Innocent Read online

  I looked into my coffee. 'How is your dad?' I asked.

  'Pretty focused on the election. Koll has been pounding away about this guy Harnason who skipped town after my dad gave him bail, and my dad's just beside himself.' He repeated some of the campaign advice his father was getting from Ray Horgan, then stopped himself to ask if I knew Ray. I gave him a long look because I was sure at first he was kidding.

  'I work for Ray,' I finally said.

  'I'm an idiot.' Nat socked himself in the head. 'I'm surprised you haven't been talking to my dad yourself. He usually stays in touch with his ex-clerks, and he always talked about you like you were the coolest thing since Pop-Tarts.'

  'Did he? Really?' Even then I felt my heart surge with the compliment. 'I'm just working so hard I'm basically a hermit.'

  That led to a long discussion of being a young associate in a law firm. I told Nat the truth. It's either a very crass deal--you're there to pay off your student loans or put together a down payment--or an act of blind hope, because you think being a lawyer is really interesting, if only you could get to the interesting parts. Which I haven't done yet.

  'The big worry,' I said, 'is that while you're figuring that out, you'll get hooked on the money.'

  'Like by buying a condo?' he asked with a cute little smile I'd seen a couple times already.

  'Right. Or renting a really nice apartment by yourself.'

  We laughed at each other, but that was pretty much that. As we headed inside, I asked what else he might do.

  'I worked as a sub at Nearing High odd days while I was in law school, and I could go back to it. What I'd really love is to teach law,' he said, 'but you have to publish to get hired anywhere decent. I did a note, but I need more. I was supposed to spend this year writing this off-the-grid law review article about neuroscience and the law, but I broke up with my girlfriend the semester before I graduated, and I'm still so bummed about it I can't concentrate on stuff like that when I come home from work. Maybe I can do it next year while I sub.'

  'Sorry about the breakup,' I said.

  'Oh, I can totally see how it was for the best, I really can, but the whole process kills me. One day you're in the middle of somebody's life, and the next you're handing back the key, and even her dog won't pee on your foot.'

  I laughed pretty hard, even though I was caught up in the melancholy of his observation.

  'Been there, done that.' I heaved a sigh. 'Doing, actually.' I didn't quite have the stuff to look him in the eye and moved toward the door.

  'I don't usually talk this much,' he said when he got there. 'I must feel like I know you better than I actually do.' I had no idea how to answer a remark so odd, and we stood in silence another second.

  When he'd left, my heart was rocking and rolling in my chest. Nat had inevitably dragged his father into my apartment with him. In the time since Rusty and I came to the end, I tried not to think about him much, but when I did, it was with terrible pity for myself--for being so crazy and vulnerable and stupid, for wanting something I so clearly was never really going to have. Dennis, the therapist I see, calls love the only legally accepted form of psychosis. But I guess that's why love is wonderful, as well as dangerous, because it can make you so different. Some of the books I've read say that love in the end is about change. I'm still not sure.

  Nat wrote back within two hours to say what I thought was already established, namely, that he would not take the place.

  After listening to you, I realized I must be brain-dead to think I could work in a law firm. I will email all the incoming clerks at the Supreme Court who may still be looking and say how awesome your place is and such a steal that whoever rents it should just about get indicted.

  I need to apologize a little, since I know I came off as some kind of psycho weirdo half mental patient, babbling about my shrinks, but it was really cool to talk to you, and I was thinking maybe we could even have coffee in a couple of weeks, so I could bounce any new job developments off you.

  The other thing is that when I went over the whole conversation in my head, I thought it was kind of a hoot that we each were asking the other one what my dad really thinks. That is SO my dad.

  Talk soon.

  Nat

  I read this e-mail over several times, especially the part about having coffee. Is this guy a little into you? I wondered. I worked for half an hour on a response that would hit the right notes.

  Nat--

  I completely understand. And thanks so much for your help inside the Court. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

  And no, you did not come off as some kind of "psycho weirdo." On the DL, I just started doing therapy about a year ago, after a really really bad breakup, and I truly feel sometimes like I was wasting my life up until then. I'm still a little embarrassed about it--both because I need it, and I like it so much. But that's the only time I'm taking for myself these days. I hate making coffee dates because I always end up breaking them. But please send an email now and then and let me know how things are going.

  As soon as I hit send, I was drilled by a truth I seldom care to recognize: I'm lonely. I have made so many changes in the last decade, it's been hard to hold tight to friends, especially since most are married now with kids. I'm happy for them, but they've come to terms and aren't interested in putting a lot of stuff under the microscope. You can't sit there pouring your heart out to somebody who isn't going to reciprocate. I have single girlfriends, but nine times out of ten we end up talking about men, which doesn't work right now. In the year-plus I've spent getting over Rusty, I've isolated myself behind a wall of work. Most weekend evenings, it's been TV and Lean Cuisine.

