Money Creek

by Anne Laughlin

  She ordered two more drinks and drank them both while Ben still refused to drink one. She had a dim awareness the next day was a big one for her as well. She was scheduled to argue a motion in court. She fished in her right-hand pocket and slowly extracted another Valium. As soon as he was distracted by someone saying hello, she popped the pill in her mouth and drank it down with the glass of beer Danny had been refilling all night. Ben turned back to her. It was getting toward the end of the evening, the time she asked herself whether she wanted any company for the night. Ben’s good looks and straitlaced demeanor were kind of sexy. She wished she knew what they’d been talking about. Had he been flirting with her? Had she with him? The way his stool was drawn close to hers suggested as much. When she looked up at him he was staring at her intently, not in a soulful way but more like he was watching for signs of delirium. She knocked back one more shot and turned fully toward him. She wanted to get him into bed. She had a fleeting thought it would be better if Freya were standing in front of her, but she wasn’t.

  “What do you say we get out of here?” Clare said, moving her hands onto the top of his thighs. It helped hold her up.

  Ben stood and gently took Clare’s hands away. She frowned. Was he going to be difficult?

  “I’d be happy to take you home, Clare. Should we leave now?” That was more like it. She tried to put her jacket on and her arm got caught up in a sleeve. Ben reached over and got things straightened out for her. “Ready?”

  She followed him out of the bar, walking slowly to keep one foot in front of the other. She remembered him snapping her seat belt on in the passenger seat of his car. After that there was nothing.

  Chapter Twelve

  She knew it was bad before she opened her eyes. The lids were glued together, and it took effort to pry them apart. Her bedroom wallpaper popped into view. What a relief to wake up in her own home. She rolled onto her back, which sent her insides roiling like the wake of a ship. She was poisoned, as if a Russian had jabbed her with a tipped umbrella. A few tears leaked out of her squinting eyes. In Chicago there was a certain anonymity—when she screwed up like this it was as often as not in front of strangers. But she was in Money Creek, and if she’d done anything spectacularly bad, the whole town would soon know of it.

  She took a breath and turned to her other side, half expecting to find a man lying there. She blew out the breath when she found the bed empty. The linen was messed up like someone had slept in it. Who’d been lying there? Where was he? She glanced at her phone and saw it was eight o’clock. Her heart seemed to stop a beat. She had a court appearance in two hours, an important one where she was arguing a motion to extend discovery in order to take the extra depositions down in Carbondale. She hadn’t set her alarm.

  She pushed herself up from her bed and instantly knew she wouldn’t make it to the bathroom in time. She grabbed her bedroom trash can and hurled into it, a noisy, smelly operation that left her lying on the floor. Jesus. How was she ever going to make it to court? She forced herself to get up and go to the kitchen. She needed about five gallons of water to start flushing the toxins out of her system. As she got to the bedroom door, Ben stuck his head in and scared the hell out of her. She was about to ask what he was doing in her house when she thought better of it. It was obvious what he’d been doing. Why call attention to it? She pressed a hand against the wall to hold herself up.

  “I heard you making noises,” he said. He had an awful grin on his face. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  Ben didn’t seem the least bit awkward or embarrassed about whatever it was that happened, while she was mortified. Why couldn’t she at least have picked a stranger to go home with? With a stranger there was some hope she’d never have to think about it again. Now every time she saw Ben she knew he’d be thinking about their night together. Oh, God.

  She grabbed her robe behind the door and pushed past him into the hallway. “To be honest, I’ve been better. I hope you won’t hold this against me.” She turned to look at him.

  “Don’t worry about a thing. I was glad to do it.”

  She nodded along, not really understanding what he was saying.

  “I’ve got to go to work, but I’ll see you around.” He briefly put a hand on her shoulder and turned to leave.

