Congressman Thorpe had used it to help support his position on a financial oversight bill.
When Cade and I talked back then, a lot of our conversations had been in the context of the fallout from the trade wars a few years before. Cade especially had lamented how some of the markets that had been available to the nation were now lost.
The countries we’d been trading with hadn’t been able to sit out the trade wars until things stabilized. They still needed things like food and cars, so they’d found other countries to supply them. When we stopped buying goods from China, in effect, we’d also stopped buying things from places like Malaysia and Sri Lanka and Japan, which had supplied parts for all of those goods assembled in China. We’d sacrificed our relationships with them for some angry rhetoric and short-term political gains. If they’d found more stable trading partners in the meantime, then why come back to us?
Though Cade and I had our friendly policy differences, we both agreed on one thing: it would be helpful to everyone if people who understood economics were the ones tasked to make economic policies.
Ours were the kind of conversations that happened all over the Hill when people were out of range of listening ears.
Most Americans assumed that nations act in their own interest. My project showed how the Chinese, in temporarily hurting their own citizens and allowing themselves to lose some face in the trade wars, had diminished US influence abroad, blocking us in some markets almost entirely, as they established strong trading partnerships with our competitors.
One of the things I was most proud of during my internship was that the congressman had used my data to support his claims that our banking laws needed to be strengthened, not weakened. He’d been so passionate about that bill. I still couldn’t believe he’d voted against it.
Besides the fact that Cade had discovered China’s ghost at the FDIC, I couldn’t figure out how to connect our conversations about China or my research on currencies to his death.
As my student finished up, I put together some thoughts for my upcoming second interview. On one side of the page I wrote down questions I needed to have answered: expected junior associate workload, practice groups, current projects, billable-hour thresholds, and career progression. On the other side, I noted aspects about the firm I wanted to research: firm history, partner bios, and recent cases if I could find them.
Then I started thinking about the interview itself. Firm handshake. Look the interviewer in the middle of the face. Try to remember something, some distinctive trait about her. Or him. Or them, if it was a panel.
Please, let it not be a panel!
I’d need to review the notes I’d made about the first interview.
I’d wear my other good suit, which I would have to retrieve from the storage unit. And I’d carry my notebook in that attaché my parents had bought me after I earned my undergraduate degree.
Attaché!
In my rush to vacate the apartment, I’d left it at Mrs. Harper’s house on the shelf in my closet.
I thought of calling Jessica to see if she would set it aside, but I discarded the idea. She didn’t owe me any favors, and I was pretty sure that I was not her favorite person. I might have called Mrs. Harper, but I didn’t want her to have to think about the loss of her house any more than she probably already was.
I still had my key. It was only five o’clock. I could just stop by and get it without bothering anyone. I’d be in and out before anyone even noticed.
Chapter 34
I had a car pick me up from the library.
I gave the driver Mrs. Harper’s address and asked if he could wait for me when we got there while I went inside.
“I’ll have to charge you for the time. Got to warn you.”
“I know. Thank you.”
When we arrived, I asked him to pull up to the top.
As he pulled in, I took my phone from my backpack. If I was going it alone, at least I could be ready to make an emergency call if I needed to. “I won’t be long.”
I jogged around to the back, let myself in and then locked the door behind me. I walked over to the staircase that led up to the main floor and locked it too. Just in case. I didn’t want to be surprised by any more intruders.
I went to my closet and got my attaché.
My dad called as I was leaving. I paused by the bar.
“Dad. Hey. Can I call you later when I—”
“I think I’ve finally figured it out.”
“Wait. I’m sorry. What did you figure out?”
“I figured out how to make everything work.”
“In terms of what?”
“With my finances.”
“Can I call you later?” I almost said, once I get home? “I’m out right now.”
“Oh. Sure. Yeah. I’ve decided to do something a little different. Figure, why not? What’s the worst that can happen?”
With finances? Quite a bit. “Don’t do anything until after we talk, okay?”
“Sure. I just figure, I don’t have much left to lose, so why not bet big?”
Definitely we needed to talk!
“Just because you declared bankruptcy, just because you sold the house, doesn’t mean you have nothing, Dad.” Did it? “You have something, don’t you?”
“Yeah. But it’s not much. I didn’t have any choice but to file. I really didn’t.”
“That’s why there are bankruptcy laws. Sometimes it’s the only option.”
“It was like a slug in the gut though. Never been so ashamed.” There was a slight slur to his words.
Had he been drinking? “It’s not your fault Mom got sick. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“It just felt like I was always standing around, holding my hat out, asking for money.”
There it was. The ultimate sin. It wasn’t the actual asking for money; it was having to ask for money, regardless of whether you actually did or not.
