A Gentle Thief
A Novel
By Amanda Dickson
For Papa
A Gentle Thief
Amanda Dickson
Copyright 2011 by Amanda Dickson
Smashwords Edition
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
Some in their wealth, some in their body’s force,
Some in their garments, though newfangled ill,
Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.
And every humor hath his adjunct pleasure,
Wherein it finds a joy above the rest.
But these particulars are not my measure,
All these I better in one general best.
Thy love is better than high birth to me,
Richer than wealth, prouder than garments’ cost,
Of more delight than hawks or horses be.
And having thee, of all men’s pride I boast,
Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take
All this away and me most wretched make.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 91
The best day of her brief life as a lawyer was the day when she saw her newly printed business cards for the first time. They were cream-colored, slightly rough to the touch, recycled paper. Printed on them in gold traditional lettering was her name – Sophie Brownlie, Attorney at Law.
Breathtaking.
Below her name and title was the name of the law firm that had hired her six months out of law school. The firm’s name was in slightly smaller but bolder lettering, as if to announce that, no matter the words above it, this was the important bit of information.
Day, Openshaw and Weiss
Sophie wondered how many cards they had printed for her. How many did the small box with the single card affixed to the front face contain? Five hundred? A thousand?
Enough, she thought.
Sophie stood just inside the ten-foot tall, dark oak door that opened into her small office. The office manager had just handed her the new box, then continued down the hall toward far more urgent things and people. On her way out, she clicked past the new gold plaque on the wall to the right of Sophie’s office that read simply, “Ms. Brownlie”.
Sophie could not remember ever taking delight in an object like she did these business cards. She imagined some men – and women too - must feel this way when they sit behind the wheel of a new Porsche. She fingered the box, then a random card inside the box. How long had she worked to see these words in print? She had toyed with the idea of having the cards printed before she had earned the right to do so. Who would have known? It would have been harmless enough. She just wanted to try it on, see what “Attorney at Law” looked like near her own name. She reminded herself of a daydreaming school girl who practices writing her name next to the last name of the boy she has a crush on. First she writes her signature with her first name and his last name, then her first name, maiden name as middle name and his last name, and then perhaps one with her maiden and his last name hyphenated, but she rarely settles on that version. She practices it in long hand and in printed form. She writes it fast to see how it will look when her penmanship is not precise. She smiles at each incantation.
This was “Attorney at Law” for Sophie Brownlie.
She felt a rush of gratitude for not having cheated and printed them before this day. To go to Kinko’s and print them for kicks would have been like buying someone else’s gold medal.
Her first official day at Day Openshaw was January 4, 2004. Sophie arrived at her office as a full-fledged lawyer on a cold morning, at least cold for Las Vegas. Before the sun comes up in the desert, it’s often in the 40s in the winter months, sometimes in the 30s, cold enough to make the women in tiny tops walking back to their hotels wish they had brought a sweater. This morning it was 27 degrees. That was cold even by Sophie’s standards, groomed for the elements as she was by the snowy winters of her home town of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Despite how cold it was that day, Sophie couldn’t stop sweating. Her new suit, bought specially for the occasion, felt too warm under her coat. The skirt suit was a lighter shade of grey, fully lined, with a black short-sleeved turtleneck underneath and black boots. Sophie was trying not to look like a student, and succeeding, if only barely.
Her stature helped her. She was tall, 5’10”, with long arms still toned from years of competitive swimming. She looked vaguely like a coach when she wore pants suits, which may be why she favored skirts. She had been dying her hair one of several shades of blonde since age 12 when it started to turn from honey to mousey brown. Sophie was not unattractive. She had a warm nature and an engaging smile, a laugh that would make men look from across the room, but not always with a flattering expression. Her eyes were more green than blue, and her mouth seemed perpetually open, even when she was actively listening. Sophie was approachable, in her appearance and her manner, which may not have been an asset in her new profession.
She had visited the law firm before this day, of course, interviewed three times, even toured the library. On the day she was offered the job, she had walked up and down the long south hallway of the Hughes Center suite with the partner who had been assigned to escort her, stopping briefly outside each office to meet the other lawyers who were unlucky enough to be in and not obviously engaged on the phone.
“No interruption at all. Nice to meet you,” each would say hurriedly.
“So nice to meet you,” Sophie would reply with more heart, if not a little doubt.
“Steve’s in wills and estates,” her escort added the pedigree.
She thought to say “How nice for you,” then thought better of it.
She had met the woman who would be her secretary the week before Christmas on her third visit. Her secretary. That phrase was almost as dreamlike as “Attorney at Law.” She could not picture herself having a secretary, a woman whose job it was to assist her, to teach her perhaps, to run interference for her, cover for her, make her look good, keep her from missing deadlines, to call her wife to say she was going to be late . . . Well, all but that last one. But a secretary! Sophie still pictured all secretaries looking like Lily Tomlin in the movie “9 To 5.”
“Sophie, this is Rosy,” the office manager had introduced them.
Rosy was in her late 40’s, maybe early 50’s, with thick dark brown hair cut in a bob. She was short, not just compared to Sophie, but in general. 5’4” with heels, but she never wore heels. She wore plain tops on top of dark slacks, nothing tucked in, no jackets or frilly blouses. Her skin looked soft and pale, like she didn’t do a lot of walking outdoors and might need to improve some portion of her diet, although not because of her weight. She wasn’t heavy. Not thin either, just what the doctor’s office chart would describe as average.
“Oh. Hello, Rosy. This is all so exciting!” Sophie bit back her embarrassment and made a mental note to lose the 10-year-old enthusiasm.
