Show No Fear

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Coming up from behind her in the produce department, where she was smelling a melon, he whispered, “Can’t smell as sweet as you.” She turned and kissed him briefly on the cheek.

  “Hi.” She had a few items in her cart already and quickly continued to cruise the aisles. Jack got a cart, steering it alongside hers, rubbing up against her, teasing her with bananas and tomatoes until she finally said imperiously, “Stop that right now.” Leaning over stacked tomatoes, she weighed a pear. Jack attempted to kiss her again, and a few of the tomatoes rolled to the floor.

  “Oh, shit, Jack!”

  He bent down to retrieve the fallen fruit. “So good over spaghetti.”

  “I only eat them raw.”

  “They’re juicy this way, make a hearty sauce.”

  “Jack, you told me you don’t cook much.”

  “I lied. Come over after you go to the office and I’ll show you. Spend the night.”

  “That would be nice. I’m sorry, I don’t think I can.”

  He started to protest.

  “Not those,” she said, plucking brown-spotted bananas out of his basket and replacing them. “This bunch looks fresher.” She moved efficiently through the store.

  Jack’s cart, piled high as they approached the checkout counter, held twice what Remy had selected. “You call this food?” he said, gesturing at her cart, loaded with fruit, lettuce, and yogurt.

  “Don’t nag, Jack.” Remy loaded all her food onto the conveyor. She wouldn’t look at him.

  “Dammit. What happened in Sacramento,” he said softly, “to turn things around like this?”

  Remy pulled out a wad of cash to pay and turned away from him, pushing her cart angrily toward the exit.

  “Wait for me, Remy. Wait just a second.”

  She kept going.

  “Here,” he said, waving his check, “finish ringing it up. I’ll be right back.”

  He caught up with her at her car, putting her lightweight plastic bags into the trunk. He helped her, setting them neatly side by side. “So, you’re determined to break some eggs today.”

  “I care about you, Jack. And I wish I could be who you want me to be, but you can’t really expect me to be laid-back and go hang out with you and your pot-smoking buddies whenever you feel like it.”

  “We’re talking Thanksgiving dinner. Two hours max. Eating, not indulging in mad excess.”

  “I have work.” Her voice shook a little. “There are so many things I need to wind up if—”

  It’s not about me, Jack thought, it’s about that damn judgeship, and she won’t talk about it. He took her hands in his and gave it one last try. “I really want you to come.”

  “Sorry.”

  A college-aged boy in an orange bib touched Jack’s arm. “Sir? We can’t check anybody else out till you’ve paid.” He sounded annoyed.

  “Be right there.” Jack turned his back. The boy shrugged and trudged back up to the store.

  “Don’t leave now, Remy. How about a walk? Wait for me?”

  Shutting the trunk firmly, she said, “Okay.”

  Jack disappeared into the store for a few minutes but found her again just where he’d left her, leaning against her car. He unloaded his groceries into his car and took her hand. They walked across Carmel Valley Road. All the shops grouped around a garden at the Barnyard were open. Woodsmoke perfumed the air. He dipped into a souvenir shop, returning with a necklace made of shells. “Not your usual style, I know, but I’m sure you get the intention.”

  She put it on over her sweater and put her arm through his. They walked over and sat on a bench surrounded by jasmine bushes. The blossoms seemed to be yearning up toward the weak fall sun.

  Remy leaned forward and put her head in her hands. “I’m so tired, Jack. The interviews were grueling. I imagined knowing Rick and Klaus would ease my way, but that wasn’t the case. I talked to at least six political types besides the governor trying to convince them that I could do the job, which I know I can, and two committees. But they doubt me, and at a certain point, I doubt myself.” She pulled sunglasses off her head and put them over her nose. “I—I’m worried.”

  “They loved you. Are you kidding? They’ll be lucky to have you.”

  “If I don’t get the judgeship—the political tides will turn back to the other party. I’ll quit law and leave. I’ll feel humiliated, because let me tell you, I refuse to become some perennial candidate.” They began to walk back.