People who grew up with money couldn’t understand how the world worked when you didn’t have it. They made it seem as if not having it was the consequence of some sort of choice a person made. Having money made you one of the good guys. Not having money meant that in some way you must be a bad person.
Take the loans! You deserve a good education.
Can’t pay back your loans? You worthless person!
Which was it?
Everyone was good at explaining how things worked. Anyone could tell you the mechanics of success, what the requirements were.
Graduate from high school.
Graduate from college.
Get a job.
Get a better job.
Thing is, no one took the time to tell you about the rules that weren’t written down. And if you didn’t know about them? You didn’t know how to follow them.
I told my dad I’d call him later and hung up. Then I left the apartment, locking the door behind me. I promised my plants I’d come back for them as I jogged up the stairs. When I came around the house, I saw a police car sitting at the base of the driveway, lights flashing. My driver was leaning against his car, arms crossed, talking to a policeman. An older man, frail and bent, hovered nearby. As I appeared, the old man gestured toward me. “Like I said, she went around to the back of the house.”
The policeman turned his head in my direction. “Is this her? Is she the one you saw?”
The older man answered. “That’s her.”
I approached them. “Is there a problem?”
The police officer stepped toward me, arm extended, palm up. “What do you have there?”
I held up the attaché. “I used to live here. I just moved out. I left it behind by mistake.”
The old man scoffed. “Likely story. Marjorie told me to keep an eye on the place while she was out in Loudoun. She broke her leg. Went to live with her daughter for a while. She had me come over to get a key before she left so I could check on things for her.”
“I used to live here. I just moved out. I only came back t
o get my attaché.”
The policeman stepped toward me. “I’m going to need you to come in for questioning.”
“But I wasn’t trespassing. I was only trying to get my things.” I couldn’t be charged with trespassing. I couldn’t be arrested. I might not get sworn in as a lawyer, even if I passed the bar, if a conviction came up on my record. It would ruin everything. “I promise I used to live in that house, in the basement. I forgot the attaché when I moved out. I was only trying to retrieve it.”
“Be that as it may, I have to take you to the station. We can sort it all out there.”
Chapter 35
I spent an hour trying to convince the Arlington police that the whole thing had been a misunderstanding. I asked them to call Jessica. They did, but they had to leave a message. While I wasn’t quite able to get them to believe me, they did finally agree to call Leo.
They left me alone in a room while they went out to make the call. A while later, the door opened. I didn’t bother to turn around.
“So what do you have to say for yourself?”
Again? “I was telling the other officers that I wasn’t trespassing. I was only trying to get my things.”
“It’s me. Leo.”
I turned around. It was him! I felt like my head was going to float away as my worries lifted from my shoulders. “You have to make them understand.”
“They think you were trespassing.”
“I wasn’t—!” I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath. Opened them. “I already told you: Friday after you left for work, I was asked to leave the apartment by Mrs. Harper’s daughter.”
“Right. You were asked to move out.”
“Mrs. Harper’s daughter didn’t want me around. Too many bad things were happening. I wasn’t a safe person. She thought if I stayed, something bad might happen to her mom.”
“So you went back to the house this evening to do what?”
“I went back because I have an interview on Monday and I needed my attaché that my parents got me for graduation because—”
“Wait. Back up.” He slid into a chair across from me. “You got kicked out, that I already know. But where are you staying?”
I refused to cry. I absolutely, positively refused to cry. But my chin rebelled. It started to tremble. I blinked once. Hard. Twice. But the tears came anyway.
I turned my head. Pulled my sleeve down over my hand and used it to swipe at them. “There are not a lot of places to live in Arlington at the low, low rate of five hundred dollars a month. I haven’t gotten a job offer yet as a lawyer, so all I have are the Blue Dog and my students. I can’t not work, so I have to live close enough to get to the coffee shop at four in the morning if I have to open. But the metro doesn’t start running until five. And the bus doesn’t start running until five. And that’s out in Fairfax County. It would take me at least half an hour to get all the way here. So if I don’t find something close enough to scooter, then—”
“But where did you stay last night?”
I shook my head.
“You had to stay somewhere.”
“I stayed at the Blue Dog.”
“Don’t you have any friends you can stay with?”
“Not anymore. Because of Hartwell.”
“So you don’t have any place to go.”
I shook my head again. And I was really, truly afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find one.
“First things first. Let’s get you out of here.”
* * *
The police complex was in an area of Arlington I didn’t know very well. Leo turned down one street after another as we drove. I couldn’t tell whether we were headed toward Virginia Square or away from it. Finally, I felt I had to say the obvious. “I appreciate this, Leo. Appreciate you showing up and getting me out. But the coffee shop won’t be closed for another hour and I can’t go back there until everyone is gone. I don’t think spending the night there is manager-approved.”
“We’re not going there.”
“Then where are you taking me?”
“I’m taking you home.”
