Tell No Lies (6 page)

As he stood in the shower, running the water as hot as he could bear, he thought about what he would say to Jenny the next time they talked, and he wondered when that would be. Should he just pretend it had never happened? Maybe she had been drunk enough that she wouldn't even remember. He doubted that. He could say something trite like "it didn't mean anything," but he was smart enough about women to know that they took that kind of statement as a direct insult.

He closed his eyes and let the water pour down over his head. The inside of his eyelids burned from the lack of deep sleep. He suddenly wished Claire were there in the shower with him. He would make slow love to her standing up against the cold, wet tiles, and then maybe any suspicions she had would dissipate in the steam or make their way with the water down the drain. Would that be enough? Was the nervous weight in the bottom of his stomach merely the manifestation of his fear that Claire would find out, or was it something else? He briefly considered that he might be afraid to tell Jenny that it didn't mean anything because maybe it did, but then he quickly dismissed this thought. They were just friends; they would always be just friends. He was merely a typical, red-blooded male who had, just once, failed to rein in his normal urges, wasn't he?
 

He thought back to the night he and Jenny had first met. He remembered how it had taken him a while to realize she could flirt with him and not mean anything by it. He'd been at Newman only about a year at the time. He remembered it vividly because he'd spent the day away from the city, touring the remains of a blown-up farmhouse for a product liability case he'd been working on. By the time he'd arrived back at his office, around quarter to six, he was exhausted and behind on everything else. After calling Claire to tell her he'd be late, he'd propped his feet up on his desk, shut his eyes, and folded his arms across his chest. He told himself that after a quick nap he'd be able to get some work done. He had almost dozed off when he heard a steady rain begin. The water drops sounded like the fast, nervous tapping of a hundred fingertips on his window.

"Hypnotic, isn't it?"

The woman's voice startled him. He turned his chair around to see Jenny standing in his doorway. He knew a new associate had been hired in Corporate, and he'd heard talk that she was a looker, but the term didn't do her justice. She was tall, lean, built. She wore a stylish black suit like something from the pages of a magazine, not like the shapeless suits worn by many of the other women lawyers he knew. Her skirt was slightly shorter than what he was used to seeing; her legs were taut and dark even beneath her pantyhose. The neckline of her off-white blouse followed the same V-shape of her jacket, and he didn't stop his eyes from briefly following it down to the point. Her black hair was smooth, and it shimmered in the fluorescent light.

"Hi, uh . . ." Jack hesitated, trying to remember her name.

"Jennifer Dodson. Jenny's fine." She leaned back into the hallway and pointed to the nameplate on the wall outside of his office. "And you're Jack Hilliard." He nodded. "Nice to meet you,
Mister
Hilliard," she said, walking across his office and extending her hand. He shook it, then they stared at each other across Jack's desk. He searched his brain for something intelligent to say. "I'm sorry, did I interrupt you?" she said finally, breaking the silence.
 

"No, no, of course not," he managed. He heard the rain coming down even harder and he glanced at the clock. It was now almost seven thirty. Despite his good intentions, he hadn't touched a file on his desk and knew at this point he probably wouldn't. "I was just about to go to the lunchroom to pour myself a cup of coffee. Would you like to join me?"

She tilted her head and smiled. They both knew the only thing he'd been about to do was fall asleep. "Sure, I'd like that."

They'd spent the next hour and a half in the lunchroom, leaning against the counter in front of the coffeepot, talking. Not since Claire had Jack met anyone who put him so at ease. When he asked how she'd ended up at Newman, Jenny explained that she'd gone to law school at Yale and had spent a year practicing in New York before returning to St. Louis.

Jack raised his eyebrows. "New York to St. Louis?"

She shrugged. "I grew up here. I always intended to come back." Jack looked at her without responding, and she smiled. "Is that hard for you to believe?"

"You're just, well, different," he said, grinning. "Where'd you go to high school?"

They both laughed, and Jack knew by her understanding of his parochial joke that she'd told him the truth. It was the question every native St. Louisian asked each other upon first meeting. Suddenly Jack really liked her.