Rosy looked straight at her, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She felt an instant dislike for this new associate. She didn’t like the size 10 skirt and the unscuffed pumps. She didn’t like young lawyers at all, especially females. She didn’t like the blonde hair with the obvious roots. She didn’t like the Amazon thing either. How tall was this girl? 6 feet? She wanted her old boss back.
The lawyer she had been assigned to up until a few months before was her favorite of the seven lawyers she’d worked for at Day, Openshaw. Her first was a soft, close-to-retiring construction lawyer. Her second was his son, who only lasted a brief time. Then there were a succession of oil and gas lawyers, one divorce lawyer (never again), and then her favorite. He was such a statesman, a gentleman and a gentle man. He would take the time to ask about her sister, how she spent a holiday, whether she was getting over her cold. He was organized and kept regular hours. She appreciated that. But he had been a savings and loan attorney during the boom of the 70s, and even though he tried to keep his banking and real estate clients intact, his practice went the way of the failed savings institutions. In more recent years, he did work for the other partners, work they offered begrudgingly, until they stopped consulting him on anything and began moving him from office to office until there were no smaller offices in which to relocate him.
And now there was Sophie Brownlie. Sounded like a pop star.
“Lovely Rosy, meter maid, duh-duh duh duh duh, duh duh!” Sophie was singing the Beatles’ song. Nervously and not well.
“That’s Rita. I’m Rosy,” Rosy said with little patience. This one is not like the other lawyers I’ve worked for, she thought.
“Your office will be here, two doors down from my cubicle,” Rosy explained, over-enunciating the word cubicle. “I prefer taking your dictation on tapes, if it’s all the same to you, and I like to leave by 5:30. I also like to enter your time at the end of each week. If you get behind on your time, it can be almost impossible to recreate all those hours weeks after the fact. Memory is not to be trusted.”
Sophie was nodding attentively, fighting back the urge to take notes.
“I also do work for Rick, and seeing as he’s the senior partner, you will not be my first priority.” Rosy punctuated this last bit of information with a long pause, expecting to intimidate her new young charge, or at least put her in her place.
“No. I don’t think I’ll be my first priority either,” Sophie laughed, rather loudly, Rosy thought.
There had not been a great deal of laughter in the law firm in the twenty plus years Rosy had been there. The sound of it seemed to echo along the long hallways that were filled with paintings of golf courses, all of them local and some part of the recent building boom, plus a few older renderings of Fremont Street and architectural drawings of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Sophie bit off her laugh and looked down the hall. She expected white shirts to peek out from tall doors and shush her like a librarian, but they did not. She swallowed and said, “I’m sorry. I suppose I’ve got a little getting used to to do.”
“Yes,” Rosy said slowly and walked back to her station, leaving Sophie alone in the hallway.
Sophie stood erect, holding her new light brown leather briefcase, a present from her sister-in-law, feeling a trickle of sweat drip down her back. Great. Another suit she’d have to have dry cleaned after a single wearing. Then she walked into her office for the first time.
It was barren, except for the few paper clips and other miscellaneous supplies left in the top drawer by the previous occupant. Who was the previous occupant, she wondered. Was it a he or a she? Sophie bet it was a he, and wondered if he had been fired or moved on to bigger and better things, or maybe he ran screaming back to UNLV for another advanced degree in something less threatening. She ran her fingers over the phone, the computer keyboard, and the credenza underneath the big window. She gazed at the luxury condo and resort hotel still under construction across the way. Her building on Howard Hughes Parkway was new, too, not even a year old, already filled with lawyers and professional firms.
“So, I’ll be seeing you tonight then?” Rick Day asked with a smirk from her doorway. The senior partner was the one who had hired her, and from the reception she’d received from the other lawyers, she thought perhaps his choice had not been unanimous. He had on a laundered white shirt and dark blue pin-striped pants with a red tie. He looked like a political candidate on the campaign trail, ready for a speech at a moment’s notice, but tired, and needing an iron.
“Oh, yes. You’re kind to invite us.” Sophie was nervous about the company Christmas party. She didn’t really feel like she had earned a seafood buffet at the Bellagio Hotel considering she hadn’t actually done any work yet, but Rick had insisted. She was to come, meet the other lawyers and their spouses (mostly wives since there was only one other female lawyer in the firm), and bring her husband.
“Did you meet Rosy?” Rick asked with one raised eyebrow.
“Oh, yes. She seems great.” Sophie said with her typical inappropriate enthusiasm.
“So you didn’t meet Rosy,” Rick smirked.
“I’m not sure she’s thrilled about being assigned to me,” Sophie demurred.
“She ought to be thrilled to have a job,” Rick barked as if he hoped someone walking down the hall from the break room would overhear him.
“I’m sure we’re going to get along fine,” Sophie replied quickly, and meant it. “I’m looking forward to seeing her tonight and getting a chance to get to know her.”
“Oh,” Rick coughed. “Rosy won’t be there tonight. The party is for lawyers only.”
Sophie’s eyes narrowed and two small lines appeared above her nose.
Rick took a swig of his Diet Coke. “See you at 7:00,” he said, not waiting for her to reply, then turned and sauntered back to his office.
Sophie strolled along the hallway of shops that connected the Bellagio to Caesar’s Palace and the Strip, listening to the whispery echoes of the Jazz trio on stage at the small bar straight ahead inside the casino. She stopped in front of Fendi and coveted the shoes she could only imagine on fashion models, or maybe Oprah. She wanted to walk inside Prada, but didn’t dare. Not in her $120 suit. Besides, who wears snug little orange jackets made of some strange bumpy fabric? She considered going in the casino and playing video poker while she waited for her husband, but thought better of it. Most people who live in Las Vegas don’t gamble the same way people who live in Miami don’t get sunburned. They know better.