  So that was that with Nat until a guy named Micah Corfling contacted me about ten days later. He was going to clerk for Justice Tompkins and had gotten an e-mail from Nat raving about my place and ended up renting it from a few pics I sent. When I wrote Nat to say I owed him, he sent this message back:

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  Sent: Friday, 7/25/08 4:20 pm

  Cool!!! So if you owe me, how about lunch or something tomorrow? It doesn't have to be anyplace nice, because except for my suits I really don't own any clothes without holes.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  Sent: Friday, 7/25/08 4:34 pm

  Sorry, Nat. It's like I told you. Work work work. I'll be in the office all day. Rain check?

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  Sent: Friday, 7/25/08 4:40 pm

  I have to do a couple things over at the Court. I'll meet you near your building.

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  Sent: Friday, 7/25/08 5:06 pm

  I have a draft due on a brief. I'll be frantic and lousy company. Another time?

  FROM: [email protected]

  TO: [email protected]

  Sent: Friday, 7/25/08 5:18 pm

  Come on! It's Saturday! And you sublet your place thanks to me. (Sorta kinda.)

  By then, I was feeling like a pretty big ingrate, so I agreed to meet for something superquick at Wally's, realizing I should take the opportunity to cool him out. As I was leaving to meet him on Saturday, I asked Meetra Billings, the pool secretary who was typing the brief for me, to call in twenty minutes and pretend the partner wanted to see me.

  Wally's is a takeout deli with a few tables. During the week, it's all bang and bustle in there. The patrons and employees shout at top volume, and the rusted window unit in the transom bangs as though there's a jackhammer inside, while Wally, an immigrant from somewhere east of Paris, yells, 'Closs door, closs door!' to the people in the queue to get in. But on Saturday you can actually hear the voices of the countermen gruffly demanding, 'Next!' out of habit. Nat was already there. There were two coffees on the table, one with cream and two yellow packets resting on the lid, which is how I take min
e, a nice touch. His cell phone was also on the Formica, and I asked if he was expecting a call.

  'From you,' he answered. 'I figured you'd cancel at the last minute.'

  Nailed, I made a face. 'I don't have your number.'

  'Clever of me,' he said. 'So, I mean can I ask--what's that about?'

  I took a seat at the table, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse.

  'I just feel like it would be weird if we started hanging out. With my having worked for your dad and all?' It sounded ridiculously lame, even to me.

  'I'm thinking there's something else,' he said. 'Jealous boyfriend, maybe, who wants to lock you in a closet?'

  'No.' I actually laughed. 'No relationship. I'm taking kind of a time-out from men.'

  'Because of that breakup? What happened?'

  I missed a breath before I finally shook my head. 'I can't talk about that, Nat. It's too raw. And too embarrassing. But I need to be surer of who I am, and what I want, before I get involved again. I haven't gone this long without a date since seventh grade. But I do feel more virtuous. Except when the batteries drain on my Rabbit.'

  I guess I was trying to forestall more questions about my broken heart, but I still couldn't believe that had sailed out of my mouth. Yet I'd already found we shared a pretty outrageous sense of humor, and Nat roared. His laughter seems to come from some hidden part of him.

  'That sounds like a therapist's idea,' he said. 'The time-out?'

  It was, of course, and we ended up in this pretty deep conversation about therapy. He'd done tons but had quit because he was afraid he was turning into one of those people who lived just so they could talk to their shrink about it. I hadn't ever really discussed seeing Dennis, and I was actually disappointed when Meetra called. I also felt like a terrible goof because we hadn't even ordered lunch yet. I apologized like mad but still got up to leave.

  'And when's moving day?' he asked.

  'Sunday, August 3. I hired professionals for the first time in my life. I've hit up my friends so often I didn't have the courage to ask again. All I have to handle is the stuff I'm afraid the movers will break. It'll be a pain, but less.'

  'I could help. Strong like ox,' he said in an accent. 'And I work really cheap.'

  'I couldn't ask.'

  'Why not?'

  My mouth moved a little while I groped for the words, and he finally cut in.

  'Hey, okay, so let's get it out there. "Just friends." You're on a time-out and I'm too young for you anyway. Your thing is older guys, right?'

  'Yeah, father runs. It's pretty predictable I've been into older guys.'

  'So okay,' he said. 'I don't feel like I've been voted off the island. Just name the day.'

  I couldn't pretend I didn't need the help, especially somebody strong enough to handle my new TV, which I was afraid to hand over to the movers. One thing I'd realized in my two meetings with Nat was that I was starved for male company. I've always had close friends who are guys, sharing certain common ground--sports, gross jokes, dark movies. As I've gotten into my thirties, when almost everyone else is paired up, opposite-sex friendships have seemed tougher to maintain. Wives get jealous, and the borders are better patrolled. It was hard not to welcome Nat on these terms. Especially since his roommate had an SUV he could borrow.

  And so, on Saturday, August 2, Nat was at my door again. It was a horrible day to move, close to a hundred. The sun was so intense that you felt as if you were being hunted, and the air was as close as a glove. I'd been up all night packing. Once I got started, I just kept going, and when we carted everything down to the dock, it turned out I'd boxed too much for a single load.

  By noon, we had the first run up in the new place. It's on the sixth floor of an old building along the river, with lots of period detail--dental moldings at the ceiling and beautiful oak and gumwood, including the window frames, which have never been painted. I had bought it out of a foreclosure and hadn't realized that the bank had turned off the electric. There was no AC and we were both dripping. He had completely sweated through his sleeveless tee, and I looked even worse with my seventy-dollar haircut licked to my face.

