The Sourdough Wars

telling me because he wanted to be nice and wanted me to know, but maybe he was using the information as a bribe, to get back in my good graces. The point was, I didn’t want to talk to him, and when you got right down to it, I couldn’t.
    I put on a brick-red dress—the closest thing I had to a spring outfit—and drove the old gray Volvo to the office, looking forward to a comforting chat with Chris. Instead, I got “Jailhouse Rock.”
    I kid you not. When I opened the door to my office and walked in that fine Friday morning, I heard Elvis crooning his lungs out.
    Kruzick was sitting at his desk, hands folded angelically, smile beatific, eyes Mephistophelian. “You’ve had two phone calls,” he said. “One from the United Prisoners Union and one—”
    “Alan, you’re dead! You are marked, you are condemned, your days are
numbered
, do you understand? I made some very nasty contacts in that jail, and I am now going to walk into my office and pick up the phone and arrange the contract you’ve been asking for ever since I’ve known you.”
    “What’s the matter, don’t you like The King? Hey, I made this tape especially for you.” He did something to the little black box on his desk that caused Johnny Cash to start describing conditions in Folsom Prison.
    In the old days, women fought off their attackers with their purses. Now we are professionals, and we carry the same weapons as men. I raised my briefcase.
    Alan raised his arms, looking hurt. “Hey, listen Rebecca, jail’s a learning experience, you know? Gives you time to contemplate your navel.” He did something else to the tape and Sam Cooke shared with me what his navel had yielded: something about sound effects on a chain gang.
    I slammed my office door on “gang” and deeply regretted leaving the paper at home—I wanted to scan the classifieds for a new secretary.
    No appointments were scheduled that morning, as I hadn’t been sure how long the divorce case was going to take to argue. As it happened, we’d wrapped it up the day before and it was under submission—in other words, we lawyers had done our parts and now it was up to the judge. So I had the morning free, unless you counted writs I ought to write, suits I ought to file, and clients I ought to reassure. But all that could wait till afternoon—I had a free morning, and my office felt like a prison (I ought to know) and it was a nice day, and I was going to go to I. Magnin and buy myself a pink outfit for spring. One cup of Alan’s hideous coffee and I’d hit the trail.
    But the phone rang. “Darling, how are you feeling?”
    “Fine, Mom. You can hardly see my bruise.”
    “You should see a doctor about it.”
    “Do you know any single ones?” I meant it as a joke, to get her mind off the bruise, but it was a big mistake.
    “Darling, I’m so glad you feel that way. That Rob is nothing but trouble.”
    “I was just kidding, Mom.”
    But she’d got her mind on what she’d got her mind on, and she couldn’t hear me. “Your father and I have never felt he was good enough for our Rebecca, and I’m just sorry it took your getting chucked in jail like a street thug to make you open your eyes.”
    “Mom, just because he’s only half-Jewish is no reason to condemn him.”
    What a thing to say to a Marin County liberal. “Rebecca, how can you hurt me like that! After the way you’ve been raised, how could you think a thing like that could possibly enter into my feelings?”
    “I don’t know, Mom. It just crossed my mind there for a second.”
    “Well, I think you should apologize.” She was crying.
    “Oh, I do! Listen, I’m really sorry, Mom. Don’t cry, okay? I didn’t mean anything.”
    “Rebecca, how could you say that to me?”
    “I didn’t mean to, Mom. I’m sorry.”
    “You practically called me a bigot.”
    “Well, Mom, I don’t think I really did, but, like I said, I’m really sorry.”
    “What would
make
you say a thing like that?”
    “Mom, I really don’t know. It was just one of those things.”
    “Maybe you should see a shrink.”
    “Good idea, Mom. I’ve got to go now—have to make the appointment.”
    “I just don’t see how you could do a thing like that.”
    “I’m not myself, Mom. I think I have raging hormones. Oops—Alan says I’ve got another call.”
    “Give Alan my love.”
    I really did have another call. It was Dad. “Darling, I’ve got your case all worked out. Jones won’t press charges against you if you