Harry and Bea ware having an after-dinner drink in front of the fireplace when Bob and Mairin came in. "We wondered where you were," said Harry.

Mairin looked stricken. "I forgot to call! I’d half-intended to go to the law review office, but I forgot to mention it."

"Well, you were in good hands. Sit down, you two, and have some sherry."

"I’ve had one drink too many as it is," said Mairin. "I’m going to fold. But first I’m going to try to brief a few cases." She went into the kitchen to make herself a pot of tea.

Bob accepted a glass of sherry and sat, stretching his feet out toward the fire.

"How goes it, counsellor?" asked Harry.

"Basically good. I’m overworked as usual, even though I’ve pushed some of it off on Mairin."

"How’s she doing?"

"Very well. She’s doing especially well in the people aspects of domestic relations--gives me the time to work out the legal aspects. She’s also very good in research and writing. I just hate to see someone with her flair--personality-- locked away in the library. If she could learn to be a little tougher, she’d be one hell of a trial lawyer. She’s absolutely credible. A jury would be eating out of her hand. There’s not a pretentious bone in her body."

Bea spoke up. "Why not let her work in the background? Why force her to be a trial lawyer?"

"You don’t think that’s her style?" asked Bob.

"No. It takes too much out of her. I just don’t think you can change her. What does she want to do?"

"I don’t think she knows," said Bob.

The talk turned to court politics. Eventually Bea excused herself. On her way to bed she stopped to say goodnight to Mairin, who was barely awake. "When I get this one case finished, I’ll fold," she promised.

She hugged Bea goodnight and poured another cup of tea. She could hear the voices from the living room and an occasional laugh.

Finally Bob turned to Harry. "Something’s on my mind. I threw Mairin a tough question, unfair, really, about Michael. She’s really angry."

"I noticed that she didn’t stick around," said Harry drily.

Bob looked moody. "It reminds me of a fight I had with my eldest daughter last summer. It started out as a good conversation. Helen and I have been a bit worried about her. She’s dating a guy we think is into drugs.

"One afternoon she and I were sitting out beside the pool, and we got to talking. Eventually Leo’s name came up. She seemed willing to talk about him. I started asking questions. All of a sudden she blew up. ‘You’re always cross-examining,’ she said. ‘None of us can have a straight conversation with you. You always have a point to prove, and you set us up. You don’t want to hear the whole story.’ She got up and left. We haven’t talked since. Some of what she said has stuck in my craw ever since. That’s what happened tonight with Mairin. I just couldn’t resist a tough question, one that would make her squirm. It was entirely unnecessary."

Harry sighed. "I’ve been accused of the same things plenty of times-- usually by Bea, but by my daughters too. You want to be a trial lawyer. How do you learn cross-examination? You don’t take a course in it. You begin by watching your conversations. You don’t let assumptions go by. You start to question. You make people get to the point. You pin them down. It’s the only way to learn. But then you can’t stop. It becomes a part of you. You’re argumentative. Hell, it is a problem." He sat a minute.

"I feel rotten," said Bob. "There’s something about Mairin that makes you want to protect her."

"Vulnerability."

‘Yes, and I exploited that."

Harry mused. "She’s a girl with a lot of blues. You kind of want to protect her from that. Sometimes I want to pick her up and just hug her."

"Me too. Not" Bob added hastily, "that I’d do it."

"Good."

Bob grinned. "Thanks, Harry." He got to his feet and took his leave.

Harry sat back down. The fire was almost out. In spite of his always grousing at Mairin about falling asleep in the chair, he dozed off.
 
 
 
 
 
 

When he got up the next morning, Mairin was at the breakfast table in a long fluffy robe. She had a casebook propped up against the butter dish.

"Don’t you even eat breakfast without those damned books?" he asked.

"This is a very long breakfast," said Mairin. "I can't justify it any other way. It's ten o'clock, and Bea is already out shopping."

"God," said Harry, gathering up cereal and milk. Without further preliminaries he said, "I understand that you're angry at Bob Jeffries."

Mairin looked down at the book. "Yes."

"Look, Mair, he's a decent guy. At least he had the grace to be upset about acting like a lawyer."

"That's what he is." Mairin's tone had an unusually bitter ring.

"He realizes the limitations of the role."

"Good god," said Mairin. What did you two talk about?"

Harry laughed. "The limitations of the role."

"You agree that it has limitations?"

"Of course." He sat for a moment. "Are you dating anybody now that isn't a lawyer?"

"Well, there's Hayden. He's a teacher--high school. But I wouldn't call it dating really."

"Well, keep seeing him. Much as I'd like to see you start dating a nice young man with a brilliant future, it's okay by me if you don't date lawyers." He grinned.

Mairin smiled back.
 
 
 
 

Bob Jeffries spent the weekend thinking about Mairin. It was not that he was trying to think about her. He had a busy schedule. He worked in the office on Saturday, as always. Everybody did, at least all morning and usually part of the afternoon as well.

