by Aime Austin
“Hey, Olivia,” Beth called out, her glossy lips in a wide smile.
“Hey,” Olivia answered, playing it cool. Something fluttered near her heart. She couldn’t believe Beth was talking to her in school, in front of everyone.
“Cate’s party was awesome, huh? I’d never had Japanese before. That guy with the knives, cool right?”
“Yeah, it was pretty neat,” Olivia said, then mentally kicked herself for sounding like such a dork.
Beth graciously held the library’s glass door for Olivia. “Oh, and by the way, that’s a great hat that you’re wearing today.”
“Thanks,” Olivia said, the warm feeling spreading outward from her center, making her smile. Maybe this new school wasn’t going to be so bad. Maybe Beth was really nice, underneath. Maybe she, Cate, and Beth would all be good friends one day.
“Is it some kind of special holiday?” Beth asked. “Are all of you wearing hats today?”
Olivia looked around the library, but no one else sported a cap. “Who?”
“You know. All you guys.” Olivia shook her head, not comprehending. “The black kids? Marquis and some of the other homeboys were wearing hats today. Did you guys plan it? Was it some kind of new holiday like Kwanzaa?”
Happiness bubble deflated, Olivia’s head sagged. “No, I don’t think so. It musta been a coincidence,” Olivia answered mechanically then walked over to get paper for her weekly question. Sitting alone on the far side of the room, she got out her favorite pen and asked about the one thing that was really bothering her.
When the wool hat went around, Olivia dropped in her question. Her stomach did flip flops, worried that anonymity wasn’t guaranteed. Alison fished out a slip of paper and read it silently.
“Okay,” Alison said, her brightness hard and brittle as winter ice. Even her neatly pressed gray pantsuit and purple silk blouse seemed to droop a little. “Today’s first question is: How do I know if my mom drinks too much?” Her ever-ready smile dimmed a few watts. “Okay, girls,” she said to the suddenly dead quiet room. “What do you think?”
Beth’s hand shot up. “Alison, I think that anyone in a situation like that should seek out counseling from a trusted adult like you,” she said with a kiss-ass smile. “Or a priest, minister, or rabbi. Something like that is too difficult for anyone our age to handle on their own. This girl needs an adult to help her.”
Olivia swung her legs with the urge to kick blond Beth where it hurt. She needed real advice, not something she could have picked up in a stupid magazine. A few of the other girls had similar suggestions. None of it helped at all. After a while, she couldn’t hear anything past the whooshing in her ears. Skip this. Olivia needed to get home. If she got perfect grades like she used to, maybe her mom wouldn’t be so mad or drink so much. She leaned down and packed up her bag, but couldn’t work up the guts to leave the meeting early.
After the meeting, Olivia walked toward the back doors to the late busses waiting behind the school. The other girls left together, planning a pizza night at someone’s house. Of course she wasn’t invited. Accompanied by the shouts of the school’s athletes, Olivia started to push the huge bar that opened the back door. A hand grabbed at her left arm, hitting the spot still sore from her mom’s pinch that morning.
“Ow!” She whirled around, ready to confront one of the loud boys, but it was only Alison, purple hat still in her other hand.
“Olivia, is it possible for you to come to my office for a quick second? Right now.” Alison’s voice was a few octaves lower, serious.
She gestured toward the students filing through the back exit. “The late bus leaves now. I don’t have a ride home.” With no stay-at-home-mom who could pick her up at a moment’s notice, the walk from Shaker Middle to her house on Latimore had to easily be four or five miles.
“This is important,” Alison said in a low but fierce whisper, guiding an unwilling Olivia into the guidance wing, parting her from the student throng. “I’ll drive you home.”
Olivia sat down in the flowery smelling office, shrugging her coat off her shoulders. It wasn’t quite winter, but the steam heat was going full force, fogging Alison’s window.
The normally chipper counselor wasn’t smiling as she cocked a hip on the edge of the desk, facing Olivia. Her stare held accusation.
