Man at Work

by Elaine Fox

  A bar ran along the back wall behind her over which several patrons hung their heads, beers in front of them and cigarettes in their hands, looking like Snoopy doing his vulture imitation. Everyone in the room seemed to be smoking.

  “Trust me, the food’s good,” Truman said as he took the seat across from her.

  A waitress arrived with a wet rag and two menus. “What can I get y’all t’drink?” she asked, running the rag swiftly around the table in front of them, scattering crumbs to the chairs, the floor and their laps.

  “You a beer drinker?” Truman asked Marcy.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Miller okay?”

  She opened her mouth to say she had to work the next morning, but Truman obviously wasn’t interested in that part of her reply.

  “A pitcher,” he nodded at the waitress.

  “Comin’ up.” She took one last swipe at the table with the rag and swept off.

  “I hope you’re thirsty,” Marcy said, brushing crumbs off her jacket.

  “I am.” He laid his menu on the table and punched a finger at it. “This is what you want, right here. With the works.”

  Marcy picked up her menu, looked at his selection and said, “Fine,” and put the menu back down on the table.

  He looked up at her. “Oh, now don’t do that. I hate women who say ‘fine.’”

  “You hate women who say ‘fine’?” she repeated, leaning back in her chair.

  “Yeah, that passive-aggressive ‘fine’ that means anything but. I thought you were above that, Miss Marcy.” He leaned back in his chair too and looked at her with what appeared to be genuine disappointment.

  She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. “Well, now you are getting predictable. I meant ‘fine’ in that your choice is fine with me. Fine, great, looks good, I’ll eat it. You do a lot of judging books by their covers, don’t you?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Sure you do.” She leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table. “Take that couple in the elevator, for example. You didn’t like them because they looked affluent, isn’t that right?”

  “No, that’s not right. They didn’t like me because I didn’t look affluent. That’s when I didn’t like them.”

  She smiled then. “Don’t you think you might have been reading a little bit into their expressions?”

  “It wasn’t their expressions, it was what they said. Didn’t you hear them? They thought someone dressed like me should be using the freight elevator.”

  “Oh come on.” She scoffed. “I’m dressed like you.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “I am. We’ve both got jeans on, I’m also wearing a leather coat—”

  “Suede,” he corrected. “There’s a difference. And you look nicer. You exude rich girl, right class.”

  Her smile broadened. “There you go judging me by my cover.”

  “I’m not judging you, just identifying you. But others judge you that way, I’ve seen it.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yeah. And what’s more, that’s what you want to exude. But that’s all right, I happen to like your cover.”

  His head was bent downward, toward the menu, but his eyes were looking back up at her. It was a very seductive look, Marcy found. She swallowed hard.

  “You’re saying you like the ‘rich girl, right class’ cover?”

  He sobered a moment, seeming to study the menu despite their having already decided what to order. “That’s not exactly what I said.”

  “Sure it is. You like it despite the fact that you have no idea if my ‘cover’ is representative of the real me.”

  One side of his mouth lifted. “I have a pretty good idea.”

  She laughed and looked off toward the bar. This was really funny. She wondered how far to string him along before clueing him in to the truth. Or maybe she’d never clue him in, it was too much fun seeing him so smug while being so completely wrong.

  The waitress returned and Truman ordered for them both while Marcy looked on in amusement.

  “So where are you from, Truman?” she asked impulsively.

  He glanced up at her. “From here. Washington.”

  Her brows rose. “Really? Right in D.C.? Or from the area, Maryland or Virginia.”

  “In D.C.” He inclined his head, looking at her warily. “Why do you want to know?”

  She laughed and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do a background check or anything. I’m just curious. I find you…interesting.”

  He dropped the menu and leaned back in his chair. “I find you interesting too, Miss Paglinowski.”

  His look sent an illicit shiver down her spine. “I also like that you pronounce my name correctly.”

  He grinned. “When it comes to you, I want to make sure I get everything right. So, where are you from?”

  “No, no,” she shook her head, still half smiling. “We’re not done with you yet. Have you got any siblings?”

  “Only child.” He crossed his arms over his chest, a bit of body language Marcy found revealing.

  “Happy family? Dysfunctional? Good childhood? Bad?”

  He shrugged with one shoulder. “Happy, good, I guess.”

  She cocked her head. “Interesting…Are your parents still in the area?”

  He paused, his eyes narrowed and his lips curved with amusement. “Am I going to get to play this game with you?” he asked. “Because I feel like I’m giving up a lot of chips without any chance of winning something back.”

  The waitress arrived with the beer and plunked two mugs on the table. A splat of beer sloshed over the side of the pitcher. “Right back with your smokes,” she said.

  “Oh, you’ll win something back,” Marcy said, thinking of ways she could sidestep the truth of her own background as neatly as he was his.

  His gray eyes warmed, and the slight smile on his lips suddenly seemed intimate. “I like the sound of that,” he said.

  Marcy blushed, realizing how he’d taken her words, and quickly leaned forward to pick up the pitcher. She poured one mug for him, then one for herself, automatically tilting the glass while she poured.

  “Don’t get your hopes up too high, Fleming.” She put the pitcher down and raised her mug. “To not judging books by their covers.”

