Debby’s rigid annoyed face abruptly loosened. Her mouth buckled, her eyes softened. “What are you saying?” she pleaded, her elegant hands gesturing at him to take her, to dance with her.
He took her hands and reined them in, pulling her toward him. “Do you want me?”
“Of course,” she said in a whisper.
“I mean me! The real me, not just a security blanket.”
“You haven’t been much of a security blanket lately.”
“That’s right and you don’t like that.”
“This is not my fault. Everything that’s happened isn’t my fault.”
Max looked at her. Her anger was gone. She stared into his eyes as if he had an answer for her, as if he were her best hope.
“You’re right,” Max said. “It isn’t your fault.” It was the structure of their world, its rotting design. He had no choice but to accept its danger and fear its risks. He hugged her. She stayed in his arms, huddled in his chest as if he were a strong shelter. He wasn’t. He was a partner of her fear.
They made sandwiches and ate them together in almost complete silence. They checked on Jonah. He was sleeping heavily but peacefully. They had more coffee and then chatted in a friendly way — in the way they used to before the crash — about Debby’s current crop of students. She had one nine-year-old ballerina she thought very promising. Max proposed they rent a house with Nan and her boys for the summer. Debby agreed, but said with a sly smile, “You can be their father, but you’re not her husband.”
“That’s right,” Max said.
David the doorman buzzed them at two-thirty. Debby answered the intercom. She turned from it with a puzzled expression. “Brillstein’s on his way up,” she said.
Max opened the front door and waited for the elevator to deliver his lawyer. He thought about his options: if Nan needed money he could give it to her. Lying wasn’t necessary, was it? Well, if it was he would lie. Who was Max Klein to think he could be better than the rest of humanity?
Brillstein hopped out of the elevator in yet another new suit. This one was blue. “You’re here!” he cried at the sight of Max. The blue wasn’t a shade Max recognized. It wasn’t deep enough for true navy and yet it seemed to want to be that dark. Max didn’t care for the color. At least the suit seemed to fit Brillstein better, although it was double-breasted and the short man seemed shorter in the wide cut.
Brillstein carried a bottle of champagne under one arm and a white baker’s box balanced on his attaché case. He bustled in. “I’m here to celebrate. I hope you like champagne. And in here—” Brillstein had put the bottle on their dining room table. He fumbled at the delicate red-and-white-striped string on the box. “—are my favorite indulgence…chocolate-covered strawberries!”
“Mmmm,” Debby said. And then she looked at Max regretfully.
“What are we celebrating?” Max asked.
“You’re not going to believe what happened. We’re settled. I can’t believe it myself. It’s an incredible story. I spoke to Gil Parker this morning—” Brillstein had the box open. “Take,” he said, offering the contents to Debby. “He’s the outside counsel for TransCon. We hondeled and we hondeled and we agreed on a figure. One million seven hundred fifty thousand. You have to understand—”
Debby said, “Wow.” She took a strawberry and said to Max with regret, “You can’t.”
“No, no, that’s not what the final figure was.” Brillstein popped a chocolate strawberry in his mouth. He chewed it furiously and spoke through its thick pleasures. “That’s not the whole story.”
“I’m going to get glasses for the champagne,” Debby said. “Speak up.”
“Sure,” Brillstein said. “I’ll talk loud.” He offered Max a chocolate strawberry. Then he quickly withdrew the box. “Oh, she said you can’t.”
Max took it. “Of course I can. Go on with your story.”
“Well, I had scheduled a lunch today with Jameson, the in-house counsel, the man Parker reports to. He’s given Parker the broad range of figures to offer us and left it to Parker to get the best deal he can. By the time Parker and I have agreed to figures, it’s time for me to meet Jameson at Gloucester House if you please. Parker doesn’t know I’m seeing Jameson for lunch but I figure he’s going to talk to him soon because our deal is contingent on Jameson approving the final figures, although it’s understood that’s just a formality. So, with a four-million-dollar deal almost finished, off I go to Gloucester House.” Brillstein angled himself to one side and then the other; with one turn he buttoned his jacket closed, and with the other he straightened his dashing yellow tie. Evidently he meant to imitate a fashionable man arriving at an elegant eatery.
Debby returned with the glasses. She put them down and looked at the strawberry in Max’s hand. “You’re allergic,” she said.
“Not anymore,” Max said. He took a bite. “I’ve had them a couple times in the past year.”
“Don’t worry if he’s allergic. I’ve got Adrenalin in my bag.”
“Whatever for?” Debby asked.
“We discovered last summer our little girl is deathly allergic to bees. She got bit—” he waved his hand to dismiss the subject. “You don’t want to know. So I’ve got a hypo with me always, in case her mother forgets to pack it.” Brillstein put a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell her that. She thinks I nag her too much, that I don’t trust her to remember important stuff. She’s right, by the way. I don’t.”
Max ate his strawberry and got to work on opening the champagne. He felt giddy with excitement too — if not about Brillstein’s apparent success, at least at the finish of all the maneuvers. Now he wouldn’t have to lie.
“Anyway! To be honest,” Brillstein said, taking one of the champagne glasses and waiting for Max to pop the cork and pour. “I had taken the one point seven million for you and the two hundred for Mrs. Fransisca and the two point three for Nan from Parker this morning despite the fact that I thought they were too low. I did it because of you.” Brillstein stared hard at Max and pursed his lips in a childish attitude of challenge.
Max popped the cork. He quickly poured the frothing liquid into the lawyer’s glass. It reminded him of the hokey chemical drinks in horror movies — Dr. Jekyll’s potion.
“I was about to blow your case,” Max said. He filled a glass for Debby and handed it to her.
“No…” Debby protested. She had another strawberry between her lips. Chocolate was smeared on them. She looked beautiful.
Brillstein was generous. He waved his glass expansively and explained to Debby, “Let’s just say I didn’t want the other side getting their hands on Max the way he was talking. So, one point seven is very good. And I got Nan two point three million, which was okay.”
“And Carla?”
“Even there I thought I’d done great. Two hundred thousand.”
“Two hundred thousand!” Debby choked slightly on the champagne. “That’s nothing. She lost a baby,” Debby insisted in a wounded tone.
Max smiled proudly at his wife and took another strawberry. The champagne was delicious.
“A baby has no earnings you can establish. I was going to argue that the Fransisca baby had a potential career as a child model but they would have shot me down. Really the compensation was for the mother’s pain and suffering and because of the negligence of the seat belt. Although she hadn’t bought him a ticket and he wasn’t entitled to the defective seat—” Brillstein waved at all that with his glass. “It’s craziness. You don’t want to know! It doesn’t matter! Listen to me!” He put his glass down on the table and spread his hands to show the scene. “I go to Gloucester House and meet Parker’s superior, Jameson. I’m not feeling like such a genius, to tell you the truth, so I don’t brag or mention the deal I had just made with Parker. Jameson doesn’t either and I figure that’s class, that’s a real WASP. His people and I have made a deal for over four million dollars that he has final approval of and we don’t even mention it. We order. Then he looks at me and says, ‘I hear your client, Mr. Klein, nearly killed himself and that Fransisca woman.’ I had a piece of bread in my mouth so I nod. Don’t want to spit crumbs all over him. He goes on, very haughty, almost angry. ‘I want to settle your three cases at this lunch. Parker’s dragging his feet. I want to get this done.’ Now I almost choke on the bread because I realize Parker hasn’t told him what we’ve tentatively,” Brillstein, grinning, raised a finger in the air, “tentatively because it still wasn’t definite until Parker cleared it with Jameson—”