  Clare wondered if that meant he wanted to see her again. She couldn’t think about it. All she could think about was whether he’d get out the door before she threw up again. She managed to hold it together as he said good-bye, and she ran for the bathroom as soon as he slipped out the front door. When she was done retching, she tried to drink a glass of water, but even that stimulated her gag reflex. She threw it up as soon as it was down. She tried to remember a hangover this bad but couldn’t. If a normal person was this sick, they’d call 911. She looked at it as punishment for fucking up so badly. By all rights, she should feel worse.

  In the kitchen, she grabbed a Diet Coke and drank it down in one. The sharp sweetness cut through the fur on her tongue and spread throughout her body. Her stomach didn’t rebel. She was caught between wanting and not wanting to know what had happened with Ben. Was she sloppy and outrageous? She was surprised Ben would sleep with her when she was that drunk—he seemed too upstanding for that. She would have been as attractive as a dead rat in that condition. Why would he want to? Or perhaps she was fairly well behaved and accepted Ben’s invitation to sleep together without him knowing she was in a complete blackout. The fact was he’d slept with her. She didn’t know how much to be ashamed about, but assumed it was a lot.

  She took another Coke with her into the living room and flopped on her couch. Now that she wasn’t vomiting, she had a chance to start panicking about her court appearance. Her thinking was fuzzy; she was unable to process more than what was right in front of her. The motion she was to present wasn’t particularly complex, but she had to be prepared to argue against the other side and answer the judge’s questions. It seemed impossible.

  An hour later, she was in her office, putting her notes together. Everything she did felt like it was being done underwater, slow and deliberate. Jo poked her head in the office.

  “I hear you and Freya had dinner together last night,” she said in a clipped tone of voice. Clare looked at her briefly before turning back to her file. “That’s right.”

  She felt Jo staring at her. She was not in the mood to talk. The dinner with Freya was a hundred years ago and any complications with Jo didn’t interest her at the moment.

  “I don’t know that there’s anything to say about it,” she finally said. “It was dinner.” She picked up her file and tried to leave the office, but Jo remained at the door, blocking her way.

  “As long as it was only dinner.”

  Clare laughed. “Really? Are you in high school? Now if you’ll excuse me.” She brushed by her and headed down the hall to Elizabeth’s office. At least she looked presentable. She’d taken a long shower to try to steam out the smell of booze coming from her pores. Her dark gray suit was fresh from the dry cleaners and she’d even accessorized. She knocked at Elizabeth’s door and saw her sitting behind her desk. As usual, she looked casually elegant, like she was French. Maybe it was the way she wore her scarf.

  “Good morning. I thought I’d stop by before heading to court for the discovery motion.”

  Elizabeth turned from her computer and smiled. “Wonderful. I’m going with.”

  She blanched. “You are? Do you feel you need to supervise?”

  Elizabeth looked at her with a reassuring smile. “Not supervise. Observe. I like to see all our lawyers in action from time to time.”

  She hesitated but couldn’t come up with a reason Elizabeth shouldn’t come with her. This was the worst possible scenario—she would see Clare at her worst. She tried to sound enthusiastic. “Great. Are you ready to leave?”

  At the courthouse, Clare got winded going up the marble stairs to the third floor. She was woozy. Elizabeth looked at her curiously. She followed Eliz
abeth into Judge Carruthers’s courtroom. It looked as old and stately as the rest of the building; she could easily see Abraham Lincoln trying cases here. A large gallery for witnesses and onlookers was in the rear of the courtroom. Tall windows lined the east wall, a couple of them cracked open to counteract the radiators overheating the room. A wooden bar crossed the front of the room and on the other side were the jury box, the counsel tables, and the judge’s grand desk and witness stand. They took a seat in the gallery and waited for their case to be called. Clare popped some Tic Tacs into her mouth and pulled the file from her briefcase. The woozy feeling was still with her, and now she could add nervousness to the mix. She said a quick prayer, something she hadn’t done since grade school.

