In Medias Res (16 page)

“His left leg is going to be shorter than his right, so I don’t know if he’ll be able to play soccer when he grows up. That may be an impossible dream. But what I do know is that when I left to come back here, he was starting to walk on his own. If you had seen him when he came in, you wouldn’t have thought such a thing was possible. When he took his first step, his smile lit up the room. I knew then that I was in the right place. If not for stories like his, I would feel like I was fighting a losing battle. I’d be tempted to give up. But I don’t because I know I’m doing the right thing.”

“Don’t you ever get scared, though?”

“Only every minute of every day. If I didn’t, I’d know it was time for me to go into a new line of work. Whether I’m here or there, I have someone’s life in my hands. That’s not an easy thing to deal with. When you lose a patient, you feel responsible. Even if you know you’ve done everything you possibly could to save that person, the guilt overwhelms you. But I came home to take a break. Let’s talk about something else for a while.”

She uncorked a bottle of pinot noir, poured two glasses, and handed me one. Then she nearly made me choke on it.

“Let’s talk about you,” she said. “Why have you been out of a job for almost five months?”

“I wanted to tell you face-to-face, not via e-mail. But I thought you might hear it through the grapevine before I could.”

“I’ve heard a version of the story,” she said as we carried our plates to the table. “Now I want to hear yours.”

I took the empty chair across from her and began to tell her about my trip from the penthouse to the outhouse.

“I don’t have to tell you who Everett McDougald is. He’s only one of the richest men in Chicago and my firm’s—my
former
firm’s largest client. He’s had Beckmann, Warner, and Lowe on retainer for years. We—note how I still say
we
.
They
have helped him with everything from contract review to civil suits. You name it and we—
they
have done it for him. Five months ago, my phone rang in the middle of the night. It was four in the morning and my first thought was, ‘Oh, God, who died?’”

“And you immediately thought of me.”

“Naturally, but it wasn’t about you. It was the senior partner calling me to tell me that Everett McDougald’s son E. J. had been arrested after getting into a fight on the L and he was being charged with aggravated assault during the commission of a hate crime. The senior McDougald had a soft spot for me because of the work I’d done for him in the past and he insisted I be part of the defense team. When Howard Beckmann called me, he didn’t just make me part of the team. He offered to make me first chair, which was a major vote of confidence. I started salivating right away and said yes without hearing any of the details. I didn’t need to hear the details. All I knew was that with the McDougald name involved, it would be the kind of case that, if I won it, would put my name on the door.”

“Corner office, here you come.”

“So I thought. The call came on the weekend before my birthday, so I went back to bed thinking ‘Happy birthday to me.’

“The arrest was all over the news the next day. That’s when the details began to come out. E. J. and several of his fraternity brothers went bar hopping on Friday night. All of them got too hammered to drive so they decided to take the L home. By home, I don’t mean the McDougald estate. If they had gone there, there wouldn’t be a story. One of the members of the group has an apartment in the city so they decided to go there to keep the party going a while longer.”

I took a quick sip of wine as the story got harder to tell.

“Jason Cooper, the victim in the case, boarded the train at the Halsted stop. He didn’t know E. J. from the man in the moon, but he thought he was cute so he smiled at him. E. J. took offense and started verbally abusing Jason on the train. E. J.’s a big guy—six-four, two hundred twenty pounds. Jason is half a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter. He tried to defuse the situation, but E. J.’s friends—filled with a potent combination of testosterone and alcohol—inflamed it even more.”

“The proverbial Greek chorus?” Jennifer asked.

“Exactly. When Jason got off the train at the next stop to try to prevent a confrontation, E. J. followed him. E. J. beat him up and slashed him in the face with a straight razor. He fled the scene thinking there were no witnesses, but a security camera caught the entire incident.

“When I met with the McDougalds on Sunday to hear E. J.’s side and plan my defense, E. J. confirmed that what the press had reported was accurate. He displayed zero remorse and he insisted on having his day in court because he wanted to prove that what had happened wasn’t his fault.”

“How was it
not
his fault?”

“I’m getting to that part.” Jennifer looked as indignant hearing about the meeting as I had felt during it. I gestured for her to be patient. “I knew there was no way I could win on the facts. Not with a client sitting in court practically gloating over what he had done. I reported that to the senior partners and suggested they try to broker a deal with the DA for a reduction of the charges.”

“And?”

“The partners wouldn’t go for it. They said a plea bargain wasn’t an option. It would imply guilt and, as far as we—
they
were concerned, their client was one hundred percent not guilty. The partners wanted me to prove that E. J. was provoked. That Jason goaded him into violence by coming on to him.

“E. J. turned a man’s face into a Picasso painting and carved ‘fag’ into his forehead because the guy smiled at him on the L, and I’m supposed to use homosexual panic as a defense? I couldn’t do it. There was no way I could stand in open court, point my finger at the victim, and accuse him of something as heinous as
smiling
.

“The partners called me insubordinate and threatened to place a formal letter of reprimand in my personnel file if I didn’t mount the defense they wanted. I told them they could stick their reprimands up their asses and I quit. I packed up my toys and I left. Now I’ve been essentially blackballed. No other firm will even take my calls, let alone consent to an interview.

“The case went to trial a couple of weeks ago. The firm trotted out its go-to guy to sit first chair. Unlike me, he did exactly what he was told. It makes him look like a homophobe, but if he makes partner, I’m sure he won’t care. He can use the resulting bonus to buy a new moral compass. Closing arguments are Monday morning, so jury deliberations should begin on Monday afternoon. Then the real waiting game begins to see who gets proven right—me or the firm.”

