Sawyer
I set down my pen and bent my fingers back to stretch the stiffness out of them. My latest notebook was nearly full, every page covered in my ‘translations’ of California Family Law code. I felt pretty confident about the final next week. Not so confident about Judge Miller’s latest assignment.
Beside me, my trashcan was brimming with snowballs of paper. Rough drafts of the brief I’d started and stopped a dozen times when the pain threatened to bubble up and spill out onto the page. He wanted life and I saw only death.
Red and blue flashing lights colored my memory and I blinked them away.
I stretched and rubbed my aching neck. The clock read eleven-thirty. Above me, a floorboard creaked.
Darlene.
I wondered what she was doing tonight. Earlier, I’d heard the faint sounds of a song she was listening to. Did she dance to it? Was she wearing that tight black dance top with the crisscrossing straps? The top that accentuated the lean muscle of her arms and shoulders in the back, and highlighted the small perfection of her breasts in the front. Was she smiling that smile of hers that made it seem like nothing in the entire fucking world could possibly be bad?
You’re getting loopy. Time to call it.
I started to pack up my materials into my briefcase. A soft knock came at the door.
I opened it to Darlene.
She wasn’t wearing that dance top, but a peach-colored sundress, no shoes. The dress skimmed her breasts and flared out at her narrow waist. Her hair fell over shoulders, dark with dampness from a recent shower. Oven mitts covered her hands to protect them from the glass pan she held. The delicious scent of tuna casserole wafted up from underneath the tinfoil. It smelled warm and good in a way my TV dinners never did.
“I know it’s late, but I took a chance that you were up,” she said. “I made another casserole. Mostly because it’s the only thing I know how to make. And to keep myself out of trouble.”
She seemed on the verge of tears for a second, but blinked them away to smile brightly. “Anyway this is for you. Can I just drop it off? Then I’ll go.”
“Uh, sure,” I said, opening the door for her. “Thanks.”
“I don’t want it to go to waste.” She breezed past me and set it on the kitchen counter. “You can return the pan whenever.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Sure. Great. I don’t want to bother you. I should go back…” She headed for the door, head down and her voice thick. “Livvie’s asleep? Of course, it’s late…”
“Darlene, what’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing. Stupid, really.” At my door, she took off the oven mitts and tucked them under her arm. “I just had some kind of good news today and I wanted to tell somebody. At 11:30 at night,” she said with a small laugh. “Sorry, never mind. I don’t want to bother you.”
She turned to leave and I knew I’d never sleep that night if I let her.
“Don’t go,” I said. “I could really use some good news right about now.”
“Oh, did you have a bad day?” Darlene said softly. Her beautiful face that had been wrought with inward pain, instantly opened with outward concern. For me. “You can talk about it. If you want.”
Talk to her. Such a simple concept, but I didn’t do this. I didn’t let women into my place. I didn’t talk about my day. Except with Olivia, I was on auto-pilot, slogging through the hours to get to the finish line. But Darlene kept slipping in and I couldn’t keep her out.
Maybe I don’t want to keep her out.
I cleared my throat. “You were going to tell me your good news.”
She put one bare foot on top of the other, her smile tentative. With her face scrubbed free of makeup, she was impossibly beautiful. I crossed my arms over my chest, a flimsy shield against her.
“It’s so weird, but I feel like I need to tell someone or I’ll burst or cry, or I don’t know what.”
“Tell me.”
“Okay, well…” She heaved a breath. “I auditioned for this little dance company earlier today and they gave me a small part. It’s the first time I’ve danced in a while so it’s kind of a big deal to me. And my place is so quiet…” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “My friends and family are all asleep on the East Coast now. I called my sister earlier but it’s not the same thing, talking on the phone. Silly, I know.”
“It’s not,” I said, moving to the kitchen, grateful for an excuse to put some space between us. For a second, she looked so small and vulnerable, my arms wanted to go around her. “That’s awesome. We need a celebratory piece of tuna casserole.”
I pulled two plates from the cabinet, and two forks, and a serving spoon I’d never used, from a drawer.
“I don’t want to keep you up.”
I turned with a small smile. “But I’m already up.”
“Thank you,” Darlene said softly. She joined me at the kitchen table. “I’m not used to living alone. The quiet gets to me and I’m not a fan of TV.”
I cut two squares of the casserole, and ladled one onto her plate, one onto mine. I took a bite.
“Holy shit, this is better than the first one.”
“Yeah?” Darlene’s smile brightened. Her light was always on but now her internal dimmer switch was turned up higher.
“I put peas in it. I thought you might want to give Livvie some tomorrow.” She took a taste. “Not bad, eh?”
