Everybody greeted her effusively at Hadleigh. Bob gave her a hug and an urgent assignment. "I just got a trial date on the Evans case," he said. "If we can’t work it out in the next two weeks, we’ll have to go to the mat on it. I just had the mother’s counsel on the phone. They’ll give on just about everything but the daughter. To hear him tell it, his client will commit suicide before she’ll let the daughter live with the father." He looked at Mairin, "Yeah, I know, the girl wants to live with her mother. But her mother’s not our client. So what do we do?"

"Can I sit down with our client and his daughter?"

"What?"

"Just that. He can rant and rave all that he wants to you, but I’ll lay big money that he won’t look his daughter in the eye and tell her that he’ll oppose her choice."

"You’d walk into a lion’s den like that, and you claim you don’t like the adversary nature of law? I do not understand you, Mairin Farrar."

"It’s not the same at all. I’m there as a mediator. I tell Carol that we’ll sit down with her father and try to explain to him how she feels about living with her mother. You tell Ron that we’re sitting down with Carol so that he can explain why he wants her to live with him. It’ll work out."

"You’re as machiavellian as they come, you know that?" asked Bob.

"But no."

Mairin was stunned. "Why? It’ll work. I may be wrong. He may convince her, but however it comes down, they’ll both be committed to it."

"No. Ron doesn’t want to be in the position of having to convince his daughter about anything. He’s her father, and he knows what’s right for her. No. You do the best you can with her, and if she still chooses mamma, we’ll fight."

"But. .

"I said no. That’ s that." Bob was showing Mairin the temperament she’d heard stories about. "The man is tough," both Kate and Sylvia had said. Mairin remembered Sandra’s deposition. She hadn’t seen that side of Bob Jeffries from that day until this.

"Yes sir," she said. "I’ll go see Carol as soon as I can."

"Go sooner," he yelled at her as she was leaving his office.

The next afternoon when Carol came home from school, Mairin sat down with her in the immaculate kitchen in the Evans home. This mansion would be sold, a casualty of the divorce, and both Ron and Peg would live a tad more modestly. "Look," said Mairin. "I bring you bad news. My boss represents your father. He’s fighting for your father’s wishes all the way. I wanted to sit down with you and your father, let the two of you talk with me there, let you tell him directly what you want. My boss said no. The way I see it, you have two choices. You can contact your father about meeting with the two of us--I’ll still do it, but I can’t initiate it. Or else we can get you your own counsel. The People’s Clinic loves to do things like this. You get your own representative, and the court gets to hear your story."

"What do you think I should do?"

"Don’t ever quote me, but I think you should go that route. Their number is in the book. Tell them what the situation is, that Bob Jeffries represents your father, that another firm represents your mother. Tell them what you want." Mairin got up to leave.

Carol walked her to the door. "Hey, Mair, thanks for trying to help me."

"Good luck. I hope it works for you."

Mairin went back to the office. She wasn’t going to check in with Bob Jeffries but he sent Denise to find her.

"How’d you make out with Carol Evans?"

Mairin sighed. "I can’t budge her. She wants to be with her mother."

"Okay. We’ll dig in. I’ll need a lot of help this week getting ready to go to trial."

Mairin did spend a great deal of time on the case that week, evenings and weekends as well. On Monday morning she helped Bob lug files to court. He sat down at the counsel table, and Mairin went to the back of the courtroom. One of the litigation associates was sitting second chair on the case.

At that point a young lawyer from the Peoples’ Clinic approached the bench. Mairin figured that he’d make an oral motion to enter his appearance for the child. He’d been smart enough to file no written motions so that neither side would be expecting him. Immediately Bob Jeffries was on his way to the bench. Mairin could hear pieces of the exchange.

"… surprise. We’ll need extra time to prepare."

"No continuances." This was from the judge.

Bob turned and shot Mairin a look that could only be described as murderous. He came directly back to her. "Go back to the office. I will see you when this case is over this afternoon." His tone was as cold as the north wind.

For the second time Mairin sat shaking in the Hadleigh law library because of Bob Jeffries. She could barely concentrate on the projects she was working on. About 4:30 that afternoon, Denise came for her. "Mr. Jeffries wants to see you," she said. "He’s really off the wall." Denise gave Mairin a sympathetic stare.

"Ahhhh," said Mairin. "It was worth it." And she walked into Bob Jeffries’ office.

"Goddamn it, Mairin," he yelled. "How could you do that to me?" He picked up a heavy paper weight and crashed it down on the desk. He was in a perfect rage. "Well, say something," he goaded.

