FOUR
Surrounded once again by the emptiness of the salon, a country radio station humming along quietly in the background, Natalie sat at the reception desk with a copy of “Jumbo Word Find”, intently searching and then circling words hidden in a square grid. The theme of this one was “Elvis”. She had just hung up with Virgil, and was diagonally circling the word “DNALECARG”. She didn’t like to lie, but when he called it made her crazy and she couldn’t think. All she really wanted was her kids, her work, and her books. Virgil threatened all that, and, while it was obvious that his effect on her was powerful and warming, she didn’t want that. Again.
Two years earlier. A client. Married man. “Quint.” Worked around the corner at the Jiffy Lube. Got his haircut every Friday. Fell in love with Natalie. Natalie fell in love with Quint. They kissed, that was it. She told Danny. Quint told Sheila. Together, Quint told her, they would carve out the life they had both always wanted. He would love her forever, take care of her. It was sooooooo right. Natalie…Natalie…Natalie?
But she was gone. Too much pressure. Too many questions. Too much up in the air. It was all her fault. She wasn’t meant to be happy. She didn’t deserve to have love. She’d made her bed. Being a martyr was easier than being happy. It took less effort, and, after all, she’d gotten pretty good at it. All this understanding was unknown to Natalie, who only knew that what she already had, though unsatisfying, was comfortable. And that was enough. The strongest heart wins again.
And what was that crap? I’d like to have an affair with you”. Who says that kind of stuff? Sure, right away, Virgil; here, lemme get out of these jeans and you just go for it, okay? They all want the same thing. Danny, Quint, now Virgil. She was sure that Danny had married her so he could screw her, and, even on her wedding night, she knew they’d both felt nothing. Quint had made all the right moves and hadn’t even tried to feel her up and, while her heart had called to him, her body had remained hinged. Though inexperienced, Natalie knew what lust was. She’d felt it. Through the years, she’d been quite adept at conjuring the right image while alone in her bed, or in the shower, or in her car late at night. She knew what it felt like; she just never felt it with a real, live man. And then, Virgil. Now, now she was feeling a myriad combination of events at once. Hot and cold, up and down, a tremendous shaking along with a stable calm. Unbridled passion and tethered nothingness. Again she thought: Now what?
Amy Trefethan walked in the front door and the little bell Virgil had installed on the door chimed. “Hey Girl,” she smiled.
“Hi Amy,” then looked at the clock. “You’re early.”
“That a problem?”
“Nope, that’s good. The earlier I can get you done, the earlier I can get outta here.” Natalie said this as she got Amy in the shampoo chair and draped with a rubberized shampoo cape.
“Whatcha got goin’ on?” asked Amy, as she settled back, with Natalie’s assistance, into the shampoo bowl.
“Oh, nothing special,” Natalie now holding the sprayer nozzle and adjusting the water temperature and pressure, “just wanna get out of this place today.” Natalie began rinsing down Amy’s medium length blonde hair.
Amy had to be considered one of Natalie’s closest friends. A little taller than Natalie, with blonde hair naturally streaked with auburn, laughing eyes and a confident voice. Amy worked out at the gym twice a week to maintain her taught, lithe body, and Natalie would occasionally make the promise to herself that she would start going with her. Now and then, she even went. While the workout always improved Natalie’s outlook and her mood, she was convinced that it made her gain weight.
“Come to the gym with me, then.” Amy’s eyes were shut and Natalie was taking here time, even though in a rush to lock up. She carefully worked her fingers through her friend’s hair, her hands making those mental notes about texture and fullness; a sort of triage that all hairstylists perform during the shampoo.
A half-hour on the stationary bike might do wonders, she thought, if I can get through it.
The two women had met in cosmetology school, and spent days doing each others’ hair; perms, a rainbow of color, rollers, blow-drys, cuts. By graduation, each had had almost every color imaginable, and had grown into regular friends. But Amy’s heart for hair, as far as an occupation, wasn’t in it. She’d been living with her boyfriend for ten years, and he and his family were pretty well off. Amy really didn’t have to work. And she really didn’t want to. Cosmo school was a time-passer. But Natalie was eager to get working, and took a job with one of those chains at the mall who hired everybody, even those right out of school. There she paid her dues until Sandy offered to put her in this nice little salon, a sanctuary where she could feel safe, used to feel safe, anyway. Amy, her head soaked and now being shampooed, saw something in Natalie’s eyes.
