Blood Orange Read online

  He slept restlessly on his office couch in his shorts and T-shirt, covered with the red, black, and white afghan his aunt had knitted for him when he went off to Miami. He was cold, and barely slept, and when he awoke he felt like an old man with rust in his joints. Before anyone came into the office he made coffee, brushed his teeth, and washed his face-but still he looked awful. Barely past forty, he saw his father’s jowls and droopy eyes in the mirror, the result of days of stress and short sleep. He wondered what his father had been like before power and greed had corrupted him. If David had been able to get beyond the man’s bluster and vulgarity, might he have learned something to help him through this time in his life?

  Yesterday’s shirt was too wrinkled for court. Barbara came in at eight-fifteen, and he sent her out to Target to buy him another one, apologizing profusely for asking her to run a personal errand, promising to make it up to her.

  A little after eight-thirty Gracie entered his office and shut the door. She looked at the afghan and then at him.

  “You slept here?”

  “I don’t really want to talk about this, Gracie.”

  “You didn’t go home at all?”

  “Did you come in for some special reason?”

  “Yeah. To say you look like shit.”

  She left and came back a few minutes later with a liter bottle of water.

  “Drink this.”

  “I don’t want water.” He’d already had three cups of coffee.

  “You need it. Your cells are dehydrated.” She looked around the office. “Where’s your shirt? You can’t go to court in your undershirt.”

  “I sent Barbara over to Target. Nowhere else is open at this hour.”

  Gracie shook her head. “You’ll never learn.”

  “I apologized to her.”

  “So why didn’t you sleep at home?”

  It went against his nature to talk about his marriage with a third party, even Gracie. The sentences on his computer screen swam before his eyes. “Just let me get through this motion.”

  “Allison can do it.”

  “It’s not easy.”

  “And she’s not stupid. Isn’t that a lucky break?” She called Allison into the office. To David she said, “Tell her what you need.”

  He explained the motion to Allison, and she said she’d have it done in no time and disappeared, closing the door behind her.

  Gracie said, “The whole office knows something’s up. You don’t know how wasted you look.”

  He tilted his chair and stared up at the acoustic-tile ceiling. Automatically, he counted a line of dots across one tile and then a line down. He remembered lying on a couch in the hospital waiting room after Bailey was born, staring at the ceiling, counting and multiplying, getting confused and starting all over again.

  Gracie sat in the wing chair. “What’s up, Boss?”

  “It’s such a mess, I don’t think I could explain.”

  11 “Try.

  He managed a wan smile, but his face stiffened and he looked away, out the window at the two immense cranes like Star Wars contraptions already at work on a building a block away. “I don’t know what to do about Filmore.”

  “We can start with him.”

  From the other side of the door he heard the office at work, keyboards, telephones ringing and voices. He told her about the re ceipt from Owens Garage, his conversations with Marsha and Frank Filmore, and Peluso’s apparent rejection of the plea offer.

  “You met on the Madeleine Hill?” She grinned. “You’re working the high wire there.”

  “He thinks he can beat us.”

  “Well, of course he does. He’s a prosecutor, the Almighty Hammer of the Lord.”

  “I think about going into court and defending Frank and I get physically ill. Sick.”

  “What does Dana say?”

  He stared at the crane until his tired eyes began to water.

  “Do you believe in what we do, Gracie?”

  “I couldn’t do the job if I didn’t. Of course there are times and there are clients. Like Filmore….”

  “Marsha says it’s the whining that sets him off. The way she tells it, killing Lolly was a natural kind of mistake.”

  “Like taking a wrong turn?”

  “Yeah, he only meant to scare her.”

  “She goes for that?”

  “I don’t know what Marsha Filmore goes for.”

  “And I doubt you want to.”

  A knock on the door and Allison stuck her head in. “Want to read this, Boss?”

  David gestured her forward and quickly scanned the motion.

  “You’re a scholar and a saint,” he said.

  Allison blushed. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Is Barbara back?”

  “Sorry.” She left the office, closing the door softly. Treading on eggshells, David thought.

  “So what are you going to do?” Gracie asked, and for a second he thought she meant about Dana because even when he was thinking of Filmore, Dana was in his deeper thoughts.

  “I’m stuck with him unless I could convince the judge to take me off the case. You could handle it, you and Larry?”

  “Thing is, Boss, the judge’ll never let you do it. He’s a hard-ass about changes once a trial’s on the docket.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You ask me? Personally? I think you should talk to Dana about this.”

  He felt the sadness in his expression and couldn’t change it. “Well, that’s not possible today.” Or tomorrow, either.

  “David, I know how it can be when you’ve been married awhile. Things happen. Problems that don’t go away for a while. But you and Dana have a good marriage. You’ve been through some heavy shit together, and you held each other up when you had to. I don’t know what’s going on now, and you don’t have to tell me. But if you’re smart, you’ll take my advice: go home and mend some bridges. I’ve known you a long time; you oughta listen to me.”

