The Love Wars

by Heller, L. Alison

  Marie fiddles with the ends of an orange and black scarf around her neck. “Well, you do seem to really care. And that’s something, Molly. I respect that. I know you’re trying to fight for her.” She catches my eye. “Fern is the best, you know?”

  “Oh, I know. Fern is great.”

  “Not just great. She’s the best. And she’s been through hell. When did you meet her?”

  “About a year and a half ago.”

  “She was a total mess before that. It was utterly painful to watch, especially if you knew her before. She needs her kids back. And I know your heart is in it. But do you really think you’re the best person for the job?”

  “I think so. I think I can do it. It’s been going okay—”

  “You think you can do it? It’s been going okay?” She shudders. “No offense, Molly, but that’s not exactly confidence-inspiring.”

  I feel a flash of anger. Where has Marie Washington been the past year as I’ve been pulling all-nighters and risking my job? “Marie, with all due respect, you can question me all you want. It’s really Fern’s opinion that I care about and we’ve been doing great, actually. Her visitation is increased. The forensic report was in her favor. Everything is lined up perfectly.”

  “But we’re talking about a trial, Molly. Have you ever done one by yourself?”

  I shrug, way more nonchalantly than I feel.

  “Oh, Molly, you’ve been practicing for all of a minute. And I’m sure you’re bright and decent and will go on to have a storied career. But this all just doesn’t sit right.” She leans forward, meeting my eyes. Her voice is quiet but stern. “And if you make a mistake because you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, I’m sure you’ll recover, but what will that mean for Fern? Have you ever in your life been this directly responsible for someone’s well-being? I mean, not just how much money they get to keep, but their lifeblood?”

  A sudden lump in my throat forms. Once, I think. Once, and it didn’t go so well at all.

  Lolly comes back in, bringing with her a waft of stale tobacco. She takes off her coat, watching the staring contest between me and Marie with raised eyebrows. “Whoa. Someone die while I was gone?”

  I wince at the question and Marie leans back into the couch with a studied casualness and a tinkling, phony-sounding laugh. “No one died. We were just going over some strategy.”

  I agree with a nod, smiling in what I hope is a casual manner, but Marie’s words, right as they are, hang in the air.

  33

  ____

  ditching the cricket

  I am genuinely surprised at how it goes down, the phone call with my dad.

  “So you don’t think it’s a good idea for me to come up?” He repeats my words, in the same order that I just said them, substituting “me” for “you.”

  I lean my forehead against the window, cell phone pressed to my ear. “It’s not that I don’t want you to. But I’ll be stuck. On trial.”

  “Couldn’t I come up anyway? We could grab a few meals together. Beyond that, I promise I can be responsible for entertaining myself.”

  “There’s just too much going on. Hey, you know what would be great? If I came to you guys for a change. How about the first weekend after my trial? Maybe September?”

  “But it’s my year to visit you. And I always come up in the summer. You know I don’t have as much time any other season.”

  He sounds sad, which makes me annoyed and ashamed. Isn’t he always telling me to put my nose to the grindstone? Not to get distracted? Work comes first? He’s acting like he’s forgotten the Grant Family fundamentals, our family skeleton that has provided the underlying structure for every choice I’ve ever made: fulfill your obligations; be a professional; stay on the path. Obliquely, I remind him of this. “I’m worried about getting in trouble, Dad. With work.”

  Although it’s a phone call, I feel the effect of my words, which cause him to stand at attention. Danger! Red alert! He swallows. “Did something happen?”

  “No. Nothing happened. There’s just a lot riding on this. I can’t have any distractions.” And I can’t.

  Maybe, just maybe I can make it through this summer juggling the Walker trial and Lillian and Bacon Payne. But I don’t stand a chance of doing it with my well-meaning dad coming up in the middle of it, proudly looking over my shoulder like Jiminy Cricket, trusting that I’m doing the right thing, sleeping on an air mattress surrounded by boxes and boxes of Fern’s documents as I lie about what I’m doing each day. I know I can’t.

  He sighs and asks me for details about the trial, and I know I’ve won. He will not try to convince me further or surprise me with a visit.

  “I’m just doing what I’m supposed to,” I want to scream at the phone. “This is for you.” But as I hang up the phone, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing him a favor. It feels like the opposite.

  part three

  34

  ____

  a civilian in my office

  I have three days until the trial starts and all I want to do is work on my cross-examination of Robert Walker. Instead, I am stuck at the office, revising a separation agreement for one of Lillian’s clients. My thoughts keep drifting over to Robert’s testimony. I’ve started and crumpled up four drafts trying to figure out what to ask him. How do you trick the devil into exposing himself?

  I look at the clock on my wall. It’s almost seven, but if I get this done by nine, I can get home in time to start draft number five. Someone knocks at my door and I don’t look up to send the message that I am Very Busy and should be Left Alone. But the knocking only gets louder and then, in a decidedly un–Bacon Payne move, morphs into the rhythm for “Shave and a Haircut.”

