by Sonia Taitz
Tim knew where she was, lost and floating in a sickly sweet haze. Her eyes rolled under their lids, the thick, dark lashes fluttering slightly. He was there, too. Only talking kept him from oblivion. A part of him was frightened by his own actions. What on earth was he doing here? Seducing someone just to get to Abigail somehow?
“Wait—” he gasped. “Let’s stop. I don’t want to take advantage of you. After all, you are her employee, and I don’t know how Abigail would feel—”
“Oh, god, please don’t stop now.”
“But Abigail would definitely kill us both.”
“No. Yes. Oh god, my job, my job.”
“So should we stop?”
“No, please, let’s go on, I wouldn’t tell her. . . .”
“Don’t you feel guilty? I do.”
“No, please don’t feel bad,” said Arlie, weakly trying to rise and address him. “This was supposed to happen. I’ve been praying for love. Don’t you know I was lonely like you?”
“I’d hoped so,” Tim acknowledged, with a puzzling mixture of misery, panic, and elation. “Listen,” he said, holding her face so he and Arlie could see eye to eye. Her hair was rumpled now, her expression fully honest. She was more beautiful than Abigail had ever been. “I know that in some way we need each other. But I need to tell you that I’m very confused.”
“All right. Me, too.”
Still pinning her eyes with his, Tim resumed his lovemaking.
“Ohh . . .” said Arlie, falling down again, down. Her head rolled left to right, right to left.
“You’re not faking with me, the way you sometimes do with that baby. Look at you, squirming.”
“I don’t fake with the—” Arlie protested. The words caught in her throat. She could hardly speak.
“Oh, come on,” said Tim, his movements stopped.
“If you got fired, you’d find another job. It’s the love business, Arlie. I know. My own dear mother hired a nanny to love me, and she did, by god, she did her job and got paid for it.”
“That’s no shame, to need the money,” Arlie spoke hoarsely.
“No, of course not. Tell me. How much does she pay you to love her little kid, Arlie? Minimum wage? More? My mother got me loved for pennies; wasn’t that economical?”
His voice sounded harsh, but then it softened as he began frankly pounding her.
“What should I pay you for loving me tonight?” he murmured, his voice a mocking contrast to the brutal way he moved.
Arlie didn’t or couldn’t respond. Her eyes were now squeezed shut.
“Anything, yes, I don’t care, just take me—”
“No, take me! Take my heart,” said Tim, through his teeth, as though mad. “It’s used, but it’s free. Go on. Take it all!”
With these words, he pushed in hard, like a knife blade, stabbing. Arlie grabbed him with arms and legs, prehensile. Tim watched her, tears falling from both their eyes. He had not managed to get to anyone before. Not to Milagros, his nanny. Not to his cold ex-wife, and certainly not to Abigail. They had all remained at a safe distance. They had gotten away from him. But he felt he got through to this woman, pursued her to the end of where she lived and captured her entirely.
Arlie was lost in him, shuddering and dewy-lashed. They held each other like survivors of a shipwreck.
The baby awoke. Tim sat up and quickly wiped his eyes as Arlie ran out to the child. As she changed Chloe, Tim adjusted his clothing. Then Arlie wordlessly passed the child to Tim, stepping into the kitchen to warm up a new bottle of formula. Her movements, he sensed, were efficient, practiced. She was back to her regular work; she was catching her breath and returning to the ordinary world.
Tim lingered in heaven. He was more tender than he’d ever been before, kissing the baby’s head and sniffing her ten tiny toes. Chloe was getting to know him; she was quiet in his arms, docile and trusting. But Arlie’s bustling pace was obviously forced. Tim sensed she wasn’t his for the taking anymore. Fair enough.
As he was leaving, Tim spoke with an affected casualness:
“Look, what I said about the—your payment. It’s not entirely facetious. I know you don’t have much. You work hard. I make a lot more than you do. So here. Take it.”
He took a rumpled bunch of tens from his pocket and held them out to Arlie.
“It’s what I have on me, and I want you to have it. I feel bad.”