  “There’s something between us,” Jack said. “Please don’t deny it.”

  She sighed. “You just turned thirty-five, didn’t you?”

  “You missed my birthday.”

  “Naturally, you want to settle down. You won’t say, you’ll never admit, that you want me to drop out, cook suppers, entertain your friends, and raise your children. You can’t imagine how impossible this is to contemplate for someone who worked to put herself through seven years of higher education, then spent eleven hard years becoming a master in this field.”

  “We’ve never discussed marriage. Aren’t you leaping ahead?”

  “You’ve thought about it. So have I.” Her smile looked sad. “Your way of letting me know what you want is subtle. You talk to me as an equal about the long hours, the lack of sleep, the lousy love lives of our fellow attorneys. You flatter me by assuming I’ve experienced the best the business has to offer—prestige, money, and power—and tell me how hollow it all is for someone with an empty personal life, meaning, I am sure, me. You make me look at myself in ten or twenty years, burned-out, sexless, cynical, and bitter. Maybe an alcoholic.”

  “You need to relax and enjoy life, not drive yourself so hard. I do see us together: two lawyers who work a little less and have a lot more fun.” Why was it this, his credo really, sounded suddenly so uninspired?

  “Marriage.” She looked at him and sighed. “Everybody’s fooled by it. Remember once we talked about romance? Marriage is the opposite. It’s work. It’s gritty detail. A fine home, and somehow I’m the one who maintains it. Then, a baby because you love kids and what’s life without children? We plan ahead about how to split up the work, engage a nanny. I go to work. The phone calls come about the baby. Somehow I’m the one who feels most responsible, the one who gives our baby top priority.” She shook her head as she spoke.

  “I compensate by working harder. But you don’t like me all tired out in bed. I know, you don’t take work home very often, so why should I? You don’t like the house being a mess. When you complain, I tell you to do it yourself and you do some of it, for a while, and with constant reminders. I’m not comfortable leaving the baby, and skip some important trips and meetings. If I do make judge, I can’t follow the cases as closely as I should.

  “Pretty soon my work and my reputation suffer. I feel so frantic trying to keep up with everything that I might even stop struggling altogether and think about limiting myself to the baby for a year or two. A couple of years later, without the hard edge, I go back, but I’m not as good. I’m never this good again.”

  “That’s not us. That’s some worst-case scenario.”

  They reached her car. Jack felt frustrated, hopeless.

  “This is my chance,” she continued as if she had not heard him. “I’m going to be a judge, and all those assholes out there who have caused me so much trouble, made passes, refused to take me seriously, tried to browbeat and insult me, are going to see the governor made the right choice.” Opening her door and jumping inside, Remy looked at him standing stricken by the car and seemed to finally see through to his pain. But it didn’t move her. “Don’t count on me for dinner, okay?” She strapped on her seat belt. The electric windows whirred as they rolled up. She drove away.

  Watching the Acura disappear, Jack thought, well, I’ll take that as a no, honey.

  After Remy dropped off the groceries at home, she stopped in at the office hoping to get as much work done as possible in the morning before things fell apart in the afternoon, as they always did on th
e day before a holiday. A half hour was all any case warranted. She was carrying seventy cases, so one run-through each week was thirty-five hours. Add another thirty-five hours for the ones she was trying each week. She returned Richard Filsen’s call in the Reilly matter. His message left her unsettled, but she didn’t leave a message when she couldn’t reach him. She would call again later. Something about the case was nagging her. Sighing, she poured herself some coffee, made a few calls, then opened up the Reilly folder.

  CHAPTER 23

  “BOB, YOU BE GOOD NOW,” NINA SAID. BOB HAD A LOT OF energy tonight, and as anyone who has ever been around a four-year-old boy knows, that means A Lot of Energy. Her mother didn’t seem to mind, though; she seemed to delight in his clambering across the couch to reach her and pull at her. He was hungry for supper and knew Ginny would make him mac ’n’ cheese right out of the box, all chemicals intact and plenty of milk and butter, a dinner Nina didn’t approve of, but so what, he and Ginny could do whatever made them happy tonight.

