Black Rainbow

by J. J. McAvoy

  “So you’re just going to give up? What type of crack lawyer are you?”

  “What kind of human being are you? Two of your friends died, in your house—”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he snapped. “Just because I’m not sobbing all over the place, or cutting my wrists, doesn’t mean I don't know. I didn’t even want the stupid pills, but everyone stopped coming to my parties because I wasn’t fun enough. Hector was the one who told me where to get the pills from in the first place!”

  “Richard, why didn’t you say that?” She dashed out of the room, only to run right into me, sending us both sprawling unto the ground.

  Once again, I could feel every curve of her, and I fought the urge to hug her to me. But all too soon, she was gone.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Black.”

  “Never mind that,” I sighed, standing back up.

  Turning to Richard, who looked more like his father than his mother, with his pale skin and dark eyes, I addressed him, “You said Hector, the boy that died, was the one who told you where to get the pills?”

  “Don’t use that,” Richard said quickly.

  He was insane.

  “Are you insane?” Thea asked him.

  If it was any other day, and we didn’t have the history we had, I would have laughed.

  “You guys hear what they’re saying in the news, right?” he whispered, taking a seat on his bed. “Hector was my best friend. We played little league together, and he always let me win because he knew my dad hated it when I lost. He was an honor roll student, he was the star basketball player, what do you think would happen, if we say that my black, best friend, told me where to get the drugs from?”

  “That’s why you never said anything?” Thea whispered.

  “I’m not an idiot, Hector was a good person, and I don’t want people to remember him as some drug pimp… and I don’t want his family to hate me anymore than they already do. So please, don’t use that angle.”

  “Is everything alright?” Mrs. Archibald came up behind us, and Richard’s eyes went wide.

  “We were just going over some details. But we’re done now, thank you,” I said turning, making sure that Thea followed as well.

  “Am I fired?” she asked, when got to the end of the hall.

  “You don’t work for me, you're my student.”

  “Then, am I being kicked out of your class?”

  She was too close to me.

  “No.”

  “We were able to get in touch with Mr. Archibald, he’ll be here in a few hours,” Atticus informed me, bursting with pride.

  “Raymond, take our eager young friend to go pick up Mr. Archibald, and babysit him at all times. If he so much as goes near an airport, tackle him.”

  I saw the small grin Atticus shot Thea, and the glare in her eyes as he left. They were already in full out war, which only made things better for me.

  “The rest of you, pack up and go home. I expect to see you all in the morning, looking less zombified, if possible,” I told them.

  They all sighed in relief, packing up their discarded coats and jackets, shoes, books, and papers. The press had gone home for the evening, so our exit was significantly easier than our entry had been.

  I watched as Thea waited at the curb for a taxi, even though my car was already here.

  “Get in,” I called to her, holding the door open.

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “It’s about the case, now get in,” I said firmly.

  She looked me over like she didn’t believe me, and rightly so. I only partially believed it myself.

  “Is your car at the office?”

  “I took a cab,” she replied.

  Nodding, I turned to my driver and gave him her address. She reluctantly walked over and climbed into the back seat, sitting as far away as she could from me, as though I had some sort of contagious disease.

  “You shouldn’t have spoken to him.”

  She sighed. “I know, I’m sorry, I just saw him sitting there playing video games, and I lost my cool.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, “but only because you got something I can use out of it. If you hadn’t, no apology would have been able to help you.”

  Her head whipped back to me so quickly I was surprised that she didn’t hurt herself.

  “You’re going to use Hector?”

  “Yes. What other choice do I have? Richard’s screwed if I don’t.”

  “He doesn’t want to drag his friend through the mud. If you do this, he will hate you.”

  “Believe me, I will survive just fine. I’m his lawyer, not his friend. His parents are paying me to keep him out of jail, so that’s what I’m going to do. His personal feelings mean nothing to me.”

  “Levi, you know what will happen if you do this—”

  “Yes, he will return to high school, and never touch drugs again.”

  “Not that!” she yelled. “Every black activist in America will use him as the poster boy for injustice in the legal system. Hector’s parents will get on every station claiming that their son, their dead son, was put on trial for one mistake. This will not be the end of it, and I’m sure Richard won’t run from drugs, but run to it, or at the very least, alcohol, to help him block out the fact that he not only betrayed is best friend, twice, but that the world now hates him because of it. He will self-destruct, and when it happens, everyone will point and say that’s what he gets.”

  I fought back a smile. “I thought you wanted him in jail,” I said, “yet here you are; defending him.”

  She sat back, crossing her arms. “Your plan is stupid.”

  “Harvard education right here,” I said. “My plan will give us a win.”

  “What’s the point of winning if you don’t help anyone? What’s the point of it if you only make things worse?” she muttered, opening the door as we pulled up to her house.

  She didn’t even look at me as we exited the car and I walked her to her door.