She did want to sit down, though. Her new boots, however more reasonable they were than the shoes in the Fendi window, were still hurting her feet. She wondered if they designed the floors in the casino shopping area to be hard and uncomfortable on purpose so you’re forced to go into the casino and sit down. Probably. Everything here was designed to get you to sit and stay.
There were no benches in the hallway. No chairs anywhere except in the bar or in front of a gaming table or machine. She picked the most anonymous – a slot machine - and borrowed its chair. She looked around for a clock on the wall to see how late her husband was running, but couldn’t see any. Sophie asked the woman sitting two seats down playing a Wheel of Fortune machine if she had the time.
“5 to 7:00,” the woman said without looking up. “Ya know there are no clocks in any of the casinos. No windows either,” she added. Nothing to let you know you had anywhere else in the world to be.
Sophie looked around to see if it was true, and couldn’t see any windows. It was impossible to tell what time of day it was in here. She fidgeted, reaching in her purse for her lipstick to re-apply.
What is up with the lawyers-only thing, she wondered, thinking back to her conversation with Rick earlier. Do all law firms exclude their secretaries and paralegals and receptionists and everybody else from their Christmas parties? She’d never heard of such a thing.
Wait. Sophie remembered back to her first day of law school, one of her professors had started to explain the “lawyer/non-lawyer distinction,” and all she could think of at the time was – is there a plumber/non-plumber distinction? A waitress/non-waitress? What about jerk/non-jerk? Isn’t it true that every profession knows things that are not commonly known outside the profession? How can they not invite their secretaries and paralegals to the party? Doesn’t it hurt their feelings? Who do they think they are?
“Your new bosses,” she said out loud just above a whisper.
Driving on the back streets behind the Strip on his way to her, Sean Brownlie was thinking of all of the sacrifices his wife had made to put herself through school and pass the bar exam. Then he thought playfully, “Forget her – what about the sacrifices I’ve made?” He smiled as he pictured her perpetually with some huge, unwieldy looking text book in tow. And now tonight - dinner with the new firm at the Bellagio. Maybe it was all paying off.
He wondered if they’d get any time alone after the party.
Sean Brownlie was a handsome man, handsome in that wrinkled way that unkempt newspaper reporters can be handsome, which was exactly what Sean was – a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. He was smart and funny with a broad back and thick arms. If his family had not valued education so much, he might just as easily have worked construction or manufacturing. He had the build for it. His thick brown hair was just beginning to thin, something that didn’t seem to bother him a bit. He wore tan Dockers, almost every day, with various shirts and dark jackets. Years ago when he started at the paper he had often worn ties too, but he didn’t feel the need to dress the part so much anymore. In fact, he wondered sometimes if “the part” had changed along with the wardrobe.
Sean found a parking spot in the monstrous lot underneath the hotel just as an Escalade with California plates was backing out, then he headed up the elevator past the bell hop to the casino floor. He had arranged to meet Sophie just outside Le Cirque restaurant. Sean felt a rush of protective pride as he saw her sitting along the rows of slot machines, looking nervous and studious, and like she was waiting for someone.
Man. She was something.
He smiled and bee-lined across the large hallway to where she was sitting. It was just after 7:00. He had been walking at a clip and was slightly out of breath – and almost a half hour late, which was actually not too bad by his standards.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
She smiled, her lips not parting.
“Are you nervous?” he asked tenderly.
She exhaled loudly. “Yes.” Then she laughed and shook her head, surprised at the way her life was turning out just the way she had planned it. She picked up her purse. “We better go.”
“I’ll be on my best behavior,” Sean winked and touched her on the elbow as they made their way through people walking with suitcases looking aimlessly for the hotel’s elevators. He whispered down toward her ear as they walked, “Tell me the name of the big kahuna again.”
“Rick. Rick Day. He’s the senior partner, and the one who hired me.” There was a slight tone of, “You should have remembered that” in her answer.
“If he’s the one paying you, I like him already,” Sean smiled, forgiving her tone.
“Yeah. You will,” Sophie replied and thought for the first time that Rick reminded her just a little of her husband.
They found the Monet Ballroom Number One a little after 7:15. Sophie was terribly nervous to be there at all, let alone be late. As soon as she and Sean entered the room and saw the small groups of people standing around talking, Sophie wished she had worn something different. She was still in her business suit, basic black this time with a white turtleneck underneath. She felt suddenly like she was dressed for a choir performance, although that thought had not occurred to her when she was getting dressed.
The ballroom was magnificent, with floor-to-ceiling French doors and heavy gold curtains adorning a wall of windows that overlooked a garden. The round tables were lush with china and crystal, red and white floral arrangements with large blossoms of a type of flower Sophie didn’t know by name, and red leather-bound programs atop each plate. Sophie saw immediately that the women in the room were wearing cocktail dresses, some fancier than others, but no suits. Some of the young women wore soft, clingy satin cut above the knee. The wives with less flattering figures wore sequined jackets over square black skirts.
“Hello, Sophie.” It was Tom Weiss, the water lawyer. Sophie was amazed he had remembered her name.
“Hello, Tom. This is my husband, Sean.”
“Tom,” Sean extended his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.” Sean had a good hand shake. Sophie liked that about him.
“Pleasure’s all mine, Sean. I read you all the time.” Tom winked.
“I’ve never written anything about you, have I?” It was a standard comeback line for Sean. Even though he was a crime reporter, he did do occasional pieces on other topics. And in Las Vegas, every reporter covered the Strip.
“Some close relatives, yes, but never me personally. I figure now that I’ve got your wife on the payroll, maybe we can change that.” Tom joked more easily than Sophie would have thought from her initial meeting.
