Look Closer

Only some do.

—

In the corner of the room, the printer starts grinding and spitting out the pages of the trust. My phone rings, a FaceTime call from my nieces, the M&Ms, Mariah and Macy. I throw in my AirPods so the noise won’t awaken Simon.

When I answer, it’s only Mariah, the thirteen-year-old, on the call. As best as I can make out through the grainy image, she doesn’t look happy. No one can perfect a frown better than a thirteen-year-old girl.

“Hi, pumpkin!” I say, trying to keep my voice down, closing the office door.

“It happened,” she says.

It— Oh, right.

“Okay. Well, okay. We knew this would be coming, right?”

She nods, but her face wrinkles into a grimace.

“It’s okay, Mariah, it’s normal, perfectly normal. You put a pad on?”

She nods her head, tears falling. It’s emotional enough, getting your period the first time; not having your mother around, and having all that come back, too, doubles the fun.

“Great! So listen, did you talk to your dad?”

“No!” she spits out.

“Well, honey, you can’t keep this from your father. He knows it’s coming, too.”

Yes, her father, my ex-brother-in-law, Adam, knows that adolescent girls get their period. And without a wife, without a woman in the home, he’s been terrified of this moment. Men have no clue about the female anatomy.

“When are you . . . when are you coming?” she manages.

“I’ll come this weekend, honey, okay? I’ll come Friday night and stay the weekend.”

“Okay,” she whines, “but when are you coming for good?”

Oh, that. “November,” I say. “Remember, I told you—”

“But November’s over two months away!”

I take a breath. November’s more than two months away, yes, but it feels like it’s coming quickly.

“Mariah, honey, I will be here anytime you want to call me between now and November. I’ll come see you this weekend. I’ll spend the whole weekend. We’ll get milkshakes at that place you like.”

“Barton’s.”

“Barton’s. It’ll be fun. Really,” I say, “November will be here before you know it.”

—

When I’m done with Mariah, I walk down the hallway to check on Simon. He’s peacefully asleep, having drunken dreams about grand juries and law school deans.

I’m leaving in November, no doubt. It’s best for everyone, Simon and me both, and those girls need me closer. But I can’t leave Simon like this. Not with his future at the law school twisting in the wind.

Because that’s exactly where things stand. If Simon lets the dean hold his past over him, he might as well pack up now and leave. And that would kill him. He could teach elsewhere, sure, but he loves Chicago, and he loves his law school.

He’ll always have that look he had on his face tonight. The look of defeat, resignation.

No. I won’t let that happen. I’m done asking for Simon’s permission.

This dean is mine.

I pick up my phone and dial Rambo’s number.

“Miss Vicky!” he calls out from his speakerphone. “Isn’t this past your bedtime?”

“I need your services again,” I say. “When can we meet?”

20 Simon

I don’t “obsess” about Mitchell Kitchens. I just think about him sometimes.

There was the “Mini-Me” nickname, of course. He’d pick the most embarrassing times to use it. Coming off the bus every morning in front of the others. In front of a hallway full of students. Sometimes he’d find me in the crowd at a school assembly. He even said it once in front of my mother, on a day she had to pick me up from the principal’s office because I was sick, and we passed through the gym while Mitchell was working out with the other wrestlers on a mat. (The gym teacher was the wrestling coach, so while everyone else had a regular phys-ed curriculum, the wrestlers all had the same gym class and they just used it as a regular wrestling practice in addition to the one after school.)

Anyway, my mother and I were passing through the gym, and there’s Mitchell calling out, “It’s Mini-Me! Hey, Mini-Me!” I didn’t respond. I knew what that usually meant—he’d yell louder and keep at it until I acknowledged him, until he’d thoroughly humiliated me. But I figured that with my mother standing there, he’d back down. He didn’t.

My mother stopped on a dime and turned in his direction. She didn’t speak. I didn’t even see the look on her face, but I could imagine it. Knowing my mother and her wicked intellect and verbal skills, she probably had a dozen comments at the ready that would have left a Neanderthal like Mitchell mute. But she just stared him down, and then we kept walking.

She never brought it up. She must have known how humiliating it was, and she probably decided that she would leave it to me to raise it. I never did.

I wish it had stopped at the nickname. That was bad enough. But it didn’t stop there.

Not pleasant memories. So it’s a good thing I don’t obsess about him.

—

Anshu is just arriving at his office down the hall from mine, just fitting his key into the door, when I’m heading to my eight o’clock class.

“Professor Bindra,” I say. “You’re in early.”