Page 54 of Flirting with Forever

“Uh-huh.”

She studied the faded photos of which haircuts they offered up in the window. She pointed to one of the photos. “Is that the one you get?”

He laughed. “I don’t actually choose from these photos. I just sit my ass down, pay the man fifteen bucks and leave when he’s done.”

She turned and studied his hair. John did everything he could not to shift on his feet, not to mess around with his hair. “It’s a nice cut,” she finally decided.

“Probably not the most fashionable way to wear my hair,” he said, although he wasn’t sure why he did.

She gave him a funny look, kind of like the one she’d given him when he’d first seen her that morning. Nervous, a little confused. “You don’t care about that, do you, John?”

“No,” he answered honestly. “It’s important to me that I look presentable. But no, I’m not readingMen’s Voguein my spare time.”

She laughed. “Men’s Vogueis not a thing. And you always look very nice. Presentable. Your haircut isn’t trendy, but it’s classic. Never goes out of style.”

He cut a look at her colorful dress, looking like it was just seconds from having been unwrapped from a department store bag. “You’d tell me if I start to look out of style or out of date?”

She cut a look back at him. “If you want me to.”

“I want you to. How I look is important in that it’s one of the main things that a jury assesses about me. At least at first. I have to strike a balance.”

“You want to look like you take the whole thing seriously, but you also want to look like you’re on their level. Not above anyone.”

“Exactly.”

They jogged down to the train and rode in companionable quiet. When she started fiddling with the zipper of her overnight bag, John had to fight the urge to take her hand in his. “You all right?”

She sighed. “I’m just sick over my shop. It took me so long to get it all fixed up just the way I liked it.”

“We’ll get it back to the way it was, Mary.” And as soon as he said it, he knew he wasn’t spinning a false hope. If he had to come by the shop after work every day for six months, he’d help her restore things.

“It’s not that, really.” She fiddled with the zipper more. “It’s more that I’m trying to figure outwhyit happened. It doesn’t even seem like anything was stolen. It’s just this meaningless destruction.”

She was zipping her bag an inch open and then closed over and over, and John just gave in to gravity. He reached over and took her nervous hand, sandwiched it between his two palms.

“I don’t know what happened with your shop, Mary, but as a lawyer, I’ve had the opportunity to get into the minds of a lot of people who’ve done a lot of things.” He sighed. “Have you ever seen a little kid stomp on a tulip? Or kick over someone else’s sandcastle? Or have you ever seen someone smash a glass when they were angry? Sometimes it’s just as simple as that. Again, we don’t know anything yet about what happened or who did it, but I know that you might never have an adequate answer for why. Sometimes people just need to destroy something.”

Her hand pivoted between his palms and her fingers laced with his. Suddenly, John wasn’t just riding the train with Mary. He was speeding underground, every one of his fingers touching every one of Mary’s with his other hand cupped over top, protecting this moment from the rest of the world.

“But they were coming up to my apartment, John. They kicked open the door right as the police got there. Were they—” She cut off for a second. “Were they coming for me?”

She was asking him if she was the something beautiful that was next on their list of things to destroy.

“Mary,” he said carefully, turning on his seat so that he held her eyes as well as her hand. “I thank God that I don’t ever have to know the answer to that question. Because the cops came, and you’re safe here now. If they catch the people who did this, if they see their day in court, you might get some of your answers. But I really think it’s important to concentrate on all the things that did happen instead of all the things that could’ve.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you responded correctly. You called the police, the police came and protected you and your shop. And now the cops do their job and you do yours. We move forward, get things back on track. That’s what we can control.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “And if they catch the guys, then some defense attorney will do their job. Maybe even a public defender like you.”

He fought off a wince. The system, all societal systems really, was so broken that oftentimes John felt his clients to be as much victims of circumstance as were the victims of the crimes in question. But there Mary sat, her store a smashed ornament on Court Street. “Mary.”

She shook her sunny head of hair. “And that’s the way it should be, I suppose.” She sighed. “If they weren’t defended, I might always worry they were wrongly convicted. And that’s even more unfair than having your shop destroyed for no reason. I just want the right thing to happen. But nobody knows what the right thing is, do they?”

John blinked at her. She didn’t want vengeance, he realized, the way so many victims of crimes wanted. No. She wanted justice.

She fell quiet and leaned her head back against the metal wall of the train, her eyes closed. She tightened her grip on his hand and John did the same. How could he make this woman feel safe again? How? A new door would help logistically, but he knew that this was so much more complicated than just getting a new security system installed. This was about Mary having faced something very ugly and trying to fit it into how she understood the world.

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