Arlie looked into Tim’s eyes with an expression he couldn’t read. It seemed ardent, like fury, and yet there was dignity and distance in it.
“What are you doing to me now?” she spoke levelly. “Before, I don’t know. But now, now, you’re fucking me. Now. Piece of shit, you.”
“Forgive me, I told you I felt confused,” he responded. “I feel guilty toward Abigail, and I feel even worse about you. So please take it. Please. Money means very little to me, to be honest, but I’m aware of what it means for you.”
Tim placed the bills in Arlie’s hands, but she let them drop to the floor. He kissed her goodbye on her cheek. Her flesh felt cool as marble now. He imagined she would pick up the cash when he left. Somehow, that thought made him feel even worse.
27
Abigail walked into the offices of Fletcher, Caplan with a sense of nervous expectation. The receptionist, a statuesque redhead called Sherry, said, “You’re back again,” without expression. “For good this time?” she added, as Abigail walked down the hall, her heels sinking into the Oriental rugs. Associates and paralegals scurried as ever, too busy to do anything but nod as they raced here and there.
Abigail entered her own office, expecting to find piles of work on her desk, but it still seemed empty and hollowed out. There was nothing on her desk; the phone was not flashing; there was only one little note stuck to it. It was pink and it said “Trubridge.”
“He called here again?” she asked her secretary, Tina.
“Yeah, a couple of days after you had the baby. Guess word gets around.”
“Possibly. But no one here seemed to take notice except Rona—an associate in a different department. What did he want?”
“He was after your personal numbers, home and cell, but of course I knew not to give those out. Especially not to him. He tried real hard, and you know, he puts on a real good show, Richard, very tempting. I almost gave in. I mean, I thought he sounded desperate! But these acting jobs, and believe me, I’ve heard a few—they don’t work on me. I’m a professional. And I work in a law office. Don’t even try to manipulate me, you know?”
“Oh, that’s good to know,” said Abigail quietly.
“You know what I mean?” Tina repeated, continuing to be satisfied with herself.
“Yes, I do know. Thanks, Tina. Good work.”
Abigail crumpled the little note in her hand, but held on to the ball of paper.
“Was that it? No one else called?”
“Nope. Most people didn’t expect you back so soon.”
After a moment, Abigail punched in Dave Biddle-Kammerman’s direct-dial digits. He picked up with a curt “Biddle-K.”
“Thomas, A.,” Abigail replied. “Remember me?”
“Thomas, A.?”
“For heaven’s sake, Dave, you officious jerk. It’s Abigail Thomas.”
“Oh, oh. Abigail! How—how’s the baby?”
“Fine, Dave. She’s fine, I’m fine. Everyone’s fine.”
“I really meant to come over and see you at the hospital, but—you’ll get this—I’m all caught up in the twins.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You of all people know how complicated it is.”
“Indeed I do.”
“Jen’s ecstatic,” said Dave, referring to his wife. “She’s nursing on both breasts at the same time. Can you believe it? Got a good sitter? That’s key. Ours is a lifesaver. She comes from Central America and speaks to Lloyd and Drew only in Spanish. Problem is, I don’t know what she’s saying, and neither does Jen. Probably ‘Keel the gringos,’” he laughed.
&nbs
p; “You’re so politically correct, Dave. We could really have used you in the Caribbean.”
“So what’s up?”
“Well, everyone says that when you have a baby, law firms act insensitive to the fact that your life has changed, and send you all this work you can never get to. However, that hasn’t happened to me, which makes me feel left out. To be honest,” she added, “I’m nervous.”
“Hormones, Abigail, hor—”
“No, Dave,” she interjected, raising her voice. “My hormones are in check. Here are some facts: a couple of weeks ago I gave Fudim a progress report about the case, but haven’t heard from anyone—”
“Which case in particular, Abigail?”
“Which case ‘in particular’? You know, the one you sent me down to ‘Gre-nay-da, not Gre-nah-da,’ for? The one with the plane accident and the leg and the non compos mentis plaintiff?”