“Not bad at all.” I watched her mouth as the tip of her tongue touched her lower lip. “It’s fucking perfect.”
She raised her eyes to meet mine. I went back to my food.
“So, what’s the show?” I asked. “Anything I would’ve heard of?”
“God, no,” she said. “It’s a tiny little dance troupe doing a revue. Independent. But even so, it’s the first time I’ve danced in about four years.”
“Really? Why the long break?”
She shifted in her seat and poked her food with the fork. “I got distracted by… other things. And it’s really easy to let something go if you don’t let yourself be that something. Do you know what I mean?”
I did, but I shook my head no. I wanted to hear Darlene talk. Now that she was here, I realized my place had been damn quiet too.
“I always danced but I didn’t call myself a dancer,” Darlene said. “I still don’t. I feel like I haven’t earned the title, but maybe this little show is a good step towards something bigger.”
“I think it’s fucking awesome that you took a shot and it paid off,” I said.
Darlene looked at me through lowered lashes. “You do?”
“Yeah. You put yourself out there. You faced rejection.”
The bitterness of my meeting with Judge Miller crept into my voice. I could hear it and Darlene did too.
“Did something happen today?” she asked.
“Nah, nothing,” I said. “We don’t need to talk about it.”
“We don’t need to, but you can if you want. I’m here.”
You sure as hell are.
I shifted in my chair. Talking about myself was like trying to get a rusted engine to turn over.
“I’m trying to win a clerkship with a federal judge after I graduate. It’s between me and another guy, and I’m just stressed out that the judge is going to choose my competition. If he does, I’m fucked. And on that note…” I went to the fridge. “I need a beer. You want one?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “What’s a clerkship?”
“It’s a job in which you act as a sort of assistant to a judge.” I popped the cap off an IPA and rejoined her at the table. “A Clerk of the Court advises them on codes and precedents and procedures during a trial.”
I took a pull off my beer. The cold ale went beautifully with Darlene’s casserole.
“Sounds like an important job,” Darlene said.
“It’s a vital stepping-stone on a path to a career as a federal prosecutor. To have a clerkship on your résumé, especially for a judge like Miller, is a big deal.” I took my last bite of casserole and pushed the plate away. “Moreover, I need the salary. I’m on a scholarship that’s going to run out right about the same minute I’m handed my law degree. If I don’t have this job waiting for me, I’ll have to find something else.”
“So what makes you think you’re not going to get this job?” Darlene asked. “Doesn’t this judge know about your mega-mind?”
“Maybe. But the competition isn’t just about academics.”
“No? Is there a talent portion, too?” Darlene speared the last pea on her plate with a grin. “Does your opponent look better in a bathing suit?”
My thin smile morphed into a full-blown laugh. “Probably.”
“I find that impossible to believe,” she said. Darlene’s cheeks turned pink and her eyes widened. “Why yes, I did say that out loud...”
She shook her head at herself. The nervous sadness was gone from her now that she’d shared her news
I did that. I made her happy.
I took another sip of cold beer. A long one.
“But for real,” Darlene said, “why on earth wouldn’t he pick you?”
“He’s eccentric,” I said. “Hard to know how to please him sometimes.”
I took another sip of beer to wash the lie from my tongue. But talking about Miller’s assignment would lead to talk of my mother, and that wasn’t going to happen.
A short silence fell that lasted as long as Darlene could tolerate—all of three seconds.
“So Elena says you’re about ready to graduate.”
“Yeah, I have finals over the next two weeks, then the bar exam. I think I’m good with the finals, but the bar,” I shook my head. “The pass rate is only 33% right now, which is pretty fucking scary.”
“What does that mean?”
“Only 33% of everyone taking the test will pass. The state puts a cap on how many lawyers will get a license per year. The cut score is 1440 out of 2000, which is insanely high. So I could answer all the multiple choice questions correctly and write essays that show I know my shit and still not ‘pass’ the exam on paper. If my work isn’t first rate, it’ll get tossed in the fail bin.”
Darlene’s eyes widened. “So it’s not even a matter of your mega-mind getting most of the answers right?”
“It’s a matter of getting all of the answers right and writing the most exceptional essays. And that,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “is what keeps me up at night.”
“Wow, I’ve never heard of a test where you could be good enough to pass and still fail.”
“Well, it’s technically a fail if you score below the cut, but the cut score has never been this high. The standards have risen. Which is a good thing—no one wants a bunch of shitty lawyers running around—but it’s still fucking scary. My buddy, Jackson, took the exam last quarter and barely passed with a 1530. And he was top of his class.”
