Household Gods

Nicole was no more afraid of him than the local bartenders. “Gary,” she said dangerously.

He backed down in a hurry, flinging up his hands as if he thought she might bite. “Okay, okay. You look like you could use some good news. You know the Butler Ranch report we turned in a couple of weeks ago?”

“I’d better,” Nicole said, still with an edge in her voice. Antidevelopment forces were fighting the Butler Ranch project tooth and nail because it would extend tract housing into the scrubby hill country north of the 118 Freeway. The fight would send the children of attorneys on both sides to Ivy League schools for years, likely decades, to come.

“Well, because of that report – ” Gary paused to draw on his cigar, tilted his head back, and blew a ragged smoke ring. “Because of that report, Mr. Rosenthal named me a partner in the firm.” He pointed at Nicole. “And he’s looking for you.”

For a moment, she just stood there. Then she felt the wide, crazy grin spread across her face. Payoff – finally. Restitution for the whole lousy morning, for a whole year of lousy mornings. “My God,” she whispered. She’d done three-quarters of the work on that report. She knew it, Gary knew it, the whole firm had to know it. He was a smoother writer than she, which was the main reason he’d been involved at all, but he thought environmental impact was what caused roadkill.

“Shall I congratulate you now?” he asked. His grin was as broad as Nicole’s.

She shook her head. She felt dizzy, bubbly. Was this what champagne did to people? She didn’t know. She didn’t drink. Just as well – she had to be calm, she had to be mature. She couldn’t go fizzing off into the upper atmosphere. She had a reputation to uphold. “Better not,” she said. “Wait till it’s official. But since you are official – congratulations, Gary.” She thrust out her hand. He pumped it. When he started to give her a hug, she stiffened just enough to let him know she didn’t want it. Since Frank walked out the door, she hadn’t wanted much to do with the male half of the human race. To cover the awkward moment, she said, “Congratulations again.” And hastily, before he could say anything to prolong the moment: “I’d better get upstairs.”

“Okay. And back at you,” Ogarkov added, even though she’d told him not to. She made a face at him over her shoulder as she hurried toward the elevators. She almost didn’t need them, she was flying so high.

When she’d floated up to the sixth floor, her secretary greeted her with a wide-eyed stare and careful refusal to point out that she was – by the clock – thirty-three minutes late. Instead, she said in her breathy Southern California starlet’s voice, “Oh, Ms. Gunther-Perrin, Mr. Rosenthal’s been looking for you.”

Nicole nodded and bit back the silly grin. “I know,” she said. ‘I saw Gary downstairs, smoking a victory cigar.” That came out with less scorn than Nicole would have liked. She had as little use for tobacco as she did for alcohol, but when you made partner, she supposed you were entitled to celebrate. “Can he see me now, Cyndi?”

“Let me check.” The secretary punched in Mr. Rosenthal’s extension on the seventh floor, where all the senior partners held their dizzy eminence above the common herd, and spoke for a moment, then hung up. “He’s with a client. Ten-thirty, Lucinda says.”

Cyndi down here, Lucinda up above. Even the secretaries’ names were more elevated in the upper reaches.

Nicole brought herself back to earth with an effort. “Oh,” she said. “All right. If Lucinda says it, it must be so.”

Nicole and Cyndi shared a smile. Sheldon Rosenthal’s secretary reckoned herself at least as important to the firm as the boss. She was close enough to being right that nobody ever quite dared disagree with her in public.

Something else caught Nicole’s eye and mind, which went to show how scattered she still was after her morning from hell. She pointed to the photographs on her secretary’s desk. “Cyndi, who takes care of Benjamin and Joseph while you’re here?”

“My husband’s sister,” Cyndi answered. She didn’t sound confused, or wary either. “She’s got two-year-old twins of her own, and she stays home with them and my kids and her other sister-in-law’s little girl. She’d rather do that than go back to work, so it’s pretty good for all of us.”

“Do you think she’d want to take on two more?” Nicole tried to make it sound light, but couldn’t hide how hard Josefina’s desertion had hit.

Cyndi heard the story with sympathy that looked and sounded genuine. “That’s terrible of her, to spring it on you like that,” she said. “Still, if it’s family, what can you do? You can’t very well tell your mother not to be sick, you have to stay in the States and take care of other people’s kids.” She hesitated. Probably she could feel Nicole staring at her, thinking at her – wanting, needing her to solve the problem. “Look,” she said uncomfortably. “I understand, I really do. You know? But I don’t think Marie would want to sit any kids who aren’t family, you know what I mean?”

Nicole knew what she meant. Nicole would have felt the same way. But they were her kids. She was left in the lurch, on a bare day’s notice. “Oh, yes,” she said. She hoped she didn’t sound as disappointed as she felt. “Yes. Of course. I just thought… well. If my family were here, and not back in Indiana… Oh well. It was worth a try.” She did her best to make her shrug nonchalant, to change the subject without giving them both whiplash. “Ten-thirty, you said? I’ll see what I can catch up on till then. Lord, you wouldn’t believe how long it took me to get here this morning.”

“Traffic.” Cyndi managed to make it both a four-letter word and a sigh of relief. Off the hook, she had to be thinking.

Lucky Cyndi, with her sister in town and not in Bloomington, and no chance of her disappearing into the wilds of Ciudad Obregon. Nicole mumbled something she hoped was suitably casual, and retreated to her desk. She was still riding the high of Ogarkov’s news, though the bright edge had worn off it.

The first thing she did when she got there was check her voice mail. Sure enough, one of the messages was from Sheldon Rosenthal, dry and precise as usual: “Please arrange to meet with me at your earliest convenience.” She’d taken care of that. Another one was from Mort Albers, with whom she had the eleven-thirty appointment. “Can we move it up to half-past ten?” he asked.

“No, Mort,” Nicole said with a measure of satisfaction, “you can’t, not today.” It was just as satisfying to have Cyndi make the call and change the schedule – the pleasure of power. Nicole could get used to that, oh yes she could. Even the little things felt good today. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow she’d be doing them as a partner. Today – her last day as a plain associate – had a bittersweet clarity, a kind of farewell brightness. She answered a couple of voice-mail messages from other lawyers at the firm. She wrote a memo, fired it off by e-mail, and printed out a hard copy for her files. Frank would have gone on for an hour about how primitive that was, but the law ran on paper and ink, not electrons and phosphors – and to hell with Frank anyhow, she thought.

It was going to feel wonderful to tell him she was a partner now. Even if -

She quelled the little stab of anxiety. He had to keep paying child support, as much as he ever did. That was in the divorce decree. She was a lawyer – a partner in a moderately major firm. She could make it stick.

The clock on the wall ticked the minutes away. At ten twenty-five she started a letter, hesitated, counted up the minutes remaining, saved the letter on the hard drive and stood up, smoothing wrinkles out of her skirt. She checked her pantyhose. On straight, no runs – thanks to whichever god oversaw the art of dressing for success. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, and forayed out past Cyndi’s desk. “I’m going to see Mr. Rosenthal,” she said – nice and steady, she was pleased to note. Cyndi gri