by Lass Small
“Are you trying to smooth things out?”
“No. I’m being honest.”
“Me, too.”
They shook hands silently. They both were sparkling-eyed and excited. This would be their trial of the century. Tyler asked, “Can we win?”
And Jamie replied, “Of course. And we should. I believe in them and their situation.”
“Wow. That’s the way a lawyer should be with a client. I remember when our law prof said—”
“Hush.” Jamie sat down and began on his papers. He added to Tyler, “We need to clear this off as much as possible, and get to the Anderson case as soon as we get the first box. And then we need to meet the family and listen. We need to have the list of questions and what they’ve said to the other lawyers in the firm.”
“How did we get—this—case?”
“Barbara.”
“So she finally recognizes what a good, diligent lawyer... you are.” Tyler grinned. “Fooled you there, didn’t I?”
Never looking up, moving the papers on the top of his desk and organizing them carefully, Jamie said, “No, you didn’t fool me. I agree. I am a good lawyer. You’re going to be. You still have some rough edges and you need to mature.”
“Oh, hell.”
Jamie returned the papers Tyler had given him. Still busy, his voice slowing, Jamie said softly, “It’s true. I’ll guide you along.”
Tyler shook his head. He began to reorganize his desk. He could do that and think also of what a strange day it had been. He’d planned to skip the office and go find Kayla, out riding some hot-air balloon with a bastard named Keeper, and here he was, half of a team for a big trial.
He asked Jamie, “What’s the trial date?”
“We have four months, and the trial is scheduled for two weeks... maybe three.”
Tyler commented, “Sounds serious.”
“What trial isn’t?”
Tyler mused, “I’ve never done any longer than a couple of days.”
“This will be so intense, you’ll forget the time.”
And Tyler said, “I’ve got to play baseball once a week. If I don’t, I go into a decline.”
So Jamie promised, “You’ll get to play. We can’t have a good lawyer in a decline.”
Then Tyler looked at Jamie in such a way that Jamie glanced over at him. He asked Tyler, “You okay, now?”
“I was just thinking how this day started and what all you’ve done for me in this time. Thank you, Jamie.”
Jamie grinned. “High five.” The celebrating meeting of hands held high.
So they were immersed in the Anderson trial. It was intense. Their time was hard used. But Jamie saw to it that Tyler played ball every Thursday. Therefore, since he could play only on Thursday, the rest of the team had to adjust to Tyler. They switched with another team that cheerfully groused about it. Nobody on his team complained or bellyached. That warmed the cockles of Tyler’s heart.
Some of the team said, “How’s it going?” Or they said, “Kin to William Jennings Bryan or Clarence Darrow?” And Tyler replied gently, “Not exactly blood kin.”
So in that time, Tyler did play ball. In that first month, he was out on second base and who should come into the stands but Kayla! Not that she rattled him. He would have probably missed that fly ball anyway.
But then Tyler saw that she was with Tom Keeper! What was she doing running around the countryside with that wealthy trash? Tyler was so shocked that he wouldn’t look at them again. He didn’t for one minute want Tom to think he was jealous. He—was—not!
Tyler did not look at them even once. He didn’t hear what was being said because he was sure the other guys were talking about Kayla being with Tom, and Tyler didn’t know what to do about something like that. How could he hit a teammate?
When it was Tyler’s turn at bat, he was so furious that he hit a home run with two men on base!
He grimly went around the bases as the standing crowd roared and screamed and carried on like they’d never seen a home run before then! Well, they hadn’t... from him.
And the whole entire team was lined up at home plate to shake his hand and swat him on the back. They really overdid it. They laughed and hugged him and really acted silly.
Because the coach insisted, Tyler rose from the bench that was their “dugout” and stepped out to raise his hat to the cheering crowd. And he sneaked one look at where Kayla was... with Tom Keeper.
She was not there. When had they left? Tyler took a longer bow to the cheerfully cheering people. Kayla was nowhere around.
And Tyler was even more silent after that. All of his team knew he was on the Anderson trial, and they attributed Tyler’s sobriety to that trial.
The disappointment was that Kayla hadn’t seen his home run—with two batted in. And he admitted to himself that the home run had been for Kayla. To show off for her over that damned Keeper. What was she doing with Keeper? What all was she doing with him? With that hungry body of hers. With another man. How could she?
His picture was in the paper. Everybody knew he’d hit a home run—if she read the paper.
In the following weeks, Tyler became the Home Run Kid. He hit five home runs in that time. Everyone on his team was exuberant. They got runoff fever. When the final games came, with Tyler hitting that way, they’d win the county championship!
Tyler didn’t give a damn. He just swung at the ball, and it went off on its own in a beautiful arc that went over the fence and evaded any fielder.
The miracle became irritating to Tyler. He really didn’t care about the hitting, that much. He’d survived the games with a good plus. Now the jubilant team treated him like a prince. The team and the coaches were exuberant. They loved him.
And he was glum. He was silent. At work, he did his share and better. He was concentrated and a good lawyer. He paid attention to every detail. He was careful and made the research into all questions and found the answers. His diligence was like a fine-tooth comb.
