Eddie Joyce - Small Mercies

He’d met half a dozen first-year associates already that week. They were all the same: earnest, fresh faced, eager to please, completely incapable of doing competent work. They were a necessary evil, one that not only had to be tolerated but humored as well. A year from now, the plucky high spirits would be kicked out of this girl, a casualty of two thousand plus billable hours, most of them spent in mind-numbing document reviews on cases whose greater purpose she would never learn.

But on a crisp September Friday at the end of her first week at the firm?

A bundle of naive optimism, certain that this conversation was the most important thing in either of their lives. She’d been rambling for minutes, Peter half paying attention, when he heard it. She said it like a native, not saying the first syllable so much as expelling it from her mouth. Eschewing the second syllable entirely and sliding the n over to the second word, which slithered out like an afterthought.

STAT Nisland.

Not Sta-ten Island, like the Dutch must have said it four hundred years ago, like you probably should say it. STAT Nisland. Like a challenge. STAT Nisland. Like a threat.

Peter smiled, the mention of his home borough shaking him from his stupor.

“You’re from the rock?” he asked, suddenly half interested.

Her obsequious smile pinched for a moment and then relaxed, leaving a genuine grin in its place. She shook her head with humored disbelief.

“You don’t remember me,” she said.

Peter looked at her with perplexed intent. She was pretty — jet black hair, a soft, round face; large, expressive eyes — and looked somewhat familiar, but only in a vague, ethnic sense. A polished version of every good-looking Italian girl he’d grown up with.

“I’m sorry,” he managed.

“Regina Giordano. I won the first annual Robert Amendola Memorial Scholarship. You spoke at the ceremony.”

Peter shook his head. His mother had come up with the idea the spring after Bobby was killed, had recruited Peter to help her. A fifteen-hundred-dollar scholarship — a stipend really, just some spare cash to pay for books — in Bobby’s name given to a Staten Island kid, the son or daughter of a firefighter, who showed academic promise. She organized a small luncheon to hand out the check. The Advance ran a small piece about the honoree, about Bobby as well. It made his mother happy, and for that alone, Peter was willing to pay for the whole thing. Every year thereafter, she asked him to come to the ceremony, but work always got in the way. He’d only been able to attend the first luncheon.

He remembered it now. A buffet at the Staaten catering hall: chicken francaise and pitchers of Coke. He made some remarks, talked about Bobby. They gave the scholarship to a girl, a senior in high school, a nerdy, endearing teenager with frizzy hair in a Catholic school skirt. He looked across at Regina, who was nodding, one eyebrow raised. It wasn’t possible.

He looked down at his fingers, did some quick math. Spring of 2002. Four years of college, three years of law school. It was possible. More than possible. There was even an extra year somewhere.

Time flies whether you’re having fun or not.

“Jesus, Regina. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it’s possible. And I didn’t recognize you. Look at you. We gave that scholarship to a little girl, not a first-year lawyer.”

She laughed and leaned forward. Her silk blouse was unfastened a button lower than what the firm would deem professionally appropriate. Peter got a glimpse of cleavage, noticed a lacy red bra. He forced his eyes north.

“It’s okay, Mr. Amendola. I’m sure you’re extremely busy. Our mothers actually kept in touch. My mom would give yours updates on how I was doing, what grades I was getting, where I was applying to law school. I actually visited your parents a few times when I was home for spring break in college.”

“I’m sure my mother loved that. Absolutely loved it. And please, call me Peter.”

“Okay, Peter. Well, your family is lovely. And I still remember what you said at the luncheon.”

“Dear God, what did I say?”

“Well, you talked about Bobby, what a great guy he was. Great father. And then you gave me some advice. You said, ‘Keep your feet on the ground, but reach for the stars.’”

Had he really uttered such an inane platitude? Possibly. At his mother’s behest, he’d spoken at a number of different schools on the Island over the years. In his limited experience speaking to Staten Island students and their parents, he’d decided that straightforward praise of hard work as the best avenue to a vague but definitely monetarily associated success worked best. As in: if you work your ass off, you’ll make a boatload of money. Which was funny, if you thought about it, because the cops and firefighters and teachers you were talking to were living proof of different propositions. Like: take a good city job, retire after twenty, and live on your pension. Or maybe: work hard and you’ll make a living, not enough to live anywhere but Staten Island, but a living. That’s why the descriptions of success had to be vague. Most Staten Island parents had no idea what to tell their kids to aspire to.

“God, I can’t believe I said that,” he said, running his hand through his hair.

She let her chin and lower lip droop, leaving her mouth agape in an expression of mock hurt. A salacious thought popped into Peter’s mind, unbidden. He exiled it immediately.

“I wrote it down when I got home, it became my little mantra. I even taped it above my desk in college.”

Peter groaned.

“You’re joking. Really?”

“Yes, yes. I can’t believe you’re disavowing it. This is like Scalia saying that the drafters’ original intent doesn’t matter after all.”

Clever girl. A little law-school nerdy, but still.

“It’s just that of all the things to say to an impressionable young student with her whole life in front of her.”

“Why? What should you have said?”

“Don’t go to law school.”

She laughed again, heartier this time, almost a snort. Her earlier skittishness had dissipated. She leaned back in her chair, comfortable. Her skin was a smooth mocha, her eyes a surprising blue: a touch of light against a dusky background.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. Because if you did, we wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

She raised her left hand to remove a strand of hair that had stuck in the corner of her mouth. He noticed a large engagement ring, felt an inexplicable pang of jealousy.

“So, who’s the lucky guy?”

She looked confused. He pointed at her ring.

“Oh, this. I keep forgetting. It happened last week. Right before I started. His name’s David. We went to law school together. He’s at Hofstadt Klein.”

Keep forgetting? She didn’t seem overly enthused. Hofstadt Klein was a third-rate firm at best. Of course he’d proposed last week. Couldn’t let this girl walk in here without a visible sign of attachment. The older male associates would have been all over her. Probably still would be.

“Set a date yet?”

“No, I don’t want anything big.”

“The Italian girl from Staten Island doesn’t want a big wedding?”

“I’m not your typical guidette.”

“No, I guess not. Is David a Staten Island boy as well?”

“No, no, no. He’s from Connecticut.”

Peter groaned again, this time for dramatic effect.

“C’mon, Regina. The guys from Connecticut already get all the breaks; you can’t let them take the nice girls from Staten Island too.”

“I’m not that nice,” she said and winked at him.

He laughed. This was the first conversation he’d enjoyed with a first-year in years. She was charming. He felt a small measure of pride in the fact that another kid from SI had made it here, to this firm, and that he’d played a role in helping her, albeit a tiny one.