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Authors: Mary Matthews

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BOOK: Waiting for Cary Grant
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“They’re supposed to deliver one to me here.”

They postured their case positions during the five course meal. Stephanie had a headache. Dinner with Harlan and Taylor just extended the work day. She kept thinking about Kathy. A little girl who would never have dinner with her family again. And the lawyers just sat in the South of France battling over how much money that should be worth. Harlan and Taylor fought over the check. She could have joined the battle. She had the platinum card to do it. But this was the kind of sexism she liked. Taylor won.

“Were you bluffing about a fine?” She asked Harlan out of Taylor’s earshot.

“Are you bluffing about the whole case? Tell me honestly.”

“Honestly? I’m a lawyer and I’m your opponent. I’m a woman and I’m attracted. And you ask for honesty? No way, Harlan.”

Chapter Eighteen

A
lone in her room at last, she slid between the sheets. Europe, Harlan Michaels, and a multi-million dollar case were overwhelming for one day. She reached only for the arms of Morpheous.

Of course, she couldn’t sleep. She thought about calling her neighbor Jake and groggily tried to calculate the time difference. But then, like a gloating victor, insomnia looked away for a moment, and she drifted off to sleep.

A clopping noise jolted her wide awake. Someone in the room above her paced. Infuriated, sure that her only window of opportunity for sleep had closed, Stephanie sprang to her feet. She grabbed her case file and threw it at the ceiling. The pacing stopped.

She sprang upright again. The creep had the nerve to pace again. The room shook with creaks. Stephanie threw on a soft white bathrobe. She’d tell the creep off. She shoved the door open.

“Quiet.” She yelled. “Je voudrais a dormez!”

“Then quit hitting the ceiling! And honey, your French is pathetic!”

“How dare you attack my French?! And I am not your honey!” Stephanie yelled up at the angry, contorted face of Harlan Michaels, who wore an identical hotel bathrobe.

“Stephanie? What are you doing up? You need your sleep!”

“Oh, thank you for the always sage advice, Harlan. Maybe you could quit race-walking around the room for a few minutes.”

In Provence, there’s a fierce wind called a mistral. It’s known for knocking out power, felling decades old trees, and occasionally, sweeping a Le Car off the ground. Tonight, the mistral caused two hotel room doors to simultaneously slam shut. It also caused two lawyers to simultaneously curse the mistral.

And so they stormed over to the hotel desk clerk, in identical robes, arms swinging, hands clenched in anger. The hotel clerk looked happily soused in one of the region’s wines. A portly, dark haired fellow, he peered uncomprehendingly, but then what French person wouldn’t, at Harlan’s and Stephanie’s barely intelligible college French.

“Le lune de miel!!” He clapped his hands.

“Oh no, Harlan, he thinks that we are honeymooners!”

“Oh Christ. What a nightmare.”

“NO NO NO! NO LE LUNE DE MIEL! ! !” Stephanie screamed at the hapless clerk. “Nos sommes avocats. We are lawyers! We are opponents in a case!”

He looked perplexed at Harlan. “You need to calm your woman down,” he said slowly in heavily accented English. He offered Harlan a bottle of red wine.

“To calm your woman down,” he explained. They stood speechless. Their college French was embarrassing. Skilled at argument, they remained powerless to respond to this misunderstanding. The hotel clerk, in a well-intentioned gesture of romanticism, picked up another bottle of wine from a lobby entry table as he motioned for them to follow him outside.

Stephanie clutched her robe while the mistral pierced through her body, threatening to knock her over. The determined clerk, walking with his chin set against his chest, braved the wind, and continued on past their rooms, keys in hand, oblivious to their screams to turn around.

He triumphantly turned the master key to an unfamiliar suite. Stephanie and Harlan looked at each other. The clerk’s inebriated cheeks flushed red and stared expectantly at Harlan for a tip. In response, Harlan pulled out his empty bathrobe pockets. The clerk’s eyes laughed as he shut the door.

Infuriated, Stephanie drew her robe around her and plopped down on one side of the bed. Harlan did the same. They looked up at the ceiling. Its mirror revealed their irritated faces.

Candles flickered on a low table at the foot of the bed. A silky white comforter enveloped their bodies with its soft feathery contours. A fireplace raged from a stone setting. And a champagne bottle lay snug in its golden ice bucket.