“I didn’t think you were a criminal lawyer,” Sean questioned. Sophie could tell he was trying to remember what little background she had given him on the lawyers of the firm.
“I’m not. I’m a water lawyer. But the juiciest cases aren’t in criminal defense, no matter what Rick says. People fight over water in Nevada with more passion than they fight over a felony conviction.” He laughed at his own joke, seeming to enjoy having the floor.
“You’re so kind to invite us, Tom,” Sophie jumped in, then immediately wished she hadn’t. “This setting is spectacular.” Like he cares how lovely the setting is, she realized. Sophie felt her face flush and started to chastise herself just as Tom interrupted her train of thought.
“There’s a method to our madness. You see, we ply you with expensive shell fish and prime rib in order to lull you into the false sense that you’re actually going to enjoy working for us.” Sophie hadn’t realized that Tom had a sense of humor. She felt herself starting to relax a little.
“Would you two like a drink? I think I can flag down a waitress.” Tom motioned to a young woman in a small plain black dress who might have been waiting for his signal. She walked over attentively.
“What can I get for you?” the server asked with the tone waitresses use who are accustomed to waiting on the rich.
Sean answered without hesitation. “Scotch for me and Sophie . . .” He waited for her to fill in the blank.
“Oh. Uh . . . white wine please.” Sophie wasn’t much of a drinker, but she had seen Rick’s wife drinking what looked like a glass of white wine and decided to copy her.
Tom jumped right back in. “Now, Sophie, you and Sean need to meet the other people who will be making your life miserable. Let me see if I can find Paul Kipling. Dreadful man, but his wife is quite charming.” And with that Tom wandered into the crowd.
Sean smiled at Sophie as if to say, “So far so good.”
By January 4th the following week, her first official day at the firm, Sophie had forgotten all of the names she was supposed to remember, except for Rick and Rosy and Tom. Those were with her, but she kept confusing the oil and gas lawyers at the end of the hall, and the one young blonde guy who did corporate law with the young dark haired guy who did. . . she couldn’t remember. One was Steve and one was Bruce. And the feisty one with the curly hair at the end of the hall was Paul or Peter. He was the dreadful one who had a charming wife.
“Come see me when you’ve got a minute,” Tom Weiss stood briefly inside her doorway, then tapped the door frame twice as he continued down the hall, not waiting for an answer.
“Be right there,” she responded happily. Oh, her first assignment. She was hungry for some real work, worried that they expected her to magically produce her own clients her first week at the firm. She gathered a legal pad, a pen, her breath and walked down the hall, hoping she remembered which office was his. Thank goodness for the nameplates. Mr. Weiss.
Knock. Knock. “Mr. Weiss?” Sophie spoke barely above a whisper. Was she really this nervous?
“Come in, Sophie. And call me Tom.”
“Thank you. Tom.”
“You settling in alright?” he asked not seeming like he had time for an answer.
“Great. Thank you.”
He got right to it. “I’m engaged to represent the City of Henderson in a water dispute with a miscreant who’s trying to steal water he does not have a legal right to.” He produced several large volumes with light blue covers. “These are deposition transcripts. Read and summarize them for me, and I’d like them back by Friday at the latest.”
“You bet,” Sophie answered. “You bet” was an annoyingly perky Utahism she had picked up in her formative years and been unable thus far to free herself of. “Thank you,” she added as she got up to leave.
Walking back to her office, Sophie felt new purpose. Her first assignment. Read and summarize. She put the documents down on her disturbingly clear desk and walked more quickly than was necessary back down the hall to the break room. A real assignment would require coffee. As she was looking for the creamer, one of the two young lawyers said, “Cupboard on the right, top shelf.”
“Oh, thank you . . .”
“Bruce. It’s okay. Don’t expect to learn all of our names on the first day. Rick still doesn’t know some of our names.”
“Oh,” she laughed. “I bet he knows your name.” Did she really say that out loud?
“What do they have you working on?” he asked with a smile.
“A water law dispute with Henderson. It’s Tom’s case.”
“Whoa. Starting you off with a bang, aren’t they?” he asked sarcastically. Was that a good-natured rib or derogatory? She hated when she couldn’t tell the difference.
“Yeah,” she shrugged good-naturedly, giving him the benefit of the doubt, and then walked back to her office. She sat her mug down on the bare desk, then sat down herself and opened the soft blue cover to page one. She fired up her computer and opened her first document. She named a new folder Tom Weiss/City of Henderson, then opened a document called Deposition Summary. How much detail did Tom want? Did he want one brief page or a summary with direct quotes? She didn’t want to check with him on every little detail. A real lawyer would know this, wouldn’t she? She decided to give Tom both – a one sheet with the full summary and then a more detailed summary with page quotes.
An hour later she was humming along, reading and typing, coming up for air to slurp coffee every minute or so, when she heard Rick’s saunter coming down the hall.
“Ms. Brownlie,” he smiled from her doorway.
“Hey there, Rick.” She was almost starting to feel like one of the guys.
“How’d you like the buffet the other night?”
“Oh, it was wonderful. Thank you so much. We both really enjoyed it.”
“I like Sean. He seems . . . good for you.”
“Yes, he is.” She wasn’t at all sure what he meant by that.
“How much older than you is he anyway?” Rick asked, laughing as he did.
“Not as old as you.” Sophie smirked, already getting the feeling that sparring would be their way.
“Come by my office when you have a minute,” he directed as he kept walking down the hall, greeting junior lawyers, seeing who was in their offices, observing their work demeanor, surveying his kingdom.
