One Good Turn

by Judith Arnold

  “That’s wonderful,” she murmured, wishing she could gather his hand in hers and give it another affectionate squeeze. She rarely felt the urge to touch people, but with Luke she had to suppress what seemed like a wholly natural reflex. It used to be so easy for her to clasp his hand, to mold her fingers around his elbow, to nudge him or tap his shoulder or nestle in the curve of his arm. In nearly seven years she hadn’t felt relaxed enough with anyone, man or woman, to indulge in that sort of friendly physical contact. To this day she experienced a twinge of discomfort when her instructor at the gym gripped her shoulders or positioned her leg so she wouldn’t strain the muscles.

  Heaven only knew whether Luke still liked to be touched—but even if he did, he certainly wouldn’t want to be touched by her. That he’d gone to some effort to find her implied that he didn’t despise her, but she couldn’t shake the understanding she had that he didn’t trust her, either.

  “So you finished college and became a teacher,” she summed up.

  “Not directly.”

  “Tell me,” she coaxed him.

  He eyed her, smiled, and shook his head at her insistent nosiness. “When I graduated from Princeton I was broke. I had debts. I took a job writing an in-house newsletter at a chemical company in New Jersey, and I volunteered to coach in a local soccer league. A lot of the coaches were teachers, and I made friends with them.” He drank some beer, then continued, “I liked working with the kids. They were teenagers, facing all the temptations—drugs, alcohol, sex. Some of them came from broken homes—they lived with their mothers and didn’t see their fathers, so I was the adult male they turned to. Not that I’m the greatest role model in the world—”

  “You’re a magnificent role model,” Jenny declared.

  He shrugged modestly. “I was better than nothing. I was able to help some of the kids, give them some guidance. I’d like to think I made a difference in their lives.” He drifted off for a minute, reminiscing. “So, after I paid off my Princeton loan I took out another loan and went back to school to get a master’s degree in education. And maybe someday I’ll finish paying off that loan, too,” he concluded with a smile.

  “You can’t be in debt,” Jenny teased. “You’re not wearing socks. That’s supposed to mean you’re rich.”

  “Your theory, not mine,” he reminded her. Then he shrugged again and confessed, “The truth is, I’ve just come into an inheritance, so...yeah, after years of barely scraping by, I’m rich again.”

  “An inheritance?” Her happiness at his good fortune gave way to sympathy. “Oh, Luke, who died? Not your father—?”

  “My grandfather. He was ninety-two. It wasn’t exactly unexpected.” He drummed his fingers on the table, sorting his thoughts. “If my father passed away I would most certainly not come into an inheritance.”

  “He still hasn’t made peace with you?”

  “I’ve given up on him,” Luke answered, his light tone failing to conceal his lingering bitterness. After a swallow of beer, he brightened. “Remember Elliott?”

  “Your brother in Alaska.”

  “He’s married, now. He lives in New Paltz, New York, less than an hour from my parents. His wife is an anthropology professor at the state university. They’ve got two kids.”

  “Really? How lovely! Did he ever go to law school?”

  Luke shook his head. “He’s a house-husband. He’s raising the kids while my sister-in-law teaches. It infuriates my father to think of Elliott at home, changing diapers and clipping grocery store coupons.”

  A vision of Luke’s arrogant, judgmental father flashed across Jenny’s mind. “I can imagine,” she said with a dry laugh.

  “My mother’s doing well. I don’t know if I ever told you, but for a while she had a drinking problem. She’s on the wagon now. She lives for her grandchildren. Spoils them rotten. She’s never been happier.”

  “Do you have any children?” Jenny asked. Given the way his eyes had lit up when he’d talked about his brother’s children, it seemed like a reasonable thing to ask. For all she knew, he could be married and a father. A lot could happen in seven years.

  He seemed startled by her question. “Do I have children? No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  He lowered his eyes to her hands, which were folded on the table in front of her, and took note of her ringless fingers. “You haven’t...hooked up with anyone,” he half-asked.

