Mairin found herself struggling with depression. Damn, she thought, I’ve brought all this down on myself. It’s not as though I didn’t know that an involvement with a man could do this. I’ve just been through this with Charlie. She kept fighting to right her moods, which were constantly turning upside down. She tried to lose herself in studying, but it was difficult. She had a vague feeling, too, of unfinished business. She needed to talk to someone. Although she’d made good friends in law school, she knew she couldn’t talk to any of the women. As far as she’d ever indicated, she was simply enjoying working with Michael Morgan on Sandra’s case. They all envied her. It wouldn’t have been proper for her to talk about any personal involvement. Mairin had a strong sense of that.

However, she did need to talk. She arranged to meet Linda one class-free evening. She poured out the story of how, thrown together with Michael Morgan, the attraction that he had for her was hard to escape.

"I should have seen this one coming," said Linda.

"You should have seen it? I was so foolish. What do I need to be told about being involved with a married man?"

"I encouraged you to carry on with this crush bit--this little bit of interest in another man. I knew that you were trying to get Charlie out of your head, and I thought perhaps a crush might help--a flirtation, you know. What a dummy! What a psychologist! It didn’t occur to me that of course you’d latch onto someone else in order to drive Charlie out."

"Don’t call yourself a dummy. Neither of us could have foreseen that I’d actually be thrown together with him."

"No, that’s true. But it doesn’t make me feel any better. So you’re just avoiding one another at present?"

"Yes."

"And you feel that that’s not too helpful, that something more needs to be done-- kind of a Rest In Peace for the relationship."

"Something like that."

"You’ll have to see him again, then."

"Oh, that’s inevitable, really. There are still things to be done on Sandra’s case. I have some of the research on blindness that Michael needs and other things will come up." She sighed. "Do you still have any of those anti-depressants around?"

"A few."

"Could I have some?"

Linda was hesitant. "Look, Mair, you know those are heavy stuff. You don’t just pop one of those like a tranquilizer. You take them day in and day out. They really affect the metabolism. You know that. Hey, look, I’ll give you enough for two weeks, but that’s it. Get to a doctor for a prescription. Don’t screw around with those things."

"I won’t, I’ll see a doctor. Thanks."
 
 
 
 
 
 

The opportunity for a talk with Michael came sooner than Mairin might have wished. Sandra called her the next week. "Mr. Jeffries is going to take my depo the week after this. I’m really nervous. I told Michael I’d like to have you there. Could you come? I hate to ask you to take the time, but. . ."

"Of course I’ll come. Should I pick you up or what?" They agreed on a time.

Soon after that Michael called her late one afternoon at work. "Sandra tells me that she’d like to have you be with her at her depo. How do you feel about that?" He knew that Mairin would appreciate his phrasing.

"It’s okay," she said. She took a deep breath. "I think I worry more about seeing you than I do about the depo."

"How so?"

"We’ve avoided each other for a month or so now. I just feel that’s kind of awkward."

"Me, too. I have to admit that I didn’t feel comfortable just leaving it like that myself."

There were a few moments of silence. Then Mairin said, "I guess we got too close. It started when I had you in class, as a crush, sort of. It was fun. It passed the time. It made Charlie recede into the background. But I got too involved with you."

Who the hell is Charlie, Michael wanted to ask. But he said, "I know. I’ve grown attached to you, too. Sure, I did need help with this work, but that’s been an excuse, too. You’ve brightened up my days. You’re the only one I’ve been able to talk with about Harriet. You’ve listened, and you’ve made me listen to myself. I’ve gotten involved with you, too."

"So now we have to call off the involvement." It was not a question.

"Yes," he said. She had never heard him use such a serious tone. "Someday this will wear off and we can simply be friends."

"I hope so," she said. "I’d like that."

"Bless you, Mairin. I’ll see you at Sandra’s depo."
 
 
 
 
 
 

When the Saturday morning for Sandra’s deposition arrived, Mairin again sat at the breakfast table and sighed at the day ahead.

"Why are you going?" asked Harry.

"Because Sandra needs some support." Mairin bent over the comics, determined to react as naturally as possible to a day that worried her immensely.

"Morgan can give her that."

