One Good Turn

by Judith Arnold

  “He threw me on the ground and he raped me.” She sounded unnaturally calm, even to herself, but that was the only way she could force out the words. “I screamed, but no one was there to hear me, and I tried to push him away but he was much bigger than me. He just shoved down my jeans and climbed onto me and raped me, and he kept saying this was going to make me fall in love with him. And when he was done I started crying, and he said that if I didn’t love him it meant he must have done it wrong and he’d have to do it again. So he pulled the rest of my clothes off, and he tried to get me to make him hard again, and when I refused he hit me. And that seemed to excite him, so he kept on hitting me until he was aroused enough to rape me again.”

  “Jenny...”

  She realized that Luke’s arms had become as tense and rigid as steel, that his breath had grown harsh. Against her ear his heart drummed in a savage rage.

  When he’d said she didn’t have to tell him, maybe what he’d meant was that he didn’t want to hear. He didn’t want to hear about how chilly and damp the ground was, how the rocks and twigs dug into her flesh, transforming her skin into a map of bruises and cuts, and how she screamed until her throat was too raw to make any sound at all, and how the nightmare went on and on, again and again, time after torturous time until the sun set completely and the air became frigid. And how, hours later, Adam closed his pants and kicked her in the ribs for good measure and said, “Well, if you didn’t like it there must be something wrong with you,” and sauntered off, leaving her alone in the night, naked and battered, surrounded by towering pines.

  Maybe Luke didn’t want to hear. But she told him anyway. Just so he’d understand. Just so he’d know why she could never be his lover.

  * * *

  “I REALLY THINK this is what we’re looking for,” Taylor was saying as he refilled their mugs with coffee. Morning sunlight streamed into the kitchen, burning Luke’s eyes. Even in a less glaring light, the documents Taylor had placed before him would have registered as a meaningless blur.

  “The price is a little high, given the current market conditions,” Taylor continued as he removed a quart of milk from the refrigerator and brought it to the table. He poured some into his mug, stirred it, and scanned the documents. “There’s room to negotiate, though. And even at the asking price, I think it’s feasible. The profits have been outstanding; we’d be buying a business with a great reputation and a loyal clientele. Their menu is limited, but I can work on that. The chef’s creative and I think he’d like to expand and break out a little. The place has an ideal location, its off-season traffic isn’t bad, and I can pull off the financing.” He sipped his coffee and eyed Luke inquisitively. “So? Say something.”

  “Why should I say something?” Luke asked. “I’m supposed to be the silent partner.”

  “You’re planning to sink a big chunk of money into the deal. You’re entitled to an opinion.”

  “My opinion,” Luke said, shutting the folder of documents and sliding it across the table to Taylor, “is that in the four years since you bought the Haven you’ve doubled profits and gotten rave reviews. I have faith in your judgment. If you say this place is a good investment, I’m not going to argue.”

  Taylor scrutinized his friend thoughtfully. “What’s the matter? You look strung out.”

  “I’m not strung out,” Luke said defensively. Hoping to discourage further questioning, he shielded himself with his mug and drank, even though the coffee was hot enough to scaled his tongue.

  “Then what is it? You’re going through withdrawal because you’re missing a day of the trial?”

  In truth, Luke had been very anxious to be in the courtroom today—not so much because it was the first day of defense testimony but because he didn’t want Jenny to think she’d frightened him off by what she’d told him yesterday. If she’d allowed him, he wouldn’t have even left her apartment last night. He would have spent the entire night holding her, cradling her, whispering words of comfort even though he knew such words were empty and useless, even though he acknowledged that, as pained as he was by what she’d told him, he could scarcely begin to imagine the pain she herself had suffered.

  He would have stayed all night but she wouldn’t let him. She’d asked him to leave and he had—but only because he knew he’d see her again the next day, and the next, and the next. Now that she was back in his life, he had every intention of remaining firmly in hers.

