Testing Kate (7 page)

“If you say so,” I said. I felt hollow, as if the anxiety had left behind a sickly, sour emptiness.

“It will get better. It just takes time. After a while you’ll get so used to talking in class, you won’t even remember why it made you so nervous to be called on in the beginning. It’s not as though you’re graded on your answers…so try to embrace it as a learning tool, as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the course material. Okay?”

I’ll have to take her word on that, I thought darkly. But I nodded, and stood.

“Thanks for your time,” I said.

“Anytime. My door is always open,” she said.

Chapter Eight

A
fter the waitress took our order, I surreptitiously checked the time.

“That’s the fourth time you’ve looked at your watch since we sat down,” Nick complained.

“I just don’t want to be late for my first day of work,” I said.

I was supposed to meet Armstrong at an address on Magazine Street, a few miles uptown from my apartment. Over our heavenly dinner at Jacques-Imo’s, Armstrong had told me his plan to write a book about D-Day. It was part of the reason he’d decided to return to New Orleans after his retirement from the University of Virginia. There was an enormous D-Day museum downtown, and the curator had agreed to grant Armstrong liberal access to the collection. World War II history had always fascinated me—I’d done my undergraduate thesis on the workforce of women who manned the factories during the war—and the idea that I was going to be instrumental in researching a book on the subject was thrilling.

Armstrong hadn’t said what we were going to do that afternoon, but I was so keyed up, I couldn’t settle down to study. So when Nick had swung by to see if I wanted to grab some lunch, I readily agreed. Although now that we’d gotten to the restaurant—a grimy little hole-in-the-wall with sticky Formica-topped tables, hard-faced waitresses with tattoos covering their arms, and Southern rock playing over the radio—I wasn’t so sure I’d made the right decision. I didn’t really have the time to deal with a bout of food poisoning. I decided to play it safe and ordered a BLT. Nick, braver than me, ordered something called the Mudbug Platter.

“You’re nuts to be doing this. No one can hold down a job, even a part-time one, during their One-L year,” Nick said.

“I heard that one of the Two-Ls is a stripper,” I said.

This piqued Nick’s interest. “Oh, yeah? Which one?”

I shrugged. “No idea. And it might just be an urban legend of the law school variety.”

“I bet it’s that redheaded girl. The one who always wears really short skirts. She was giving me the eye at the last Bar Review,” Nick said dreamily.

I snorted. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What?”

“I don’t know a nice way of putting this, but you’re sort of a slut,” I said. It was true. Nick hooked up nearly every weekend, always with a different woman he met out at a bar or party.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Nick said, shaking his head. “I’m a man. Men can’t be sluts. I’m just following my biological predisposition.”

“Which is?”

“To spread my seed, thus propagating my genetic line,” Nick said.

I opened my mouth, trying to think of something to say to this, and then thought better of it. I closed my mouth, pressing my lips together with disapproval, and shook my head.

“What?” Nick asked.

“I knew a guy in college like you. He scammed on every girl he saw and hooked up constantly. And do you want to know what he told me?”

“He enjoyed every minute of it?”

“He said that one morning, after he’d had yet another meaningless one-night stand with yet another anonymous girl, he was in her bathroom, planning his escape, and he caught sight of himself in the mirror. And in that moment he was so filled with self-loathing, he actually spit at his own reflection,” I said.

“So he not only snuck out on the chick, he also messed up her bathroom? Can you imagine having to clean someone else’s spit off your bathroom mirror?”

“That’s so not the point of the story,” I said.

“There was a point?”

“Yes! It’s that sleeping around may not be making you as happy as you think it is,” I said.

“God, you really don’t know men at all, do you?” Nick said.

The waitress slapped our plates down on the table. My BLT looked nonthreatening, but the platter in front of Nick held what looked like forty miniature lobsters, complete with eyes, antennae, and claws, boiled to a revolting shade of reddish-brown and served with a mountain of curly French fries.

“What are those things?”

