Legal Tender Read online

  “Really,” I said, though I remembered it from the memo. “So the patents would fit together.”

  “Like keys to a lock.”

  “Amazing,” I bubbled, though the simile had been mine. I had edited out the metaphor the memo had used, comparing the patents to keys to a treasure chest. It was too cute for an opinion letter, where the language is supposed to be so bland nobody could remember it, much less hold the firm liable for anything.

  Williamson stood up, smoothing his bumpy seersucker jacket. “Well, I really must be going. The Paoli train calls, and so does my wife.”

  Mark and I laughed in unfortunate unison. We always laugh at our clients’ jokes, but we try not to be so obvious about it. “I’ll walk you out,” Mark said, rising to help Williamson gather his papers. Dr. Haupt rose, too, and Eve put the file back together, working smoothly.

  “Thanks again, Kurt,” I said to Williamson. I shook his hand as he left, and he mock-withered in my grip.

  “Still rowing, are you?” he asked, smiling. “I haven’t sculled in ages. I’m getting older.”

  “You too? What a coincidence.”

  Williamson laughed as Mark gave him one of those elbow touches that qualify as business intimacy, and Williamson let himself be cuddled out. Dr. Haupt followed silently, leaving Eve and me alone in the conference room. I decided to be nice to her. “Congratulations on the new business, Eve.”

  She continued gathering the papers, but she was frowning. “They’re sexist, even Dr. Haupt. He didn’t even acknowledge me.”

  “Hey, Eve,” called a boyish voice from the door. It was Bob Wingate, the Deadhead with gaunt cheekbones, sunken brown eyes, and an alternative pallor. Dressed in a Jerry T-shirt and khakis, he ambled into the library and climbed onto the window seat. “How goes the Wellroth trial?”

  Eve masked her pique. “Great, just great,” she said, and I chose not to contradict her.

  “Cool.” Wingate nodded. “Did Mark let you do a witness?”

  “Sure. I cross-examined two of them and argued a motion at the end of the day. An evidentiary motion.”

  “Fuck,” Wingate said, scratching his longish hair. “I worked my ass off all day on one brief. When’s he gonna let me have a trial? I’ve done almost fifty depositions in two years. I think I’m ready, don’t you?” He bumped his black high-tops against the wall, making scuffmarks on my paint job.

  “Wingate, stop with your heels,” I said.

  He looked at me like an injured child. “When am I gonna get some trial experience, Bennie? I’m ready. I can do it.”

  “Ask Mark. You didn’t want to work for me, remember?”

  “It wasn’t you, it was your cases. And he always puts me off.”

  “Then keep after him.”

  Wingate sulked in the window seat as Eve sat down, fiddling with her charm bracelet: a gold locket, a silver key, a tiny heart. I wondered if Mark had given her the bracelet; he’d never given me anything so expensive.

  “I thought that went very well, didn’t you?” Mark said, returning like the conquering hero. “Eve?”

  “Fine,” she said, smiling. “It went great.”

  “What went great?” asked Grady Wells, drifting into the library, dressed in a gray suit and Liberty tie. Above his broad shoulders was a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses, an easy smile, and thatch of curly blond hair no amount of water could civilize. It was the only unruly thing about Grady, a tall North Carolinian with Southern manners and an accent that fooled opposing counsel into thinking he was slow-witted. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  “We’re talking about the Wellroth trial,” Wingate said. “Eve did two witnesses. Meantime, what are you dressed as, Wells?”

  Grady looked down at his suit. “A lawyer, I think.”

  “But isn’t this your Ultimate Frisbee night? The last night of the season? The big party?”

  “I have to miss it. I’m meeting a client.”

  Wingate snorted. “Maybe there is no ultimate night of Ultimate Frisbee. Maybe every night is the ultimate. You’re the golden boy, Wells. You tell me.”

  “Renee!” Mark said, beaming as Renee Butler arrived, wearing a loose smock of Kente cloth. “Come in and celebrate. Wellroth is sending us some very significant new business, including an antitrust case. I want you and Wells to work on it. It’ll be a monster.”