“Something wrong?” she asked with not much concern.
Natalie waited a beat too long to answer. “No, not really.”
“What is it, Nat? You hear from Quint again?” Quint, unaware that he was pressuring Natalie too hard, eventually stopped calling after Natalie stopped taking his calls. He had sent a letter, said he understood even though it was painfully obvious he didn’t. Then nothing.
Hearing his name again was not something for which Natalie was prepared. Amy felt it in Natalie’s hands.
“Well? Did he call?”
“No.”
“Guy was pretty nice, Nat. He really loved you.”
Natalie was not sure. There were times when she and Quint were talking that she felt the kind of connection that, she believed, couples talked about, happy couples. He’d look across the table at a restaurant during one of their clandestine lunches and she’d feel the overwhelming urge to reach over and take his hand, pull him to her, kiss his lips.
On other occasions, however, he’d get to talking about Sheila and that’d put her mind on Danny, then the kids, and it just seemed so damned…difficult? Impossible? Not worth it? Natalie wasn’t sure which. Either way, she decided that if there were occasions upon which she’d had questions about Quint and they weren’t even together yet, then what was the use of even continuing down that road?
“No, nothing like that. Not Quint,…”
“There’s somebody else?” Amy was neither critical nor supportive of her thing with Quint, only saying on occasion, ‘why hasn’t he tried to fuck you?,’ and, even though Amy knew what a jerk Danny was, she thought Natalie should just get out, rather than sneak around. But Quint had kept his distance.
Natalie suddenly realized she’d stopped scrubbing Amy’s hair, and quickly resumed. “I dunno, Amy, I just don’t know.” Some moments passed and neither said anything, only Alabama coming through the radio, “…then you came and I was so tempted, to gamble on love just one time…”
But Amy wouldn’t let it go. “Who??” now sitting up, a towel over her hair that she was drying herself. “Tell me!”
Natalie, with the eagerness to tell that comes at the beginning of a relationship, sat across from Amy in one of the styling chairs and told.
“No shit!” was all Amy could say. “No shit, your boss! Wow. You gonna fuck him?...”
“Geez, Amy, I don’t know…”
“But you’d like to…”
“Come on, Amy; you know how I feel about that.”
Looking down at Amy, her head in the bowl, her hair all soaking wet brought an intensity to Amy’s eyes that Natalie had seen before; often she confused that intensity with intelligence.
“Look, Nat,” Amy began, but was interrupted by the telephone’s ring. Natalie grabbed a towel and was working her hands dry as she headed for the desk.
“Beauty Salon, Natalie speaking…”
Baby you left me defenseless, I’ve only got one plea: lock me away inside of your love and throw away the key…
Amy Trefethan watched her friend change hands with the phone, pick up a pencil and bend over, writing something in her scheduling book, say something else into the receiver, hang up, turn and walk back towards her. When she got close enough, Amy continued.
“Natalie, I know you’re not happy, and I know you’ve got no place to go, either…”
“--Go, why would I go anywhere…?”
“I meant turn, no place to turn to.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, and this boss of yours, he’s pretty decent looking and always makes you laugh—“
“—that’s true .”
“And check it out; he’s got a family, you’ve got a family…maybe he’s feeling the same blasé blasé about his marriage—“
“That’s what he said,” said Natalie, now toweling off Amy’s hair.
“Sooo, what’s the problem?” Amy had taken the towel from Natalie and was now briskly working it over her entire head as she spoke?
“He’s the boss, Amy—“
“Even better. We’ll get some pictures of you and him and sue him for harassment…” Amy was laughing, and Natalie along with her, but there was something about Amy’s tone that hinted that such a scenario was not entirely out of the question. She’d lightened the moment, and Natalie appreciated that.
Amy noticed her friend regain her grip on reality, her eyes showing their ‘I’ve got to be the serious one’ look, her mouth tight. “Come on, Natalie. Given your situation, I’d never really disapprove of your having some fun, a mindless fling, if that’s what it takes to make you happy again—“
“—I’m happy.”
