The Love Wars

by Heller, L. Alison

  “All Lillian.” It has been three weeks since Liesel’s oral argument disaster, and we received Justice Love’s decision yesterday: the cats are separate property and Liesel gets to keep them all. I left Liesel an awkward voice mail and e-mailed her a scanned copy of the decision, but haven’t heard from her, which is actually a relief. Not having to talk to Liesel is like that moment when a stomachache disappears—the absence feels good, rather than just normal.

  “So, who was that on the phone? Adversary?”

  “Um, no.”

  “It was about custody, though, right? You have a parental alienation case?”

  “No, I just threw out the term. Don’t know if it really applies.”

  “Oh, you want to talk about the facts? I’ve got a moment. We could eat inside.”

  Oh, God, no. I mumble something about having to get back and we turn toward the office. Kim, of course, is outside in a haze of smoke, the center of a cluster of Dementors shifting their weight on rooted legs. I smile and wave and in response she gives a barely perceptible nod.

  “So what case?” Everett persists.

  “Borowick.” It’s the first thing that pops into my head.

  Everett looks confused as we walk into the lobby and press our IDs against the turnstiles. “But I thought that was amicable. Fifty-fifty visitation, the whole enchilada.”

  “Um, it is. Well, it was. Things have gotten tense. Well, not too tense. Just a little more tense. Just sort of weighing strategy, you know. Batting things about. Anyway, I’m sure you’re right. Yep, it’s amicable.”

  Everett’s forehead starts to wrinkle.

  We get in the elevator and I point to the Factsination! screen. “Hey—look at that!”

  Everett turns, but too late. The screen has changed. He reads out loud. “Did you know that Italian Renaissance historian Niccolò Machiavelli loved creating carnival songs, poetry and comedies?”

  I start to snort, but obscure it with a cough. “No, before that—the number one movie last weekend was Fifi and Sandy. Is that the dogs who open a fast-food place?”

  Everett perks up, which makes sense; he and the Factsination! monitor actually have similar conversational skills. “Yep, they find an abandoned restaurant and become short-order cooks. Wow—eighty-one million.” He whistles. “That’s amazing. And number two was Devil with a Gun. I think that was number one last week. I saw that here, on the elevator screen. Did you?”

  “Missed it. Is this Fifi and Sandy’s first week?”

  Improbable as it seems for someone who sees one movie a year, I manage to discuss box office profits all the way up to the thirty-seventh floor. It’s a ridiculous conversation that leaves me with enough excess brainpower to scold myself. If I’m going to survive for one more year, I will have to become a better liar. In the words of that great jokester Machiavelli: the ends justify the means.

  22

  ____

  underground beatz

  As soon as I hear Liz leave for the night, I pad down the hallway to Henry’s office. He and I have become a lot closer in the months since I took on Fern’s case, part of which, I know, is the intimacy of sharing a secret. I still eat with Rachel and Liz on a nightly basis, and we discuss the daily grind that made up the day—client drama, of course, but also head colds, poor nights’ sleep, new clothes, weekend plans, movies, bad dates (well, Rachel’s the only one who actually goes on dates). Not being able to talk to either of them about the Walker case acts like a protective moat around the friendship, though; there is only so far it can go.

  But I genuinely like Henry in a way that transcends being work friends. I enjoy his company enough to try and cajole him out of the office tonight to meet Duck and Holt at a beer garden downtown. He’s already looking up when I appear in his doorway, my flip-flops having heralded my arrival with all the elegance of a teenager smacking her Bubble Yum.

  “That sound your shoes make?” he says. “Could be a Guantánamo torture technique.”

  “Weekend wear.” I perch on the arm of his guest chair. “My subtle acknowledgment to the fact that it’s Sunday.”

  He rejects this notion with a quick smile and headshake. “Not so subtle, my friend.”

  “Henry,” I say. “It’s seven thirty. You’ve been here ten hours. Everett is gone. Liz is gone. We’re the only ones left on the floor.”

