“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“Don’t be,” he says sharply. “Let’s get this out in the open. Yeah, it’s true. That’s why they wanted me. Because everyone hates them and they thought a disabled lawyer might make them seem more sympathetic. Satisfied?”
I don’t know what to say. I know the last thing Will wants is for me to start being all sympathetic.
He shakes his head. “This is my job, Libby. It doesn’t matter why they wanted me. They hired me to defend them and that’s what I’m going to do. And…” He squares his shoulders. “I’m going to win.”
“You might not win,” I say.
“I’m very confident we’ll win,” he says.
The truth is, I believe him. When Will puts all his energy into a case like he’s obviously doing now, he’s unbeatable.
Will’s brown eyes soften slightly and he reaches out to grab my hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the case. I know you’re sensitive when it comes to animals, and I didn’t want to upset you. But I promise you, there will be significant changes in the way those animals are treated.”
I’m not sure what to say. Now that I’ve seen pictures of the conditions at those farms, I can’t imagine how things could get better without a major overhaul. But I know that Will is a good person. If he’s saying that things will change, then maybe things really will get better for those pigs.
Yeah, and maybe those pigs will fly.
“You really promise?” I say.
“I do.” He shakes his head vigorously. “Listen, I can’t stare at that computer another second. Please let me take you to dinner. Okay?”
I nod. I do trust Will and I love him very much. But no matter what he says, I can’t trust the Hanford Corporation.
Chapter 17
I’m on my way to the shelter to walk the dogs when my cell phone rings. I check the screen and see Reid’s name.
I know this must be about the rally. Which I’ve been awake half the night thinking about. I still feel really strongly that what’s being done to these pigs is deplorable, but at the same time, how can I work on this rally when I know that Will is on the other side? It would be like betraying him.
Then again, I have to do what’s right.
After a brief internal debate, I pick up the phone. “Reid?”
“Libby,” Reid says. “We need to talk. I need your help.”
“I can’t really talk,” I say. “I’m volunteering at the shelter in about ten minutes.”
He’s quiet for a minute before he says, “Can I volunteer too?”
I’m surprised to realize how pleased I am by his offer. “You really want to?”
“Of course!” I can hear the excitement in his voice. “You know I love animals. What can I do?”
“I’ll just be walking some dogs.”
“Just tell me where to go,” he says. “And I’ll be there.”
I make it to the animal shelter first and I find Mary doing paperwork in the back. She smiles when she sees me. “Libby-Lou! Always right on time.”
I return her smile. “I’ve brought someone else to help too.”
Mary’s eyes light up. “Will is here?”
Like I said, Mary just adores Will. I think the shelter was really having some problems before he cleared it all up, although I don’t know any of the details. She was so grateful to him. And he did it all for free—that’s how I know he’s a good person.
“Not Will,” I say quickly.
“Mia?”
Mia has come with me a handful of times to walk dogs. I shake my head. “No, it’s someone else. A friend.”
At that moment, Reid enters the animal shelter, dressed in shorts and sandals, although at least now he’s wearing a sweater. I’m wearing one of those thinsulate coats, which is my coat for when I’m going for warmth over style.
Mary’s eyes widen when she sees the large man with long hair stomping into her shelter. She frowns and stands up from her desk. “Can I help you, sir?”
“This is my friend Reid,” I tell her. “He wants to help walk some dogs.”
“Oh!” Mary is still frowning though. She gives me what I can only describe as a disapproving look. God, does she think I’m cheating on Will? I sure hope she thinks better of me than that.
Because Reid is a beginner, Mary gives him only one dog, and he jokes that he feels slightly emasculated when she gives me three. But I can handle three dogs, believe me. I start in the direction of the nearest dog park and Reid follows me.
“Aren’t you freezing?” I ask him. I shiver in the brisk November air.
He frowns. “Why?”
“You’re wearing shorts!”
He looks down at his bare calves and laughs. “I don’t know. I hate pants. They make me nervous.” He shrugs. “Besides, I’ve got lots of padding to keep me warm. You—not so much.”
