How to Start a Fire (21 page)

San Francisco, California

“Another Scotch and soda,” Jeff Fisher said to the bow-tied bartender.

The bartender poured obligingly, having already obliged Jeff five times before. Matthew regarded his red-faced colleague with concern. Matthew was standing next to Anna under droopy streamers hung by tipsy secretaries at the office holiday party. It was as if Jeff’s tongue sat unanchored in his mouth. Surely another Scotch and soda wouldn’t glue it in place.

“Should I cut him off?” Matthew Bloom asked Anna.

“It’ll only make him angry. Then he’ll go to some dive bar down the street and pick a fight.”

“I should get his keys.”

“Done,” Anna said, pulling the set from her pocket and twirling them around her index finger.

“When did that happen?”

“The third time he hugged me.”

“Now I remember. It did last longer than the first two.”

“Shouldn’t you be bonding and scheming with your colleagues?” Anna asked.

“I thought I was,” Matthew said.

Matthew had planted himself behind his desk for the first two hours of the annual Blackman and Blackman holiday bash but had surfaced an hour ago; since then, he’d drunk two cocktails and allowed Anna to provide him with a play-by-play of what he had missed, as if he were tuning in to the final quarter of a knuckle-biting football game. Unfortunately, this game was far from over.

The most compelling dramas happened under the mistletoe. Jeff had lip-locked with at least four members of the support staff, including a temp who had been employed at the firm for only two weeks. The final kiss, after Jeff’s fourth jigger of Scotch, lasted for a particularly long stretch, considering the circumstances. When Jeff’s hand began drifting southward, Mr. Blackman cleared his throat and launched into an improvised toast that was brief and inelegant and ended with the words “Bottoms up,” which he later regretted. At the end of the toast, Mr. Blackman slipped over to his lecherous employee and mumbled something. A few minutes later, Anna spotted the two in Mr. Blackman’s office, Jeff slouching in the client chair while being reprimanded by his boss. Anna knew that Jeff wouldn’t remember it the next day. She also knew that Blackman didn’t know the half of it. If he had, Jeff would have been axed years ago.

“Who’s the idiot who brought the mistletoe?” Matthew asked.

“I did,” Anna said.

While she had learned to rein in virtually all of her reckless whims, she still got a secret pleasure from watching other people lose control. However, by night’s end, Anna came to agree with Matthew: the mistletoe was definitely a mistake. Jackie Greenberg pulled Anna aside and whispered in her ear that heartbreak was unfolding in the women’s restroom. Anna arrived to find Carla Gomez in tears. She’d received the first kiss from Jeff and believed in its romantic potential, in part because they had been having an affair for the past four months. But then Carla watched Jeff parcel out his affections to three more women. Only then did she realize her insignificance. Sometimes it’s not the truth itself but the surprise that feels like a blow.

Anna told Carla to splash her face with cold water and then helped her wipe away the raccoon eyes made of mascara and tears. Coworkers congregated in the bathroom, showing their female solidarity and offering the scathing personal commentary that typically follows caddish behavior. Anna always hated the ritual. It wasn’t all Jeff’s fault. Carla had made a choice. Anna said nothing and let the verbal attacks fly.

Forget about him. You can do better.

He’s a dog.

He has the worst table manners I’ve ever seen.

I think he dyes his hair.

That’s a fake tan, you know.

He’s a pig.

He uses more hair product than I do.

He’s compensating for a small penis.

That last statement was pure conjecture, and Carla knew it was not the case. Although he was a selfish lover.

“That is not the kind of man you cry over,” Anna said, drawing the unseemly conversation to a close.

By now the boss and his very drunk employee were back in circulation. However, Jeff appeared to have been cowed by his superior’s lecture, which had included a sharp reminder that as an employee of Blackman and Blackman, Jeff Fisher was also an ambassador for the company. Max Blackman had never used the word
ambassador
in that context, and later, before bed, he would laugh uproariously as he told his wife about his pompous speech. Still, it did the trick. Fisher sullenly approached the bar, ordered a seltzer, and then joined the ranks of his male colleagues, touching on safe subjects like past or pending sporting events.

