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“But why the costume?” Kim asks. She’s sitting sideways on her sofa, facing Jimmy, cross-legged. She takes a bite of pizza and chews it, scrunching up her face at him quizzically. “Why go full Revenge of the Nerds? ”
Jimmy glances down at his clothes again. He’s just in the Fletch tee-shirt now, but it’s still half-tucked into his jeans, and he chuckles. “Step one, get the mark to trust you,” he says, holding up a finger. “Nobody trusts an outsider. I’m pretending to be at college, so I needed to look like a nerd, right?”
Kim gives him a stony look.
“Exactly,” Jimmy says. “A college nerd just like you.”
Kim kicks his knee with a socked foot. “Shut up, asshole.”
“Hey, can’t argue with the results!” Jimmy says.
Kim has the tort law book open on her lap, barely read for being too caught up in Jimmy’s story. It’s taken him a while to recount it, and for the first few minutes he felt like his body was lagging a few seconds behind his brain.
The pizza box sits on the coffee table. There’s only two slices left—both from the (it turns out unnecessary) safety half without olives.
“You’re the one out a hundred bucks, though,” Kim says, lifting a single eyebrow. “Seriously, Jimmy, let me—”
Jimmy makes a dismissive noise and waves his hand. “Pay me back when you’re a big time lawyer making bank.” He shrugs. “Honestly, Kim, this is the first steady paycheck I’ve ever had, I kinda feel like I’m rolling in it.”
Kim glances back down at the book in her lap. “I get that,” she says sincerely. “Still…”
“Buy me a drink after your finals are done,” Jimmy says. “Hell, buy me two.”
“Deal,” Kim says, smiling. She shifts on the sofa, leaning sideways against the back of it. “I still don’t get how you knew the librarian would tell you who had the book.”
“Honestly, Kim, I thought it was gonna be Poindexter City in there,” Jimmy says. “Not some anti-authority slacker guy.”
Kim scoffs. “I could’ve told you that.”
“Next time,” Jimmy says. He leans over and grabs the pizza box off the coffee table, and they take a slice each before he puts it back.
Kim chews pensively. “So you played on his ideals?”
“I guess,” Jimmy says. He frowns. “I dunno, I didn’t think about it like that. D’you reckon guys like Drew actually have ideals? I think he just likes to look down on everyone else.” He shrugs, takes a bite of pizza, and says, “So when I started to look down on him…”
Kim makes a little thoughtful noise, her brow furrowing, and she stares at him intently—a studying kind of look that makes Jimmy feel almost uncomfortable.
So he shifts against the sofa and says, brightly, “Anyway, you definitely gotta tell me what tort law is, now. Machines and stuff?”
Kim chuckles lightly. “It’s just an area of civil law, really broad. It covers most civil suits other than contract stuff. So intentional torts are things like trespassing, or civil battery, and negligent torts are things like accidents, slip and falls—”
Jimmy almost chokes on his mouthful of pizza.
“You okay?” Kim asks.
He swallows the pizza painfully and says, “Well, that explains why Chuck looked at me like I’d run over his kitten.”
“What?”
“Jesus,” Jimmy says, and he starts laughing. “Wow, I really went in there asking for a book on slip and fall law, huh?”
“Among many, many other things, yes,” Kim says, and she sets the book on the coffee table then straightens back up. “Wait, Jimmy, Chuck was pissed at you?”
“No, not pissed,” Jimmy says, waving a hand.
Kim peers at him, leaning back against the arm of the sofa. “Seems a bit like if you’d asked to borrow a criminal law textbook and he’d assumed you’d murdered a nun.”
Jimmy makes a face. “Well, maybe if I’d already wiped out the rest of the convent that’d be a fair guess.”
The analytical look on Kim’s face shifts now, and she smirks at him. “A whole convent, huh?”
Jimmy shakes his head. “The whole convent and maybe some visiting monks.” He lays his palms on his knees. Pats them and says, “I got good at taking the falls but I still fucked up these guys pretty bad over the years—well, maybe one time in particular. Chicago ice is cruel,” he adds. “Cruel but oh-so-profitable. Pick the right place, right time, and, boom, just like Ginger Rogers”—he claps once—“you’re in the money.”
Kim raises her eyebrows.
“Judge all you want, Kim,” he adds. “Back in the day, Slippin’ Jimmy was a force to be reckoned with.”
Eyes twinkling, Kim says, “Slippin’ Jimmy, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” Jimmy says.
“I mean,” she starts, laughter edging her voice, “if nothing else, it’s descriptive…”
Jimmy snorts. “All right, all right, shut up.”
A rattling noise sounds from the front door: a key in the lock.
“Shit,” Kim says, groaning. “She said she wouldn’t be home til later.”
The door opens, and a woman—tall, with long red hair and round glasses—steps through, talking as if to herself, nose down in a paper bag that’s filled almost to bursting. “God, what a nightmare, you’ll never believe the lines at Whole Foods. Just ridiculous. And then when I finally get to the register the idiot says it’s cash only, even though I can clearly see the machine right there…” She huffs, putting her shopping down on the counter, and finally glancing over at them. She raises an eyebrow. “Hello, who’s this?”
“A friend,” Kim says bluntly, folding her arms.
“Hi,” Jimmy adds, leaning forward and giving a small wave.
Kim’s roommate walks into the living room, surveying the space like a cop in a film, before turning her gaze back to Jimmy. “Andrea Delaney,” she says, laying a hand on her chest like a proclamation.
Jimmy stifles a little smile. “James McGill,” he says, touching his own chest.
“McGill, eh?” Andrea says. She flashes a look to Kim. “Interesting.”
Kim says nothing.
“You’ve eaten already?” Andrea asks, eyeing the empty pizza box. “Dion’s? Saggio’s is a lot nicer and a lot closer. Five minute delivery.”
“I picked it up,” Jimmy says winningly. “Sorry about that. Next time we’ll save you a slice.”
