The First Law of Love Page 5

  “I’ll do my best,” I promised, picturing the two lists of surnames I had memorized. Even as fuzzy as my thoughts were at the moment, I recalled a family named James on the Unsold side.

  “Watch out for Derrick Yancy,” Marshall startled me by saying. He rocked the glider into gentle motion and added, “He’s been working on Al for a month now. He’s such a big-city bastard. He’ll look at you as a prime target.”

  I sat a little straighter. “Prime target for what, exactly?”

  “Wheeling and dealing,” Sean said, cupping his hand around Jessie’s thigh and patting her twice. He said, “He’ll see you as someone he can convince that he’s in the right, that folks around here are better off selling to his company and moving elsewhere.”

  “Some people seem to think he’s in the right,” I said, as Wy returned with a beer for Marshall and another gin and tonic for me. I said, “Thanks,” sort-of forgetting that I had asked for soda, no alcohol.

  “Ever since the power plant closed down last year, times have been tough around here,” Sean said. “It was so unexpected too. Just around Christmas, for God’s sake.”

  “Al was saying something about that,” I said. My thoughts were pinwheeling a little bit. A lot bit.

  Shit, lay off the drinks, I told myself.

  “Dinner, everyone,” Clark said, emerging from the house carrying a platter of sweet corn.

  It was then that I tried to stand and instead stumbled, my drink spilling. Wy and Marshall simultaneously caught me, almost as though we had choreographed it, each of them grasping an elbow, one on either side.

  “You guys, I’m so sorry,” I babbled. My shorts and legs were soaked with gin. “I’m drunk…”

  Everyone was laughing then, to my relief, rather than staring in stun at my ridiculous behavior.

  “It’s just that I haven’t eaten all day…” I mumbled.

  Clark, reassuring and decisive, just like a dad, came near and said, “Hon, how do you feel about being a houseguest this evening?”

  “I think that sounds great,” I told him.

  ***

  Sunday morning I woke up staring at wooden beams. I blinked, absorbing the sight of sunlight streaking through a tall window to the right of the bed, creating a rich tint like iced tea on the ceiling. I blinked again, my mouth so dry it was almost impossible to swallow, a headache sprouting just behind my right eye.

  I could hear the sounds of everyone downstairs, the Rawleys probably having breakfast and marveling at how unprofessional I was, up here in their guest bedroom after having been too loaded to even join them for supper. Instead, Clark had escorted me up here while Wy fetched my travel bag from my car. Without so much as undressing, I had collapsed on the bed and now here I lay in the morning light. Smelling coffee perking, hearing laughter and chatter from below, embarrassed as hell.

  My phone chirped at me then, somewhere close by. I rolled to one elbow, groaned a little, and saw it on the small sheepskin rug near the bed. I leaned and caught it up, seeing a text from Camille.

  Drunk on your first night there. LOL.

  For fuck’s sake. I supposed I deserved this, behaving that way. Grimly I tapped the screen to respond, I know. It’s totally pitiful. Don’t need your shit right now too.

  I could almost hear my sister giggling, back in Minnesota. She wrote, They think its hysterical. Don’t worry.

  Talk you u later, I wrote, then dropped my phone and flopped to my back once more, crossing my forearms over my eyes. I supposed I couldn’t stay up here, hiding out.

  I needn’t have worried; Clark and the boys gave me a bunch of good-natured ribbing when I cautiously descended the stairs and shuffled to the kitchen ten minutes later, after a cursory examination in the bathroom I discovered down the hall. I looked like shit, but that was my own fault. What I wanted right now was a hot shower, preferably in the privacy of my own apartment.

  Clark called Al for me, asking him to meet us at Stone Creek Apartments in fifteen minutes, and then he and Wy elected to escort me there; they led the way in Clark’s truck, Wy driving. Back through town, right at the stoplight (my head was aching enough that I had trouble admiring Jalesville in the bright sunlight), and then only a few more miles, past a fairground and over a wide stone bridge that spanned the distance across the Stone Creek (so the sign proclaimed) that had clearly lent the apartment its name, and then into the gravel parking lot of the building I recognized from the pictures I’d found online.

