Unfit to Practice

As she walked toward the living room late on Sunday morning, she heard the low rumbling of masculine voices. His lawyer friend must have arrived. The man stood up when she came in and took a step toward her, his hand coming up and then hanging in the air, along with his mouth.

She stopped, her mouth frozen in the polite smile.

“Oh, no. No, Paul,” she said.

“What’s she doing here?” her ex-husband, Jack McIntyre, said at exactly the same time.

They both turned to Paul, who sprawled in his chair, long hairy legs stretching out from his khaki shorts. “You both would have said no. You’ll both thank me later. Get you something, Nina?” he said.

“I’ll get it,” she said, retreating into the kitchen, trying to figure out what in the world she felt, seeing Jack again. Shock, definitely. They hadn’t met since before their divorce, not since the day Jack walked out on her and their place in Bernal Heights.

She walked slowly back out, holding a soda. Apparently not a word had been spoken. Jack held a beer to his mouth and appeared to be draining it. Beer on Sunday morning. That was new.

“Well,” Paul said. “Ha, ha. Jack, Nina. Nina, Jack.”

“Hello, Nina,” Jack said. He raised his eyebrows, shrugged, smiled slightly. “Believe me, although I should have suspected he was up to something, I didn’t.”

“Hello.” She sat down on the couch, keeping her legs together, and crossed her arms. “What’re you doing here?”

“I was invited,” Jack said. “It’s been a couple of years now, hasn’t it? Amazing. I meant to call Bob more often.”

“He’s been busy. Like you, I’m sure.”

“You always did fit into a T-shirt just right,” Jack said.

Nina crossed her arms.

Jack broke into a broad smile. “Paul, you old fox.”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, buddy. This is business,” Paul said.

Jack ignored him. He did look fine, if pale from the years in high-rise San Francisco and away from the beaches. Shorter than Paul, he was brawny, although leaner than he looked, something you only saw when he took his shirt off. He had reminded her of a teddy bear when they met, a hairy Big Sur guy who brooked no shit but had a ready smile and a kind word for everyone.

Nina was remembering her last phone conversation with Jack. He had urged her to hurry up and sign the papers so he could marry his girlfriend. She had reacted, well, with a certain lack of gentility. The old anger hadn’t had time to rise up yet and all she felt was nervous and curious. She looked again at Paul, who cleared his throat, stalling, as if waiting to see how she would react.

“He’s the state bar defense lawyer?”

“I hear he’s good,” Paul said. “Of course, I hear that from him.”

Jack said, “Ah ha. The pieces begin to come together.”

Odd, to be in a room with two men she had slept with. She had no urge to compare them, then suddenly found herself doing exactly that. Apples and oranges, she thought. Onions and leeks. Cucumbers and bananas. She giggled. Nerves.

“What’s so fu

“Nothing. Sorry.”

“I haven’t even started my song and dance yet, and you’re smiling.” He turned to Paul. “Did you tell her about Eva? Is that why she’s smiling?”

“Tell me what?”

“She dumped my ass,” Jack said. “Two months ago.” He looked hurt when he said it.

“Really,” Nina said.

“I didn’t even see it coming. She moved out and served me the next day.”

“She does move fast,” Nina said. Jack’s new wife had also been the attorney who represented Jack in his divorce from Nina.

“Go ahead. Tell me I deserved it.” After a pause pregnant with Nina’s silence, Jack said, “Well. You get a gold star for restraint. Here I am, battered and blue. So, Paul, you going to tell me what’s up?”

Paul got up. “Let’s save that until we’re on the deck at Nepenthe. It’s a forty-five-minute drive and I’m already hungry.”

Jack and Nina continued to sneak looks at each other. She decided he was as intense and brash as ever but he had a new aspect today. He looked wounded, maybe. Chastened.

Improved. Definitely improved.

“Okay,” Jack said. “Sure.”

They took Jack’s green Chrysler Sebring, top down. Paul sat in the rear seat, his legs digging into Nina’s back. The fog had drifted out to sea around the Highlands I

“Awesome!” Jack shouted over the noise of the engine. “I always forget.”

As they crossed the Bixby Creek Bridge, Paul leaned forward to touch Nina’s shoulder, because she had a very bad memory of that place that had to do with her mother’s death many years before. They swerved past the Point Sur Lighthouse, where the navy was on the lookout for terrorists these days. The world had changed since Nina’s childhood, when VW vans full of bell-bottomed kids had traveled this beautiful road.

At the thick redwood forests of Pfeiffer Big Sur they dipped into shadow. Jack told them about how his wife had taken their hamster with her and how he had seriously considered filing for custody. Solemnly, he laid out his legal strategy, even citing some cases, probably invented but nevertheless credible and detailed. Some people in trouble turned to counseling; Jack turned to storytelling. His disasters always evolved into deadpan comedy skits, which was his way of controlling and reshaping his psychic traumas.

They parked in the driveway at the foot of the concrete staircase that led to the Phoenix Shop and Nepenthe. “Haven’t been here in years,” Jack said. “Lots of good times here. Remember that Halloween party in, let’s see, I forget the year. Who was it wore the pumpkin head? Probably Paul.”

Paul took Nina’s arm as they went up. They both puffed, but the hike was worth the wait because Nepenthe possessed a spectacular view. Under the enormous, shifting sky, miles and miles of ragged cliffs collided with the ocean.

“There are seven wonders, but are there seven wonderful views?” Jack said as they arrived at the top. “There ought to be. Put this one at number one.”

They sat on the outside deck and ordered burgers and margaritas. Paul and Jack had fallen into the old banter Nina remembered from years ago when she had first met them. She had been a law student clerking at Jack’s firm in Carmel, and Paul-incredible! Paul had still been a cop. Bob was a toddler then. Her mother was alive.

So much had happened since, too much too fast. Another marriage, another loss…

“I was sorry to hear about your husband, Nina. What a sad way to die. How terrible for you and Bob.”

Jack had wormed his way into her heart, just like old times. She never knew what to say. “Thank you.”

“How’s the law practice up there in the mountains? I look east sometimes outside my window on the thirtieth floor in the Financial District and I think of you in your cozy town and I think, you finally figured it all out-”

Nina gave a short laugh. “Right.”

“She needs to talk to you professionally,” Paul said. “So straighten up. Go ahead, Nina, dive in.”

“I’m still thinking about it,” Nina said. “Jack, are you really a certified specialist in state bar matters?”

“At your service, fair lady,” Jack said. He stood up suddenly and pretended to sweep a cap off his head and bowed. “I’ve been hoping Paul dragged me down here just to get us talking again, actually.”

“I didn’t even think about that,” Paul said. “Actually.” He put his hand over Nina’s.

“So you guys are lovers?” Jack said, Jack-style, no pussyfooting around. “She’s with you?”

Paul pulled Nina close. Jack’s eyes flickered.

She felt vaguely like a sack of flour being weighed by two merchants. “Paul and I aren’t your business,” she said.