Unfit to Practice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Darkness shrouded Kevin’s face, and Nina thought, I have to be careful not to make Kevin any more angry. She knew it was tricky, putting him in contact with Ali. But she wanted to start fighting back, and Ali was a lead.

  Kevin was settling in. He waved at the waitress, who swooped down in a flash.

  “Ready to order?”

  Nina checked her watch. “I told you. I have to go.”

  “Don’t leave!” Kevin said. He sent the waitress away. “I’m so alone right now. Please don’t leave me.” He gave her those sad eyes. She could see how he might look in ten years. He would age fast, the slight pouches under his eyes and chin would coarsen his face, the sad expression would harden to bitterness, the extra bulk would lead to a big belly, and too much smoking would lead to wheezing breath and coughing spells when he woke up in the morning.

  She hoped she was wrong, that he would find happiness with someone new, that he would see the kids regularly and develop a sane visitation schedule with Lisa. That he would quit smoking. She wished that she could fix all that had gone wrong for him.

  But some people never got past the divorce. It cleaved their lives too deeply.

  “Call me tomorrow. We’ll talk some more,” was all she could say.

  “I’ll walk you back across the street. It’s dark.”

  “Don’t bother. It’s the middle of town.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  When they got to the truck, Nina said, “Good night. Try to get some sleep.” She touched his arm.

  Kevin fell onto her like a drowning man hugging a life preserver. Bending his head down, he broke into heavy sobs. The big cop cried on her shoulder. After a few seconds, she patted his wide back. She got into the truck, putting distance between them, reminding him that they still might turn things around later.

  After giving the dog his dinner, she and Bob drove straight to Matt’s house, spotting Paul pulling up in his Mustang right out front. Bob ran for the house as she walked up to greet Paul.

  He opened his arms and she rushed into them. Her arms went around him and she held him tightly, kissing his slightly stubbly cheek, smelling the leather he wore on cold nights. His mouth was warm and as she pressed against him she felt his instant readiness. He was attuned to her physically, and she, melting against him, was helplessly responsive.

  “Paul,” she said. She buried her face in his shoulder.

  “What is it, honey?”

  “Just a hard day. I missed you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’m afraid I’m starting to depend on you.”

  “Is that so bad?” He caressed her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “I want you to depend on me.”

  “All right, then,” she said, holding his face in her hands and looking into his eyes. A few droplets fell on them, and she released him slowly.

  Paul smiled at her, then turned to the Bronco. He walked all the way around it, kicked the tires, patted its hood. “Good to see you again,” he told it as Nina described the impound yard and her words with Jean Scholl. The drizzle turned to rain, and Nina began to shiver. “In we go,” Paul said. “There’s some kind of party going on in there.”

  “Wait. Can you help me with this thing?”

  He pulled the big box out of the truck and they ran up the steps. Paul gestured toward the mailbox. “Mind explaining the box? And those balloons?”

  “You’re crashing a baby shower.”

  Inside the house, they found Matt and Andrea holding court in front of the fireplace, a fire burning, a dozen other people floating like confetti around the room along with wrapping paper, paper plates, and yellow-cake debris.

  “Sorry we’re late,” Nina said, helping Paul to arrange the box within Andrea’s reach.

  Her younger brother, Matt, and his wife, Andrea, were expecting a third child. Andrea had been married once before and had a child during that marriage, so this would be Matt’s second biological child. Since they already had Troy and Brianna, they didn’t require one sex or the other, feeling free to root for a different sex each day depending on where whim led them, although Nina imagined Matt probably wanted a son of his own. Wasn’t that hardwired, wanting a child of your own sex? When dreaming about another universe, Nina occasionally imagined a sister for Bob, a daughter for herself.

  Matt ran a tow business in winter and took tourists parasailing in summer. Nina made sure he carried heavy insurance. He made sure his equipment met tip top safety standards and groaned about the bureaucracy.