Andrea looks between him and the box again. “That’s all right,” she says.
“Well, it’s great to meet you, Andrea Delaney,” Jimmy says after a moment of silence. “Kim, you were halfway through that answer on Clark v. Holmes, right?”
“Clark v. Holmes?” Kim asks.
“Yeah,” Jimmy says, and he reaches for a random sheet of Kim’s notes. “Clark v. Holmes. What law did the prosecution use to overrule the objection of Judge Watson to the hung jury?”
“Ah, right…” Kim says, and she starts talking confidently, looking upwards as if recalling stuff from the depths of her memory. Andrea listens for a moment, then glances around the room again and picks up the empty pizza box. She dumps it into the bin in the kitchen, then drifts off to her own room and closes the door.
Jimmy mouths the word, Wow! and flashes his eyes wide at Kim, who stops speaking.
“You’re lucky she’s a biology student because that was total gibberish you just pitched me,” Kim says.
“She’s something all right,” Jimmy says, glancing over at Andrea’s closed door, then back to Kim. “And, whatever, you hit it out of the park. Honestly, halfway through your answer I was starting to think I’d come out with some of that McGill brother osmosis knowledge.”
“You wish,” Kim says.
“Oh!” Jimmy says, sitting upright. “That reminds me, though—here, I snagged something else from our book-hogging friend Brad.” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out two unopened decks of flash cards. “Check it! Look, and one of them’s on torts and everything.”
Kim makes an excited noise and leans forward, plucking them from his hands. “How’d you get these?”
“Folded them into the whole sketchy book deal. Now I can quiz you for real,” Jimmy says. “Plus, this way you have something to keep, just in case you want to give the schmucks at the library their book back…”
“You kidding? I’m keeping that forever,” Kim say. “Let Brad pay the cost for them to replace it.”
Jimmy chuckles. “All right, great.”
Kim hands back the box of tort law flashcards silently. Jimmy runs his fingernail under the plastic and cracks it open, then shuffles the cards and clears his throat. He reads out the top card: “Blyth v. Birmingham Waterworks Co?” and then flips it, holding the information side up where he can see it, nodding as he matches what Kim says with the words on the card.
After a short time, she falls silent. She taps her fingers over her mouth thoughtfully, and Jimmy watches the way the pink of her lips turns briefly white after each touch.
He clears his throat and glances back at the card instead. “There’s one more thing you haven’t said,” he prompts.
Kim’s brow pinches, her eyes flicking back and forth over invisible lines of text. “…doing something that a prudent and reasonable man would not do,” she says, finally.
“Yeah,” Jimmy says. “Yeah, that’s it.”
He flips the card, and draws another.
The next day, Jimmy sits on his new bed in his new apartment and stares at his phone. He imagines a line emerging from the handset, a thin silvery thread spinning off from his room and his street and then out of Albuquerque, crossing over the Sandias and shooting northeastward, over rivers and fields and Dust Bowl states, until finally arriving in Cicero, in his mother’s living room.
He reaches out, hovering his hand above the phone, breathing shallowly.
But he doesn’t pick it up. He turns away instead, flicking on his television. The evening news is running before-and-after footage of the California earthquake, up along the Lost Coast somewhere, footage that soon rolls into scenes of Clinton on the campaign trail, into Middle East peace talks in Washington D.C. and strikes in Germany.
Jimmy lies back on his bed. Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes blends with Jessica Fletcher solving crimes, and then the Sunday Night Movie—some based-on-a-true-story thing about a boy killing his stepfather.
Jimmy falls asleep before it ends.
Jimmy munches on an apple and leans back in his chair in the breakroom, watching Kim think. He’s holding up a flashcard, and her eyes flick to the writing on the front: Bolton v. Stone. He knows she knows it. He can remember he answering it yesterday. She stares down at the empty table before her, eyes skimming back and forth.
The door opens behind him, and Jimmy calls out a hello without turning to see who it is.
Kim smiles, head tilted down. “Okay, I got it,” she says, slowly, addressing the wood like it’s a jury, eyes still scanning over it. “That’s the likelihood of damage precedent. I remember it because a cricket ball is kind of like a stone, though of course Miss Stone was the one hit by the cricket ball”—she looks up from the table and her eyes widen—“oh, hello, Mr. McGill.”
Jimmy frowns, and finally turns around.
Chuck stands in the threshold, hands clasped before him. “Good morning, Jimmy,” he says, and he turns his gaze to Kim. “What a creative way to memorize case law.”
“Thanks,” Kim says crisply.
“Stone hit by a stone. I’ll remember that,” Chuck says, flashing Kim a short smile. “Jimmy, do you have a moment?”
Kim starts to stand.
“No, that’s all right. We’ll step out,” Chuck says, holding out a hand to stay Kim.
Jimmy sets down his apple and slips the latest flashcard under the bottom of the stack on the table, shooting Kim a conspiratorial look. “No cheating,” he says, as he follows his brother out of the room.
Chuck wanders through the mailroom and then stops, reaching out and touching a copy machine almost absentmindedly.
“What’s up, Chuck?” Jimmy asks. He leans against one of the work tables and folds his arms.
Chuck turns to look at him. “Today is George’s first official day back at work.”
“Oh yeah?” Jimmy says.
“Yes,” Chuck says. “He managed quite well after stopping by on Friday, so we’ve decided it’s time.”
Jimmy gives a little smile, then, at Chuck’s continued silence, he raises his eyebrows. “Good stuff,” he says, to fill the quiet.
“Yes,” Chuck says again. He turns back to the copy machine and taps it with the palm of his hand. “Now, you’re aware I went out on a limb hiring you.”
The temperature in the room seems to shift, and Jimmy folds his arms tighter against his chest. “Right,” he says.
“I had to tell George about your past, of course,” Chuck says, and then he faces Jimmy again. A strange demeanor comes over him. Jimmy has nothing to compare it to except the way Chuck used to be with their father. He hasn’t seen it for a long time, since high school, really. “I told George all I needed to,” Chuck continues, “but I left out some of the more…unsavory elements.”