“Home where?”
“Home. To my home. My house.”
* * *
Leo lived on a quiet street just a block from one of Arlington’s major arterials, across from a county park. He had one of the brick colonials that sprouted a chimney from one side. It looked like a child’s drawing: front door in the middle with a black shutter–framed window on each side and three windows across the top. The front door was painted dark red.
Flower beds stretched across the foundation, away from the front steps toward the corners of the house. At some point, someone had added a sun porch onto the right side. It was shaded by a magnolia and a holly tree.
He parked the loaner Nissan in his driveway and then came around to my side of the car as I grabbed my backpack and the troublesome attaché. He opened my door. Cupped my elbow as I got out.
I followed him across the lawn, up the front steps, and in through the door.
It opened into a living room that had black leather and chrome furniture and a big TV that hung on the wall above the fireplace.
He took the attaché from me and set it on a table underneath a window that looked out into the front yard. He put my backpack on the floor beneath it.
Beyond the table, on either side of the chimney, were doors that opened into the porch. Sun filtered past the border of trees and in through the windows. Dappled shadows danced on the checkerboard-patterned floor.
And all of a sudden, I longed for home.
I longed for the days when the worst thing that could happen to me was having too much homework. I longed for the evenings when I could sit on the couch next to my mother and tell her about my day while my father sat in the armchair across from us, interjecting comments, trying to make me laugh.
“You hungry?”
I shrugged. “I could eat something.” I was ravenous. Starving.
“Let’s see what I can find.”
I followed him past the front door, out of the living room into a dining room, and then turned into one of the tiniest kitchens I’d ever seen. At the far end was a door to the backyard.
Even the bar area in my basement apartment at Mrs. Harper’s had been bigger. I had to stand out in the dining room while Leo rummaged through the cabinets simply because there was nowhere else for me to stand.
He opened the fridge, took out a serving bowl of pasta. Opened the cupboard and handed me a plate. “Help yourself.”
I could have eaten it all, but he clearly intended to have the leftovers for himself. Otherwise, why would he have made so much? I portioned out a tidy quarter of it and transferred it to my plate.
“You have to have more than that.”
I shaved off a sliver more. He sat with me at the table as I ate. I told him about my project for Congressman Thorpe. “It seems like it should be connected with Cade’s death. The project was about China. Cade was giving information to Agent Beyer about a Chinese hack. But I can’t figure out how to make the connection.”
He propped his chin on his fist. “Right. His work with the FBI and your work on the Hill have the same key word. I’ll mention it to Agent Beyer. Do you have a copy of that report anywhere?”
“No. But the congressman’s office might.”
When I was done, he took my plate from me and walked it into the kitchen. When he reappeared, he had a key in hand. He put it on the table and slid it to me. “This way you can come and go when you want to. But I’d still prefer it if you don’t go anywhere by yourself. Ideally, it would be me bringing you back here in the evening. Need anything else?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. Then I’m off the clock.” He went into the living room, picked up a remote, and turned on the TV. As he stood there beside the couch, he invited me to join him. He gestured to the TV. “This? This, right here, is drama.” He was watching baseball.
“I don’t even know which team is which.”
&nb
sp; “The Mets are in gray. Playing the Red Sox. They’re in white.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Not the Mets.”
“Whose side should I be on?”
“I don’t know. Where are you from?”
“The Northwest.”
“The Mariners. When they’re playing.”
“What do I do when they’re not? What’s your team?”
“Yankees; I’m from Jersey. But they’re not playing. So I root for anyone who can beat their rivals. Tonight? I’m going for the Red Sox even though I normally wouldn’t because there’s a chance that if they can beat the Mets then they knock them out of the playoffs.”
“Sounds a little Machiavellian. The enemy of my enemy . . .”
“. . . is my friend. Right.”
I smiled. Walked over to my backpack so I could get my books.
“Wait,” he called. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Red.”
“So go for the Red Sox. They wear red too.”
“And what do I do the next time I see a game and they’re not playing?”
He shrugged. “What color do you hate?”
“Orange.”
“So go for anyone not wearing it.”
“So easy.”
“It’s as simple as you want to make it.”
I perched on the edge of the couch and stayed for a few minutes to watch, rooting with Leo against the Mets. It was something I hadn’t done before. Hartwell hadn’t watched much television, and when we went to the stadium in DC it was mostly to hang out and network in his firm’s suite. It wasn’t to watch the games.
We high-fived when the Red Sox got a run. When I finally left Leo, to study at the dining room table, he was laser-focused on the game.
* * *
Several hours after that, I slowly became aware that Leo was standing at the end of the table. Had he said something?
“Pardon me?”
He put his palms to the table, leaned toward me. “I said, ‘You win.’”
“Win? Win what?”
“The Who Can Stay Up Latest contest.”
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