I smile. It’s okay that he sometimes calls me old if he also calls me skinny.
“Did you have a dog growing up?” I ask him.
“Only for like a week,” he says. “I rescued him from an alley behind a supermarket when I was ten. I hid him in my room and fed him scraps from dinner. It took a week for my parents to catch on. They were not thrilled.”
I burst out laughing. “Wow, you’ve got guts.”
“I just knew that if the pound caught the little guy, he’d end up getting put down.” His eyes cloud over. “And even though I tried to save him, that happened anyway. I felt like…” He takes a shaky breath. “If I hadn’t tried to help him, maybe they wouldn’t have caught him and put him down. Like it was all my fault.”
Reid looks really sad, staring down at his sandals. He has a really good heart. If this were a fairy tale, I don’t know what character he’d be, but he’d definitely be one of the good guys. I don’t know if I’ve ever met someone quite so idealistic. Will isn’t that way at all. I mean, he’s a good guy, but he sticks to fighting battles he knows he can win.
“So what did you want to talk to me about before?” I ask him. “I mean, when you called me on the phone?”
“Oh yeah,” Reid mumbles. He pauses as his dog lifts her leg by a tree. “So here’s the deal. We ran into some trouble with the permit for the rally.” He heaves a sigh. “I was just wondering… didn’t you say your boyfriend is a lawyer? Do you think he could help?”
Ha. Fat chance.
“Probably not,” I say carefully. “He’s just… really swamped with work right now.”
Reid nods. “Okay. I mean, it was a long shot. We’ll talk to Steph again.”
Reid’s dog finishes peeing and we continue walking on our way to the park. I wonder if this rally is even going to happen. Maybe Will has the right idea about working to change things from the inside. “Listen,” I say slowly, “I was just thinking… do you think that maybe there’s a chance that… that Hanford Corporation is actually willing to make some concessions? Like, without even a legal battle? I heard they were open to that sort of thing.”
He snorts. “Yeah, ‘concessions.’ They’re basically throwing us a bone. It’s shit—trust me.”
“I was just talking to someone about the whole thing,” I say, “and I just don’t want to do anything that will cost lots of people their jobs.”
“Seriously?” Reid stops walking and stares at me. “Who were you talking to? Hanford’s lawyer?”
My stomach flip-flops until I realize he’s making a joke. An extremely insightful joke.
“Hanford does employ a lot of people,” he admits, “if you can even call it that. They pay minimum wage and have fought against any attempts to increase minimum wage. They also hire tons of illegal immigrants at practically slave wages. This company is bad news, Libby. You can’t defend what they do. You can’t.”
I can’t. But Will can.
We have to stop because all three of my dogs decide they need to poop. At once. I love walking dogs, but I’m not such a big fan of picking up their poop. I swear, if aliens came to our planet, I’m sure they’d think that
dogs were the dominant species. I mean, if you saw one species pooping wherever they want and another that’s picking it up, who would you think was in charge? Exactly.
“Josh wants to get together on Thursday evening to talk more about the rally,” Reid tells me. “Will you be able to make it?”
I bite my lip. Will has no idea I’m helping out with this protest, and he most definitely wouldn’t improve. Even though I feel like he’s in the wrong, he’s my fiancé. I love him and support him.
Yet…
I can’t just sit around and do nothing while a horrible injustice is going on. And Will must know how bad it is. There’s no way he could actually believe that the Hanford Corporation is going to reform. When he told me all those things the other day, he was just playing me the other day to calm me down. The same way he’s planning on playing a jury.
“Okay,” I agree.
What Will doesn’t know won’t hurt him.
_____
I don’t know what it is, but it’s like I’ve got some talent for picking the wrong line. Whatever line I get into is the one where someone decides to pay with a check or has fifty coupons or wants to put the item on layaway. It’s like I have psychic powers that determine the absolute worst line.