Jimmy swallows. He nods—then wonders why he’s nodding, and stops.
Chuck frowns at him. “All this to say there are pieces of the story that George doesn’t know.”
This time, Chuck again seems to be waiting for Jimmy to say something, so Jimmy says, “Okay.”
“I’m sure you can guess which pieces,” Chuck says. “I’d rather not—well.” He sighs, and glances down and straightens one of his cuffs, then looks back up at Jimmy. “Do you understand?”
Jimmy tightens the fingers of his right hand on his bicep. “I think so,” he says. “Yeah.”
“Good,” Chuck says. He looks around the mailroom lionishly, taking in the rows of copy machines and stacks of filing boxes—peering down his nose at the empty work tables in the middle of the space. He lets out a long breath. “Okay. Have a good day, Jimmy.”
“Thanks,” Jimmy says, after a beat. “Yeah—thanks, you too.”
Chuck nods to him once then moves away. Jimmy watches his brother press the elevator call button and wait, back straight and posture perfect.
Jimmy discovers the reason for Chuck’s visit later that week. He’s making his now-familiar mail cart run, and he’s paused to chat to Ben about, tragically, the weather, when he hears somebody call his name.
It’s George Hamlin, striding down the hallway with his cane, a warm smile on his face. “Jimmy McGill, just the man!” he says.
Jimmy smiles and says hello.
“Do you have a minute?” George asks. He glances at the cubicle beside them. “Oh, good afternoon, Ben. How’d your boy do in his game on Tuesday?”
“He did very well, Mr. Hamlin,” Ben says, eyes lighting up.
“I’m glad to hear that,” George says, and then he holds his hand out to Jimmy. “How about it, Jimmy?”
“Uh,” Jimmy says, and he gestures to his half empty mail cart.
“Leave that for a moment. It’ll keep,” George says, and he beckons Jimmy down the hallway, so Jimmy follows. They walk to George’s office, which Jimmy has previously only seen with the door closed. It’s a corner office, like the other partners’, but George’s somehow feels smaller—though Jimmy realizes that’s only because it’s filled with more things: more armchairs and bookshelves and framed pictures on the walls than his brother’s or Howard’s have. George sits in one of the armchairs, letting out a little sigh. “Ah, that’s better.”
At George’s indication, Jimmy takes a seat beside him.
George shifts so his cane is between his knees, and he rests both his hands on it. “So tell me honestly,” he says, eyebrows rising, “what do you make of this place?”
Jimmy blinks. “HHM?”
George nods. “You haven’t had time to be corrupted yet. How do you think we’re doing?”
Jimmy glances around. “I like it,” he says.
“Do you?” George asks.
“I mean, it’s different from anything I’m used to,” Jimmy says. He remembers Chuck’s visit earlier in the week, so he doesn’t elaborate, just shifts gears instead. “I think you have something to be really proud of. The people are great.”
George nods. “I’m delighted to hear that.” He looks around at his office—there are lots of pictures of himself on the walls, but always surrounded by other people. An empire. “Do you know why I got into the law?” he asks, after a moment.
“…Because it’s mankind’s greatest invention?” Jimmy tries.
“That sounds familiar,” George says, eyes crinkling. “But no—though I don’t disagree with Chuck on that. I got into the law because my father, bless him, spent every day of his life working on the assembly line at Ford. He made a lot of cars, and he liked his job, but when push came to shove, if my father hadn’t been there, there would have been another man with a stooped back and a hard-won smile to take his place.” He folds his fingers tightly over the top of his cane, then turns to meet Jimmy’s eyes. “Does that make any sense?”
Jimmy frowns, and he unconsciously rubs his left knee, feeling the coarse cheap fabric of his slacks.
“I suppose it doesn’t,” George says. “The lesson is: find a space in the world that only you can fit. That’s what I hope I’ve done with this company. That’s what I hope I’ve done with my work, and what I hope my son will continue to do after I retire.”
Jimmy glances at the wall behind George, where a framed picture of the two Hamlins hangs proudly. Howard’s wearing a graduation cap and gown, and his smile is such a brilliant white it reminds Jimmy of the sun.
“But a company is no more than the people in it,” George continues. “I never wanted to be one of those bosses who employs a building of strangers. This week has been a lovely little catch up session for me. And I’ve been looking forward to speaking more with you most of all.”
Jimmy smiles politely. He remembers Chuck’s strange mood on Monday morning, remembers his brother’s careful words. He’s not sure what to do if George outright asks him about his past.
But George doesn’t. Instead, he says, “Now, have you taken the tram up to the top of the Sandias yet?”
Jimmy shifts backwards on the armchair. “No,” he says.
“Oh, you must. There’s nothing like getting a bird’s eye view of a new city, don’t you agree? It really helps you find your bearings,” George says. “And it’s hard to imagine a more magnificent landscape.”
Jimmy thinks of the mountains outside his apartment, rising sharp and shadowed in the dawn. “It’s very beautiful.”
There’s a knock, and George calls out. “Come in!”
The door swings inwards. Howard steps inside, eyebrows lifting when he sees Jimmy.
“Howard, of course. I’m sorry for keeping you waiting,” George says, and he rises to his feet. “Thank you for letting me chew your ear off for a few minutes, Jimmy. Tell me what you think of Albuquerque from above, yes?”
“Sure, I will,” Jimmy says, standing too. “Thanks for the tip.”
George’s eyes crinkle at the edges, and he gives Jimmy a little pat on his arm before striding after his son, his cane thudding on the floor.
Jimmy’s left alone in the office, and he glances around one last time. He spots Chuck in a few of the photos, young and serious and lifted from Jimmy’s memories. Then he trails after the two Hamlin men, closing the door behind himself with a soft click.