  When Taylor had accosted him early that morning before he’d left for Cambridge and implored him to stay home so they could discuss the investment toward which Taylor was leaning, Luke had reluctantly caved in. He could give his best friend this one day. But he’d telephoned Jenny’s office and left a message that he would definitely be there tomorrow.

  He couldn’t bear the possibility that she would misinterpret his absence. He couldn’t bear to let her think he was deliberately keeping his distance. Last night she had cut her soul open and let its terrifying contents bleed onto him. As troubled as he was by what she’d said, her honesty had been the most profound expression of love.

  All he wanted was to be with her. Courtrooms, trials, restaurants and investments were irrelevant. He wanted Jenny.

  “Things were quiet at the Haven last night,” Taylor noted, selecting a banana from the fruit bowl at the center of the table and methodically peeling it. “I thought you’d be showing up for dinner. We could have talked about all this—” he indicated the folder “—then.”

  “Yeah, well...I didn’t make it.”

  “You had dinner in town?”

  “I had dinner with Jenny,” Luke said, staring into his coffee.

  Taylor shook his head. “She’s sucking you in, pal.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Hey, come on—this is Taylor you’re talking to. I’m the guy who put out the fire the last time she burned you, remember?”

  “She loves me,” Luke said slowly, addressing his mug. “She loves me, and I love her.”

  “Great,” Taylor muttered sarcastically. “You love each other. I’m moved to tears.”

  Luke exhaled. He couldn’t tell Taylor the truth about Jenny. He had won her confidence last night. To tell Taylor any of it at all would betray her trust.

  Trust. That was really what it was all about. Jenny loved him, but she was incapable of trust. She’d gone from someone who didn’t know how not to trust, as she’d put it, to someone who couldn’t trust anyone at all.

  Worst of all, she’d lost the ability to trust herself.

  She had taught him how to trust himself seven years ago, how to listen to his own heart. Now he had to do for her what she’d done for him, especially since the message her heart was sending her—the message she seemed unable to trust—was that she loved Luke.

  “So, you both decided that you love each other,” Taylor summarized a few minutes later, as he and Luke drove west into Yarmouth to have another look at the restaurant Taylor was thinking about purchasing. “Would you care to be specific about how this love expressed itself?”

  “No.”

  Taylor shot him a sidelong glance, then turned his attention back to the traffic clogging Route 28. “Judging by your wildly euphoric mood, I suppose it’s safe to assume you didn’t get any last night.”

  “Zip it, Taylor.”

  “I’m just trying to get a handle on this thing. The last time you and she were in love with each other, you told me she was outstanding in bed.”

  “I was twenty-one years old, then,” Luke muttered. “Twenty-one year olds talk too much.”

  “In other words, I’m being immature?”

  “Precisely.”

  “I don’t mean to pry,” Taylor defended himself, his tone softer,gentler. “I care about you, buddy. You and I go back a long way. If you really think you and Jenny have a shot this time, tell me what I can do to help.”

  Luke eyed his friend with gratitude. Taylor’s behavior sometimes bordered on crass, but he meant well. “You could stop asking so m
any questions,” he suggested.

  Taylor nodded. “How about, I could also leave town for the weekend?”

  “Leave town?”

  “Suzanne invited me to spend the weekend in Boston with her.”

  “No shit?”

  “It’s going to take some rearranging at the Haven, but I think Bev Cioffi can cover for me. As far as the house, it’s all yours.”

  Luke’s brain kicked into high gear. He could invite Jenny down to the Cape. They could loll on the beach, lounge on the deck, drive up to the National Seashore for a picnic or dine out in elegance. She could unwind and empty her mind of thoughts about the trial. She could relax. She could accustom herself to the fact that Luke was her friend.

  And then, after dinner, after a moonlit stroll along the water’s edge... Maybe he would win her full trust. Maybe he would prove to her that what she’d suffered at the hands of a mentally deranged classmate had nothing at all to do with making love.

