Bennie still had one move left. She reached into her purse, dug at her phone, and just to confirm her suspicion, scrolled to missed calls. NATE LENCE, read the entry, which was what she had thought. He was playing a game, upping the ante. She had only one way to up the ante on him. She didn’t know if it would work, but she had to try. She pressed Redial and waited for him to answer, standing at her desk.
“Are you mad at me?” Nate asked, his tone light.
“Withdraw that letter you sent to DiNunzio.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a terrible thing to do to my partner.”
“She made her own bed.”
Bennie didn’t think his choice of words was coincidental. “If you don’t withdraw that letter, our friendship is over.”
Nate fell silent a minute. “Oh, come on.”
“I’m letting you know. Withdraw that letter or forget my name.”
“I have a counter-offer. You don’t have to take the case for OpenSpace and you can have all the Dumbarton work back. But I’m not withdrawing the letter.”
“I was never going to take the case for OpenSpace and I don’t want to work for Dumbarton any longer. The only thing that’s on the table is our friendship, such as it is. And if you don’t withdraw that letter, I’m gone for good.”
“So you’re making this personal.”
“You made it personal. You attacked my partner to hurt me. You don’t care about a small-stakes discrimination case in a sub. You showed up at OpenSpace to see me, or to fluster me. But no matter. Yes, I’m making it personal.” Bennie kept her tone even, because she was speaking from strength, though oddly, she had almost no leverage. Except that leverage was a state of mind. So was power.
“You always say business is never personal.”
“I was wrong.” Bennie remembered she had said the same thing to Mary. “Are you going to withdraw the letter or not?”
“Come on, Bennie. You’re making too much of this.” Nate chuckled softly. “Why make such a big deal? This is litigation, that’s all.”
“This isn’t litigation, this is life. Evidently, they intersect. I didn’t realize how hollow you had become as a person. We both know that I’m the only person in your world who tells you the truth. Maybe because we go back, maybe because of who we are. That doesn’t matter either. So keep me or let me go. Your choice, but on my terms. You haven’t agreed to withdraw it, so good-bye.”
“Wait—”
Bennie hung up and turned it off, because she didn’t want to hear it ring and she didn’t want to hear it not ring. She turned to her landline and buzzed the intercom button for Marshall. “Can you come in, please?”
“Sure. Be right there.”
“Thanks.” Bennie turned around to her credenza and started thumbing through the case files in their red accordions. She pulled out one case for Dumbarton, then another, and a third, stacking them on her chair. Then she went into the file cabinet underneath, pulled out the big drawer, and went through the files alphabetically until she got to D. She reached a block of Dumbarton files, yanked them out, and put them on the floor in a pile. When the file started to totter, she started another one. She was already starting to feel better.
“Bennie?” Marshall knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Bennie called out, and Marshall entered the office, hesitantly.
“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 vag
uely 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.”
Mary laughed, though it felt hollow. She couldn’t believe it had come to a head so fast, that she was actually considering leaving a firm that she loved. They had been together forever, had tons of cases, adventures, and misadventures. Helped each other through major trials and love affairs. She didn’t know if she could do it, but maybe she had to.
They reached the corner with the business crowd, suspended their conversation because everyone was in earshot, then crossed the street into Rittenhouse Square, a gloriously green block ringed with privet hedges, and they crossed the street into the park, walked along the pathways, and grabbed the first park bench that was available, because they filled up fast.
Mary flopped down, suddenly exhausted. “We forgot lunch.”
“I can’t eat anyway.” Judy’s face fell into crestfallen lines, and Mary’s heart went out to her.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I feel horrible putting you through this.”
“I know, and I feel horrible making you feel guilty when you’re trying to figure this out. I know you’re in a really hard spot. I get it. I really do.” Judy sighed heavily, turning to her, her head inclined. “Is it horrible if I say that I wish this case never came in in the first place?”
“No, that is definitely not horrible. That is what I thought about a million times. I wish they never fired him in the first place, just for my sake. It’s all about me, right? Not my friend who lost his job and his wife. Not his daughter who has cancer.”
“Right.” Judy smiled wryly. “We’re lawyers, so it’s always about us.”
“Exactly.” Mary felt a wave of love for her friend, who understood everything about her, even her weird sense of humor. “We will always be friends.”
Judy swallowed hard. “I know, but it’s different when you don’t work together.”
“No it isn’t,” Mary said gently.
“Yes it is, you don’t see each other as often. You don’t go out for lunch together. You say you’ll see each other but you don’t.”
“We will, we would.”
“You say that.”
“But it’s true.”
Judy sighed heavily. “So you’re really considering leaving.”
“I don’t know, I guess I am. I guess I have to.” Mary hurt inside, and the wrench in her chest was becoming familiar.
“What does Anthony think?”
Mary cringed. “I didn’t talk to him about it yet. I only thought about it in the middle of the night, and he was asleep. I just thought to myself, ‘what if the settlement doesn’t work out,’ ‘what if push comes to shove,’ and here we are.”
Judy pushed her. “You would go out on your own then?”
Mary blinked, getting an idea. “Well, I wouldn’t have to be completely on my own, now would I?”
“What do you mean?”
“Girl. Come with me.”
“Ha!” Judy burst into laughter. “Are you serious?”