Kim slowly withdraws over the course of the week, closing herself off behind walls of books and yellow notepads. Jimmy feels a strange sense of foreboding when he says goodbye to her on Friday, and the feeling is proved all-too-justified when he returns to work the next Monday. He realizes that what he took earlier as a return to the peak of Kim’s stress levels was in fact only a harbinger, a warning front before a much bigger storm.
Jimmy sits beside her in the breakroom one day, alternately reading his George Sanders autobiography and watching her work. She looks up every so often and smiles at him, and Jimmy smiles silently back. He thinks that maybe this is the one thing he can do—just be here for Kim to smile with, whenever she needs it. He doesn’t mind.
But, without her conversation, his days in the HHM mailroom slip back into grueling monotony. He feels like he’s sharing the same words with the same people over and over again, like a wheel caught in a rut. Beautiful day out, Henry will say, and Jimmy will nod, and return the sentiment. Have a nice night, see you tomorrow, good morning, busy one today, have a nice night….
Dead week, Burt tells him the college students call it, and yeah, Jimmy thinks: dead week. He spends most of a day somehow thinking it’s finally Friday, only to glance at the date on a document and realize it’s barely Tuesday afternoon. The air feels constantly dry, too—stagnant, like it’s trapped in the mailroom, gathering dust. Dead air.
Forever floating at the corner of his mind are George’s words: find the space in the world that only you can fit. George had said them so casually, thrown them away like it was the most natural thing in the world, like it’s something he’s mentioned hundreds of times at dinner parties—and, Jimmy supposes, he probably has.
Jimmy thinks about how Chuck was never content with waiting on the world; how Chuck was always climbing; how, when Jimmy was a kid, Chuck would come home and tell their parents about his plans and his competition wins and his roadmap to success. Chuck, Jimmy thinks, knew how to carve that space for himself, knew how to make people proud.
But Jimmy feels like he’s constantly shifting: growing beneath his skin any time he can make Kim laugh or convince just the right person of just the right thing; then shrinking again when the look flashes through Chuck’s eyes that makes Jimmy certain that, no matter what his mother said, Chuck isn’t—
Jimmy shuts the door on that thought. Shuts it tight and forgets about it until it inevitably blows open again, latchless.
Then somehow, without him even realizing it, it’s Sunday again, and Jimmy’s leaning back on his bed watching the evening news on mute. Astronauts try and fail to capture a satellite that’s flying too close to the Earth.
He glances over at his phone. It’s been three weeks now since that dinner at Chuck’s, and he still hasn’t talked to to his mother. He can hear Kim’s words—so call her. Spoken so easily, and Jimmy thinks—well, hell, at least he can do this. So he reaches for the phone. Dials the number and presses the handset to his ear, counting the rings.
He gets to eight before his mother answers. “Hi, Mom,” he says quietly.
“Hello, honey,” she says, warmly. “Hang on a moment, let me shut off the TV.” There’s a shuffling noise and then silence.
“Watching anything good?” Jimmy asks.
“Not tonight,” Ruth says.
Jimmy nods, settling back against his headboard. “So how’s Delilah?”
“Hmm—a bit off her food. I think they changed the recipe. Christopher came round and looked her over and suggested I try her on this new stuff. The cat on the can seems very happy, so I’m hopeful.”
Jimmy chuckles. “I’ve got my fingers crossed. Give her a scratch for me, okay?”
“I always do.”
Jimmy makes a little humming noise of agreement. The newsfeed shifts to aerial footage of an explosion in a coal mine in Canada, with solemn emergency workers standing around in the aftermath, and Jimmy shuts it off. He breathes out slowly. “So, how are you doing, Mom?”
“Oh, I’m good,” Ruth says. “I’m puttering around.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy says. “Yeah. I mean…” He drops his voice, and the next comes out almost in a whisper. “I mean: Mom, are you doing okay?”
The silence on the other end of the phone line seems to shift, charged with a new energy. “I wondered when Chuck would tell you,” his mother says, finally.
Jimmy feels a pain like a blade in his chest. It’s not that he had doubted Chuck’s story of his mother’s surgery, but…
“Jimmy?” Ruth prompts.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jimmy asks. There’s no response, so he adds. “I was right there, Mom. I could have helped looked after you. I could have visited, at least! Sat with you!”
“Jimmy,” his mother says again. “You…you were really in no shape—”
“I would’ve found a way!”
“—and I know you don’t like being in hospitals anymore—”
“That’s—for Christ’s sake, Mom, that’s not important—”
“—so I thought it was for the best—”
Jimmy yanks the phone away from his head. He can hear the moment when his mother stops speaking, and he slowly draws the handset back up to his ear.
“Jimmy?” his mom asks.
“Yeah,” Jimmy says. “I’m here.”
He hears her sigh. There’s a shifting noise like she’s leaning back in her chair, or maybe resting her head. “I’m sorry, honey. It was just a little thing, in and out.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy says warily. “Yeah, all right.”
“I was back on my feet in no time,” Ruth says softly. “And I had the ladies from the church checking in on me. Lily brought round a casserole.”
“That was nice of her,” Jimmy says.
There’s silence on the other end of the line again.
“Sorry,” Jimmy says, and he sighs. “I’m real glad you’re doing well, Mom.”
“I’m right as rain,” Ruth says, after a moment.
“Yeah. That’s good.” Jimmy stares at his free hand, turning it over under the light, clenching and unclenching his fingers. He brings it down onto the bed beside him with a soft thud. “Listen, Mom, I gotta go, but I’ll call you again soon, okay?”
“All right, Jimmy,” his mother says. “Love you.”
“Love you, too,” Jimmy says, and then he quickly moves the phone away and sets it down. He flops back on his bed and closes his eyes, pressing his thumb and forefinger into his eyelids.
The blade in his chest digs deeper, like it’s being leaned on heavily, and Jimmy tries to breathe around it.