  “If you need me,” Renee said.

  Mark turned to Grady. “Wells, how about you?”

  “No thanks,” he said, with a confidence afforded by his credentials. A Duke grad, he’d clerked for the Supremes and before that had been an editor of the Harvard Law Review. It was a coup R & B got him; he chose us because he had a girlfriend in Philly at the time.

  “You don’t want even a piece of it?” Mark asked, but Grady shook his head.

  “Antitrust is drying up, anyway,” Wingate mumbled. “It’s been dead since the eighties.”

  “Hey, everybody!” called Jennifer Rowland, from the door. A petite Villanova grad, Rowland effervesced constantly, like a Dixie cup of 7-Up.

  “Come in, Jen,” I said, and moved over to let her squeeze in with our two remaining associates, Amy Fletcher and Jeff Jacobs. The library was so small that at the end of most workdays it looked like the stateroom in a Marx Brothers movie, but I didn’t mind it. I enjoyed hearing about the day’s legal problems, and the associates enjoyed airing them. Well, now we had a real problem. I decided to deal with it. “You know, gang, I’m glad you’re all here, because there’s something we should discuss. I’ve been hearing some rumors.”

  Mark’s head snapped around. “Rumors? What about?”

  “About Wells?” Wingate said. “Is he really a Republican?”

  Mark cut him off with a hand chop. “Wingate, if you were funny it would be different. But you’re not, so shut up.”

  Wingate flushed red, and I cleared my throat. “Rumor has it that some of you are circulating résumés.”

  “Résumés? You’re kidding,” Mark said, looking as surprised as I was. He was undoubtedly pissed I hadn’t spoken to him privately, but I wasn’t about to wait. Suddenly his dark eyes began scrutinizing the faces around the table. “Who’s looking for a new job?” he asked. “Who?”

  “Mark, that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter who’s looking. I didn’t bring it up because I expected somebody to tell us.”

  “You mean you’re not trying to out anybody,” Wingate said tensely.

  “No, I’m not. But I wanted to tell you, and I speak for Mark, too, that we would hate to lose any one of you. You’ve all been working very hard and that takes a toll. So if you’re unhappy about your hours or about anything else, just come to us privately and tell us why. Maybe we can fix it, and nobody has to leave R & B. Now, that’s all I’ll say about it, unless you have questions.”

  Jennifer Rowland raised her hand shyly. “Bennie? I was wondering about something.”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “We’ve been hearing some rumors that you and Mark … you know.” She looked awkwardly from Mark to me, and since it was my role to be graceful in defeat, I spoke.

  “Well, Jenny, it’s true that Daddy and I did, in fact, break up. But it wasn’t your fault and we love you the way we always did.” The associates laughed and so did I, though it killed me. Mark reddened and glanced at Eve.

  But Jenny was waving her hand, trying to silence everybody. “No, actually, I knew that you and Mark broke up. What I heard was that the firm was breaking up. That you and Mark were dissolving the firm.”

  Mark went white, and so did I. “Jenny, of course that’s not true,” I said, but Mark was already on his feet.

  “People, I think this has been enough of a therapy session for one night. Everybody out of the pool.” He clapped his hands together to get the associates moving. “Come on, everybody out.”

  “Wait a minute, Mark,” I said. “They have a right to ask, a right to know what’s going on. It’s their jobs.”

&nbs
p; “Bennie, stop.” He held up his hand. “I know what I’m doing.”

  The associates were already leaving. Amy Fletcher and Jeff Jacobs left together, with Jennifer. Wingate popped off the window seat and hustled to the door behind Eve and Renee Butler. Grady was the last to go and glanced back at me, his large gray eyes full of intelligence, and something else. A trace of sympathy. There, then gone.

  I shut the library door and faced Mark.

  6

  It’s over, Bennie,” Mark said.

  “I know, I noticed we weren’t sleeping together.”

  “Not us. R & B. The firm. It’s true.”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My face felt red, my throat, thick. A fist of pain and anger formed in my chest. “What are you talking about?”