“And you had your accident, too—the one where you nearly lost your baby. Aw, Abigail, I’m so sorry how things have worked out for you.”
“How did they work out? They haven’t finished working out yet, Dave. I’m still working them out. And I’m working them out pretty well.”
“No, I mean, you had to go to the hospital and all that, and the baby came early, or so I heard. I mean, I wasn’t counting the weeks to your due date or anything.”
He probably was, thought Abigail.
“Everything’s fine, I told you,” she said. “Baby’s great.”
“Got a sitter?”
“What do you think? I’d leave her home alone with a note on the fridge?”
“Well, sometimes it’s hard to find a good one. We had my wife’s mother live in for a—was it the first month? Six weeks?” Actually, he hadn’t given the matter much thought. He’d gone back to work the next day. “She was a real life-saver.”
“But my mother’s dead, remember?”
“Oh, sorry, last year, right?”
“Give or take.” They used to be friends, and she was sure he’d seemed empathic over her loss.
“So sorry, really sad, I remember she was sick for a while.” He paused. “So which agency are you using?”
“Domestic Delites.”
“We used Premium Pamperers. Expensive, but they’re worth the sacrifice, right?”
“The sitters?”
“No, the babies. Harvard class of 2038, Abby!
“Rah-rah.”
“Start savin’ up right now!”
“That is the plan,” said Abigail drily.
“Right. So in terms of the near future, are you coming back soon, or have you totally fallen in love with the kid?”
“Not mutually exclusive. You love your kids, right?”
“You mean you’re coming back soon?”
“I’m actually sitting here as we speak, Dave.”
Dave Biddle-Kammerman was uncharacteristically silent for a moment.
“Where is ‘here’?”
“The hallowed halls of Fletcher and Caplan. Check it out. Hang up your phone and come over to my office.”
Dave came over to Abigail’s office. When he entered, he found her sitting at her desk, her hands folded neatly atop it.
“Do you see my work space?” she said, indicating a vast expanse of bare, shiny wood. The desk was beautifully made, and its rivets and drawer pulls were polished brass.
“Oops. Do you want us to chip in and send you a floral arrangement? They have those nice ones with the big bottle and the ribbon and the balloon.”
“No bottle, no ribbon, no balloon, Dave. Yes, you have correctly observed that my desk is empty. True, there are no flowers, but more important, there are no files. So I would like—right now—to have access to all the work you’re doing. Forward everything you have, and get some hard copies made. This way, I can help you on your cases, or you can help me on mine—however you’d like to put it.”
“Oh, sure, sure. Well, we’re fine-tuning that countersuit at the moment. It’s a real good idea, Abigail.”
“It really is. And does anyone remember whose idea it was?”
“No one’s forgetting anyone, all right?” said Dave. “But if you don’t mind being a real team player, which is, by the way, what the firm looks for in its partners, I’ll take a little credit for myself and for Mr. Fudim. Remember that memo I relayed to you, about how the client wanted the earth scorched? I wrote it, which started the ball rolling. And that’s what the countersuit will do—silence old granny but good.”
“What do you mean?”
“MacAdam was suicidal, right? Well, if she wants suicide, we’ll give her suicide. Legally, of course.”
“Yeah, let’s kill the poor old girl.” Abigail had spoken without thinking. In fact, she had muttered. But Dave had heard her. He shoved his face into her space and spoke like a real litigator:
“Sarcasm, Ab? Whose side are you on with that ‘poor old girl’ crap? She’s not your grandma, you know.”
“It’s an objective observation,” said Abigail, “of the actual truth. Which is always a good place to start, don’t you think?”
Dave did not seem to agree.
“Well, here are the facts, and I think I know more of them than you,” she continued.
“Doubtless.”
“Always room for doubt, as you yourself so often say, but thanks for agreeing. So. ‘Poor, old, girl.’ Let’s parse that. MacAdam’s been impoverished, and she’s had misfortunes. Does that cover ‘poor’? The reasonable man—or woman—would have to agree. She’s lost her dogs and her garden and her leg, and part of her house is destroyed. That’s unfortunate. And she is fairly old—even given our increased lifespans and broadening standards. So that adjective applies. As for ‘girl,’ while that can be a sexist term, she is sort of girlish, you know? Possessing the traits of a young girl. But you’d have to meet her to see that. And you’d have to be perceptive. It’s kind of an intangible thing, Dave.
