No Defense (38 page)

“Thank you.” His voice trembled as he raised
his head just enough to see her, his eyes full of pain, most likely
because she was in his space. He rolled his flip-flops nervously,
bending them under his toes, then under his heel.

Although Marilee appreciated the climbing
break, she forced her right leg to take the next step, then her
left leg. Bend at knee, place foot, heave self (and baby) up.

Larry Lee Hallowell once had a job and a
family, but mental illness had robbed him of that life. His
symptoms had appeared slowly over several years’ time, beginning
with his refusal to take elevators or shake hands, ending with his
inability to leave his apartment sometimes for hours, sometimes
days. As the symptoms multiplied, he’d lost his job at the auto
factory, and his wife had left him, taking their three children
with her. Finally, his wife had remarried and left the State of
Alabama. Mr. Hallowell had come to the Clinic in September because
after two years without his children he desperately wanted to see
them again.

Working with people who lived at the edge of
functioning society was humbling in many ways. Although some Clinic
clients had been born poor or sick, many once lived productive,
happy lives. Then a tragedy – a child’s death, a chronic mental or
physical illness, a drug problem, a divorce or a job loss – pushed
them further than their ability to cope. Marilee grabbed the solid
metal rail and pulled herself up the last few stairs. It could
happen to anyone, Marilee thought, including herself. And with that
her tears began anew.

When she finally heaved open the
fourth-floor stairwell door, she stopped short, as Dede fell into
the stairway, almost knocking her over. “Where’ve you been? Are you
okay?”

“I’m just great, Dede. Why wouldn’t I be?”
She stifled a sob.

“Come on.” She cupped Marilee’s left elbow
in her right hand and guided her down the hallway. Thankfully, no
one passed them. When they stopped in front of Marilee’s office,
Dede held out her hand.

Marilee fished inside the pocket of her
orange dress, found the office key, and handed it to her.

Dede opened the door and gently pushed
Marilee forward. “Sit.”

Marilee collapsed into her desk chair and
rested her swollen ankles on the footstool she’d placed under the
desk a month earlier.

Dede stood, her arms loose by her sides,
palms open. “What the fuck just happened, M’lee? Jesus, of all
people, Dwight Hurley?”

Marilee nodded, then shook her head, then
nodded again.

“Did you even know he was under
consideration?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I didn’t even know he
applied. Besides, the Dean promised I would get it. I thought I was
the
only one
under consideration.” She tried to chuckle at
her own naiveté, but the sound was closer to that made by an
irritable baby than a wry, intelligent adult who could detach from
a difficult situation and make light of it.

Dede sat across from her and pursed her
lips. “When did you last talk to him?”

“The Dean?”

“No! Dwight.”

“Really talk? Not since we broke up,
sophomore year of college.”

“Come on. Are you saying that after six
years with Dwight, after thinking he was the one, after all the
breaking up and making up, you never got together again for ten
long years? You must at least have slept with him when you were
both home for the holidays? For old time’s sake. After all, he’s
very good-looking. Come on, fess up.” She leaned in, waiting for
the answer she expected.

“Do we have to talk about this?” Marilee
rested her head on her desk. If she could just go to sleep, maybe
for a long time, she might not have to deal with any of this.

Dede picked one of the steel balls on the
Newton’s Cradle desk toy and let it drop. The steel ball on the
opposite side swung up. The first ball flew out again. Marilee
couldn’t stand the click-clacking noise the balls made; she left
the annoying toy on the desk only because one of last year’s
student lawyer teams had given it to her and they dropped by
regularly to check in with their beloved Clinic professor.

Marilee slowly raised her head from the
desk, her eyes widening under arching eyebrows, irritated. She held
up her hand. “You know I hate that thing, Dede. Please stop.”

Dede shrugged and steadied the moving metal
balls.

“If you must know, we have not slept
together! Not everyone sleeps with everyone they ever liked.”
Marilee’s eyes narrowed. “Except maybe you.”

“I do not!” Dede insisted.

“Does that mean you and Nikolai are getting
serious?” Nikolai was Dede’s on-again-off-again love, a dancer
she’d met in Europe who now lived in New York City. Marilee didn’t
want to discuss Dwight, and she was interested in learning whether
Nikolai had something to do with Dede’s unexplained visit.

“We’re not talking about me though I’ll
admit I have a healthy, active sex life, M’lee, whereas you seem to
have no sex life.” She smiled her slightly crooked but sexy
smile.