  “No.” She would prefer not to discuss her personal life with Luke, but she recognized the impossibility of avoiding the subject. Sooner or later he would demand to know, and she would tell him. The longer she could put it off, though, the better. “So,” she said, deliberately changing the subject, “things are still stormy between you and your father.”

  He drank some more beer, gazing across the table, contemplating her. “My father will never forgive me,” he finally said, his voice heavy with resignation rather than bitterness. “He can’t forgive me for not going to law school. He can’t forgive me for being able to make it on my own. He can’t forgive me for managing to survive without his money or his manipulation.”

  “Can you talk to him, at least?”

  “We talk only when we have to.” He turned the beer bottle around and around, as if to give his hand something to do. “On Thanksgiving we all go to Larchmont for Thanksgiving. My father sits sulking in his study until dinner is served, and then he takes his seat at the head of the table and continues sulking in front of us. He ignores everyone except my niece. He’s trying to persuade her to become a high-power lawyer like him.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Four.”

  “Well, she’s got a little time to think about it,” Jenny pointed out. Luke shared her smile.

  The waitress returned and asked if they were ready to order some food. Jenny gave the menu a perfunctory glance, but none of the listings jogged her appetite. Before she could speak, Luke ordered a cheese pizza for them to share.

  “That was presumptuous of you,” she chided once the waitress was gone. She wasn’t really angry, but she bristled whenever people tried to exert that kind of control over her.

  “You like pizza,” he countered. “I remember.”

  His allusion to their past made her even less hungry. She sipped her soda and wondered why. More than just his mention of the meals they’d shared so long ago, she was reacting to something about his presence itself, something about the smooth motions of his hands and his clean male aroma and the constant radiance of his eyes. She was reacting to the fact that the last man she had ever trusted was sitting less than three feet away from her, and she wanted to trust him again—and she no longer knew how.

  She braced herself for the likelihood that he would continue to delve into the past—specifically, her past. Exercising sensitivity, he refrained. Instead, he critiqued the restaurant’s decor, giving credit to Taylor for the knowledge he’d recently acquired about restaurants. Then he critiqued his beer.

  “Have you been going to the beach much?” she asked.

  “Taylor’s house is right on the beach, so yeah, I get my feet in the sand just about every day. I went sailing with Taylor yesterday. He’s got a boat.”

  Jenny recalled her first impression of Luke—that he looked as if he belonged on a sailboat. She smiled. “That must have been fun.”

  “We argued the whole time,” Luke confessed.

  “About what?”

  “About you.” He drained his glass, his eyes never leaving her. “He didn’t think I should track you down.”

  “He was wrong,” she said decisively. “If you wanted to track me down you should have. I’m really glad you did, Luke.” I’ve missed you, she almost added. She hadn’t been aware of missing him until now—but then, there was so much missing from her life, so much she’d gotten used to doing without. Maybe she shouldn’t be glad Luke had tracked her down. Maybe acknowledging the pockets of emptiness in her life wasn’t such a good thing.

  The waitress delivered t
heir pizza, sliced into steaming wedges. She placed a slice on a plate for each of them, nodded when Luke requested another beer, and cleared away the empty bottle.

  Luke took a bite of his pizza and swallowed, his gaze never leaving Jenny. “I think it’s your turn,” he said.

  “The story of my life, you mean?”

  “You were the one who was supposed to be a teacher,” he reminded her. “How did you wind up a lawyer?”

  She tasted her pizza. It was delicious, but she had trouble swallowing it. “Well,” she said vaguely, “things change.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  She washed down the food with a cooling sip of soda. Talking to Luke used to be easy. It still was, except for this. She was pretty sure she knew what he wanted to hear—but maybe, just maybe she was wrong. Maybe he no longer gave a damn about her reason for cutting herself off from him. He seemed strong and well-adjusted; maybe he had no desire to rehash an unpleasant incident that ought to have been forgotten by now. Maybe all he really wanted to know was what he’d asked: how she had wound up a lawyer.