“I know you were the girl who asked about the mom drinking.” Olivia gasped, immediately clamping her hand over her mouth, all chance of denial down the drain. “I recognized your turquoise sparkly pen,” she said, a nervous smile returning. “It’s like I promised, the questions are confidential. I don’t tell any other teachers or counselors what’s said in the group. And I certainly don’t tell any of the girls who wrote a question.” She paused, deliberately softening her tone. “I’ve been worried about you. Your midterm grades weren’t that good, though your IQ scores show that you’re smart.”
Something dislodged in Olivia’s chest, but she didn’t speak. She’d been warned for as long as she could remember about black folks ‘putting their business out in the street for white people to know.’ But she’d been bottling up secrets for so long. Before she could stop them, the words bubbled forth.
“Alison,” she began, voice trembling. “I hate going home at night. My mom always comes in with a paper bag—like I’m not supposed to notice—with a bottle of rum with its red, white, and gold label.”
“Does she drink every night?” Alison asked, kneeling to meet Olivia’s eyes.
“Almost. When she thinks I’m not looking, she leans all the way to the back of the cabinet, pouring rum in a glass. Then she tops it off with Coke.” For the third time that day, Olivia worked to hold back tears.
“Are you ever scared that she’s going to hurt you?” Alison’s eyes darted away for a minute. “Or even hurt herself?”
Olivia shook her head. “She doesn’t fall or anything. She just falls asleep on the couch, or goes to her room. Sometimes I wake up and her TV’s still going.”
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
Olivia’s right hand reflexively moved to the back of her left arm. Her eyes slid to the floor. “Nothing.”
“Let me see.” Before she could protest, Alison had pushed the sleeve of her tee all the way to her arm pit. The bruise, already turning green, seemed to pulse like a neon light. “Where did you get this?”
“I tripped and hit the bed post when I was pulling on my pants this morning.” Olivia jerked down her sleeve and shrugged on her jacket.
“Does she pass out? Like, forget what happened when she was drinking?”
A bad feeling started in the pit of her belly and radiated through her body. She’d made a mistake. Alison was too interested. It wasn’t so bad, her life. She needed to get home as soon as she could.
“She’s fine. Can I go home now?”
“Let’s go,” she said. But the questions continued in the hall. Olivia kind of wished she’d stayed to make sure Alison knew it wasn’t serious. That she wasn’t some kid in a Lifetime movie. “Have you talked to your dad…Keith Grant…about this?”
She pulled up her hood, and spoke to it rather than Alison. “I haven’t seen him in a while. He lives on the Westside. My mom and him don’t really get along.”
Slipping into a black leather blazer and getting out car keys, Alison pushed open the door they’d abandoned earlier. “Let’s get out of here.”
Despite her worry about what Alison might do, Olivia was awed walking toward the faculty parking lot. She knew teachers were real people, but she couldn’t believe she was going to ride in a counselor’s car. The car was a super cute blue Volkswagen. Maybe she’d drive something like it one day.
The car’s dark interior was quiet as they made the short drive. Pulling up in front, Alison turned to her. “Are you okay to go home tonight?”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Things are okay at home. I don’t want you to think it’s like some movie or something. My mom will probably surprise me with dinner out tonight.”
Before she could pull the handle, Alison was asking questions again. “What happened to your front door? Did someone break in?”
Olivia shifted as close to the door as she could, the lip of the leather seat poking her in the butt. “No, um after Cate’s mom dropped me off a couple weeks ago, I forgot my keys and couldn’t get into the house.”
“And?” The question was loaded with disapproval.
“I, uh, just broke that little window pane, to turn the lock. The landlord put that cardboard there until it gets fixed.” She pulled at the handle, but Alison had yet to unlock the doors.
“Why didn’t your mom let you in?”
“She was supposed to pick me up, but she fell asleep. I forgot my keys, so it was really my fault. My mom always says I should wear my keys around my neck or attached to my backpack.” Olivia nervously fingered the zipper on her bag. “Sometimes I forget….”