"No, not really," said Mairin. "He’ll be thinking so hard about what he’s going to ask on cross that he won’t realize that he’s with a very apprehensive lady." Mairin began nibbling at a roll. "Do you think Bob Jeffries will be rough?"

"Oh, not too. He’s cagey enough not to want to break down a blind person."
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mairin came in around six-thirty that evening, ashen. Bea and Harry were having sherry before supper. The room was so warm and friendly, so different from the surroundings of the day, that Mairin just stood in the hallway for a few moments, letting her psyche adjust to the calm and warmth. She sat down in the familiar, comfortable chair and looked accusingly at Harry. "Look at this," she said, holding out her hands. "Look at that shaking. Bob Jeffries may be cagey enough not to bother the blind, but he has no such qualms about the sighted."

Bea and Harry asked, almost in unison, "What happened?"

"We went there, to that bastion of the establishment, Hadleigh. Sandra was holding my arm, and I was guiding her. We walked into the room where the depo was to be, and it was grand, if I may say so myself. And there sat Jeffries and a few juniors. We all began to sit down, when Jeffries screamed at me, "I don’t want her in the room!"

"Michael was surprised. ‘She’s okay,’ he said."

"'She cannot stay,' said Jeffries. Then he turned to me, and in one of the nastiest voices I have ever heard, said ‘I want to take your deposition.'"

"'Don’t be ridiculous!' Michael said."

"'She works for the agency,' said Jeffries, and I want her out of here."

"They banished me, Harry!" Mairin had jumped up and was pacing around the room. "I sat all morning and all afternoon in the law library. I got down some books from the shelves, but I couldn’t concentrate at all. He really wanted to take my depo right then! Michael wouldn’t let him. I hope that son-of-a-bitch isn’t going to send me a subpoena."

In her anger, Mairin didn’t realize for a few seconds that she had sworn. "Oh! I’m sorry," she said, sitting back down.

"I’m going to make you a drink," said Harry.

"Please do," said Mairin.

"What was that all about?" called Harry as he went into the kitchen.

"The very best I can figure is that he thought I was a comfort to Sandra, and he couldn’t have that. I’m sure he meant to unsettle her, not me, but I am unsettled down to my toenails."

"I’m sure you’re right," said Harry, handing Mairin a highball in one of her favorite tall glasses. "I’m sure he was trying to get to Sandra. I don’t think you’re going to get any subpoena."

"Well, what a bastard! Trying to shake her that way."

"Oh now, Michael would do that too, Mair. In half a minute."

Knowing that Harry was right, Mairin just nodded. "But the establishment, Harry, that’s something else. It’s so alien to me that I don’t understand it at all. Jeffries’ firm represents the establishment, the school board. It’s the big corporations, public and private, that keep the big law corporations going. Do you thank that Sandra could ever have walked into that office and found a lawyer to represent her? God, the power, the money. I begin to think Carl Nolan is right."

Nolan was a local underground newspaperman who put out a tiny bi-weekly, always critical of the big law firms, sometimes naming what amounts of money the senior partners in the big firms had given to which political campaign.

"Bob Jeffries isn’t a bad guy, really," said Harry. "In fact, I think you’d like him."

"Sure I would," said Mairin. "You don’t get to be a big lawyer like Jeffries without having a charming social side." She sank back into the chair; relaxed by the drink, she was asleep within minutes.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Harry was keeping an eye out for Bob Jeffries, and he saw him early the next week, as both men were leaving the courthouse for lunch.

"Bob!" called Harry. Catching up to him, Harry said, "You were really rough on my Mairin the other day."

Jeffries looked blank.

"The girl you threw out of the deposition with the blind woman."

"Oh?" said Jeffries, clearly remembering, "your Mairin?"

"Yeah, she’s living with Bea and me this year, sort of another daughter."

"For god’s sake," said Jeffries, "I didn’t know that. I was kind of rough on her. I imagine she wasn’t too complimentary about me."

"Right," Harry said. "She thinks you’re the typical establishment lawyer."

"I’m sure I look like that in this case, having to go after a blind woman."

"You do, you do. Mairin’s an idealist in many respects, though terribly realistic in others. It’s good to have her around. We were kind of lonely with the girls gone. How’s your family?"

