Mittman, Stephanie (10 page)

"The
Stanfords," Charlotte had suggested. "Argus has flown the coop and is
eating their gaudy purple bougainvillea."

"Better
their bougainvillea than more of my buttons," Cabot said, checking his
cuffs as Maria entered the room.

"Dr.
Mollenoff is here," the maid announced, moving her gaze from Cabot to
Charlotte. "He wants to see you."

Cabot
seemed relieved. He'd been happy to give the doctor and his pathetic patients
over to Charlotte, telling her Dr. Mollenoff's ragtag-and-bobtail band, as he
referred to the doctor's patients and friends, was a fine place for her to cut
her legal teeth. After all, he'd said with a wink, she couldn't make them any
worse off than they already were.

He
smiled at her and waved her from his desk, reminding her to take a paper and
pencil, saluting her with what was left in his glass of iced tea.

"Lawyer
Whittier," he said with a nod of his head, a row of fine white teeth
peeking through beneath his heavy mustache.

"Lawyer
Wittiest," she said, giving him her usual reply and toasting him with her
pad and pen. "You're sure you can spare me?" Despite it's being after
nine, she and Cabot were still ironing out some last-minute changes in the
summation that had been interrupted by Ash's arraignment.

"I've
been practicing law for almost twenty years now, Charlotte," he said,
raising his eyebrows at his framed diplomas for verification. "I think I
can write a summation on my own."

Despite
taking pains to hide her hurt, he apparently caught her mood and quickly
amended his answer.

"Now,
don't go being offended. I'm sure the summation would be even better for your
touch, of course. I'll leave it here and you can look it over if you have time
before you go up to bed."

"You
needn't patronize me," she said. "I only thought you might want my
help. I never thought you needed it."

"Charlotte,
don't start this now," Cabot said, a grimace replacing his smile.
"You've a client waiting for you."

His
eyes returned to the papers in front of him, his shoulders hunching forward
privately as if to claim ownership of his work.

"Good
night, then," she mumbled before leaving the room. If her help was so
unnecessary, why had he kept her down in his dark little office on such a
beautiful night, a night that was meant for sitting by the window and seeking
out the first star, for watching the reflection of the moon on the ripples of
the lake? Because she was a lawyer now, not a silly schoolgirl. And she had a
client waiting, waiting while she contemplated wishing stars and waning moons,
of all things!

She
should have known from the look on Maria's face when the maid had come to get
her that Dr. Mollenoff hadn't come by to pay a social call. It was Friday
night, after all. Only something of great importance would have kept him from
the synagogue. Nevertheless, she wasn't prepared for what waited in the foyer.

In
the poorly lit hallway stood her good friend Dr. Mollenoff and a boy of maybe
nine or ten. The boy's face bore several fresh bruises, including an awful one
that shut one eye. His left arm was in a sling. Still, his chin was defiantly
raised, and his one open eye glared at her as if he dared her to comment on his
appearance.

Charlotte
took a deep breath, fought to swallow the horror creeping up her throat, and
offered him a smile. For all his bravado the boy was shaking like there was an
earthquake.

"Maria,
would you be so kind as to get this young man a nice tall glass of milk? Or
would you prefer some hot cocoa?"

The
boy shrugged, at the cost of great pain, if his wince was any indication.

"Milk,
then?" she suggested, and waited for a nod, then passed the request on to
Maria, who ran from the room quickly, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of
her apron. Oh, sure, Maria could cry, but Charlotte had to stand there and act
as if it were a perfectly normal everyday occurrence for a boy beaten to a pulp
to appear on her doorstep.

Afraid
her office might put the boy off, Charlotte led Dr. Mollenoff and the poor
child into the front parlor. There she motioned for the boy to sit on the sofa,
allowed the doctor to sit next to him, and pulled a chair close enough so that
she could take the child's hands, should they be offered to her. From the look
of him she doubted it.

