Show No Fear

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Nina scavenged frantically in her closets while Bob brushed his teeth. Nothing that would make a good jacket. An old lace tablecloth. Two fake-silver napkin rings that might morph into buckles, if someone far cleverer than she did the work.

  Bob tied his shoes laboriously. She looked at him, her heart aching with love and inability, as it always did. “Can I help you with that?”

  “I can do it.”

  Nina watched with increasing anxiety as the clock ticked. “I thought you really loved Casper the Friendly Ghost. And then you could wear your costume to school this morning. I bet a lot of the other kids will be wearing their costumes.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  Nina bent to retie his shoes. “You liked Jason last week. Why don’t you like him anymore?”

  “That man in the car is my dad, right? The one that was behind us?”

  “Oh, honey.”

  “Why doesn’t he live here? Jason says his dad’s at home. Dads live with their kids.”

  “Not always, honey.”

  “Will my daddy ever live with us?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not? That’s what I wonder. How come you aren’t married? That’s what Jason asked me.” Bob attempted to stuff his lunch bag into his backpack. “He’s smart.”

  “Life’s complicated. We will talk about these things when we have more time, but I want you to think about this for today, okay? We’re happy, aren’t we?”

  “I guess so,” he said, emphasizing guess.

  On the way to preschool she said, “You know what’s the best thing to do when somebody says something you don’t like? Just walk away.”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy.

  By habit, she scanned the parking lot for signs of Richard. When she saw no one, she walked Bob to the door. “Remember,” he said, kissing her. The entryway was blocked by a fat, yellow bumblebee and what appeared to be a turtle in drag.

  “I’ll be there,” she promised.

  At noon, she stopped by Astrid’s desk. “I need a huge favor.”

  Astrid whacked away at her keyboard. “Everybody needs something. Remy and Jack both loaded me up this morning. I’ve got depo summaries on Patel and Rasheedi to do. That letter for your mom’s case. Plus Jack wrote a forty-page opening brief on his writ in that Coastal Commission case.” Astrid inclined her head toward a cassette. “You’d think he’d get tired of the sound of his own voice.” As she talked, her fingers kept up an energetic pecking on her computer keyboard.

  “How is it that you manage to talk the same time as you type?”

  “Autopilot. Over a hundred words a minute. It passes through my brain like white noise. God, the job would turn deadly if I read this garbage.”

  “Listen, Astrid. I know how busy you are. You’re always busy. But this is important. Tell you what. Help me out for an hour right now, and I’ll treat you to dinner afterwards.”

  “I should work late.”

  “I’ll provide a delicious, mouthwatering meal, okay? Here at the office. At your home. At your lover’s. Wherever.”

  Astrid said nothing. Her brow furrowed.

  “On the beach! At the Carmel restaurant of your choice!”

  She shuffled paperwork on her desk.

  “I’ll cook it myself!” Nina said, desperate.

  Astrid finally raised her eyes from the shambles on her desk to look hard at Nina. “This is just sad. Now I’m scared. Does this have to do with Richard Filsen?”

  Startled, Nina asked, “What?”

  “Did you forget I’m Jack’s secretary? I type everything and am privy to everything. You’ve got big problems with that guy.”

  Nina didn’t know what to say.

  “And, ahem, girl talk. It’s only fair to add that I know him,” Astrid said, mouth turning down at the admission. “I met him at a party at Klaus’s a couple of years ago, two maybe. He chatted me up, gave me his card. I didn’t think much about it, because he’s not my type.”

  “No?” Nina asked, fascinated.

  “After three days of me not calling him, he called me every single day for a week. He sent bouquets of exotic flowers to the office, like saying, ‘Hey, everyone in Astrid’s workplace, a sleek guy wants her bad!’ He sent me crush notes!” She laughed, but her eyes were chilly. “I wonder if he wrote them himself or if he had his assistant write them?”

  Nina tried to imagine Perry writing mash notes and couldn’t.