  Ahead of me, Wy parked and hopped down, coming back to the driver’s side of my car to say, “There’s a spot for you, Tish, right over there,” and he indicated. “See, it’s got your name on it. And Al is here to meet us, right over there.”

  My heart jumped a little at this mention of my boss, Ron’s friend, the man who’d left Chicago for this place almost two decades ago. I pulled into the parking spot labeled ‘Gordon’ and climbed out into the beat of the midday sun, terribly conscious of my messy hair, last night’s clothes and un-showered state. Clark and a small, balding man were chatting on the sidewalk, in the shade of the building, but they interrupted themselves as I approached, putting a smile on my face despite my headache.

  “Patricia!” the man who was undoubtedly Al Howe said. He moved towards me at once and I took cautious stock of him, noting the seemingly-kind light blue eyes, the thin rim of cream-colored hair ringing his head, aviator-style sunglasses and casual dress clothes, khaki pants and a white button-down shirt, no tie. He looked like a grandpa come to visit his grandkids. He offered his hand at once, and I took it firmly into my own, recalling everything I had learned about the proper way to shake a hand, to indicate that you meant business.

  “How are you?” I asked politely.

  Al pumped our joined hands twice, then patted the back of mine, offering me what I took to be a genuine smile; I had known enough lawyers to be wary. Even my own father’s face was rarely graced with a non-calculated grin. Al said, “I am most pleased to meet you. You come highly recommended, I hope you know.”

  “Thank you,” I said, hiding overt pleasure at this statement, wanting to appear professional. Then I added, “I’m happy to be here.” And I actually meant that, a great deal more than I would have guessed even two days ago.

  “You’re needing a day or so to settle in,” Al recognized, releasing my hand and digging a couple of keys from his breast pocket. “Though I would like to invite you to dinner this evening, if that works for you. My wife would love to meet you.”

  “That would be wonderful,” I told him. “Thank you again.”

  Clark said to Wy, “Buddy, grab Tish’s bags. Let’s get her into her new place.”

  Between the four of us, all of my things were carried up the stairs to the second floor with one trip; my apartment was 206, and Al unlocked and swung open the door.

  “Oh, I love it,” I heard myself say. I set the two bags I’d hauled up onto the carpet and spun in a slow circle, admiring the sunlit space.

  “Brand new building,” Al explained. “This is a nice little place.”

  “I like your porch!” Wy said, darting across the living room with its brown leather couch (saggy and well-used, but probably comfortable as hell), small TV on a cube-shaped stand, a recliner upholstered in faded blue denim, and a lone bookshelf, empty of any reading material. Wy unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped out into the sunshine, admiring the view from a narrow balcony overlooking the parking lot. But the mountains were visible in the distance, and I pictured sitting right there tonight and smoking a couple of celebratory, welcome-to-my-own-place cigarettes.

  The living room was to the right, the kitchen straight ahead, both with west-facing windows. The entire place was small, but it was mine, and I felt a delicious thrill at the thought of this. Already I was envisioning where I would put my things, the plants I would have to buy for the windowsill and top of the fridge. There was a little round wooden table with four mismatched chairs, a patchwork quilt hanging on the wall above it, al
ong with a framed picture featuring mountains at sunset. The table was graced with a set of four yellow placemats.

  “Where do you want these things?” Clark asked. He was burdened with two more of my bags.

  “Oh, right on the carpet there is perfect,” I said. And then, “Clark, thank you so much for your help.”

  He winked at me as he set the luggage on the floor. He said, “I’m already looking forward to dinner this next Friday. I can’t wait to hear all about your week.”

  Al said, “Patricia, here are your keys. And here are directions to my house. We live just off of the old highway, maybe a mile out of town. Can’t miss it. Should we say dinner at six?”

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said, reaching to shake his hand once more. “And please, call me Tish. I don’t usually go by Patricia.”