Anna saw the quizzical look on Matthew’s face when she returned from the bathroom forum.

“Everything under control?” he asked.

“Of course,” Anna said.

“Care to elaborate?” Matthew asked.

“Not particularly.”

“You never tell me anything.”

“I tell you what you need to know.”

Just when Matthew was about to press Anna for more details, the boss’s wife arrived. Abigail Blackman kissed her husband on the cheek, made eye contact with Anna, smiled warmly, and approached her. It had been almost six months since they’d last seen each other. An awkward dinner party, which Anna later learned was executed for the sole purpose of a romantic introduction. Abby thought Anna Fury and Wendell Miller were perfect for each other, mostly because Wendell didn’t drink either. The common denominator of sobriety was so rare in Abby’s circle that it seemed like an esoteric mutual interest, akin to stamp-collecting or beekeeping.

What Abby didn’t understand was that there were different types of sobriety. Anna was sober because she was a drunk; Wendell didn’t drink because he didn’t have a taste for it. That neither of them drank might have been the most salient similarity, but their differences were so magnificent that Anna found herself making mental notes of all the reasons he was ill suited for her. For instance, he liked smooth jazz; he had recently joined a lawn-bowling team; he drank tea, not coffee (although even Anna had to admit her distaste for that detail bordered on irrational); and his favorite book was
The Fountainhead
, by Ayn Rand. A burst of laughter escaped Anna’s lips when that nail in the coffin was hammered in. As an exit strategy, she’d pretended she was choking on her soup. In the kitchen, she drank a glass of water and steeled herself for the rest of the meal. Max found Anna in the kitchen and conveyed his apologies, but Anna wasn’t buying his feigned guilt. Max believed that the awkward romantic setup was one of life’s many nuisances. If others could endure it, so could Anna. When the evening ended, Wendell asked for Anna’s phone number. Even though she wasn’t remotely interested, she might have given it to him if it were not for one simple fact: Wendell hadn’t asked Anna a single question the entire night. He knew nothing about Anna other than her taste in clothing and her table manners, so why would he want to spend another night with her?

“What have I missed?” Abby asked Anna and Matthew as she joined them at the office party.

“Where to begin,” Anna said.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Matthew said.

The boss came over and handed his wife a glass of white wine.

“I have a feeling I missed something juicy,” Abby said.

There was something in the room, a feeling that, early as it was, the party had ended. The revelers were losing steam, resorting to conversations about work and plans for after the holidays. Something about the buffet table’s resemblance to a battlefield after combat told you the best was in the past.

“Hold this,” Abby said, passing her drink to her husband. She rolled up her sleeve and showed Anna a dark mole on her left forearm.

“Should I worry about this?”

Anna looked over, casually, trying to hide her clinician’s gaze, and studied the mole.

“You should see your dermatologist once a year for a mole check,” Anna said quietly, pretending that Matthew couldn’t hear her.

“But until I make it in, does it look malignant?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s a tad asymmetrical. You should ask your doctor.”

“So you’ll make an appointment tomorrow,” Mr. Blackman said abruptly.

“Of course,” said Abby.

Matthew stared at the trio quizzically.

“Is Anna some kind of mole expert?” Matthew asked.

“No. I am not a mole expert. Would you like another drink?”

Anna took Matthew’s half-full glass of bourbon and approached the bar. She could hear the conversation about her continuing in the background.

“Is Anna an expert on other things I should know about?” Matthew asked.

“Well, she
was
a doctor,” Abby said with a tinge of hostility, as if Matthew were deliberately disregarding the value of seven years of medical training.

“Anna was a doctor?” Matthew repeated.

“Yes. You didn’t know that?”

Anna turned around and looked at Max, pleading for help. Her cover was partially blown, but no other details needed to be passed on this evening.

Max cut off the exchange before another piece of information could be served. “Abby, since you arrived late, you need to mingle before everyone gets too soused.”

With that, Max guided his wife toward the senior partners before Matthew could launch into any follow-up questions. Anna returned and gave Matthew his fresh drink.

