Her Best Defense

“Mind talking to you? Of course not. But you might have to yell to be heard over this bunch.”

“I’ll lean in a bit more,” he said and did exactly that, putting his mouth very close to Lisa’s ear. “There’s a birthday party for Faith Unser tomorrow night. I know you know her and I thought you might like to go with me. It’s being held at John and Rita Bryant’s apartment. You’ve met them, haven’t you?”

Lisa gave a slight nod. “Yes, we’ve met. Sure, I’ll go with you.”

“How about I give you a call tomorrow and we’ll firm up our plans? It’s pretty hard to talk in here.”

“Good idea.” She smiled as Grant straightened up, nodded and walked away.

“Now, pray tell what that was all about,” Pamela said with a raised eyebrow. Madeline was all ears, too, Lisa saw. “Grant is quite a hunk,” Pamela added. “How long has this been going on?”

Lisa laughed. “Nothing’s going on, so put your wild imagination back in its cage.”

“A man whispering in a woman’s ear is nothing?” Pamela’s left eyebrow was still higher than the right.

Lisa playfully decided to let them all wonder about Grant. Even the men at the table wore expressions of downright nosiness, which brought out her devilish side.

“I never talk about anything that a man whispers in my ear,” she said with a teasing little grin. “That’s just the way I am.”

“Well, I can pretty much guess what it was, so there!” Pamela shot back.

“Taken up mind reading, have we, Pam?”

“You’re incorrigible. You know you’re going to tell me all about it sooner or later.” Pamela turned to the others at the table and began relating a joke.

Lisa chuckled to herself. She had unwound beautifully with one glass of beer and some laughs. The Pub was good medicine for a hardworking attorney who had spent most of the day in a courtroom, winning her thirteenth consecutive case.

Lisa was home shortly after nine. Home was a renovated town house, circa 1920, and she loved it. It was the most significant purchase of her life. After moving in, she had spent a lot of time and money on personalizing the two-story, long, narrow building with its small but wonderful backyard.

In the foyer, she set her briefcase and purse on the ancient library table she’d run across in a secondhand shop and fallen madly in love with—she was a sucker for furnishings from past eras—stepped out of her high heels and took off her suit jacket. She loved the smell of her home, a combination of old wood, furniture polish, her favorite perfume and something she couldn’t positively identify but liked thinking as her unique scent.

Shoeless, Lisa went into the kitchen, took some cheese and fruit, which she figured would do nicely for her supper, from the refrigerator and then returned to the foyer for her briefcase. She left her shoes and jacket to be put away in the morning, whereupon she went upstairs to the small room she used as a home office. Seated at her desk, she took a bite of cheese and dialed her mother’s telephone number. Claudia Caputo answered at once.

“Hi, Mom, what’s up?”

“Nothing new, honey. Another day, another dollar.”

Lisa had long ago formed the habit of calling her mother every day. They both looked forward to their daily chat.

“I won in court today,” Lisa said.

“Of course you did.”

“I’m not always going to win, Mom.”

“Well, if you don’t, you should have.”

“Always on my team, aren’t you?”

“Always, honey.”

“I dropped into The Pub for a drink with the gang,” Lisa said. “And a guy asked me to go to a birthday party with him tomorrow evening. What do you think of that?”

“Is he young, handsome and sexy?”

“Mom!”

“Well, for heaven’s sake, why would you want to go out with an ugly old coot?”

Lisa couldn’t help laughing. “He’s young and good-looking, but sexy? I don’t know about that.”

“You’d know, believe me, you’d know,” Claudia said dryly. “You knew with Bobby, didn’t you?”

Lisa had married Bobby Jensen while they were both still in college. It hadn’t lasted; he hadn’t been able to keep his pants zipped around other women. She had kept her married name for no particular reason and sometimes wished she hadn’t as it was an unneeded reminder of Bobby. Legally changing it back to Caputo would be a pain at this late date, though. She was Lisa Jensen to Chicago’s legal community, and Lisa Jensen she would remain.

“Yes, I knew with Bobby,” she said quietly. “And so did every other woman on campus. Mom, I’m going to say goodnight. It’s been a long day and I’m beat.”

“All right, honey. Get a good night’s sleep. Talk to you tomorrow.”

Lisa hung up and finished eating her fruit and cheese while staring off into space. She hated thinking about her short-lived marriage, she really did. For one thing, Bobby’s overactive libido and almost constant infidelity had left her extremely cautious with other men. She believed with all her heart and soul in total faithfulness between committed partners, and had to wonder—from firsthand experience—if there was such a thing as a man who felt the same way.

“Oh, to hell with it,” she muttered, getting up from her desk, turning out the light and going to her bedroom to hit the sack. She hadn’t lied to her mother about being beat; she was asleep shortly after her head hit the pillow.

It was May, pleasantly warm during the day and chilly at night. Not consistently, of course. Chicago was known for its erratic weather, and at this time of year it could be hot and sunny one day and snowing the next. Lake Michigan was beautiful to the eye, a fabulous playground for water and beach enthusiasts, and essential to Chicago’s commerce, but it could stir up a dilly of a storm in the blink of an eye. Lisa enjoyed the good weather when it came along and endured the bad without complaint; it was, after all, Chicago, and she loved the city.

Thursday dawned sunny and bright, making Lisa feel especially good. Arriving at work around eight, as usual, she stopped at the reception desk to pick up yesterday’s phone messages and mail from Madeline. They chatted a few moments about last night’s fun at The Pub. Then Lisa put herself into work mode.

“Thanks for these, Madeline.” Lisa eyed her mail and messages. “Looks like a load of work here.” With her briefcase in one hand and the stack of items Madeline had just given her in the other, Lisa walked down the hall to her office.

She left her door open, as was her habit, and was getting settled at her desk when the intercom line on her telephone beeped. “Lisa Jensen,” she said after hitting the Speaker button.

“Just checking to make sure you were there. Mr. Ludlow is on his way down to see you.” The caller was John Ludlow’s private secretary, Audrey Muldaney.

“I’ll be here,” Lisa said. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence for a senior partner to visit the sixteenth floor, but it happened often enough that Lisa wasn’t at all uneasy about the meeting. She tidied her desk a bit and waited. In mere moments, she saw Ludlow walking toward her office. When he entered, he shut the door behind him.

“Good morning, Lisa,” he said.

She stood and smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Ludlow. Please, have a seat.”

“Thank you, I will.”

Ludlow was a tall, gaunt-looking man well past sixty. He no longer did trial work, but his reputation from former years, Lisa had learned, was that of a brilliant litigator, a real tiger in court. Given his present soft handshake and nonabrasive personality, Lisa had trouble picturing him as a tiger at anything.

But he was always polite and pleasant around the firm, and Lisa liked him. They sat down and Lisa waited for him to speak, which he did with little pause.

“I’m sure you are well aware that the firm in general, and I personally, appreciate your intelligent approach to the many intricacies of the law. There are a lot of good attorneys, some of them right here in this firm, but only a few of the mass rise to the very top of the heap, like cream in a container of whole milk.” He smiled. “That analogy harks back to my youth, as I grew up on a farm. Lisa, I believe you’ve been proving right along that you’re one of the chosen few. In time, you’ll be a full partner in this firm, but I’m sure you already know that.”

Lisa’s heart skipped a beat. “I’ve been hoping, sir.”