  Andrea worked part time at the local women’s shelter. Matt and Andrea were Nina’s best friends. Complicated, loving, loyal people, they had built a true marriage. Matt disapproved of Nina’s profession even more than her father did, but most of the time he kept his mouth shut about it.

  Matt put a beer in Paul’s hand. Paul sat beside him and drank thirstily.

  Andrea pointed at Nina’s large box. “What did you bring baby?”

  “This is more for the parents.”

  Andrea pushed her curly red hair back from her face and went at the present with a pair of scissors. “I know I should save pretty paper but screw it,” she said. “Oh, Nina! Wow! Wonderful! You remembered how I used to rave about these things.” She went over to Nina and gave her a kiss.

  “I remembered it was the most-used present I ever got.”

  Someone turned on some music, Burl Ives singing “The Little White Duck.” Someone popped champagne and someone else sang along in a pleasing baritone. Children shouted, marauding through the room in bursts.

  While Paul, Andrea, and Matt took turns making a mess out of assembling the automatic rocking baby chair, Nina squatted on the floor, remembering baby Bobby swinging away in the dead of night all those years before, his bright eyes wide open, his soft-spun hair, silent as long as the rocker moved. During those long nights of his infancy, she had sat up with him, looking out her window, at peace.

  Her mother had given her the baby chair. Funny she had forgotten that. She thought more often of her mother lately, maybe because lately there was always that idea about moving to Carmel with Paul oscillating like static in the background of her mind. The thought came: She would be closer to her aging father if she lived with Paul in Carmel. She would be closer to her mother’s grave.

  Later, Paul headed for his hotel room at Caesars alone and Nina and Bob drove home at eleven o’clock, beat. “Uh oh,” Bob said as they swung onto Pioneer Trail. “I forgot something.”

  “What?”

  “I have an essay due tomorrow.”

  “Oh, Bob, no. You shouldn’t have gone to the party.”

  “A bunch of kids were gonna be there, Mom. Aunt Andrea asked me and Troy to play games with them and keep them out of the living room.”

  “I’ll write you a note.”

  “Ha, ha. Make me laugh. ‘Bob had to go to a party.’ How long since you were in school, Mom? I’m dead. Forget it.”

  They argued about this until Nina gave in. Back at the cabin, they dialed into the Internet and looked for anything they could find about Thomas Dewing, a nineteenth-century artist.

  “He paints women to look like pieces of furniture, Mom.”

  “How insightful of him. I feel like a broken-down footstool at this very moment. Can we go to bed now?”

  But Bob’s research had woken him up. He had other ideas. “Mom? Sometimes I miss my dad. I wonder what it would be like. To have two parents in the same place. I mean, that party. A new baby and everything and all of them together.”

  Instantly, a gap opened in her heart. She thought of the men in her life. Kevin Cruz, the father about to lose his children. Jack, Bob’s absent ex-stepfather, and Kurt, his biological father, so far away in Germany. How confusing it must seem to him. How lonely. “Call Kurt,” she urged. “It’s morning in Wiesbaden by now. You’ll probably catch him at home. But make it short, it’s late.”

  Bob made the call, spending nearly an hour on the phone. He would be so tired in the morning. She wo
uld set her alarm early to make sure he had enough time to wake up and get rolling. Listening from her bedroom to his pauses and happy laughs, she reminded herself that rates after eleven were the best they would be.

  When she heard the thunk of the phone returning to its cradle, she went into Bob’s room to say good night to him and kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks for letting me call him,” he said, his voice thick with fatigue. “Sometimes I get low.”

  The words struck like a whip. She said, “Everyone does, honey. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes I feel alone. You work so hard.”

  “Is there anything special you want to talk about?” She thought of Nikki. She hadn’t had time to think about Nikki and Bob. “Is everything all right at school?”

  “Same as usual.”

  “Are your friends doing all right? Taylor? Nikki?”

  “Screwed up, as usual.”

