Unsaid: A Novel (10 page)

“Really? When?”

Martha shrugs off the question. “I’ve divided your phone calls into condolence, business-related, and urgent business-related.”

David finally picks up the lists in front of him. “Thanks. What else do I need to know?”

Martha chews her lower lip.

“Just tell me. I’m going to find out anyway.”

“Well, you’re scheduled to pick a jury in the Morrison case before Judge Allerton in three weeks.” Martha quickly blurts out this last part as if by saying it fast perhaps David won’t really focus on what she’s just said.

“What?” David closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Chris was supposed to get an adjournment.”

“That is with the adjournment.”

“He only gave me one week? Allerton’s granted longer extensions for hangnails.”

“It’s not about you; it’s the thing he’s got with Max.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s not very fair.”

“You’ve been away too long if you think fairness actually matters. You can always make another run at him in person.”

“You mean beg.”

“It’s only begging if you whine,” Martha says. “There’s a fresh pack of toothpicks in your top drawer. And I also told Max that if he got stupid with you, I personally would go into his address book and e-mail all his girlfriends each other’s phone numbers. So don’t let him push you to do anything you’re not up for yet.”

This is why I love Martha. She knows almost everyone’s personal weakness at the firm, but only exploits that knowledge for the deserving few. David smiles at the thought of Max squirming. “Maybe Max will surprise us both,” he says.

“Sure. And maybe flaming pigs will fly out of my ass.”

David grabs a toothpick from his top drawer and drops it into the corner of his mouth. “Unless you’ve got more happy news, can you find Chris for me?”

“That I can do. One last thing. You’re still scheduled to do your annual presentation to the first-years tomorrow on ethics. I should get someone else to cover it.”

“No way. That’s the one where I get to tell the kids about the oath and all the horror stories about what happens to lawyers who go to prison for perjury. I always look forward to that one.”

“Let someone else do it this year. You’ve got enough on your plate.”

“It’s only an hour and it’s one of the few things I do around here that matters. First-years need to understand the importance of telling the truth. Keep it on my schedule.”

“As you wish,” Martha says as she backs out of the room bowing to David before she closes the door behind her. This gets a smile out of him.

David picks up the top sheet of paper from a pile. Before he makes it through the first paragraph, there’s a single loud knock on the door and then Max bursts into the office.

“Man, it is good to see you back behind that desk,” Max says. “How’s it going so far?”

David waves to the stack of papers and phone messages on his desk. “I just got in. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment.” When Max doesn’t respond, David repeats the word
“overwhelmed”
with an exaggerated slowness. “Surely you’ve at least heard the term before, no?”

“Come in when you need to; leave when you need to. Delegate the crap to your associates,” Max says.

Chris Jerome, David’s favorite senior associate, walks in at that moment and stands behind Max. Max at first doesn’t notice her, and continues, “The truth is a trained monkey could do most of it.”

Chris clears her throat and Max turns to greet her. “See? Perfect timing,” he says. You might think Max would be at least slightly embarrassed by the fact that an associate overheard his comment, but then you don’t know Max; he would’ve proudly said the same thing directly to a room full of associates.

“Vince Lombardi’s got nothing on you when it comes to inspiration,” Chris tells him. “You know, Max, even monkeys get to go home and have a banana every once in a while.”

Max rolls his eyes. That’s partner-speak for “Associates don’t know how good they have it; when I was an associate they wouldn’t even let us wear shoes until we had made it past our fifth year, and it wasn’t until our sixth year that they took the razor blades out of them,” or something like that. “I’ll pick you up later for a quick lunch at Marconi’s,” Max tells David.

“As usual, you don’t listen,” David says. “I’m swamped.”

Max waves away the objection. “You still need to eat.” As Max passes Chris on the way out, he whispers something to her and then closes the door behind him.

“So, what’d Beelzebub say?” David asks her.

“What do you think? He wants me to watch over you and make sure you’re okay.” Chris takes one of the two seats opposite David’s desk.

“Just be careful with Max. He can be a good friend at the firm—”

“—as long as you know he’s standing in front of you,” Chris finishes. “I know, I know. You’ve told me a hundred times before.”

