Swan Dive

tape showed the situation from an angle I hadn’t had in person.
    Nancy said, ”You’re studying it, aren’t you?”
    I kept my eyes on the screen, the station rolling the footage in Sam Peckinpah slow motion. ”Yes.”
    ”Why?”
    ”To see if there was anything I could’ve done, anything 1 missed.”
    ”So you’re better next time?”
    ”In a manner of speaking.” The program dissolved to a commercial. ”Think it’s crazy?”
    ”Yes. And no, I guess. I do the same thing after a trial, whether I get a conviction or not. I rerun the case in my head, to see if I can spot something I can use again. What I can’t see is how you can do it when you were so emotionally involved.”
    ”I can’t explain it in words. It’s more like I don’t feel the emotion now, the incident separates from the lesson.”
    Nancy nodded, but I think less from being persuaded than from wanting to close the subject. To avoid her own similar memories of a wintery night in the graveyard around the corner. Instead she came over to me, resting her head on my shoulder.
    I said, ”You know, you’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years.”
    She moved her face very slowly, left to right, nuzzling me softly just above the collar. ”I’d like to be more than that.”
    I tilted my head back just enough to see her. Bangs of short black hair and freckles sprinkled just right against a field of widely spaced blue eyes. ”If our luck holds out, I think you’re going to be.”
    ”Would the smart money be on tonight?”
    I sighed, and Nancy went back to my neck, where she pecked me once and said, ”I didn’t think so.”
    ”Nance—”
    ”No.” She pulled away, a little sheepish. ”I’m sorry, I keep doing that. I meant that no, I understand. I was just looking for a status report, not trying to put on any pressure.”
    ”I know. And I appreciate it.”
    She put both her hands on my shoulders and squeezed. ”Boy, I just hope we’re both worth waiting for.”
    We laughed. I said, ”How about dinner tomorrow?” A frown. ”I can’t. I promised a friend of mine from New York that I’d fly down on the shuttle tomorrow afternoon and stay the weekend with her.”
    ”Monday then?”
    ”Sounds great.”
    ”I’ll pick you up at your office, and we can eat at Locke Ober’s.”
    ”Percy Plunger. Are we celebrating?”
    ”Anticipating.”
    She smiled. ”Make it about six-fifteen. Whenever I break away early on a Friday, things pile up.”
    After the network news, I kissed Nancy goodnight and drove home to the eight-unit brownstone on Beacon Street . I parked my Fiat 124 in the assigned space behind the building, the lamp pole’s light supposedly discouraging the car strippers that are a constant of downtown living. A couple of years ago, our state legislature passed a Home Defense bill, which basically gives a resident the right to shoot an intruder who the resident believes might cause serious injury or death. Now some of the gentry wanted a Blaupunkt Defense bill, which would allow the owner of a BMW to shoot any thirteen-year-old breaking into the car for the radio. I wouldn’t bet against it.
    Walking around to the front of my building, I got my mail from the entrance foyer and climbed the stairs to the condo. My landlord, a doctor on a two-year residency program in Chicago , had decorated the place with Scandinavian Design furniture. In daytime, the pieces were cheerily set off by the ultraviolet rays flooding through the seven living room windows. Now, however, I had to use the lights.
    My home answering machine glowed one message in fluorescent green-on-black. I rewound the incoming cassette while I called my office answering service. The service said a friend of mine from college, a lawyer in Peabody , needed to speak with me. He was on the tape too as it replayed.
    ”John, Chris Christides. Jeez, I hate these things, you know, you never know how much... Anyway, they had you on the news, from the courtroom thing again. I’m in kind of a tight spot with one of my cases tomorrow, and I’d really appreciate your giving me a call tonight, anytime. Thanks.”
    I hadn’t seen Chris in maybe four years. He was a third-string offensive guard on our Holy Cross team back when ability and heart meant a little more than size. He was only about five nine, but at two hundred he hit like a bowling ball with legs, blocking on sweep plays and specialty teams. Dialing his number, I thought also, and painfully, about his