She didn’t immediately say no. That I took as a real positive, since it was the biggest favor I’d asked of Jenna in the five years I’d known her, and the asking had come two months after our busted engagement.
Admittedly her name hadn’t been at the top of my list, but Judge Korvan had ordered me to find co-counsel, and I was having trouble finding someone. The lawyers I knew best either worked for Cool Cash or were Cool Cash alums who earned a good chunk of their annual income on referrals from their old firm. No one was willing to cut off that gravy train just to take my case. I couldn’t blame them, especially since I couldn’t pay them. With no job, I had no income. If my father had a Nicaraguan company with millions of dollars in hidden assets, as the FBI suspected, his loved ones had seen no evidence of it. As it was, Mom and I would have to borrow money to pay the ransom. I needed an attorney who would take the case on a handshake and a promise to be paid somewhere down the line. And it had to be someone I could trust with a potentially dark family secret.
After eleven strikeouts and considerable agonizing, I put my ego aside and finally called Jenna. I’d talked to her twice since the kidnapping. Both times she’d told me to call if there was anything she could do to help. Both times I’d been unable to conceive of any possible circumstances under which she might actually lend a hand. Slowly, however, as one lawyer after another concocted an excuse, I talked myself into asking her to work by my side, not really sure what to expect. Certainly I hadn’t banked on the good twenty seconds of silence that preceded her reply.
Finally she spoke. “We should talk about this.”
I nearly dropped the phone. “Sure. Whenever you like.”
“I can meet you tonight for dinner.”
With that, I actually did drop the phone but quickly got myself together. She selected the restaurant, one that the two of us had never been to together. A wise choice. No ghosts.
“Meet you there at seven,” she said.
“Terrific.”
She was about to hang up, but I caught her just before she did. “Jenna?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
“But you had every right to give me a flat-out no.”
I imagined she was flashing the faint smile that I knew so well. “Maybe so,” she said.
“I just want you to know that I’m grateful you’d even consider doing this for me.”
She paused, then said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, all right? But if I decide to do this, it will be for your dad.”
I detected no animosity in her tone. Still, I wasn’t sure how to take it. “That’s as it should be,” I said.
“Right. As it should be. I’ll see you tonight, then?”
“Sure.” I said good-bye and hung up the phone.
I’d always thought of Jenna as wiser than me. We’d met at the University of Florida when she was a third- year law student and I was still an undergraduate headed for law school in the fall. After six months of dating, we moved in together. She took a job as a prosecutor in Gainesville, bought a house not too far from the law school campus, and for the next three years served as my best friend and live-in tutor for contracts, torts, civil procedure, and, of course, the real-life version of domestic relations. I aced all but the last of those subjects, though she didn’t present the failing grade until after we’d moved to Miami.
We didn’t agree on everything, but that had kept things interesting, and only once had it made me nervous. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was the prelude to our breakup. We were bicycling through Coconut Grove and stopped at the water’s edge in Kennedy Park. It was a sunny and warm Saturday in February, the kind of day that made you realize why you lived in South Florida. Picnic blankets dotted the green landscape, parents were out playing with their children all over the park, a clown was entertaining a flock of children at a birthday celebration. I couldn’t help noticing that most of the moms and dads in that particular group looked even younger than I was. Just the thought of making a lifelong commitment so early in life had me both in awe of them and scared for them.
“What makes them so sure?” I asked, almost to myself.
The question had come out of the blue. Jenna and I had been sitting on the grass in silence, but she knew exactly what was going through my mind. She always did.
“It’s a process,” she said. “It doesn’t start with kids, or even the thought of kids.”
“Where does it start?”
“Physical attraction.”
“What?”
“Every successful romantic relationship is built on physical attraction.”
I gave her a strange look, but she was serious. “That’s ridiculous. You think the most important thing is looks?”
“Physical attraction encompasses a lot more than looks.”
“Like what?”
“Millions of things. You might think I’m smart. On one level that might make you want to be in my study group. On another it might make you want to romp naked with me in a big bowl of Jell-O. Physical attraction can flow from anything about me that makes you want to touch me.”
“And that’s the basis of every successful romantic relationship?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t buy it.”
“Then you should move in with your sister and adopt children.”
“Come on. You’re saying that what makes all these people want to get married and take their kids to the park on the weekend is physical attraction?”
“No. I’m saying that it’s what makes them want to rip each other’s clothes off and jump in the sack. And if we don’t want to do that, there aren’t any kids to take to the park on weekends.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I nodded and smiled. Back then it didn’t take much for Jenna in spandex to make me nod and smile. “So are you physically attracted to me?” I asked.
“Are you asking if I want to get married and have your kids?”
“No,” I said, smiling wider and shaking my head. “No-no-no-no-no-no.”
She rose quickly from the grass and walked toward her bicycle. My stupid grin quickly faded, and I hurried after her.
“Jenna?”
She continued down the bike path, no answer.
“Jenna, wait.”
She strapped on her helmet and got on her bicycle. I grabbed the handlebars to keep her from taking off. She looked me in the eye and said sharply, “A single no would have sufficed, jerk.”
Our eyes locked for a moment longer, as if she were waiting for me to say something to redeem myself. Before I could speak, she broke free, leaned into the pedals, and took off.
“Damn it,” I said beneath my breath. I was angry at myself for having played this game, for having said no so emphatically just to preserve the big surprise. Her thirtieth birthday was a week away. I’d planned to pop the question then. After this blowup, I didn’t think she’d ever believe that I’d bought the ring two months earlier.
I watched in silence as she sped down the bike path, keeping her in my sights until she was almost too small to see.
Not once did she look back.
37
Late Wednesday afternoon a package arrived. It was about the size of a box of