Sophie saved the summary she had been working on for Tom as soon as Rick left her office, gathered her legal pad and pen, took a sip of cold coffee, and stood up from her desk. She didn’t want to seem overly anxious, but she didn’t want to keep the senior partner waiting, either. Deep in her own thoughts as she reached the doorway, she didn’t realize Rick had doubled back to her office. She almost ran smack into him.
“Whoa! Brownlie. Where’s the fire? We don’t run in this office . . . of course . . . unless I say so.” He laughed, partly at himself and partly at the startled look on Sophie’s face, as he continued past the secretary’s station and conference rooms back to his own office.
Rick Day’s office was filled with things. Mounted fish of various colors. Dark wood boxes with glass lids revealing large pens. Pictures of his wife and six children. A large desk that wanted to be neat but wasn’t. Two studded maroon leather chairs seated in front of the desk. She was glad to see there was no golf club leaning against the wall opposite a little fake putting green.
“Take a seat, Brownlie,” he directed.
She sat, then fought the urge to make conversation.
“I’ve got a good one for you right off the bat. Just came in this morning and I thought, this will get her feet wet. Here.” And with that he dropped a large expandable file on her side of the desk. She took it and began to open it when he interrupted.
“Read and summarize and let me know what you think in the morning.” Rick picked up his phone and asked Rosy to place a call for him. Cupping the phone he added, “That’s not a problem, is it Brownlie?”
“Oh no. Of course not.”
Tom Weiss had said he didn’t need his read-and-summarize done until Friday, so she could drop what she was doing and get right on Rick’s. She was mentally juggling as she walked out of Rick’s office and saw Rosy smiling. She smiled back.
Rosy stopped smiling.
Sophie thought about getting more coffee, but noticed it was after noon and determined she better put something real in her stomach if she didn’t want her blood sugar to crash before she had read or summarized anything. The file can wait, she thought, as she grabbed her purse to head down to the Café Deli she had spotted in the lobby. Walking past Rosy’s desk, she said, “I’m going to the deli. Want anything?” Donna, the other secretary seated in Rosy’s work area, turned from her computer and stared right at Sophie without saying anything.
“Uh, no. . . Thanks,” Rosy stammered.
“Okay. I’ll be back in a flash.”
She smiled at the receptionist as she passed her on her way to the elevator. She pushed the down button and looked back toward the firm’s entrance, the words “Day Openshaw and Weiss” impressive in large gold letters above the front desk.
“How’s your first day going?” the receptionist called after Sophie.
“Great,” she smiled again.
“It’s really nice to have your smile around here.”
Carmen. Was that her name? She looked to be in her early 70s and she seemed . . . nice. Genuinely nice, and out of place.
“Thank you, Carmen. That’s really kind of you to say.”
“You’re welcome. And it’s Connie.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry. Connie. Of course.”
“Don’t worry about it. And don’t miss your elevator.”
Sophie frowned and got in just before the doors closed. Connie. Of course. Connie. She wouldn’t forget that again.
When Sophie got back to the office with her bowl of tomato basil soup and onion bagel, she was so famished she felt the shakes coming on. She went to the break room for a spoon, grateful that nobody was there, and snuck back to her office, anticipating the warmth of the soup and the chewiness of the bagel. Cherishing each bite, she didn’t notice she had company in her doorway again.
“Say, Sophie, why don’t you come by my office when you have a minute.” This lawyer was one of the oil and gas guys. End of the hall, she thought. What was his name?
“Sure. Be right there.” How much more could she read and summarize in one day?
“Thanks,” he said, then left without further conversation. After Sophie was sure from the sound of his footsteps that the coast was clear and he was on his way back down the hall, she took an unnaturally large bite of bagel dipped in soup, opened her mouth to let some air in to cool down the heat, then looked up to see the oil and gas guy back in her doorway. “And I’m just headed out to lunch if it would be convenient for you to come now.”
She nodded, unable to speak, and grabbed her pad and pen. How had he gotten back down the hall without her hearing him? She hurried out her door and walked behind him toward his office. Passing the secretary’s station, she thought Rosy was smiling at her computer screen.
The rest of the afternoon was a whirlwind of new assignments and getting to know her way around the law library. Ahh – the law library. Finally a place that felt familiar. If law school hadn’t taught her anything about office politics, demanding partners and smug secretaries, it did teach her how to feel comfortable reading the miniscule print of case law books. What was the font on those books? 2 point? Sophie had a half dozen volumes stacked on her desk by 6:00 that night, along with several files, a coffee mug and four sticky notes with case citations and questions she needed to remember not to forget to think about. She had not thought about the time of day, hadn’t noticed the light outside her west facing window changing from sun to Strip neon, until the telephone rang.
“Hey. How’s the big first day?” Sean sounded like a sports bar.
“Oh, it’s overwhelming . . . and good. It’s good, I think.” Sophie sighed. “How is your day going?” She looked at her watch for the first time in hours. 6:30! How could it be 6:30?
“I’m just about done here. Do you want to grab something or should I cook?”
“Oh, Honey, Rick gave me a case to read and summarize by tomorrow and I haven’t even opened it yet. I’m so sorry. I had no idea it was this late. Would you mind just cooking some chicken or something and I’ll get a start on this case and be home in an hour?” she pleaded.
“Sure. But you’re not going to make a habit out of this, are you?” he teased in that many-a-truthful-thing-is-said-in-jest way. “I know the first year at a new firm can mean long hours, but we’ve been planning to spend more time together since you graduated, remember? And you know, it’s all about precedent. If you set a precedent for working until 10:00, then that’s what they’ll expect. So let them know right up front that 10 hours a day is all they get.” Sean was good at fixing things.