  “I want to go out on my own.”

  I told myself to stay calm and control my tone. I didn’t want us to start screaming at each other. It hadn’t gotten us anywhere but apart. “You’re already out on your own.”

  “I want to start over, make a new firm. I need a fresh start.” He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his suit pants. “It’s too hard, with you and Eve in the same firm.”

  “Slow up a minute. This is my business you’re talking about, my livelihood. The stuff with Eve is personal. I know the difference.”

  “Then what happened today, with the water pitcher? Eve thinks you did it because you’re jealous of her. She doesn’t see how she can stay, with you here.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Then let her go, it’s my firm. You know and I know today was about business.”

  He folded his arms as he stood on the opposite side of the conference table. “She should be up for partner in a couple of years. Will you make her one?”

  “I’ll decide that then, but I doubt it. I don’t think she’s qualified, not after what I saw today.”

  He laughed abruptly. “Bennie, who stands on principle. Always.”

  “Absolutely, and why not?” I said, fighting to check my temper. “Eve’s a fine corporate lawyer, but she can’t try a case to save her life. She’s not as good a trial lawyer as anybody in her graduating class—Butler, Wells, or Wingate.”

  “Wingate? He’s a slacker. He doesn’t have the brains, even if he did have the energy! I can’t introduce him to a corporate client—”

  “Lower your voice,” I told him, in case the associates could hear.

  “Eve’s smart, Bennie. That idea for the joint venture, it was hers. You saw the memo.”

  “So? We’ve turned down lots of smart kids for partnership.”

  “I’m telling you, she’s good.”

  “Maybe in bed.”

  His lip curled. “That was unnecessary.”

  “But that’s why you want to give her special treatment, isn’t it? Where does that leave the other women? Or the men? She doesn’t have the talent, period. No matter who she’s sleeping with.”

  He shook his head. I shook mine. Silence fell between us as we both fumed.

  “I’ll take my clients,” Mark said quietly. “Wellroth and the other drug companies. You take your practice, the defamation clients and the excessive force cases. We divide the assets and the receivables down the middle. I made copies of the computer files, on disk. Also the standard form file, since we wrote it together, and the billing system. Eve photocopied the case files for the drug clients.”

  He’d had it all planned out. All of it with Eve, behind my back.

  “We split up the associates. Whoever wants to come with me and Eve can, and whoever wants to come with you can. I found some new office space on Twentieth Street. It’s sunny and bright. The lease starts in two weeks.”

  “You’re moving in two weeks? Good. Go.”

  Mark stood stock still. The picture came suddenly into focus, and I went ballistic.

  “No, I’m moving? You’re throwing me out? Fucking Mark! You own the building, so you’re taking my firm! I sanded these floors, you asshole!”

  “Bennie—”

  “Is there anything else I should know? Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  “You brought it on yourself.”

  “Fuck you!” I shouted, without caring whether the associates heard. “Where the fuck do you get off?”

  “Where do I get off? Okay, so since when do you represent animal rights activists, Bennie?”

  “What’s that have to do with it? You’ve been planning this for months, you hypocrite!”

  “Today was the last straw. Do you care that Furstmann Dunn and Wellroth are owned by the same parent? You didn’t do the conflict check, did you, before you rode off to save the day!”

  I was so mad I could scream, and I did. “I defended that kid against criminal charges! His brutality suit will be filed against the police department and the city! There’s no conflict of interest, Furstmann’s just the location!”

  “Of course you didn’t check it, you didn’t care. Dr. Haupt told me after lunch, he got a fax during the trial. They fucking messengered it down to him, Bennie! You were representing the group that was picketing his company! My partner! How do you think that looked?” Mark raked his hair back with a furious swipe. “It’s a fucking miracle we got those new cases! Whether you want to believe it or not, it was because they like Eve!”

  “But where’s the conflict? My client has no interest adverse to them!”

  “Don’t be so fucking technical, would you? He’s ruining their image! It’s a public relations nightmare. They’re a quiet German company. They play it low profile. They don’t want the attention.”