  “Then what do you feel low about?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Paul and me? Is that bothering you? Do you want to-”

  “Things were easier before. It’s more tangled up now. I want to get to know my dad better, but he’s so far away and I live here with you. I want to stay on your good side, but you don’t like my friends. You need me, so does he.”

  “I do need you, Bob.”

  “But he needs me in a different way. You need me to stay your little kid.”

  “But, Bob, you are still a kid.”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes I’m a man.”

  “What?” Nina said. She was too tired to deal with that one.

  “G’night.” He closed his eyes.

  “Good night, honey.”

  She managed to brush her teeth and throw water on her face before climbing into bed. Could it possibly still be Monday? She checked her watch, the modern curse, again.

  No. Tuesday had arrived. Maybe she’d get a chance to breathe.

  But then she remembered what T-Bone Walker said about Stormy Monday:

  … Tuesday’s just as bad…

  11

  P AUL PROPELLED A LEG from the Mustang and then a small Styrofoam cup full of espresso he was holding, lid askew. Then the rest of him slid out and straightened up. Not one drop spilled, not that the asphalt of the Starlake Building parking lot would have suffered. The air had that peculiar late-summer Sierra quality of being both crisp and warm at the same time. He checked his watch, saw that it was one minute to nine, and leaned back against the car, planning to spend the entirety of that minute with his face turned to the sun and his eyes closed.

  A large indeterminate-model brown car-who made brown cars and why did anyone buy them?-pulled up sedately beside him. Wish Whitefeather was in the driver’s seat and Sandy sat in the passenger’s seat, spine straight, purse in her lap. Paul saw with a small start that both Wish and his mother had the same profile, strong brow ridge and nose, beetling brows. As Wish turned off the ignition, they both turned toward him. Sandy said, “It’s you.”

  Paul bowed and opened the door for her. “And how is my favorite Washoe maiden?” he said.

  “Don’t think that’s gonna gain you any points.” Sandy gathered her coat around her. Paul had noticed that she often wore her coat outdoors, even on warm summer days. Heaving herself out of the car, she brushed out the coat crinkles and adjusted herself while Paul shut the door. “Well, speak up,” Sandy demanded. “How was the drive?”

  “Long. I wish a big earthquake would come and cram the coast against the mountains so I wouldn’t have to drive so far.”

  “You could always move here,” Sandy said. Paul smiled and thought he detected a faint thawing of her expression in return.

  “How you doin’, buddy?” he said to Wish, who had carefully locked up and was following them toward Nina’s office. Wish was still a sloucher, too tall for the rest of the world and trying to blend in. He wore his straight hair longer these days and a loose black sweater contributed an illusion of broad shoulders. At age twenty, he was starting to settle into himself without any of the jaded irony of his fellow MTVers. Paul liked that, liked his straight-up enthusiasm and naiveté, but had to stay watchful when Wish rode with him.

  “Real good. Been hiking a lot. Goin’ to school. Gave the van a paint job.”

  “You did? What color?” The van had once been Paul’s.

  “Brown.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Then you don’t have to wash it so much.”

  “So Nina talked you into helping out for a few days?”

  “I only have three classes this semester, and a pretty flexible schedule. I wouldn’t miss out for anything. Mom says Nina needs help.”

  “I never said a thing,” Sandy said.

  “You don’t have to say it, Mom. I knew it the minute you told me to get up early and come to the office with you. Don’t worry, Paul, you got backup now.”

  “I feel better already,” Paul said.

  They went into Nina’s office and Nina called from the conference room, “In here.” She shut the law book she had been reading when she saw him, looking relieved. New strain lurked in her eyes and she’d forgotten the mascara that morning, a sure sign that the night had not gone smoothly.

  She got up. Paul came around the table to give her a hug and a kiss while Sandy and Wish hovered back in the outer office. Nina’s soft brown hair swung around her face, smelling like a rain forest, and he rubbed her back through the silk blouse and inwardly cursed her high IQ. Once in a guilty while, a dull-normal version of Nina who didn’t have any significant problems or complexity held real appeal. He was not proud of these thoughts; they were as involuntary as the sexual response she aroused when she brushed her hair against his cheek. Lucky for him, she couldn’t see into the dull-normal corner of his mind or she wouldn’t be looking at him so kindly.