So it’s no surprise that the line we’ve picked at Shake Shack in Madison Square Park isn’t moving at all. We had a fifty-fifty shot and got it wrong. We are on the slowest line ever and the sign on the awning that advertises “SHAKES, BURGERS, HOT DOGS, FRIES, SUNDAES, SODAS” is barely visible—we’re that far away from the front of the line.
“I hate lines,” I grumble to Will as I hug my chest. I’m cold. And hungry. And cranky. I want my shake.
“Really?” he says. “I love lines. I could wait here all day.”
I punch him in the arm. Hard. Which makes him grab me and pull me onto his lap, which definitely sort of distracts me from the slowness of this stupid line.
“So we’re sharing a vanilla shake?” I ask him.
“I thought we were getting a peanut butter shake.”
“Ew. You thought wrong.”
“What do you mean ‘ew’? The peanut butter shake is the best one.”
“No. It’s disgusting.”
“How about this?” he says. “Why don’t you get a boring vanilla shake and I’ll get my delicious peanut butter shake?”
“No!” I say. “I don’t want to drink a whole shake all by myself! Those things have like eight-hundred calories!”
He shrugs. “So pour out half the shake in the trash.”
“I can’t waste it!”
“Listen,” Will says, “I’ve been waiting in this line for five hours now.” That’s an exaggeration. “I’m getting my peanut butter shake. All eight-hundred calories of it. But if it’s really important to you, I’ll drink half of yours too.”
I know he means it. And damned if I know where he puts it all. I have a feeling that when he’s at work, he forgets to eat meals a lot.
I lean against Will’s chest, absorbing his warmth. My body is so close to his that I notice when his torso stiffens. I look up at him and see that all color has drained from his face.
“Hey, Libby,” he says, “I’m kind of sick of this line. You want to get out of here and just get some McDonald’s?”
Okay, that was… bizarre. We’ve been in this line for like twenty minutes. I’m not going to just leave at this point. Anyway, I’m not sure if I’m getting old or what, but lately, it feels like the food at McDonald’s just sits in my stomach like a ball of lead.
“What’s going on?” I ask him.
“Nothing,” he says quickly, as his eyes dart around. “I just…”
And that’s when I hear the voice from behind me—a voice that cuts through the air and makes everyone on the line pay attention:
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t William Kaplan!”
Instinctively, I dismount from Will’s lap. I look up and see a small woman standing in front of us. She’s small but her hair isn’t. The color is red-orange, but the frizziness and sheer volume of her hair rivals Diana Ross. Or Macy Gray. You know—one of those big-haired women. Also, as I look her over, the phrase comes to mind: short and stacked. My boobs aren’t small, but hers are impressive—even I can’t help but ogle them.
I look over at Will, and it seems like my jumping off his lap has triggered a spasm in his right leg. His leg is jumping up and down, and he has to grab it to quiet the spasm.
“Hi, Stephanie,” Will says warily, his hands still gripping his restless leg. “Nice to see you again.”
“It’s been ages, hasn’t it?” the woman, whose name is apparently Stephanie, gushes.
“Yeah.” Will shifts in his seat, the spasm having abated. “It has.”
The woman is wearing a gray business suit that fits her somewhat awkwardly thanks to her giant tits. Also, it’s not the same quality as the stuff that Will wears or tailored like his suits—it looks like something you might buy off the rack at Target. (Or Tar-jay.) She eyes me appraisingly, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your lapmate?”
“This is my fiancée Libby,” Will says. “Libby, this is—”
“Stephanie Zimmer,” she says, holding out a small, wiry hand for me to shake. “I’m William’s former lapmate. From many years ago.”
I suck in a breath. This is the Stephanie that Will dated in law school. The crazy girl.
“Nice to meet you,” I manage as I take Stephanie’s hand. For a tiny woman, she gives quite a squeeze.
“Fiancée, huh?” Stephanie smiles at us. “How exciting. When is the wedding?”
“December thirteenth,” I say, returning her smile. We’ve got the non-refundable tickets.