“Not like you used to be.” Their eyes were talking right along with their mouths, but now Natalie looked away. She knew, but had tried to convince herself that it was just selective hindsight, that there had been better times in her life. But Amy couldn’t have known that whatever she and Virgil may eventually end up doing, at least she was way beyond a “mindless fling”.
“Maybe a quick thing with another guy is just what you need, what your self-esteem needs, to get you back up again. You know what I’m saying?”
“Oh, yeah, but…you know…I feel, um, confused.” Natalie now biting her lower lip.
“What? What are you confused about, Nat?”
Here Natalie brought to mind a word and a feeling and an honest assessment of what she was internalizing, checked with her heart again, then gave her friend a look. Amy’s eyes went wide and her mouth went wide and she screamed, “You’re in love with him!!”
“Shit,” was all Natalie could think of to say.
As she prepared dinner that night, Natalie allowed the familiar to reel her in. She removed the milk and butter and soda from their rightful places in the fridge, and stirred the spaghetti sauce in her old Cruset with her favorite stirring spoon. With her free hand, she traced the outline of the antique stove; it felt good, solid to her touch. From the other room, the sound of the kids teasing one another, and Danny, tapping away on his computer. In her mind’s eye, though, she saw herself on the beach, dressed in a pair of white linen Capri’s and a navy blue windbreaker, safe in the arms of a tall, older, bearded man, gazing into his eyes as the sun set and the ends of waves licked their toes. “…I never thought I would get caught, it seemed like a perfect crime…” That wasn’t love. That was romance, with a small ‘r’. That was Fantasy, with a capital ‘F’. F, thought Natalie, that’s all he wants, then commenced an argument in her own mind, with her own self, until the spaghetti water started boiling over and it brought her back to the now.
Later, with the kids in their rooms and Danny tapping, Natalie burrowed into the brown leather recliner with her lightweight quilt, pillow and the latest Nora Ephron. She was only a few pages into the paperback, but found it tedious and put it down. As she looked around her living room, the floral sofa, the big screen that idiot put on her credit card, the pictures of Tennessee and angels, the shelves with their cherubs, all she saw was ‘duty.’ After all, she thought, I have to dust all this shit. Vacuum, sweep, laundry, shopping, cooking, the kids. Danny, in the other room, tapping, tapping, tapping. She got up. Walked to the computer desk.
“Danny,” she started, “you need to talk to Anna’s teacher tomorrow.”
“’bout what,” he said, not looking up.
“She’s getting referral notes for talking too much in class and distracting the other kids, and Ms. Rhinehardt wants to see one of us. Tomorrow.”
Still not looking up, “What time?”
“First thing, when you drop her off…”
“When I drop her off? Why can’t you do it?” He had not yet looked up at her, just tapping, clicking. Natalie had had enough.
“I’m talkin’ to you, you son of a bitch!” and toed the switch on the CPU on the floor under the desk. The screen went blank and there was a moment of quiet.
“What the fuck?! Why’d you do that??” Now, he was looking at her, but not getting up from the desk.
“Dammit, Danny. Can’t you take a few minutes out of whatever it is you’re doing on that thing to discuss even the kids?” She had one hand on a hip and the other was waving around, pointing.
“Why the hell do I have to take her to school? What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with you? You got nothin’ better to do than sit there and type on that thing. I have all this work to do around her and a damn hard job…”
“..Oh right, sittin’ around with all your friends, talkin’ ‘bout soap operas and haircuts and...” he couldn’t finish because the fist caught him on the left cheekbone, a pretty good shot. Danny jumped to his feet and assumed the position, fist cocked behind his head, screaming “You Bitch!” and “You fuckin’ bitch” and “You fuckin’ fuckin’ bitch!!
