One Good Turn

by Judith Arnold

  She was going to win. She refused to consider any other outcome.

  She shrugged her shoulders to loosen them, closed her pen and slid her notes into her briefcase. Standing, she grinned at Stewart, who like her was shuffling papers into his attache case. “Don’t let the dentist shoot you with too much Novocain,” she warned. “It’s bad form to drool during voir dire.”

  “Actually, I was figuring I’d come in tomorrow with an ice-pack against my cheek,” Stewart joked back. “That’s our strategy—cultivate the jury’s sympathy. If I groan and clutch my jaw enough times they’ll vote to acquit.”

  Jenny rolled her eyes. Behind Stewart, Matthew Sullivan glowered at her. She smiled back. She wasn’t going to let him think he could intimidate her.

  After bidding Stewart good-bye, she lifted her briefcase and strode up the aisle. The hallway outside the courtroom bustled with human traffic. Lawyers, cops, reporters, court officers and suspects milled about, a physical manifestation of the clutter and confusion of the legal process.

  Just as Matthew Sullivan couldn’t intimidate Jenny, neither could this chaos. In truth, she found it invigorating. She’d done her time in the trenches in Framingham, handling D.W.I.’s and controlled-substance cases. She’d earned the right to be here in Superior Court, trying assholes like Sullivan.

  Glancing at her watch, she proceeded down the hall to the elevator and rode downstairs to the D.A.’s office on the second floor. As she swept into the front room the receptionist arched her eyebrows in surprise. “You’re back early,” she said, skimming the neat piles of pink notepaper for Jenny’s messages.

  “Stewart Shaw lost a filling over breakfast,” Jenny explained, accepting the papers the receptionist handed her and flipping through them. “He had a noon appointment to get it fixed. No big deal—I’ve got plenty to keep me busy.” Slipping the messages into the pocket of her blazer, she headed down the hall to the office she shared with Willy Taggart. Actually, it was less an office than a twelve-foot-square space enclosed by movable partitions, and she was relieved to discover she had it to herself. She liked Willy and she exerted herself to be tolerant of his habitual sloppiness, but sometimes when they were both at their desks, she felt almost oppressed by his nearness.

  Willy was currently busy with a case involving a car theft ring. He would probably be gone all day. Jenny gingerly lifted a browning apple core from his desk and tossed it into the trash can, then wiped her fingers on a tissue and discarded it. She pulled her phone messages out of her pocket and flipped through them again. One was from a parole officer in Cambridge, one from a detective on the Somerville police force, one from her instructor at the gym in Framingham reminding her that her class had been moved up to five-thirty that evening, and one was a mystery message: 9:35. Friend—no name, said he’d try again later.

  Messages like that gave her the creeps. What “friend” wouldn’t leave his name? Her reaction—suspicion mixed with a hefty dose of anxiety—was normal, but she hated feeling uneasy. Even more, she hated the comprehension that as long as she lived she would feel just as uneasy whenever she got a weird message from a “friend.”

  Sighing, she crumpled the pink slip and tossed it into the trash can with the apple core. Then she circled her desk, dropped onto her chair, wiggled her feet out of her shoes and lifted the phone receiver. While she was punching in the number of the Somerville Police Department, she heard a light rap on the edge of the partition wall and glanced up to see her boss hovering in the doorway.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  She smiled. Balding and good-natured, District Attorney Steven Blair tended to fuss over Jenny. Once at a party, when a few drinks had loosened his tongue, he’d confessed that he couldn’t help worrying about someone as petite and pretty as she was. “Is it my fault that you look like a little girl?” he’d asked, to which she’d replied, “No, but it’s your fault that you act like an overbearing macho-man.” Ever since that party, he’d tried not to be so obviously protective of her.

  “It went fine,” she answered now.

  “So how come you’re back early?”

  She told him about the defense attorney’s dental woes.

  “So you aren’t having any problems with the case?”

  “Not a one.”

  Steve fidgeted with his tie and gave Jenny a comprehensive inspection, checking for evidence that things might not have gone as smoothly as she’d claimed. “Was Sullivan in court?”

