “Yeah, I, um, I had a personal matter and I was actually down at court for it, and I’m so sorry. I know it was very unprofessional of me—”
“A. Personal. Matter?” She spits the words as if I had just told her I had spent the day down at the Hustler Club, snorting blow and catcalling at the strippers.
“Yes, but—”
“Enough. You have interrupted enough of my vacation time. I will deal with this inanity when I get back. In the meantime, organize your office. It’s an embarrassment.”
She hangs up the phone. I need one of those arctic sleeping bags to recover from the chill of her voice. I know I just made things terribly worse.
____
I
t’s five days after my phone call with Lillian, and when I don’t have court appearances, I’m hiding at home, where I am now.
My Molly Grant, PC, cell phone buzzes for the second time with a number that I don’t recognize. It’s eight thirty at night—too late for the court, so I let it go to voice mail, pacing around the room until a message notification appears.
“Hi, Molly Grant. Ari Stern from the
Independent
. I’d love to chat again. We’re running an article about Robert Walker’s recent troubles, mostly the custody issues. Anyway, I’d love to talk to you again, get some quotes, see where you think things are headed. Give me a call, 347-555-2121, or I’ll try again. Ciao.”
His tone is breezy and familiar, as if he is confident that we’ve met before, which we haven’t, because I’d remember it. Unless I met him the day of Lillian’s anniversary party. I don’t remember whole chunks of that day.
I play it a few more times.
Around the sixth time I hear the “Ciao,” his voice registers and it clicks. Ari is scruffy man from the hall. Who apparently is not a downtrodden potential client but the reporter. And according to him, Robert Walker has “troubles,” as in more than one.
I turn on my computer.
Wall Street Journal, Crain’s, The Deal
, the
New York Times
business section, the
Financial Times
—they all have an article about some sort of coup at Options Communications.
I take the shortcut and pick up the phone to call the one person who I know will be up on the issue. Like any good corporate lackey, he picks up halfway through the first ring even though it’s almost nine o’clock.
“Kevin, what’s happening with Robert Walker and Options?”
“How do you not know this? It’s the biggest deal.”
“So I gather.”
“And why aren’t you in the office?”
“I’m working from home.”
“Wow, matrimonial is cushy.”
“So, the Robert Walker thing?”
“Total bloodbath,” Kevin says with relish.
“Why?”
His voice shifts to an imitation of a nasal-sounding professor. “Classic activist shareholder coup. Classic.”
I laugh, which is nice, because I haven’t done so in days. Kevin and I have a running joke that the names of corporate subterfuge maneuvers sound like titles of spy novels. I infuse my voice with mock suspense. “Was the corporate veil pierced? Was there a poison pill? Does he at least have a golden parachute?”
“Oh, he’ll be okay. He has a big golden parachute—he’ll get oodles of millions when they oust him.”