He and his wife were entertaining Saturday evening. Sunday morning was church. Sunday afternoon was family time. He and Helen had three children, two girls and a boy. Jane, the eldest, was away at college. Robert, Jr. was in high school, and the baby, Peggy, was in seventh grade. This week they’d go to the art museum.

At the office Saturday morning, Bob looked over the Evans file and saw Mairin's notes. He kept seeing her face. He kept hearing her say, "Carol Evans wants to live with her mother."

At home on Saturday evening, Bob looked at this wife. She was a perfect hostess. She was attractive and attentive to the guests. But she couldn’t discuss a legal brief with him, and she’d never expressed any desire to do so. When he’d tried to explain cases to her, she’d say, "Leave me out of that. That’s your job." He’d read some of the briefs that Mairin had produced. They were fantastic.

Sunday afternoon Bob watched his children at the museum. He thought of Jana and the rupture that had occurred last summer. He’d done the same thing to Mairin with the cross-examination. Jana. Mairin. Mairin could be his daughter. The two young women couldn’t be more than six years apart in age.

When he got into the office on Monday morning, he summoned Mairin. "Hello," she said, somewhat tentatively.

"Sit down, Mair. I owe you an apology for the other night. It won’t happen again. Here are the drafts of two briefs that Kate has started. Look at them and take it from there. Let me see something by the end of the week."

She reached out for them. She began to say something and then stopped. "Okay," she said. "I think I can make it by Friday."

"You started to say something else," he said. "What was it?"

"About last Friday," she said. "It’s okay, I understand." And she left.
 
 
 
 
 
 

She went to her office with Kate’s drafts, read them over and sighed. Th. writing just wasn’t clear. She knocked on Kate’. door.

"I just have a question or two before I start," she said. She got Kate to explain to her the factual basis of the suits and the legal theories.

Then she went back to the library and started to work. Legal research took a long, long time. It always did. You tried leads, they petered out, you tried some more leads. But by the time Thursday rolled around, she felt that she was really well-involved with the subject.

Late Thursday afternoon she took a break. For kicks she decided to look up Kate’s law review article. It took awhile, but she found it. It was good. The subject was timely, the writing was tight, and the conclusion was creative. I don’t believe it, thought Mairin.

This just isn’t the same person. Even in a first draft the outline of a final piece should be visible. In the drafts Mairin had been working on, there were no such outlines. What had emerged had all been Mairin’s thinking. There just hadn’t been anything there to start with.

Friday morning Mairin took the revisions to Bob Jeffries. Friday afternoon he came to see her in the library. "These are good," he said. "I’ve made some corrections and changes. Show them to Kate and then give them to Denise to be typed."

Mairin stopped by Kate’s office. "Voila," she said. "Here are the drafts with my revisions and some changes Mr. Jeffries wanted. Let me know what you think, and we can have it typed." She started to put the papers on Kate’s desk.

"Just take them," said Kate. "That’s beautiful."

"Don’t you even want to look at them?" asked Mairin, genuinely surprised. She looked on her own writing as a painting. It was hers, and she would only tolerate changes that truly improved it.

"Nope," said Kate cheerfully. "Writing is not my bag. I hate the library, I hate the books, and I hate writing. Life is much too short to do what you do badly. Bless all of you little law clerks. Just take it to Denise."

"You must have hated every moment on law review."

"Oh, I did. It was a god-awful chore. But I knew I had to do it to get one of the good jobs. I knew I wouldn’t be writing for a living. I’ll leave that to you, dear."

"What did you do your law review piece on?" asked Mairin. "Was it a contracts topic?"

"What?" asked Kate. "No, not really. It was on administrative agencies."

"Did you get to pick it or was it assigned to you?"

"Oh, I picked it."

"What do you think about the Boswell ruling?"

"Oh, I don’t know."

"Did you ever want to work for an administrative agency?"

"No, not really," said Kate. "How about you these days, Mair? What do you think about law?"

"I don’t know," said Mairin honestly. "I still don’t quite know what I’ll do."

"This is your last year in law school, right? You take the bar this summer?"

"Yes."

"From all that I hear, you’re in the running for a job here." Mairin was quiet. "Hey, this is the big time. We add a few people each year. The interviews are going on now. You’re in the competition. Hell, you’re ahead of it. You’re a known quantity. The others are all riding on their law school records. You’re the only one who’s been around real time."

"Well, there are the ones who were summer clerks here."

"True. They have a leg up, but you’ve been here rain, shine, sleet, hail and whatever. Don’t tell me that you’re going to turn them down when they ask you…That would be crazy! This is it, girl. This is prestige."

"I do not dispute that for a moment, not for a moment," said Mairin. "Let me get these sheets to Denise." Yes, this is prestige, thought Mairin as she walked to Denise’s office. So much so that you’d cheat to get here.