“I know, Honey. I know, and no – I won’t make a habit out of this. I promise,” Sophie said with no conviction, and felt a little tightness in her chest. “I’ll be home in an hour. Okay?”
“Okay. See you then.” He didn’t sound too disappointed. Good.
“I love you,” Sophie cooed. It was the chorus of her conversations with her husband.
“I love you, too,” he harmonized back, thinking nothing of it.
Okay, Sophie thought. I’ll just open this file and get an idea of what’s going on and then I’ll take it home with a fresh legal pad and make notes tonight. If I can at least read through it and get a general outline, I can get in at 6:00 tomorrow morning and finish it up before Rick gets here. Sophie had been smart enough to ask Rosy what time Rick got to the office to make sure she beat him there. “After me, of course,” Rosy had snorted. Then more softly, “Usually around 8:00 or 8:30.”
Sophie opened the expandable file and pulled out a stack of disorganized papers. There were lots of letters, some typed in very small, uneven print like they came from an old typewriter. Who used those anymore? There were expert reports and pictures. Such a hodgepodge of documents. What was this all about? She decided to have one last cup of coffee and start at the top. Leaving a group of papers with pictures taped or glued to them like a child’s homework assignment facing up on the top of the stack, Sophie went to refill her mug only to find the pot nearly burned with a smidge of coffee left in the bottom. Shoot, she thought. She turned off the machine, rinsed out the pot with ice and Ajax the way she had learned when she was a waitress, and set the pot upside down on a paper towel to dry. Maybe a Diet Coke would suffice.
Getting back to her office, she began perusing the pictures. They were of a young woman with long, straight blonde hair. She almost looked like one of those 20-something types you’d see in a documentary about the Haite-Asbury days of San Francisco. She was wearing a peasant blouse and a long light-blue denim skirt with boots. She was smiling into the camera.
The next picture showed her with a cap and gown on. Again smiling, but awkwardly. Was that a high school or college graduation picture? There were pictures of her in an Elizabethan outfit, a wreath of flowers on her head, a corset, standing next to men dressed in period clothes. Hum. There were pictures of a cat. Her cat, Sophie assumed. There were pictures of her as a young girl, maybe 12, standing next to a man, both dressed in orange hunting clothes, holding rifles. There was a wedding picture of the young woman and a man who looked twenty years her senior. The wedding party was small. No bridesmaids or groomsmen. Just her and the guy from the hunting picture, and a woman next to the groom who might have been her mother-in-law.
Sophie kept turning over the pages with the pictures taped to them. She felt like she was eavesdropping on someone’s family photo album. What could possibly be the legal question here?
Then she turned the page.
“Oh dear God,” she gasped, clutching at her chest with her right hand. She stared in disbelief, unable to look away, until she bolted through her door, down the hall toward the bathroom.
CHAPTER 2
Shall I
compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more
temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And
summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye
of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And
every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's
changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not
fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owl’s,
Nor shall
death brag thou winder’s in his shade,
When in eternal lines to
time thou growl’s,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can
see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare
Sonnet 18
Berwick, Pennsylvania 1972
Maddie never thought her father would leave her.
She knew he wanted to, but she never thought he would.
She had felt sorry for him from her earliest memory, the way his eyes would look when her mother was yelling at him, the way he wouldn’t fight back, the way he’d try to protect her from her mother’s anger. Maddie would sit nestled up next to her dad on the couch with her mother screaming, first close up pointing her finger at her father’s face, then from across the room, then back again. Her mother’s face would be flushed and her arms gesturing wildly, but Maddie felt safe. She could feel the side of her right leg touching her father’s down the length of it. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her. It would pass.
He never told her it would pass, she just knew. She knew that no matter how long her mother screamed, no matter what she said, eventually it would stop. Her mother seemed to just get tired, physically spent from the effort of it, and fatigued by her husband not fighting back.
“Are you just going to sit there and not say anything?” her mother would challenge.
Her father wouldn’t move. Not his lips. Not a muscle.
“You’re just going to sit there and humiliate me and say nothing. Well, I’m not going to stand for this. I don’t have to put up with this, you know. You’re not going to raise our daughter to turn out like you, a Godless, selfish, immoral idiot! That’s what you are, you know? You’re an absolute idiot. I have no idea why I married you. Wait. Wait. Yes I do. You were the only man around, if I can even call you a man!”
Her mother would stare her father down, letting her words sink in, willing him to fight back. But he wouldn’t. He just looked at her. He maintained eye contact, at least Maddie thought he did, but he never spoke. She wasn’t even sure he was hearing the words her mother was saying.
Maddie was born in July of 1960, and now at age 12, she and her dad were war veterans. She had figured out when she was 5 or 6 that the reason she had so many daddy-daughter dates was because it wasn’t safe to be at home if her mother was there. It was better to come home from school, make sure the house was clean, dirty clothes in the laundry room, no socks on the floor, and then go out with Dad somewhere before her mother got home from her job at the insurance company. She and her dad would go to the library. The mall. A walk around the block if it was nice outside. The park down the street with the swings in all different sizes, including one big enough for two people. They went everywhere together, and they spent a long time when they got there. They would lie on the grass in the middle of the ball field down the street when it was empty in the late weekday afternoons and watch the sky lose its light. She’d put her hands behind her head just like he did, and they’d lie there, not talking together.
Maddie looked just like her father, except she didn’t get his height. She was petite with yellow hair and a small nose. Even the way the left side of her mouth went up higher than the right when she smiled was just like his. Her eyes were big and light blue. Her mom had blue eyes too, but not the same.