He tries to breathe around it over the next week, too: finals week. Kim is almost completely absent from HHM, and Jimmy tries not to think of her sitting in exam rooms with dark-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. He calls a couple of times late at night, but the phone rings and rings, and then Andrea answers, and Jimmy hangs up without saying anything.
Work in the mailroom is slow and dull, like molasses. Jimmy talks to as many of the associates as often as he can, trying to crack jokes and break the monotony, but there’s something about office life that seems to drift inevitably towards repetition—the same people and the same topics over and over again. He hears his mother’s voice down the phone line. I thought it was for the best…you were really in no shape…and Jimmy finishes the last thought: no shape to help me, no shape to help yourself, no shape at all.
The weight presses heavier on the blade between his ribs, and for the rest of the week, as he hole-punches paper, as he snaps the latch on a lever-arch file, as he hammers down on a stapler, he thinks: no shape, no shape, no shape…
His phone rings on Friday night.
Jimmy’s still awake, watching TGIF and eating leftover Chinese. He shifts the takeout box off his lap and leans over, then raises the phone to his ear.
“Jimmy!” Kim cries loudly, before he even has a chance to answer.
Jimmy swallows his mouthful of chow mein. “…Kim?”
There’s some background noise—laughter and glasses clinking and the sound of something hitting the receiver—then Kim says, “Come have a drink with me! A law drink!”
“Uh, what?” Jimmy says, sitting up. “What—where are you?”
The receiver is muffled again and then Kim says, “I don’t know the name—that Irish place by the university—”
Jimmy starts nodding. “Okay.”
“—where you told me about the sunroof—”
Jimmy bursts out laughter. “Okay, yep, Kim, I got it!”
“We’re near the back—uh, I’ll find you, okay?”
“Sure, Kim,” Jimmy says. “See you soon?”
But Kim has already hung up.
Jimmy sets down the phone and laughs a little to himself, then he stands and desperately searches for some non-dirty, non-work clothes. He grabs his windbreaker on the way out the door, shrugging it on as he walks to the bus stop in the chill, night air.
The streetlamps cast round yellow pools and Jimmy moves through them buoyantly. He feels like they’re fires, giving off warm air currents that lift him up from the hard cement and carry him smoothly across town.
The bar is thronging with college students when Jimmy arrives. He worms his way inside and hops up onto his tiptoes, peering between the swarms of people for a familiar burst of blonde hair.
But Kim spots him first. Jimmy hears her call out his name and turns to see her waving from a booth down the far end. She slides out and approaches him, grinning.
“Heya, Kim!” Jimmy says. “How’d you go on the exams?”
Kim just grabs him by the elbow and tugs him to the side of the bar conspiratorially. Her hair’s up in a loose bun, flyaway threads falling around her face and her shining eyes.
“You okay?” Jimmy asks. “What’s up?”
After a glance back to the booth, Kim whispers, “I hate them. You have to see. You have to see what they’re like.” She raises a finger to her lips, holding it there as she meets his gaze.
Then she shifts her finger over to his own lips, pressing it down firmly for a moment then releasing it. Jimmy makes a little gasping noise at the back of his throat.
Kim gestures to him, and Jimmy follows her back to the booth. The booth is occupied by four young people, early twenties, he’d guess. He recognizes one of them as the Game-Boy-playing girl who gave him directions to Brad’s dorm room, and he smiles at her, but she doesn’t seem remember him. He makes a mental note to tell Kim this later—clearly, his nerd costume worked perfectly.
“Budge up,” Kim says, sliding into the vacant space and then gesturing for the woman beside her to shift further along, making room. Kim settles in, then twists and smiles up at Jimmy, stretching her arm over the back of the booth.
He slots in beside her. “Hi there,” he says to the group.
Kim introduces the other college students: Game Boy Girl’s name turns out to be Steph, the other woman is Cara, and both of the guys are named Eric. “Eric H and Eric M,” Kim adds. She shifts her arm out from behind him, reaches for an enormous pitcher of beer and pours Jimmy a glass, then returns her arm to the top of the booth behind his shoulders.
“Cheers,” Jimmy says, tilting his glass to the group.
Everyone else has shots waiting, and they down them with Jimmy’s salutation, slamming the glasses down on the table.
“Woof,” Kim says, sucking on her lime and then wiping her lips.
Jimmy leans back into the upholstery, feeling the line of Kim’s arm along the top of his back. He twists his neck to look at her. “So, you didn’t tell me—how’d you do? Good?” He pauses. “Sure seems like you did good…”
Kim shrugs.
“Kim,” Jimmy says lowly.
“Shut up,” Kim says, smiling at him. She takes a sip of her own beer and her eyes twinkle.
Something inside Jimmy breathes again for the first time in two weeks, the constant pressure on his chest relenting. He has another long drink, then sets down his glass, taking in the mess of empty shot glasses on the table, the condensation rings over the wood.
He leans his head back, resting it on Kim’s arm, and she squeezes his shoulder in response. He can already feel the pleasant fuzz of the beer, and he smiles and closes his eyes for a brief moment—lingering.
“So, Jimmy, you one of Wexler’s famous mailroom friends, then?” a voice asks.
Jimmy opens his eyes.
It’s Eric H—tall and lean and preppy in a salmon-colored polo. He quirks an eyebrow at them both. “Aw, come on, Kim, I say that with love,” he adds. He salutes her with his beer, and Kim eventually holds up her own glass.
A bartender arrives with another tray of shots and starts setting them out on the table. The other Eric, Eric M, is short, but just as lean, with wire-rimmed glasses that look enormous on his face, and he whoops and tells the bartender to keep them coming.
Jimmy licks salt off his hand and meets Kim’s gaze. Her lips twitch in a smile, and he lifts his shot glass, mirroring her movements so that they down theirs at the same time. The tequila is cheap, burning Jimmy’s throat, and he shakes his head to clear it.
Beside him, Kim laughs, effervescent.
“Yeah, Wexler, let loose!” Eric H cries. He jabs a finger at Jimmy. “This one really got our group through mock trials, so tonight she drinks for free.” He shoots a look at Kim. “No more turning us down!”