  He nodded, his eyes fairly glowing as they rested on her, and raised his glass. They touched mugs and Marcy took a long, cool draw off the beer. It tasted heavenly.

  “So tell me, since I’m not allowed to guess by your appearance, why you won’t testify for my client.” Marcy leaned forward onto her elbows, her arms crossed in front of her on the table. “I’m not trying to pressure you, I just want to know.”

  Truman sighed and leaned back, letting one hand turn his mug in the wet circle at its base.

  “Of course I realize you don’t owe me an explanation,” Marcy added, feeling some compassion for him as she looked at his downcast eyes. “It’s just that my imagination has been working overtime trying to figure out why you won’t, and so far I’ve had you both in jail and in a mental institution.”

  His lashes rose and he laughed, exposing those deep dimples. He looked so openly amused Marcy was relieved. So she hadn’t hit any nails directly on the head, anyway.

  “I don’t have a great reason, except that I don’t like courtrooms. I’ve…had some experience in them, let’s put it that way. But no, I’ve never been in jail.” He looked back down at his mug.

  Marcy’s brows rose, which he caught when he glanced back up.

  He chuckled. “Nor have I been in a mental institution. Though I’ve a few relatives who’d like to see me in one right now. But that’s beside the point.”

  She expelled a breath and took another sip of beer. “Join the club. My relatives don’t understand me at all. My mother’s always saying she doesn’t know where I came from.”

  Truman laughed. “That’s funny, my mother says I don’t know where I c
ame from. So what don’t your folks approve of about you?”

  She shrugged and made a circle in the sloshed beer with her finger. “Oh, you know, the whole lawyer thing.”

  He smirked. “Went for your J.D. when you should have been going for your M.R.S.?”

  She sighed. “Something like that.”

  “The social debutante goes public defender?”

  “I never did criminal law.”

  “And more power to you. Go where the deep pockets are.”

  She bristled. “Downey, Finley and Salem does a lot of pro bono work. We also represent individuals over corporations more than the other way around, and the companies we do represent are socially and environmentally responsible.”

  Truman laughed and held up his hands. “Okay, okay. You’re a bunch of saints.”

  Marcy felt herself blush and took another sip of beer. “I guess I’m just a little tired of the ‘evil lawyer’ assumption.”

  “Yeah, me too.” He heard his own words and added quickly, “You know, living in this town you hear an awful lot of lawyer jokes. I’m kind of tired of them myself.”

  “How about a judge joke, then?” she asked, embarrassed at her touchiness and wanting to make light of it. “What’s the difference between God and a federal judge?”

  He shook his head.

  “God doesn’t think He’s a federal judge.”

  Truman laughed. “I hadn’t heard that one.”

  The waitress arrived with their food and they set to work on the half-smokes for a minute. After her first bite Truman looked at her inquiringly.

  “So?”

  She smiled around the mouthful. “It’s good.” She nodded, then swallowed. “It’s really good.”

  They concentrated on the food for a few minutes, then Marcy put hers down, pulled a napkin from the dispenser by the wall and wiped her fingers.

  “So, your whole objection to testifying is that you just don’t like courtrooms?”

  He gave her a wary look over his half-smoke, chewed, then answered. “Pretty much.”

  “What if I—”

  “No.”

  “But I can—”

  “Marcy, let’s just eat first, then we can discuss the case, all right? I had kind of a rough day.” He picked up the pitcher of beer. “Here, have another drink.”

  He filled up her mug, put the pitcher down and she picked it back up. “If you had such a rough day, then maybe you should have another drink.” She filled up his mug.

  He reached for the mug and held it aloft. “To new friends,” he said, looking at her with what she thought was irony in his eyes.

  She picked up her beer. “All right.”

  They touched mugs again and Truman smiled.

  For a second, Marcy tried to resist, tried to remember that she was here to convince him to become a witness, not a new friend, but she couldn’t hold out. She smiled back and, with that, they fell back into easy conversation.

  An hour and a half later they left the restaurant, and Marcy unlocked the car with her remote.

  “Listen, the reason I stopped by tonight,” Truman said as they walked toward the car, “is to tell you that I met the guy who fell off the Planners project six weeks before Burton’s accident.”

  Marcy stopped walking and looked up at him. “What?”

  “Remember I told you there was a rumor someone else had fallen, same as Burton?”

  She nodded, quickly determining the dramatic effect this would have on her case.

  “Well, I met him. I’d been given a tip about a place to find a job, where other people who’d left Planners had gone, and right off the bat I met this guy. He’s a good guy, credible, but had no idea someone else had fallen, not to mention the fact that he himself might have a suit. I told him you might get in touch with him.”

  Marcy stared at him. Not only had he come up with a fabulous witness, one that would, if admissible, deeply affect a judge considering whether or not Planners knew of the danger of their negligence, but he’d also given her the opportunity to bring a new case of her own into the firm. A chance to make a little rain. A chance to impress Win Downey.

  Her heart pounded with excitement and her face flushed. “Truman, do you realize what you’ve just done for me?”

  He shrugged and looked away.