Not even bothering to look at him, Jamie told Tyler, “Barbara is impressed with our work. She reads what we’ve done every day. She thinks we are better than the top brass. She says she’s never seen a brief so perfectly done. She calls me Jamie. She knows my name.”
In a dead voice, Tyler said, “Hallelujah.”
Jamie turned his chair around and looked at Tyler. “When I told you to settle down, I didn’t think you’d go sour. You must be suffering to be this sour. Is it Kayla?”
And Tyler was honest. “Yeah.”
So Jamie told Tyler, “Send her an invitation for dinner. Have flowers and order the dinner made and delivered just right. She’ll melt.” And finished, Jamie turned back to his desk.
“You do that with Miss Nelson?”
Not bothering to look up from the papers on his desk, Jamie admitted briefly, “We’ve had dinner at my place.”
“Ahhhh.”
Jamie warned, “Hush. Any talk and you could spoil everything.”
So Tyler volunteered, “I’ll quit calling her Miss Nelson and call her Barb.”
Still concentrated on the papers, Jamie shook his head. “No. You continue being distant.”
Tyler nodded and said, “Right.”
“See to it until I have time to seal her up.”
That alerted Tyler. “Aren’t we moving to the other firm?”
“Maybe not.” Jamie looked up.
“Oh, hell.” But Tyler grinned at Jamie, who looked smug.
Then Tyler asked, “With our agenda so pressed and serious, how do you have time to court Miss Nelson?”
But Jamie was back to the papers before him. He said, “Be quiet.”
“I just wondered about—”
“You play baseball, right?”
Tyler squinted his eyes. “I don’t see any similarity between baseball and—”
“Never mind.”
Tyler complained, “Man, you’re touchy!”
“Hush.”
And Tyler really laughed for the first time i
n... how long had it been?
So Tyler called Kayla at work and for once, she answered the phone. Tyler said quickly, “Don’t hang up!”
“Hello, Tyler.”
And he asked softly, “How’d you know?”
“No one else expects me to hang up on him.”
So he asked, “You get a lot of male calls?”
“Why did you call?”
He had to change lanes mentally, but he said, “Come for dinner on Saturday.”
“I have an appointment.”
Tyler gasped, “Appointment? Appointment! Who the hell’re you dating?”
Patiently, Kayla explained, “I’m being interviewed for another job.”
“On Saturday?” His tone was unbelieving. And he inquired in a rather snotty way, “Just what sort of interview does he have in mind?”
“She is traveling and is coming by to check me out.”
His voice changed markedly. “She?”
“Yes.”
So then, being male, he asked, “Who’s she work for?”
“It’s her business.”
He felt that was a closed door. “Well, I just asked—”
Kayla said patiently, “She owns the business.”
“Oh.” There was a silence. But Kayla didn’t hang up. She was waiting. So Tyler asked, “Could you come to dinner the next Saturday?”
Instead of replying to that, she mentioned, “I hear you’re on the Anderson case.”
“Yeah.”
And she said, “I am impressed. Did that witch Barbara lure you with the trial?”
With some chiding, Tyler replied, “She’s dating Jamie.”
“Does Jamie’s family know about Barbara the witch?”
“Uhhhh.” Tyler sought the acceptable words, “We may have to adjust to Jamie’s love for her.”
“No! Jamie? A good man drawn into that witch’s net? Can’t you help him?”
Bored by then, Tyler replied, “I wouldn’t even try.”
“You’re not at all loyal. I can vouch—”
Very gently, he assured Kayla, “Jamie loves her. He won’t even allow me to say one word in opposition to the wi—lady.”
“Wow!”
“It boggles me,” Tyler mentioned.
“I can understand it. I’ve got you down for a week from Saturday. What time?”
“Two—a.m.?”
She laughed.
So he inquired, “After all this time, do you still like ribs and slaw?”
“No. I’m for steak, French fries and a salad.”
He sounded distracted as if he was writing it down. He said, “Got it.”
“What time?”
He replied easily, “I’ll pick you up at Hennie’s about...five-thirty?”
“No, I’ll drive. Early supper?”
His voice was foggy. “We’ll have a lot to talk about. I’m glad I’ll see you again. Take care.”
“You, too. Thank you for inviting me. I’ll look forward to it.”
But he couldn’t so easily let her go. He told her, “As I remember, you like your meat well done.”
And Kayla replied, “Yes.”
He put the menu on his voice box to record what was needed.
At their apartment, uh, his apartment, he was surprised the place turned up so much dirt and dust and newspapers. He blinked and wondered at that. And he asked the apartment manager, “What’s with the apartment cleaners?”
And the manager looked up and asked back, “What apartment cleaners?”
That stopped Tyler for a minute. “You mean nobody’s been cleaning my apartment?”
The manager replied, “Not this year.”
And Tyler said, “Oh.”
“Remember the thievery? You all had a meeting and decided we’d just do our own? You organized the meet.”
“I did?”
“It was just after she left you. What’s her name again?”
“Mrs. Fuller.”
