Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

She heard Paul pop the cork off the balcony deck. He had put on the Michael Hutchence CD they both liked and was humming along. He was happy to see her. The evening would seem to stretch on forever, and that was how she wanted it: dinner, drinks, talk, lovemaking, a swim in the condo pool, late night on the balcony, his arms around her as she fell asleep.

She needed this night away from everything. Just this one night, she told herself. So it always went with Paul. “You’re already married,” he would tell her. “To your briefcase.”

As she hung the damp towel neatly on its rack, she admitted something to herself: Their relationship had changed forever on the day, just a short time before, that she realized that Paul had saved her life by killing a man who was trying to kill her. She trusted him now in ways she didn’t trust anyone else, even her brother and father. In the face of his extraordinary act, she had surrendered much of her resistance to him. She felt bound to him in some primitive way that she had better sort out fast. Coming to him now, when she was so vulnerable, felt natural and right.

She needed him. Before, he had needed her. Her need for his solidity, his loyalty, was beginning to overwhelm all those other conflicts between them.

This feeling is new, she thought to herself, looking in the mirror. Was weakness driving her so urgently to him now?

Did it matter?

Sun poured through the window. She looked at the black teddy. It wouldn’t do. The 1950s were dead, R.I.P. Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart, but viva the new century! She would at least skip the underwear.

Pulling her shorts and tank top out of her duffel, she dressed swiftly, giving one final glance to the woman in the mirror, the physical one that seldom communicated with the cyborg of the office, the one with nipples obvious under the thin material of her top, the one with tangled brown hair and bare feet. This woman could be irresponsible without dire consequences because she knew it-Paul would never hurt her. She could relax into a blur of sex and pleasure with him, if just for tonight, sleep dreamlessly in his arms, and store up power for Monday.

Out on the deck, Paul grilled teriyaki tuna and steamed asparagus with butter. She fed the blue jays, letting them do the chattering. They ate at a patio table covered with a red cloth, the candle flame flickering in the breeze. As the sun moved west across the ocean and the moon revealed herself, splendid and yellow, Nina ended up on Paul’s lap. They moved right along into the bedroom and Paul finally revealed the rest of his big plan.

As she walked toward the living room late on Sunday morning, she heard the low rumbling of masculine voices. His lawyer friend must have arrived. The man stood up when she came in and took a step toward her, his hand coming up and then hanging in the air, along with his mouth.

She stopped, her mouth frozen in the polite smile.

“Oh, no. No, Paul,” she said.

“What’s she doing here?” her ex-husband, Jack McIntyre, said at exactly the same time.

They both turned to Paul, who sprawled in his chair, long hairy legs stretching out from his khaki shorts. “You both would have said no. You’ll both thank me later. Get you something, Nina?” he said.

“I’ll get it,” she said, retreating into the kitchen, trying to figure out what in the world she felt, seeing Jack again. Shock, definitely. They hadn’t met since before their divorce, not since the day Jack walked out on her and their place in Bernal Heights.

She walked slowly back out, holding a soda. Apparently not a word had been spoken. Jack held a beer to his mouth and appeared to be draining it. Beer on Sunday morning. That was new.

“Well,” Paul said. “Ha, ha. Jack, Nina. Nina, Jack.”

“Hello, Nina,” Jack said. He raised his eyebrows, shrugged, smiled slightly. “Believe me, although I should have suspected he was up to something, I didn’t.”

“Hello.” She sat down on the couch, keeping her legs together, and crossed her arms. “What’re you doing here?”

“I was invited,” Jack said. “It’s been a couple of years now, hasn’t it? Amazing. I meant to call Bob more often.”

“He’s been busy. Like you, I’m sure.”

“You always did fit into a T-shirt just right,” Jack said.

Nina crossed her arms.

Jack broke into a broad smile. “Paul, you old fox.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, buddy. This is business,” Paul said.

Jack ignored him. He did look fine, if pale from the years in high-rise San Francisco and away from the beaches. Shorter than Paul, he was brawny, although leaner than he looked, something you only saw when he took his shirt off. He had reminded her of a teddy bear when they met, a hairy Big Sur guy who brooked no shit but had a ready smile and a kind word for everyone.

Nina was remembering her last phone conversation with Jack. He had urged her to hurry up and sign the papers so he could marry his girlfriend. She had reacted, well, with a certain lack of gentility. The old anger hadn’t had time to rise up yet and all she felt was nervous and curious. She looked again at Paul, who cleared his throat, stalling, as if waiting to see how she would react.

“He’s the state bar defense lawyer?”

“I hear he’s good,” Paul said. “Of course, I hear that from him.”

Jack said, “Ah ha. The pieces begin to come together.”

Odd, to be in a room with two men she had slept with. She had no urge to compare them, then suddenly found herself doing exactly that. Apples and oranges, she thought. Onions and leeks. Cucumbers and bananas. She giggled. Nerves.

“What’s so funny?” Jack asked.

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“I haven’t even started my song and dance yet, and you’re smiling.” He turned to Paul. “Did you tell her about Eva? Is that why she’s smiling?”

“Tell me what?”

“She dumped my ass,” Jack said. “Two months ago.” He looked hurt when he said it.

“Really,” Nina said.

“I didn’t even see it coming. She moved out and served me the next day.”

“She does move fast,” Nina said. Jack’s new wife had also been the attorney who represented Jack in his divorce from Nina.

“Go ahead. Tell me I deserved it.” After a pause pregnant with Nina’s silence, Jack said, “Well. You get a gold star for restraint. Here I am, battered and blue. So, Paul, you going to tell me what’s up?”

Paul got up. “Let’s save that until we’re on the deck at Nepenthe. It’s a forty-five-minute drive and I’m already hungry.”

Jack and Nina continued to sneak looks at each other. She decided he was as intense and brash as ever but he had a new aspect today. He looked wounded, maybe. Chastened.

Improved. Definitely improved.

“Okay,” Jack said. “Sure.”

They took Jack’s green Chrysler Sebring, top down. Paul sat in the rear seat, his legs digging into Nina’s back. The fog had drifted out to sea around the Highlands Inn and the twisting road revealed glimpses of deep blue sea on their right around every turn. Vacationers blew past them as Jack stuck to the speed limit. When the houses grew sparse, the road hugged a cliff that stretched high above them on their left and down a thousand feet, to the crashing surf far below.

“Awesome!” Jack shouted over the noise of the engine. “I always forget.”

As they crossed the Bixby Creek Bridge, Paul leaned forward to touch Nina’s shoulder, because she had a very bad memory of that place that had to do with her mother’s death many years before. They swerved past the Point Sur Lighthouse, where the navy was on the lookout for terrorists these days. The world had changed since Nina’s childhood, when VW vans full of bell-bottomed kids had traveled this beautiful road.