  We decided Nat would return for the remaining boxes while I went out to buy us lunch. It took me longer than I expected to navigate my new neighborhood, and when I got back he was already upstairs, standing out on my back porch. He was naked to the waist while he wrung out his T-shirt and looked awfully goddamn good doing it, lean but ripped with muscles, and I felt the effect in my whole lower body. I turned away just before he could catch me gawking.

  'Ready to eat?' I showed him the bag when he came back inside.

  'Not an air lunch like last time?'

  I poked him in reprisal. There was no table, and while I tried to figure out where we could sit, he pointed to one of the last boxes he'd brought in. It was stacked with various framed photos I've stored for years, all too precious to toss and too embarrassing to display.

  'I couldn't help noticing,' he said, and pulled out a blowup of an old snapshot taken when I was no more than five, of my mother, my father, and me. It was Christmas, and the snow was piled high in front of our bungalow. Wearing a felt hat and overcoat, my dad looked fairly dashing as he held me. I was dressed in a little kilted outfit complete with tam, and my mom smiled beside us. And even so, there was a certain visible discontent among the three of us, as if we all knew the cheerful pose was just that.

  'That's one of the only pictures I have of the three of us,' I told Nat. 'My aunt basically hid it. After my dad split, my mom went through every family photograph and cut him out. Literally. With a scissors. Which never made complete sense to me. He was playing around, but from the little hints I've picked up over the years, I think she may have been doing the same thing. I've never really been sure. It's weird.'

  'I know what that's like,' he said. 'I think my dad had an affair when I was a kid. It had something to do with his trial, but you know, neither he or my mom was ever willing to talk about any of that, so I still don't know exactly what went down.'

  Neither of us seemed to know what more to say. Nat looked back to the box and pulled out another picture, which turned out to be my bridal photo.

  'Wow!' he said. The truth, which I wasn't about to admit, was that I looked so great that day, I have never been willing to throw away the picture.

  'That photograph,' I said, 'is literally the only good thing I got out of my marriage. You think, someone like me, no kids and not much money, back to zero will be no biggie. But it is. Marrying anybody is such an act of hope. And when it craters--it takes a long time to regather yourself.'

  The next picture he pulled out stopped him cold.

  'Get outta here,' he said. 'Is that Storm?'

  In the picture, the famous rocker is in a studded leather jacket, with his arms around me and my best friend, Dede Wirklich, both of us fourteen at the time. I'd won a drawing from a local radio station, two concert tickets and the chance to meet Storm backstage, and naturally I chose Dede to go with. When I'd discovered her in second grade, I'd felt as though I had found a missing piece of myself. Her father had taken off, too, and we seemed to understand each other in a way that did not require speaking.

  She was kind of a cutup, and got in a lot of trouble as the years went on. Very often we were in these pranks together--we once stole into the principal's office and hid a noisy cricket, which took him days to find--but the teachers were more reluctant to blame me because I tended to be the best student in the class. We started drinking together at eleven when we smuggled shots of gin and vodka from her mother's stash, replacing them with water every day until both bottles tasted exactly like the tap.

  By high school, Dede had gone totally Goth, right down to the black fingernails and white eye shadow, and it was pretty clear she was always going to be in trouble. Her boyfriends were all loners and misfits, guys with biker tatts and cigarettes drooping from the corners of their mouths, who were never good to her. Senior year, she got pregnant by one of
these characters and had Jessie.

  Nat asked if I still saw her, and I told him we came to an ugly end.

  'I actually moved in with her after my marriage broke up, but it was a bad scene. I got stuck with all the housework, including making Jessie's school lunch. Dede resented me, because even though my life was no bowl of cherries, it was still going to end up better than hers, and for my part, I got fed up lending her money I was never going to see again, and worn out by Jessie, who was an incurably needy, whiny little girl. It all led to this unreal moment which I'd rather not talk about.'

  Looking down again to the photograph, Nat changed the subject by asking what Storm was like.

  'Truth?' I answered. 'I was so incredibly nervous that if it weren't for the picture, I wouldn't even remember it happened.'

  'Storm's a good show,' Nat said. 'I saw him three times. That's all I did when I was in college--go to concerts and get stoned. Unlike now, when I go to work and get stoned.'

  He was in a bantering mode, but I stared.

  'Nat, you're not really going to the supreme court with reefer in your pocket?'

  He was sheepish and muttered something about it being a hard year.

  'Nat, if you ever got caught, you'd be prosecuted. Your dad's way too prominent for you to catch a break. They'll suspend your law license, and nobody will let you near a high school, either.'

  My lecture embarrassed him, naturally, and we ended up in silence, as we sat on the floor to eat. Down low, with our backs against the plaster, it turned out to be the coolest place in the apartment. Nat was still sunk into himself. He'd told me when we had lunch that his former girlfriends all described him as dark and remote. I hadn't seen what they were talking about until now.

  'Hey,' I said. 'We all do stupid stuff. Just ask me. I'm the world leader.'