building sway slightly. I lock the note in my middle drawer and leave for Judy’s office.
But I forget all about it when I see her.
30
“I’m fired,” Judy says flatly.
“What?!”
“I fucked up.” Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, as if she’s been crying hard. She slouches in her chair. Her chin sags into a sturdy hand.
“What happened?” I sit down.
“TheMitsuko brief is in the hopper. The Supremes reversed a similar argument in a case decided yesterday. I didn’t even know the case was up on appeal, because I hadn’t checked the cites yet. Great, huh? A first-year mistake.” Her jowl wrinkles into her hand like a basset hound’s. “I’m not paying attention lately.”
“Oh, Jude. How’d you catch it?”
“Guess.”
I flash on Martin, banging into Miss Pershing on the way downstairs. “Martin?”
“Nope. Guess again.”
“Not the client.”
“Yes, the client. Certainly, the client. Who better to catch you in the biggest blunder of your career than the client? The GC faxed us a copy of the Supreme Court decision after we faxed him a draft of my brief. Don’t you just love faxes? You can find out you fucked up when you’re still in mid-fuckup. That’s what I call technology!”
I groan. That must be why Martin had the faxes.
“Wait. That’s not all. The Third Circuit brief is due in two days. I have forty-eight hours to produce a winning brief or I’m fired.”
“Who said that, Martin? He can’t do that!”
“No? I’ve pissed off a house client and embarrassed the firm. Mitsuko’s appeal is in jeopardy-it’s their legal right, not ours.” She rakes her fingers through her hair, and it sticks up in funny places, making her look demented. “It was such a stupid mistake, I should resign.”
“You’d better not. We can rewrite the brief.”
“We?”
“We. I help. We do it together.”
“You can’t help, Mary. You don’t know the record.”
“I don’t need to, you do. Besides, what you need is a new legal argument. A new angle.”
She smiles wanly. “I appreciate it, but it’s hopeless. I’ve thought about every argument. This was the best.”
“Jude! Where’s that pioneering western spirit? The Oregon Trail? The Louisiana Purchase? The Missouri Compromise?”
“Stop trying to cheer me up. And your geography sucks.”
“Listen, I beat the devil today. I can do anything!”
“You’re crazy. We don’t have time.”
“We have all night. It’s pouring outside and I have to stick with you anyway. You’re my bodyguard.”
“Give it up, Mary.”
“No. Tell me why we lostMitsuko, besides the fact that Martin has no business being in front of a jury unless they all went to Choate.”
“Mary, it’s no use.”
“Tell me, Judith Carrier!”
“Aaargh,” she growls, in frustration. “Okay. I think the jury just didn’t understand the case. There were too many facts. Too much financial data. The legal issues were too abstract-”
“Were the jurors allowed to take notes?”
“Yes. Judge Rasmussen always lets-”
“Yes!” I have an idea. I tell it to Judy and she loves it instantly, realizing that even if it goes down in flames, it’ll be a blaze of glory.
She calls Kurt and makes two pots of coffee, one for her and one for me. I call Lombardo and give him the night off, but he doesn’t even thank me. We lock ourselves in a study room in the library and burn up the Lexis hookup. After a couple of hours, we lock ourselves in a war room on Gluttony and start drafting. We send out for Chinese food twice, once at eight o’clock and again at ten o’clock. We order to mein both times. After our second dinner, Stalling’s decrepit security guard, whom Judy calls Mack Sennett, knocks on the door.
“You girls okay in there?” he asks, in a Ronald Reagan voice.
“We’re fine now,” I call back. “But keep checking.”
“Roger wilco,” he says.
Judy changes his nickname to Roger Wilco. I re-check the lock on the door.
At midnight, we persuade Roger Wilco to be our lookout while we stage a giddy raid on Catering Services for potato chips, chocolate cupcakes, and more coffee. Judy tries to snort the Coffeemate, and we think this is wildly funny. The coffee sobers us up and we draft until dawn in the locked war room. Finally, at the end of the night, we put the draft on Miss Pershing’s desk, because she gets in earlier than Judy’s secretary. We shower in the locked locker room, me for the second day in a row. When we get out of the shower, we realize we have no clean clothes.
“Let’s just switch clothes,” Judy says.
“What?”
“At least it’s a change.”
I pop Judy’s tent of a peasant dress over my head. It billows to my ankles like a parachute. When I emerge from the embroidered hole in its top, Judy is still wrapped in a towel, holding up my tailored white dress.
“Do you need a bra with this dress?” she asks.
“Of course.”
“I don’t have a bra.”
“What do you mean you don’t have a bra?”
“I never wear a bra.”
“You don’t wear a bra to work? At Stalling and Webb? That’s a federal offense!”
“You can’t tell, my breasts are so small. You want to see?”
“No! Jesus Christ, will you cover up?”
“We’re both women, Mary.” She teases me by starting to unwrap the towel.
“I know that. That’s why.” I unhook my bra and slip it out through the wide sleeves of the smock. “Here, take mine. It’s one size fits all. Nobody can tell if I’m wearing one in this dress.”
“The bra off your back? What a pal!”
While Judy slips into the bra, I go over to the mirror and try to do something with my limp hair. A project for St. Rita of Cascia, Saint of the Impossible.
“Well, what do you think?” Judy asks.
I turn around. The dress, which is boxy on me, is too small for Judy, and it hugs each curve of her body. She looks dynamite. “Sell it, baby.”
She gives the hem a final tug. “Can it, baby.”
After we’re ready, we troop out to see if Miss Pershing has arrived. She’s closing up her clear plastic umbrella when I spot her, in jelly boots and a cellophane rain bonnet, at the secretaries’ closet.
“Good morning, Miss Pershing.”
She looks me over and smiles sweetly. “You look very pretty today, Miss DiNunzio. Very feminine.”
Judy slaps a hearty hand on my shoulder. “Doesn’t she though? I helped her pick out that dress.”
I give Judy a look. “Thank you, Miss Pershing. How was your book club last night?”
“Wonderful. Next week is Mary Higgins Clark.”
