I was tempted to go in with you after law school, Victor, it would have been fun, but the law for me was not about fun. It was about security, about money, about gaining some status starting from nothing. It was about leading a different life. At Dawson, Cricket and Peale, straight was the only way to play it. I put my head down and sucked up the hours, the workload, the bland social obligations. When the thing with Leila came along, I figured it had happened, the change, that I was someone shiny and new. And in no time there we were with the big house, the country club, the kids, the life. The goddamn life. I’m not claiming to be a victim here, none of this was done to me, the whole thing was my choosing, but even so, something was wrong. The clue was, I suppose, that after eight years I still wasn’t comfortable in a suit and tie. I hated my job, hated the work, hated the firm, yet my grandest ambition was to become partner. The schizophrenia of it was tearing me apart. Do you know the word “anhedonia?” I suffered it, I was plagued by it. After eight years I looked up and realized I was living in black and white.
It was in a hospital room. There had been a bad result to a simple surgery. The doctor had notified the insurance company, Red Book, and they had notified us. In my briefcase was a contract that I was to have the wife sign, a contract that would guarantee the patient’s medical care in exchange for an agreement to arbitrate any dispute over his prior care and a waiver of any claims for pain and suffering. Hey, bad things happen, and some bad things that happen are nobody’s fault. That was our motto there at Dawson, Cricket and Peale. For a while I sat alone in the darkened room with the patient. He had intravenous lines leading into his arms, he had a catheter leading from his prick, he had a respirator tube snaking down his throat. The bellows of the respirator rose and fell, over and over, like a torture machine. Allow me to introduce you to Juan Gonzalez.
Once he had been a handsome man, he had played minor league baseball, he had raised a family by the strength of his hands. Now I looked at him lying near lifeless in the bed, and in a way I envied him. For him, at least, it was over, the maneuvering, the arguing, the rushing here and there for results that meant nothing. That was how far I had fallen – I envied the man in the coma – when Mrs. Gonzalez walked into the room.
She was a nice lady, sweet and terrified, devoted to her husband, worried about his future, her ability to continue his care. Her insurance had a limit, it would run out, it would run out, and then what would she do? I commiserated. In my job I had become excellent at commiseration. I was wearing a dark suit, an overcoat, polished black shoes. I must have seemed the bearer of very bad tidings, but I was there to help, I told her. In any way I could.
There was an order to things. You couldn’t just presume, you couldn’t just go in waving dollar bills. You needed to follow the order of things. If you showed any eagerness, they would want a lawyer of their own, and once they found a lawyer of their own, it became a whole different game. I learned that from my clever father-in-law, Jonah Peale himself. So I moved in slowly.
“Are you happy with the room?” I asked. “Are you happy with the care, the nursing? Anything we can do to help in this most difficult time, we will do. Just ask. Please. Anything. You shouldn’t worry about the limit on your medical insurance, Mrs. Gonzalez. I will personally make sure that no transfer takes place until you are satisfied that his care in the new facility will be as good as the care here. We want to take care of you. How are things at home without Mr. Gonzalez’s salary? Are you managing? If you need anything, I want you to call me. There are people who can help. I’m on your side. Tell me what I can do to help. Anything. Anything.”
It was going well, so well that I opened the briefcase and took out the long piece of paper. It was always the crucial moment, the opening of the briefcase. You didn’t open the briefcase unless you felt the deal, and once it was open you didn’t leave the room until the deal was closed. The briefcase was open, the papers were out, Mrs. Gonzalez was on the verge of signing. Pushing her would have been as easy as pushing aside a curtain, I could feel it, but I didn’t push. That was not the way it was done. It had to be her choice, and she was choosing to sign. The pen was in her hand, and she was choosing to sign.
When a voice from outside the room said,”Stop.”
I turned to see a pair of bright crimson lips set upon a pale face, a flash of color so vivid it cut like a Technicolor knife through the gray scale of my world. They were smirking at me, those bright red lips, and yet I couldn’t look away, I couldn’t help myself from staring, soaking in the color. There was the body, too, of course, small, frail, even in the black suit, even with the briefcase and in the heels, but it was the crimson of the lips that caught me off guard, a flash of color so vivid it startled me.
“This is a private room,” I stammered, “and this is a private meeting.”
“Not anymore,” said the woman.
The lips widened, showing now teeth, white and even, and between the bright teeth the pink tip of her tongue. She was sticking her tongue out at me.
“Your daughter asked me to come, Mrs. Gonzalez,” she said. “I’m a lawyer.” When she said that she adjusted her serious, dark-framed glasses as if to emphasize the point. “Your daughter asked me to speak to you before you signed anything.” She looked at me. “It appears I’ve come just in time.”
I tried to get rid of her, get the meeting back on track, but in that flash of a moment it was over. The woman explained to Mrs. Gonzalez the consequences of the contract, and it was over. I put the paper back in the briefcase, snapped it shut. The closing of the briefcase. I stared impassively for a moment at the lawyer’s bright red lips as they unsuccessfully fought a smile, and then I turned to Mrs. Gonzalez.
“I hope everything turns out well for you and your family,” I said, and then I started out of the room.
“I’ll be in touch,” said the woman lawyer to my back.
I hesitated for a moment, fought the urge to turn around, and then I continued out the door, and what I was seeing as I walked down the hall was not the failure of my meeting but shades of red, the crimson of her lips, the pink of her tongue. She had said she’d be in touch, and I was hoping then that she would keep to her word.
She did.
Hailey Prouix.
IT WAS Hailey who placed the calls, at least at the start. She asked questions about the case. She made demands for settlement even before she filed, ridiculous demands. And then there were other calls, not strictly necessary for the business at hand. And all the conversations ended on a note light and flirty.
I began thinking of her in odd moments, those lips, those cheekbones, the intonations of her soft laughter over the phone. In the grays that had become my life, she was a splash of color. Her calls became the highlight of my day. It was inevitable that we would meet for lunch. Inevitable that after a few lunches we would meet for drinks after work. It happened slowly. It wasn’t something I didn’t want, but it wasn’t anything I pursued either. I knew the costs, I knew the dangers, and still it happened.
She filed her lawsuit on behalf of Juan Gonzalez and his family. I responded. In our offices the litigation moved apace, but in addition to the business calls we left each other more personal messages about the Willis case, named for her favorite movie star at the time. After work almost every other day we met somewhere and sopped up martinis and avoided talking about what both of us were thinking. We sat close while we drank, we shared cigarettes, our knees bumped. We never talked about anything too personal, but we talked. Every day I found her more lovely, every day I found the sadness that enveloped her like an exotic perfume more intoxicating. I stared at the red of her lips, the blue of her eyes. Starved as I was for color, I couldn’t help myself from gorging. I came home later each evening, my family life dimmed. But in the middle of the night, for the first time since I’d entered the law, I began to dream again in more than black and white.