Harlan leapt up from the bed, uncorked the bottle, and poured two glasses.

“This is nice. To calm my woman down.” He clinked his glass against hers.

“Whoever she may be. I’ll drink to that. I guess being in the honeymoon suite with you isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”

“Thank you very much.”

“What would people think Harlan? The two of us? Together?”

“Stephanie, no one would ever think of the two of us. Except the two of us.”

“I’m not agreeing to this room,” she said.

“Excuse me. Did I ask you to agree? I think you’re giving me answers to questions I’m not asking.” Harlan walked to the door.

“How dare you? I’ll walk out,” Stephanie said. The Southern French wind banged against the door like a jealous lover left alone in the night.

You put people in a prison and they act like prisoners. You put people in a mental hospital and they act like mental patients. You put two opposing lawyers in a honeymoon suite and they act like opposing lawyers.

Not really. HA.

Chapter Nineteen

M
elvin Seams struggled with the styrofoam covering on his box of Advil. His head throbbed.

“Why hadn’t that bartender cut him off? Bartenders should be more responsible. He thought as he punctured the styrofoam with a pen. Now, if only he could deal with the ridiculous cotton filling, he could get a pill out and maybe find some relief.

As he put the bottle down, his hand knocked over his coffee. “Fuck!” He yelled. No one else was there to hear him. He looked at the liquid spill across Stephanie St. Claire’s desk top. It wasn’t her desk anyway. It was his. And he wasn’t that bitch’s servant. Who the hell did she think she was? What an arrogant female.

He chuckled at thought of her in France. In a small village, at a deposition with that arrogant creep Harlan Michaels, an urbane woman like Stephanie St. Claire must be miserable. How satisfying.

He went through her files. The bitch was actually doing a good job. Without him. She’d taken ten cases to arbitration. She won all ten. The bitch. How dare she be so aloof, so smart, and so cute.

He would show her. He’d make her try the multipiece wheel case against Harlan Michaels. Then she would see how smart she was. That would show her. She would be begging for help then. And maybe he would help her. If she begged really sweetly.

In the meantime, he’d make things even more perplexing and difficult for her. And make things even easier for himself. In one fell swoop, he reassigned twenty-five cases of Stephanie’s. He chuckled. As soon as she came back from the hellacious tour of Europe with Harlan Michaels, she would start to worry that she wasn’t really profitable. He chuckled again. It was only a matter of time. And Stephanie St. Claire would be on her knees, in front of him, begging for help.

“Hi Big Guy.”

Melvin looked up and savored the sight of her in her black, sweat drenched leotard outfit smiling at him. Now, this was his idea of an associate attorney. Candy Wilcox, tall, blonde and eager to please. He’d let his partner hire her after Stephanie spurned him. She was the antithesis of Stephanie St. Claire.

“Hi baby.” The smile deepened and she came over to the desk and rubbed up against his arm. God, he hoped Stephanie would feel jealous and threatened by Candy. But so far, it looked like the opposite was happening if Candy’s recent breast implants were any indication.

“What’s up?” She pressed the sweaty front of her leotard against his arm again.

“I am going through Stephanie’s files.”

“Do you think Stephanie’s pretty?”

“No.” He lied.

“I’ve never thought of Stephanie that way. She’s just a lawyer to me.” He lied again. He dug his hand into the chair.

“Did you ever notice that I am a woman?” She asked as she unzipped his jeans.

“I can’t think of when I didn’t notice.” He responded.

“Hello. Who’s here?” Donna Mosscato’s voice reverberated through the hallway.

“Candy, I need to talk to Donna for a minute,” Melvin said hurriedly as he reluctantly nudged Candy’s leotard clad body through the doorway.

“Donna, I know you’re upset,” he said.

“Brilliant insight Melvin. Maybe there’s a career for you in jury consulting. If you can tell what prospective jurors are thinking, you might even be worth money to successful lawyers.”

Fat bitch was needling him. This nobody cow who he let out of the pen once a week—who he allowed to be seen with him—had the nerve to needle him.

“I’d enjoy getting money off successful lawyers. I’d like to take on Harlan Michaels.”

“Why don’t you try the orphaned schoolgirl’s case?” She asked brightly.

The amused look in her eyes was too much. It would feel good to crush her skull. Or stick his fingers around that thick neck and strangle the ingrate.