  “Really good stuff, not gooey, just the right balance between gracious and romantic.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Look, he had expected me to fall down and kiss his shiny Bruno Magli shoes at the first invitation.”

  “You recognized his shoes?” Nina couldn’t help her astonishment.

  Astrid read her mind. “My boyfriend at the time wore the same style and never let an opportunity pass to mention how much those pointy leather babies set him back. Anyway, along comes Mr. Handsome, successful lawyer, lowering himself to woo a lowly assistant type. I surprised him by not falling for his shtick. He took me for a challenge.” She shook her head. “Fool. He was on the make. I’ve seen and rejected an even dozen like him. I told him to go fish.”

  Astrid had seen through him, and Nina had not. Astrid, who kept the office running, who never faltered under fire, now held a new image in Nina’s eyes, that of a sexual sophisticate.

  “Now you know my sordid past. So tell me, does it relate to yours or have I revealed myself pointlessly, as usual?”

  “My past has to do with Bob. Richard seems to want to worm his way into our lives, not in a good way.”

  Astrid nodded. “The dinner bribe shook me because I know you hate cooking. Now I’m getting the picture. It’s all about Bob.”

  “I hate cooking for a four-year-old. For grown-ups, I come through. You like moussaka? Veal scaloppine? Name your dish.”

  “You’ll bring it here this evening?”

  “Yes. If you come to my house right now.”

  Astrid shrugged. “Everything important always comes in at the end of the day. I’ve put out the most raging fires.” She pushed SAVE on her computer. “Let’s get out of here.”

  On the way to Nina’s, after stopping at the post office to mail urgent documents, Astrid studied a picture of Captain Hook. They stopped at the department store in Pacific Grove to pick up supplies. In another life, Astrid must have been a tailor, reflected Nina, admiring the way she grabbed red felt, ribbons, and glitter and whirled around the store.

  Nina gave Astrid some of Bob’s old clothes to go by and made lunch. By the time Nina was finished, Astrid had a tailored jacket cut, two side seams sewn, details in the works. After they ate, she applied lace at the neck and armholes, purple ribbon down the front, and glittery decorations with a glue gun. “This ought to do it. Now where’s that hat?” She pulled a yellow plume out of the bag. “Don’t forget to take makeup so you can give him a mustache.”

  “I can never repay you for this.”

  Astrid beamed.

  “Come see the parade?” Nina asked. “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Why the hell not?” asked Astrid, gulping down a glass of milk at Nina’s, leaving her supplies in brown bags on the floor. “I’m late back to work anyway.”

  Most of the children were dressed up by the time they arrived at the school. They located Bob waiting patiently near the door. Astrid helped him wriggle into the felt jacket and purple tights while Nina painted his face.

  After they were done, Bob looked at himself in the mirror, face solemn. “My hook?”

  Nina ground her teeth, her mind whirring through possible mitigations, looking at Astrid. “Maybe if you held your hand like this?” Nina curved her hand into a hook shape.

  Bob appeared ready to let loose and cry.

  Astrid rummaged in her paper sack, pulling out a plastic thing with a hook on one end and a handle hidden on the other. Bob tried it out. The long sleeve on his right cuff just covered the han
dle. The music began, and he marched around the parking lot and up the block with the other children, waving his hook, while parents bumped into each other in their eagerness to position themselves for photos.

  “Where on earth did you find that?” Nina asked Astrid.

  “In the Halloween section of the store. Jeez, Nina. Open your eyes. There’s a world out there.”

  At dinnertime, Nina brought Astrid a huge plate of her mom’s favorite recipes, Southern-fried chicken and rice. Astrid, always on a diet, ate every bite and raved about it for days.

