Small Great Things

  Whatever differences there were between Christina and me grew more indelible as we got older. It was harder to pretend that it didn't matter my mama worked for hers; or that I had to work after school while she became a striker for the soccer team; or that the clothes I wore on Casual Fridays used to belong to Christina. It wasn't that she was unfriendly to me. The barricade was built with my own suspicions, one brick of embarrassment at a time. Christina's friends were all blond, pretty, athletic, fanning around her like the matching spokes of a snowflake; if I didn't hang around their edges, I told myself, it was because I didn't want Christina to feel like she had to include me. The real reason I distanced myself, though, was because it hurt less to step away than to risk that inevitable moment where I would become an afterthought.

  The only problem with dissociating myself from Christina was that I didn't have many other friends. There was a Pakistani exchange student, and a girl with cataracts that I tutored in math, but what we had in common was the fact that we didn't really fit in anywhere else. There was a cluster of other Black kids, but their upbringing was still a world away from mine--with their parents who were stockbrokers and fencing lessons and summer cottages on Nantucket. There was Rachel--who was eighteen now and pregnant with her first child. She probably needed a friend, but even when we were face-to-face across the kitchen table, I couldn't think of a single thing to say to her, because the things she wanted out of her life were so different from what I hoped for in my own, and because--honestly--I was a little scared that if I started hanging around with her, all the stereotypes she'd wrapped herself in would rub off like shoe polish and make it even harder to fit in seamlessly in the halls of Dalton.

  So maybe that's why, when Christina invited me to a slumber party she was having one Friday, I said yes before I could remember to stop myself. I said yes, and hoped that she would prove me gloriously wrong. In the company of all these new friends of hers, I wanted to share our inside jokes about the time Christina and I made helmets out of tinfoil and hid in the dumbwaiter pretending it was a spaceship to the moon; or when Ms. Mina's dog, Fergus, pooped on her bed and we used white paint to cover the stain, certain no one would ever notice. I wanted to be the only one who knew which kitchen cabinet held the snacks and where the extra bedding was kept and the names of each of Christina's old stuffed animals. I wanted everyone else to know that Christina and I had been friends even longer than they had.

  Christina had invited two other sophomores--Misty, who claimed to be dyslexic to get accommodations on homework, but who seemed to have no trouble reading aloud from the stack of Cosmo magazines that Christina had brought onto the roof deck; and Kiera, who was obsessed with Rob Lowe and her own thigh gap. We had all stretched out towels out on the teak deck. Christina turned up the radio as a Dire Straits song came on and started singing all the lyrics by heart. I thought of how we used to play Ms. Mina's records--all original Broadway cast recordings--and dance around pretending to be Cinderella or Eva Peron or Maria von Trapp.

  From my bag, I pulled out a bottle of sunscreen. The other girls had rubbed themselves with baby oil, as if they were steaks on a grill, but the last thing I wanted was to be darker. I noticed Kiera looking at me. "Can you tan?"

  "Um, yeah," I said, but I was spared going into detail by Misty interrupting.

  "This is so awesome," she said. "The British invasion." She twisted the magazine so that we could look at the models, each one twiggier than the last, draped in next season's clothes with Union Jacks and gold-buttoned red coats that made me think of Michael Jackson.

  Christina sank down beside me, pointing. "Linda Evangelista is, like, perfect."

  "Ugh, really? She looks like a Nazi. Cindy Crawford is so natural," Kiera countered. I peered at the photographs. "My sister's going to London this summer," Kiera added. "Backpacking through Europe. I made my dad promise, in writing, that when I was eighteen I could go too."

  "Backpacking?" Misty shuddered. "Why?"

  "Because it's romantic, duh. Just think about it. Eurail passes. Hostels. Meeting hot guys."

  "I think the Savoy is pretty romantic too," Misty said. "And they have showers."

  Kiera rolled her eyes. "Back me up, Ruth. No one in a romance novel ever meets in the lobby of the Savoy. They bump into each other on a train platform or accidentally pick up each other's backpacks, right?"

  "Sounds like fate," I said, but what I was thinking was that there was no way I couldn't work for a summer, not if I planned to go to college.

