Until (15 page)

“Now, mind you,” Jacqui continued, and leaned back on the two hind legs of her chair as her eyes reddened. “This is a man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with and thought you knew like the back of your hand. This is a man who held your hand for three nights after losing the baby. This is a man who would kiss you as you told him of not going full term twice and how you feared you would never be able to have a child. A man you would have died for in a second. I mean, given your life for. So you call and call and call and call, and you don't know if he's dead, alive, or nothing. I don't know how brothers can do that. After all that we had been through, it's as if he just left me on the side of the road half alive, half dead.” She chuckled and looked away to avoid the tears.

Closing her eyes, Jacqui seemed to search for a word or phrase and then discovered it. “Remember that song by Stevie, and at the end he says, ‘I wouldn't do that to a dog'?” As she squeezed her eyelids together to block the
pain, her voice weakened, but she obviously showed determination to finish the thought. “Well, I lay there bleeding for almost two years with no closure, and that's how I felt. After getting his call, I sent the ring to his mother, and you know what? Four years later it still feels like I have it on.” She looked down at her barren ring finger and then stiffly rubbed the inside of her palm with her thumb. “I still catch myself feeling my finger, subconsciously hoping it's there. So I decided at that very moment that I would never be left alone again. Never. I know that's just crazy and I know that's not healthy, but that's just me. I leave their ass before they ever get the chance. Call it self-preservation. So now to be completely honest, Betty, I don't care anymore. If I reduce them down to dogs, so be it. Life's a bitch and then you die. Let'um deal with it. I wanted a happy ending. But that only happens in fairy tales, old movies, and bad novels.”

Silence reigned between them as kids ran by playing tag, lovers kissed in front of the fountain in the center of the food court, and a custodian swiftly scooped up little slivers of wadded-up paper from the tile floor. “You know,” she concluded in a whisper as she looked at her nails, “he told me he loved me. The night we lost Cayla, he held me so close I could feel his heart thump and he told me he loved me.” And then Jacqui paused to swallow. “He told me that he had never loved anyone as much as he loved me. Ain't that something? He even told me that he didn't think he could ever love anyone as much as he loved me. I mean, I know men say stupid shit sometimes. But after a while, I don't care who you are, you start believing them. Guess what.” She bit her lip as she looked at Betty. “He got married a year after we broke up. Not just dating again. Not engaged. Married. One year later. But yet he told me he loved me.”

As the biker walked away, Jacqui sighed, cleared her throat, and said with a smile, “Damn, I could've used me some of that.”

Betty returned Jacqui's smile. She always knew Yancy had hurt her when he left just months after she lost the baby prematurely. She knew how he'd gone through her money,
gotten one of their friends pregnant at the same time, and even pointed a gun at her one night when he'd had too much to drink. But she could never get her to talk about it. Betty wanted her to go to counseling, but Jacqui always refused, saying that white folks did that and she wouldn't give Yancy the satisfaction. But as they watched the biker leave, a part of her wanted to cry for her friend. Being strong, Betty said with a fake smile, “There will be other biker shorts, girl. Let's go.”

They walked into another boutique and Betty saw an accessory that she knew would go perfectly with an outfit of hers. While she did not need another purse, she found it immoral to walk out of a mall without at least one shopping bag.

“Yeah, that's nice,” Jacqui said.

“I like it too,” Betty said without blinking. “Guess what. I'm gonna
let
you buy it for me. We'll call it my congratulatory gift from you for getting the big case.”

“Thanks, heifer. I like the way you spend my money.”

Jacqui walked toward the counter and handed the purse to the cashier. As she admired a few of the assorted earrings, she fished for a credit card. “Hey, Betty?”

“What?”

“What kinda credit does Evander have?”

“Pretty good, I guess. I mean he drives that Land Cruiser and has a nice house and all. But we never really talked about it. Why?”

“Run a credit check on that fool. I got a friend who could run it for free. All you need is his address and he can do it without the Social.”