  Henry leans back. “I see that Disney Channel gleam in your eye. You’re thinking the same thing I am, right?” He leans forward, a look of mock shock on his face, wagging his finger. “Toilet papering Everett’s office?”

  “Compelling idea, but no.” I stand up. “I’m taking you where the air is fresh and the hills are green. Grab your stuff and meet me by the elevators.”

  __________

  Fifteen minutes later, we’re underground, waiting on the platform for the 4 train. Henry has a serious expression. “I think,” he says, inhaling deeply, “that if this is where you go for fresh air, we need to talk.”

  “Yeah, I lied about that. No green hills, no fresh air.”

  “So.” He rubs his hands together. “Where’s this adventure taking us?”

  “The Seaport.” I hold up my hands before he can respond. “Mea culpa for the false advertising. I thought it was necessary to entice you.”

  “You overestimate my desire to be in the office. I would’ve been game if you had told me we were riding the 4 train back and forth to go rat-spotting.”

  When the train—one of the ones that looks like a slice of the 1970s, seats in alternating shades of orange—pulls into the station, Henry and I sit perpendicular to each other, his legs stretched out under my seat. “Please, Henry. You love being in the office.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You do. The way you’ve personalized things. All those family pictures, the artwork, the cozy rug.”

  He makes a face that indicates I’m a crazy person before realizing that I’m joking. “Ah. I see. You’re being sarcastic.”

  “It must be shocking. Not that sarcasm is, like, your default conversational mode or anything.”

  “Whoa.” He blinks. “Was that a criticism of my sarcasm wrapped in a sarcastic delivery?”

  “I think it was.” I reach my hand around to pat my shoulder. “A sarcasm sandwich.”

  “How meta.” He widens his eyes as though I’ve overtaxed his brain. “But back to the office thing—you haven’t exactly decorated either. No needlepoint pillows, no rainbow wallpaper, no posters with fluffy kittens and inspirational sayings.”

  “The stuffed unicorns don’t leave room for that kind of thing.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Seriously, though? I’m not trying to work there forever. If I did, I’d make it a little homier.”

  “Homier.” He holds up one finger. “That’s a dangerous word. Work should be here”—he holds his hands apart and sets them to his right, as if putting down a box—“and home and all things homey should be here.” He makes the same gesture, but to the left. “That’s what’s so challenging about Lillian’s management style. Friendly banter is okay, I guess, but beyond that? It’s all ammunition and exposed Achilles’ heels.”

  “Work is a battlefield.”

  He shrugs, as if to say he’s just calling it like he sees it.

  “But that’s impossible to maintain, Henry. Spending sixteen hours a day with people, you have no choice but to connect.”

  “Work is work.”

  “Then what about Dominic Pizaro?” I hold my hands wide apart, holding a large imaginary box that dwarfs Henry’s imaginary boxes.

  “That’s different. And we don’t really socialize in the office.”

  “And me.”

  “You?”

  “We’re friends.”

  He doesn’t answer, twisting his mouth, knitting his brow and moving his head in the slow swing of a pendulum as though weighing my statement.

  “Wait a second,” I say, indignant. “You follow me out of the office without even knowing wher
e we’re going and you’re telling me that we’re not even friends?”

  “That says more about my judgment than our closeness.”

  I kick his leg with my foot.

  “No,” he equivocates. “I wouldn’t say we’re not friends. But aside from the kamikaze way you practice law and your flexibility with the truth about where we were going, what do I really know about you?”

  “You know my deepest darkest secret. Aside from your fondness for sarcasm sandwiches and the fact that your social skills, while hidden very deeply within you, are actually fairly substantial, what do I really know about you?”

  Henry smiles mysteriously. “Exactly. I like to keep ’em guessing.” He pauses for a moment, tilting his head toward me. “As do you.”

  “Me?” I lower my eyebrows to refute, and point to myself. “Open book.”

  He clears his throat and gives me a look that says hardly.

  “Ask anything. I will answer and you will see—I am remarkably uncomplicated.”