  “I’m serious. This is huge!” On impulse, with the excitement of a win coursing through her veins, she took him by the arm and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

  But the touch of his skin on her lips seemed to ignite something within her. It was electric, touching Truman. She stepped back and looked away, embarrassed. Given half an instant more she would have kissed him again, only this time on the lips.

  “How can I ever thank you?” she asked, moving quickly around the car to the driver’s side door.

  He paused at his side and looked at her over the roof of the car. To Marcy he seemed utterly unaware of the electricity between them.

  “You can keep me out of the courtroom,” he said.

  She nodded slowly. Then paused. “But you could have a case of your own, you know. You were fired for asking about safety regulations, right?”

  He started to smile and they both got in the car. “No, I believe I was fired for decking the superintendent.”

  She grimaced, appalled that she’d momentarily forgotten the events of that day—amazing what she could forget when she touched Truman Fleming—and put her key in the ignition.

  “Well, you’re still important to this case. For one thing…” She pulled her purse from the well of the passenger side, where she’d tossed it when she’d sat down, and dug through it for the pictures. “I need to know what a few of these photos are documenting.”

  This time, at least, she wasn’t going to forget what her mission was.

  Truman took the envelope from her hands and pulled out the pictures. Marcy tried to concentrate on the photos and not the hands that held them. The first few she understood. When he got to the middle of the pile she stopped him.

  “That one. What’s that?” She pointed to the picture in his left hand, brushing his thumb as she did so. Ridiculously, her heart accelerated at the contact. She was more aware than she wanted to be of how close they sat, how when she leaned over to look at the picture, her shoulder was intimately close to his.

  “That’s the area the contractor was talking about when he asked Lang to install the guardrails. That’s where his guys were working that day.” Truman laughed cynically. “I remember Lang was so hostile, saying something like ‘Yeah, OSHA, my ass. I’ll put guardrails up when—’” He stopped suddenly, and cleared his throat.

  Marcy looked over at him. When she did, he turned his head to look at her. Their faces were inches apart.

  “When what?” she asked quietly.

  His lips were right there. She’d barely have to move at all to graze them with hers.

  He inhaled slowly. “‘When monkeys fly out my ass.’”

  She blinked, then laughed slightly. “Lang said that?”

  He nodded. Something in his eyes looked resigned. And tortured.

  She held his gaze. “You heard him, didn’t you? You were right there.”

  He nodded again.

  Boy. She had him at bay, she thought, remembering that morning’s word for the day. Sometimes that calendar was downright prophetic.

  “You’re the evidence that the subcontractor requested the required guardrails and the defendant refused,” she said. “Planners not only knew of the violation but they refused to fix it. Truman, you have to testify.”

  Tru’s lips pressed together and a muscle jumped in his jaw but he did not relinquish her gaze.

  Marcy’s pulse accelerated. She told herself it was because her case had just gained an incredibly strong witness, not because Truman Fleming’s pale gray eyes were looking at her so deeply it seemed they’d caught something in her soul.

  She swallowed, her breathing suddenly shallow.

  She should mov
e away, look away, end this moment, she thought, but every nerve reached out for the man who sat next to her in the car.

  “Marcy,” he said quietly. It was almost a question.

  She sat frozen, wanting so badly to touch him she couldn’t breathe. But she couldn’t. Shouldn’t. She had to control herself. It was important, she recalled in a vague way.

  The moment lingered and Marcy’s nerves crawled with the desire to lean forward the scant inches it would take to kiss him. The heated look in his eyes told her that’s what he wanted. That, and more.

  She thought she’d shake her head, tell him no. Instead she shifted forward so slightly she wasn’t sure if she’d actually moved.

  But she must have, because then Truman’s mouth was on hers. Barely. Gently. The kiss was so feathery, yet so intimate, Marcy sighed against his lips. He pulled back a fraction, his eyes delving into hers.

  There was something in them that she recognized. For one crazed moment, Marcy had the incredible feeling that she knew Truman as well as she knew herself. And he knew her. That here was the man she’d been hoping to find, the one who might understand her and love her anyway.

  This time she closed the gap between them and their lips came together again. But there was nothing gentle about this kiss. Marcy’s hands reached for his shoulders as he caught her waist and pulled her to him. Their bodies connected across the center console of the car. The parking brake dug into her thigh but even that bit of reality couldn’t squelch the desire—no, the knowledge that this was right, that she and Truman belonged to this moment, to this determined exploration of each other.

  Their tongues entwined and their breath mingled frantically. Truman’s beard stubble scratched her cheek and his hands squeezed her waist as Marcy leaned into him. She felt the strength of his long fingers at her ribs and longed for them to touch her skin. But she could only get so close. Out of frustration, she reached down and released the parking brake. The car, still in park, rocked slightly forward.

  They barely noticed.

  Leaning across the seat, held close to Truman’s chest, Marcy’s shirt came loose from her jeans and as Truman’s hands moved downward his fingers touched skin at the small of her back.

  Marcy inhaled sharply and held his face with her hands, kissing him deeply. Vaguely, in the back of her mind, she thought she should stop this before it went too far, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She just wanted that contact, that feeling of Truman’s hands on her bare flesh.