“How do you think I got this way, Sis?”
Marilee pointed toward her belly. Sadly, this baby’s conception
dated to the end of her sex life, as Dede knew.

“Fine. Okay. You haven’t slept with him. I
get it. What kind of relationship do you have with him now?”

Marilee formed a zero with her thumb and
index finger. “This kind. Nada. It was over the day he cheated,
Dede. We haven’t talked since I caught him with Lana. I didn’t
answer his calls, I tore up his letters, and I avoided him whenever
he was in town.”

“You sound like you’re still mad at him,
M’lee.” Dede cocked her head to one side as though trying to read
her sister’s thoughts.

Marilee sighed heavily. “I’m not mad at him
for being a liar and a cheater; I’m mad he stole my endowed
Chair!”

Dede stepped back from the desk a few feet,
bent down, touched her palms flat to the floor, and hung there.
“I’m not so sure it’s not both. Did you notice he wasn’t wearing a
ring? I wanted to talk to him, check out his marital status, but I
had to search for my missing sister.” She rose slowly and raised
her arms over her head in a perfect fifth position oval.

“You sound just like Mama, Dede. Listen up:
I’m not interested in Dwight. I’m not interested in anyone right
now.”

She’d tried to make this clear since Rick
had moved away, but her mother had ignored her wishes and set her
up with any man she believed would be a suitable replacement, men
of a certain economic and social class who didn’t panic when they
heard about Marilee’s four-year-old daughter Ellie, and the baby on
the way. Despite Marilee’s insistence that she wasn’t ready to
date, much less begin anything serious, her mother had miraculously
found bachelors all over the Southeast and arranged dates, dinners,
and parties, none of which Marilee had enjoyed. At all.

“I do not sound like Mama!” Dede pirouetted
to the corner of the office, then back, her eyes focused on Marilee
as she made each turn. “I’m not saying you should marry him, for
God’s sake. You shouldn’t marry anyone anytime soon. I don’t know
if I believe in love, much less marriage. But it wouldn’t hurt for
you to have someone to talk to and sleep with every now and then,
especially someone so fabulous-looking!” She landed at Marilee’s
desk, grinning lasciviously.

“I have my hands full with work, Ellie, and
soon, the baby. Work and children are my life now.” She tried in
vain to instill her words with enthusiasm.

Dede swayed slightly in rhythm as she played
an imaginary violin.

“I really don’t care about Dwight, Dede, I’m
just worried about how I’m going to work with him. He’s a criminal
lawyer, and my Clinic only does civil law. And, the law school he’s
from doesn’t teach the way I teach.” She sighed. “I can’t believe
any of this is happening, really, I can’t. The Dean promised me.
And he owes me an explanation.” Marilee didn’t want to confront
Dean Dody, she was exhausted, but did she have a choice? Slowly,
she slid her feet off the stool, pushed her chair back, and stood
up.

“I’ll walk with you,” Dede said. At the
Dean’s suite she took Marilee’s upper arms in her strong hands and
gave her a little shake. “Give ’em hell, Sis.”

Marilee inhaled deeply, nodded, and opened
the door to the Dean’s suite. Assistant Deans Scanlon and Larkin
occupied the first two offices. The last door led to Dean Dody,
though first you had to get past his gossipy secretary, Fran, a
reliable source for the latest law school news, always delivered
melodramatically.

“How are you, Professor Cooper?” Fran asked.
The cadence and tone of her question made clear that she was more
than ready and willing to dish about Dwight Hurley’s
appointment.

“Fine,” Marilee answered, trying to instill
in that one word the sense that she could not be better.

Fran, a heavy woman who wore a green suit
every day, in colors ranging from lime to pine, leaned forward,
crushing her ample breasts into the desktop hutch. “I was so
shocked to hear about the Chair, M’lee,” she said conspiratorially.
“I don’t know what they were thinking. That Chair should be
yours!”

“Thanks, I appreciate it, but Dwight’s very
qualified, Fran.” Marilee knew that whatever she said to Fran would
be all over the law school by lunch and tempered her comments
accordingly. “I’m sure he’ll be an asset to the Clinic.”

Fran looked puzzled; that wasn’t the
response she’d expected.

“Is the Dean here?” Marilee asked. “I just
need a minute of his time.”