She
introduced herself, explaining that as a lawyer she was sworn to help those who
needed it. Then she asked, in what she hoped was a soft enough voice, if there
wasn't some way she could help him.

The
boy shook his head, his jaw clenched.

"Well,"
she said, "Dr. Mollenoff must think I can do something to help you, or he
wouldn't have brought you here. And the doctor is a very smart man, isn't
he?"

The
boy made a face that seemed to imply that either the question was stupid, or
the doctor was. Or perhaps it was Charlotte herself he thought was an idiot. He
was trying for all the world to look as if none of this concerned him at all,
when quite unexpectedly his one good eye honed in on the doorway and opened
wide.

Charlotte
heard a knock, despite the fact that the doors were open, and then a male
voice, which said, "Come in.... Shut up, you stupid bird. Come in.... Shut
up, you stupid bird."

Charlotte's
head whipped around. Ashford stood in the doorway, feet bare, hair mussed, and
Liberty perched on his shoulder, twisting his head this way and that in an
apparent attempt to eat Ashford's ear.

"Heard
the banging at the door and thought it might be some sort of trouble," he
explained to her with a shrug. "When I saw the boy I thought—"

"A
pa... pa... par," the boy said, pointing at Liberty.

Ashford
came forward and knelt down at the edge of the couch, his arm brushing
Charlotte's skirts.

"Liberty,
this is..." He paused, looking to Charlotte for the boy's name. She
realized with embarrassment that she hadn't even asked.

"Ach!"
Dr. Mollenoff said, squinting at the large bird, as if he could possibly be
hard to see. "This is Davis Flannigan, and you should pardon my manners I
didn't introduce you yet. An old man, I forget hands are for shaking."

He
put out his hand to Ashford and when the younger man took it, the doctor
quickly clasped it with both of his.

"You
look good. I hear from my sister things are not so hunky-dory with you. They're
not so hunky-dory with my friend here neither. This is Mr. Vittier, my
friend."

"A
pleasure," Ashford said, bowing slightly toward the boy, which set the
bird to pacing across his shoulders. "It's been a long time, Eli. Tell me,
how is it your accent gets thicker every time I see you and Selma's is barely a
trace anymore?"

"Age
versus youth," the doctor said with a smile. "The older you get, the
more you become vhat you always were. A nasty boy becomes a mean man. A selfish
girl becomes a stingy old woman. And a Russian peasant becomes... well, my
roots are my roots. Sometimes I svear it's my father's vords coming out of my
mouth. But Selma, my little Selmala, she came along late in my parents' life,
here in America."

"And
she'll always be your little Selmala." Charlotte laughed. Selma, two years
older than she was, was a grown woman with a job as a bookkeeper, but to her
big brother, who was nearly twenty years her senior, she would never grow up.
"Well, Davis, what do you think of this bird?"

For
Charlotte's part the parrot scared her just a little. He moved slowly, more
like a reptile than any sparrow she might spy on the branches outside the high-room
windows. Granted, his feathers did look like satin, but his beak was big and
hard and his light eyes were old, ringed with white feathers that were lined in
black like wrinkles, and he stared at her unblinkingly.

"Oh,
pretty, pretty, pretty!" the bird said in yet another voice. "Hoist
the sails and get the rigging up!"

"H-h-how
does it t-t-talk?" Davis asked, the wonder on his face making Charlotte
almost forget about the bruises.

"I
can't take credit for that," Ashford said. "Or blame. Won him in a poker
game from the captain of the
Trustworthy.
Came with a few bad habits, I
have to admit."

"Shut
up, you stupid bird!" the bird squawked, as if he understood what Ash had
just said.

"Actually,
that phrase would be mine," Ashford said sheepishly, bending so that the
bird would be within reach of the boy on the sofa. "You can go ahead and
pet him."