  “You’re going to be late for class, honey. Better get going,” Ginny said.

  “It’s good to see you smiling,” Nina said, shoving her textbook and notebooks into her backpack. She had just enough time to make it to her Advanced Civil Procedure class, where the 1930s Erie-Tompkins case had played a prominent part for a month now. The instructor, Mr. Patel, was doggedly walking them along every step of this swampy trail, and Nina’s boots had long since soaked through.

  Regretfully, she took another look at the scene—the homey, warm living room, the stack of library books on Ginny’s table, the impressionist prints on the walls. “I don’t even feel like going,” she said.

  Ginny managed to catch Bob as he caromed past and sat him on her lap. “Are you worried about leaving him with me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Go make me proud. I want to be around when you graduate. Time’s a-wastin’.”

  “Jeez, Mom, do you have to talk that way? Of course you’ll be around!”

  Her mother said tartly, “Not at this rate.” Then she laughed. She looked younger suddenly, not as ill. “You know, honey, although I get down sometimes, and upset sometimes, I’m really not the gloom-and-doom type. The knocks always come with some kind of reward, I’ve noticed. Look how well you’re doing. Look at this silly fellow—Bob, leave the lamp cord alone. And Matt’s going to move right on out of this stage soon. Look at my life tonight. What more do I need for happiness?”

  Nina grabbed her purse and swung that over her shoulder. Between the pack and the purse and wool coat, she felt like a heavily laden burro, but she managed to get over to the couch and bend down and give her mother a hug. “Thanks. You’re the best.”

  “Go, go, go. In case Bob and I are asleep when you come to get him later, don’t forget to bring some veggies tomorrow. I’ll do my standard turkey, your aunt Helen’s recipe, slathered in butter and cooked in a brown-paper bag. So Southern.”

  “You make it sound prosaic when you make the best turkey on earth.”

  “Thanks, honey. But you know, all kids think their mothers are world-class cooks.”

  Nina’s smile lasted until Lighthouse Avenue. She still had ten minutes to get to class. She could sneak in late even, her head down, and slip into a chair in the back.

  Some massive emotion began rolling in like a tide, and she pulled over in front of Patrick’s used-furniture store, thinking it would roll on by. But it didn’t. It just grew and grew, got overwhelming.

  That class—so boring! She would definitely get drowsy and fight the nods the whole time. She’d never practice before the Supreme Court either, and she didn’t need to know this intricate stuff. Besides, she was hungry.

  Deciding to ditch class, she drove around the Fisherman’s Wharf curve and pulled into the McDonald’s parking lot. One Big Mac with fries later, she was back in the car, feeling better, lips greasy and belt pulled out a notch.

  But she wasn’t good yet. She had three hours to play on a Wednesday night, because she was going to shine that class and for once she didn’t have the slightest worry about Bob. Too dark to surf. Too foggy and cool to enjoy a walk on the beach. Visit a friend? Her friends were sacked out in front of their TVs, exhausted, kids finally in bed, and besides, who exactly were these friends?

  She felt a sudden urge to drive to Mortimer’s in Seaside to gamble away her life savings. But she had no life savings. She had $22 and change in her purse and couldn’t afford to lose money for absolutely no reason. That would be insane.

  If only she had somebody, somebody like Jack, or Paul, somebody to hold her—phooey, this loneliness again—Jack pining away in Carmel Highlands for someone else, Paul not returning her phone call—

  I could sure use a glass of wine, she thought suddenly. She looked down at a self that was reasonably presentable under the short coat in her black sweater and jeans, gold hoops in her ears, the purse a gift from her mother, fancy leather with a gold buckle. Confidence, or maybe recklessness, filled her.

  She drove over the hill to Carmel, headlights warming the fog, radio playing Motörhead. Paul had talked about the Hog’s Breath. He might even be there. What an amazing coincidence that would be.