  “Tish,” he said agreeably. “You’ll have to explore Jalesville a bit this afternoon. The grocery is a block over from the law office. There’s a bank near that. The office is three blocks from the official town square and the city council building, the courthouse.”

  “I will, and thank you again,” I told Al.

  “Until this evening then,” Al said, taking his leave.

  Clark called to Wy, who was still on the porch, “Let’s give Tish a chance to settle in, son.”

  “I’m coming!” Wy said, ducking back inside. He caught me in an exuberant hug on the way out the door. He added, “I work at Nelson’s Hardware right near the law office, so come see me if you want. Maybe we can have lunch sometimes!”

  Clark said, “Call us if you need anything this week, won’t you?”

  “I will,” I said, and then, since Al was not in earshot, added, “I’m sorry about getting drunk last night…”

  Clark laughed at this, saying, “Never you mind about that. You’d obviously had a long day.”

  A minute later I was left alone in my own place. Feeling like the little girl in The Secret Garden, I explored every last closet (of which there were exactly two), prowled down the short hall and checked out my bedroom, which featured a full-size bed (I had brought along my own pillows, sheets and blankets from Minnesota) and a chest of drawers, not so much as a mirror. The adjacent bathroom was itty-bitty, hardly large enough to turn in a full circle, tiled in dark blue. The shower stall was a stand-up; apparently there would be no long tub soaks this summer.

  I was undeniably excited to be here. I dug out my portable radio first thing and set it up on top of the yellow kitchen counter, finding a country station on the dial (something I had not listened to much the past three years, but I found myself craving a steel guitar. The sound of a fiddle). Cranking the music, I opened the kitchen window and then slid back the glass door to the porch, leaving only the screen between me and the scent in the air. The porch featured a solo canvas chair, angled so that someone sitting on it could prop his or her feet on the waist-high railing.

  Back inside, I spent a good hour unpacking, arranging and rearranging my things, making up my bed, exploring down the outer hallway in the building, which led to a communal, coin-operated laundry room, four doors down.

  Remember to get quarters, I reminded myself.

  I hung up my five “lawyer” outfits, my standard jacket-and-pencil skirt combo, all in no-nonsense neutral tones. I could mix them up a little with the array of colorful linen and satin blouses I wore beneath the jackets. I loaded all of my casual summer clothes into the dresser, lined up my shoes on the floor of the bedroom closet and stuffed my panties and nylons into the top-most drawer. Then, feeling a swell of accomplishment, I stripped to my skin and showered, determined to make a trip to the grocery store. I needed milk, a few rolls of quarters, orange juice, coffee and cigarettes. Just one pack. I would make them last the whole summer.

  By quarter after six that evening, I was seated at Al and his wife Helen Anne’s dining table. The two of them lived on an acreage (also in the crosshairs of Capital Overland) that had been in Helen Anne’s family for three generations, where Al had moved his family after they decided to return west and leave Chicago for good. Their home was quietly impressive, a rambling, ranch-style constructed of native stone (as Al informed me on the grand tour). They had three grown children, all of whom now lived in Colorado and had no interest in returning to Montana.

  “They’ve moved to where the jobs are,” Al lamented as Helen Anne served broiled pork chops, mashed potatoes, crusty white bread, corn pudding and fruit salad. Butter and luscious gravy and salt, all combining to make my stomach cramp with hunger; again I had hardly eaten a bite all day, too hungover. This was the first I’d felt ready to consume food. Al went on, “I did hope that at least one of them would have gone into law, in order to take over the firm someday. But I’ll retire before that happens.” He chuckled a little, adding, “Probably be dead, actually.”

  Helen Anne, taking her seat, scolded, “Bite your tongue, Albert, goodness.” To me she said, “Dear, please do eat. You’re as thin as a whippet. We’ll fatten you up out here, mark my words.”

  I took up my fork and said, “I haven’t eaten such a good meal in a long time.”

  “Law school,” Al sighed, buttering a thick slice of bread. The three of us were settled intimately at one end of a formal dining table, a fire crackling just behind me. I felt far more comfortable with them than I would have guessed, as though I was seated with my grandparents; for a second I imagined what dining with Ron Turnbull and his wife would be like, and then repressed a slight shudder. Assuming I would ever be invited to dinner with Ron and Christina.