  “This is what I don’t get about you. You’re so clear about drawing lines—what you want and what you’ll put up with—and yet, here you still are. How and why have you lasted this long at Bacon Payne?”

  “Doesn’t everybody hate it?”

  “Answering a question with a question only perpetuates your mystery,” he says drily. “But no, I don’t hate it. I see that it’s not a perfect place, but to me, it’s worth it. I feel like I’m living my life there, not wasting it.”

  “You’re stronger than I am. Or maybe not as smart.”

  “Your opinion of the firm, choosing to stay or leave? None of it’s a referendum on your value as a human being. It’s just a job. So, what’s making you stay put?”

  “The money,” I say, but my voice goes up at the end, so it sounds like I’m asking a question instead of answering one.

  He tilts his head thoughtfully. “I’m not discounting that,” he says, “but is that enough? It’s a lot, but come on—you’re smart enough to figure out another option.”

  I’m trying to think of a retort when he points his chin at a group of boys who just got on at the Chambers Street stop. At first I don’t know why he’s directing me to look at them, but when the doors close, the subway is filled with a thumping bass and the group—three teenagers in baseball caps and red tracksuits—takes turns posing. They do contorted break-dance moves that are frenetically impressive: crazy handstands, rubbery legs jutting out at unnatural angles, swinging around the center poles.

  Our eyes meet and I assume mine, like his, are open wide, thrilled to observe the spontaneous entertainment, and as our train pulls into the Fulton Street stop, his elbow jabs into my side and he raises his eyebrows in false modesty. “I can do that, you know.”

  “You can swing from a subway pole?”

  “I can break-dance.” He extends his arms, flexes the fingers of his right hand in a twitch that moves up his shoulder blades and down the other side. “And—” He stops and leans back.

  “And what? What?” I lean forward. “That was the perfect wave, by the way.”

  “The summer when I was twelve, my friends and I? We were those kids. We put on shows in subway cars.”

  “You did not.”

  “Three of us plus mad skills equals one amazing dance group.”

  “I hope you weren’t in charge of the publicity for it.” I roll my eyes. “What’d you call yourselves?”

  “Underground Beatz. With a z.”

  “Catchy.” We exit at Fulton Street and ascend the stairs to the street. “Were your parents horrified?”

  “They didn’t know.”

  I cover my open mouth with my fingers as though scandalized. “Upper East Side boys dancing in the subway without permission.”

  “Your mockery only serves to challenge me.” He gives me a long sideways glance through narrowed eyes as we cross Broadway and head across a concrete plaza in front of an office building. In the middle of the plaza, he stops, lifts his messenger bag over his head, hands it to me and holds up one finger. “Prepare to be impressed.”

  “If you say so.”

  He stretches his arms over his head, shakes out his limbs and then executes a perfect moonwalk.

  Someone from one of the park benches lining the plaza claps and shouts, “Move it, corporate dude!”

  Henry bows, returning to claim his messenger bag.

  “Bravo.” I hand him the strap.

  He shrugs casually, adjusting the collar of his button-down like he’s not going to argue with my assessment, and starts strutting toward the Seaport.

  “Wait.” I step out of my flip-flops, hand Henry my bag and, bare feet on the pavement, reach my hands up and execute two cartwheels, followed by a front handspring, something I haven’t done—or wanted to—since middle school.

  “Still got it,” I say as the same voice from the benches—Henry’s fan—chimes in.

  “Lady, you crazy,” he says. “What you doing taking off your shoes on a city street?”

  “Nice,” Henry says, “although I think he has a point about the basic health concerns of that.”

  “Yeah.” I look at my palms, dirty from contact with the sidewalk. There’s a squashed piece of detritus on my hand that I don’t want to start to identify. “Didn’t think it through.”

  He takes my palms and wipes them on his shirt.

  “Thanks.” I hold his gaze for a moment.

  “Probably not the most effective cleansing.”

  “Still,” I say, knowing that—as considerate as the gesture was—it’s not really why I’m thanking him.

