all.”
Easy for her to say. I feel like I need him now. I remember the weekend together, how sweet he was, and how open with me. He made love to me, he held me. He said things, things that thrilled me. Things it hurts to remember now. Tears come to my eyes; I blink them back. “You’re tough, Jude.”
“The stakes are high, Mary. I want to win.”
And either way, I lose. Because the ache inside me is telling me something, and it’s too strong to be something else.
I’m in love.
21
Ifeel like everyone’s watching me the next morning when I get off the elevator and walk to my desk. The secretaries in my area gaze at me bathetically, to them I’m the Young Widow Times Two. A partner glances back at me, wondering whether my billable hours will fall off. A messenger pushing a mail cart hurries by with a sideways glance. His look says, The broad must be some kind of jinx.
Why are they thinking about me? Why aren’t they thinking about Brent?
I feel shaky, disoriented. Nothing seems familiar here, least of all Brent’s desk. There’s a blotter with floral edges where there used to be a friendly clutter of wind-up toys and a rubber-band gun. Brent’s mug-WHAT DO I LOOK LIKE, AN INFORMATION BOOTH?-is gone. A calendar with fuzzy kittens has replaced a portrait of Luciano Pavarotti. The air smells like nothing at all; I can’t believe I miss the tang of Obsession. What I miss is Brent. He deserved a long and happy life. He deserved to be singing his heart out somewhere, for the sheer joy of it.
Somebody’s grandmother is sitting in Brent’s chair. She introduces herself as Miss Pershing and refuses to call me anything but Miss DiNunzio. Her dull gray hair is pulled back into a French twist, and she wears a pink Fair Isle sweater held together at the top by a gold-plated chain. She’s been a secretary in the Estates Department for thirty years. She brings me coffee on a tray.
It makes me want to cry.
I close my door and stare at the pile of mail on my desk. Without Brent, it’s not organized into Good and Evil and totters precariously to the left. Mixed in with the thick case summaries and fuck-you letters are batches of envelopes in somber pastel shades. I remember them from before. Sympathy cards, dispensing a generic sentiment in every cursive iteration imaginable:My thoughts/feelings are with you/your loved ones at this time of difficulty/of sorrow. May you have the comfort/solace of your loved ones/faith in God at this time.
I can’t bring myself to read any of the mail, especially the sympathy cards. They’re only a comfort to people who don’t know anyone who died.
I poke at a pink card on the top of the mail, and the tower topples over. It fans out across my desk, revealing at its center a bulky manila envelope bearing my name scrawled in pen.
Odd.
Miss Pershing’s sheared the top off the envelope, and so neatly that there’s barely any tearing. I open it. Inside is a piece of blue notepaper which saysFROM THE DESK OF JACKIE O at the top and reads:
Mary-
I cleaned out Brent’s desk. Thank you for everything, and for being so good to Brent. You may need this.
Love, Jack
Stuck in the envelope is Brent’s rubber-band gun. I smile, and am trying not to cry, when I remember the notes.
The notes! Brent kept them for me. Where are they?
I ransack my desk, but they’re not there. I rush out to Miss Pershing’s desk, and she watches, aghast, as I slam through the drawers. They’re all empty except for typing paper and Stalling letter-head.
Where are the notes? Brent would have put them someplace safe. He took care of me.
I run back to my office and call Jack, but he’s not at home. I leave a message, asking him to call back. I feel panicked. It doesn’t make sense that Jack would take them, but maybe he’ll know where they are. I still have my hand on the telephone receiver when it rings, jangling in my palm.
“DiNunzio?” barks Starankovic. His voice has a Monday-morning-I’m-refreshed punch to it. “You changed your number? I had to go through the switchboard.”
“I’m sorry-”
“When are the interviews?”
I cringe. I’d totally forgotten. “My secretary-”
“Don’t blame it on him, DiNunzio. Set ’em up today or I file the motion.”
“Bernie-”
Click.
I hang up the phone by the pile of disordered mail. I should straighten it up. It’s the Next Thing to do and I should do it. Dictate, return phone calls, back-fuck. I pick up an envelope, a white hand-delivery from Thomas, Main amp; Chandler, the third firm in the holy trinity. It must be a response to a motion I filed last week. Last week, when Brent was telling me to call the cops.
What did the Mike-voice say?I tried. I tried.
I put the envelope back down, feeling empty inside. Hollow. Aching. Exactly how I felt after Mike died, and how I was beginning not to feel before Brent was killed. I let the leaden sensation leech into my bones, into my soul. A little white pillowcase of a soul that turned black the instant of my birth, and even blacker when the men I love were killed on my account.
Suddenly, someone is clearing his throat directly above me. I look up into the bland visage of Martin H. Chatham IV.
“How do you tolerate it?” he says, with as much emotion as I’ve ever heard from him.
“Stand what?”
“That blasted clock!” Martin sits down in one of the Stalling-issue chairs in front of my desk and crosses his legs.
I look over my shoulder. 9:15. “You get used to it. Sort of.”
“I don’t see how. But you’ll be vacating this office after June,n’est-ce pas? When we make our new litigation partners.” His tone is oh-so-controlled, but I’m in no mood to fence.
“I hope so.”
“Come on, Mary. We both know you’re on track.”
“I am? I guess I haven’t thought about it lately.”
Martin’s face changes, as if he’s remembered his manners. “Yes. Of course. I’m sorry about your secretary.”
“Thank you.”
“Damn drunk drivers. It’s a terrible way to go.”
I flash on the car as it explodes into Brent’s body. And Mike’s. I feel stunned.
Martin tosses some papers onto my desk. “Here are a couple of deposition notices inHarbison’s. They’re for the two supervisors, Breslin and Grayboyes.”
I should call him on it, but I feel upset, off balance. I bear down and say the Next Thing. “I talked to Starankovic. It’s taken care of.”
He looks mildly surprised. “Did you postpone them?”
“Yes. Starankovic wants to take some employee interviews. I told him I’d think about it.”
“I know you. You won’t let him do that.”
“I won’t?”
“You? Voluntarily expose your employees to interviews with the enemy, without benefit of counsel? So that they can say anything? It goes against all those hot-blooded instincts of yours, even if there is precedent for it.”
“He’s going to file a motion if we don’t consent.”
“Bah! Is the man a glutton for punishment?” Martin can always tap into the our-team-kicked-ass mentality that