  “Mm-hmm. Looking extremely surly and self-righteous. I can’t wait to nail the bastard.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty.” Steve let go of his tie and rapped his knuckles against the partition once more. “So, you’ll let me know if you’re having any trouble?”

  “Good-bye, Steve,” she said pointedly, then swiveled in her chair to answer the receptionist’s buzz on her telephone. She pressed the intercom button and said, “Yes?”

  “There’s someone here to see you. He hasn’t got an appointment. He said he’s an old friend of yours. His name is Lucas Benning.”

  Lucas Benning.

  She felt her cheeks go very cold and then very hot, burning with color. She eyed the trash can where she’d tossed the mystery message. It must have been from him.

  Luke. Luke Benning.

  “Of course,” she said into the phone as she shoved her feet back into her shoes and straightened her spine. “He is an old friend. Send him in.” After hanging up the phone she raised her hands to her hair and patted the flyaway red strands in a futile attempt to neaten her appearance. Yanking the center drawer of her desk open, she searched for the pocket mirror she kept there. She located it, pulled it out and studied her reflection.

  Acceptable. Not great, but acceptable.

  “What’s up?” Steve asked.

  She had forgotten he was still loitering in her doorway. “Isn’t there somewhere else you have to be?” she asked.

  “Hey, come on,” he teased. “You don’t fix your hair for just any old visitor.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. Go away, Steve.”

  “You look pale.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Too late. Her visitor had reached the doorway, and Steve spun around to inspect the tall, lanky man with unfashionably long straw-colored hair and warm, amber-brown eyes. He was clad in a crisp cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, tailored cotton trousers and leather deck shoes—no socks. He gave Steve a brief look before peering around the partition. The instant he made eye contact with Jenny, the corners of his thin lips skewed upward in an marvelously familiar smile.

  Luke.

  She returned his stare—and his smile. Her heart seemed to beat stronger, her cheeks flushed again, her breath lodged in her throat, and a sudden aching warmth spread down from her breasts to her hips.

  The very first time Luke Benning had gazed into her eyes, she’d experienced the same symptoms—the blushing, the breathlessness, the vibrant desire humming through her nervous system. But now, after so many years, so many changes... She wasn’t supposed to feel this way. Not anymore.

  She wasn’t really feeling it, she convinced herself, quickly recovering from the disconcerting sensation. What she had felt was merely a memory. She was no longer the Jenny Perrin who had fallen in love with Luke one idyllic summer seven years ago. She no longer believed what that innocent child had believed. She no longer wanted what she’d wanted then. Everything was different, including Jenny. Especially Jenny.

  She wasn’t sorry to see Luke, though. She was shocked, dazed, puzzled—and genuinely pleased. Her smile expanding, she rose from her desk and glided across the office to him. Her impulse was to throw her arms around him in a joyous hug, but she opted for discretion and limited herself to extending her right hand. “Luke! What a surprise!”

  He took her hand in his, but instead of shaking it he simply held it for a minute, closing his long, graceful fingers around hers. Then he released her. “Hello, Jenny,” he said.

  His voi
ce was low and hesitant. She peered up at him, knowing she ought to say something but having absolutely no idea where to begin. Should she comment on the beautiful warmth in his eyes, the contagious charm of his smile? Should she inquire about how he’d found her—and why? There was so much to say, so much she wanted to hear, so much catching up to do.

  Steve abruptly cleared his throat, and Jenny introduced the two men. “This is my boss, Steven Blair,” she told Luke. “Steve, Luke Benning.”

  “An old friend, I understand,” Steve said, giving Luke the obligatory handshake as he sized him up. Apparently he decided Luke didn’t pose much of a threat to Jenny, because he gave her a wave and vanished down the hall.

  She turned back to Luke. His presence seemed to fill the enclosed area, charging the atmosphere, illuminating it. Had he always had this effect on her? She could no longer remember.