  Certainly it would take place at one of Chicago’s top ten restaurants, formalwear and crystal, escargot and champagne, proper forks and my internal guard on all speech firmly in place. Ron’s wife would drink vodka martinis, probably exclusively; she was only a few years older than me, possessed of the kind of outrageous beauty that very few can actually achieve, the kind that Ron’s money clearly attracted (as she surely wasn’t legitimately attracted to him), and then I almost giggled at this uncharitable thought.

  “I remember well those days,” Al said. “I must have weighed a good forty pounds less than I do now.”

  Helen Anne dished more mashed potatoes onto my plate without my asking, but somehow this only warmed my heart, and sharpened the comparison I had been making between her and Christina Turnbull. Dining in Al’s home, wearing a linen sundress and sandals, my hair in a loose bun at the back of my head, I realized I would never feel this sort of comfort with any boss in Chicago.

  Enjoy it while you can, I told myself, ladling gravy over my pork chops.

  “Tish, we practice primarily family and bankruptcy law, and serve most all of southeastern Rosebud County,” Al told me as the meal progressed. “I’m a jack of all trades, to be honest. I know in the city,” and I understood he meant Chicago, “there’s more exclusivity in what you’d practice on a daily basis. Here, I have to be everything for everyone, so to speak, but it makes the days interesting. Rupert James and I worked together for the last fifteen years. He was more than ready to retire, but I almost don’t know what to do with myself now. I’m close to retirement myself, and none of mine or Rupert’s children are here to take over the practice. And now all of this business with Capital Overland. I’ve been beside myself.”

  “In your opinion, what prompted the company to turn its eye to Jalesville?” I asked. “I mean, I understand their basic motive, snapping up land and reselling. But why Jalesville? They’ve been almost exclusively purchasing in Wyoming for the past five years.”

  “It has to do with the closing of the power plant,” Al said. “Coal mining is a big industry around here, and when the plant closed, it put half the area out of work. Companies have ways of smelling opportunities, that’s what. Here’s prime land that they can snap up and resell, knowing that plenty of folks will agree to sell because they need money now.”

  “Can the plant be reopened?” I asked, my mind clicking along. “Why did it close?”

  “They cl
aimed bankruptcy at the time,” Al explained, his mouth full. “I drafted motions for more than one worker, but the plant did everything by the book, and because they were laid off, the workers were able to file for unemployment for a time. Problem is, most of the ranches in the area are no longer working ones, meaning they don’t have the livestock anymore. People sitting on hectares of property, most often that have been in their family for generations, just like ours here, and I’m afraid they see this as an opportunity to make money on something that’s arguably useless now.”

  “Never mind that the town will no longer exist,” I said. No one in Chicago would give two fucks about it, but it made my heart hurt on some level. This was home to hundreds of people. Where would they go now? Who would care?

  “According to Derrick Yancy’s exact words, that is not his problem,” said Al.

  “He’s trouble,” Helen Anne added, eyeing me intently. “You’re a lovely young woman. He’ll try to manipulate you, mark my words. Albert, you don’t let that happen.”

  I felt my spine straightening, ready to inform her that I would not let that happen, but then I wisely bit my tongue; she was offering the kind of commentary that Grandma and Aunt Ellen would, back home. She was only worried about me. I would prove that I could hold my own, and then some.

  Al said, “You’ll meet plenty like him in your career, Tish, I hate to say. He’s typical of a Chicago-style businessman, unfortunately. This will be good experience for you. Ron knew what he was doing, sending you our way for the summer.”

  “Field experience,” I said, repeating Dad’s words, and Al winked kindly at me.

  “Indeed. Tomorrow why don’t you head into the office around eight, and I’ll show you the ropes, introduce you to Mary, my secretary. She already baked a half a dozen loaves of banana bread for you.”

  “And I’m sending you home with two more of sourdough,” Helen Anne added. “Just came out of the oven a few hours ago.”