“Mudbugs. Also known as crawfish,” Nick said.

“How do you eat them?” I asked.

“Like so,” Nick said. He picked up one of the crustaceans, twisted off its head, and sucked out the contents of its body. It was possibly the most revolting thing I’d ever seen in my life.

“Ça c’est bon,”
Nick pronounced in a surprisingly good Cajun accent.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” I said, pushing my sandwich aside as Nick picked up and beheaded another crawfish.

“Do you want to try one?” he asked.

“Um, no.”

“Your loss,” Nick said happily. “Hey, have you done the Contracts reading assignment yet? Is it bad?”

“Brutal.”

“Great,” Nick sighed. “Tell me again why I decided to go to law school?”

“Actually, I don’t know. You never told me,” I said. I picked up my sandwich and nibbled at an edge. As long as I didn’t focus on Nick’s slurping—which was hard to do—I thought I might be able to choke it down.

“
To Kill a Mockingbird.
I wanted to be Atticus Finch,” Nick said.

“Really?”

Nick shrugged. “No. But it sounds good, doesn’t it? Atticus Finch was the ultimate good guy. He was smart and socially conscious and an ace marksman.”

“So if it wasn’t Atticus, how did you end up here?”

“Paternal pressure. My dad talked me into it.”

“Oh, right. He’s a lawyer, isn’t he?”

Nick nodded. He tossed the carcass of a crawfish into a plastic basket the waitress had thoughtfully provided. “He’s a tax and estate lawyer in D.C. He wants me to join his firm when I get out of school.”

“At least you have a guaranteed job lined up,” I said.

“In tax? I don’t think so. But I have a few years to break it to him,” Nick said.

“Will he be upset?”

“Definitely. Good old Dad. He likes getting his way.”

“What kind of law are you going to practice?” I asked.

I had no idea what sort of practice I was going to end up in. Litigation? Transactional? The district attorney’s office? Probably whatever I could get a job in, I thought darkly. First I had to pass Hoffman’s Criminal Law class.

“I’m going into supermodel law,” Nick announced.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, like that even exists.”

“Models need legal representation too, don’t they? And I’m just the guy for the job. Seriously, I have it all planned out. And then I’ll write a best-selling autobiography called
Supermodel Lawyer,
and it will be made into a movie starring Will Smith.”

“Will Smith?” I asked dubiously.

“Why not? I know what you’re thinking—I’m white and he’s black, so he’s not the obvious choice. But that’s what artistic license is for.”

“No, I’m just shocked that you think someone as talented, good-looking, and funny as Will Smith would be the actor chosen to play you in the movie of your life,” I said, and then shrieked when Nick picked up a crawfish and thrust it at me, pretending to let it nibble my hand. “Ugh, get that thing away from me.”

Nick just laughed and popped the mudbug’s head off.

“Where do you want me to drop you?” Nick asked. He was threading his way through the slow-moving traffic on Magazine Street in his Mini.

I looked down at the piece of paper Armstrong had given me. “He just gave me the address,” I said. “I assume it’s a museum or historical house or something.”

“I don’t see anything like that around here,” Nick said. “Just stores.”

Both sides of the street were lined with shops, most advertising that they sold “genuine” antiques. Some were housed in converted cottages, others in newer construction, but all were cute and busy. Shoppers bustled around from store to store, spilling out onto the sidewalks with arms full of shopping bags.

“Wait! There he is,” I said, pointing to a spot on the sidewalk where Armstrong was standing. He was wearing a seersucker suit today over a pressed white oxford shirt, looking every bit the Southern gentleman.

“That’s Armstrong McKenna? He’s shorter than he looks on television,” Nick said. He pulled over to the curb. “Here you go. Service with a smile.”

“Thanks for lunch,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, it was great. First you called me a male slut, then you disparaged my food. That Graham is a lucky guy, all right,” Nick said. He poked me in the side to show he was just kidding.

“Wish me luck,” I said, surprised at how nervous I actually felt.