  The court clerk called their case. Clare stood and tried to walk confidently through the bar. She placed her briefcase on the floor and her thin file on the counsel table. Elizabeth stayed behind in the gallery. Sitting at the opposite counsel table was Luther Woolfe, the chief plaintiff’s attorney and leading ambulance chaser in Timson County. She wondered why he hadn’t sent an associate to handle the motion. The judge looked down at them.

  “Good morning, Ms. Lehane. I understand you’re presenting an expedited motion this morning?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Clare Lehane representing Peterson Agriculture. I’m sure you have before you our motion to extend discovery.”

  “I do. This is the third time your firm has requested an extension. I’m going to need a good reason to grant yet another.”

  “We have one, Judge.” Clare gazed at her notes, looking for a prompt of what to say next. She was listing from side to side as she stood at the table. She gripped it for stability. “Yesterday I took the deposition of a witness from Ogden Lagoon’s quality control and safety department. We called you in the middle of that deposition when counsel disagreed whether the witness should continue to testify about a matter not previously revealed during discovery—that members of that department were aware of previous incidents of people falling through the gate. We had not been made aware that the reason for the product recall was an actual incident of someone falling through the gate.”

  Woolfe broke in. “Your Honor, the defendants’ attorneys have had months to take the depositions of these witnesses. Extending discovery would come at a great cost to my client and is unfair to her.” His client was Oleg’s widow.

  Clare held tightly to the table and again stared at her notes. They seemed to be swimming along the page. She suddenly had no idea what to say in response to the plaintiff’s attorney. It was just beyond her, but she couldn’t reach it. Her stomach burst into rebellion and bile climbed up her throat. She started to panic.

  “Ms. Lehane? Do you have a response?” the judge said.

  Clare’s anguish fell away as the need to get to a bathroom became paramount. She had no choice but to make a dash for it. She burst through the bar, holding her hand to her mouth as she ran through the gallery and out the door of the courtroom. The women’s room was across the hall and she made it there just in time. Standing at one of the sinks was her neighbor Sally, the recorder of deeds, who got an earful of her vomiting. The room was tiled in marble, amplifying the sound. When she staggered out of the stall a few minutes later, Sally was still there. Clare ignored her and ran water in the other sink, slurping it up and spitting it out.

  “Are you pregnant?” Sally said. She looked at Clare impassively.

  She hardly heard her. Her head was roaring. What had she done? What must Elizabeth think? Should she go back in? She looked at herself in the mirror and knew no one would have a hard time believing she was sick. She looked like she was on her death bed.

  “I said, are you pregnant?”

  Clare looked at Sally. “No, not pregnant.”

  “Can I help in any way?”

  “I’m fine. It must have been something I ate.”

  “I saw your light on late into the night. You must not have gotten much sleep.”

  Clare frowned. “I guess you didn’t either if you were looking through my windows.”

  “I don’t sleep well,” Sally said, unembarrassed.

  “I have to go,” Clare said abruptly. She needed to be brave enough to see how things were. She walked across the hall and peered through the window of the courtroom door. Elizabeth was standing at counsel table, putting Clare’s file into her briefcase. She must have finished arguing the motion. She walked through the gallery carrying both briefcases, pushed open the courtroom door, and found Clare on the other side. She handed her briefcase over, her eyes cool and appraising.

  “I’m so, so sorry, Elizabeth. I didn’t realize how sick I was.”

  “You must be very sick for that to happen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lawyer leave the courtroom in the middle of an argument.”

  Clare had been hoping for immediate concern and forgiveness from Elizabeth, not the slight tone of censure in her voice. She was surprised. “I’m afraid I had no choice. I figured it was better than vomiting in front of the judge.”

  Elizabeth started walking briskly down the hall to the staircase. “No real harm done.”

  “Thank you so much.” Clare walked faster to keep up with her.

  “Aren’t you curious who won the motion?”