  When I finally glance up, Caleb stands in the doorway, his hands in his pocket, head down. Seeing him, I realize that—except for immediately deleting his text, sent the day after the beach retreat, in which he wondered, quite poetically, where did u go?—I haven’t thought of him once. When I finally got home that night, it was what Henry said that kept playing in my mind, keeping me awake. And even though I know he was way out of line, I have to admit that I can see it, why he would want to distance himself from the train wreck of drama I’ve become.

  “Can I come in?” Caleb shuffles in my doorway.

  “How did you get past security?”

  He points to the photo ID stuck to his suede jacket. “This got me in the elevator and then I just stood in reception on thirty-seven until someone took pity on me and buzzed me in.”

  “You know what floor I work on?”

  “Of course I do. The matrimonial group and the thirty-seventh floor. It’s like peanut butter and jelly, football and beer….” His voice trails.

  I refuse to smile, but I’m strangely touched. This must be the Bacon Payne associate’s version of someone remembering your birthday.

  He looks around at the stacks of paper. “So, what are you working on?”

  “A big trial.”

  “Sounds intense.”

  “Is this bring-your-fling-to-work night, Caleb? You came over to find out what it’s like to be a divorce lawyer?”

  He sighs and looks down at his lace-free oxfords.

  “Really. Out with it. I’m a little pushed here.”

  “I need to tell you something.”

  “Caleb, it’s fine you hooked up with Marissa.”

  “Marissa?”

  “Don’t play stupid.”

  “Marissa? Marissa the lawyer?” He laughs. “I didn’t hook up with her.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t even know how to answer that. How much of a slut do you think I am?”

  “Well, you definitely like lots of…women,” I say.

  “Dude.” He holds up both hands: Slow down with the accusations. “We were talking about my business. Seriously. She’s helping me structure financing.”

  “Oh. Well, what is it?”

  He shifts, hands in pockets. “I was seeing someone pretty serio
usly. Before you and I started things up again. She was out of the country for a bit. But she’s back and now we’re sort of…reconnecting.”

  Aha, the return of Anastasia Peppercorn. I nod. “Are you happy?”

  He looks at me warily.

  “Not a trick question. You and I were—well, certainly nothing exclusive. It’s okay if you’re happy.”

  “I’m, you know, we’re taking it slowly, but it’s good news.”

  “That’s great. I hope it works out.”

  “Thanks.” Caleb looks a little insecure. I wonder if Anastasia plays the kinds of games with his heart that he has played with mine.

  There’s a sound, like something slamming into the wall, and we both turn our heads. Henry—who has not been in my office in weeks—stands in my doorway, one palm against the doorframe, the other in his pocket. I sit up, at attention. He still looks mad, his eyes moving from me to Caleb.

  Caleb lifts his eyebrows and looks at me.

  “Henry, you know Caleb,” I say, as tentatively as I can.

  “Good to see you, man,” says Caleb.

  Henry stares at him, unsmiling. “You’re fucking kidding me,” he says, shaking his head as though someone’s doused him with cold water. After a very long few seconds, he turns and walks away.

  I look at Caleb. “Hold on.”

  Caleb nods and gestures to the door.

  I stalk down the hall, catching up with Henry just as he’s rounding the corner.

  “Hey,” I say. He doesn’t stop, so, without thinking, I grab the back of his blue shirt and yank it toward me. “What the hell?” My pull doesn’t even register, except to make his shirt parachute out.

  He whips his head around to look at me. “Just forget it.”

  “No, tell me. What is your problem?”

  He inhales slowly, and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, he doesn’t even look at me, instead fixing them on a spot on the wall above my head.

  “Fine, don’t tell me,” I continue. “Let me guess. You’re pissed because there’s a civilian in my office.”

  “A civilian?” He looks as though I’ve lapsed into Kurdish.

  “He can’t even see any documents in there. Nothing is visible.”

  His eyes gleam with something and I think for a second that I’m off base, but then he nods. “Yes, Molly. The civilian. That’s what I’m upset about.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. You understand me so well.” His voice is devoid of any emotion, a regression to the wooden Henry of two years ago.

  Now that he’s confirmed it, I’m stunned. We’re supposed to be vigilant about guarding access to the firm’s case files, but no one takes it seriously. “Seriously? Not even Everett enforces the rule against outside guests. You’ve turned into a fucking cyborg since making partner.”

  “I’m sorry. Did you just call me a fucking cyborg?”

  “Yes, I did. But I know it didn’t hurt, because you’re a cyborg, and neither will this: I can’t deal with you anymore either.”

  He crosses his arms and leans against the wall, as though he’s settling in.

  I stare at him for a minute, unable to think of anything else to say.

  “What else you got? Let it out, Molly.”

  Something about his tone—is there a hint of a smile behind it?—makes me so angry that I want to kick the wall. Or cry. I actually feel the prickly pain of tears pooling behind my eyes. So, like a three-year-old, I cross my own arms over my chest and jut my hip. “I’m sick of this, Henry. Just leave me the hell alone.”

  I storm back to my office, forgetting that Caleb’s still in there, but there he is, sitting in my guest chair, palms on his knees.

  My expression must recall the Furies, because he whistles. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” I say.

  “That looked kind of like a lovers’ spat,” he says.