“I’m drinking now, aren’t I?” Kim says.
“More shots!” Eric M cries, and he clambers over the other Eric’s lap and out of the booth.
Game Boy Girl, Steph, stares after him. “Glad he’s having a good night,” she says dryly.
“Yeah, ouch,” Eric H says, propping his arm back on the top of the booth. “You see him in there today? Sweating so much his glasses kept slipping off his nose. Dude’ll be lucky to make it next year.”
“Total dead weight,” Steph says.
“God, but how about the look on Halbert’s face when Wexler came out with Simpson v. Washington at the end, there, though?” Eric H says, shaking his head in disbelief.
Kim’s knee brushes against Jimmy’s under the table, a flash of heat, and he darts a glance at her. He struggles to read any real expression in her eyes, and it reminds him of the first day he met her, when she’d seemed cold—standoffish.
Eric M comes back with another tray of tequila shots and a bowl of nuts. “I took these from the bar,” he whispers dramatically, eyes wide and intense behind his glasses as he slides the bowl into the middle of the table. He slips back into the booth and passes them each a new shot, making himself laugh as he hands over each one in some parody of a gracious host. “For you, sir, Mr. Kim’s friend. For you, ma’am, our champion law nerd…”
Jimmy downs his, the tequila burning his throat, and he gives a little spluttering cough, squeezing his eyes tight. He feels Kim’s hand rub his shoulder again, and, as he regains his breath, he turns to look at her.
Her eyes have softened—warm blue like the midday sky. She smiles. “So, how have you been?” she asks.
Jimmy smiles back. The tequila tingles on his lips. “Guess it’s been a while, huh?” he says.
Kim makes a little face. “Did I miss much?”
“Nah,” Jimmy says, glancing away. He reaches for his beer and drains it slowly. It’s lukewarm and as dirt cheap as the tequila, and it almost reminds him of nights in Arno’s. He refills his glass from the same pitcher, watching the amber liquid froth and tip over itself.
Across the table, Eric H and Steph are arguing about Ross Perot, making impassioned and heated points about campaign finance and other things that Jimmy can’t be bothered to follow. The other two students jump in every now and then, but Kim is completely silent—and he wonders for the first time about how tired she must be. He wonders how many hours of sleep she’s running on.
Another round of shots passes, and then, somehow, without Jimmy realizing it, the others have abandoned politics and moved on to their professors.
“Nah, come on, Turner was just a bastard. Took a dislike to me right away,” Eric H says.
“You think it was personal?” Cara asks.
“Had to be,” Eric H says, sniffing and brushing an invisible piece of lint from his salmon polo.
“God, did you see him patrolling the library during dead week?” Steph says. “I swear he was, like, writing down names.”
“What a dick,” Eric M says. “He’s out to get us.”
Jimmy sips his beer, feeling a nice, tipsy hum beneath his skin. He stares off at the people in the background of the bar, and he even thinks he spots Brad at one point—floppy haired and stony faced. After a while, he lets himself sink back into the warmth of Kim’s arm behind him. His mind is, blissfully, empty—no thoughts swirling and tumbling over each other, just a warm weight pressing comfortably along the tension in his neck, along his trapezius.
He tunes back into the conversation a little later.
“So, you think you’ll move back home, then?” Cara is saying.
Eric H shrugs. “Dad didn’t promise anything about the company, but we’ll see. Clarkson’s retiring in a few years, too.”
“‘Course, Kim’s the one who’s really got it sorted. That deal at HHM. Getting a real leg up over there,” Eric M says. “Just”—he makes a whistling noise—“straight to the top.”
Kim gives him a small smile that drops almost immediately. She closes her eyes and tilts her head back against the wooden booth. Loose hairs fall down over her forehead, drifting in an invisible breeze.
Jimmy watches her breathe for a minute, then turns to the rest of the group. He nudges his knee closer to Kim’s under the table, and out of the corner of his eye he sees her sit up. “So, anyone wanna win twenty bucks?” he asks.
Eric H pauses mid-rant. “Huh?”
Jimmy cracks open his wallet and pulls out a twenty, slapping it down on the table. “Twenty bucks. Easy peasy.”
Eric H raises an eyebrow and gestures for him to keep speaking.
“Like, all right, I work with paper so much in the mailroom, I’m kind of a magician with it,” Jimmy says, refilling his empty glass again, deliberately holding the pitcher of beer a bit unsteadily. “Amateur magician, anyway, whatever.”
Eric H sneers at him.
“‘Cause paper still remembers it’s wood, you know? So I’ve started to get kinda a sixth sense about it, sensing which way the grain used to run, doing all sorts of wild shit.”
Kim’s watching him for real now, an almost invisible smile dancing on her face.
Jimmy smiles back, then peers around her to where her purse is resting on their seat. “Mind if I?” he says, indicating it, and Kim passes it over. Jimmy spots the packet of cigarettes peeking out immediately, and he withdraws it. “Can I bum one?” he asks, holding it up.
Kim chuckles. “Sure.”
“I’ll cut you in when I win,” Jimmy stage-whispers. He taps a cigarette out of the packet, then shows it to the others. “Twenty bucks says I can bend this in half, end to end, without it snapping.”
Eric H makes a scoffing noise.
“Go on then,” Eric M says, leaning back and folding his arms. “I’m in, sure. Twenty bucks.”
Jimmy takes a long drink first, then he holds the cigarette up close to his eyes, turning it around and humming. “Ah!” he says, after a moment. “Okay, I’ve got it. Abracadabra.” He goes to fold the cigarette in half.
It immediately snaps.
“Shit,” Jimmy says.
The others erupt into laughter, just as the bartender arrives with yet another round of shots. Eric M plucks Jimmy’s money off the table, then raises his shot of tequila. “To easy money!” he says, and the others cry out and slam back their shots.