"Do you want to know?"

"No, it doesn't really matter, does it? There's not a high school in this city for which you fit the stereotype." He laughed. "Maybe when I get to know you better, I'll be able to figure it out."
 

"I doubt it," she said.

"Well, I hope you'll give me the chance," Jack blurted. He felt foolish, worried that he sounded as though he was trying to hit on her. He felt himself blushing.

"Well, the firm willing, I hope to be here for a while." She shifted her stance against the counter, and her shoulder lightly grazed his. When she moved, her hair moved, too, and so close, he had the urge to reach up and touch it. He looked down at his coffee cup instead so she wouldn't think he was staring at her.

"Are your parents still here, then?" he asked.

"No, they're dead." He was startled by her lack of euphemism. She didn't offer more, and before Jack could ask, she changed the subject. "Can I ask you a personal question?" she said.

"Sure."

"Does it bother your wife that you work this late?"

"My wife?"

Jenny chuckled. "You know, you're pretty funny." He didn't know if she meant "odd" funny, or "humorous" funny. "Yeah, your wife." She pointed at his hand. "Your wedding ring. Usually it's a dead give-away."

"Oh," he said, looking down at his hand. "Well, she doesn't like it, but she understands, if that's what you mean." Then he added, "She's a lawyer, too."

Jack worried again she might think he'd been hitting on her, and the question had been her way of letting him know it. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe
she'd
been hitting on
him
. He stood straight and looked at his watch.
 

"I didn't realize how late it was," he said.

Jenny straightened, also, as if on cue. "Yes, it is late." She walked to the sink and washed out her cup. "Well, it's been nice chatting with you. Maybe I'll see you tomorrow, Mr. Hilliard." She smiled at him and then turned away.

And Jack knew he had been dismissed.

Almost nine years had passed since that first night in the lunchroom, but now, standing in the shower, letting the water get so hot that it almost burned his skin, Jack again felt the imbalance, the inability to grasp the meaning of what had happened between them. Their friendship had survived its uncertain start years before; in fact, it had flourished. He'd eventually understood that her subtle playfulness was merely her way of putting the male lawyers on notice that, although she enjoyed being one of the boys in a firm dominated by men, she was still a woman underneath.

He reminded himself that even Claire liked Jenny. She'd immediately accepted her as his friend; she'd never been the possessive or jealous type. Although they'd never developed a friendship with each other separate from Jack, Claire regularly invited Jenny to their house for dinner, and Jenny had even babysat the kids a few times when he and Claire went away for the weekend.

They
were
just friends; they would always be just friends. He'd just gone a little bit further than he'd intended. He'd been buzzed and he'd let his inhibitions down. Their flirting hadn't meant anything way back then, and he had to believe it didn't mean anything now. He stepped out of the shower stall and grabbed a clean towel hanging from the rack on the shower door. Claire had put it there for him, he knew. He buried his face in it and smelled the same just-washed scent that he'd detected last night on her T-shirt. He hurried then. He had to get out of the house and to the safety of his office. Maybe then everything would get back to normal.
 

When he arrived at the office, Beverly, a secretary who had worked in the DA's office even longer than Earl, pounced on him.

"Jack!" she said, coming around her desk to greet him. In her hand was a large stack of pink phone messages. "You're a popular man today." After she handed the messages to him, she reached up and touched his chin. "Ooh . . . trying to grow a beard?"

He gently pushed her hand away. She relentlessly teased him about his youthful face after he'd once been carded at a bar where the office had gone to celebrate a victory.

"Anybody important?" he asked, fingering through the papers.

"Depends who you think's important," she said. "Jennifer Dodson's been trying to reach you all morning. Says she really needs to talk to you. After she kept pestering me, I finally told her to just leave a message on your voice mail."

The weight that had lifted briefly when he'd first entered the familiar surroundings of the courthouse was back. "Who else?" Jack said, trying to skim over the mention of Jenny's call so Beverly wouldn't think it was important, at least not to him.