“I can't do that, it's illegal.” Then Betty walked closer to Jacqui, “Why? Should I?”

Jacqui, who was preparing to sign the credit slip, looked at Betty as if she were purple with yellow polka dots on her face. “Child, most of these brothers now'days could not borrow a quarter for a glass of water if their mammy were on fire.” The young black clerk behind the counter blurted out a laugh with Betty. “Ask her,” Jacqui said, looking at the clerk. “Ask her how many brothers come in here and use a gold card. Damn a gold card, any card. Am I right or not?”
she said, looking at the giggling teenager. “I'm serious. You remember that song, you gotta have a J-O-B if you wanna be with me? Forget that,” she said quietly. “If he don't have a J-O-B, he just gotta walk on B-Y. Nowadays you gotta have a T-R-W if you want me to love ya. ‘Cause it ain't nothing going on but the mortgage.” Both the clerk and Betty laughed loudly now as another customer glanced over. “Come on, girl,” Jacqui said, and grabbed her bag. “Let's get out of this place before they call security on both of us.”

Walking out of the store, Jacqui caught the eye of another gentleman. He was tall, athletically cut, with a fair complexion and dressed in a denim shorts set. As they passed, he watched Jacqui intently, and she never looked in his direction. “I can't believe Renfro is giving you this opportunity with no strings attached,” she said. “I know you are talented and know your stuff, but something is up with him.”

Puzzled, Betty said, “Did you not see what was just looking at you?”

“Of course. I saw his married, yella ass,” Jacqui said as she glanced at her watch.

“How you know he was married? You didn't even look up. He wasn't wearing a ring.”

“Betty. Didn't you see the tan line on his finger?”

“Oh,” Betty said, feeling stupefied. “But I didn't even see you look in his direction.”

“Honey, all it took was a glance. I can smell a ring or a tan line a mile away. Now, as I was saying, I can't believe Renfro is doing this, no strings attached.”

“He knows this can make my career. But with them it's all about money. Karl Marx once said a capitalist would sell you the rope to hang himself with, and that's Renfro. He's a racist, but he can count.”

As they headed toward the exit, an obese man walked in front of them wearing a shirt stretched to the max and a quote on the back that said “Abortion Means Never Having to Say I Love You.” Jacqui laughed. “That fat sum bitch don't even get coochie, yet he trust to tell me what to do with mine? Please.”

A young man stepped up behind them as they walked,
and cleared his throat. “Excuse me, ladies, I was just noticing you all from across the way and I wanted to step up and say hi.” The brother was wearing a suit that was clearly expensive with what appeared to be Italian shoes and expensive jewelry. Unfortunately he also wore a Radio Shack name tag as well. He was a little on the short side, but he was impeccably groomed with S-shaped waves in his hair, and he appeared to have a nice body under his clothes. The first thing Betty did was look for a tan line. There wasn't one.

“Hello,” Jacqui said, and then she glanced at the name tag, but apparently decided to hear his game as they walked before she dismissed him.

“So,” he paused nervously, “how are you all doing?”

“We're fine,” Jacqui said, trying to calm him down a little with her smile. “Just out here spending a little money before going back to work.”

“So,” he said, glancing at Betty, “what, ahh, what store do you all work in?”

“We don't exactly work here. But I guess we spend enough time out here to be employed, huh?” Betty said, laughing in Jacqui's direction.

“So, ahh, you all from around here or what?”

“Yeah,” Betty said, and remembered the workload back at the office as she glanced at her watch and then at Jacqui.

“Yeah, honey,” Jacqui said, “we need to go. Nice talking to you,” as they walked faster.

“What y'all gonna do, just dis a brother like that?” he said, somehow gaining more confidence in himself and stopping in his tracks.

As they continued to walk, Betty said to Jacqui with a smile, “Now you know you wrong. Don't come crying to me when you want that clock radio on discount.”

They could hear the little salesman, still standing in the spot where they'd left him, saying, “You all ain't shit! Black bitches!”