Darlene toyed with her fork, scraping it lightly on her empty plate. “So you have Judge Miller’s decision, finals, and a bar exam with a crazy low pass rate, all the while taking care of a one-year-old.”
I nodded with a small smile. “When you put it that way…”
“And yet, you still find time to comfort your neurotic neighbor over her dance audition news.” She rested her cheek on her hand. “Elena was right about you after all.”
Another flood of warmth suffused my chest, and I knew it was Darlene, slipping past the defenses I’d built around my heart. The moment held, wavered, and then broke when the baby monitor on my desk lit up. Olivia began to stir.
Darlene straightened. “Shit, did we wake her up?”
“No,” I said. “She wakes up once or twice a night, like clockwork.”
We both listened for a moment. Olivia fussed sleepily and then the baby monitor went quiet.
“She went back to sleep,” I said. “Sometimes that happens too, but around three a.m. she’ll wake up and I’ll have to hold her for a bit. Most of the baby books I’ve read said to stop indulging her in it, but I’m not going to just let her cry.” I shrugged, rubbed my neck. “So I’m a big pushover, I guess.”
“No, it’s sweet,” Darlene said. She had a soft smile on her face that I didn’t like because I liked it too much. “You take good care of her.”
“I try. She probably doesn’t even remember her mom. But what if she does?” I glanced over at the monitor, quiet now. “Those baby books don’t cover what to do if your kid’s mom abandons her. Livvie might know that deep down. She might not. But I sometimes think she wakes up just to make sure she’s not alone.”
I blinked and tore my gaze from the monitor to Darlene. She was watching me, her eyes soft and shining, and I realized what I’d said. How much I’d said.
“Shit, sorry. I don’t… I’m so tired, I just started rambling.”
“You weren’t rambling,” Darlene said, then added in a brighter tone, “But you do look really tired. And stressed. And I happen to be a certified massage therapist.” She held up her hands. “It’s like, fate, or something.”
“No, no, I’m fine, thanks.”
“Are you sure? Because your shoulders look like they’re growing out of your ears.”
“I’m used to it.”
“You can get used to a lot of things,” Darlene said. “Doesn’t mean they’re good for you.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t had a beautiful woman’s hands on me in ten months.
This is bad. Or really fucking good, which is also bad.
“Aren’t you tired after massaging people all day?”
Darlene grinned, seeing victory at hand. “I think I have one more left in me. My shoulders hurt just looking at you. Five minutes and then I’ll leave you in peace.”
Without a word, I sat ramrod straight while Darlene rose from her chair to move behind me. I could feel her all up and down my spine. I was in the soft cloud of her space, and the scent of her—shower soap and her warm skin—fell over me. The light weight of her hands on my shoulders sent little shocks coursing straight down to my groin.
See? Bad idea.
Then Darlene’s thumbs dug into my shoulders with an exquisite pain, and all rational thought fled. A small groan of relief was pushed out of me with her digging fingers.
“Holy crap,” Darlene murmured. “Your knots have knots. I have never, in all my weeks of professional massage, had anyone as tense as you.”
I murmured something intelligible. My words were turning to mush in my brain. Darlene’s hands were merciless and my eyes fell shut. Tight fists of muscle unclenched in me, and sleepy warmth flooded in.
“You’re going to knock me out,” I said.
“You should be lying down,” she said. “I can work much better that way.”
“If I fall out of the chair, does that count?”
She murmured a small laugh, and then her fingers sunk into my hair, grazing my scalp, and sending gentle currents down my back. I felt drunk.
“Darlene,” I said, my chin sinking to my chest. “You’re really good at this.”
“Thank you.”
Her small hands were stronger than I expected, and she slid them down over my shoulders, to press into my solar plexus. Stiff knots loosened, and as the relief flooded me, the dormant physical needs I’d been denying myself began to wake up under her hands. Blood flowed and as muscles loosened, my own hands clenched to keep from reaching up to touch her.
The air between us felt thick and charged, and I knew Darlene felt it too. Her hands stilled. I felt her stiffen behind me.
“Darlene,” I said, my voice gruff and thick.
“I should go,” she said, her own voice hardly more than a whisper. She gave my shoulders a final, stiff little pat, and moved to the door.
I moved sluggishly, like an animal coming out of warm hibernation into cold, harsh light, to open the door for her, but she was already there.
“You should get some sleep,” she said. “I have to be up super early for the spa, then rehearsal. Thank you for listening to my news. You’re a good neighbor, Sawyer. Good night.”
And then the tornado that was her, swept out of my place just as fast as she’d swept in, and I was alone.