There
was just a touch of gray in Ash's deep brown hair, a single strand here,
another there. It surprised Charlotte, as much because Cabot still spoke of his
brother as if he were a child as because, with his footloose ways and
fancy-free air, he'd seemed too carefree to have the gray hairs that came with
age and worry. But the few silver strands shone enticingly in the lamplight as
he crouched beside her, talking with the frightened boy who was mesmerized by
the giant scarlet macaw. She all but sat on her hand to keep from just touching
the wavy strands.

Either
the bird or Ashford smelled faintly of astringent. A tiny nick on his jaw where
a bit of dried blood revealed a recent shaving error led her to believe it was
her brother-in-law. It smelled good, more like citrus than her husband's
old-fashioned bay rum. She closed her eyes and imagined the faraway island
where Ash had probably purchased it, a combination of exotic fruits held out to
him by a half-naked woman with dark eyes and even darker hair, and...

He
stood up beside her, his full height leaving her staring at his thigh. It took
her a moment to raise her eyes to him, and when she did, she found him staring
down at the boy. "You're looking kind of tired, son," he said,
reaching for one of Kathryn's satin pillows and putting it behind the boy's
head.

"And
it's no vonder. He's had, by anyone's standards, a hard day," Dr.
Mollenoff said. "I should have expected it. It's Friday, after all."

"Payday,"
Charlotte said with a tight nod.

"So
his father gets drunk. And for every beer Flannigan has, Davis here gets a
contusion. If the man should ever discover Scotch, ve vould be in real
trouble." Dr. Mollenoff cleared his throat.

Instead
of responding, Ash reached into his pocket and handed the parrot a cashew nut
shaped like the crescent moon. Slowly, the bird took the nut in his claw and
tilted his head to get a good look at his gift, as if he was deciding whether
to eat it or put it into Ash's ear. Daintily, which wasn't easy for a bird
whose tail came nearly to Ashford's elbow, he brought the nut to his beak and
broke off a small amount with a dark tongue that looked like leather.

"You
want to give him one?" Ash asked the boy after having shown by example
that there was nothing to be frightened of. It was all Charlotte could do to
keep from nodding herself.

The
boy smiled and his misshapen face looked younger and less bruised.

"Go
ahead, he won't hurt you," Ash assured him.

The
boy held out a second nut to the bird. "Don't be afraid," Ash told
him. "You're safe here."

It
was apparently the opening Dr. Mollenoff had been waiting for, and he pounced
on it. "We've come to keep him safe," he said to Charlotte and then
spoke to the boy. "Mrs. Vittier helps anyone vhat needs help, Davis. I
think maybe she could help you."

"How?"
Charlotte asked. "What is it you want me to do, Eli?"

"I
vant you should get him taken from his father." He said it simply, as if
it were in her power to do it, even if she could be convinced it was the right
thing to do.

"Is
that what
you
want?" she asked the boy, Davis, whose one open eye
alternately watched her, the parrot, and Ash, but avoided the doctor
altogether.

Davis
shook his head.

"But
you'd like him to stop hurting you, wouldn't you?" she asked.

The
boy grimaced. "I guess," he said. It was the first full sentence he'd
uttered.

"Of
course you would," the doctor said. "Nobody vants he should be a
punching bag."

"Let's
start slowly," Charlotte said as reasonably as she could. The boy was
frightened enough. "Where's his mama?" she asked the doctor.

"Died
years ago in some sort of boating accident. Drowned trying to save her baby, I
think."

Davis
leaned back, his eyes closed.

"So
it's just him and his father?" Charlotte asked.

"Every
Friday." The doctor maneuvered the boy until he was lying back on the soft
cushions, Kathryn's pillow beneath his head. He struggled to sit up and keep
his dignity, but his eyelids drooped despite his efforts, and his body sagged
tiredly against the arm of the couch. "I gave him something for the pain.
Tonight at least, he'll sleep good."

"Here?"
Charlotte asked, looking over her shoulder at the sound of the curved accordion
door to the elevator closing in the hall. Cabot was going up to bed. The
decision was apparently hers.