The Ballerina's Stand

“Two years younger than me. Thirteen,” Dylan answered in sign and speech.

Lauren’s hands moved quickly, making the boy laugh. “Lauren says, going on thirty.”

“Ah.” Jason got the gist. A young, probably just blossoming, pretty girl if she had the same smooth features as her brother, wanting to taste freedom. Wanting out of a foster home.

Jason had read the whole report and still had several questions. He reached for the keyboard, and typed. “Where are your parents?” He hated asking, but it was part of the whole equation.

“Mom’s dead.” The boy’s eyes shone for an instant, but he quickly recovered as if he’d learned to shut it off fast. “Dad’s got another five years. Armed robbery.”

Lovely. Jason wondered which had happened first. Another whiff of perfume made him glance over at Lauren. What she was thinking? He was usually good at reading people, but she was tough. Partially because there was a bit of playacting in her signing, an emphasis for the words’ sake. Right now, she was frowning. And since her hands weren’t moving, he was pretty sure that was her true displeasure.

“How do you know Lauren?” he typed.

“She’s my teacher.”

“Teacher?” After pulling back, he looked back and forth from Dylan to Lauren. “Ballet?”

Dylan nodded, and his face, which was much easier to read, glowed with defensiveness. Jason understood that. The kid had probably had to defend himself many times, to many people.

“Is he any good?” He pointed at Lauren after the words appeared on the screen. “Like you?”

She fought the smile, but not before he saw it. She nodded and signed something. Dylan grinned. “She says I’m better.”

Whether that was true or not, Jason couldn’t miss the fondness in her eyes and the pride she let shine on the boy.

Lauren signed as Dylan nodded. “She wants to know if you’re a patron of ballet. Have you seen her perform?”

“Once.” Jason’s gaze met hers and the wonder of that night returned. Time stretched out.

Needing a bit of distance from Lauren and the feeling she stirred, Jason paced around his desk and went to the windows to stare out at the hustle and bustle of the city far below. What the hell must it be like to live in foster care in LA?

He’d lost his father when he was young, but he’d had his mother, and older siblings who were definitely stand-in parents.

He couldn’t imagine being practically alone in the world as a kid. In the reflection in the window, he saw Lauren and Dylan signing back and forth. For a second he felt excluded, which made him wince. He wondered how many times they’d felt like that on a day-to-day basis.

“Okay.” He faced Lauren so she could read his words. Watching closely, he hoped he could tell if she understood. “I don’t do criminal law.” When she frowned, he lifted a hand. “I have colleagues here who do. Let me do some research.” He pulled out a card and grabbed a pen. He wrote on the back. Bring your foster parents with you. Come back and I’ll help. He added his signature so they’d know it was legit.

He handed the card to the boy, which brought a smile to his young face. He nodded and made a gesture cupping his hand from his jaw to his chest. “Thank you,” he said in accompaniment.

Then Jason faced Lauren. She was making the same gesture and smiling at Dylan. She signed quickly and Dylan answered, then faced Jason again. “She thinks my foster parents will be glad.”

Jason lifted his hand and, for one last question, he used his rough finger spelling. “Tina?” He made the question mark in the air as he’d seen Lauren do earlier.

The boy’s face fell. “She’s mad at me. But she came home. Should she come?”

Jason slowly nodded, a look of what he hoped was resoluteness on his face. Lauren signed. “We’ll try,” Dylan said.

That’s all he could ask. As they stood and turned to leave, Jason took a step and reached out to touch Lauren’s arm. She looked back with a questioning frown. Jason tapped her file on the desk and held it up. “We need to discuss your inheritance.”

She stared at the file. She put her hands together, then moved one forward in front of the other an inch or two.

“She says later,” Dylan explained.

Lauren’s hands moved quickly again, and Jason’s frustration returned.

“What?” Jason asked.

Dylan’s movements in sign were fluid, perfectly in sync with his words. “She says if you keep me out of jail, she’ll consider it.”

That was it? Even he could read the message in her body language—she wasn’t asking him. She was telling.

Reluctantly, Jason nodded and tried to imitate her gesture for later, then slowly created O-K. He must have been close, because she smiled and the boy laughed.

Jason walked with them to the elevator, feeling strange not speaking the normal, polite conversation his mother had beat into his thick skull, but they seemed comfortable.

The metal doors whooshed open to reveal a startled Susan, a cup of coffee in one hand and cardboard cup holder with three paper cups nestled tightly in the other. “Oh.” She stared at them.

“For us?” Dylan asked, his eyes bright.

“Hot chocolate for you, young man,” Susan said, not bothering to notice they couldn’t hear her. She pulled one cup out, skillfully not spilling anything, and handed it to the boy. She turned to Lauren with a frightened look on her face, as if she knew she’d screwed up earlier, but didn’t know how to not do it again. With a tentative smile, she offered the coffees.

Not to be outdone, Lauren peered at the cups and chose one, making that same scooping gesture Jason now knew meant “thank you.” She took a sip of the sweet drink, and Jason found his gaze glued to her slim throat as she swallowed.

Susan cleared her throat.

“Uh, yes. Thanks, Susan,” Jason said.

Lauren and Dylan stepped into the elevator and waved as the doors closed. Jason fought the urge to jump in behind them.

He didn’t say a word, simply grabbed the last coffee and headed back to his desk. He did not want to know what Susan was thinking.

“New client?” She sipped her own drink as she stood in the doorway.

“Uh, sort of. She’s not new. The boy is.”

“Uh, what kind of business does he own?”

Jason looked up at her, not appreciating the speculation sparking in the woman’s eyes. “It’s a different type of case.”

“Really?”

He wasn’t explaining himself, certainly not until he understood what the hell he’d gotten himself into. “Check out sign language classes for me, would you?”

She actually looked surprised. He glared at her, not liking what was most likely going through her head, though it was probably fairly accurate.

“And sign us both up.” Jason sat down at his desk and rearranged the computer setup, trying and failing to put his world back to the way it had been before Lauren Ramsey had walked in.

* * *