  “Christ, that doesn’t make it a conflict! You do whatever they say, whether it’s right or wrong? March to their tune?”

  “So there! That’s your attitude and I’m supposed to keep you?”

  Keep me? It knocked the wind out of me, like a jackboot to the diaphragm. “Keep me?” I said, my voice hushed. “I pull my own weight here. My billings are equal to yours. Better, last year.”

  He rubbed his chin and sighed. “I have to look to the future, Bennie. I want to develop this drug company business. Look what’s happening with Wellroth and their joint venture. There’s money in it.”

  “Money, again.”

  “Is money a dirty word? I shouldn’t make more than a hundred grand?”

  “You used to say you didn’t need even fifty grand.”

  “That was then, this is now. You may not want a future, but I do. You may not want kids, but I do.”

  I took another deep breath. I knew this fight, every punch and counterpunch. I did want kids, just not yet. I couldn’t, not with my mother getting worse. I looked away, out the window. The sun was going down. People were walking home after work. The day was over. R & B was over. I thought of the river, running through the city, not two miles from where I stood.

  “Bennie?”

  I turned and went for the door. I wasn’t going to fight anymore. All that was left between Mark and me was a business deal, and he had a right to end it. Let him go, let it all go. I’d do it on my own. I walked out of the library, closing the door behind me.

  My oars cut the water with a chop. I reached out and pulled them into my stomach with one slow, fluid stroke, as controlled and even as I could make it. Gliding back on the hard wooden seat with its greasy rollers, knees flattening against the oily rails.

  The black water resisted but only slightly. There were no whitecaps. The wind had died down and everything had gone still. I was rowing on a mirror of smoked glass.

  The surface of the water reflected the decorative lights outlining the boathouses along the east bank, then the streetlamps along the drives as I pulled away from civilization. There were no lights at all in the middle of the river, where it was pitch-dark.

  The oars hit the water with a splash, and I pulled them through it, imagining its sleek blackness as tar, making me slow down each stroke and concentrate. Feeling the scull lurch forward slightly with the next stroke, and the next. Keepin
g it slow, and languid, and black. Right down the dark water, suspended there. The only thing connecting me to the river, connecting me to anything, was the handle of the oar, rough and splintery under my calloused hands. I was holding on to the stick that held on to the world.

  I feathered the oars and took another long stroke. Scooted under the arch of the craggy stone bridge, where it felt cooler, shadier, even now at midnight. Moving through the widest part of the river so the few cars on either side seemed far away, their headlamps like pinpoints, not strong enough to cast any brightness down the road.

  I heard another splash and felt a spray of cold water on my forearm as I hit the stroke too hard. Easy, girl. I reached far out and over my toes for the next stroke, stretching, extending every inch of my body. A powerful stroke but still controlled, always controlled. I tried stroking like that for the next ten.

  One, two, three, not power strokes, just for technique. Not thinking about anything but technique. The stroke, the control, the timing. The speed of the scull and the slip-sound it made as it sliced through the water. The creak of the rigging. The fishy rankness of the water and the green freshness of the trees. The shock of the cold spray, the jolt of the lurch forward. The city was far away. The city was gone. Four, five, six strokes.

  Soon the sound of my own breath, coming in short, quick pants, and the slickness of the sweat as it sluiced down between my breasts and under my arms. I was working hard and I wasn’t a college kid anymore. There were beads of sweat on my knees, but they evaporated as the boat picked up speed, floating just high enough in the water because the stroke was working so well. I’d finally found the rhythm and I couldn’t go wrong. Seven, eight, nine, ten.

  In the middle of the river, in the middle of the night.

  7

  I decided against crying when I got home. It never did any good and my eyes puffed up like pet-store goldfish. Instead, I showered, toweled off, and got ready for bed. Bear, my golden retriever, lay on the floor, watching me pad from bathroom to bedroom and back again. Her wavy coat was the exact color of a square of light caramel, and she was big-boned, like me.