  CHAPTER 20

  JACK’S FOUR FINGERS GRIPPED A HOLD ALMOST OUT OF REACH, which made an ominous chink sound as he put weight on it, the only hold he could locate on that portion of the rock face. The small rocks inside the hold, loose but big, would probably make it safe enough, as they would be affixed like jigsaw-puzzle pieces to the walls and unlikely to pull out. He left his right hand there to hold him as he raised his foot to a two-inch ledge, moving slowly up the spire, legs light and strong. He spared a second to watch Paul, above him, sweating in the late October sun, glued as tightly as a swatted fly to the brown breccia, his head angled back as he scanned the rock, searching for his next move.

  The Gabilan Range, east of Soledad and inland from Monterey in the Salinas Valley, was one of Jack’s favorite places on earth. Pinnacles National Monument was a rock climber’s paradise with spooky outcroppings, caves, and bluffs challenging enough to defeat the most careful planning.

  Jack and Paul had met that Sunday morning at Jack’s place in the Highlands. When they finally reached Pinnacles, their watches showed a little past noon. The place was deserted, probably because Jack’s dog-eared guidebook described this particular climb as off-limits. “It doesn’t have a grade,” Jack commented when Paul pointed the way. “It’s rotten in places.”

  “About a 5.7. We can take a good run at it. Look at that slab about halfway up.”

  “There’s a trail to the bottom on the left side,” Jack said, moving toward it. At the bottom of the rock they pulled on their rock shoes and rubbed chalk on their hands, gearing up for the climb.

  Paul eyeballed a route marked with easily visible handholds along the way. The beginning was a challenge—they had to back up and take a run at the thing and then just go on spit and energy for the first twelve feet.

  No protection, chance of a harrowing fall—yeah!

  They jumped up the first bit and climbed side by side, separated by several feet, increasingly quiet as the crumbly surface revealed itself. After another twenty feet Paul moved into the lead as they both moved into the climbing line.

  Searching for the next crack, toeing minute knobs of rock, Jack fell into a way of thinking that was completely physical, a spacious refuge in his usually crowded and wordy mind, what he loved the most about climbing.

  Then suddenly, when he was about halfway up, he couldn’t see the next move. A tiny edge offered refuge for his fingers, just a crimp, just barely in reach, but gave him nothing to stand on. He wished for just one piton—a rope—a hammer—shit!—and hung on, looking across the valley toward another north-south range, trying to figure out what to do. He could try a traverse ten or so feet across the face to another area where the rock was more promising. Screw Paul and his invisible line.

  “Uh, Paul,” he called up, “the line?”

  “Right there. The knob for your fingers.”

  “Not sure I can reach it. You have a few inches on me.”

  “Jump to it?”

  “Can’t find the toeholds.”

  “Hang on with your fingers. I put all my weight on that hold. It’s okay. Just glue your toes to the rock there.”

  Paul seemed to be moving smoothly, inching over the hot, dusty stone, the spire outlined against the sky above him.

  Jack tensed and made the little jump for the handhold. His fingers held like a grappling hook, but the freaking hold disintegrated. His body jolted down. Snaking his head smoothly inward, he pushed his face into the rock, hard, clinging to two bumps at about chest height. He stopped to breathe and to stuff his heart back into his chest.

  “You okay?” Paul called.

  When Jack could speak, he said he was.

  Jack took his time, recapturing his inner rhythm. When he heaved himself to the top a few moments behind Paul, he paused at the edge, looking down the rock face. Paul was sitting on the edge, legs drawn up, taking in the sun, eyes closed, a slight smile on his mug.

  “You look like the guru on his mountain,” Jack puffed as he drew himself alongside. You could hardly call this thing a summit. Two horns of rock rose about six feet high on either side of them with a small saddle just big enough for the two of them to sit.

  “Want to know the secret of life?” Paul asked.

  “No.”

  “Even if it’s your last chance?”

  Jack tucked into his supplies, slurping water. Around them the spires cooled rapidly as the sun set. “Why not. What is it?”

  “Keep your pants on.”

  “That’s it? That’s as helpful as the solution to the question about life’s meaning in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I feel cheated.”