  Christina flopped onto her belly on the towel. "I'm starving. We need snacks." She looked up at me. "Ruth, could you go get us something to eat?"

  Mama smiled when I came into the kitchen, which smelled like heaven. A rack of cookies was cooling, another sheet was just going into the oven. She held out the mixing spoon and let me lick the dough. "How are things up in Saint-Tropez?"

  "Everyone's hungry," I told her. "Christina wants food."

  "Oh, she does, does she? Then how come she isn't the one standing in my kitchen asking?"

  I opened my mouth to reply, but couldn't find the answer. Why had she asked me? Why had I gone?

  My mama's mouth drew tight. "Why are you here, baby?"

  I looked down between my bare feet. "I told you--we're hungry."

  "Ruth," she repeated. "Why are you here?"

  This time I couldn't pretend to misunderstand. "Because," I said, so quietly that I could barely hear it, so quietly I was hoping my mother couldn't either, "I don't have anywhere else to go."

  "That is not true," she insisted. "When you're ready for us, we'll be waiting on you."

  I grabbed a plate and began to stack cookies on it. I didn't know what my mother meant and I didn't really want to know. I avoided her the rest of the afternoon, and when she left for the night, we were already locked inside Christina's bedroom, playing Depeche Mode and dancing on the mattress. I listened to the other girls confess their secret crushes and pretended I had one myself, so I could be part of the conversation. When Kiera brought out a flask filled with vodka ("It has the least calories, you know, if you want to get drunk"), I acted like it was no big deal, even though my heart was racing. I didn't drink, because Mama would have killed me, and because I knew I had to stay in control. Every night, before bedtime, I lotioned my skin and rubbed cocoa butter into my knees and heels and elbows to keep from being ashy; I brushed my hair around my head to encourage growth and wrapped it in a scarf. Mama did this, and so did Rachel, but I was pretty sure those rituals would be foreign to everyone at this sleepover, even Christina. I didn't want to answer questions, or stick out any more than I already did, so my plan was to be the last girl in the bathroom and to stay there until everyone had fallen asleep...and then to wake up before dawn and fix my hair before anyone else was stirring.

  So I stayed awake as Misty recounted in painstaking detail what it was like to give a blow job and Kiera got sick in the bathroom. I let everyone brush their teeth before me, and waited long enough to hear snoring before I emerged in the pitch dark.

  We were sleeping wedged like sardines, four of us in Christina's queen-size bed. I lifted the covers and slipped in beside Christina, smelling the familiar peach shampoo she had used forever. I thought she was asleep, but she rolled over and looked at me.

  My scarf was wrapped around my head, red as a wound, the ends trailing down my back. I saw Christina's eyes flicker to it, and then back to mine. She did not mention the wrap. "I'm glad you're here," Christina whispered, and for a brief, blessed moment, so was I.

  --

  LATE THAT NIGHT, as Wanda's snore whistles through the bunk, I lie awake. Every half hour a CO comes by with a flashlight, making sure that everyone is asleep. When he does, I close my eyes, pretending. I wonder if it gets easier to sleep with the sounds of a hundred women around you. I wonder if it gets easier, period.

  During one of these circuits, the flashlight bounces with the CO's footsteps and then stops at our cell. Immediately Wanda sits, scowls
. "Get up," the CO says.

  "What the hell?" Wanda challenges. "Now you're tossing cells at midnight? You ever hear of prisoners' rights--"

  "Not you." The officer jerks his head toward me. "Her."

  At that, Wanda holds up her hands, backing off. She may have been willing to share a Twix with me, but now I am on my own.

  My knees shake as I stand and walk to the open cell door. "Where are you taking me?"

  The CO doesn't respond, just steers me down the catwalk. He stops at a doorway, buzzes the control desk, and there is a grating buzz as a lock is released. We step into an air lock and wait for the door to close behind us before the next door magically opens.

  In silence he leads me to a small room that looks like a closet. He hands me a paper grocery bag.

  I peek inside to see my nightgown and my slippers. I yank the scrubs off my body, starting to fold them out of habit, and then leave them in a pile on the floor. I pull on my old clothes, my old life.