"A couple of reporters called, wanting to get your reaction to Earl's announcement. I got the feeling they'd already talked with Earl." She paused, as if in thought. "And one wanted to talk to you about Barnard."

"But I'm not handling Barnard."

"I tried to tell him that." She shrugged. "Oh, yeah, and Earl's been looking for you."

In his office, he looked carefully at the messages Jenny had left. The first one was pretty basic—Beverly had simply checked the little box next to
RETURN CALL AT YOUR CONVENIENCE
. The next, left only twenty minutes after the first, had the same box checked, but Beverly had also handwritten "important" on the memo line. A half hour later, Jenny had called again. Beverly hadn't bothered to check off any boxes on that one; she'd merely scrawled in capital letters across the paper "NEEDS TO TALK TO YOU ASAP!!"
 

Jack glanced at his phone and saw the message light blinking. He wondered how many of those calls were also from Jenny. He dialed and took a deep breath as he heard her voice.

"Jack, I'm just wondering why you haven't called me back." Her voice oozed artificial calm. "I've been trying to reach you all morning. Could you give me the courtesy of a return call?"

He skipped a few more messages from others and then listened to her next, and last, one.

"Jack, where the hell are you? Why haven't you called me back? Don't tell me you're one of those jerks who refuses to call a woman back because he wants to pretend something never happened. I'm not Glenn Close, you know. I'm not going to stalk you or anything." Her anger trailed off at the end. "I just want to say I'm sorry."

Jack laughed at her comparison. Despite Jenny's ranting, the maniacal character from
Fatal Attraction
would never have entered his mind. He knew Jenny just hated being vulnerable. He pressed the switch and waited for a dial tone. He hit the speed dial for her direct line, even though he knew the number by heart. The phone rang only once before she picked up.
 

"Jennifer Dodson." Her voice was all business.

"Jenny, it's me."

She let out a huge sigh. "Godammit, Jack, where the hell have you been?"

"If you wanna be my campaign manager, you'll have to clean up that potty mouth of yours."

She laughed with relief. "You've reconsidered?"

"No, I was just razzin' you."

"Where have you been?" she asked again.

She must still have thought he'd been purposely avoiding her calls.

"I slept in. I just got here about ten minutes ago."

"It wasn't that late when we left last night."

"Yeah, well, long story."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah."

The phone line fell quiet. Jack knew she was expecting him to say more. He considered telling her how he had accidentally fallen asleep in the car—leaving out the role she had played, of course—but he didn't think he could even say Claire's name out loud to her right then.

He heard Earl's voice down the hall, talking excitedly to someone about his plans. Despite his own misgivings about the future, Jack had to admit that the prospect of a new career seemed to have pumped extra life into his old boss.

Jack took a deep breath.
Here goes
, he thought. "Jenny, about last night—"
 

She cut him off. "Jack, you don't have to say anything. It's okay, really."

"I know we were a little drunk, and—"

"No, Jack,
you
were a little drunk;
I
was a lot drunk. I was out of line and I'm sorry we even have to deal with this. It never has to be mentioned or thought about again."
 

It happened so smoothly, so quickly, that at first he didn't even realize she had just turned the tables on him. Although she spoke apologetically, as if taking full responsibility for what had happened between them, he knew she was saying, in effect,
I was drunk and indiscriminate; you weren't and you chose me
. The lawyer in him wanted to argue with her, to defend himself and his intentions, but instead he sat frozen in his chair.
 

While he sat there trying to think of something to say, he heard a brief knock on his office door. It swung open, on its own, it seemed, as if a ghost had entered the room. Earl was obviously right outside Jack's office. "Don't worry, I'll go easy on you guys for awhile," Earl said to someone else. The statement was followed by his low, deep-throated laugh. After a moment, he stuck his head in. Jack was forced to be decisive.

"You're right, Jenny," he said, waving Earl in. "I'm sorry, too. We'll just forget about it."