But Natalie knew he wouldn’t hit her and she stood there, defiant chin thrust at him, eyes wide like gun barrels, trained on the husband. Danny caught his breath, turned and stormed out of the room. He was not good at confrontation, but he was ready for it. Soon he was seated in his beat up easy chair, centered in the floor of his beloved garage, classic rock music played in rhythm with the long and deep hsssssssssssss and the air filled with a hazy fragrance. Danny’s mind cleared, his eyes relaxed, and he thought of himself. To stay high, what greater goal is there? Everything was copasetic when he was high. Everything went away when he was high. Everything, everything, everyth…
Back in the house, Natalie was alive. Adrenaline careened through her system. Air moved in and out of her lungs and her vision took on certain clarity as she stormed through the house, picking up a pair of Grace’s shoes, bouncing into Anna as she dogged her mother around the house, spouting profanity-laced insults under her breath. Walking quickly towards her son’s bedroom, she simply extended her hand in front of her, palm out, and her kinesis forced the door open. He was playing his guitar with headphones plugged into his amp and had no time to be startled when she tugged the headphones off.
“Mow that damn yard or I’m throwin’ this friggin’ guitar out in the trash!” Her voice was different when she yelled, with a frightening inhuman curdle in her throat that quickly elicited action from the boy, easily a foot taller than his Mother. On the warpath, Natalie headed to Grace’s room, shoes in hand. The door was open so the shoes were flung and the order to clean up this goddam room was hastily followed. Turning quickly, Natalie nearly knocked Anna over.
“What the hell are you doing up my ass?? Move out of the goddam way, for Christ sake!” Then tears, more running, more tidying, dishes, pots, pans. As she cleaned she thought of all the things she should say to that deadbeat husband, what a wife should say to her husband, things Natalie would have said if she cared in the least bit.
Calamity over, the semblance of calm returning, Natalie stepped out the back door and lighted a cigarette. DJ was putting gas in the lawnmower, and he acknowledged his mom with a head nod. The October evening was scented with orange blossoms, and the half-moon almost smiled at her. She wrapped one arm around her waist and put the cigarette to her mouth with the other hand. After she inhaled, she touched her face with her fingers and exhaled. There was a buzzing in her head that grew louder as she pondered her face with her fingers. Her eyes were far away, and her mind was deep in no thoughts for only a second or two when she was quickly brought back to the moment by the music and the green cloud seeping through the seams in the garage door, and Natalie thought: I’m all alone.
Not once did Virgil cross her mind.
At the salon the next day, Natalie did think of Virgil, once, but couldn’t for the life of her conceive of why she would do so. She finished wrapping a perm and applied the perm solution, covered the top of the client’s head with a clear plastic bag, wrapped a length of cotton batting around the edge of the bag to prevent the solution from dripping into the old lady’s eyes, and sat her in a chair with a copy of Marie Claire. As if.
Today Natalie wore jeans and a pink sleeveless top with a lightweight pink sweater. Her shoes were comfortable, since she anticipated a busy day with a handful of chemical services. A good day.
She was about to take a smoke break when the phone rang.
“Hair salon, Natalie speaking.”
“Good morning, beauty. How are you today?”
Natalie’s chest tightened. At last she remembered the kiss. Well, she had always remembered the kiss, ever since it happened. But she was trying desperately to forget it. Despite the rapid heartbeat and sweaty palms and tension in her jaw, Natalie found herself smiling into the phone.
“Hi there, Virgil. Have a nice night?”
“Mom brought lobsters from Maine. Let’s just say I’m not hungry.”
“Ewwww. You actually eat those things?”
“You bet, grew up on ‘em. I take it you don’t like them?”
She was now outside the front of the salon and had managed to light a cigarette.
“No way, no fish no seafood for me at all.”
Virgil found himself pouting. “Wow, I never met anybody who didn’t like lobster. I mean, when I was a kid they were kind of rich tasting for me, but I…”
“…Maybe I never really had a good one,” said Natalie, suddenly picking up on Virgil’s disappointment.
“…well, maybe not. These were fresh from Maine. Freshness is really the key, you know.”
“I’m sure it is. So, what’s up?” Natalie, so full of pointed words the previous day, so eager to cut through the B.S, now wanted to chit-chat.
“Oh, nothing, really, you know business and all. We didn’t get a chance to speak again yesterday, sooooo, how’s it going?”
Great. More directness from this guy. “Good, really. How’s your Mom?”
“Um, she’s fine, you know, old but in good shape, still works…”
“Really? How old is she?”