Alison’s face was neither smiling nor carefully neutral, two expressions Olivia had gotten used to. There was a pinched look to her face, a deep crease between her brows. But she finally popped the locks.
The cool fall air was a relief. Swinging her feet out onto the damp tree lawn, she looked back. “You’re not going to tell anyone what I said, right? Cause, you know, things are really okay with my mom. She’s got this great new job. We moved to Shaker, and things are a lot better. We just had a rough time because my grades were—”
“Don’t worry Olivia. I’m only here to make things better for you.”
Eight
Clients Don’t Pay
October 6, 2001
Casey jammed her card back into the ATM. She hated using the bank on weekends, the machines always ran out of money. Maybe if she only asked for twenty instead of sixty. She glanced across Shaker Square at the long line of brunch patrons. Damn, she should have put her name on the list before she went toe to toe with the bank.
The card spit out again. Casey shoved it in one last time, checking her balance. A small receipt crept out of the printer. She snatched it up. $16.03. Her bank balance was sixteen dollars. She looked at the damp line shifting behind her. So much for breakfast. Balling up the receipt, so no one could laugh at her balance, she shoved it into the overflowing trash bin next to the machine.
It was too late to cancel her plans with Lulu now. Rounding the square, she investigated the contents of her wallet. She had enough for fruit salad or oatmeal, but not both. Today was going to be the first day of her new starvation diet.
After putting her name on the list, she leaned against the iron railing separating the waiting diners from parked cars on the square. Names were called. The rain dwindled from drizzle to fog. Finally Lulu came running toward her, waving her hands to get Casey’s attention. The arm flailing was unnecessary. No one missed Lulu.
Her friend Lulu Mueller was a self-styled Jewish Diva. She’d always said that’s what the two letters on her law degree really stood for. Today, in addition to her gold Cartier glasses, she was sporting a skinny belted gold raincoat tied in a big Christmas like bow at the widest part of her pear shaped figure. Not a great look on any woman of eastern European descent. Casey did everything she could to downplay her own frame. But she wasn’t going to be the one to burst Lulu’s fashion bubble.
Lulu pulled Casey into a bear hug. “Girl, so good to see you. We gotta talk about what’s going on with you.” For the child of a gastroenterologist, Casey’d always considered Lulu’s ghetto talk a put on. But Lulu insisted that growing up in increasingly black Cleveland Heights, her speech was a natural byproduct of integration.
Despite Casey’s admittedly homely appearance and Lulu’s, well, diva look—they had come from very similar backgrounds. They were the children of immigrants. First generation achievers. Lulu’s parents were from Eastern Europe by way of Israel. Casey’s family, Polish and German.
They’d barely made it to the back of the packed restaurant, hung their jackets and folded their umbrellas when a harried waitress plunked two water glasses on the table and pulled out her pad.
“You ready to order?”
Fuck it, Casey thought. Lulu could pay. She needed leftovers since groceries were off the list for today.
“I’ll have the Killit Skillet.” The popular entrée came in its own cast iron skillet with eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage—all covered in melted cheese—and chased down by a loaf of ciabatta bread.
“I’ll have the sunrise special, drop the hash browns. Give me some grits. Y’all have cheese grits up in here today?”
The waitress tapped her pad. “Only butter grits.”
“Okay, I’ll have those. But maybe you could sprinkle some cheese on there.”
When the waitress walked away, Casey looked at the mini menu standing between their salt and pepper. “Nowhere does it say anything about grits.”
“Girl, you’re on the Eastside now. Every diner has grits.”
“But it’s not on the menu.”
Lulu shook her head. “I hope you don’t kill that skillet. That’s a lot of food, and you’ve been getting a bit thick since law school.”
