I swear I can see her turn to stone, her whole body going rigid: knees, spine, shoulders, face. She stands taller, swallows hard, white-knuckles the stem again.
“Football,” I remind her and offer my arm. “Vacations. Kids.”
She gives it a suspicious look and pushes up her glasses with her free hand, but she takes it.
“Right,” she says. “Thanks.”
We walk back into the main room. Her hand is warmer than I expected.
* * *
Of course Elmorewants to make a speech before we sit down to eat. He’s allowed, of course; it’s his house, his food, his wine, and his parlor or sitting room or whatever he calls it. He’s already started talking as Kat and I enter the room and stand in the back. There are maybe ten other people here, and at least two turn to look at us when he comes in.
Kat may as well be an ice sculpture.
“…so the judge looks at him, sittin’ there in the witness box like he’s just seen a frog jump out of his mouth, and looks at me feeling about the same way, and before I can so much as think of a response he says, ‘Counsel, please control your client,’ and we keep going.”
There’s a polite sprinkle of laughter through the room, and I stop listening. I learned a lot of things in the military—some valuable, some practical, some ugly—but if you’d told me at age eighteen that the skill I’d use the most at thirty-eight was the ability to stand still and stare straight ahead for any length of time, I’d never have believed you.
I use it now, until I hear my name.
“…who decided last-minute to grace us with his new lady friend,” he’s saying, and he nods at Kat and I, standing in the back.
Every head turns, and I swear even the air around Kat goes brittle, like if she moves it might all shatter. Her hand isn’t on my arm any more, so I put mine on her back, smile and lift my glass. I think of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park who could only see something if it moved. Maybe I can distract them.
“We’ve all been quite eager to meet this mysterious young lady,” Elmore goes on. “Glad you’ve finally brought her around.”
I keep smiling, tamp down a quick thump of anger.
“I wasn’t sure I wanted her to know I worked with lawyers,” I say, and I can hear my accent shine through, like I’m imitating Elmore. They all laugh politely, because no one likes lawyer jokes better than lawyers.
“Well, now you’re good and found out,” he says. “Welcome, Miss Narumoto.”
Her spine goes even straighter under my hand as I open my mouth to correct him.
“Nakamura,” she says instead, voice pitched high, not quite loud enough.
He leans in, frowning, bends one ear forward with a finger.
“Sorry?” he says, pleasantly enough.
I can hear her swallow, see the tendons in her neck like cables.
“Nakamura,” she says, louder this time.
“Namukur—”
“Nakamura,” she says, slow and loud, the air around her practically vibrating.
Elmore smiles, then gives the tiniest of shrugs.
“What she said,” he says, and there’s a rustle of agreement and laughter as he brushes this off. “I’ll get it sooner or later, you just make sure she sticks around, all right? Anyway I won’t keep you all any longer, dinner is served.”
Kat takes a long, deep breath. Ten feet away, Linda sights us and starts heading over with her husband, waving one hand decked with rings.
“That’s Linda and her husband Chuck,” I tell Kat, keeping my voice low. “She’s got three grandkids and—”
“I can’t,” she says suddenly, her voice a harsh whisper like she’s breaking a spell. “Sorry—I just—give me a—”
She doesn’t get the sentence out before she crashes to the floor, upright one second and gone the next. The wine glass she was holding smashes and Kat yelps and Linda gasps and I’m already kneeling down, one knee on the carpet and one off, heel stuck in the pile, Kat twisted funny on her hands and knees over the broken glass—
“Fuck,” she gasps, and then she’s up and gone.