  The CO is waiting when I open the door again. This time he takes me past the cell where I was kept waiting when I first arrived, which has only two women in it now, both curled on the floor asleep, and reeking of alcohol and vomit. Then suddenly we are outside, crossing a fence with a necklace of barbed wire.

  I turn to him, panicking. "I don't have any money," I say. I know we are an hour or so away from New Haven, and I don't have bus fare or a phone or even proper clothing.

  The CO jerks his head into the distance, and that's when I notice that the dark is moving, a shadow against a moonless night. The silhouette morphs until I see the outline of a car, and a person inside, who gets out and starts running toward me. "Mama," Edison says, his face buried in my neck, "let's go home."

  THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF people who become public defenders: those who believe they can save the world, and those who know damn well they can't. The former are starry-eyed law school grads convinced they can make a difference. The latter are those of us who have worked in the system and know the problems are so much bigger than we are or the clients we represent. Once a bleeding heart calluses into realism, victories become individual ones: being able to reunite a mom who's gone through rehab with her kid, who was put in foster care; winning a motion to suppress evidence of a former addiction that might color the odds for a current client; being able to juggle hundreds of cases and triage those that need more than a meet 'em and plead 'em. As it turns out, public defenders are less Superman and more Sisyphus, and there's no small number of lawyers who wind up crushed under the weight of the infinite caseloads and the crappy hours and the shitty pay. To this end, we learn quickly that if we're going to keep a tiny bit of our lives sacrosanct, we don't bring our work home with us.

  Which is why, when I dream of Ruth Jefferson for two consecutive nights, I know I'm in trouble.

  In the first dream, Ruth and I are having an attorney-client meeting. I ask her the standard set of questions I'd ask of any client, but every time she speaks, it is in a language I don't understand. It's not even a language I recognize. Embarrassed, I have to keep asking her to repeat herself. Finally she opens her mouth, and a flock of blue butterflies pours out.

  The second night I dream that Ruth has invited me over to dinner. It is the most sumptuous table, with enough food for a football team, and each dish is more delicious than the last. I drink one glass of water, and then another, and a third, and the pitcher is empty. I ask if I can get a refill, and Ruth looks horrified. "I thought you knew," she says, and when I glance up I realize that we are locked inside a prison cell.

  I wake up, dying of thirst. Rolling onto my side, I reach for the glass of water I keep on my nightstand and take a long, cool drink. I feel Micah's arm slide around my waist and pull me against him. He kisses my neck; his hand slides up my pajama shirt.

  "What would you do if I went to prison?" I blurt out.

  Micah's eyes open. "I'm pretty sure since you're my wife, and over eighteen, this is legal."

  "No." I roll to face him. "What if I did something...and got convicted?"

  "That's kind of hot." Micah grins. "Lawyer in prison. Okay, I'll play. What did you do? Say public indecency. Please say public indecency." He pulls me flush against him.

  "Seriously. What would happen to Violet? How would you explain it to her?"

  "K, is this your way of telling me that you actually, finally did kill your boss?"

  "It's a hypothetical."

  "In that case, could we revisit the question in about fifteen minutes?" His eyes darken, and he kisses me.

  --

  WHILE MICAH SHAVES, I try to pin my hair into a bun. "Going to court today?" he asks.

  His face is still flushed; so is mine. "This afternoon. How did you know?"

  "You don't stick needles into your head unless you're going to court."

  "They're bobby pins, and that's because I'm trying to look professional," I say.

  "You're too sexy to look professional."

  I laugh. "Let's hope my clients don't feel the same way." I spear a flyaway hair into submission and lean my hip against the sink. "I'm thinking of asking Harry to give me a felony."

  "Great idea," Micah says with mild sarcasm. "I mean, since you already have five hundred open cases, you should definitely take on one that requires even more time and energy."

  It's true. Being a public defender means I have nearly ten times as many cases as are recommended by the ABA, and that, on average, I have less than an hour to prepare each case that goes to trial. Most of the time I am working, I do not eat lunch, or take a bathroom break.