  One evening seven years ago in Washington, Jenny had turned to Luke and declared, “Tonight you’ll stay with me.” Maybe, if the stars were with him, if he convinced her to trust him—and herself—she would turn to him and say, “Tonight I’ll stay with you.”

  * * *

  SHE HAD LONG AGO perfected the art of maintaining an unruffled facade even when her thoughts were in upheaval, and she put that talent to use when Luke didn’t show up at court on Tuesday. She carried off the cross-examination of Stewart Shaw’s first three witnesses with deftness and accuracy. She performed calmly, flawlessly.

  And all the while her soul twisted in anguish at the understanding that she had scared Luke away. The one man she’d dared to trust didn’t want anything to do with her, now that he knew the truth. She’d scared him away.

  The phone message waiting for her at her office quelled her anxiety somewhat: Can’t make it today. I’ll be there tomorrow. Have lunch with me, tomorrow, PLEASE. Luke. “He insisted that I capitalize `please,’” the receptionist informed her.

  Having lunch with him would be out of the question, of course. Her mornings belonged to the Sullivan trial and her afternoons were devoted to a criminal harassment case in Waltham which was scheduled to go before a grand jury next week. She was willing to nibble on a sandwich at her desk to keep Steve and Willy off her back, but going out for lunch with Luke would take up more time than she had to spare.

  Yet the next day, when she saw Luke in the courtroom at nine a.m.—which meant he must have left Cape Cod by seven—her resolve melted. By one o’clock she was exhausted from the intensive cross-examination of the parade of character witnesses Stewart Shaw had marched through court. She was hungry, she was frazzled, and she was so relieved to see Luke that she couldn’t imagine declining his offer of lunch.

  “We can’t linger over a fancy meal, though,” she warned him. “I’ve got—”

  “A ton of work,” Luke recited with a grin. “So we’ll eat fast.” Taking her elbow, he ushered her down the hall to the elevator. “The defense really put on a show today. How many people are they planning to drag in to say what a swell guy Sullivan is?”

  “Their witness list was ridiculous,” Jenny muttered. “They listed twenty-five character witnesses—everyone from Sullivan’s kindergarten teacher to his high school sweetheart. You’d think people were lined up outside the lawyer’s office, begging for the opportunity to tell the jury that Matthew Sullivan is an angel.”

  “Are they allowed to call up that many character witnesses?”

  “I presented my objections,” she told Luke as they left the elevator on the ground floor and made their way outside. “But the judge said that on a charge as serious as rape he’s got to cut the defense some slack. I just hope they don’t put the entire list on the stand.”

  “You handled today’s witnesses wonderfully,” Luke observed.

  Jenny shot him a dubious look. What she’d done in court that morning was only her job. Wonderful seemed an overstatement. “You don’t have to pump me up, Luke,” she criticized gently. “I’m a good lawyer, but I’m not wonderful.”

  “Don’t be so modest,” he countered, holding open the door of a neighborhood café and waving her inside. “If you weren’t wonderful, this case would have been dismissed by now. It would have never gotten past a grand jury.”

  “How can you say that? The man committed a crime. He—”

  “I know what he did, and I agree that it’s a crime,” said Luke. He fell silent as a hostess approached and led them to a table, but once they were alone he continued. “I’m the son of a lawyer, Jenny. One thing I’ve learned is that not every case is black and white. It doesn’t matter what happened; it doesn’t matter that a real crime might have been committed. What matters is, how will it play in court? In anyone else’s hands, Jenny, this case wouldn’t have played well at all.”

  She wanted to refute him but she couldn’t. When Steve had agreed to let her take the case he’d said much the same thing—and when, seven years ago, she’d asked the police whether it would be possible to bring charges against Adam Hastings, she had been told the same thing. Acquaintance rape was never a black-and-white situation.

  “You think I’m going to lose, then,” she concluded grimly.