  23

  ____

  deus ex machina

  Even though it’s a beautiful, warm late September morning, I sit frozen at my desk, trying to figure out how the hell I can be at the two thirty compliance conference in Walker v. Walker when Lillian just demanded my presence at an impromptu girls’ lunch. Today. At one o’clock.

  She’s giving a little talk at the City Bar Club and we girls haven’t gotten to see her speak in a while, so wouldn’t it be great if we all meet her there at twelve thirty? That way, we can hear the end of her speech and then just run across the street for bonding over microgreens, dressing on the side.

  The Walker matter’s been cruising along for a few months, and so far I’ve been incredibly lucky: no deadlines missed, suspicions aroused or huge conflicts between Fern’s needs and my Bacon Payne caseload. I wasn’t prepared, and I mumbled something to Lillian about having court in the afternoon. What case? Lillian had asked, at which point I regained my senses. I couldn’t conjure a name as I had with Everett, because Lillian could be counted on to ask Kim to print out the court schedules.

  I pretended to check my schedule, slapped my head in abject fear (although I think Lillian interpreted it as goofiness) and sang, a little too brightly, that I had the day’s schedule wrong in my head. She’d flashed me a little smile, looked at me somewhat sternly and told me to get it together; she’d see me at twelve thirty and that I should check with Kim before I left to see if I needed to bring anything over.

  Like Charlie Brown running full speed toward Lucy’s football, I pick up the phone to call Risa. If I can get her to agree to just delay the conference by an hour, I’ll be fine. Colder—the clipped-sounding outgoing voice mail message—answers. I press redial for several minutes and eventually Cold, the live receptionist, picks up.

  “Risa McDunn and Associates.”

  “Hi, I’d like to speak to Risa, please.”

  “And who may I say is calling?”

  “Molly Grant,” I confess, although I am tempted to say Oprah and see if the service improves.

  Without even pretending to pause, she says, “Ms. McDunn is not available to take your call. Good day.”

  “Wait—”

  Pause. “Yes.”

  “I’m scheduled to be in court with her this afternoon and I’ve had an, um, family emergency come up, so I desperately need to just delay our compliance
conference or even adjourn it, whichever works better for her. Please, I’m begging. I know she’s really busy, but please.” I smile hard as though Cold can see my pearly whites through the phone.

  “Well, Ms. McDunn doesn’t customarily agree to adjournments this close to the court date.”

  “Please. Can you give her the message or forward my call?”

  Pause. Sigh. “All right. If you call back in ten minutes, I will have tried to reach her to convey your message. Ms. Ruben, was it?”

  “Uh. No. Molly Grant. G-R-A-N-T. Walker v. Walker. Thank you so much.”

  Ten minutes later to the second, I call back.

  “Risa McDunn and Associates.”

  “Hi again. This is Molly Grant. I called earlier about the adjournment in Walker v. Walker.”

  Pause.

  “You said that you would try to reach Ms. McDunn.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Molly Grant. I have a court appearance today with Risa. You told me to call back. In ten minutes. Which is now.”

  “Let me look through my notes.” I hear some papers shuffling. “Right. I wasn’t able to reach Ms. McDunn. She is very indisposed, but I did check with Mr. Allesser”—she stops to let the generosity of her gesture wash over me—“and he said that Ms. McDunn would not be amenable to an adjournment or delay.”

  “That’s it? She’s just not amenable to it? He knows without asking?”

  “Oh, yes, he also said that Mr. Walker is a very busy man and his schedule can’t be changed on a whim like that.”

  “Okay. Well, thank you so much for all your help.”

  “You’re quite welcome,” she says, missing my sarcastic tone. “Good day.”

  I am fucked. And I have just billed twenty minutes on Walker v. Walker while in my office at Bacon Payne. And used my Bacon Payne phone to call out, which could have been really stupid but for the fact that I was pretty sure Cold the Receptionist had not deigned to remember my name, let alone check my caller ID.