  From a small knapsack, Paul pulled out a silver thermos. Jack accepted a cup of hot coffee. They looked down the shadowy range and across the plains toward Soledad Prison, then beyond toward Paraiso Springs, where they could just make out a few palm trees around the old resort. A hawk swooped down to look for dinner possibilities before heading into the evening. The quiet echoed the quiet Paul felt in his body, now that the work was done.

  Jack drained his cup. “Okay, I no longer feel cheated. Not one bit.” He spotted a man and a woman on a trail below, out of earshot and unaware of his scrutiny. “I was glad when you called last night. Had an argument with Remy and needed to blow off steam.”

  “You’re still seeing her?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “She’s not your type. Anything new on the judgeship?”

  “Not that I know. Not that I would necessarily know. Certain topics are off-limits. I’m in love with her. That much I know.”

  “How?”

  “You know that old black magic feeling?”

  “I mean, how’s it hit you?”

  “I ache for her all day and all night. Everything I do without her, I wish she had seen. I look forward to going into the office because she’ll be there. I fantasize about the next time I’ll be with her. I’m not alive when I’m not with her. I have a constant desire to give her presents. I have no interest in other women. I want to fulfill all her wants, in bed and out. For her I bob my crest and do a little dance.”

  “That’s not love; that’s a haunting.”

  Jack laughed.

  They continued to follow the progress of the hikers below, who had stopped and were huddling together in a crack between two boulders. Unaware they were being observed, the couple touched each other through their clothes.

  Paul nudged Jack. “My, my,” he whispered.

  “We should move off, give ’em some privacy—”

  “They don’t know we’re watching.”

  The couple were now pressed against a rock, the girl standing higher than the guy. Paul watched the man’s back hunch and move. “Look at that. Goddamn.”

  The two below finished quickly, adjusted their clothing, and put packs back onto their backs, turning a corner out of sight. Their laughter faded away.

  “There it is,” Paul said, watching them disappear.

  “What?”

  “The only thing that beats climbing.”

  They prepared to leave. Paul pulled the rappelling rope from his day pack. “Shall we slide?”

  “Exit Rosencrantz,” said Jack. “We have earned another day.”

  On the way back to Monterey, Jack, who was driving, described Remy’s acupuncture case to Paul. “Naturally I’m glad for Nina’s sake. Remy’s the best.”

  Paul said, “You say Richard Filsen’s represent
ing Wu?”

  “So Remy tells me. I’m not directly involved, but I have a really bad feeling about this case.”

  “Something I should do something about?” Paul asked, turning toward Jack as he maneuvered the car past a car doing eighty miles an hour. The fields around them, brown with summer sun, awaited the rain.

  “Just a feeling that maybe Nina or somebody could get hurt.” Jack described the scene at the Bar Association meeting. Paul then took his turn, explaining how he had intervened on Nina’s behalf the weekend before. “Oh, ho ho,” Jack said. “I’ll bet she loved you doing your Sturmbahnführer routine.”

  “No. Don’t think I impressed Filsen much either. I think he’s losing it.”

  Jack chuckled. “Nina’s not a girl who appreciates being rescued.”

  “How long have you known her?”

  “She’s been working with us since she started law school. Guess there’s a good chance she’ll get asked to join once she finishes. Klaus loves to nurture new talent.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He came here before the war with his wife, Elise. She’s a psychiatrist. One of them was in a concentration camp. Jewish. One’s an Austrian Protestant.”

  “Which is which?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Since the day I met Klaus, he has set the standard for tenacity. He works a case to death. Every word he says carries gravitas, an accumulation of common sense and experience. And he is the most persistent lawyer in the cosmos.”

  “You wish he worked faster and richer though, I bet.”

  “The money goal remains a given. I expect to get paid well for this level of aggravation. Klaus is definitely an old-world idealist. Money’s nothing to him. He’s a symbol in our midst of what lawyers should be.”

  “Another way to say his days are numbered,” said Paul.

  “I suppose.” Jack fell silent.

  “What’ll you do then?”