Jennifer gave me a standing ovation.

“What was that for?” I asked when she sat down again.

“There aren’t many people who would choose principles over a paycheck.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I miss my paycheck.”

“Are you okay for money?”

“I have enough in savings to tide me over for a while. I just hate watching the balance dwindle as I transfer part of it to my checking account each month.”

“Tell me something.” Jennifer reached for the last bit of salad in the bowl. “Did E. J. lash out at Jason because he didn’t want Jason to make a pass or because he did and he didn’t want his friends to know it?”

I had asked myself the same question a dozen times—if E. J. were secretly or latently homosexual—and I had come to the same conclusion each time. “If he is gay, we don’t want him on our team.”

Jennifer looked at me through narrowed eyes.

“What?” I asked as I poured myself another glass of wine.

“I’m giving you a chance to change your pronoun.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said ‘we’ again.
We
don’t want him on
our
team. Was that another slip of the tongue or are you trying to tell me something?”

“Both, I guess.”

“You guess?” When I reached for her empty plate, she pulled it out of my reach. “The dishes can wait.” She leaned forward in her chair. “Talk to me, Sydney. What revelation did you have as a result of being on this case? Did talking to E. J. hit too close to home? Were you afraid you’d end up like he did—so filled with rage that you lashed out at anyone who showed an interest in you?”

She backed me in a corner and I came out swinging. What did I have to lose?

“I’m not E. J. I’m nothing like him. The case didn’t teach me anything.
You
did. When you went to Darfur, I couldn’t imagine not seeing you every day. The reality was even worse. I died a little bit more each day you were away. Each time you leave, it gets harder for me to let you go.”

“Each time I come back, it gets harder for me to stay.”

“Stay with me.”

I reached for her hand. Once more, she pulled away.

“I told you before. One night with you wouldn’t be enough for me. I need more than that.”

“I can give you more than that.”

She looked at me hard, her eyes examining mine. “Careful, Syd,” she said. “For a minute there, I almost thought you meant that.”

“I do mean it. I love you, Jen.”

She shook her head. “Don’t do this to me, Sydney. Don’t say those words to me unless you’re willing to back them up. Until you are, we don’t have anything to talk about. Thanks for dinner. It was…enlightening.” She pushed her chair away from the table and headed for the door.

I had finally been honest with her—with myself—and she didn’t believe me. I felt my one chance at happiness slipping away, but I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to approach her.

I had hoped that she would take my confession at face value and not question me. I had hoped that I would tell her how I felt and she would open my eyes the way I had opened my heart. That she would sweep me into the bedroom and show me what I had been missing all those years I had been hiding my feelings from her—and myself.

She opened the door but I pushed it shut before she could walk through it.

“Don’t run away from this,” I said. “Don’t run away from me.”

She rested her head against the door as if she wished she could crawl through the peephole and disappear out the other side. “We’re not teenagers, Syd. I can’t be with you like this and pretend it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Believe me, it means everything.”

“What about Jack?”

“He is a mistake that I intend to rectify as soon as I can. In the meantime—”

Pressing my body against hers, I pulled her coat out of her hands and let it fall to the floor. I ran my hands through her shorn hair and kissed the back of her neck. The skin there was so soft and warm. I wanted to know what the rest felt like.

“Sydney, don’t.” Still facing the door, she refused to turn around.

I did a little refusing of my own. I refused to listen to her. Reaching under her—
my
—shirt, I lightly ran my fingertips over her skin. I started on her lower back and moved around to her stomach. I moved one hand up to her chest. I slid the other down the front of her jeans.

My left hand kneaded her breast. My right slipped inside her underwear, felt the coarse hairs. When my fingers found the hard knot between her legs, she gasped and sagged against me.

“Don’t you want this as much as I do?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.” She finally faced me. “I want it more.”

She kissed me and it was like high school all over again. Back then, she and I used to lock ourselves in my room and practice kissing when we were supposed to be doing our homework. I would pretend I was kissing David DiNunzio; she would pretend she was kissing Rachel Nicholson. When the marathon sessions were over, I would pretend that I didn’t feel anything for her. I didn’t want to go on pretending.

“Who taught you to kiss like that?” I asked breathlessly.

“You did.” She leaned in to kiss me again but pulled back at the last minute. “Are you sure about this?”

“I can show you better than I can tell you.” I took her hand and led her to the bedroom. The place where I slept with Jack but fantasized about her.

When I was with Jack, I reverted into the fifteen-year-old everyone had called Pizza Face. I was so self-conscious that I couldn’t enjoy myself. Being with him felt like a performance. I couldn’t come with him. I would come close—pardon the pun—but I had to finish the job myself after he fell asleep. I played a good game, though, so he never knew the difference. Or if he did, he never let on.

It wasn’t that way with Jennifer. I wasn’t frozen with her the way I was with Jack. I felt comfortable with her. Relaxed. She made me feel beautiful—supermodel gorgeous like she had promised I would one day be. I wanted her eyes on me. I wanted her hands on me. I wanted her mouth on me. One touch from her and I found what I had been searching for all my life. I learned what desire meant. How it felt.

With Jennifer, I didn’t think about myself. I thought about her. About pleasing her. About what she wanted. And then I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t fantasizing or pretending. I was with her. And I couldn’t get enough.