  "If it makes you feel any better, he probably won't give it to me."

  Micah clatters his razor against the porcelain. When we were first married, I used to stare at the tiny hairs that dried in the bowl of the sink with wonder, thinking that I might read in them our future the way a psychic would read tea leaves. "Does this sudden ambition have anything to do with the question about you going to prison?"

  "Maybe?" I admit.

  "Well, I'd much rather you take his case than join him behind bars."

  "Her," I correct. "It's Ruth Jefferson. That nurse. I just can't shake her story."

  Even when a client has done something unlawful, I can find sympathy. I can acknowledge a bad choice was made, but still believe in justice, as long as everyone has equal access to the system--which is exactly why I do what I do.

  But with Ruth, there's something that doesn't quite add up.

  Suddenly Violet comes charging into the bathroom. Micah tightens the towel around his waist, and I tie my robe. "Mommy, Daddy," she says. "Today I match Minnie."

  She clutches a stuffed Minnie Mouse, and indeed, she has managed to pull on a polka-dotted skirt, yellow sneakers, a red bikini top, and long white tea gloves from the dress-up bin. I look at her, wondering how I am going to explain that she can't wear a bikini to school.

  "Minnie's a fallen woman," Micah points out. "I mean, it's been seventy years. Mickey ought to put a ring on it."

  "What's a fallen woman?" Violet asks.

  I kiss Micah. "I'm going to kill you," I say pleasantly.

  "Ah," he replies. "So that's why you're going to prison."

  --

  AT THE OFFICE, we have a television--a tiny screen that sits between the coffee machine and the can opener. It's a professional necessity, because of the press coverage our clients sometimes get. But in the mornings, before court is even in session, it's usually tuned to Good Morning America. Ed has an obsession with Lara Spencer's wardrobe, and to me, George Stephanopoulos is the perfect balance of hard-hitting reporter and eye candy. We sit through a round of hypothetical polls pitting presidential candidates against one another while Howard makes a fresh pot of coffee, and Ed recounts dinner with his in-laws. His mother-in-law still calls him by the name of his wife's ex, even though they've been married for nine years. "So this time," Ed says, "she asked me how much toilet paper I use."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "Just eno
ugh," Ed replies.

  "Why did she even want to know?"

  "She said they're trying to cut back," Ed answered. "That they're on a fixed income. Mind you, they go to Foxwoods three out of four weekends a month, but now we're rationing the Charmin?"

  "Well, that's crap," I say, grinning. "See what I did there?"

  Robin Roberts is interviewing a portly, middle-aged redhead whose poem was accepted for a highly literary anthology--but only after he submitted it with a Japanese pseudonym. "It was rejected thirty-five times," the man says. "So I thought maybe I'd be noticed more if my name was more..."

  "Colorful?" Roberts supplies.

  Ed snorts. "Slow news day."

  Behind me, Howard drops a spoon. It clatters into the sink.

  "Why is this even a thing?" Ed asks.

  "Because it's a lie," I say. "He's a white insurance adjuster who co-opted someone else's culture so he could get fifteen minutes of fame."

  "If that were all it took, wouldn't hundreds of poems by Japanese poets get published every year? Clearly what he wrote was good. How come no one's talking about that?"

  Harry Blatt, my boss, blusters through the break room, his coat a tornado around his legs. "I hate rain," he announces. "Why didn't I move to Arizona?" With that greeting, he grabs a cup of coffee and holes himself up in his office.

  I follow him, knocking softly on the closed door.

  Harry is still hanging up his drenched coat when I enter. "What?" he asks.

  "You remember that case I arraigned--Ruth Jefferson?"

  "Prostitution?"

  "No, she's the nurse from Mercy-West Haven. Can I take it?"

  He settles behind his desk. "Right. The dead baby."

  When he doesn't say anything else, I stumble to fill the void. "I've been practicing for five years, almost. And I feel really connected to this one. I'd like the opportunity to try it."

  "It's a murder," Harry says.

  "I know. But I really, really think I'm the right public defender for this case," I say. "And you're going to have to give me a felony sooner or later." I smile. "So I'm suggesting sooner."