“Maybe I’m going to save it for lunch, dinner, and breakfast. Maybe if I could afford a gym membership, I wouldn’t be packing it on. Maybe—” The tears came before the hysterics could take over. God, this was embarrassing. Casey pulled her thin napkin from her lap and hid her eyes.
“Hey, I was only kidding,” Lulu said, her usually strident voice softening. “You look fine. What’s wrong?”
“I have to quit my practice.”
“Why? Things are going great, right? Everyone envies your spunk. Tom’s probably sorry he dumped you.”
Casey quieted the flutter in her heart at the mention of Tom Brody’s name. “Jealous. Yeah, right. The traitors I graduated with? I hate seeing any one of them with their new lakeside apartments, their new and working cars, their damned European vacations. Jealous of me. No fucking way. At least they earn more than their secretaries. Hell, their secretaries earn more than me.”
“Are things that bad?”
“Do you know how much I have in my checking account?”
“A couple thousand? That would be hard to get through the month, but—”
Casey’s snort was unladylike. “Two thousand? I’d be happy to be at two hundred. At twenty. Ha.” She shared the balance with her friend. “That’s it. I’ll be lucky if they don’t cut up my credit card when I try swiping for this breakfast.”
“Holy shit.”
“Holy shit is right. My rent is due in both places on the first of November, and I can’t pay either. I may have to move back in with my parents—at thirty-two.” She pasted her right index finger and thumb against her forehead. “Loserdom, here I come.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Lulu asked, her affected speech disappearing.
“Because I’m mortified. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Everyone thinks lawyers are rich. It’s one of the reasons I went to law school. I didn’t want to live like my parents—worried about money, making do, fearing the next layoff.
“I grew up looking east over the Cuyahoga River, thinking everyone who lived there had money, education, culture—everything the hourly workers on our side of the river didn’t have. And it’s not working out. I should have sued the law school when I had the chance. The law review thing—they ruined my career. I don’t think I’m ever going to recover.”
“Do you really think it’s the plagiarism thing? Did Dean Condit or Tom’s family really sabotage your job offer?”
“Only one offer got pulled in our class. Mine. The firm didn’t go out of business. Only my slot disappeared. That’s not coincidence.”
“Have you seriously tried to get another firm job?”
“I tried calling everyone I know. Your firm wasn’t interested, remember. I even tried a headhunter. Without my personal information on my resume, I get screening interviews. After they meet me. Nothing.
“Even I can’t blame the Brody
s or Dean Condit anymore. Now that I haven’t practiced ‘real’ law for five years, I’m a legal pariah. The hiring partners treat me like I’ve been doing baby law and can’t play with the grownups and your oh-so-sophisticated practices.”
They sat in silence for a long moment. The rain had started up again and Casey watched the cars splashing through the puddles on Shaker Boulevard.
“Tell me I’m not crazy.”
Lulu sighed. “You’re not crazy. At my firm, we call them ‘common pleas lawyers.’ He’s the guy in the ill-fitting suit who’s smart enough to pass the bar, but not smart enough to get a firm job. But you’re different. I went to law school with you. You were on law review, at the top of our class. Any firm worth its salt should be gunning for you!”
“Then where are they?”
“Have you thought of leaving Cleveland behind? You can waive in, now.”
“My parents aren’t getting any younger. But I’ve tried D.C. and Philly. When I call, firms are like, Cleveland State? You’d think I went to an unaccredited school in Timbuktu.”
Their food came and Casey tucked into her skillet. She tried not to be disgusted with herself as at least five thousand calories disappeared from her plate. For all Lulu’s posturing, she barely touched her food, only eating two forkfuls of her improvised cheese grits.
Lulu’s persona came back. Serious talk was over. “What are you gonna do? You need some mad scrilla up in there.”
“If I had the time, I use half of it pursuing the big money cases, rainmaking. Reality? I think I’m going to extend out my student loans to the twenty-five year plan. Right now, I’m going to take as many appointed cases as I can get. The county may pay badly, and pay late, but they always pay.”
Nine
Black Out
October 5, 2001