  She parked right in front, not a good sign. Where were the cheery hordes of summer? True, November was not a big cheery-hordes month. Disappointment struck her, though, when she walked through the half-empty restaurant to the heat-lamp-strewn courtyard with its early Christmas lights to find it almost empty.

  With its thatched roof, the bar looked like a better choice than sitting alone at a table in the midst of her vast existential emptiness. She walked in, hoping a male or two would experience a flare of lust when they saw her. Oops, the coat. She stopped and took it off, gratified that now every guy in the place was staring at her. Of course, besides the bartender, only two men were in there, an ancient man in a baseball cap and—

  Oh, no! Perry Tompkins, eyebrows raised, specs slightly askew, beckoned from the corner.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as she reluctantly went over and said hello. “Sit down, sit down.” He patted the padded stool next to his.

  “What do you think, Perry? I’m having a drink at a bar.” She ordered a glass of sauvignon blanc, noting to herself that she could at most afford three glasses, if she scrimped on the tip.

  “Shouldn’t you be somewhere?”

  “Your tact, Perry. That’s what got you so far in high school.” Perry picked up his drink, drained it, and motioned for another. Nina didn’t bother snuffing at the fumes of her wine like a pig for truffles, didn’t bother swirling it or looking at its color. She took a long drink and swallowed it down, while Perry grinned at his luck in finding some company.

  “I’m not him, you know,” Perry said, obviously referring to Richard.

  “Well, last time I looked, you were shoving papers at me on his behalf. You work for him. You do his bidding at midnight in graveyards, bring him fresh corpses. Don’t you?”

  “No need to be so belligerent. No, don’t get up. I’ll tell you a secret if you’ll stick around.”

  Nina slowly sat back down.

  “I didn’t want to handle the case about your son. Of course I didn’t. I still like you.”

  “Then tell Richard to stick it and find somebody else to work for.”

  “I can’t do that. He’s gonna make me a partner.”

  “Sure he is. He sold me a lot of bull, too.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s an asshole. I should know. I see him day in, day out.” Perry stared into his glass.

  Nina felt a brief pang of pity for him. “What does he really want from me?”

  “You know I can’t talk about the case. You’re represented by counsel.”

  “You can talk. My counsel is my boss and I’m a lawyer, practically. All I want to know is what it will take to make him back off.”

  “It’s always about him,” Perry said. “Here we are. We could talk about so many things, but you want to talk
about him. Why can’t we talk about something nice? Like Mexico? Or—I don’t know—something else that’s fun.”

  His kids and his wife, for example? She noticed now that his speech was slurred. Excellent. She put her fingers on his arm. “I don’t mind doing that, but, first, just give me some clues about the situation. I’m really having a hard time with this.”

  “I know.” Perry hung his head for a moment and looked truly ashamed. Then he rallied, drank up. Maybe he would spill Richard’s garbanzos. It was worth a try. Another motioning gesture to the bartender. “Another for you? I’m buying.”

  “Sure.”

  They sat with their drinks. Perry said, “You think he’ll cheat me.”

  “I just know him. What I can’t understand is why he’s jumping out of the bushes after all this time claiming to want to know Bob.”

  “His girlfriend tells him it’s immoral of him not to take responsibility. He’s got this twisted conservatism in him. He doesn’t want to look bad in front of her. She’s Hispanic, I think, Catholic. Very traditional. She doesn’t like it that he has a son out there he doesn’t know.”

  Nina let this sink in. Richard, in love? Trying to impress his lover by destroying her, Nina’s, life?

  “Wow,” she said.

  “It’s the self-righteousness that gets me. He’s seen the light. He’s absolutely sure this is the right course. Better watch out, Nina.”

  “You, too.”

  “I appreciate the advice,” Perry said, morose.

  “Who is this girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know her name. She never comes by the office. He talks to her sometimes on the phone, but he’s discreet.”