“No. What’d she go back to?”
And Tyler declined to say, so he just repeated, “Mrs. Fuller.”
“Uh. Yeah.” Then the manager cautioned, “You need some help in facing the little fact that you divorced her and she’s gone.”
Tyler didn’t reply but gently left the office. So that was why the place wasn’t very tidy. Well, he could clean an hour at a time and get it done. He closed his eyes and remembered being a scout. He could do it. And he remembered his mother’s narrowed eyes as she told him to get his room cleaned up right then! She told him through her teeth that he could not leave the house until it was done. And then his daddy said very similar things but in a different way.
Hmmmm.
So when he finally got home, and it was always late, he looked at his apartment. And he realized he hadn’t been paying much attention. The loaded dining-room table should have been a clue. He began.
Tyler worked until the time-beep sounded. It was time for him to go to bed. He felt a little like the automated ancient film of Charlie Chaplin, his coping with the humongous machine and the whistle that marked the end of the working day.
There was no difference. Only the whistle was now a beep. Of course, Tyler wasn’t coping with a machine at the office, he was coping with filing. At home, it was with discarding...with carelessness. It became a challenge.
His only problem was that at the office, he got caught up in reading things he was filing.
He needed better self-discipline.
He had discipline. Now. Not the last time he had Kayla there in his apartment, he had loved his partially disrobed ex-wife. He looked out of the room’s door to the living room and on beyond the living room to the cars passing on the street.
How had his life come to this?
What had been the first clue that his marriage was crumbling? What would he have done if he’d noted it?
He’d never dreamed there would be this split. These problems. He’d thought he and Kayla were perfect for each other and that she’d loved him.
How could she have left him so finally? Well, he had divorced her.
Why had she now agreed to come to dinner with him?
And he figured it out. She’d decided she wanted alimony after all.
Seven
For Tyler, the cleaning of his apartment was exhilarating. The high was rather remarkable to anyone who has the time for it and has cleaned up his room or place. Most apartments aren’t that big. With the intruding junk in smaller habitats, there is no choice. It has to be discarded, and it can be.
The accumulations of potentially fascinating things that could be thrown away was something Tyler had never considered. When he’d lived at home, and was given no alternative but to clean his room, his mother had pitched what he had set aside as not vital. So the actual act of discarding something hadn’t been ingrained in Tyler’s thinking. That was probably why his desk at work was such a mess.
He decided that when he finished with the Anderson trial, he’d attack his filing cabinets and his desk. His desk would have to be first. The desktop. With the top cleaned off, he could then empty the drawers. And, he supposed, after that would be the renovation of his file cabinets.
Tyler remembered reading some bright illusion of proliferating papers which doubled each night in the silent dark. That was more than likely true. He’d seen that it had happened in just such a way on his own desk.
He wondered if he was maturing.
Maturity had been a milestone until he was about twenty-five, several years ago. Now he felt longer in the tooth. He’d become a thoughtful, understanding human being. Yes.
Kayla was younger than he. He could help her over this blockage of youth and lead her into adulthood. It would be soothing to know a woman who had pushed away from adolescence to float free.
The intense concentration of preparing for the Anderson trial was without comparison for Tyler. Jamie was riveted but loose enough. Tyler’s plotted distraction was clearing out his apartment. It refreshed his thinking—enough
—and he felt the lift of orderliness, of accomplishment. Of something else that was different from the rules of law.
Of course, tidiness was another rule. And he considered all the rules by which we live. Traffic, food, dress, conduct and all the others of honesty, compassion, and even distaste of wrongs.
Rules.
Those of law. Those rules of others. The clash which countering laws invoked. War.
Life was never simple.
And Kayla should come back under his supervision so that she could mature more easily.
What the hell was she doing out ballooning with Keeper!
She needed to reject Keeper and come back to him.
So it was on Saturday of that next week, when Kayla drove to his place. She was astonished by the changes in the apartment. She even checked the number on the apartment door. She asked, “Who did you find to clean up this place? I need to know the crew.”
And he stopped and turned his head to say with surprise, “Does it look different to you?”
“It’s neat and clean.”
And Tyler looked around as if to check it out. He frowned a little. Then he had the audacity to ask, “What’s different?”
“Who did you find to clean it this well? How did they manage to get rid of all the stuff on the dining-room table?” She touched her hand to the already set table. No tablecloth, just place mats, and a humongous bouquet of gladiolas.
“Oh.” He looked thoughtful. “I did that while I was sorting things out on the table. It didn’t take long.”
“It must have taken a week!”
He shook his head thoughtfully. “Naw. It was nothing. We’ll eat in here.”
“With the table set so beautifully, I figured we’d probably eat here.” Then with no snorts, she said of the great sweep of gladiolas, “The flowers are lovely. Shall I put them to one side so that we can see each other?”
His regard of the flowers was supposed to be serious, but his smile began. His dancing eyes looked at her, and they both laughed.
She moved the flowers to one side of the table. The bouquet was still intrusive, but with moving them over, the two people would be able to see each other without stretching up and straining their necks.