  Seven years. Seven years since she’d met him, nearly as long since she’d last spoken to him. Just thinking about it had a disorienting effect on her—but not an upsetting one. She was truly delighted that, for whatever reason, Luke had gone to the effort of locating her. He had been a good friend to her. She had missed his friendship.

  “You look terrific,” she said.

  “So do you.” He appraised her, his eyes as perceptive as they were warm. “You cut your hair.”

  “I chopped it off in law school,” she told him. “I thought it would make me look more mature.”

  “Law school,” he repeated, yielding to an incredulous laugh as his gaze circled the room. “I can’t believe it, Jenny. You’re a lawyer.”

  She laughed, too. Sometimes, when she got to reminiscing about the way she used to be, she herself found it hard to believe she’d wound up as she had. “It is funny, isn’t it.”

  He continued to scrutinize her, taking note of her beige linen suit, her paisley blouse, her stockings and conservative shoes. She didn’t need his bemused expression to remind her of how much her appearance had transformed since that summer in Washington, when she’d worn loose, formless shifts, leather sandals, dangling earrings and unstyled hair, when her carefree style had matched her carefree nature. Now she was a few pounds thinner—a loss she could ill afford—and her lips occasionally had a pinched look about them. Her complexion was no longer naturally lustrous, and few weeks ago she had discovered a silver hair sprouting from her part.

  Luke, on the other hand, looked just as handsome as he’d looked then. His body was lean and athletic. He hadn’t gained a frown line over the years; he hadn’t lost a single hair. His taste in clothing hadn’t changed, but something about him had changed—for the better. He seemed more relaxed now than he’d been when she’d known him, more together. Jenny’s decision to clear out of his life apparently hadn’t done him any lasting harm.

  Maybe it had done him good.

  “I probably shouldn’t have sprung myself on you like this,” Luke was saying, and she forced her thoughts back to the present. “I telephoned your office, but the receptionist said you were going to be in court until one o’clock. It took me less time to get here than I thought it would. And obviously you got out of court before one.”

  She continued to stare at him, dumbfounded yet happy. Maybe she should have felt shy or embarrassed or ill-at-ease. But she’d never felt those things with Luke before, not even the first night they’d met, when she’d approached him without hesitation and announced that she was a busybody. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “I mean, are you living in the Boston area?”

  “I’m spending the summer on Cape Cod,” he explained. “I saw you on TV two nights ago, on the local news.”

  She nodded. Yesterday, her associates had praised her for her polished delivery of the office’s position, and one of her neighbors had told her she’d looked gorgeous and ought to forget about law and go into show-biz. She herself had thought she’d looked spindly and sounded officious, but she had found the news report as a whole accurate.

  “They said on the news that you were with the Middlesex County District Attorney’s office,” Luke explained modestly. “So I tracked you down. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, no, not at all. I’m glad you did. I’m stunned...” She laughed again. “I’m more than stunned. But so glad, Luke.” Impulsively, she gathered his hand back in hers and gave it a squeeze. “You really look wonderful. Life must be agreeing with you. What are you doing? What are you up to these days? Where do you live when you aren’t on the Cape?” As the initial shock of seeing Luke receded, curiosity took its place and her questions came tumbling out, one on top of another. She wanted to know everything, instantly. She had cared so much about Luke and worried so much about his future. Now that the future had arrived, she could see that life had worked out well for him, and she wanted to know every detail, every development, every step he’d taken along the way.

  Luke glanced past her for a moment, then focused on her upturned face. “Can we—could we go somewhere, maybe have a drink or some lunch?”

  She looked at her watch, at the unreturned phone messages on her desk, the screen-saver spilling across her computer monitor, her briefcase. “Sure. Let’s get some lunch,” she said.

  Ten minutes later, they were sitting across from each other at a booth table in a cozy booth in a restaurant not far from the courthouse. It was a casual place—checkerboard tablecloths, tiled floors, a Tiffany-style lamp shedding dim light onto the table. A waitress took their drink orders—a Sam Adams for Luke and a club soda for Jenny—and left them with menus. Luke ignored his. “Are you sure this is okay?” he asked.