  “Thanks a lot for coming,” she said. “I know it isn’t easy for you to get away.”

  “Couldn’t let you down.”

  “Hey, Wish. It’s good to see you.”

  “At your service,” Wish said, stopping just short of a courtly bow. “I can’t wait.”

  When they were all settled around the long table with their notepads, instead of launching into discussion, Nina did a strange thing. She picked up the cordless phone and punched numbers, a finger touching her lips.

  “Dr. Mai?” she said a moment later. They could only hear her side of the conversation. “How are you? Uh huh. Yes, I have some news. We are settling the insurance amount at two hundred ten thousand as Kao instructed through you. Yes.” She paused, then said, “That’s why I’m calling. Right. I’ll have the check this afternoon. But there’s a problem.

  “A problem, right. I can only turn the money over to Kao Vang and his wife. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to find him and bring them up here. Well, you’ll just have to. No, I won’t turn the money over to you. I know you have the power of attorney. I can’t accept it. I regret that I am unable to accept it.”

  Her pause this time lasted quite a while. Then she said, “I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. I am not going to go into my reasoning at this time. I’m going to hold the check until my clients are available. Dr. Mai? Dr. Mai, listen to me. Where is Kao?”

  She raised her eyebrows and set down the phone. “He hung up. He’s angry. I wanted you all to hear me withhold that check,” she said. “It may be legal malpractice, but I had to do it. Now let me back up and tell you about the Vang insurance case. Then I would like to know if you think I just did the right thing.”

  She told a succinct story of Kao Vang in five minutes. For once, she had not prepared the usual written case summaries for them, she just laid things out, ending with, “And that’s the first file that’s missing. I have two hundred ten thousand dollars that belongs to Kao Vang that I am picking up from the insurance company this afternoon, and I am not going to go through an intermediary like Dr. Mai no matter how many powers of attorney are thrown at me. So. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
”

  “I don’t get why,” Wish said immediately. “Dr. Mai wouldn’t steal the file, would he? He already knew everything because he was there with your client all the time. So why don’t you trust him?”

  “Good question. I only know one thing. Over the weekend, I lost touch with my clients and that doesn’t feel right. I have to know the Vangs are all right. I have to see that for myself, not take anyone else’s word for it. And once I hand that check over to Dr. Mai, I will never see him or the Vangs again.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because they never wanted to come to a lawyer in the first place, Wish. They aren’t comfortable with this system and they don’t particularly trust me, I would guess. They want to fade into the woodwork, maybe leave the country. That’s fine, but with the file missing and Kao unwilling or unable to talk to me, I have reached a degree of discomfort or concern that is going to prevent me from handing over that check even to an authorized represen- tative.”

  Wish scratched his head. “You mean you have a gut feeling things aren’t right?”

  Nina said, “You got it, cowboy. Did someone call someone else with information that was in my file? The guy who robbed his store, the one Kao shot dead-did someone in his family steal my file to get at Kao? Is Kao in danger? Is Dr. Mai legit?”

  “What do you think is wrong?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been doing some reading about the Hmong. They’ve had a hard time adapting to this country, and with California cutting off welfare benefits after two years, Hmong people are going hungry. The violence in their own country left many of them with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Hmong men sometimes just die in their sleep for no known reason. It’s called sudden adult death syndrome, and the medical guess is that severe and unremitting stress causes it. The women have their own set of problems. They usually take care of big families and do the whole second-class citizen thing, walking five steps behind the men. That doesn’t work too well when there’s no man to walk behind, for instance.”

  Sandy said, “But they need that money. And withholding a client’s money is an absolute no-no, isn’t it? I thought Dr. Mai was all right.”