  God, she could not stop doing the wrong thing. “Of course.”

  “We lost, essentially. The judge gave us one week. That means you have a very short time to get as many depositions as you can lined up. Should I get Thomas to step in for you?”

  Was she being replaced? “No, I can handle it. I feel a little better now.” Maybe a little speed would bring her up to floor level.

  Elizabeth trotted down the staircase and into the rotunda. “I have an errand to run before I go back. I’ll see you at the office.”

  She stood still as Elizabeth strode toward the exit and out the door. This was bad. Disappointing Elizabeth was crushing. So far, she’d done such a good job of playing the role of competent associate attorney and now Elizabeth had seen her true colors—a person who ultimately could not be trusted.

  By the end of the day she’d managed to schedule several depositions for the following week, which meant an overnight in Carbondale. She sat in her office chair trying to summon the energy to go home. It was pitch-black outside her window, the short days of winter seemed endless. Her hangover had resolved into sheer exhaustion. She looked at her phone for the first time in hours and saw that Freya had texted to see how she was doing. What could that mean? Had Ben told her how drunk she’d been last night, or worse, that they’d slept together? She shoved herself out of her chair and out the door of the building. The sharpness of the cold air was refreshing. Her car was parked in front and she opened the unlocked door. No one in Money Creek locked their doors. She yelped when she saw Henry sitting in the passenger seat. She put a hand on her chest where she could feel her heart galloping.

  He was grinning at her. He smelled like patchouli oil, which she found surprising, more banal than she thought him to be.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she said.

  “Simply dropping by for a visit.”

  “In front of your mother’s office?”

  Henry waved a hand in front of him. “No worries. I just left her house where she’s peeling potatoes for dinner.”

  Clare tried to imagine Elizabeth tending to the quotidian parts of life, the cooking and cleaning and handling of life’s annoyances. It was hard. She saw Elizabeth as always operating on a higher plane. She stared blankly at Henry. She wasn’t sure how much more she could handle in this soul sucking bitch of a day.

  “It feels like an unnecessary surprise. Couldn’t you have called?”

  “The idea struck me when Mom said you were still at the office. I was leaving there anyway and thought I’d swing by. I haven’t seen you since last week when you bought from me.”

  Clare relaxed a smidgen. “No offense, but I didn’t think we were meant to see each other more than that.”

&
nbsp; Henry shifted in his seat. “You have to admit, we have a special circumstance here. I thought it’d be good for us to have a conversation.”

  “Can we do it another time? I’m not feeling well today.”

  Henry smiled. “Yeah, I heard you were knocking them back last night.”

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Evan was at Abe’s last night. He said he tried to talk to you but you acted like you’d never seen him before. Said you were throwing down shots the whole time he was there.”

  Clare didn’t say anything. This was her worst fear, that news of her bad behavior would race through town and eventually land in front of Elizabeth. She was already under suspicion for the way she acted in court that morning, but at least Elizabeth didn’t know it was because she had the world’s worst hangover. Who else was at Abe’s other than Ben and Evan?

  “The reason for the visit,” Henry said, “is to invite you to meet some people out at my country place.”

  “You have a country place?” Clare hadn’t thought Henry was dealing drugs on a scale that would allow him to buy property.

  “It’s small, but it’s private. Pretty hard to find.”

  “I don’t understand,” Clare said. “Why do you want me to meet these people?”

  “You’re young, smart, and professional. You’ll fit in well with my crowd. It would mean something to me if you came.”

  Clare regarded him. There had to be something behind the request, something she didn’t want to get involved in. “I think I’ll pass. I’m not looking to make more friends.”

  He laughed. “More friends? How about some friends? You haven’t had time yet to make any.”

  “I have. Let’s just say I like to keep my circle very small.”

  He paused. “This is a handful of people who are close to me. Will you reconsider?”

  “I think not. I hope this won’t affect our business relationship.” She’d do a lot to maintain that connection.