Jacqui turned around, but Betty grabbed her arm. “It's not worth it, child. We have to go.”

“No, he did not go there! Childish punk!” Jacqui said. “We were nice to him and everything with his broke, midgety
ass. Besides, he raps like an old white boy anyway, trying to front like he's black. I bet you money he watched ‘Seinfeld' instead of ‘New York Undercover' anyway, with his wanna-be white-boy self. You see? You see, that's why I reduce their ass down to dawgs.”

“Hey, I used to love ‘Seinfeld,'” Betty said to avoid the previous subject.

“Well, you can watch it 'cause you my girl,” Jacqui replied as another young man walked by wearing tight button-fly jeans. “Now, see that skinny brother there?”

“Jac, stop it!” Betty said, and laughed as she noticed her friend looking at the obvious.

“Wait a minute,” Jacqui said, grabbing Betty's arm and slowing their pace as they were about to exit the mall. “Seriously, did you really watch ‘Seinfeld' and that big doofus Kramer, instead of Malik Yoba on ‘New York Undercover' with his fine-ass self?”

Betty unlocked the
doors of Murphy, Renfro and Collins before the sun came up. Her arrival was earlier than usual, even for her. After she greeted the security officer, she walked toward her office with thoughts of her friend's past misfortune weighing heavily on her mind. She'd had another sleepless night, this time thinking about Jacqui, but she knew she had to tuck such thoughts away once her day started.

In her office she noticed the files she'd requested from Carol arranged in chronological order on top of her desk and filing cabinet. There were law journals left by her paralegal with Post-it notes indicating what pages she should turn to to find the relevant information, and her calendar had been cleared for the next six weeks. Carol had made sure Betty would have no distractions in the office, and since Evander had told her he would be going back to Orlando for a few days even though they had just returned, there would be no distractions outside the firm as well.

Carol said good morning at eight-thirty and brought Betty the interoffice mail, a cup of tea, and a Danish from the doughnut stand downstairs. Betty passed on the Danish, but lunged for the tea, clearly in her zone. Her office was strewn with documents. There were faxes in an unruly stack beside her trash can and documents to be scanned with pastel notes
attached to them. She had made several trips to the copy/fax room and had already called and left messages for several of the attorneys in the firm who had previously researched the case. Betty had medical records and depositions on each of the over one hundred plaintiffs named in the suit and on each doctor and medical team in attendance as well. With the files spread in a controlled madness, Betty sat shoeless with her toes buried in the plush carpet, humming with the radio.

She tried to uncover similarities thus far undetected by the previous lawyers. A group of attorneys had worked on the case for more than two years and had not made any major progress, although there was certainly enough evidence to warrant a settlement from Amritrust Benefit Life, who owned the hospital. Being an insurance company, ABL did not want to have a lawsuit in a state in which they were domiciled, nor did they care for the negative press. Jack Murphy had spearheaded the charge and ABL had tendered an offer of ten million dollars with a modest gag stipulation weeks after it was announced that Murphy, Renfro and Collins would represent the victims. Feeling they had only scratched the surface of a larger lawsuit, Jack had informed the victims' representative of the pros and cons of the offer and had been pleased when they'd decided to hold out for a more equitable settlement.

Weeks before the turmoil in the firm, ABL legal representation had contacted the firm, and it was assumed yet another offer of settlement would be made. But after Jack Murphy's heart attack, they would not reschedule a meeting with Renfro.

Betty sat at her desk attempting to summarize the case in her mind. A case that had been brought to light when the sister of a patient who'd had a radical mastectomy had included her experience in a newspaper column. In the article she wrote of how people trust their physicians and the essence of the Hippocratic oath. The title of the article was “First Do Harm?” She noted a case in which an elderly man with sugar diabetes had finally taken his family's advice to go through with the amputation, only to have the wrong leg severed. She wrote of how a local lady had had a portion
of a sponge sown into her abdomen, and of course, she wrote about her sister, who'd had other options but had not been advised of them and had therefore opted for the mastectomy. When her family had questioned the doctor, he said he'd asked his assistant to discuss the matter with the patient and accepted full responsibility for her negligence in not doing so. After the article ran, several letters were sent to the newspaper detailing how other women in the city had had similar experiences at the same facility. The writer took the letters to a friend who worked for Murphy, Renfro and Collins, and within months over fifty women had come forward. After a year, the firm's investigators had uncovered over eighty women statewide with similar experiences and willing to take part in the class action suit.