“Let me buzz him.” Fran punched the intercom
button on her phone. “Marilee’s here to see you, Dean Dody.” She
nodded in the direction of his door.

Marilee walked in and shut the door.

Behind his massive desk, Dean Dody grimaced
and his bulbous eyes showed worried concern. “Marilee, I’m glad
you’re here. Will you sit down, please?”

“No.” She stopped at the chair he’d offered
and rested her hands on its back facing him.

He flinched.

She rounded the chair and leaned in toward
him, resting her palms on top of his desk. “Dean Dody, you said the
Chair was mine. We were at the faculty retreat, and you said –
”

He raised his hand to stop her. “I know, I
know. I did tell you you’d get the Chair and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t
have said anything but that’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it?
I know you’re disappointed.”

“Disappointed! That’s an understatement.
What’s going to happen now? I can’t work with Dwight. He’s never
taught anything but criminal law, and we don’t even practice that
here, and the pedagogy at Redmont is totally different. What were
you all thinking?”

The Dean inhaled sharply, rested his elbows
on his desk, and steepled his hands in front of him. “I don’t think
you should worry about any of that, Marilee. Not when your job is
on the line.” As he spoke the last few words, he pointed the
steeple in her direction and she stepped back.

“What?” She stared at him with disbelief.
What was he talking about? “Why?” Marilee inched closer, crossing
her arms, grasping her upper arms with her hands.

“We gave you two and a half years to publish
when you joined the faculty.”

“But, Dean Dody, you told me I could have an
extension.”

“I know, I know. I wish I could give you
one, but at the last Rank and Tenure meeting Sue read me the riot
act: faculty publication is our number one priority. You know she’s
head of Rank and Tenure now. She vetted Dwight. She made the big
push for him.
The New York Times
wrote an article about his
victory in the Edmunds case, and his textbook clinched the deal. We
have new standards now.”

“Since when?”

“Since the trustees hired Sue to push us
into the top fifty, it’s publish or perish, Marilee.” He rested his
hands in his lap and smiled weakly. “You know, maybe it’s time for
you to take a break, with the baby and all. You are due anytime
now. I’m sure you need a rest, some time to sort things out,” he
said hopefully.

She took the seat Dean Dody had offered her
moments earlier. As she eased herself down the baby tried to do a
somersault, a near impossible task given his or her size, and her
belly moved in an undulating wave.

“Dean Dody, you know I’ve devoted myself to
this Clinic and to our students. Setting up a Clinic from scratch,
meeting with the students regularly, teaching seminar and going to
court – that all takes a lot of time.”

“I understand that, really I do, but if you
don’t publish an article before the end of the semester, my hands
are tied. I can’t extend your contract.” The Dean turned his palms
up and shrugged. “I wish it hadn’t come to this, Marilee. I’m a big
fan of yours and the Clinic, but Sue’s laid down the law and it’s
out of my hands. Try to think about the silver lining, though.” He
cradled an imaginary baby.

“There is no silver lining, Dean Dody, and
don’t try to pretend there is!” She pushed herself up from the
chair and rushed out of his office, passing Fran without even
trying to pretend for appearance’s sake that the conversation had
gone well.

The tears began to flow again as she walked
slowly back to her office. Marilee thought about Mr. Hallowell and
wondered: Was she poised on the edge of her own slippery slope? Or
was she already in a free fall? For the first time in years,
strains of Dede’s favorite Leonard Cohen song echoed in her mind –
as they’d echoed throughout the house at all hours during Dede’s
teen years: “Things are going to slide, slide in all
directions.”

Her own slide down the slope had begun the
night Rick told her he was leaving their marriage. She’d just put
Ellie to bed, something Rick usually did, but he was late, after
calling to say he was working with a few of his swimmers who were
training extra hard for some big meet. Marilee had tiptoed out of
Ellie’s room and then down the stairs to edit some of her students’
work. Rick, a big, broad-shouldered man, a former varsity swimmer,
walked in the front door, and she’d looked up, happy to see him.
Instead of his usual open, relaxed face, though, he’d looked tense
and troubled. Marilee hugged him hello and rested her cheek on his
chest. His large hand rubbed up and down her back, a comforting
motion. She led him up the stairs smiling to herself. She’d been
worried about their sex life then; both had been busy and it was
always hard to find time alone with Ellie around, but she knew as
she walked him up the stairs that her fears had been baseless. Soon
they were in their bedroom making love.