"Fine. One of the kids is at college, and Helen’s visiting her sister in L.A. with the other two over the spring break. It’s a bit early this year."

"Why not come over for supper Thursday night? Bea and I would love to see you, and you can take Mairin’s deposition."

"I’d love to come, but I’m sure Mairin will find my company an insult."

"Won’t tell her you’re coming. Be over around six-thirty, okay?"

"Sure, thanks, Harry."
 
 
 
 

On Thursday, Mairin’s only free night that week, she came in from work bubbling and stopped in mid-sentence at the sight of Bob Jeffries in her blue chair.

"Hello," said he, arising and holding out a hand.

"Hello," Mairin said mechanically, looking at Harry as one betrayed. She slowly extended her hand.

"Sit down, sit down," said Harry. "This isn’t a deposition."

"Thank god," said Mairin.

Bob Jeffries looked at the slender girl sitting across from him, poised delicately on the sofa beside Harry. She had on a suit, in quiet good taste.

"I didn't know you were in law school, but Harry was just filling me in."

"Yes," she said, again mechanically, then, almost as though she had shaken herself back in gear, "yes, I’m a second year night student." She laughed, "one of the great unwashed, the lower caste."

"That must be a tough routine," said Jeffries.

"It is."

"What made you do it?"

"I can’t afford to go to school full-time. It’s very simple, really."

"I don’t know how you do it."

"It’s tough. I often wonder how some of the other night students make it. Some have very demanding jobs, lots of overtime."

"And you work full-time, too?"

"Yes, sure."

"And you have time to work on cases too?"

"Not really," Mairin laughed. Routine questions. She could answer those. It was getting too easy. She might even lead with one.

"I don’t imagine your firm has much experience with night students."

"None," said Jeffries,disarmingly. "I don’t think we believe that they’re real."

"A lot of the big firms have that opinion, unfortunately."

"Having gone days and found it impossible, most of us feel that night students just can’t be real."

"Or the school isn’t."

"Well-put," said Jeffries, watching Mairin. "Wouldn’t you rather go to day classes?"

"I’m not sure," said Mairin. "We have day students too, and they’re different from me. Remember, I’ve been out of school five years. I’ve worked and thought. The other night students have too, by and large. They’re my kind of people."

Harry put a drink in her hand. "They want to be lawyers enough to study around a job and often around families as well. Look, I’ve had a good education. I went to a first-rate undergraduate school. I know how to study. I’ve had the Socratic method route. No, I’m not getting a first-rate legal education in some respects. But that’s because of the school per se, not because of the night students. I can help myself get as good an education as I can, and I won’t have to apologize for it."

"I can see that," Jeffries said.

The talk became general, eddied, flowed--into dinner, dessert, coffee, liqueur.

"Mairin," said Robert Jeffries, "why not come in to talk to us about a clerking job next summer? We do take on a few students."

"No, no thanks. I’ll be staying with the agency for the next couple of years."

Bob Jeffries looked mildly surprised. Then his face cleared itself of puzzlement. "Well, I see that you couldn’t give up a year-round job for a summer job." But some of the puzzlement returned. "Have you thought of a law-related job full-time?"

"Yes," Mairin grinned at Harry. "And so has Harry."

Her face shadowed. "I’m beginning to wonder about law anyway... For a person with a social-service bent, well, there are real problems."

"How so?"

"It’s awfully complicated. And I don’t feel too articulate. But it’s something like this. I go to work at the agency. I see people with problems. I try to help them, and often I do. But nobody gets hurt in the process. In law you have to help your person and hurt the other guy’s person at the same time. I don’t like that. I don’t feel right about it."

"I think I’m following you," Bob Jeffries said slowly, "but I’m not sure."

"That’s okay," said Mairin, "I barely follow it myself. Lord," she looked at her watch. "I have to go. I have some studying that just has to be done."

She got up from the table, saying "Excuse me, please, Mr. Jeffries. It was very nice to meet you."

When she had left, Bob Jeffries looked at Harry. "I’d like to talk to her some more, invite her to visit the office. She’s impressive. We’ve got two young women who might impress her."

"More power to you," said Harry.