While researching the information and scouring the files, Betty dreamed of the opening day of deliberations. Of walking out with Renfro after court each day to discuss a few bits of information with the media. Of appearing on statewide television, or maybe even “Burden of Proof,” to discuss the merits of the case, without giving away too much inside information. Grandiose dreams of Renfro allowing her to give the summation and holding the jury spellbound, hanging on her every word. She knew such dreams had little chance of becoming a reality, but they were in vivid color. She could see herself holding the jury speechless as she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Merriam-Webster describes
trust
as a charge or a duty imposed in faith or confidence as a condition of a relationship. That is the sheer definition of the word
trust.
What greater trust in a profession is there than the one between a doctor, with a pledge to first do no harm, and his or her patient?” She could imagine how it would feel to maintain eye contact with a male member of the jury and say, “Sir, this could be your wife or daughter.” Attorney Betty Robinson imaged talking to the female jury members as if they were Jacqui and telling them how the hospital's “cupidity for profits had resulted in the loss of their womanhood.”

No,
she thought, and grabbed a notepad, already making notes to herself. “These moneygrubbing physicians butcher our womanhood,” she wrote, “for increased profits.” Betty
knew such a statement, if she ever got a chance to deliver it, would be met by an objection from the opposing table, but who cared? The die would be cast. The opening statements would be in less than two months, and she was as anxious as if it were the next day.

“So you're getting into all this mess right away, honey?” Carol asked from the doorway of the office.

“Yeah, girl.” Betty sat on the floor with a box of documents and peered up at Carol through her glasses. “Just like Murphy suspected, this hospital is doing some foul things, and I'm going to tie up these loose strings. This, ‘it's just a coincidence' stuff ain't cutting it,” she said, and removed her glasses to massage her temples. “I mean, how could this many women have unnecessary mastectomies over a ten-year period of time, and it be just a coincidence? I'm gonna talk to nurses, the anesthetic assistants—hell, I'll talk to the people who changed the linen if I have to. But I'm gonna uncover these jerks.”

“Betty?” Carol said as she moved the files from a chair. “Have you ever worked with Renfro on a case before?”

“No. But I've worked on cases with other attorneys.”

“I know. But you have run solo with them and that's fine. All of you associates try to get a little position when you work together. But when you work with a senior partner, especially one as insecure as Renfro, it's altogether different. It's just an unspoken rule that you do nothing without getting the okay from the senior partner. So are you gonna ask him before you talk to these people?”

“Of course I am,” she replied, even though she'd originally had no plans to do so.

“Good. I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, but I've seen a lot of associates come and go, and I know you have a bright future here. I hope you don't mind me butting in.”

“Never. And thanks,” Betty said. Then she caught her breath and smiled. “I mean it, Carol. Thanks for watching my back in this place.”

“Honey, I have worked for a lot of associates and a few of the partners, too, and none of them can hold a candle to you. And I mean that. I just don't want you to get on the
bad side of that idiot Renfro,” she whispered. “So what do you need me to start on first?”

“Well, I need a few cases pulled up for me on West Law. And look up these topics on Nexus and sort them alphabetically. I've listed the West Law cases on that tablet for the paralegal. I also need you to call the attorneys on this sheet and set up a telephone conference for myself
and
Renfro with them after the seventeenth. Make sure it's after the seventeenth and make sure it's before ten o'clock. And then—”

“Wait, wait, wait a minute, honey,” Carol said, frantically looking for something to write with.

