Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I make no profit from them.
Rated: PG
Author's notes: Lucy Atwater first appeared in The Gift of the Magistrate. Kathy Kasternack is One of the Girls from Accounting.
Liz sent Kathy to New York in Love and Loving, but, hey, I'd like to think if she was really good, she'd have gotten to come back eventually. Lynn gave us the Law Center (though I fudged the name a bit, out of forgetfulness) and Joyce, the secretary, is on loan from her as well.
Many thanks to Cheri, who started the beta even before the ink was dry.
Second Chances
By L. M. Lewis
The first week in December Mr. McCormick brought a wreath and hung it in the front waiting room. A day later it was joined by a tree, beneath it, in the corner—only three feet tall, and artificial, as a concession to fire safety laws, but a cheery addition. Joyce, the secretary, put the Christmas cards up on the wall behind her desk.
Otherwise, unfortunately, it was business as usual at the Law Center. If anything, the air of desperation seemed to be rising a little as the holidays approached. "You've got to help me—" "My husband—" "If you could only—"
The strain had begun to tell. Mr. McCormick was not quite so quick with a joke and she missed his grin. The truth of it was, the judge had been right, when he'd said, with a touch of concerned asperity, "He just hasn't learned to say 'no' yet."
She tried to screen the calls somewhat. If it could wait, a few weeks even, but mostly things couldn't, and by the second week in December, neither man was coming up much for air. She'd even taken over ordering lunch for them, and a day when they left before seven was increasingly unusual.
But it was five-thirty, Friday afternoon, when Judge Hardcastle emerged from Mr. McCormick's office, the younger man more-or-less in tow. He'd announced to Joyce, on the way past, that they were closing up shop for the evening, please put the answering machine on and make sure she was keeping track of all of her overtime.
"We'll be back Monday," the judge said emphatically. "Have a nice weekend, Joyce." This last bit was delivered with a wink and a smile, as he continued to nudge the other man toward the door.
A Lakers' game, most likely, Joyce thought, as she unplugged the lights on the tree, and made sure the phone was set properly. And then a nice quiet weekend. It'll do them both a world of good.
00000
"You'll see," Hardcastle said confidently, as he climbed in the passenger's side of the truck, "you'll have a good time."
"Yeah? When was the last time you had fun at one of these charity things?" McCormick stifled a yawn as he started the engine.
"Well, this one is for Lucy, and she invited us special, so we're gonna go and we're gonna have a good time."
"I really think she deserves the award," Mark nodded, "no questions. She's done a ton of good for those kids down at Safe Harbor, but I kinda wished we'd maybe told her we'd take her out to a Lakers' game, not one of these fancy things, with the shrimp cocktail and the swans carved out of ice." He shook his head briefly. "What the heck does any of that have to do with being a humanitarian?"
"Well," Hardcastle said in a practical tone, "the shrimp and swans give the upper-crust types an excuse to dress up and thank Lucy Atwater for doing all the stuff they don't think they have time to do themselves, and then the next time she needs to replace her copy machine, maybe one of them will remember who the heck she is, and fork over the dough."
Mark nodded again. This part he understood. The Nancy Hardcastle Center for Community Law was fairly awash in red ink most of the time, and kept solvent only by a continuing inflow of support from a small circle of contributors, chief of whom was the guy sitting next to him.
"And us?"
"Oh, we're on Lucy's team." Hardcastle smiled. "She's gonna need a little moral support."
Mark smiled. He understood this, too, having been thrown into enough social occasions like this to know just how many bad ways there were to land.
"Okay," he said with weary acquiescence, "just let's not stay till the last swan melts. I got some stuff to go over tomorrow."
This got him a smile and a nod. "No problem there. Just lemme know when you wanna leave."
00000
Despite his protestations to the contrary, McCormick had begun to move through these events with increasing proficiency over the past year. He had a certain following among silver-haired dowagers of a charitable bent. They were evenly split between those who saw him as rather attractive black sheep, and the ones who believed he was in need of maternal guidance. He accepted both points of view with an almost uncanny sense of which was which. Usually it was the judge who had to pry him loose from his coterie of admirers.
This time, though, he sat down almost at once after they arrived at the hall. Hardcastle did the necessary mingling, watching his protégé with one eye and wondering if tonight might have been a bad idea. Your timing's off. This would have been easier if he'd gotten a decent night's sleep at least once this week.
He swung by the hors d'oeuvres table and filled a small plate, then wended his way over to the table. He put the food down, close enough that McCormick would get the idea that it was intended for him.
"You should see the swans. Very nice," he said, nudging the plate a little.
"Did you see Lucy yet?"