“Good luck,” Nick said. “Although I’m sure you won’t need it. You’ll do great.”

“Was that a beau?” Armstrong asked, after Nick drove off.

“Who, Nick? No, just a friend.”

“What a pity,” Armstrong said, turning. We started to walk down the sidewalk, passing through throngs of tourists and shoppers all out taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather. “He had a nice smile. Very sexy.”

“He’s a goofball. But you may be right about his smile. A lot of women seem to fall for it.”

“But not you?”

I shook my head. “No. I have a boyfriend.”

“Ah, that’s right. But he doesn’t live here, correct? What did you say again? He’s an archaeologist in Utah?”

“Close,” I said, with a laugh. “He’s an astronomy professor in Arizona.”

Armstrong shuddered. “Bad idea. You should never get involved with an academic. They’re all insufferable.”

“You’re an academic,” I pointed out.

“I
was
an academic. That’s how I know. Trust me. Trade him in for the young man with the sexy smile,” Armstrong said. He took a sharp left and started down the walkway of a one-story white shotgun house with black shutters. A white sign hung by the door, with the words B
IG
E
ASY
A
NTIQUES
and a fleur-de-lis painted on it in black.

“So is there a museum around here or something?” I asked, looking around. “I thought you said you wanted to do some research today.”

“I do,” Armstrong said. “Tables.”

“Tables?” I repeated.

“Obviously, I need to redecorate. I can’t live in a whorehouse forever. So I thought I’d start with a new dining-room table,” he said. As though this made all the sense in the world.

“And you wanted me here because…,” I said, my voice trailing off in a question.

“I need a second opinion,” Armstrong said.

“We’re going shopping?” I asked, crestfallen that we weren’t going to start researching Armstrong’s book.

“That we are, darlin’. That we are.”

Chapter Nine

W
hen I was in the sixth grade, my father gave my mother a Betamax videocassette recorder for Christmas.

The gift did not go over well.

My mom looked at the VCR, sitting on a pile of discarded green wrapping paper dotted with tiny red poinsettias, the same way she might have if he’d gotten her a vacuum cleaner or a mop. Her face tightened with anger, her cheeks reddening and her mouth pursing up. Not only was it wholly impersonal, it was really meant for family use, and thus, to a woman who had been coveting a gold necklace from Tiffany’s, the VCR was a truly shitty present.

I have a very clear memory of that Christmas. My mom carefully avoided speaking to, or even looking at, my father for the rest of the day. She and her younger sister, my aunt Caroline, had a whispered conference in the kitchen, but I couldn’t hear what was said, even when I pressed a glass to the wall (a technique I’d learned about in a Nancy Drew novel), not with my baby cousin Jenna running around like a shrieking monkey. But it was pretty clear: My mom was pissed. And dinner was even worse.

“What is this we’re eating again? Osso buco? Oh, how…innovative,” Grandmother Bennett had said. She poked at the osso buco with her fork.

Jenna squawked when she upended her milk right into the green-bean casserole. Caroline, who was pregnant, excused herself to throw up in the toilet.

“More wine, anyone?” my father asked, looking grim.

Later that night, when my father started to unpack the VCR so that we could watch the Clint Eastwood movie he’d rented, my mother stopped him.

“That,” she said firmly, “is going back tomorrow. Leave it in the damned box.”

My dad ordered her the necklace the next day, along with a matching pair of earrings.

But the VCR stayed. And when we went to the video-rental store to pick out movies each weekend, I had to fish behind the bulky VHS tapes for the compact Betamax ones that played in our VCR.

“Why couldn’t we get one that played VHS tapes?” I asked my dad, when—yet again—the sole copy of
Sixteen Candles
in Betamax was checked out, although there were three VHS copies sitting right there on the shelf.

“Betamax is a superior technology. Just wait and see—it’ll only be a matter of time before VHS is phased out and everyone has a Betamax,” my dad predicted.