  “Fine,” I said.

  She stopped, turning back, “Fine?”

  “We won’t throw Hector under the bus.”

  “So what will you do?”

  “I’m going to hold a press conference—well, no, you’re going to hold a press conference, with Richard.”

  Her mouth dropped open, “I’m going to do what now?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon, you will sit by Richard as he apologizes to everyone he has offended, and as he states that he never meant for anyone to get hurt. Then, you will say how Richard was just one of many students who threw parties where pills, and other illegal substances, are used and abused, and on top of that, you will state that the fact that the police haven’t even bothered to focus their efforts on finding the dealer is in itself a crime. Most of all, you will do it convincingly. ”

  “If you know what I’m going to say, then why don’t you just say it?”

  I shrugged taking a few steps towards her and closing in the almost unbearable distance between us. At that precise moment, the wind shifted, causing her hair to flutter around her face. Taking advantage of the opening nature had granted me, I brushed her hair back into place.

  “Three reasons,” I whispered. “One: I’m your professor and I’m telling you to. Two: You and Richard have built up a rapport. You can’t fake something like that on television, and that way, people will see that you really do believe he shouldn’t be charged.”

  “And the third reason?” she asked as she took a step towards me, closing the distance between us even more.

  “What do you think?” I asked her.

  I waited for a second before her brown eyes narrowed at me— “It can’t be about race if I’m sitting there. You—urgh!— You were planning this from the moment we left the house weren’t you?”

  I dropped her a wink and turned back towards my town car.

  “This is not alright!”

  “Use what you have Thea, I’ve told you that before. Don’t let anythi
ng stop you from winning. The race card has been thrown on the table, so take it off and you’ll have your name associated with one headline case by tomorrow. Don’t let your feelings blow it for you. You’re better than that, and I will not hesitate to kick you out of class if you fail, right after using you as an example to the others. Goodnight.”

  Getting into the car, I slammed the door shut, and as my driver pulled away from her house, I rested my head against the back of the front passenger seat, trying, in vain, to will my hard-on away.

  Damn it. I had gotten too close to her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  P A S T

  D A Y 4

  THEA

  “Do you play?” he asked, as he noticed the guitar hidden behind some of the boxes in my living room.

  “I wish! My sister is pretty decent, though she just started learning,” I replied, as he stood up from our small picnic of wine, popcorn, and sandwiches.

  “Do you think she would mind?”

  “Not at all,” I said.

  I had bought the thing for her anyway, so I figured that I was at least entitled to hear it being played every once in a while.

  Taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch, he picked at the strings. With his head cocked to the side, and his eyes closed, he listened intently to the tone and the pitch of each string, pausing every so often to adjust the tuning. He strummed through all six strings, measuring them against his internal tuning scale. Satisfied, he opened his eyes and smiled at me, then, as he drew in a deep breath, he began to play.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the sound of his music. As I followed the melody, the tune took form and I opened my eyes to stare at him.

  “I know this!” I said as I sat up excitedly, trying my best to not spill any wine.

  He laughed, “What is it then?”

  Shit.

  “I know it, don’t tell me!” I repeated, trying to remember.

  Urgh.

  He kept smiling, as his fingers slid up and down the neck of the guitar with ease. He looked so relaxed, as if he could spend the rest of his life shirtless with a guitar in his hands.

  “Damn it,” I cried out in frustration, I knew this song!

  He glanced up at me, “Give up?”

  “No. Don’t I get to call a friend or something?”

  “It’s "More Than Words" by Extreme,” he said with a grin.

  “I would have gotten it,” I muttered. “It was on the tip of my tongue.”

  “Okay,” he said with a tone of teasing.

  “Anyway, where did you learn to play?” I asked him, desperate for a diversion.

  “My father taught me,” he replied. “I was horrible at hitting on girls when I was in high school, so he taught me to play so that I could woo the ladies,” he said with a chuckle.

  “You had issues with girls?” I asked incredulously.

  “It’s so hard to believe because I’m so devilishly handsome, right?”

  Rolling my eyes, I threw some popcorn at him, and he managed to catch a few in his mouth.

  “Do you want to hear the story or not?” he asked with mock annoyance.

  “Alright, so Mr. Sexy-green-eyes had girl trouble in high school, go on.”

  “First of all, try to imagine me twenty pounds lighter with no muscular definition, a crew cut, acne, and thick glasses.”

  I laughed. I didn’t mean to, but I laughed.

  “You’re lying.”

  “God, I wish. There was even a rhyme.”

  “No!” I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to stifle the bout of laughter that was threatening to explode out of my lungs.

  “Did you realize that Levi was left seaside and his face got stuck in beehives?” he repeated the taunt that had no doubt haunted him throughout his high school career.

  “Kids are awful,” I told him, feeling sympathetic.

  Note to self; make sure Selene isn’t being bullied.