Jimmy sucks on his lime, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
Eric M is still holding up his shot, and he extends it to Jimmy. “A consolation prize,” he says.
So Jimmy takes it and downs it, too. He can feel the buzz of real drunkenness at the back of his mind, now, and he swallows tightly. “Hang on, hang on,” he says, holding up his hands. “No fair, I was distracted that time.”
“Distracted?” Eric H says.
“Fifty,” Jimmy says, slamming his palm on the table. He looks around at everyone intently, then reaches for his wallet again and pulls out a fifty dollar bill. Beneath the table, he presses his knee tighter against Kim’s, and she presses hers back. “I bet fifty,” he repeats.
Eric M shrugs. “Your funeral, dude,” he says.
“Lemme see the cash,” Jimmy says. He takes another long, performative drink of beer then licks his lips and stares at Eric M a bit unsteadily, exaggerating the real haze he’s feeling. “Anyone else?” he asks, as Eric M sets his money out on the table.
“Jeez, Wexler, you got a real winner here,” Eric H says, and he pulls out a billfold and peels off a fifty dollar note.
“Okay,” Jimmy says seriously. He slides another cigarette out of Kim’s pack, and holds it up to his eyes again. After a moment of pretending to study it, he frowns, then reaches for one of the fifty dollar bills on the table. He wraps the note tightly around the cigarette. Then he folds the whole roll neatly in half. End to end.
He hears Kim laugh beside him, and he wants to turn to look at her, but he keeps his gaze on the two Erics instead. Slowly, oh-so-slowly, he unfolds the bundle, then unrolls the fifty dollar bill until the intact cigarette is revealed in the middle. “Easy peasy,” Jimmy says. He picks up the cigarette and tucks it back into Kim’s pack, then returns everything to her purse. “Thanks, Kim.”
“Thank yourself, I’m down one smoke,” Kim says warmly.
Jimmy chuckles, raking the cash off the table and basking in the indignant expressions on the Erics’ faces. “Hey guys, don’t feel bad. It’s that mailroom know-how.” He finishes his beer, slams down the empty glass, then slips out from beneath Kim’s arm and out of the booth. “Kim?”
Kim grins and follows him, weaving through the throngs of college students. Jimmy stops by the bar, and he pulls the two fifties out of his pocket and hands them to the bartender. “Put this toward their tab,” he says, nodding to the booth. He feels Kim beside him and he turns to face her. He shrugs.
She shrugs back, swaying a little unsteadily on her feet.
Jimmy smiles at her. “Wanna get some shitty food and tell me about how much those guys suck?” he asks.
Kim laughs, tipping her head forwards. Her eyelashes glitter like half moons.
They stumble into Kim’s apartment a short time later, loaded with bags of food from a restaurant near the university that had seemed more like a fever dream: some late night hot-spot, enormous, like something out of a theme park about the Wild West, the walls filled with pictures of John Wayne smiling.
Jimmy sets the food down on the coffee table then drops onto Kim’s sofa and groans. “Christ,” he says. “I almost didn’t make it.” He closes his eyes and wets his lips, feeling the tingle of the cheap tequila. He reaches up and touches them, wondering if they’re numb, running his tongue over his bottom lip. It doesn’t seem to get any wetter. He opens his eyes and looks over to the door. “Kim?”
Kim’s standing in the kitchen, staring at him. She shakes herself, and turns away, filling two glasses with water from the tap. She lingers by the sink for a moment then comes into the living room, handing him one of the glasses and sitting beside him on the sofa.
Jimmy downs his water, then cracks open the closest Styrofoam container. A wave of beef and cheese and spice hits him, and he closes it again. “Wow, I dunno if I can actually eat any of this.” He feels like he’s swimming, and he turns to look at Kim.
Kim, who’s still holding her glass of water, just watching him.
“What?” Jimmy asks, scrunching his face at her.
“Thanks for tonight,” she says, and then she takes a slug of water and sets it down on the coffee table. When he doesn’t say anything, she stares at him again. “I mean it.”
Jimmy slips, soft-boned, down the sofa a little. He blinks up at Kim beside him and smiles. “Any time,” he says. He pats Kim’s knee. “And you did well this week, right?”
“I think so,” Kim says.
Jimmy grins wider. “Knew it. Bet you did better than all those Erics and whoever-the-fucks.”
Kim laughs, leaning her head back.
Jimmy stares up at her. “Seriously, Kim, how’d you get so smart?”
“Book learnin’,” Kim says dryly, glancing down at him.
“Eugh,” Jimmy says. “If that’s what it takes, count me out.”
Kim frowns at him, brow furrowing.
“What?”
She twists her body to face him, folding one of her legs beneath her. “You know you just outwitted a table of law students, right?”
“Right, Slippin’ Jimmy’s a bona fide genius,” Jimmy says, rolling his eyes.
Kim shrugs. “Maybe he is.”
Jimmy shakes his head. He feels himself sinking a little deeper into the sofa, and he stares down at his lap, where his hands rest loosely. His wrists are bare, now, sticking out of his shirtsleeves, pale and hairy. He keeps looking at them anyway, his stomach tight.
“You dumbass,” Kim says softly. “People have done much worse things.”
She reaches out a hand and lays it flat over his heart.
Jimmy looks down at her hand on him like it’s happening to a stranger.
But then he feels it, the heat of her palm through his skin and his shirt, and he turns back up to her, wide eyed.
She’s still staring at her own hand where it’s touching him, and she moves her thumb a little against his chest as if she’s checking just to make sure she can do it.
Then her eyes flick up to his.
Kim leans down—or maybe he rises up first—and kisses him. Jimmy lets out an unconscious groan as he reaches up to grip the back of her head, running his tongue along her bottom lip, tasting agave. He opens his mouth—or maybe she opens hers first—and he tangles his fingers tighter in her hair, pulling her closer as she presses her tongue against his.
