The Love Wars

by Heller, L. Alison

  I run into the elevator where there’s a Twinkie resting on the railing, and I put it in the bag with the others. When the elevator opens on my floor, there’s a median line of Twinkies leading to my apartment like the world’s tastiest highway passing zone indicator. Henry sits on the floor, leaning against my door, his briefcase beside him.

  “I won the contest?” I say, grinning, bending down to pick them up.

  “Congratulations,” he says, getting up and patting his bag. He leans against the wall while I twist my key in the lock. Then we’re inside my apartment and we stare at each other for a second. “Well—,” I say at the same time he says, “Molly.”

  “Let me start,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be, Henry.”

  He gives me a skeptical look. “Yes I do. I’ve been awful.” He looks embarrassed. “I’ve been trying to call you about the article.”

  “The article?”

  He sighs, opens the flap of his messenger bag and takes out a folded-up copy of the Independent, but I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about the newspaper right now.

  “I know you’ve been busy, but why haven’t you returned my calls?” Henry stares right at me. “Are you that mad?”

  “No.”

  He scrunches his eyebrows together. “No?”

  I pick at a loose thread on the chair’s upholstery. “Not mad, no. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  I have barely spoken the words and he’s in front of me, grabbing my hand, pulling me down next to him so that we’re sitting next to each other, eye level on the rug.

  “Complicated?”

  “Yes. Complicated.”

  He shifts his fingers so that our fingers are clasped. He squeezes them together, and then looks up, so our eyes are locked together.

  “Complicated, as in difficult and confusing?”

  I nod. “Difficult, confusing. Painful.”

  He winces, shakes his head and takes my other hand. “Painful.”

  “But somehow,” I say as he leans closer, “things seem a little more hopeful now.”

  “More hopeful,” he repeats.

  “Yes, I’m getting the sense things will be, well, less complicated.”

  “Less…yes,” he says.

  “Henry, you’re not even really listening anymore, are you?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “Not at all.” He pulls my hands toward him until we’re entwined, and there’s no space between us. And then we’re kissing in a way that makes my stomach feel like the insides of the world’s most crowded butterfly net.

  __________

  The next morning, I wake up at six thirty, before the alarm goes off.

  “Everything all right?”

  I look over at Henry. It’s still dark, but in the breaking dawn light I can make out that his hair is sticking up in front and that he’s wearing boxers.

  “You’re in my bed and you’re wearing only boxers.”

  He smiles and looks around in mock surprise. “So I am, so I am. I got the distinct feeling there was an invitation, though. What time is it?”

  “It’s six thirty.”

  “Oh, shit. I have to go home. Court today.” He lies back down on the bed, pulls me down along with him and puts his head on me as though I’m his pillow.

  His home. There’s something I’m afraid to ask.

  “Hey, Henry?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “What about Julie?”

  He sits, palms up. “Um, I don’t know, Molly. What about Julie?” His voice is slow, like I’m not right in the head.

  “I mean, you guys are still—”

  “Together? No. No, no. We’ve been broken up for a while.”

  “But she called you.”

  He does the same helpless shrug. “Um, okay. She called me.”

  “In your office. Last week. There was a note, with a heart over the i.”

  “Oh, yeah. Her cousin needs a prenup.” He gets out of bed and starts buttoning up his shirt. I get a little thrill from seeing the dressing process in reverse; it feels just as intimate. “But I didn’t notice the heart over the i. Maybe that temp in reception loves her.” He stops buttoning his shirt and sits down on the bed next to me. “You know when I broke up with Julie?”

  “I don’t actually.”

  “Last winter. You know why I broke up with Julie?”

  I shake my head.

  “I broke up with her because I finally got honest with myself about how I felt about you. Even though you were idiotically distracted by that Pretty Boy Floyd character, for some reason being with her still just wasn’t right.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “I assume this means you’re all done with Pretty Boy Floyd, right?”

  I clap my hands together and wipe once up and once down, in the universal motion for disposed. “You thought I was with him this whole time?”

  “I wasn’t sure, but I convinced myself it didn’t matter. I had to come clean regardless.” He lowers his voice. “I came by that night that he was there to apologize for that night in the car. But then, seeing him, just hanging out in your office, looking all smug, I sort of snapped.”

  “We were breaking up.”

  “Oh.” He turns around, his smile abashed. “I might have been a tad better behaved if I had known that. The only thing worse than seeing him parked in your office that night has been not talking to you these past months.”

  “You weren’t keeping your distance because of the Walker case?”

  “No.” He wrinkles his forehead. “Why would I do that?”

  “Wouldn’t it be bad for a partner to sanction such malfeasance?”

  “I suppose it’s not ideal.” He brushes my hair off my face. “But I was already involved and frankly, I didn’t want not to be.”

  I half smile. “So much for keeping work here and life here.” My hands partition the phantom boxes.

  “So much for it.”

  “Well, you might still be able to keep things separate. I will likely be out of a job by lunchtime.”

  He grimaces. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to stay and go in with you?” He gives the power salute, fist raised. “For, you know, moral support?”

  “Nah. Thanks, though.”