“Why not?” Mary said, trying to wrap her mind around the idea. “I have tons of work, Judy. I have a very solid client base. If I have to go, you could come with me. It would be great.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Judy said, putting up a restraining hand. “Mare, are you forgetting? We have been in business together, way back when. Remember when we tried to start a practice after we left Stalling & Webb?”
“Oh, right.” Mary had forgotten, or more likely, blocked it out. “You mean, how our impulsive decision to flee our big firm led us to hang out our own shingle—”
“—and set up shop and wait for a phone to ring? Which it didn’t?”
“Well, look at the bright side, we did a lot of pro bono work.”
Judy grinned. “We could have saved the world. And also starved.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.” Judy laughed.
Mary got serious. “But that was then and this is now. Times are different. I have business. I don’t have to wait for a phone to ring anymore. In fact, there are days when I don’t answer the phone because I don’t want another case.”
“Really?” Judy’s eyes narrowed, a skeptical Delft blue.
“Honestly. You know how many cases I have, ongoing, right now? Take a guess.”
“Well, twelve active cases is a lot,” Judy began, thinking aloud. “And you need a base of about fifty ongoing cases, whether they are superactive or not.”
“Agreed.” Mary folded her arms, self-satisfied. “So guess.”
“Sixty?”
“Try a hundred and twenty.”
“What?” Judy’s eyes rounded with amazement. “Are you serious? What are the billings?”
“About $1 million a year.”
“That’s as much as Bennie!”
“Tell me about it. It was more than her, last fiscal year.” Mary had been astounded herself, when she realized how much her practice had grown. “And I’m already paying overhead because we split it, so that’s payroll, rent, fixtures of about four hundred grand a year, so I take home three hundred grand after taxes.”
“Wow, I make one hundred fifty.”
“I’ll give you a raise,” Mary said, meaning it.
“You’re serious?” Judy burst into laughter.
“Totally. That’s why my client base is so important, that’s what I tried to tell her. I don’t get the big cases, but I get the volume and they keep coming. Everybody has contract disputes, wills drafted, construction disputes, slip and fall, basic med mal, and now special education, which is a wonderful practice.”
“The stuff you’re doing lately, for kids with special needs?”
“Yes, I love it, and you would too. These kids are not being served, getting the interventions they need, and you get to do some good.”
“Really.”
“You make a difference in a kid’s life, just like Rachel. It’s not a special needs case, but it’s the same feeling for me, inside. You see the good you’re doing. You actually effect change.”
“Really,” Judy repeated, though her tone turned positive, if not excited.
“Yes, and from a business point of view, it’s awesome because in Pennsylvania, if you win a special-education case, your fees get reimbursed by the district. That’s true for the Philadelphia School District and for the suburban school districts. You never have to worry about getting paid. And they pay your going rate. It’s truly doing good and doing good.”
“It sounds win-win.”
“Exactly,” Mary said, getting excited herself. “And how much better is that than no-win? Litigation can be so no-win. Even if you settle, both sides are unhappy; that’s even the mark of a good settlement.”
“Honestly, yes!” Judy brightened.
“Sometimes you get tired of banging your head against a wall, don’t you? Bennie loves to fight, but I don’t. I thought I didn’t like being a lawyer, but that wasn’t right. I just didn’t like practicing the type of law I was practicing.” Mary felt her heart lift, hearing herself say aloud something she’d been thinking for a long time. “And I’m happy now. I’m happy at work for the first time ever.”
Judy’s expression darkened. “So why blow it up?”
“I don’t think of it that way.”
“I know.” Judy made a face. “But everyone else will. Bennie does, Marshall does. I told her, and she started crying. And wait’ll Anne and John get back. They’re going to freak.”
“I know and I ha
te that.” Mary felt the weight of guilt, but reminded herself of her purpose. “But I have to do what I have to do. Right?”
“Right. So what will I work on, if I came with you?”
“Well, the types of matters I said.”
“How about the special-ed cases?”
“I don’t have a lot of them yet because I’m just starting in the practice and that bar is pretty tight. But I’m starting to get referrals. I feel like in three to five years, that will be the majority of my practice, but it isn’t yet.”
“Are you ever in federal court?”
“Not really, no. There’s more state-court issues, contract issues, or arbitration, and it’s a lot of horse trading. In fact, I don’t really get into court that much. In fact, I avoid it.” Mary could see Judy’s shoulders deflate. “Look, I admit, it’s not really the kind of work you’re used to. But you would like it.”
“So there’s no appellate work or anything like that.”
“Federal appellate, no.” Mary knew that Judy loved the intellectual rigor posed by federal questions that went up on appeal, like cutting-edge constitutional issues, but Mary’s clients didn’t present and couldn’t afford that type of litigation. “But if you brought in that kind of work, that would be great.”
Judy hesitated. “That’s the kind of work that comes to Bennie, and she gives to me.”
Mary shifted forward. “I know, but Judy, with your credentials, you could attract that kind of work.”
Judy looked at her like she was crazy. “Mary, take a look at me. Do I look like the kind of person people want for a lawyer? I dress crazy and I like it. I don’t want to change. And I’m not a business getter, I never have been. I don’t like schmoozing people, going to the bar conferences and the cocktail parties. It’s just not me.”