“It’s too dangerous. We need to get out of this one. I don’t want anything to happen to you. Michaels will sniff something out. And you’ll go down.”

“I’m not the one with a trial to lose,” she said smugly.

“But you’re the one with a livelihood to lose. The Executive Committee could fire both of us. I have savings. I can afford to move to another state. You can’t. You lose this job, how long can you survive?”

Donna lived paycheck to paycheck, teetering on collapse twice each month, and painfully aware of the fragile separation between her and homelessness. She looked devastated.

Satisfied, Melvin rubbed his hands together. Like a good dog, once kicked, she’d offer cowed loyalty again. Donna wouldn’t be a problem. Everything was under control.

“Why don’t you take on Michaels at trial? Go ahead. I’m not making any offers. I’ll be watching ringside.”

She knew now he’d always been too afraid to try a case. He counted on her to come up with settlement money. And explain it to Safety Tire’s Executive Committee.

“Donna, what the fuck is wrong with you? We can’t appear at the settlement conference without an offer! Judge Franklin will go ballistic! Are you crazy?”

“No. I’ve never felt more sane.” An unhappy woman, she stared coldly at the one who’d played her heart for his own game.

“I can’t go before Judge Franklin like this! I’ll be humiliated.”

“So what are you going to do, Melvin?”

He paused. “I’ll send Stephanie St. Claire.”

Chapter Twenty

“H
arlan, you are the only one making money off this case. It costs Rick and me money. And it’s not my idea of how to spend community assets. I can’t disrupt my entire morning to go to court! I haven’t had time to think about what to wear. I haven’t had my hair done.” Debbie spoke in measured breaths as she increased the incline on her treadmill.

“I’m not making money off this case. So far, I’m just spending money. My own money.” Harlan reminded her.

“Where’s Rick?” He asked.

“He’s out of the country.”

“What? He’s known about this for months!” Harlan erupted.

“Where? What country? I’ll go get him myself.” He jabbed a legal pad with one of his ball point pens and watched the paper rip. Debbie made him sick.

“He’s in Hong Kong. And I’m on my treadmill.” She began to pant. “I don’t have his itinerary at my fingertips. Look, we’ll both be available by phone.”

“Like you’re available for Kathy?”

“You’re welcome to get Kathy yourself. Anytime.”

“I will. Get me Rick’s number.”

He needed Kathy at the settlement conference. She’d be an irresistible witness. Even Judge Franklin could melt. And Franklin loved to effectuate settlements. To Franklin, a consummated settlement demonstrated unequivocally that judicial power had properly vested in him. Under his control, judicial economy could be readily achieved, as he alone determined which cases to settle, brought the lesser beings within his dominion to heel, and freed his calendar for worthier tasks.

“It’s not really that different from the uniforms that we have to wear,” Kathy whispered when they got to the courthouse.

Harlan smiled. Kathy was afraid she had said something stupid. He smoothed a curl back from her forehead.

“You’re right. Most lawyers spend their lives in blue suits. And judges wear black robes. It is like putting on your school uniform on everyday. That’s a good analogy.”

Kathy wasn’t sure what analogy meant but felt happy that she had said something good.

Donna Mosscato sneered at the two of them, especially Kathy, an eleven year old child, obviously out to get money. She hated the claimants, the other adjusters, and the lawyers most of all. They all owed her. She held the checkbook. The entire process would grind to a halt without her. Judge Franklin’s sheriff, George, stood poised with one hand over his gun, ready to draw on any lawyer whose cell phone rang.

“Slade v. Safety Tire.” George announced their case. “He will see you in chambers.”

The lawyers walked slowly, as if in a death march, to Judge Franklin’s chambers. No one emerged from Judge Franklin’s chambers unscathed.

Stephanie watched a Law Offices of Randy Johnstone associate leave nervously. No one had ever seen Johnstone himself appear anywhere but on television. Rumor had it that Johnstone established a settlement quota for his associates each month. Under penalty of termination, associates would scramble to settle cases, ignoring client needs. Defense lawyers seized the chance to discard personal injury cases for less than the amount of medical bills incurred by the injured person. Associates just tried to hold on to their jobs. The world downsized around them. And still, Johnstone’s commercials came on every night, with the happy guy in a wheelchair holding a check, talking joyously of being run over by a truck, meeting Johnstone, and becoming a multi-millionaire.

BOOK: Waiting for Cary Grant
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