38
Judy had discovered that a janitor’s closet was really an open toilet near a string mop. The walls were streaked with grime and a gritty Rubbermaid bucket sat under a streaked washbasin. The toilet paper holder was empty and two half rolls of toilet paper were lined up on the tank next to an old copy of Sports Illustrated. Judy washed her hands in the basin. “So,” she asked, “is knitting hard? It looks hard.”
“No, it’s easy.” Ronnie Morales lingered at the door and checked her hair in a cracked mirror over the sink. She wore light eye makeup but no foundation and her skin was poreless over cheekbones that shaped her face like a Valentine’s Day heart. “I taught myself from a book. That’s what Danny meant. I could teach you in five minutes. I even have some needles for you, thick ones to start with. I’ll bring them for you.”
“Thanks,” Judy said, surprised at the offer. It struck her that Ronnie Morales was a woman who needed a friend.
“No problem.” Ronnie folded her arms against the shiny black of her form-fitting leather jacket. “I knit lots of things. Sweaters for Danny and my mom and sister, some baby clothes for my new nephew, and a vest for my grandfather.”
“So you enjoy it.”
“No, I hate it,” Ronnie said with a giggle. “I’ll teach you if you want, but it’s totally boring. Doing your nails is more fun than knitting.”
“Why do you do it, then?” Judy’s hands dripped while she looked around for paper towels.
“For something to do. There’s no TV here. I read the new magazines as soon as they come out, then I got nothing to do when Danny’s trainin’.”
“Do you watch him train every day?” Judy gave up her search and wiped her hands on her sweatpants.
“I have to.” Ronnie squinted in the mirror. “Danny says I’m his good luck charm.”
“He needs luck with a speedbag?”
Ronnie smiled, then stopped like it was against the rules. “He’s a real good fighter. His manager thinks he’ll be famous. Be one of the great ones.”
“Don’t you get bored, though? I mean, even if I loved someone, I might get bored watching him all day.”
“Sure I get bored. That’s why I knit.” Her mouth pursed slightly, wrinkling an upper lip like a Cupid’s bow. “Danny is the jealous type.”
“Then why does he bring you to the gym? There’s nothing but men here.”
“He likes to know where I am. Not that I ever cheated on him or nothin’. Not ever. I never would. I mean, never.” Ronnie watched herself in the mirror as she tossed her head. “You’re takin’ lessons with Mr. Gaines?”
“Uh, yeah,” Judy said, catching up with the abrupt change of subject.
“Not many women in the gym, that’s why we don’t have no ladies’ room. Only women here usually are the other wives. Even they don’t come in much anymore.”
“Too bad. I’m new in town. It would be nice to meet them. Make friends.”
“You ain’t missin’ nothin’. They’re like a group, you know. They think they’re all that. There’s Juan’s wife, Maria, and Mickey, he’s a heavyweight, and his wife, Ceilia. Ceilia is a bitch, I tell you. The only nice one was Valencia, Miguel’s girlfriend, but she’s gone.” Ronnie’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “She went to prison.”
“Jeez, prison? What for?”
“They said she was selling coke.”
“Selling cocaine?” Judy hid her surprise. It was amazing how much you could learn from another woman in a ladies’ room, even a crummy ladies’ room.
“I don’t think Valencia did that, though. She was friendly with the wives. She was friendly with everybody, you know. I always wondered, you know, what’s up with them. They mighta been doin’ business, you know, from them I could believe it. But Valencia would never do nothin’ like that. She was a wonderful mother.”
“You don’t think she sold coke?”
“I can’t say for sure, you know. I only went out with them once, ’cause of Danny. He didn’t like it.” Ronnie’s voice trailed off. “Not Valencia, though. Valencia was a good person, you know. Now this white girl, she acted like she owned Valencia. She was with the man who managed Star. You know, Star.”
“Star?” Judy said, playing dumb, which wasn’t easy for a Law Review editor.
“Star Harald. He’s turning pro next. He’s almost as good as Danny. It was his manager, his girlfriend. I forget her name. This girl, she wasn’t even a wife and she acted like she owned everybody, the whole gym.” Ronnie’s voice grew dishy. “A redhead, dressed like a whore, too. She’s in jail now because she killed him.”
“She killed her boyfriend? How do you know?”
Ronnie moved a curl from her eyes. “Shit. Everybody knows that.”
39
Bennie’s world lurched to a stop after she hung up the telephone. Her fingers gripped the walnut edge of her desk and she stiffened in her chair. She knew she was breathing but it was soundless, as if she were afraid to draw breath. Or felt she wasn’t entitled to, now.
Sunlight from her office window fell on her back but she couldn’t feel its warmth. Motes of dust floated through a sunbeam, but she couldn’t focus on them. The shadow cast across the Connolly file was her own, but it looked like a cardboard cutout of a human being. Like a silhouette used for target practice, with a hole blown through its heart.
Bennie fought to keep her breathing even, her head clear, her eyes dry. Square buttons lit up on her phone, silently blinking on and off, and beyond her closed door she could hear the secretaries joking with each other. Everything was the same, yet nothing would be the same from now on.
The news confounded her. It seemed astounding that the only inevitable fact should be profoundly inconceivable when it happened. Bewildering that an event Bennie had thought about, even planned for, should take her completely by surprise, especially given her mother’s illness. Her depression had been a lethal tug-of-war in which every day of life was a victory, and her mother had finally won.
Her mother had won freedom from a life of torment, of whispers in the night, of fears. Hers was an empty life, a hollow one. That was inconceivable, too. Life was supposed to be full of productive work and of simple pleasures; the laughter of children, the crunch of a fresh apple, the warmth of a soft blanket. Sharp pencils and good, thick books. Life wasn’t supposed to be dark with nightmares; brief interludes of clarity in a world of confusion, made blacker because its origins were so unjustified, and unjustifiable.
Bennie felt her throat constrict. It was unfair; unjust. It occurred to her, for the first time, that that’s what her own life had been about. A fight for justice where there wasn’t any. The urge to set things right when they had gone terribly wrong. Not in courtrooms, though that’s what Bennie had always thought until this very minute. Her life was about justice where it mattered. In life. In her mother’s life.
She sat still for one more minute, then got up, grabbed her handbag, and walked silently out of her office and through her law firm. She said not a word to anyone, just avoided their curious eyes, even Marshall’s, who had taken the doctor’s messages and probably guessed what had happened.
Bennie got into the elevator and traveled to the basement garage, then found her car keys in the bottom of her purse and chirped the Ford unlocked. She climbed into the truck, twisted on the ignition, and reversed out of the parking space. A red word lit up on the dashboard, BRAKE, and she yanked up the emergency brake. She acted on autopilot and the only thought in her head was a mild surprise at the number of acts it took to get out of the parking lot and to the hospitaclass="underline"