Maddie couldn’t see any of her mother in her. Her mother’s face was square and rough and stern all the time. She had a thick neck that was red a lot underneath her T-shirts. Her mother didn’t believe in spending money on clothes, for herself or anyone else. Most of Maddie’s friends couldn’t understand why her parents were together. “Your mom and dad just don’t seem like a couple,” they’d say.
Maddie would shrug.
Her mother never hit her father, at least not that she knew of, but Maddie learned at school that hitting is not the only form of abuse. She had never heard of a mother abusing a father. It was always the father who was the abuser in the videos in health class. But she knew that’s what this was. In 6th grade health, she learned that it’s even considered child abuse if a parent abuses another parent in front of a child.
Maddie remembered the first time she had the thought, “I am a victim of child abuse.”
She almost went up to her teacher at the end of class to tell her, but she wasn’t sure it was bad enough to matter, or whether the teacher would believe her, or whether it would make her mother angrier if she found out. She worried that her mother would make things rough for her at school, make scenes in the front office, demand to speak with her teachers in the middle of class. She’d rather people didn’t know any more about her home life than they already did.
Her mother never missed a parent-teacher conference, even when she had to get off work early. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity to criticize Maddie’s teachers for giving too much homework, or not enough. She thought their assignments, with so much coloring and drawing, were insulting of Maddie’s intelligence. Maddie’s mother didn’t like the language Maddie’s classmates were using. Even though she had never heard them swear herself, she knew they must be doing it. And then there were the fees. She hated paying for anything, especially school fees.
“Isn’t that what my tax dollars are going for? Why do we have to pay extra for this field trip?” she would batter.
“Well, you don’t, Mrs. Johnson. It isn’t a mandatory event, but if you want Maddie to go, it will be $20.00 per student, and we are accepting contributions for the students who are less fortunate,” her teacher would explain patiently.
“Oh, so now you think I’m made of money and can pay for the other kids, too? My husband doesn’t make any money, okay? I have to support this family all by myself, and it’s no easy task. I get up at the crack of dawn and work long hours, overtime all the time, just to keep food on the table. There will not be any $20.00 field trips for Miss Madeline, at least not until her father starts bringing in some real money!”
Maddie’s father had the same blank stare on his face that Maddie had come to understand did not mean he didn’t love her.
In the winter of her 12th year, Maddie’s grandmother gave the family a trip to Disneyworld as a Christmas present. Her mother’s mother seemed vaguely aware of the emotional nature of her daughter, and wanted to help, as long as it didn’t require actually getting involved. So she bought them all plane tickets and Disneyworld passes and promised to pay for the hotel room. Everything but the food.
“Well, how does she expect us to eat while we’re there?” her mother had complained to her father.
“Well, Cookie, we’d have to pay for food anyway, even if we weren’t at Disneyworld.” Maddie’s mother’s real name was Cookie. That was not a nickname her father or anyone else had given her. Her father’s name was Ike, a name that seemed to fit him about as well as Cookie fit her mother.
“You are so stupid,” her mother chided. “Do you know how much food costs at places like that?” She grabbed a generic soda from the fridge, one of the kind that Maddie thought tasted funny and flat, and turned back to glare at him.
“It’s just not that big a deal. Let’s just go and enjoy it and let Maddie enjoy it,” her father implored, barely holding on to the hope that this would not turn into every other conversation that started out this way.
“It’s always about Maddie. You coddle that girl so much. Do you see that? Do you even see it? I know you just love that she’s ‘your little girl.’ She looks so much like you; I can’t stand the sight of her sometimes.”
Maddie’s father glanced to the hallway just as her mother spoke those words. He saw Maddie’s big eyes staring at the back of her mother’s head. She looked up at him and his eyes smiled, then went to their blank place. She knew this was a secret message. “It’s okay,” his eyes said. “It’s okay.”
They packed that April and drove south from their home in Berwick, Pennsylvania to Orlando. The drive was scary for Maddie, so much time alone with her parents where she and her father couldn’t escape. And driving was a particularly dangerous activity. There was too much possibility for error.
“Get over, Ike! You better get over now or you’re going to miss the exit.”
He would never question her. He’d just put on his blinker and move over. Sometimes it would be hard to do what she wanted immediately because there was a big truck in the way or something, but he wouldn’t point that out to her.
When they got to the Contemporary Hotel at Disneyworld, Maddie got goose bumps. She wandered away from her parents as soon as they walked through the sliding glass doors. She was in awe at the grandeur of it, the newness, the smell of flowers and air conditioning and cookies everywhere. It was the most beautiful place she had ever been in her life. The hotel was huge and modern and bright, and it was connected to the park by a monorail that reminded Maddie of The Jetson’s on TV.
Her dad seemed to like it as much as she did. “Look at this, Maddie,” he pointed and walked with her over to the wall of water by the escalator. “Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah,” Maddie agreed, her eyes wide and no longer itchy from the fatigue of the drive. She felt cool standing next to the water, so glad to be out of the station wagon.
“We can still go over to the park tonight, if you want. Maybe your mom will feel like lying down for a little bit, and we can sneak over and scope out where we want to go. I was thinking we should do the Haunted House and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea first because those lines might be really long . . .”
“Ike! I need your help over here.” It was Maddie’s mother calling from across the lobby.
Her father held up his finger to Maddie to say “I’ll be back in one minute” and hurried over to his wife.
They did go to the park that night, and the next day, and the day after that. It was on the evening of the third night that things went terribly wrong. They were eating dinner in a restaurant that looked like something out of a Star Trek episode when she noticed her parents were looking at each other without talking. Her mother had put down her fork, and was just staring at her father with her mouth open.
“What?” Maddie asked. She usually stopped herself before jumping into these conversations, but she had been looking around at other families in the restaurant and hadn’t realized that a fight had started.
