and roared out into the street.
Part of her wanted to feel cold and sick and a little guilty. The rest of her was too ferociously angry to care how she drove.
She might not care, but with the luck she was running, she’d pick up a ticket on top of being drastically late. She made an effort of will and slowed down to something near a reasonable speed. Her brain flicked back into commuter mode, cruising on autopilot. The main part of her mind fretted away at this latest blow.
I can’t worry about it now, she told herself over and over. I’ll worry about it after I get to the office. I’ll worry about it tonight.
First she had to get to the office. When she came out onto Victory, she shook her head violently. She knew too well how long tooling back across the western half of the Valley would take. Instead, she swung south onto the San Diego Freeway: only a mile or two there to the interchange with the 101. Yes, the eastbound 101 would be a zoo, but so what? Westbound, going against rush-hour traffic, she’d make good time. She didn’t usually try it, but she wasn’t usually so far behind, either.
Thinking about that, plotting out the rest of her battle plan, helped her focus; got her away from the gnawing of worry about Josefina’s desertion. It was good for that much, at least.
As she crawled down toward the interchange, she checked the KFWB traffic report and then, two minutes later, the one on KNX. They were both going on about a jackknifed big rig on the Long Beach Freeway, miles from where she was. Nobody said anything about the 101. She swung through the curve from the San Diego to the 101 and pushed the car up to sixty-five.
For a couple of miles, she zoomed along — she even dared to congratulate herself. She’d rolled the dice and won: she would save ten, fifteen minutes, easy. She’d still be late, but not enough for it to be a problem. She didn’t have any appointments scheduled till eleven-thirty. The rest she could cover for.
She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Not today. Not with her luck.
Just past Hayvenhurst, everything stopped. “You lying son of a bitch!” Nicole snarled at the car radio. It was too much. Everything was going wrong. It was almost as bad as the day she woke up to a note on her pillow, and no Frank.
Remembering how bad that day was didn’t make this one feel any better. “Love, Frank, “ she muttered. “Love, the whole goddamn world. “
Her eye caught the flash of her watch as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Almost time for the KNX traffic report. She stabbed the button, wishing she could stab the reporter. His cheery voice blared out of the speakers: “ — and Cell-Phone Force member Big Charlie reports a three-car injury accident on the westbound 101 between White Oak and Reseda. One of those cars nipped over; it’s blocking the number-two and number-three lanes. Big Charlie says only the slow lane is open. That’s gonna put a hitch in your getalong, folks. Now Louise is over that jackknifed truck on the Long Beach in Helicop — ”
Nicole switched stations again. Suddenly, she was very, very tired. Too tired to keep her mad on, too tired almost to hold her head up. Her fingers drummed on the wheel, drummed and drummed. The natives, she thought dizzily, were long past getting restless. Her stomach tied itself in a knot. What to do, what to do? Get off the freeway at White Oak and go back to surface streets? Or crawl past the wreck and hope she’d make up a little time when she could floor it again?
All alone in the passenger compartment, she let out a long sigh. “What difference does it make?” she said wearily. “I’m screwed either way.”
She pulled into the parking lot half an hour late — twenty-eight minutes to be exact, if you felt like being exact, which she didn’t. Grabbing her attache case, she ran for the entrance to the eight-story steel-and-glass rectangle in which Rosenthal, Gallagher, Kaplan, Jeter, Gonzalez Feng occupied the sixth and most of the seventh floors.
When she’d first seen it, she’d harbored faint dreams of
Gary Ogarkov, one of the other lawyers with the firm, stood outside the doorway puffing one of the big, smelly cigars he made such a production of. He had to come outside to do that; the building, thank God, was smoke-free. “Nicole!” he called out in what he probably thought was a fine courtroom basso. To Nicole, it sounded like a schoolboy imitation — Perry Mason on helium. “Mr. Rosenthal’s been looking for you since nine o’clock.”
Jesus. The founding partner. How couldn’t he be looking for Nicole? That was the kind of day this was. Even knowing she’d had it coming, she still wanted to sink through the sidewalk. “God,” she said. “Of all the days for traffic to be godawful — Gary, do you know what it’s about?” She pressed him, hoping to hell he’d give her a straight answer.
Naturally, he didn’t. “I shouldn’t tell you.” He tried to look sly. With his bland, boyish face, it didn’t come off well. He was within a year of Nicole’s age but, in spite of a blond mustache, still got asked for ID whenever he ordered a drink.
Nicole was no more afraid of him than the local bartenders. “Gary,” she said dangerously.
He backed down in a hurry, flinging up his hands as if he thought she might bite. “Okay, okay. You look like you could use some good news. You know the Butler Ranch report we turned in a couple of weeks ago?”
“I’d better,” Nicole said, still with an edge in her voice. Antidevelopment forces were fighting the Butler Ranch project tooth and nail because it would extend tract housing into the scrubby hill country north of the 118 Freeway. The fight would send the children of attorneys on both sides to Ivy League schools for years, likely decades, to come.
“Well, because of that report — ” Gary paused to draw on his cigar, tilted his head back, and blew a ragged smoke ring. “Because of that report, Mr. Rosenthal named me a partner in the firm.” He pointed at Nicole. “And he’s looking for you.”
For a moment, she just stood there. Then she felt the wide, crazy grin spread across her face. Payoff — finally. Restitution for the whole lousy morning, for a whole year of lousy mornings. “My God,” she whispered. She’d done three-quarters of the work on that report. She knew it, Gary knew it, the whole firm had to know it. He was a smoother writer than she, which was the main reason he’d been involved at all, but he thought environmental impact was what caused roadkill.
“Shall I congratulate you now?” he asked. His grin was as broad as Nicole’s.
She shook her head. She felt dizzy, bubbly. Was this what champagne did to people? She didn’t know. She didn’t drink. Just as well — she had to be calm, she had to be mature. She couldn’t go fizzing off into the upper atmosphere. She had a reputation to uphold. “Better not,” she said. “Wait till it’s official. But since you are official — congratulations, Gary.” She thrust out her hand. He pumped it. When he started to give her a hug, she stiffened just enough to let him know she didn’t want it. Since Frank walked out the door, she hadn’t wanted much to do with the male half of the human race. To cover the awkward moment, she said, “Congratulations again.” And hastily, before he could say anything to prolong the moment: “I’d better get upstairs.”
“Okay. And back at you,” Ogarkov added, even though she’d told him not to. She made a face at him over her shoulder as she hurried toward the elevators. She almost didn’t need them, she was flying so high.
When she’d floated up to the sixth floor, her secretary greeted her with a wide-eyed stare and careful refusal to point out that she was — by the clock — thirty-three minutes late. Instead, she said in her breathy Southern California starlet’s voice, “Oh, Ms. Gunther-Perrin, Mr. Rosenthal’s been looking for you.”
Nicole nodded and bit back the silly grin. “I know,” she said. ‘I saw Gary downstairs, smoking a victory cigar.” That came out with less scorn than Nicole would have liked. She had as little use for tobacco as she did for alcohol, but when you made partner, she supposed you were entitled to celebrate. “Can he see me now, Cyndi?”
“Let me check.” The secretary punched in Mr. Rosenthal’s extension on the seventh floor, where all the senior partners held their dizzy eminence above the common herd, and spoke for a moment, then hung up. “He’s with a client. Ten-thirty, Lucinda says.”
Cyndi down here, Lucinda up above. Even the secretaries’ names were more elevated in the upper reaches.