  “I didn’t go straight to law school,” she said, wincing inwardly at what an understatement that was. “I worked for a while in my parents’ office, mostly clerical stuff. Eventually it dawned on me that this was where I belonged. I’m not the kind of lawyer your father wanted you to be. I’m not in it for the money or the power. I’m in it to see that justice is done.”

  “What happened to molding kids’ minds?” he asked, sounding less accusing than baffled. “You used to say it had been your lifelong dream to become a teacher.”

  “Another lifetime, I guess.” She sighed.

  He waited for her to elaborate. When she didn’t, he asked, “What lifetime are you in now?”

  Behind his whimsical words lurked his real questions: What was it that changed her life? Who was Jenny Perrin now? Why wasn’t she the person he’d known seven years ago?

  He deserved answers. She had to tell him.

  Setting down her fork, she bravely met his gaze. If it were ever possible for her to trust a man again, she imagined that Luke Benning would be the man she would trust. “I dropped out for a while,” she began, slowly and calmly. “Not just from Smith College but from the world.” Afraid she wasn’t making sense, she took a deep breath and began again. “The reason I disappeared was that I....” Again she faltered. Again she dug deep for the courage she needed. This was Luke. It shouldn’t be so difficult to tell him. “You were supposed to visit me at school that week.”

  “I remember.” He sounded ambivalent, both eager to hear her explanation and apprehensive about what it might be.

  “Well, I became a statistic that week. I became a crime victim.” Okay, she could do it. She could talk about it with Luke. She was in control. “I was attacked by a classmate,” she explained. “I was hurt. Badly.”

  “Oh God.” His jaw dropped and his eyes hardened in rage—not at Jenny but at a world which allowed such an appalling thing to happen. “What kind of crime?”

  “I was assaulted. I was beaten up. I was smashed to bits.” She heard the exasperation creeping into her voice and didn’t bother to stifle it. What difference did the details make? She didn’t want to go into it.

  Clearly sensing her tension, he backed off. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked gently, amelioratingly. “I mean, at the time it happened. Why didn’t anyone let me know?”

  She let out a bleak laugh. “I was a mess. Not just physically—emotionally. I cracked up, Luke. I went insane. Here was this classmate I’d known for weeks, someone I talked to and considered a friend—someone I trusted. I couldn’t believe a friend would hurt me that way. I just...I fell apart.”

  “Jenny.” He scooped her hand up in his. The contrast of his warm, enveloping fingers made her realize how icy her own fingers had become.

  “I had a nervous breakdown. My parents came to Northampton and brought me home, and I spent the rest of the year trying to recuperate. I couldn’t go back to Smith. Even after a year I couldn’t bring myself to go back.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I wound up taking my senior year at Lake Forest University, which isn’t far from my parents’ house. I lived at home and continued therapy. It was a long, slow process.”

  “Are you all better now?” he asked.

  Her eyes met his. She wished she could say yes. More than anything, she wished she could assure him that she had recovered completely. But the sweet, dark sorrow in his eyes told her he already knew that if she said such things she would be lying. “I’m probably as ‘better’ as I’ll ever be,” she conceded. “There are scars. But I’m okay.”

  “And you became a lawyer to fight for justice,” he murmured, making the obvious connection.

  “It was a good choice for me,” she said. “Better even than therapy. I forced myself to come back to Massachusetts for law school. I had to prove to myself that I could face it. So I went to Boston University. I got my law degree two years ago and joined Steve Blair’s staff.”

  “And now you put the bad guys behind bars.”

  “That’s the basic idea,” she confirmed. The circulation began to return to her fingers, and she felt a healthy, welcome pang of hunger. Telling Luke these things wasn’t so bad, after all. “I’ve been taking self-defense courses for a few years, too. I’ve got muscles, Luke. And I went back to visit the Smith College campus. I didn’t fall apart. I’m doing fine, Luke.”