“And I know you’ve been working eighteen-hour days to stay on top of my cases. Thank you. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Don’t keep score, okay? I’m still running at a deficit.”

Chris could easily be every wife’s worst nightmare—attractive, smart, only thirty, and required to spend long hours with their husbands.

I admit that, even though Chris was married and David, during the life of our marriage, had never given me cause for real worry (he often joked that he was too tired to satisfy me, let alone a second woman), there was a time several years back when I had my own doubts about her. Chris started calling David at home during all hours of the night. It didn’t help that most of the partners at the firm—male and female—are on their second or third spouses and most of these are former secretaries, legal assistants, or associates.

Before I had the chance to confront David about my concerns, he came to me for my advice. David often did that about interpersonal issues—the aspect of his life where he always felt the least prepared and the most vulnerable. I loved that he trusted my judgment; it made me feel like we were allies.

It turned out that Chris had been receiving inappropriate, unwelcome, and increasingly frequent advances from a very senior partner (what kind of first name is Whitney for a man anyway?) whom she’d been working with to prepare for a trial. Chris went to David to discuss what she should—and could—do without impacting her career.

David, ever loyal to his favorites, wanted to speak to “Whit” and, if that didn’t stop the jerk, report him to the executive committee. Chris rejected that suggestion; no amount of assurance could convince her that David’s actions would be career-neutral.

As the situation spiraled downward and Chris considered leaving the firm, David decided he would need to report the situation, notwithstanding Chris’s wishes. This is when he laid out the situation for me. I was so relieved at his explanation for all the Chris intimacy that I blurted out the first solution that came into my mind.

“Castrate the little bastard.”

David first looked at me with that
Can you please be serious
expression he occasionally threw my way, but then I could see the thin tendrils of an idea take hold of him. He broke into a wide smile.

“Castration. Of course. Thanks, honey.” He kissed me briefly on the lips and then spent most of that evening talking on the phone.

In the end, David got Chris to agree to wear a microcassette recorder during all interactions with the offending creep. By the end of only one week, Chris had recorded enough of Whit’s comments about her physical appearance and invitations to out-of-town “educational seminars” (this last said with an audible smirk) to fill two tapes. She then handed David the tapes with disgust, as if they were something she’d found floating in a subway toilet.

David played the tapes for Whit that very evening. When he was finished, David told Whit that he not only would have the tapes
played at the next partners’ meeting, but would also deliver copies to Whit’s (second) wife. The price for David’s silence was relatively cheap: an immediate cease and desist of the behavior and a well-deserved “excellent” review for Chris.

Three years later, Chris is now only nine months away from being voted on for elevation to the exalted status of partner, the tapes are secured somewhere in our home, and Whit is Chris’s biggest cheerleader (a result that may coincide with the fact that David sends Whit a blank microcassette tape through the interoffice mail about once a month).

Sitting in David’s office now, Chris pulls out a folder full of notes. “Are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Chris shrugs. “Probably not one consistent with your remaining a partner at the firm.” Reading from the file, Chris recites a long list of matters and their status. David tries to stay focused, but I can see the struggle; his eyes keep sliding toward our picture on his desk.

To my vestigial ears, Chris’s voice soon merges with the phones ringing and conversations taking place in the other offices until all these elements become simply a wall of overwhelming noise that forces me from the building.

There were many things that made me devoted to Joshua Marks once he left the ivy-covered buildings of Cornell and became, like me, just a small-town vet. His loss had made him less certain about himself and his world. He took his patients and their well-being seriously, but no longer viewed himself as anything more than a journeyman veterinarian—“another schmo riding the bus,” he would
say. Now Joshua listened more, said little (and nothing about himself at all), and chose his words much more carefully. I felt comfortable in the silences that existed in the ever-growing gaps between his sentences. I was not the only one.

Jimmy Rankin, a fourteen-year-old boy in a football jersey, waits for Joshua in our reception area. The office has not yet officially opened for the day, so the waiting room is empty except for the boy and the large cardboard carton in his lap.