“Well, let’s see, she’s gotta be 83 by now. But Natalie…”
Natalie whistled through her teeth. “83 and still working…I sure hope I’m not working when I’m that old.”
“But Natalie…”
“What’s she do?”
Virgil, talking quickly now:“I think she takes care of really old people, old women with Alzheimer’s Disease, stays with ‘em in their house overnight. You wanna have lunch?”
Natalie’s chest tightened even more and her head buzzed and all she could think was what have I done what have I done and she blurted out “I don’t know if I can get away…”
And Virgil said “I’ll bring something by and we can talk.”
Natalie said: “Okay.”
Natalie Ortega worked through the morning in a haze, trying to stay focused on her work, trying to make all the right small talk, hoping she was hiding her anticipation well enough.
Truth was, nobody even knew. Natalie was the master of disguise, only because her face never really changed. She smiled, she laughed, she cried, and her eyes enlarged when angered or lied to. Other than that, her countenance pretty much looked the same.
Between haircuts and colors, Natalie worked her big Jumbo Word Finder and fidgeted and watched the door like a hawk. I didn’t even tell him what I want for lunch and what am I going to say to him and he’s just another guy trying to get into my pants were the thoughts that crossed her mind.
An egg timer went off. Natalie, unfazed, got up from her desk and moved to the back of the salon, where the row of hair dryers sat, approached the one with Helen Briggs’ head under it, lifted the bonnet off Helen’s head and patted the rollers with her hand.
“You’re dry, Helen,” and switched off the hairdryer.
Helen Briggs was 77 years old, her face drawn in though her blue eyes, glazed with cataracts, were fiery. Today, Helen’s locks were Redken-auburn and neatly wrapped around a variety of pink and blue rollers as Natalie led the slight woman back to her chair for final styling.
Helen spoke. “How’s your husband, dearie?”
“He’s an asshole!” Natalie, absent-mindedly pulling first the bobby pins and then unfurling the roller from each wrap of hair, quickly amended, “Well, he can be an asshole, like last night…” Natalie related the story of the argument.
“Well,” Helen said, looking at Natalie in the mirror, “all couples fight now and then,” then she lowered her voice despite the fact that they were alone in the salon, “but it’s the makeup sex that makes it all great!” Helen laughed and laughed. The sparkling eyes were those of a much younger woman.
“I wouldn’t know, Helen…” and was about to even dredge up that tired subject when the door opened and the man walked in. Both women turned their heads, and Helen could not prevent herself from saying “Oh, my…” When she looked back into the mirror, Natalie was smiling and saying, “Hey there” to the man and the man was saying, “Hi, Natalie,” and he was smiling too. Helen thought: This is not the husband.
Virgil was wearing a mustard color button down under his black pin-striped vest and matching trousers, and had abandoned his bowtie for an opened-throat look. He carried a large bag from Olive Garden, and set it on the counter, but did not stop staring at Natalie, nor did he stop smiling.
Helen, quieter this time, “Oh, my.”
Virgil had fidgeted himself that morning, bouncing back and forth between the red print shirt and the mustard, and the ties. Marcy paid no attention whatsoever. Finally he decided upon the mustard, with the navy blue tie with mustard color polka-dots. He made the final knot in the tie and admired his work in the mirror. Ever since undergrad, when he’d found a couple of the old hand-tied bows in the antique store on Lexington in Asheville, Virgil made a decision he would only wear hand-tied bows, never the cheap Chippendales wrap-arounds.
“I have to go by the salon at lunchtime, if you need anything,” he said to Marcy on his way out the door.
“Could use some hairspray, something firm but not too firm,” she said, and watched the back of his head nod in assent, his mind already on the Motion Hearing this morning, and lunch, hopefully, with Natalie.
To the surprise of many who met him, Jeff Zahn had a way of pissing people off. A somewhat rotund man with a baby face and warm blue eyes, buzz haircut and black horn-rims, Jeff appeared to be an approachable guy who looked you in the eye and seemed to smile. His demeanor was kind, his posture humble, and his words, though economical and well-thought out, gave the impression that he was highly interested in the lives of those to whom he was speaking.