“What? You want to know what? Why don’t you tell your daughter what, Ike?” Her mother fired off her words like a nail gun.
Her father turned to her, “It’s nothing, Honey. There’s nothing wrong. Now, what should we do on our last day tomorrow?”
“No, it’s not nothing!” her mom interrupted. “If you won’t admit to it, then I’ll tell her. Your father was just ogling a young woman over there who is dressed like a tramp. I can’t imagine what she thinks she’s doing walking around in public with her breasts falling out of her top like that. There are children here! And then you! You humiliate me by staring at her chest like it’s the fountain of youth.”
“Cookie, I was not staring at her chest. I didn’t even notice the woman until you pointed her out.”
“Don’t give me that. That is such a lie. That’s all you ever do is lie.”
Her mother’s eyes were starting to get moist. That meant it was worse than usual. Maddie had the urge to comfort her mother, but she was afraid. She was working on getting up the courage to reach out and touch her mom’s leg with her hand, when her mother stood up from the table.
“I can’t take this anymore. I just can’t take it anymore. I hate you, Ike Johnson. I hate you and I want a divorce!” Her mother’s face was almost unrecognizable. She grabbed her purse, which caught momentarily on the back of the chair, and stormed out of the restaurant.
Maddie’s lip started to quiver. Her father stared blankly across the table. Without speaking, he reached out for his daughter’s hand. She hesitated, then brought it up and put it in his. They sat together, holding hands, their chicken fettuccini getting colder, tears slipping out onto both of their cheeks. Maddie had seen her father cry before, but not often. He usually just stared with his eyes looking dry and far away. But that day in the restaurant at Disneyworld, he cried. Maddie wondered if he was doing it just to make her feel better.
“Can I get you two anything?” The waitress had given them a little space and not come over for a few minutes. She finally came shyly to their table, kindness in her smile, and filled up her father’s water glass. “Would you like me to put those in a to-go container?”
“No, thank you,” her father said, without looking away from Maddie. “Just the check, please.”
“Sure,” the young girl said, and she pulled it out of her pocket and put it on the table near her dad. “Take your time.”
And they did. They sat and sipped water and let their skin stop crawling. Finally Maddie asked, “Should we go to the park for awhile before we go back to the room?”
“Yeah. I think that’s good,” her father said softly, but resolutely.
“We could just go walk around if you want to.”
“That’s a great idea,” he said as he put two 20 dollar bills down on the table. “Let’s go, Honey. Let’s just go and have a good time and let your mother calm down for awhile.”
Maddie loved how her father had a tone of “everything is going to be alright” even when things were not alright. He looked confident, if not a little shaken, as they left the restaurant. A few of the patrons stared at the couple, a handsome young father who seemed almost too young to have a child of his own, and his daughter who bore him a striking resemblance and was not yet a teenager. He took Maddie by the elbow and led her without making eye contact with anybody.
Maddie and Ike Johnson rode the Monorail back to the park just in time to see the parade go by on Main Street. There were dancers in beautiful costumes and floats and a young girl with red circles painted on her cheeks singing on top of a dome. There were clowns and dancers with huge bird heads and lots of little boys on their father’s shoulders.
Maddie didn’t smile, but she did stop shaking and took in the air as the sun went down.
When they got back to the hotel, her mother was gone. Not just gone from the room. Gone, gone. Her clothes were gone from the closet. The suitcase was gone from next to the TV. The car keys were gone from the bureau. Maddie’s father started to pace around the room.
“She couldn’t have gone,” he said unconvincingly. “I’m sure she’s just blowing off steam.”
The red light was flashing on their phone. Maddie’s dad picked up the phone and pushed the “0” button. “Yes. This is Ike Johnson in room 1305. My message light is flashing. . . Thank you.” Her father was silent as he listened to the message.
His eyes opened just slightly wider, but other than that, he betrayed nothing. He put the receiver back slowly in the cradle.
“Honey. Your mom has left to go back home. Everything is going to be just fine. It’s probably all for the better so we won’t have any more scenes like we did tonight. But right now, I need to go take care of some things to get us some transportation. . .”
“You mean – she left without us?” Maddie asked, the desperation building.
“Yes. She did.” Her dad seemed almost as shocked as she felt.
“How are we going to get home, Dad? We don’t have any money!” Maddie’s voice was starting to rise.
One of the many things Maddie’s mother insisted on controlling was the family money. She did not allow her husband to have or use the credit cards and gave him very little cash. And she never offered it. She made him ask, and would usually respond to his halting requests by demanding to know where the $20 was that she had given him yesterday.
“I don’t know how we’re getting home yet, Honey,” her father said, not quite strong enough to get up and leave the room. “But I will think of something.”
“What? What could you think of? She has to come back!” Maddie was starting to cry.
Her father crossed the small space between the two queen sized beds in the hotel room to sit down next to his daughter. He put both arms around her from the side and held her. They sat there, rocking just slightly in silence, in the strange fake light of the modern-looking lamps. They sat and wondered how they would get home, and what would be there when they got there.
It took them two days to make it back to Pennsylvania, and would have taken much longer had it not been for the grandfatherly kindness of an old long-haul trucker they met at Denny’s. Ike Johnson came from a hard-working, salt of the earth family, the kind of family that went deer hunting as a family every fall, and always ate what they killed, plus shared some with the neighbors. The kind of family that would name their older son Frank and their younger one Ike. Even if Ike had never quite taken to hunting, he had learned a lot from his father, and he knew a kind face when he saw one. He approached the man with the craggy nose at the breakfast counter at Denny’s, and a half-hour later Maddie was having her first ride in an 18-wheeler. The trucker detoured two hours from his route to take them right to their door in Berwick.