He was a broad man, with a round face that was always ruddy—in the summer from the sun, in the winter from the wind—but he wasn’t fat, just solidly built. His sweaters always smelled like cedar chips, and his voice was deep and full, like a news anchor’s. I loved his voice, loved it when he’d read to me when I was a little girl. I’d rest my head against the crook of his shoulder and listen to the words vibrating through his chest.

My dad resisted buying a VHS player for years, caving in only after the local video store stopped carrying Betamax movies altogether and refused to special-order them for him.

Later, after the accident, when Caroline and I set about packing up the house, making decisions about what to keep, what to donate to charity, I found the Betamax squirreled away high on a closet shelf, the cords wrapped up in neat, symmetrical coils. I ran my hand over the black plastic, leaving a trail in the dust that had settled there, and knew that my father had stashed it away so that when Betamax videotapes made their triumphant return to the store shelves, he’d be ready.

My dad never gave up hope. It wasn’t in his nature.

By the time I got to the Rue, I was exhausted. My shoulders and neck ached, my back had a crick in it from bending over my books, and my head hurt so much, it felt like someone was sticking needles into my temples. At least now that it was October, the muggy heat was finally starting to break, although the seventy-degree temperature still seemed ridiculously warm to me. When I was a kid living in central New York, we had to wear snowsuits under our Halloween costumes.

Everyone was already at the Rue when I got there. Dana, Lexi, and Jen were sitting at our usual table, and Nick and Addison were over talking to Scott Brown and Pete Berkus, who had also started studying at the coffee shop.

“Does that work?” Lexi was asking Dana as I arrived at the table.

“Does what work?” I asked. I pulled out my books and notepad and dumped them on the table in front of me.

“I bought a book-on-CD version of a Criminal Law study guide, and I play it while I sleep,” Dana explained. She shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s helping yet, but I figure it can’t hurt.”

“Studying while sleeping. Now, that’s hard-core,” I said.

“I’ve thought about sleeping with my casebooks under my pillow,” Jen said.

“What good would that do?” Lexi asked.

“I thought that the case law might seep in through osmosis,” Jen said.

Nick and Addison walked back over.

“Oh, good, all of my chickadees are here,” Addison said. “So, I was thinking of starting a harem. Anyone in?”

“In your dreams,” Lexi snorted.

“Hey, Kate,” Nick asked. “I stopped by your place before I came over.”

“I wasn’t there,” I said.

“Yeah, I noticed. When did you get here?”

“Just a few minutes ago. Sorry I’m late. I was at the library, and I lost track of time,” I said.

“See, I told you. Law school is like a black hole,” Jen said.

“It’s a whirling vortex of insanity,” Addison said. “Finals are still months away, but people are already freaking out.”

“The library was packed. Every seat in the reading room was taken,” I said.

“I can’t study when it’s like that,” Jen said. “It’s too distracting.”

“Hey, Nick, can I see your Contracts notes from Friday’s class?” Scott called across the coffeehouse. A few of the patrons glanced up from their papers and books and looked at him disapprovingly. Scott, oblivious, bounded over to our table.

“Hi, Scott,” Lexi said, smiling at him.

“Hey, guys,” Scott said. He was wearing a white baseball cap that was turned around backward. Tufts of shiny dark hair poked out over the plastic adjustable strap.

“You should borrow Kate’s notes. She’s more thorough than I am,” Nick said.

Scott looked at me. “Do you mind? I only need them for a few minutes. I’ll give them right back.”

I rifled through the stack of binders in front of me and pulled out the black one. “Sure, here you go,” I said, holding it out to him.

Scott stepped around the table and took the folder.

“I like your hair like this,” he said, holding on to my ponytail. He pulled it playfully, so that I had to tip my head back, and then rested his other hand on my shoulder.

“Um, thanks.”

Scott began kneading my shoulders. “You’re really tense,” he remarked. “You need a massage.”

His thick fingers dug painfully into my skin. I shrank away from him, but his hands moved with me.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’ve probably had too much coffee.”