"There’s nothing to say," said Mairin, finding her voice at last. She was shaking.

"There damn well is something to say. You owe me an apology."

"I suppose I do, for not telling you. But I’d do it again to prevent a kid from getting sandbagged."

"You damned social workers, you bleeding-hearts. . . . You’re lucky you’re not being fired for this. If you were a man, I might even belt you one." Through his rage, Bob thought of something. "You figured that, didn’t you? That you could get away with this. Bitch." He spat that out.

Mairin’s head moved as though she’d been slapped. So, Bob thought, that’s the right approach. "You bitch," he said again.

"Oh no," said Mairin, "no. If you can’t be civil, we will not discuss this." She turned to leave. She was shaking, and she knew her voice had trembled.

Bob Jeffries took one giant step around his desk, grabbed her arm and spun her around. "You’ll take your medicine Just like anybody else. You damned bitch!"

Mairin tried to pull away from him. Bob held her arm even tighter and shook her. "You’re not going to run away from this."

"I didn’t expect to ‘get away with’ anything. I knew you’d be angry, but I prefer to discuss this civilly."

"There is nothing civil about this," said Bob. "I want to hear from your lips that you’ll never do anything like this again."

"I’ll try not to," she said.

"Goddamn it, that is nowhere near enough." He shook her arm again. "What are those tears?" he asked, as snottily as he could. "I don’t want to see you playing the weak female. You were strong enough to set me up."

"The tears are because you’re breaking my arm," said Mairin.

Bob caught himself, let go of her arm, and noticed the red marks where his fingers had dug into her arm. "Get the hell out of here," he said.

Mairin went home. She went straight home. Bea and Harry were out. She went right to her room and cried and cried and cried. All the anger, all the rage, all the memories that they brought back, came out in tears. It was so unnecessary. It was a game. It was a trial lawyer’s game. "Take your medicine," Bob had said. The medicine was getting yelled at--stomped on--she had to see the anger, that was part of the ritual. They knew they were at an impasse, but instead of sitting down and talking civilly, there had to be pyrotechnics. Once the tears had ended, the tiredness was overwhelming. The next thing Mairin knew, it was ten at night. She got up and went into the living room.

"Jesus Christ," said Harry. "I didn’t know you were here."

"I was really tired so I fell asleep," she said on her way to the kitchen.

"Come back here," said Harry, "something’s wrong."

She came back and sat down on the couch beside him. "I had a rite of initiation today," she said. "I did something that wasn’t very palatable to Bob Jeffries, and he kicked my ass."

"What was it?"

Mairin told him.

"You should have told Bob," said Harry.

"I suppose so," said Mairin. "But then he would have had the time to pull something to neutralize the situation."

"Your heart’s really with the kid, isn’t it?"

"Yes," Mairin nodded. She was rubbing her arm. It still hurt.

"What’s the matter?" Harry asked.

"Oh, I hit my arm on the dresser."

"You bruised it," said Harry, reaching over and taking her wrist to look. "Funny how those bruises look like the dresser grabbed you." His voice was flat.

"Bob grabbed me and shook me a little when I tried to leave his office, but it’s okay. I don’t think he had any idea of how hard he was holding me."

Harry grimaced, but nothing more was said.

For the next two weeks Bob ignored Mairin. If he saw her in the halls he gave no sign of recognition. The grapevine had been buzzing. Kate popped into Mairin’s office. "I hear you put one over on Jeffries," she said.

"I don’t know if that’s how I’d put it," said Mairin. "I didn’t mean it that way. That’s just how the situation resolved itself."

"You’re lucky you’re still here," said Kate. "Clerks have been fired for less."

"I have noticed secretaries get the axe routinely," Mairin said.

"Yeah, well, that’s one way of taking out anger," said Kate. "So how does it feel to have your butt kicked by an expert?"

"My butt is sore," said Mairin.

Jeff Royer came in. "Jeffries is making me do the next two juveniles myself. You’re really in the doghouse. What happened?"

Mairin told him. "I don’t understand, though," she said. "He’s punishing me by making you do the juveniles. I don’t get it."

"He thinks you like the juveniles," said Jeff. "Get it?"

"Got it," said Mairin. That s.o.b., she thought.

Even Sylvia stopped by to commiserate. "You’ve got balls," she said. "There is no way that I would have done that. No way."

"I wish I hadn’t had to," said Mairin.