  “What’s okay? This restaurant?”

  “My being here.”

  The contentment she’d detected in him in her office was still there, but she also sensed doubt, confusion, wariness. Perhaps he hadn’t expected her to be so enthusiastic about his abrupt reappearance in her life. If she had ever considered the possibility that she might see Luke again, she wouldn’t have expected herself to be enthusiastic about it, either. But that was because, on those rare occasions when she allowed herself to think about him at all, she’d thought of him as a lover, not as a friend.

  She didn’t regret the demise of their love affair, but now that she reflected on it, she did regret the loss of his friendship.

  This reunion was a joyous event, not a time for rueful apologies. “Of course it’s okay. Now tell me everything,” she urged him. “You’re spending the summer on Cape Cod?”

  He nodded. “I’m staying with my friend Taylor Bryant. Remember him? He was my roommate at Princeton. He lives in Harwich Port now.”

  “Taylor Bryant,” she repeated. The name sounded familiar. Taylor had had a car.... Jenny was supposed to find Taylor a date for the weekend. He was going to drive Luke to Smith College because Luke had sold his BMW.

  God. It was all so long ago.

  “He owns a restaurant,” Luke went on.

  “Wow. A restaurant?”

  “The Haven, in Dennis. Continental style, with an emphasis on seafood.”

  “It sounds fantastic. I wish I knew someone who owned a restaurant. I’d have a good excuse to pig out all the time.”

  Luke’s eyes narrowed on her for a minute. “You’ve lost weight,” he observed.

  She smiled. So much for the preliminary courtesies. Luke had progressed to blunt honesty, and she was oddly relieved. “Yes,” she admitted. “One of my big challenges these days—other than putting bad guys behind bars—is to try and get my weight back up to a hundred.”

  “Maybe we should order some food,” Luke suggested, reaching for his menu.

  “Later.” She pulled the menu from his hand and set it back on the table. “Let’s talk. Tell me everything, Luke. I want the story of your life.”

  His expression reflected a series of emotions—astonishment, amusement and something dark, tinged with distrust, hinting at anger. “Should I start with the day you disappeared?” he asked.

  Fair enough. As far as he was concerned,
she had disappeared. She couldn’t deny it and she couldn’t change it. And seven years later, she couldn’t convince herself that disappearing from his life had been the wrong thing to do.

  “How about starting with when you finished Princeton?” she said quietly.

  He continued to scrutinize her, looking alternately mystified and skeptical. He measured her with his gaze, weighed her words, attempted to fathom her thoughts. When his silence continued beyond a minute, she asked, “Did you go to law school?”

  “No.”

  “So what are you doing these days?”

  “I’m a teacher.”

  “A teacher! Really?” Spontaneously, she clapped her hands with delight. She had never abandoned her belief that teaching was one of the most inspiring, important professions a person could choose. She herself would not be able to handle it, but it thrilled her to learn that Luke had dedicated himself to such vital work. “Tell me all about it,” she implored him. “What do you teach? Where do you teach? Is it fun? Do you find it rewarding?”

  Her barrage of questions provoked a grin from him. He remained silent while the waitress delivered their drinks, then took a sip of his beer and leaned back in his seat. “I teach social studies in a public high school on Long Island. American and European history and an elective on sub-Sahara Africa. I also coach the soccer team.”

  “Do you enjoy it?”

  “I love it.” His smile grew almost wistful when he added, “You were right, Jenny. All that stuff you used to spout about molding kids’ minds—it’s true. Some of the students are obnoxious, but all you need is a few good ones each year to make everything worthwhile. And I’ve had more than a few. I love it.”

  She felt warm again, not in the disturbingly sensual way she’d felt when she’d first seen him standing in her office doorway but emotionally, spiritually warm with happiness for Luke. He’d discovered the right path for himself, after all. He’d figured out what he was meant to do with his life. If she had helped him to find his way she was glad, but what gratified her most was knowing he’d listened to his heart and made the right choice.