Stephanie winks at me. “Good luck with this guy, Elizabeth.”
“Her name is Libby,” Will says sharply. “Not Elizabeth. Just Libby. Christ, you’re still so goddamn pretentious, Stephanie.”
Stephanie blinks her vivid green eyes behind brown-rimmed spectacles. The fact that her eyelashes are pale orange only makes her eyes seem that much brighter. “Wow. It didn’t take long for the claws to come out, did it, William? I just came over to say hello. And to congratulate you on the fine work you’ve done defending the Hanford Corporation.”
Will is gripping his knees so tightly that his knuckles are white. “Yeah, whatever. You think I don’t know why you’re here? I haven’t seen you in ten years, and all of a sudden, you show up out of nowhere?”
“What are you suggesting, William?”
He narrows his eyes at her. “Nothing. I’m suggesting nothing.” He sighs. “Look, it’s been great seeing you, Steph. So if you’ll excuse us, my girlfriend and I are getting our lunch…”
Stephanie glances at the line, which seems to have come to a complete standstill. “Seems like you might have a little time to catch up.” She looks back at me and smiles. “Libby, you must know all about William’s exciting new case.”
I don’t know what to say. I look over at Will, whose lips are pressed into a thin line. Finally, I say, “A little bit.”
“You know,” Stephanie says to me, “when we graduated law school, William was offered a job at the firm where I work—a firm that champions important humanitarian causes. But instead, he decided to take a position at Satan and Hitler.”
“Saperstein and Hitchcock,” Will says tightly.
“Financially, I’m sure it’s paid off,” Stephanie notes. “I’ve read about all your recent wins and I bet you’ve made Satan and Hitler a ton of money. And I’m sure they rewarded you handsomely. But it’s costing you your soul.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Stephanie,” Will says. “You’re being awfully dramatic, don’t you think?”
“You used to be a good person, William,” she says. “You used to vote Democrat. You used to believe in human rights. You used to tell me that when you got your degree, you’d use it to help people.”
“What are you talking about?” Will retorts. “I never said any o
f that.”
“What do you think, Libby?” Stephanie asks me. “What do you think of a man who would defend a company that tosses living animals—piglets—across a room like they’re footballs.”
Will’s face turns bright red. “Don’t speak to her again, Stephanie. Really. This is completely inappropriate the way you’re ambushing me like this in front of my girlfriend.”
“Why?” Stephanie raises her eyebrows at him. “Are you ashamed?”
He glares at her. He looks like he wants to hit her or something. It’s hard to believe that the two of them were a couple way back when. Then again, there’s something about Stephanie that’s very sexy (maybe it’s her boobs). Anyway, I can see why he liked her.
“You don’t have to answer that, William,” Stephanie says. “I can see the answer in your face. You look like shit, by the way. Don’t Satan and Hitler let you sleep sometimes?”
Will places his arm on the small of my back. “Let’s go, Libby. I don’t need to take this.”
“No, don’t bother,” Stephanie says. “I’ll leave. I wouldn’t want to keep you from enjoying your dead cows.”
Actually, I’m planning to get the ‘shroom burger. I’m still a vegetarian. Well, a pescatarian. Except for that night last week when Will ordered a Hawaiian pizza without asking me first, and I ate it because it was already there, and it wasn’t going to do any pigs any good if I just threw it away. Plus it was delicious.
Will looks like he’s practically hyperventilating when Stephanie walks off. I can see him trying to calm himself. I can’t blame him, although some of Stephanie’s words stuck with me. Does Hanford really throw piglets across a room? That’s… too awful for words. I’ll have to ask Josh and Reid.
“I can’t believe she just did that,” he says under his breath. “I mean, trying to shame me in front of you… that’s really low.”
“Well, she was your girlfriend,” I point out to him.
“The craziness has multiplied exponentially,” he says. “The truth is, the reason I took the Saperstein and Hitchcock job instead of the one with her wasn’t because I was selling out. I just didn’t want to work with her. I needed to… you know, get away.”
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