  He kisses me and walks over to his shoes, stepping into them and grabbing his jacket from the back of the couch where he had draped it last night. “Okay. Good luck. I’ll see you tonight whatever happens.”

  “Henry,” I call after him as he opens the door.

  He turns around. “Yeah?”

  “How’d you know I was taking the middle elevator?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Last night. When I came home. There was a Twinkie in the middle elevator.”

  He snaps and points at me. “I put one in all three,” he says, patting his briefcase. “Lifetime supply.”

  42

  ____

  front-page news

  I get to Bacon Payne at eight in the morning, so there’s time to pick up a copy of the Independent. The guy at the news counter in the lobby starts to hand me the paper and then stops, looking at the cover and then back to me and then back to the cover.

  “It’s you! It’s you,” he says, very pleased at this turn of events. He holds up the picture. “Oooooooh, you look scared. Someone stole your lunch money?”

  I grab the paper from him. The Independent has apparently shifted its tagline for the Walker mess. WALKIN’ THROUGH HECKUVA WEEK, the headline blares, and underneath it is a split image. The left side is a picture of Claire’s dainty leg, retreating into a town car as Robert turns around, glaring at the photographers. He’s hunched over Nixon-style, minus the victory arms.

  The right side is an image of Fern and me, emerging from court. Hardly the composed face of professionalism, I’m clutching Fern’s arm and looking straight through the camera, my eyes wide and stunned, my mouth slightly agape. The effect is twelve-year-old caught making prank calls. Fern fares sligh
tly better; she’s behind me, head down.

  Once upstairs, I cruise by Lillian’s office. She’s not there yet, so I skim the paper. Robert Walker is out of a job as of yesterday’s emergency vote of the board of directors. There’s a quote from one of the board members about how Options needed a “new face and new leadership,” and how Robert Walker’s “personal drama and decisions” were distracting him from the mission of Options. I have a feeling that the last bit is a tacked-on reason, but I’m happy to have played a small part in his discomfort.

  There’s not much about the trial, just some quotes from an anonymous source that Robert is being accused of monstrous treatment of his children and ex-wife. Oh, and there’s that tiny little line on page 3 about Fern being represented by Molly Grant, who works at the premier law firm Bacon Payne.

  Duck calls at nine, to inform me I’m in the paper, front page! Hers is the first call heralding texts and e-mails from nearly everyone I know: Holt’s fraternity buddies, law school friends, Kevin, Caleb. Apparently, most of the people in my life only claim to read the New York Times.

  I walk by Lillian’s empty office a few more times and when I see that her light’s been turned on, I pace by Kim’s desk. She shakes her head. “In a meeting. Not back yet.”

  Oh, to not care. To wrap myself in the romantic cloud from last night and, impervious to the nerves, glide to the guillotine with a smile. It’s a job, a stupid, horrible, overly demanding job. But no matter how I slice it, I do care. I don’t want to become a laughingstock in this field. I don’t want to be fired; I don’t want to fail on my student loan payments and have to move out of my lovely little studio apartment to go sponge off my parents instead of finally giving back to them. And of all these things, at this moment, I am most terrified of facing the music with Lillian, knowing that whatever she says when she publicly eviscerates me will be accurate.

  Gliding around the circumference of the thirty-seventh floor like a deranged shark, one cogent thought forms in my mind. I have spent the majority of the last five years contorting myself, trying to stick to a plan despite the increasing complexity and discomfort of doing so. No wonder I recognized the inflexiblity of Risa’s trial strategy; I’d used the same idée fixe for my life. How have I worked here and not gotten it—this is what people do: we obligate ourselves, we make vows, and then we second-guess, things shift, the landscape changes. Some promises cannot withstand forever, and the most we can do when they break is to recognize that and figure out how to regroup and what we want instead. What I want, I finally realize, has nothing to do with Lillian. Whatever she doles out will have no real consequences to my big picture.

  At nine forty-five, my phone rings.

  “Molly Grant.”

  A clipped female voice responds. “Molly, Dominic Pizaro would like to see you in his office.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now.”

  I swallow hard. Standing up to Lillian is one thing. Dominic Pizaro is a whole other sport.

  43

  ____

  like the louvre, if the guards were assassins

  This is my first time in Dominic Pizaro’s office. Unsurprisingly, he’s got the whole King of the Hill setup: dramatic views, a huge desk that acts as a barrier from the riffraff and, mounted directly behind his desk, an oil painting whose proportions, if I’m honest, are a bit too small for the space.

  Odd choice, I think, but then, staring at it, I remember some vague grumblings from around the time that Dominic became chairman and realize that it’s the Miró. Dominic had pissed off some of the partners by removing the firm’s prize possession from the communal hallway and mounting it on the wall in his personal office.

  I stare, hoping to find something big in the painting, something that makes my current predicament seem petty in comparison. Alas, when I squint at the spiny abstract black figures against a red and blue background, all I can think of are spiders and blood. This could, of course, have less to do with the Miró than the mood of the room.