"Not yet, I think they have her holed up getting some pictures taken with the big-wigs," Hardcastle said cautiously. He hadn't made much of an effort to track her down, being just a little worried that once Mark had had a chance to extend his congratulations in person, he'd start angling for the door. "She might not get much chance to mingle until after the chicken cordon bleu. Lots of other people here, though."
Mark grimaced.
"Mrs. Emmet asked about you. So did Mrs. Jenkins." This last one got a small smile.
"Not tonight, Hardcase," Mark sighed. "I promise next time I'll be good. I'm just not up to being the poster child for personal reform right now. I'm tired, and I'm going to say something stupid." He managed to twitch another smile.
"You think that's what everybody sees you as?" Hardcastle couldn't keep the tone of surprise out of his voice. "Huh," he went on, "most of 'em don't know you, or they figure you're just another sharp young lawyer—"
"I'm not young, Judge," he interjected wearily, "at least not tonight."
"Younger than most of them," Hardcastle continued, undeterred by the increasing note of pessimism. He was scanning the room, and, yes, as at most of these events, the dominant hair color was gray. His eyes went on searching for a moment more, and finally drew back down to the man next to him. "And, anyway, the rest of 'em, the ones who do know you, don't give two hoots about all that other stuff. They like you. Every time I run into Judge Jenkins he asks about you."
Mark was smiling a little pensively now. "I told ya, Judge; it's just me. I'm tired." He reached up and rubbed his left temple. "But thanks for the hors d'oeuvres. Hey, do these little corn-on-the-cob things have a name?" He held one up and studied it briefly before he popped it into his mouth and munched thoughtfully. He was obviously making an effort at changing the subject.
"You mean besides 'those little corn-on-the-cob things'? Not that I know of." Hardcastle knew when to play along. He scanned the room again, looking mostly in the direction of the door, where the new arrivals were congregating, half wondering to himself what exactly he'd been thinking when he'd seen her name on the board of directors of this particular charitable organization.
And that was the thought that was interrupted by her arrival, looking slightly harried, like a woman who'd barely had time to make the transition from her business clothes to something suitable for an evening out. She was unaccompanied, that much he'd been fairly sure of, having pumped Lucy Atwater herself for all the available information.
And Mark quite clearly hadn't seen her yet, his eyes still dwelling morosely on the middle distance of the room. And then, almost as if he had become aware of some increase in tension in the man next to him, Mark glanced over sharply at him.
"What?" he asked, frowning.
"I didn't say anything," Hardcastle replied, trying to look not-guilty as hell.
Mark's frown persisted, then he was scanning the room himself, with the strange perceptiveness that comes from knowing someone well enough to know when something is up.
His eyes must have skated over her unseeing for a moment, then recognition a second later, and then a long second look.
Not a word. And then he was staring back at the judge, hard.
"What's she doing here?" he finally said, in a tone that indicated he knew the judge knew more than he did about it.
Hardcastle managed a shrug, though he knew it wouldn't hold up to any deep analysis, and he'd already made up his mind that he wasn't going to lie. He pulled the letter of invitation out of his inner pocket and unfolded it, holding it out for McCormick, who slowly took it and studied the contents.
In small cursive typeset, near the bottom of the list in the left-hand border, was her name, last on the board of directors. Mark closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and handed the letter back.
They both knew he hadn't asked to see the invitation before, not for this event, not ever that Hardcastle could remember. On the other hand, it might have come up in conversation, but it most definitely hadn't.
"When did she get back from New York?" He said, with the full expectation that Hardcastle had already done his background check.
Again a shrug, but he freely admitted, "I talked to Lucy. Turns out she knows Kathy's mom. Mrs. Kasternack was active in charitable work even before her husband died last year. She's getting up there, might be why Kath came back. Now her mom's trying to get her to take up the slack. And you know most of these groups could use a smart young accountant."
He'd kept this little recital very matter-of-fact, a tone which did not obscure the obvious conclusion, that she'd made no effort to inform Mark of her return, hadn't been in touch at all.
"Maybe I don't want to see her," McCormick said, along with the unspoken she probably doesn't want to see me.
"Well, you know how it is," the judge addressed himself to the unspoken question first. "She probably felt a little awkward, didn't even have any way of knowing if you were otherwise engaged." This got a brief snort from the younger man.
"Judge," he exhaled, "in case you didn't notice, she walked out on me four years ago."
It was Hardcastle's turn to frown. "She had a good job offer. Wall Street and everything. Can't blame her for that. And you were always saying to her, 'Look, I'm Tonto; I mow lawns. I'm an ex-con.' What was she supposed to think?" Hardcastle shook his head. "But now you're not. You're a smart young lawyer."
"I'm not young."
"Neither is she anymore."
He locked stares with McCormick for a minute. Mark broke away first, putting both hands on the edge of the table and pushing himself up slowly, as if gravity had become a burden. He was looking across the room again, to where Kathy had been taken up by a small group of other women, all appearing unattached.