“What is she talking about?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Anna said.

Had this information surfaced at the beginning of their working relationship, Matthew wouldn’t have pressed on. But he was tired of her particular brand of reticence, and the bourbon had loosened his tongue.

“Anna, if you don’t answer the question, I’ll find out another way.”

“Just let it go.”

“No. Why is Abigail under the impression that you used to be a physician?”

“Because I was.”

“If you were a doctor, what are you doing working here?”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll quit.”

Matthew had never responded well to threats. He had been a willful child, overindulged by his mother, who felt so bound by the shackles of adulthood herself that she refused to rein in her son. Glynnis Bloom disciplined Matthew only when she was under direct observation from scornful eyes. Because she had no tried-and-true methods for establishing a parental dictatorship, she threatened only when desperate and never followed through. Years later, she would marvel at how reasonable her son had become, all things considered. Then again, she’d never had to appear against him in court.

After the Christmas and New Year’s break, Anna returned to the office. A week passed, and Matthew said nothing of their office-party conversation. Anna assumed Matthew’s interest in the topic had eventually faded, just like Jeff Fisher’s hangover.

As the trial date approached for a particularly important copyright case, Anna found herself working more hours than she had since she was a resident. At eleven on a Wednesday night, she and Matthew were on the floor of his office reading through precedent on the parody fair-use doctrine. The case involved a children’s book called
Whopper
, about a whale who tells tall tales. A year after it came out, a similar children’s book—this one geared more toward the adult reading the book to the child—was published:
Flibber
, about a dolphin who is a compulsive liar, his tall tales bordering on the absurd. In
Whopper
, the whale learned his lesson; Flibber learned no such lesson. Instead, he engaged in doublespeak and hyperbole, convincing his friends to invest in a subaquatic water park. Both books hit the bestseller list, but the authors of
Whopper
thought that the authors of
Flibber
had stolen their story.

Anna had read both
Flibber
and
Whopper
at least ten times. Each book featured an ornery sea otter and a pompous penguin.

“I’m worried about the penguin and the otter,” Anna said. “The parody isn’t clear.”

“Well, the penguin is a drunk,” Matthew said as he twisted his right wrist in a circular motion and studied a lump that had formed over the carpal region. “Could you come over here for a second?” he asked.

Anna crawled over to Matthew, who was sitting with his back against his desk. He held out his hand and pointed to the small protuberance.

“Should I be concerned about this?”

“Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“I thought I was.”

“I’m not a doctor.”

“Whatever you are, you have some medical knowledge. Do you want to put my mind at ease?”

Anna took his wrist in her hands and palpated the solid but movable mass. She checked the mobility of the wrist and let go of his hand.

“You’ll live,” she said.

“It looks like a tumor.”

“I’m sure you’ve investigated the condition online and already have a diagnosis,” Anna said.

“Maybe you’d like to confirm my diagnosis,” Matthew said.

“Why would I do that?”

“So I don’t jump to the conclusion that I have cancer of the wrist.”

“It’s most likely a ganglion cyst. It could go away on its own or you could have it drained or surgically removed. And there’s excellent anecdotal evidence supporting some unorthodox treatments.”

“For instance?”

“I’ve heard smashing a book on it works. The Bible is best. But I’m sure a law book would do. Most people aren’t capable of striking the cyst hard enough themselves, so they need someone else to do it.”

“Are you offering?” Matthew asked.

“Are you asking?”

“Yes.”

“Sure about that?” Anna said.

Matthew was deathly afraid of needles and medical offices and he avoided anything that might cause pain or permanent damage. But as a lawyer, he was accustomed to testing people and their limits, and he found it difficult to step away from a challenge that might enlighten him about someone’s character. He set his wrist on his desk as if patiently waiting for the guillotine.

Anna surveyed the law books on his shelf, taking her time. She was going to punish him for not letting his medical line of inquiry die. When Anna pulled the copy of
California Personal Injury
from the shelf and said, “This will do,” Matthew realized it was not a bluff.