  She had been the most striking woman among the first-year law students. Tall and strong, with glistening black hair cut short as a man’s, her skin the color of almonds. To class she wore tight Levi’s, T-shirts, and exotic earrings, and none of the professors intimidated her. And she was smart. During orientation he’d asked to be in her study group. As a boy he’d had many friends. In college, and when he was a Charger, friendship had come easily to him. But there were only two people he had trusted completely. Gracie was one of them. The only one now.

  “I guess we’re splitting up,” he said. “Shit.” His eyes teared up. “I hate the way that sounds.”

  “Jesus, Boss, I’m so sorry. I had no idea things were so rough.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Now I know you got to go home. Get someone to lock the two of you inside and don’t let you out until you’ve made up.”

  “Some things … it’s not always possible to make up.”

  “Boss, if you two can’t make it, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

  He could not answer that.

  “What about Bailey?”

  Or that, either.

  A long silence followed, and eventually David began to speak about Dana and Micah and how their affair had led to Bailey’s kidnapping.

  When he finished they sat in silence for some moments.

  “I suppose it would be different,” she said, “if he hadn’t taken Bailey….”

  His head snapped around. “You’d say it was okay then?”

  “Not okay, but different. Not so bad.”

  He stared at her.

  “David, sex happens.”

  “If Marshall did this-“

  “Which he has.”

  David felt he’d started in one game and ended up in another.

  “You forgave him?”

  “I live in the real world, David. And just because Marshall put his dick in the wrong place, I’m not giving up on him. Or us.”

  “But what if he-“

  She held
up her hand. “Don’t interrogate me. I’ll answer your questions because you’re my friend, not my judge, or Marshall’s, either. It happened once. Marshall had an affair with a temp in his office, and I found out about six months after it was over. I was pissed, I was hurt, I wanted to toss him out.” She leaned back in the wing chair. “But what he did couldn’t change how I feel about him. I love him. What did change was my illusions. I don’t have them anymore.

  “It’s a matter of trust, Gracie, of being able to count on some- one’s loyalty.”

  “Those are just words, they don’t have feeling behind them. What do you feel?”

  “Mad.”

  “Well, yeah, obviously. You’ve got a right to that. But what else?”

  He doodled on the yellow legal pad in front of him.

  She said, “Let me tell you a story. A few years ago my mom had this little dog that was just devoted to her. Trailed after her everywhere she went, slept on the bed. When I wasn’t around I think she let the dog eat off her plate. It was kind of disgusting, actually.”

  David was grateful not to speak.

  “So one day she calls me and she’s crying because the dog has bitten her. Made her bleed. I drove over and took her to the doctor, got her stitches, and the doctor says she’s got to take the dog to the vet, have it checked for rabies. Something like that. And that’s what we did, and the dog’s up-to-date on its shots, no problem; but the vet finds out it’s got some kind of arthritis thing in its spine and it’s in pain. The dog’s in pain all the time, turns out, and that’s why it bit my mom.

  David rolled his eyes.

  “You can be amused all you like,” Gracie said, “but what you’re feeling now, the mad part, it’s a cover-up for something else. Maybe hurt, or even fear.”

  “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  Gracie looked at him, disgusted. “Of course you’re afraid. You don’t want your marriage to end, David. You wouldn’t know what to do without Dana.”

  He would buy a townhouse, watch television at night, and maybe learn to cook for himself. He’d date blondes he met at Morton’s.

  It sounded like hell.

  He said, “What makes you so smart?”

  “Well, for one thing, I’m black, and everyone knows blacks are smarter than whites. For another, I’m female, and we’re all of us just way smarter than you guys. Hands down.”

  His smile faded. “Some things can’t be done, Gracie.”

  “Bullshit. I’m not saying it’s easy. Believe me, I wanted to kill Marshall. And we’ve got guns in the house, so I could have done it.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I didn’t think you could get me off. And then I thought about all the guys I slept with before we got married and how none of them meant anything much-“

  “Dana was a virgin.”

  Gracie threw up her hands. “Well, jeez, then you can’t blame her, David. She had a fling. She wanted to know what it felt like to be with another guy.”

  He remembered Dana telling him that with Micah she had discovered a part of herself she had denied all her life.

  “Maybe it’s different for a woman,” he said.

  “Are we talking the double standard now? You’re smarter than that.” Gracie looked at her watch. “What’s your schedule?”

  “I’m due before Smythe at ten.”

  “What case?”

  “Joel Dexter. Motion to suppress the dope the cops found in his car.

  “What else?”

  “Desk work.”

  “Go home. I’ll argue the motion.”

  “Wilson won’t like it.”

  “Screw Wilson.”

