Household Gods

As she crawled down toward the interchange, she checked the KFWB traffic report and then, two minutes later, the one on KNX. They were both going on about a jackknifed big rig on the Long Beach Freeway, miles from where she was. Nobody said anything about the 101. She swung through the curve from the San Diego to the 101 and pushed the car up to sixty-five.

For a couple of miles, she zoomed along – she even dared to congratulate herself. She’d rolled the dice and won: she would save ten, fifteen minutes, easy. She’d still be late, but not enough for it to be a problem. She didn’t have any appointments scheduled till eleven-thirty. The rest she could cover for.

She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. Not today. Not with her luck.

Just past Hayvenhurst, everything stopped. “You lying son of a bitch!” Nicole snarled at the car radio. It was too much. Everything was going wrong. It was almost as bad as the day she woke up to a note on her pillow, and no Frank. Dear Nicole, the note had said, on departmental stationery yet, Dawn and I have gone to Reno. We’ll talk about the divorce when I get back. Love, Frank. And scribbled across the bottom: PS. The milk in the fridge is sour. Remember to check the Sell-By date next time you buy a gallon.

Remembering how bad that day was didn’t make this one feel any better. “Love, Frank, “ she muttered. “Love, the whole goddamn world. “

Her eye caught the flash of her watch as she drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Almost time for the KNX traffic report. She stabbed the button, wishing she could stab the reporter. His cheery voice blared out of the speakers: “ – and Cell-Phone Force member Big Charlie reports a three-car injury accident on the westbound 101 between White Oak and Reseda. One of those cars nipped over; it’s blocking the number-two and number-three lanes. Big Charlie says only the slow lane is open. That’s gonna put a hitch in your getalong, folks. Now Louise is over that jackknifed truck on the Long Beach in Helicop – ”

Nicole switched stations again. Suddenly, she was very, very tired. Too tired to keep her mad on, too tired almost to hold her head up. Her fingers drummed on the wheel, drummed and drummed. The natives, she thought dizzily, were long past getting restless. Her stomach tied itself in a knot. What to do, what to do? Get off the freeway at White Oak and go back to surface streets? Or crawl past the wreck and hope she’d make up a little time when she could floor it again?

All alone in the passenger compartment, she let out a long sigh. “What difference does it make?” she said wearily. “I’m screwed either way.”

She pulled into the parking lot half an hour late – twenty-eight minutes to be exact, if you felt like being exact, which she didn’t. Grabbing her attache case, she ran for the entrance to the eight-story steel-and-glass rectangle in which Rosenthal, Gallagher, Kaplan, Jeter, Gonzalez Feng occupied the sixth and most of the seventh floors.

When she’d first seen it, she’d harbored faint dreams of L.A. Law and spectacular cases, fame and fortune and all the rest of it. Now she just wanted to get through the day without falling on her face. The real hotshots were in Beverly Hills or Century City or someplace else on the Westside. This was just… a job, and not the world’s best.

Gary Ogarkov, one of the other lawyers with the firm, stood outside the doorway puffing one of the big, smelly cigars he made such a production of. He had to come outside to do that; the building, thank God, was smoke-free. “Nicole!” he called out in what he probably thought was a fine courtroom basso. To Nicole, it sounded like a schoolboy imitation – Perry Mason on helium. “Mr. Rosenthal’s been looking for you since nine o’clock.”

Jesus. The founding partner. How couldn’t he be looking for Nicole? That was the kind of day this was. Even knowing she’d had it coming, she still wanted to sink through the sidewalk. “God,” she said. “Of all the days for traffic to be godawful – Gary, do you know what it’s about?” She pressed him, hoping to hell he’d give her a straight answer.

Naturally, he didn’t. “I shouldn’t tell you.” He tried to look sly. With his bland, boyish face, it didn’t come off well. He was within a year of Nicole’s age but, in spite of a blond mustache, still got asked for ID whenever he ordered a drink.

Nicole was no more afraid of him than the local bartenders. “Gary,” she said dangerously.

He backed down in a hurry, flinging up his hands as if he thought she might bite. “Okay, okay. You look like you could use some good news. You know the Butler Ranch report we turned in a couple of weeks ago?”