Jimmy has dark hair, bright blue eyes, a warm smile, only one ear, and a deep scar that cuts through the left side of his face. He lost the ear and gained the scar in the car accident that took his older brother’s life two years ago.

After that accident, Jimmy somehow became a magnet for all types of stray animals. He found them—or they found him—in the most unlikely of places. Almost all these strays have found homes either through his own efforts or through the persistence of (okay, the guilt inflicted by) the people at our office. Invariably, Jimmy names every creature he finds—dog, cat, squirrel, raccoon, or bird—the same thing; he calls them all some variation on
Pete,
the name of his dead brother.

“Any luck, Jimmy?” Joshua asks as he emerges from an exam room and greets the boy with a handshake.

“Not so much, Dr. Marks. A lot of lookers, but no takers.”

Joshua nods in knowing sympathy. “Well, keep trying. Everyone doing okay in there?” Joshua peers over the side of the carton and sees eight small kittens crawling over one another and a hot-water bottle.

“I think so, but the little guy, Tiny Pete? He’s not taking to the dropper so well.”

“Let’s have a look,” Joshua says as he gently pulls the smallest
kitten out of the box. Joshua checks Pete’s eyes and mouth and gently squeezes the kitten’s belly. The kitten gives a little squeak in response. “I think he’s basically okay, but why don’t you leave these guys with me today and I’ll watch them while you’re at school.”

“That’d be great. I really didn’t want to leave them home alone. You know how Mom can be.”

Jimmy’s mom hates the strays. After the death of her son, she hated anything that asked for attention—including, on most days, the disfigured son who survived. The fact that every stray is named Pete probably doesn’t help.

“Thanks, Dr. Marks. You’re a real lifesaver.”

“Nope,” Joshua says as he places Tiny Pete back in the box containing his brothers and sisters. “You are.”

A timid knock on the front window interrupts them. Sally Hanson motions through the glass for Joshua to unlock the door, and he quickly complies.

“I’m sorry to catch you so early,” Sally says as soon as she steps inside, “but I needed to see you.”

I always assumed that Joshua knew the other veterinarian’s employees in town as I did—by face perhaps, but not by name, and certainly not by first name. In fact, I don’t ever recall Sally or any other employee of Dr. Thorton visiting our office socially or otherwise.

Joshua introduces Jimmy as his “friend,” and I can see that Jimmy beams at this description.

For one brief moment, Sally pauses over Jimmy’s scar before she catches herself and extends her hand. “Very pleased to meet you, Jimmy.” Sally forces her eyes away from the boy’s face and to the box of kittens. “Those are some very cute-looking critters,” she tells him.

“Jimmy found this brood behind the high school.”

“Do you have any animals, Ms. Hanson?” Jimmy asks.

“Not anymore. I’ve outlived them all, I’m afraid.”

“How about a new beginning then?” Jimmy lifts Tiny Pete from the carton and gives Sally his most dazzling smile. “You could have one. Just promise to give him a loving home.”

“Oh, I wish I could. I really do.”

“Please? Pete needs someone like you. He’s so small.”

Sally’s eyes plead with Joshua for a rescue from the hard sell.

“It’s time for you to head off to school, pal,” Joshua says.

Jimmy nods his understanding. He’s not a stupid boy. He puts on his coat and collects his book bag. “Well, I expect these guys may be around for a while, so if you should change your mind…”

“I just may do that,” Sally tells him, but he knows that she doesn’t really mean it. “And thank you for your work,” Sally adds. “It’s good to know that you’re out there.”

Jimmy shrugs off the compliment. “Anyone else would do the same thing.”

I know Sally would disagree. I can tell it by the look on her face when she hears Jimmy’s words. She knows that it’s not really like that out there. She knows that you can pass a hundred people on the street and not one of them would have done the same thing. She knows that Jimmy’s affection for the creatures he saves will be a weakness in dealing with his own kind, when they laugh at his ear, stare at his scar, and ridicule his compassion. Sally knows—personally and painfully—that his love of animals can never ever inoculate him against malice, guile, or judgment.