“Lets go! Let's go! Let's go!” Betty said with a smile. And then as Carol left the room, Betty looked at the name she'd found in the file and debated whether she should clear each detail with Renfro.

Betty stood in line in the small cafeteria looking up at the menu on the wall, which had not changed since she had been with the firm. As she settled on her lunch she reached into the ice-filled chest, took out a bottled water, and paid the cashier.

As she turned, she saw a couple of associates chatting and a partner in the comer eating a banana and reading a magazine between chews. Then she noticed Kathy, who appeared to have just sat down and was putting her purse under her chair.

“May I?”

Kathy gave her a smile and nodded her head yes. Betty rarely had lunch in the cafeteria and had never sat with Renfro's secretary in the past. Usually she took her lunch to her office and worked while she ate, but since she and Renfro would be working closely for the next several weeks, she felt it was appropriate to get to know his assistant a little better.

There were a few awkward moments as both of the ladies felt each other out. And then Kathy mentioned a movie she and her husband had seen the previous night and she and Betty began to compare their favorites. Inside, Betty wanted to pick her brain to find out if she would be a partner, and
if not, why Renfro had selected her for the case, but as they spoke of their favorite actors, those thoughts vanished.

“Well, this was enjoyable, Kathy.” Betty smiled as she wadded up her napkin and pushed her tray back. “One day after we get finished with this case, maybe you, Carol and I could catch a matinee. Although you know I have both versions of
12 Angry Men
on DVD.”

“That would be a lot of fun. I'd like that a lot.” And then Kathy reapplied her lipstick with a mirror, cleaned any possible remnants from her teeth with her tongue, and said, “Miss Robinson. I've been wanting to tell you something for a while.”

Here goes,
Betty thought.

“I know how most people here feel about Mr. Renfro. Trust me when I say he can be a real pain you know where sometimes. But he's smart and he's a very intelligent man. I worked for a couple of firms before coming here. Actually,” she digressed, “I wanted to be a lawyer myself, but then, well, let's just say I chose the family route. But like I was going to say. I know he seems to have this hard exterior, but he's not like that at all. Deep inside, that is. I worked here with him before the incident with his wife, and when she was around I bet there was not a day when he didn't come in with a guess-what-we-did-yesterday or guess-what-we're-doing-this-weekend story. But after those kids did what they did, and after she . . .” And then Kathy got quiet. “Well, I guess you know what happened to her. He just changed. I mean to be honest, he was always a little prejudiced. Not just of blacks. One of the first things he asked me when I interviewed was if I was part Asian. Actually I am,” she whispered, “but after that incident he became very cold. Very crass. Especially toward black people.”

“Tell me something,” Betty asked. “Exactly how did he get shot?”

After a pause Kathy said, “What I saw on the police report was that she was working at this rally to raise money for a housing project and these kids from the project followed her home. Apparently they waited and then broke in the house later that night. Renfro was working on a case with a couple of associates, and in those days he would always work until ten
or eleven at night when he was in the midst of a trial. Well, they cut her up pretty bad and then shot her. When he walked in, he saw the body and then realized one of the kids was still in the house. The kid had a gun but ran for the door and down the stairs with Franklin chasing him. I guess the kid was scared and fired a shot at Franklin without even looking back. It hit him in the hip, destroyed his kidney, and bounced up into his chest, which is why he has the limp. The EMS had to do a tracheotomy on the spot so he would not drown in his own fluids.”

Betty's breathing slowed as she learned that this man she had every reason not to like, and every reason to mistrust, was actually valiant. “I've heard stories about what happened. Someone even told me he got shot running away from the assailants.”

“That's how rumors get started. Trust me, I've heard a few myself. But he never talks about it, and actually only a small handful of people here know what really happened.” After a sip of her cola Kathy said, “I wouldn't have told you, but with you working so closely with him for the next few weeks, I thought you deserved to know. See, we all thought after he remarried he would change a little, but he hasn't. He's still bitter after all these years, and although I don't agree with a lot of what he does, I understand him.”