“But as for ‘sides,’ naturally I’m on the client’s side. Cranebill’s.”
“Abigail. You sound funny. What happened when you went down there? You spent time alone with MacAdam. Just tell me. I’ll understand. Trust me. I’m on your side.”
“Good to know.”
“Did she get your sympathy or something? Yeah, I bet she tried. She’s very manipulative. We sent someone else down to depose her, some little associate, and that poor guy came out not only liking MacAdam, which is bad, but reluctant to work on the case against her, which is worse. Maybe she paid him something on the side. Same thing happen to you?”
“Oh, please. What happened to the guy?”
“Fudim told him to go work somewhere else. Let him work for the NRDC if he wants to hug a tree.”
“Who was this pathetic softy?”
“A little second-year. Carl Granger.”
“Carl Granger? I interviewed him for the job. He told me he just bought a nice condo and he’s up to his ears in bills. I don’t think he can afford to—”
“My point exactly,” said Dave, giving her a hard look. “They pay, we play. We’re lawyers here, and do our clients’ bidding. Right? Now, I’m also going to do what you asked. I’m going to copy everything I have, and have my girl put it on your desk. But don’t blame me if it’s overwhelming. You’ll be swimming in work, Abigail.”
“Do you have that deposition?”
“The one the Granger kid took off MacAdam, that one, right? It’s—it is somewhere, I know that. But I mean, we’re simply not gonna use it. It’s got some very damaging information in it. And of course, there was the other side, just lapping it up.”
“What damaging information?”
“I’m certainly not going to tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because we would have a much, much weaker case if we ‘knew’ it. So we don’t ‘know’ it. If I told you, it would mean that obviously I had knowledge of it, and then you obtained knowledge of it—and we can’t have any of that. And you’d face a certain amount of e
xposure as an attorney.”
By “it,” Abigail suspected that Dave was talking about the camera that was found on the plane. Up until now, only she and Jackson Moss had discussed “it.” Jackson had told her frankly about the camera, admitting the possibility that her client had actually been spying, just as Evelyn MacAdam thought. But how would she have gotten that information? Certainly not from Abigail. Jay must have leaked it to Miranda or Cora-Lee. Despite herself, Abigail was glad. The truth had a nice way of falling through the cracks and landing in your lap, whether you liked it or not.
So Jay was another one of those people, she thought. Rule breakers, like Evelyn herself. People who felt that principles trump procedure.
“Risky or not, I’d still prefer to see that depo,” said Abigail. “I’m a senior associate on the case. I’d like to see all pertinent materials. And I feel sure you can scrounge it up somehow.”
“Why are you so interested in it?”
“Oh, don’t look for trouble, Biddle. Partner though you are, it just doesn’t feel right to have you know more about this than I do.” Besides, she thought, if she left it to him, the shredder could be busy tonight.
“Talk to me later. I’ve got some paperwork to do now,” he said, speeding out of Abigail’s office.
After a few minutes, she leaned out and saw Dave Biddle-Kammerman lugging a heavy box of documents over to his secretary. Abigail waited for him to disappear, then checked his office thoroughly for the missing deposition. Not surprisingly, it was nowhere to be found.
28
When she returned to her desk, Abigail was delighted to find that Mr. Fudim, no less, had buzzed her. Perhaps, as she’d hoped, he appreciated her coming back after so short a time postpartum. As originally promised.
It seemed like ages since Abigail had last sat in this great leather chair, in this room with the samurai sword. Fudim had talked about hara-kiri then, she remembered; he had said that motherhood was “career suicide.” And yet he didn’t seem surprised to see her back so soon after the birth.
“I’m all geared up,” said Abigail, trying to fan enthusiasm for her own grit. “I felt put out to pasture, but now I feel great. Ready to go.”