Scott stopped rubbing, but his fingers lingered on my shoulders. “What did everyone do last night?” he asked.

“Nick and I went to the Boot again,” Addison said. “And I went home alone.”

Addison looked at Nick in a pointed way that made it clear that Nick had not left the Boot on his own. Nick grinned, but the tip of his nose turned pink.

“Laundry,” Jen said.

“Studying,” Dana said.

“I had a date,” Lexi said, still smiling flirtatiously at Scott.

“I stayed home,” I said. Armstrong and I had spent the afternoon shopping again—this time for a sofa for his living room—and then I’d curled up in bed with my Torts textbook. Big excitement.

“I thought Graham was flying in this weekend,” Jen said.

“He had to cancel. He’s cowriting a paper with another professor, and they had to work on it all weekend,” I said. I still hadn’t seen Graham since the weekend we’d decided to get back together. We tried, but we were both so busy, it wasn’t as easy to fit in the weekend trips as we’d initially thought.

“Who’s Graham?” Scott asked.

“My boyfriend. He lives in Arizona.”

“Oh, right—your
boyfriend,
” Scott said, with a wide grin, taking his hands off my shoulders. He winked at me. “Thanks for these,” he said, gesturing to my notebook. “I’ll bring them back in a minute.”

After he was out of earshot, I muttered, “Okay, that was weird. Did he think I was lying about having a boyfriend?”

“Jen, care to fill her in?” Lexi said.

Jen cleared her throat and suddenly became absorbed in her notes.

“What?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Jen said, still refusing to meet my stare.

“Tell me!”

“Well…Scott might have sort of, kind of gotten the idea that you might…be into him,” Jen said. She took a sip of her hot chocolate.

“
What?
Why?”

“Because…I…uh…sort of told him you were,” Jen said. Her pale skin flushed, and she finally looked up at me, her expression sheepish. “It just slipped out.”

“Slipped out? But I’m
not
interested in him!” I said. “Why would you tell him that?”

“Because I thought you guys would make a cute couple,” Jen said.

“She thought that if Scott was under the impression that you were interested in him, he’d ask you out,” Lexi explained.

“It was weeks ago,” Jen explained.

“Nice,” Addison commented.

“Jen! You have to go tell Scott that I don’t like him,” I said.

“I just had a flashback to the seventh grade,” Nick said.

“Why, did a little girl tell you she liked you and then do a take-back?” Lexi asked, smiling at Nick.

“No, all the little girls loved me. I used to get notes shoved in my locker all the time,” Nick said. “They were decorated with bubbly hearts and would say things like
Kelli thinks you’re cute!
”

“Huh, I never got notes,” Addison mused. “Although there was this one chick who kept calling my house. She’d giggle when I answered, and say, ‘I love you!’ But then she’d hang up on me.”

“Yeah, that used to happen to me too. Those little girls can be really aggressive,” Nick said.

“You guys!” I said, louder than I meant. I noticed that Scott was looking over at me. He grinned and nodded when he saw me looking at him. I waved weakly, and then hissed, “Jen, undo whatever it is you’ve done.”

“I can’t do that,” Jen said. “It will hurt his feelings.”

“Besides, it sounds insincere,” Nick said. “If I heard a chick liked me, and then the same friend who told me she liked me came hustling over and told me no, it was just a mistake, I’d assume it was bullshit.”

“Which part?” Lexi asked.

“The part where she did the take-back. I’d think that she was still really into me but was worried that I didn’t return her feelings,” Nick said.

“I wouldn’t think that,” I argued. “I’d just assume that it had all been a misunderstanding.”

“That’s because you’re a woman,” Nick said smugly. “Men are always ready to believe that women are interested in us. We also don’t sit around asking each other if our jeans make our asses look fat.”

“I don’t do that,” Dana said.

“You are infinitely more sensible than most women, Dana,” Addison said, and Dana blushed from the praise.