  “Yeah,” he laughed it off, “my dad told me that girls were a sucker for a guy with a guitar. And me, being a horny fifteen-year-old boy, I saved up everything I had, to buy myself one. And it worked to a degree; I was bullied less, and some girls thought it was sweet. When I grew out of my awkward years, everything changed though. My high school reunion was a blast for my sister and I,” he said with a laugh.

  “Was she awkward too?”

  “Bethan? Ha! No, she’s always been the rebel of our family. She was one of those rare few that never cared what anyone thought. She’d wanted to come along with me to see how the prom queen and the quarterback looked ten years later. She laughed for days. Everyone thinks of her as a wild child, but she’s a lot more sensible than most people give her credit for. You know the club we met at?”

  “Twenty-Four?”

  He nodded. “She had stashed away every penny that anyone had ever given her, be it birthday money, or Christmas money or even her weekly allowance. She kept it all hidden under the floorboards of her room. By the time she graduated college, she had almost twenty grand to her name. She took that money and put all towards opening that club,” he said beaming with pride.

  “Your parents must have—”

  “Lost their shit,” he finished. “They did. But it worked for her. She made it work for her,” he smiled.

  He seemed to be really proud and fond of his little sister. In a way, she reminded me of Selene.

  “I’m glad it worked out for you,” I said, as I leaned even more into the couch.

  “What about you, what were you like in high school?”

  “Urgh. No.” I groaned, not wanting to go there.

  “Come on,” he urged, “it can’t possibly be worse than the rhyme.”

  He had a point.

  “Let’s see,” I mused, wondering just how much I should reveal. “Well, I was overweight and a teacher’s pet, that about covers it,” I nodded, wishing that I could have avoided this conversation.

  “Overweight? You?”

  Now it was his turn to be incredulous.

  “Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said. “But yeah, my grandmother was a chef, and even though she was retired, she still fed us every waking moment. Jesus, when I think back on it, it was pretty bad. That, plus my baby weight…” I shuddered at the memory, “If it wasn’t for the few sports I played, I would have needed to be rolled down the halls.”

  He thought about for a moment— “Yeah, I can’t imagine that.”

  “Oh, but you don’t have to,” I said, already regretting the decision I was about to make.

  I stood up, moving towards a stack of boxes. After a moment, I found the one I was looking for. A box filled with my photo albums. Selecting the right year, I scanned through it briefly before handing it to him.

  Putting the guitar away, he wordlessly flipped through the album. I sat forward, trying to gauge his reaction.

  “It’s not that bad,” he finally said.

  “I’m sorry, did you not see the photos??”

  “I saw them. It wasn’t that bad,” he repeated. “By the way, your boobs were huge!”

  Of course that’s what he was looking at.

  “I don’t miss them,” I told him, “they killed my back.”

  “You’re slightly taller than most girls, so everything evened out alright.” He paused, flipping to another page, then he laughed— “Okay this one is kind of bad.”

  “Thank you, I know.” I tried to take the photos back from him, but he wouldn’t have it.

  “You were a teacher’s pet,” he echoed the sentiment I had expressed moments ago.

  He smiled to himself as he looked over all my awards and photos with my teachers.

  “I actually liked school.”

  “No judgment,” he snickered.

  And he was right. One of things I liked about him, was the fact that no matter what either of us did, there was no judgment. But then again, after agreeing to this week, how could we really judge each other?

  “You w
ere the captain of the varsity volleyball team your sophomore year?” he asked, tapping one of the photos.

  “Okay that’s enough,” I said, reaching over to sit on his lap and obscure his view of the book.

  “You’re playing dirty,” he told me.

  “Hey, a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do,” I replied, before kissing him.

  He moaned, and allowed himself to relax as he leaned back into the couch. As I had hoped, the book slipped out of his hands, and softly thudded to the ground.

  I shifted my position and slipped my body between his legs as I caressed the side of his face and deepened the kiss. I slid the album under the couch, where it would remain unnoticed for another month.

  The second my lips touched his, thoughts of the album immediately left my mind, and with a soft grunt, he stood up and lifted me off my feet, just as he had done in the shower earlier that morning. As I wrapped my arms around his neck, I could feel the almost erratic beat of his heart as he carried me into the hallowed darkness of my bedroom. He set me on my feet right in front of my bed.

  “I want you,” he whispered, his eyes roaming over me.

  “So?” I crossed my arms…I had no idea why I was playing hard to get now…that was a lie. I knew why; it was the look in his eyes…the way he looked at me made my toes curl.

  He took a step forward and grasped my hips, pulling me against him, so I could feel how hard he was.

  His lips hovered over mine as he spoke; “When I say I want you, I mean I need you. I need to run my fingers over your skin, kiss down your back, and make you moan my name. I. Need. You. And from the look on your face, you need me too. So strip.”