  Lillian and Everett are here, in the guest chairs to the left. This makes sense. I am being notified that, thanks to the article, my screwup affects the entire matrimonial group, as well as the firm. I am momentarily grateful that Henry is in court this morning. Firing someone you just slept with must be an irreversible Miss Manners “Don’t”: “Hey, last night was magic, but please remove yourself from the premises. Don’t let this get in the way of the new us!”

  In addition to Lillian and Everett, there’s a man I vaguely recognize sitting on the couch across the room. He is wearing a plaid shirt and glasses and I assume he’s some sort of HR person, here to make sure this is done according to the book. Hopefully this means Lillian won’t stab me.

  I work up the courage to glance around the room. Lillian’s face is fairly neutral, but her eyes blaze with disgust. Everett smiles at me and then looks down quickly, as though he had briefly forgotten that I am now an untouchable. Dominic nods to a chair to the right of Lillian, and I perch on the edge of it.

  “So, you’re quite the little front-page story,” he says.

  I nod. No disagreeing with that.

  “Look, Molly. You’ve been a good employee. Good billables, good reviews, obviously loyal to the firm.” He looks down at a sheet on the desk in front of him that I assume confirms all of this. It must have been rushed to him early this morning after he barked at someone to find out who the fuck is this Molly Grant twerp. He looks me dead in the eye. “So, I gotta ask. What the hell was this move?”

  I open my mouth, but he continues talking.

  “It’s a total mess. You could’ve really cost the firm a lot in PR, maybe even legal fees, business. It could’ve been miserable.”

  Wait. Did he say “could have”?

  “You’re lucky it worked out.” He gives a little chuckle.

  What? I look confusedly at Lillian, who is sporting the same expression that she had after Liesel’s cross-examination: tight, fake smile and violent eyes.

  Dominic takes a swig of coffee from one of those small blue cardboard cups, selected, I’m sure, to make his hands look bigger. “So, listen. Walker is looking like a total ass in this. You know he was voted off the board yesterday?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know what that means, right?”

  I smile uncertainly.

  “He’s tainted goods. Options is washing their hands. What better than to have the same law firm that represented his poor, victimized ex-wife represent their business interests? We’re like the anti-Walker firm. And that’s a great place to be this week. You know Bart Luce?” Dominic doesn’t wait for me to answer. “New CEO there. He used to date my sister, long story—anyway, he suggested I meet with the general counsel over there to pitch. We’re set up for today. And honestly, this is all thanks to your little stunt.”

  I smile faintly and nod. Um, you’re welcome?

  “So, listen. You know Frank?” He gestures to the man on the couch.

  “No.”

  “Oh. Hmph. Frank, guess we need to up your profile with the associates.”

  Frank nods in earnest.

  “Frank does press.”

  I give Frank a tentative wave and he leans forward on the couch. “Molly, we really want to capitalize on the news cycle here. You’ll do some interviews this week, figure out your talking points, you know. Your bosses have generously agreed to let us monopolize your afternoon for prep.”

  Dominic holds up my newspaper cover and gives me the once-over. “You could present well, but this picture of you is crap. Frank, make sure you get her comfortable in front of the camera.”

  Frank gives the thumbs-up and I have a flash of the Julia Roberts shopping scene from Pretty Woman. Maybe if I sit here long enough, Dominic will hand me an American Express Black Card and tell me to go treat myself to an Armani suit and some highlights.

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing. Your bosses told me that this isn’t technically a Bacon Payne case?”

  �
�No, I sort—I took it on myself. I—”

  He holds up one hand. “Just sign a consent to change attorney and get retainers to Ms. Walker today. Last day of trial was?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Okay. You doing posttrial papers?”

  “Yes, a brief.”

  “Okay, we should be counsel of record for that and going forward. We’ll win this thing, right?”

  “We should.”

  “All right. Well, better if we do, but I guess it doesn’t matter in the scheme of things. Oh, tell me what you’ve collected so far.”

  “Um, it’s sort of been pro bono—”

  He holds up his hands and gapes for a second, looking around the room exaggeratedly. “You did pro bono on a case involving Robert Walker? Your balls are so big they’re crowding out your business sense, I guess.” He sighs, obviously disappointed in me. “Well, talk to Cecilia in accounting and we’ll get everything collected. Don’t worry, don’t worry. You’ll see some of it in your year-end bonus, right, Lillian?”

  “Of course,” Lillian says quickly, ever the team player.

  “Yeah. Molly, your bosses are very relieved that this worked out so they can keep you on. You know if it hadn’t worked out so well…” He trails off and draws one hand across his neck and laughs.

  We all pretend to laugh along with him.

  “Well, thank you for the second chance,” I say to the room.

  Lillian is nodding emphatically, but I can tell that one thing she is absolutely not is relieved to keep me on.

  44

  ____

  wait

  Henry grabs a tuna roll with his chopsticks. “So. Do you want to talk about it?”

  I nod to the empty third chair. “You mean that elephant chilling out right there?”

  It’s Sunday night, and my posttrial brief is due in Walker tomorrow. I can’t avoid it any longer.

  “Yep, I mean the elephant. You’ve been uncharacteristically silent.”

  “I have no clue what I should do.”

  “Okay. On the one hand…you stay.”