  “Yes,” he said uncertainly.

  “I am,” she emphasized, smiling. “Please don’t pity me.”

  “I don’t pity you.” He released her hand and shifted in his seat, tilting his head as he appraised her. “But I still don’t understand...” His brow dipped slightly as he contemplated everything she had told him. “I can accept that you went through a traumatic experience, Jenny—but I can’t accept why you couldn’t tell me. I called you at school and one of your friends told me you didn’t want to hear from me ever again. You just shut me out. I didn’t do anything to you, Jenny, but you had your friend tell me to get lost.”

  She closed her eyes. She had revealed so much to him. What she’d said was the truth. But the rest of it...

  No, that was hers alone. That was private. That was where the scars were most gruesome, most permanent. Luke didn’t have to know about it.

  “I never meant to hurt you,” she said contritely. “I’m sorry if I did. When it happened...” She shook her head, as if conscious that even her best explanation might not be good enough. “I was crazy, Luke. I couldn’t think rationally about how you’d feel or what you’d want to know. Don’t take offense if I say you weren’t my top priority at the time.” She pressed her lips together, aware that she was skirting very close to the line between truth and lies. She had been thinking of Luke at the time—maybe not rationally, but he had been very much a part of her thoughts, and her decision to leave him had been quite deliberate.

  “Of course,” he quickly agreed. “You had more important things to deal with. But once you were out of danger...would it have been so hard just to get some word to me? I tried so hard to find you—I badgered the girls in your dorm with phone calls. I even tracked down your old pal Sybil, from Emory. She didn’t know anything. I wrote letters. I sent them to the Dean of Students at Smith and asked her to forward them to your home. I didn’t know where you were, but I thought your parents might. And if they didn’t, maybe we could have joined forces to locate you. I didn’t know whether you were dead or alive, Jenny,” he muttered, staring past her. “You could have at least sent me a note saying you weren’t dead.”

  She remembered the letters. She remembered her mother handing them to her, one less than two weeks after she’d left school, one at Thanksgiving and one at Christmas. She’d handed each one back to her mother unopened. “Throw it out,” she’d said. Her mother had suggested that Jenny might consider simply letting the young man know what had happened, and Jenny had screamed, “Never! Never!” and become hy
sterical.

  “I never saw your letters,” she whispered. She felt ghastly lying to him, sick about it. But maybe she was deluding herself to think she could still be friends with Luke. Even if they could be friends, it would never be the honest friendship they’d once had. Jenny had learned in the past seven years that self-protection was as important as candor.

  Luke probed her with his eyes. Had he guessed that she was lying? Only about the letters, though—the rest was the truth. He had to believe her.

  After a pregnant minute, he sighed. “You did get better,” he pointed out. “Didn’t you ever—” He averted his gaze, as if to deflect the pain her answer might bring. “Have you ever thought about me? Have you ever considered just letting me know?”

  “I had no idea where you were,” she said. “So much time had passed. You would have been done at Princeton, maybe attending law school somewhere...probably in love with someone else.”

  “Jenny—”

  “You might have been married, and a letter from me would have stirred up trouble for you. Yes, Luke—I have thought about you. But it was a long time. Life goes on. For all I knew, you’d forgotten about me.”

  “Forgotten about you? Jenny—how could you think I’d forget about you?” He pressed his lips together and wrestled with his anger. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m in no position to judge you. I can’t imagine how I would have behaved if something that terrible had happened to me.”

  But it wouldn’t have happened to him, she thought with an unexpected surge of bitterness. He might become a crime victim; even tall, strong, athletic men were crime victims. But he would never have suffered as Jenny had. He might have been in pain, he might have been left with scars, he might even have gone temporarily insane, as she had. But his loss could never have been as great as hers.

  She had lost hope. She’d lost the ability to trust. She had been brutalized not by some deranged stranger, some thief or addict desperate for money or alienated from society, but by someone she’d liked, someone she’d wanted to help, someone she’d counted as a friend.