“Salina’s sister will take him,” Teresa says firmly.
“The home study’s not bad, but each of your clients will have to kick in for support. She can’t do it by herself.”
“No fucking way,” Wayne grunts under his breath.
“He’ll never go for it.”
“That’s okay with me,” Teresa shoots back. “Tell him the social worker in Chicago has promised me she will file criminal charges for assault if he gets custody.”
Wayne picks at a herpes cold sore as big as a dime on his lip. He knows this may be a bluff, but it is something his client will have to think about. His distaste for Teresa is obvious, but she couldn’t have him more firmly by the balls if she were holding on with a set of pliers. Rick Crawford, the chancery judge who appointed Teresa to represent the kid, would believe her over Wayne or me even if we had the entire United States Supreme Court as character witnesses for our clients.
“Let me go talk to him,” Wayne mutters as he gets up.
I can’t resist winking at Teresa as soon as Wayne’s back is turned. Teresa is one of the better-looking female attorneys in Blackwell County, and is happily married with four kids. She glares at me.
“How can you represent a woman like that, Gideon?” she hisses at me as I start to push up from my chair to go talk to Salina.
“She should have her cunt sewn shut and you know it!”
The fierceness of her words shocks me as much as her profanity. Teresa and her husband, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital with a national reputation, appear regularly in the society pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. I shrug.
“Women who want custody of their kids don’t seem at first blush public enemy number one.”
From a manila folder Teresa throws out on the table pictures of Bobby that turn my stomach. His buttocks look like hamburger meat.
“I haven’t seen these,” I say, feeling my face turn warm.
Teresa shakes her finger at me.
“Your client doesn’t have any business even trying to raise a hamster.”
I finger the pictures, trying not to wince.
“She’s had a hell of a life herself,” I say weakly. Actually, I do not know this, but only suspect it from some of my client’s comments.
“That doesn’t give her the right to let her child suffer like this,” she says harshly.
“I’m not kidding. She should be sterilized.”
So should about half the population of this country, I think, having had enough of Teresa’s righteous indignation It must be nice to be on the side of justice all the time.
“I’ll go talk to my client,” I say, and scoot away before I shoot off my mouth.
Ten minutes later, we announce to a relieved Rick Crawford that we have a settlement. He tells our clients to make sure they pay Teresa’s fees within thirty days, and I walk back to my office, relieved I have lost another case and telling myself for the tenth time since I have been in private practice to turn down all but childless divorce cases with ironclad prenuptial agreements.
“Why, Mr. Page,” Leigh says, displaying only mild surprise, “I didn’t know we had a meeting set up.”
Though it is after two in the afternoon, she looks fresh and crisp, and, as usual, is dressed as if she is ready to go out on a moment’s notice. What is different is her hair. When I had seen her before it was up. Today it is down past her shoulders and more gorgeous than ever.
She is wearing a pure silk emerald green shell with padded shoulders over a tan skirt. Even her belt looks expensive.
Maybe Art laundered a lot more money than we know.
“You didn’t call me back,” I remind her. In the background I can hear her mother’s voice on the telephone.
“Why don’t we go for a ride? I need to talk to you, and I don’t think you want your mother present.”
She gives me a quizzical look. She has seen the deferential version of the faithful sidekick and probably likes him better, but she nods.
“Just a moment.”
I try to look into the house, but my eyes don’t have the time to adjust to the dimness before she is back striding past me out the door. It is a brilliant spring afternoon, the kind of day that makes me wish I had a job out of doors. After this morning’s travesty, I ought to try to get one. The best thing about Arkansas is that even its most populated areas are within fifteen minutes of the country in any direction. Since we’re out in the western part of the county anyway, I head for Pinnacle Mountain, only a short drive west. No one will mistake us for an illicit couple looking for a place to neck. No McDonald’s employees I know have girlfriends who look this classy.
“Why didn’t you call?” I ask, trying not to sound like a rejected suitor. I realize as soon as I ask that my feelings are slightly hurt. I pride myself on being able to get clients to talk to me. I didn’t expect her to fall in love with me, but I assumed she would keep her word. Just like a man, Rainey would say.
“I’ve been talking to Mr. Bracken,” she says carefully.
“I’m sure you know that.” I glance over at her, but she keeps her eyes on the road.
I decide to wait to respond until we are at the park.
I want to see her face when she is speaking. I tell her where we are headed, but she has no comment. Surely Chet has told her that I have been to San Francisco. It is all I can do to keep my mouth shut.
I turn off the engine in one of the parking spaces near the picnic tables, remembering one Saturday long ago with Rosa and Sarah. Sarah was about nine years old, and it was her first ascent to the top. We treated it as if we had climbed Mount Everest. An ache comes into my heart as I remember the exhilaration we all felt as we came down. I turn off the motor and ask, “You ever climb Pinnacle?”
“Sure,” she says, her face softening for the first time.
“My dad used to bring me out here lots of times. The best thing about being a preacher’s kid is getting to see your father. His days off were in the middle of the week.”
The park is virtually deserted, with only a couple of cars in it. Too late for picnickers, too early (I hope) for the teenagers who come out here to smoke and hang out. We get out and both wander around, each of us locked for a moment inside our own memories. Eastern Arkansas, with its rich Delta soil nourished by the Mississippi, for the most part, is flat as a table top, and it does not take much of a climb to impress me. Leigh, in four-inch heels, is hardly dressed for an assault on a peak I’ve seen five-year-olds conquer, but such is the mystique of heights that we both search the brush for the trail that leads to the top. She could easily be taken for my daughter, I realize. Not for the first time I wonder if I have smothered Sarah as much as Norman has smothered Leigh. Sarah is still angry at me. Though she pretended to have gotten over our fight the night before I left for San Francisco, she said barely two words after she picked me up from the airport. How much am I really like Norman? Probably more than I care to admit.
He got Leigh a job in the church to keep her close; secretly, I’ve dreamed for the last year that Sarah would attend law school at UALR and come into practice with me. Norman and I both use guilt in the same quantities the Nazis used gas. I think Leigh is protecting her father.
As disgusted with me as she is right now, I’m not sure Sarah would be so charitable.
I sit on one side of a picnic table and watch Leigh staring at a squirrel that is eyeing her with an equal amount of curiosity. Could she really have murdered her husband? At the moment, nothing seems more unlikely.
Bending down and clucking at the bemused animal, she seems about ten. Finally, it scampers away and she comes to the table, smiling as if she had tamed it. I say, hoping to catch her off guard, “I didn’t learn anything in San Francisco that will convince a jury you were at risk.”