Lisa Scottoline - Lady Killer

“Ant, it’s okay. I know you’re gay and I love you anyway.” Elvira gestured at the crowd. “We all know. I told everybody, it’s like Rock Hudson. We’re all fine with it, aren’t we?”

The room murmured in approval, though Mary spotted two members of the Dean Martin Fan Club exchanging looks in the back of the crowd. Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime, but only if the somebodies were a boy and a girl.

“Mom, no.” Anthony laughed. “I’m really not gay. I just like books and wine and opera.”

“That’s not true, son. You don’t have to lie. I like it that you’re gay. It makes me feel special.”

“Listen, I’m straight. I can’t help it. I was born this way.”

“It’s possible, Elvira.” Mary’s father looked over with a half smile, but her lined mouth was set with skepticism.

“No, it’s not. What about Celine Dion? That’s proof!”

Mary saw a chance to broker a settlement. “Elvira, he was gay, but I converted him, and if I keep at it, he’ll stay on the straight and narrow.”

“Right, Ma. All it took was the love of a good woman.” Anthony threw his arm around Mary and gave her a squeeze. “This woman.”

Mary’s parents beamed, and Elvira looked from Anthony to Mary and back again, then broke into a smile.

“That, I can understand,” she said, finally.

A pale yellow sun climbed a cloudless sky, and Rittenhouse Square was just beginning to flower, the coldest of March gone for good. The hedges lining the park popped bright green leaves, and the grass, recently seeded, sprouted behind cordons of cotton string. People strode through the park, bearing briefcases and gym bags, full of purpose and caffeine, on their way to work. Mary sat next to Judy on a wooden bench, dressed in a khaki suit, white shirt, brown pumps, and her starter trenchcoat. She was betting it would help get her job back, if she dressed like a mini Bennie Rosato.

“She’ll take you back, I know it,” Judy was saying. “All you have to do is go into her office, sit in a chair, and tell her that you’re sorry.”

“What am I sorry for, again?” Mary kept forgetting.

“You’re sorry for walking out that day.”

“I’m not sorry for that. I’m sorry I lost my job. Does that count?”

“No. You need to say you’re sorry if you want your job back.” Judy looked concerned, which was a neat trick in a jeans jacket and a cherry red minidress, worn with black-and-white-striped leggings and yellow Dr. Martens boots.

“She might not take me back. At the Roundhouse, she barely spoke to me.”

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll come around. She was really upset last week, after she’d come back from court. She won her trial and she still wasn’t happy.” Judy flared her eyes. “Unprecedented.”

“Really.”

“Weird.” Judy nodded.

“She left me no choice but to go,” Mary said, thinking back. “The truth is, I wouldn’t do it any differently.”

“You’re not going to say that.” Judy brushed a spray of bangs out of her eyes. “It sucks working there without you. Anne feels the same way. We want you back.”

“I want to go back. It’s where I belong.”

“Good. Then do it for me. Say the magic words, and Bennie will accept your apology. Even if she’s still mad at you, it makes business sense to take you back.”

“I’ve lost some clients.”

“You’ll get them back and plenty more. In fact, I forgot to tell you, Nunez called this morning and he’s rehiring you.”

“That’s great.” Mary felt her heart lift.

“It’s just the beginning. Of course Bennie will take you back. She just needs to save face, which is why you have to apologize.” Judy pointed her finger. “Say it first. ‘I’m Mary and I’m sorry.’”

“I’m Sorry Mary.”

“Stop joking around.”

“I’ll crawl in on my knees.”

“That works, too.”

“I hear you.” Mary was thinking about Mrs. Foglia and Tony-From-Down-The-Block. “You know, Bennie should apologize to me.”

“Don’t be a baby.”

“I’m just saying. I didn’t do anything wrong and in the end, I caught the bad guy. Even if it wasn’t my job and she was somebody’s mother.” Suddenly Mary wasn’t feeling so strong. She was destroying her own self-confidence. She needed to shut up. “At least I have a boyfriend.”

“True, and he sounds great.”

“He is.” Mary had told Judy every delicious detail. Twice. Of course, she’d never admit as much to Anthony. Not all conspiracies of silence were wrong.

“But now you need a job.”

“Can you believe this? For a long time, I had a job and no boyfriend. Now I have a boyfriend and no job. How do you get both at once?”

“Stand up. We’re going.” Judy rose to her full six feet and checked her ridiculous Swatch watch with the tumbling baby heads. “You meet with her in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay, I’m ready.” Mary rose with a self-assurance she didn’t feel, and Judy raised a hand to slap her five.

“Come on, give it up.”

“No. You always do it too hard.”

“Now. For luck.”

Mary obeyed, and Judy slapped her palm too hard, as she knew she would. “Jude, ouch!”

“Sorry.” Judy threw an arm around her and they joined the flow of the people with jobs, walking to the office down the main diagonal of the park. “It’s nothing compared to what Bennie’s going to do to you.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m kidding. You’ll be fine.”

“You’ll come in if I scream?”

“Goes without saying,” Judy said anyway.

M ary lingered at the open door to Bennie’s office while the boss skimmed the newspaper, standing up behind her desk the way she always did, her hands braced on either side of the front page. Even upside down, Mary recognized her own photo below the newspaper fold, and it reminded her of what she’d been through in the past week. For some reason, she felt suddenly impatient.

“Bennie, you ready to see me?” Mary asked, and her voice sounded authoritative, even to her, who knew better.

“DiNunzio.” Bennie looked up pleasantly and motioned her in. She had on a navy suit and white oxford shirt, with her curly hair pulled back into a simple, albeit tangled, low ponytail. “Take a seat.”

“By the way, congratulations on your trial. I forgot to tell you the other night.”

“Thanks,” Bennie said with a smile. She sat down in her desk chair while Mary took a seat opposite her desk, thinking about what Judy had told her.

She just needs to save face, which is why you have to apologize. It has to be the first thing you say.

“I’m pleased with the newspaper coverage, aren’t you?” Bennie asked. “The media attention bodes very well for Trish’s mother. The pressure will build up, especially if the Mob murders stop. So far, so good.”

Apologize. “I thought the same thing.”

“Against my nature to have her confess, but it really did serve the client and the greater good.”

“It did. Thanks for coming to the rescue.” Mary smiled, softening. As angry as Bennie must have been, she dropped everything, no questions asked. “I was so blindsided by her confession. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You’re welcome.” Bennie waved it off. “How was Trish later? She was so upset.”

“She’ll be fine, I think. Her friends will help.” Now. Say it. “I’m sorry about the other day, when I left the office.”

Bennie looked at her for a minute, puckering her mouth slightly, and Mary sensed she was waiting for a second helping of crow.

“I would like to have my job back, if that’s possible.”