Which may have not been entirely untrue . But Jeff Zahn graduated magna cum laude from Dartmouth, and had been a relatively successful sportswriter for a good-sized paper in New England prior to obtaining his law degree at Washington and Lee, which meant that, when he met you, he wasn’t getting to know you; he was interviewing you. A stellar mind who quickly funneled each piece of incoming information down the inverted pyramid, Jeff almost always cut to the chase.
“You banging any of those hairstylists yet?” he asked Virgil as the two walked from the parking lot into the Sarasota County courthouse in Venice.
“Told you, Jeff, you don’t shit where you eat.” Of course, Virgil knew Jeff’s one weakness: He was shy around women. Although amiable in appearance, Jeff was self-conscious about his weight, and nobody ever really took the time to teach him how to dress well. His icy tongue was likely a defense mechanism, protecting himself from imagined rejection, and probably invented long ago after the real thing. In most situations, Jeff was smooth. Around women, Jeff had the confidence of a man trying to sand a porcupine.
“Yeah, well, if the girl who cuts my hair worked for you, you’d be quite tempted to revise that rule.”
As they walked, Virgil considered the man’s buzzed head and wondered how long it could possibly take to clipper it off.
“I know what you’re thinking, Virg, but she really takes her time with this,” pointing to his scalp. “Massages my head and shoulders, rubbing that rack against the back of my head the whole time. She’s a real pro.”
“Another piece of advice, bro?” asked Virgil, holding the door to the courthouse open for his colleague.
Jeff, matter-of-factly: “What?”
“Hairstylists are not hitting on you.”
“You think I don’t know that? I told you, she’s a real pro.”
The two men moved through the entryway to the metal detector, emptying pockets of change, etc. Virgil put his laptop and briefcase on the conveyor and stepped through without any beeps.
Jeff went through next, but the red light came on and Virgil heard the ‘beep, beep beep,’ behind him, and heard Jeff say, “Oh, dammit, forgot this,” withdrawing a shiny 9 millimeter automatic pistol from his shoulder holster. Virgil held his breath.
The deputy on the other side of the conveyor was unfazed.
“Nice piece you got there, counselor,” and he took it from Jeff who muttered a “sorry,” and caught up with Virgil.
As they approached Courtroom 4, Virgil scanned the various benches outside the courtrooms for his client, but doubted the old man would be here today.
“Just a motion hearing,” he had told the man on the phone, “no reason for you to be there.”
At the door to the courtroom, Jeff said, “Oysters at Sharkey’s?”
“Not today, Jeffy, got business at the salon.”
Jeff pushed the door open for Virgil. “Shitting or eating?” he laughed.
The courtrooms in the Venice courthouse were pretty much like every other modern-day courtrooms. Pew-like benches in blonde maple separated by a center aisle, two long darker-wood tables on either side in front of the gallery, a jury box on the right, and the witness stand next to the judge’s high and mighty perch. The walls were painted in a mauve texture finish and a royal blue short-pile carpeting was on the floor.
Virgil and Jeff walked the aisle toward the front, paying little heed to the unfortunates in the gallery, summoned here by the mechanism of the law to either vent or answer for one grievance or another. The Monday morning civil docket seemed to bring all types.
Here and there, lawyers were conversing with their clients, but Virgil and Jeff strode up to the tables in front—Virgil on the left, Jeff on the right—opened their briefcases and began unloading file folders and three-ring binders, legal reference books and yellow pads of paper.
“All rise!” The bailiff, a well-toned and youthful black deputy with a Lionel Ritchie mustache raised his voice. Judge Browning, bedecked in her black robe, took her seat, and everybody else followed.
“What do we have here, Mr. Clerk?” She addressed the young man below and to her right, seated at a desk with a mountain of file folders.
“First case, your Honor,” he began, “Morabito versus The Florida Patio Place, hearing on Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Discovery.”
“Good morning, counselors,” the middle-aged judge wore her hair conservatively and had little in the way of makeup, and didn’t look up from her paperwork as she spoke.
“Mr. Peal…”
“Good morning, your Honor.”
Now she looked up. “…nice tie.”