  She came around behind his desk and motioned him to stand up. When he did, she took his hands. “Boss, let me tell you something I know as good as I know your name. It makes sense you’re mad and hurt and scared now, but those feelings are like walking on wet cement. You gotta move fast through them. Get to the other side before you’re stuck there. You get stuck, you guys split up, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

  “You don’t understand, Gracie. We were a team-“

  “Enough with the football! You’re husband and wife, lovers, parents. You’re a couple, not a team, for God’s sake.”

  If there was anyone in the world from whom he might take advice, it was Gracie. But in the end Marshall’s peccadilloes paled beside Dana’s. It crossed David’s mind that his father would never have forgiven under the circumstances. So, he was a little like Claybourne Cabot after all.

  exy slumped in a choir stall behind the altar rail. The late- iafternoon sun had dipped below the windows, leaving the interior of St. Tom’s in deep shadow. In her hand she held the typed copy of her resignation directed to the bishop of the San Diego Diocese. The letter to the vestry was in her office and said the same thing. It is with the deepest regret, etc. She had read it through a dozen times, and there was not a word she wanted to change. Due to personal reasons I find I am no longer able to perform my material and spiritual duties. The next step was to get in her car and deliver the letter to the bishop’s offices. But it was this she could not seem to do. She had come into the church to think, and had not stirred for more than an hour.

  The letter to the bishop was formal and barely touched the truth. The letter in her head was very different.

  I am no longer able to perform my material and spiritual duties because I have lost faith and no longer see the child of God in those to whom I minister. There is too much sadness in the world, too much anger in me, and I am inadequate to the task I have taken up.

  I want to be free to mourn my brother and despise Dana Cabot and never forgive her.

  From time to time a priest could have her doubts. It was to be expected. But this was not doubt. This was demolition. Of herself, not God.

  Lexy heard the side door of the church slam shut and the clack of flip-flops crossing the tiles.

  The tenth-grade volunteer who was earning school credit for answering phones and running errands said, “I just got another call? You’re really needed. That’s what the caller said. I don’t know her name.

  “Alana. Her name is Alana.” Lexy sighed and stood up. “Call her back. Tell her I’m on my way.”

  Dorothy’s bedroom was laced with bars of leafy green and white light that brought out the gold in the flecked wallpaper and turned the dark wood furniture coppery. Dorothy lay on her back with her small head sunk in the expanse of white pillow, her sparse hair fluffed out like a dandelion crown. Her hands outside the bedcovers were wizened and small except for knuckles the size of walnuts. She plucked anxiously at the tufts on the Queen Anne bedspread.

  As Lexy drew up a padded lady’s chair and sat down, she heard steps behind her, turned, and accepted the mug of tea Alana held out to her.

  Lexy had brought her prayer book and a small bottle of consecrated oil. She made the sign of the cross in the air between them and said softly, “Dorothy, I lay my hands upon you in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, beseeching Him to uphold you and fill you with His Grace, that you may know the healing power of His love.”

  Dorothy’s eyelids fluttered as if she were dreaming, and her fingers picked and pinched more rapidly.

  “May Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins through our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthen you in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit keep you in eternal life.”

  Lexy pulled the stopper from the bottle containing an ounce of holy oil. She dipped her thumb in the oil and made the sign of the cross on the old woman’s forehead.

  “Dorothy, I anoint you with oil in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

  She had said the words, and she had done so mindfully, without letting her personal problems interfere with her duty. It was what Dorothy had wanted and expected her to do. Now there was only the waiting. It seemed unlikely she would wake again. The old lady’s hands stilled and came to rest beside her; her breathing
became shallow.

  Lexy sat back. She had begun by not liking Dorothy Wilkerson, but the opinionated old woman had grown on her over the months of her slow dying. Now, at the end, Lexy felt a burden of sorrow descend upon her shoulders as she waited for death to come. She would miss Dorothy.

  Lexy’s eyes drooped. She had not slept well for many days and knew she would drift off if she did not try especially hard to stay awake.

  Alana’s tea was strong and sweet and invigorating.

  Holding Dorothy’s hands, she paraphrased a favorite prayer. “Lord, you have supported Dorothy, Your servant, all the days of her life. Now, as the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life nears its end, and her work on earth is done, in Your mercy grant Dorothy a safe lodging with You and a holy rest and peace at the last. Amen.”

  The music of the old words lingered on the air like a sustained chord that resonates in the ear long after it is struck. A shudder went through Lexy, and she dropped back into the chair. Her hands were suddenly icy.

  Dorothy opened her eyes. They were the color of the fog. “Hello, Ellen.” Her voice was steady. “Thank you for coming.”

  Lexy began to say that she was not Ellen but stopped herself. She didn’t know why, but at the last moment it seemed better to say nothing.

  “Ellen, give me your hands,” Dorothy said.

  The air around Lexy grew soft, and a veil of dusty bronze silk dropped over her vision as she extended her hands.

  “Child, forgive me. I judged you harshly, cruelly. Your father and I both. I have no way to say-” She closed her eyes. Lexy started to pull away, but Dorothy’s grip tightened. “Don’t go. Promise me you won’t. “