Then she’s shifting above him, and Jimmy twists, wedging his back hard against the arm of the sofa. Kim nestles between his legs, her stomach pressing against him, and Jimmy makes a guttural noise, running his free hand down her back, over the curve of her spine.
She trails her fingers up his chest and then back down, leaving wakes of goosebumps, and he licks into her mouth, his lips tingling, white-hot, and he doesn’t know if it’s the tequila, or Kim, or both.
Then she pulls back, breathing heavily, looking down at him. She frames his face with her hands.
Gasping for breath, staring up at Kim from between her palms, Jimmy feels like she’s the only thing holding him together. Like he’s water in her hands.
Kim presses her forehead to his, closing her eyes. “Not now,” she murmurs, breath ghosting on his lips. “You’re drunk—I mean, we’re both…”
Jimmy watches as Kim’s eyes open again, watches as her pupils shrink a little in the light. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay,” Kim repeats. Her hair is loose around her face like the rays of the sun.
Jimmy reaches up again unconsciously, twisting his fingers in the blonde strands. She presses her head into his hand, and he cradles her cheek, staring into her eyes. “Kim,” he whispers.
She mouths his name but he doesn’t hear it.
He stretches up to meet her and kisses her again, lips burning, breathing heavily in stolen seconds. “How about just this?” he murmurs, words escaping where they can.
Kim smiles around his mouth, and he feels it, and grins, too. “Okay,” she says, again, and she kisses him tightly, clinging to him, attached to him, stuck to him.
Jimmy laughs, bubbling with delight, and Kim rises, smiling down at him and laughing as well. He lifts his hand and touches her face like a blind man, the pads of his fingers pressing into her forehead and cheeks, and she bats him away playfully, then chases after his hand and grips it tight.
“Come on,” she says, and she swings off the sofa, dragging him after her, past the bags of takeout growing cold on the coffee table, past the towers of law books and notepads, and into her bedroom. They fall down on her bed, side by side, facing each other.
Jimmy reaches out and touches Kim’s mouth. She smiles beneath his fingertips, and he withdraws his hand, watching the white places turn pink again, and then he shifts forward, replacing his fingertips with his mouth. Kim kisses him back firmly, cupping his cheek.
He runs his palm down her side, arcing along her shoulder and waist and hips, then back up, dancing over the sensitive skin of her waist, and he feels her sigh. So he curls his hand into the dip in her side and pulls her close with it, feeling her breasts press into his chest, and he hums, lips dancing and tingling with the vibrations. She laughs into his mouth and he swallows it, moving his lips against hers.
Kim moves her hand back from his cheek to grip the side of his head, her fingers laced around his ear, her pinky and ring finger curled tightly beneath his jaw. Jimmy loves the slight tension of it as he kisses her, like Kim’s an elastic band controlling the push and pull.
He doesn’t know how much later it is that they slow down again, pulling away and facing each other on Kim’s pillow. It’s dark in her bedroom, but there’s a streetlamp shining through the blinds, throwing strips of yellow light across the room. One of them falls over Kim’s face, glittering in the corners of her eyes and shadowing the curve of her jaw.
Jimmy smiles at her, reaching out and laying his hand on her cheek. Her skin is warm, and it feels like an anchor, like a safe harbor, because the rest of his body seems to drift, unmoored, floating on gentle currents. He closes his eyes and the feeling gets worse—unpleasant, even. “Oh God, I am drunk,” he murmurs, opening his eyes again.
“I know,” Kim says gently. She shifts, sitting up so her back is against the headboard, and she pulls his head into her lap. “C’mere.”
Jimmy settles, head on her thighs, and stares up at her wordlessly.
Kim switches on her bedside lamp, and the light glows softly through the room like candlelight. She strokes his hair back from his forehead, threading her fingers between it, running her fingernails over his scalp.
Jimmy hums happily. “Can I?” he asks, and then he reaches up and captures a golden lock, rubbing it between his fingers. He lets it go and it bounces back, so he captures it again. “How does it curl like that?”
“Magic,” Kim whispers.
Jimmy laughs softly, pressing the silken threads of her hair between the pads of his fingers until his arm gets too heavy and he has to drop it. He closes his eyes, and Kim runs her hand over his forehead. “Kim,” he says, after a few minutes. He can feel the alcohol inside of him purring. He breathes out slowly. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
The hand keeps moving over his hair. “Nobody knows that,” Kim murmurs, after a little while.
Jimmy opens his eyes again. He shakes his head, and the world spins for a moment. He says, “You do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You know,” Jimmy says, reaching up and poking his finger above her heart. “You know.”
Kim grabs his hand and holds it loosely, stroking her thumb along the back of it, tracing little circles above his wrist. After a long time, she says, “Jimmy, I don’t know a damn thing.” She leans down and kisses him, once, then straightens up again.
Jimmy turns his head, facing her stomach, breathing her in. He can feel her moving a little, and her hand leaves his hair for a moment before returning, soft nails running over his scalp repeatedly.
Then Kim starts talking. It takes his brain a moment to catch up, a moment to place the cadence, but then he realizes she’s reading something. He turns his head and looks upwards, scanning the cover of the book.
“Willa Cather,” he says softly. “This is your Red Cloud?”
“Yes,” Kim says, closing the book smiling down at him. “Now, shh. Just listen. You’re in this one.” She opens the book again, and resumes reading, “Last summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden—Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West…”
Jimmy closes his eyes and tucks his head into Kim’s lap, drifting in and out of sleep to the gentle rhythm of her hand in his hair.
“If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made…”
He thinks that Kim reads to him for a long time, though he’s not sure how much is a dream and how much is reality. All he remembers is the soft hum of her voice, and her hand in his hair, and the images conjured by her words: open fields and brilliant skies and sheet-iron landscapes.
“The wagon jolted on, carrying me I knew not whither. I don’t think I was homesick. If we never arrived anywhere, it did not matter. Between that earth and that sky I felt erased, blotted out…here, I felt, what would be would be…”
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