  “No. I think you’re going to win. But it’s not because your case is easily winnable, Jenny. You’ll win because you’re good.” A waitress came to their table, and he ordered a beer for himself and a soft drink for Jenny. “So, when do you think the case will go to the jury?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow, I hope. Maybe Friday. It depends on how long Shaw continues with the testimonials. As far as I know, he’s still planning to put Sullivan on the stand, too.”

  “But you’ll be free for the weekend,” he half-asked.

  “In terms of this case, yes. Once it goes to the jury, there’s nothing more I can do. But I’ve got another case to prepare....”

  “Come on, Jen. You deserve a day off.”

  “I deserve a year off,” she said with a laugh. “However—”

  “However, you’ll settle for a day. Come to the Cape. I’m staying right on the beach. We’ll lie on the sand and stare at the clouds.”

  What a tantalizing thought. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent an entire day doing nothing more significant than staring at the clouds. Even when she’d gone home to Illinois for Christmas she’d brought work with her.

  The harassment case in Waltham needed a lot of attention before it went to the grand jury. But still...

  “I burn easily,” she said.

  He grinned. “So we’ll douse ourselves in sunscreen and stare at the underside of a beach umbrella.”

  “I really shouldn’t.”

  “You really have to,” he declared.

  Her litigation skills abandoned her. She could come up with no effective counter-argument. She couldn’t tear his allegations to shreds or undermine his certainty. The man was right. She really had to get away for a day.

  “All right,” she murmured. “We’ll stare at the underside of an umbrella.”

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  SHE WAS DRESSED in white.

  It wasn’t the same outfit she’d worn in Washington; this one was a cool white below-the-knee skirt with a slouch-shouldered jacket to match; under the jacket she had on a tank top of a tangerine shade that went well with her hair. It was a crisp, summery ensemble, lacking the gauzy, lacy dreaminess of the clothing she’d worn the night Luke had fallen in love with her, and worn again the night they’d consummated their love.

  But she looked just as beautiful now as she had then. Despite several generous applications of sun screen and the protection of the striped beach umbrella Luke had found in Taylor’s garage, Jenny had acquired a dusting of golden freckles across her nose, cheeks and forearms. The sun had ignited her hair, imbuing it with licks of flame that a late-afternoon shampoo before dinner had done nothing to extinguish. Her eyes were bright. Her face glowed.

  E
ven if she left for home right now, Luke would consider this day a rousing success. They’d spent hours on the beach talking, dozing, sipping tall drinks and talking some more. Luke had described his students to her, discussed some of the new concepts he was planning to implement in the fall and filled her in on his phone conversation with his mother that morning: she had entered a bridge tournament at the club, his father had convinced a powerful trade association to let him represent their interests in Washington, and Elliott’s daughter had recovered completely from her strep throat. Jenny had told Luke about the first time she’d visited the Cape, to spend a September weekend with three of her law school classmates. It had rained non-stop the entire weekend, by the end of which the four of them were scarcely speaking to each other.

  The only time Jenny had mentioned the Sullivan trial was early in the day, when she’d informed Luke that the jury, which had received the case the previous morning, had not yet reached a verdict. “I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad sign,” she’d admitted. “Frankly, I’d just as soon not think about it for a while.”

  “Then let’s not think about it,” Luke had readily agreed. As far as he was concerned, emotionally charged subjects were off-limits for the day. Trust was built on trivial matters as much as significant ones. After ten leisurely hours discussing little of importance in each other’s company today, he believed they’d done a lot of building.

  “I’m sorry your friend Taylor wasn’t at his restaurant,” she said, leaning out over the deck railing and letting the evening breeze toss her hair. “I would have liked to meet him.”

  “He would have liked to meet you, too,” said Luke.

  “Please tell him I think the Haven is wonderful.”

  “I will.” He rested his forearms on the railing, welcoming the warm, salty wind against his face. His skin tingled from its exposure to the sun. The sky was a deep blue and the water lapped the sand in a soothing rhythm. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked her.