Exposed (Rosato & DiNunzio #5)(36)
“Bennie, is Mary leaving the firm? Is this really happening?” Marshall’s blue eyes had gone round with worry, and her crow’s-feet looked deeper than usual. She was their firm’s Earth Mother, with simple, pretty features, a long brown braid, and a denim dress. She’d been with Bennie since forever and she was owed an answer.
“I don’t know, Marshall, but we’re not going to worry about that now. Close the door behind you, please.”
“What do you need?” Marshall closed the door.
“I want to get all these Dumbarton files out of here and shipped back to corporate.” Bennie gestured to the files on the door. “Then I want you to get all of the Dumbarton files that are in the file room and in the business archives, and I want you to ship them back to Dumbarton corporate too. Got that?”
“All of them?
“All of them. If Dumbarton is in the caption, send it back. It’s going to be a lot of work because there’s a lot of files. Hopefully most of them are at the business archive, so you can just make the phone call and they’ll ship it over. I want it to happen today and I want it to be between us. Nobody else in the office needs to know what’s happening. If anybody asks you, just say I’m cleaning out some old files in my office.”
“Okay, I can do that.”
“Thank you.” Bennie reached for her phone and purse, then went to the door. “I’m going out and I won’t be back today.”
“Where are you going?”
“Between us, I’m not exactly sure,” Bennie answered, then opened the door and left.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mary brought Judy up to speed on everything as they walked along, and Judy became calmer, listening with her head down since she was so much taller than Mary, the two of them heading on autopilot toward Rittenhouse Square. They’d fallen into this routine in the almost-decade that they’d worked together, eating in the park when the weather was good, like everybody else who worked in Center City. It was just starting to be lunchtime, and officemates were walking around them in groups, excitedly talking away, happy to be free for the break, carrying plastic clamshells of take-out salads or reusable bags of lunches from home.
Mary noticed that they got one or two second looks from people passing, which she had gotten used to, not only because they were such different types of people and looked it; Mary in her prim Oxford shirtdress with low heels and Judy with cobalt-blue hair, the dye so fresh that it bled onto her forehead, dressed today in jeans shorts and a white T-shirt that read DON’T HASSLE ME I’M LOCAL, an outfit that would have been casual on the beach, but was vaguely criminal in a law firm. Plus their height disparity would draw wisecracks from old men, who would call them Mutt and Jeff, but nobody was in a joking mood today.
Mary told Judy everything, every detail of the first meeting with Simon, the complaint, the contemporaneous notes, her discussions with Bennie about the representation, the downturn in Rachel’s health, and finally this morning at the hospital, the gift of the locket presented in front of most of South Philly. Judy knew all the players—Simon, Feet, Mary’s parents, The Tonys, and El Virus—so those details didn’t need to be filled in, but Mary told her about them anyway, gradually becoming aware that she was kitchen-sinking Judy with detail, talking for the sake of talking, her words almost like a prayer, soothing her. Because things had happened so fast that she needed to process them, and she didn’t want to leave the firm either.
Mary finished, saying, “I know it’s awful and strange, and I can’t imagine leaving the firm, but Bennie and I have been at loggerheads about this case. We’re at an impasse, and I’m pulled in a direction that I don’t think she can understand. You can because you know everybody and you know what it’s like.”
“I can, I really can,” Judy said, her head down, nodding. A breeze blew through her short, fine hair and the sunlight made it look even brighter, like a blue M&M.
“And it’s not like I want to leave the firm, God, Judy, you know that, I mean, I love you, I love working in the same place as you, we always have!”
“I know, I know—”
“—and I just made partner, I’m established, I don’t want to go—”
“—I know, I know, you can’t, you can’t—”
“—I know, but what am I going to do? How do I get out of this? I’m in a bind here. Now Nate, who’s the biggest jerk on the planet, is hauling me before a disciplinary committee, which makes me sick to my stomach—”
“—of course, that’s ridiculous, it’s a judgment call, he’s such a jerk—”
“—and come on, be real, I don’t think it’s even about the case.” Mary became vaguely aware that they were interrupting each other almost constantly, but that’s how close they were as friends, that they not only finished each other’s sentences, but they never let the other one finish the sentence, which was true love.
“—I don’t think it’s about the case either, he’s having some kind of power struggle with Bennie, and he has such a crush on her it’s not even funny—”
“—so maybe she should just sleep with him and get it over with.” Mary laughed, and Judy joined her.
“Yes, she should take one for the team. Get us out of this with her magical vagina.”