“Thank you, Judge.” Here he met Jeff’s eyes, which were saying, I hate your worthless ass and those frigging stone-aged bow ties.
“Mr. Peal,” Judge Browning continued, “what exactly is it you want the Defendant to provide?”
“As it’s listed in the Motion, Judge, we need the employment records of every one of the Defendant’s current employees, as well as the employment records of the last fifty employees no longer employed by Defendant.”
“What’s the problem with that, Mr. Zahn,” she said, directing her attention to Jeff now.
“Just too encompassing, your Honor. The Plaintiff is alleging age discrimination; my client employs 226 people of all working ages, and the cost of compliance with this request is a significant burden to it. Plaintiff is fishing…”
“Well how else do you expect Mr. Morabito to get that information?”
Jeff said: “He doesn’t need it, his allegations are unfounded and he’s just a disgruntled former employee who’s looking for somebody to blame and Mr. Peal knows it.”
“And how do you respond to that, Mr. Peal?”
“Your Honor, my client is alleging that the Defendant’s decision to terminate his employment was due entirely to his age, salary requirements, and proximity to retirement. Mr. Morabito had an enviable work history with the Defendant, and was terminated ostensibly for this one single unfortunate event…”
“He burned half a warehouse down!” said Jeff.
“It was an accident, counselor…”
“You call trying to kill a rat with a welding torch an ‘accident?’”
“Man’s got an aversion to rodents. Your client ever heard of an exterminator?”
“Your client ever seen the movie Backdraft?”
“You ever get bitten by a rat?”
“Ever been on fire?”
“Gentlemen, please, let’s get back to this Motion,” said Judge Browning, though it was evident she found the exchange entertaining. “Mr. Zahn, I don’t see any reason why Mr. Peal can’t have these records…
“Judge, some of the former employees have privacy issues.” Jeff’s demeanor changed considerably.
“Oh?” Judge Browning’s eyebrows raised.
“Yes, your Honor.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“I can,” said Virgil. “He’s trying to say that there were buyouts made to employees with non-disclosures attached, and he doesn’t want me to find out the terms of those non-disclosure clauses.”
“That right, Mr. Zahn?”
How could he possibly know that? Jeff looked at Virgil, who looked only at Judge Browning. The chubby lawyer put his fingers of one hand to the corner of his glasses, and extended the other, palm up, towards the judge.
Whenever a lawyer realizes that his argument is not as strong as he’d like it to be, when he hears himself arguing but knows that the words are not nearly as convincing as necessary, he calls upon the often non-existent established legal clarity of his position.
Jeff said: “The law is very clear with regard to the privacy of settlements, and employee buyout packages are a form of settlement, sometimes with non-compete clauses, and non-disclosure of company secrets, that sort of thing.”
“Judge Browning,” Virgil continued, “Plaintiff will stipulate that any evidence contained in these non-disclosed settlements dealing with non-compete and/or company secrets will not be offered as evidence in any way.”
“That’s insufficient security, your Honor. My client’s trade secrets are at the very core of its success in the patio furniture industry. If they were somehow leaked…” he was stopped by the Judge’s raised hand. She’d heard enough.
“I think this Court can provide sufficient security,” she said, stifling a smile, “to protect the various ‘secrets’ of the Defendant.” She looked at Jeff. “I’m assuming these ‘secrets’ don’t include eleven herbs and spices, Counselor?”
Jeff thought about taking offense to the Judge’s characterization, but, a seasoned trial lawyer, knew better. He shook his head.
“Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Discovery is granted, but I’ll give you ninety days to comply, Mr. Zahn.”
Outside the courthouse, Jeff tried again.
“Come on, oysters at Sharkey’s!”
“Told ya, I’ve got business, and besides, it’s October.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“Everybody knows you don’t eat raw oysters in a month ending in ‘r’”
“Why’s that?”
“Water’s not right temperature; bacteria can get into shellfish.” Virgil and Jeff headed for the parking lot. “This isn’t Maine, Jeffy.”
“Well, I guess I’m a risk-taker.” Jeff Zahn smiled, making a mental note to verify his friend’s information.
Patting a hand on the bulge in Jeff’s blue blazer, Virgil said, “No you’re not,” and headed for his Volvo.