"All right," he begrudged, "I'll go say hello." He carefully arranged his expression, moderately cheerful.
He stepped back and around the judge then walked away in a measured stroll. For one moment his course seemed off, and Hardcastle thought he'd lost his nerve but, no, he'd merely steered aside a bit to intercept a waiter with a tray of champagne glasses. He lightened the man's load by two.
Dutch courage, Hardcastle smiled to himself. And a nice sense of style.
He watched Mark's approach, from a little off to the side, so that she was taken unawares until he presented the glass. A look down, a look up, and she was smiling the same cheerful, open smile that Hardcastle remembered. She could make him very happy, if she doesn't break his heart.
No risk, no gain.
And then they were caught up in talk, and pulling away from the others. He saw an occasional gesture in his direction. Full and frank disclosure, no doubt. Hardcastle smiled, and moved off into the crowd himself, thinking he'd have another look round for Lucy.
00000
It was barely a half-hour later that Mark caught up with him again.
"Listen," he began hesitantly, "I hate to duck on you, but maybe you could make my apologies to Lucy when you find her?"
The judge's eyebrows rose only a notch in question.
"Yeah, well, Kathy's had a rough day—a rough week; she's been making a lot of the arrangements for this. Now that everything's in motion, all she wants to do is go somewhere, put her feet up, and take a couple of aspirin. She knows Lucy will understand." Mark smiled in an attempt at casualness. "I was going to drive her home. Her car. I'll leave you the truck. I can catch a cab home later. You okay with that?"
Hardcastle tried not to look too pleased. He nodded soberly and said, "Sounds like a plan."
00000
He also kept his eyebrows down the next morning. At least the kid had gone through the motions, changing out of his tux, and into jeans and a t-shirt, before making an appearance in the kitchen of the main house, even though the cab had pulled in a little after dawn.
"Up early," Hardcastle said, in perfectly flat innocence without even a hint of humor. It was just too good to resist. Actually, he concluded, after a quick glance up from his paper, the guy looked pretty well-rested.
"Hmm." Mark was reaching for a coffee cup as he dropped two slices of bread in the toaster. "Kinda dozed off at Kathy's, I guess we were both tired." He managed to say this at least as innocently as the judge's remark. There was a long pause and then, "I'm gonna run over there later on."
He hadn't exactly made it sound like a date, more like an appointment. Hardcastle merely nodded again in acknowledgement.
"She's back in LA for good she says."
Another nod.
"Already has a job and everything."
The judge didn't want to intimate that he wasn't being told anything he didn't already know. He kept his response to a subtle, 'Oh?"
This appeared to be all the encouragement McCormick needed. He pulled up a seat at the table. "She says she hated New York, the weather the . . . people." He was smiling now. "She wanted to give it a fair chance, though."
He turned and stood for a moment, snatching the toast out as it popped up and juggling it onto a plate. He sat down again. "I should've written to her. I don't know why I didn't." he reached for the knife and the butter. "She thought I was mad at her and . . . and she figured I'd probably found somebody else by now."
"Well," Hardcastle shrugged slightly, "four years and all."
"You know," Mark took a bite, chewed, swallowed, the smile turning a little pensive, "she doesn't have a lot of self-confidence."
"Really?" Hardcastle said, blandly.
"But she is so . . . nice." And there was something in the way that he'd said this last word, that made it sound like a very desirable thing. "And smart, too," he added, fondly.
"And handy with a shotgun," Hardcastle replied absently, and then almost immediately wanted to bite his tongue, recollecting, a moment too late, what Kathy had been forced to do to save Mark's life.
"Oh . . ." The kid's face had frozen. "I never really got her to talk about that. Not then." He'd blanched a little. "I don't think I really understood what it was like for her."
Not till you had to do it yourself, Hardcastle thought. Something else you've got in common.
The silence that followed got a little heavy. Finally the judge said, gently, "Well, it's not too late to fix that."
Mark looked up sharply. "No, you're right. It's not something that goes away." He looked at the piece of toast in his hand and then set it down. "But you can deal with it."
After a moment he sighed. "So, anyway, maybe later on I'll bring her by here, maybe you want to go out to dinner with us?"
"Me?" Hardcastle smiled, "I'd be a fifth wheel."
"You'll be an old friend. She wants to see you, too."
He's doing this slowly. And there could be only one place, Hardcastle thought, that 'slowly' could lead to.
"Sure," he smiled again. "Dinner. Maybe Barney's Beanery?"
00000
Monday morning, the two of them came into the office together, and Joyce was pleased to see that her predictions had been correct. A nice Laker's game, a weekend to relax, and Mr. McCormick looked nearly back to himself.