  I stare at him, not amused. “I assure you, it was not.”

  “Good,” he says, “then I don’t have to be jealous.”

  “That makes sense,” I say, my voice letting him know it makes no sense at all.

  “It doesn’t. It makes no sense at all.”

  He laughs and I feel my mood shift as my lips twitch in a smile. “We’ve evolved, Caleb.”

  “How you figure?”

  “I can’t picture us having this conversation several years ago. You just would have slunk away.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t believe how calm you are. It’s pretty cool.”

  I nod. I am awfully calm.

  “I mean, we were seeing each other pretty regularly. And it was really fun,” he says, as though now he’s offended that I’m not more offended.

  “I promise, I really—it’s okay.”

  I realize as I’m saying it that I’m not just putting on a brave face. If Caleb and Anastasia had sent me a postcard of them getting hitched in Vegas on Valentine’s Day, I would feel not a twinge of possession. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly low maintenance, but maybe he’s right. Maybe I have matured.

  As I give Caleb a friendly hug good-bye, my brain slams right into it. No, I am still high maintenance, still capable of jealousy, still incredibly uncool. And that anger I just felt? That rush of crazy that made me run after Henry and accost his shirt? It’s like those separating couples who won’t let go of the fight, picking and drawing out minor arguments until the very bitter end. Ask any divorce lawyer and she’ll tell you that the bickering is the simplest defense mechanism there is—a rush of anger to mask the pain of love.

  I’m definitely uncool. It’s just that I don’t have any feelings for Caleb. I have feelings for Henry, who, unfortunately, can’t stand me.

  35

  ____

  i scream for edamame

  When my cell phone rings at seven o’clock the night before the trial starts, I assume it’s Fern—we’ve talked about twenty times today—and pick it up without looking.

  “How are you?” says Duck, her tone cheerfully sympathetic.

  “The same.”

  I had told Duck about the fight with Henry the morning after it happened. Initially, she pushed me to confront him with my feelings, a sign, I told her, that she had been watching too many romantic comedies and needed to read T. S. Eliot or something for balance. After I ticked off my reasons for not coming clean to him—his coldness, the distance between us since his promotion, his heartbroken reaction when I asked about Julie—even she agreed that I should just suck it up and suffer silently.

  “Do you have any ice cream at least? Aren’t you supposed to be in your sweats and tube socks right about now, spooning rocky road straight from the tub?”

  “The only thing in my freezer is edamame.”

  “You’re a piss-poor excuse for a heartbroken girl.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you see him today?”

  “Briefly. He was walking out of his office as I was passing and he gave me an amnesia look.”

  “Like he didn’t remember the fight?”

  “No, like he didn’t remember me.”

  “Cold.” Duck pauses. “But you know what makes me happy?”

  “Glitter nail polish and salted margaritas.”

  “Yes, true, but really, I’m just happy that you have feelings for an actual grown-up. That you didn’t fall for it this time.”

  “Fall for what?”

  “For Caleb’s whole act. His whole”—she lowers her voice to a gruff mumble—“this is what it is thing. I mean, you were intrigued there for a while, but not like before.”

  “I’ll say one thing for Caleb, at least he says what he means.”

  “Puh-leez. You two were like the perfect little supply and demand case study. The more he acted like there was something real between you, the less he would admit it, and the more you thought you wanted something between you. No way you would’ve been so hooked without the headfake.”

  It’s a well-exercised reflex for me to silently erase w
hatever Duck says about Caleb as soon as she says it—select, highlight, delete—but I have to consider: maybe she’s seen things more clearly than I’ve given her credit for.

  “This time, you went for the real connection. Not the bait and switch, not something you conjured in your head.”

  “Except that there’s no real connection between me and Henry.”

  “I don’t know. My guess is it’s just bad timing.”

  “Whatever. It sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sit in silence for a minute. I get up from the couch, shifting forward my right shoulder and then my left in a stretch-shrug. “Thanks for calling, Duck. I’ve got to prep for tomorrow.”

  “Right, good luck. I meant to ask about that. Your thing is tomorrow, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’m invested now, even though I still don’t entirely understand what you’re doing and why. So please let me know how it goes, whatever it is.”

  “I will.”

  “So, go get ’em. Whoever they are.”

  36

  ____

  you don’t look sick

  This is my sophisticated and elaborate plan for covering my tracks on Walker v. Walker trial days, which are scattered like thunderstorms throughout the end of summer: as soon as I wake up, when my voice is still scratchy with sleep, I call the office and leave a voice mail for Kim, hoping it sounds like a sore throat. I’m not sure that the excuse will hold up, but so far so good.

  Yesterday, day one, went by in a blur of nerves. Fern did well on her direct testimony and came across as I had hoped: responsible, loving, likable. But it’s time for Risa’s cross-examination, and I can tell that Fern, clenching her jaw in the witness booth, is nervous as she waits for Risa to begin.

  Strand tries for the second time to move things along. “Ms. McDunn, your witness.”

  Risa doesn’t acknowledge him.

  “Ms. McDunn”—Strand coughs deliberately—“whenever you’re ready.”