blond and at least five inches taller than himself. The latter fact, as he had explained to me over a working lunch shortly after we both joined the firm, was because all the fun was sure to be over once he decided to grow up and settle down with a nice Persian virgin.
Meanwhile, the fact that he weighed roughly 100 pounds with his pockets full of lead, in a town full of men who looked like walking G.I. Joe’s, probably had nothing to do with his need to have the latest cell phone, the newest Maybach, and the pimpin-est table at any club he ever set foot in. But Jonathan was good at what he did, we looked out for each other when the workload got too steep, and the demonstrated depth of his family values had long since mitigated some of my revulsion at the double standards by which he lived. Also, he was a good ally to have within the firm because something about his playful smarminess seemed to make our two-timing clients feel at home. Jonathan, clearly, would make partner.
“Anyway, that doesn’t mean I’m with you on this home-remedy stuff, Cassie,” he elaborated. “I could’ve done without my grandmother spitting into her hand and rubbing it onto my cheek all the time.”
“Are you wearing a pink shirt with that suit?” I squinted at him.
“Daniela said it brings out the color of my eyes,” he defended himself.
“Since when does pink bring out brown?”
“I know, I know,” he admitted, shaking his head. “I have to break up with her.”
“Hmm, I’ll get some bottled water for your office anyway,” Cassie reassured in the most serious of voices. “So you’ll have it handy in case you find yourself starting to dry up, that is.”
“Oh, gross.” Jonathan winced. “Is this a woman thing?”
“No, it’s not a woman thing, you troglodyte. It’s a superstition thing.” I shook my head, averting my eyes with a grin. “Anyway, Cassie was on her way out, so you and I should get to work.”
The problem with acknowledging another woman’s envy is that it implies you actually believe you are somehow superior. And I never saw any reason for Stefanie to envy me. She was attractive, intelligent and a formidable future litigator in my opinion. And when we had first arrived at the firm I had imagined we would be friends. Or at least convivial colleagues. Boy, did I have a lot to learn back then.
Cassie noticed my smirk. “What did you do at that meeting?”
“Nothing. I brought everyone up to speed on Cameron and Lydia’s case.” I saw her perk up like a puppy that had caught a whiff of kibble. “And I don’t plan on telling you anything about it, so scoot.”
She whimpered, which would have been annoying coming from anyone else. But since she had started working with us a year before, Cassie had become the little sister I never had. The one with the heart of gold. And the poor taste in men. And the sick fixation on every detail of the personal lives of celebrities. Naturally, it made the opportunity to work at Steel both completely irresistible and supremely frustrating for her.
“Need-to-know basis, babe.” I continued, “And you don’t need to know the specifics of their relationship. We’re lucky we can even tell you who the clients are.”
“Fine. But sometimes this attorney-client privilege stuff goes too far.” She air-parenthesied the words in protest. “Besides, I’m practically family.”
“Don’t let Niles catch you saying that.”
“That I’m family?” She looked hurt.
“That we ought to share privileged information with family,” I corrected. “Because believe me, Sheila never hears word one.”
“Sheila’s only your cousin, Monica. I’m the one who knows all your dirty little secrets,” she teased on her way out the door, oblivious to Jonathan’s eyes sparkling. “And that makes me closer than family.”
Once she was gone, Jonathan swiped my marked-up copy of the Camydia division-of-assets proposal off of my desk. He made himself comfortable on my couch, propped his feet up on the coffee table and started scanning through the notes I had made in the margins.
I seized on the chance to check my e-mail once again. Still no messages from Raj.
“Don’t worry so much, Monica.” Jonathan peered over his memo. “Whatever these dirty little secrets are, I’m sure we can have them taken care of. I know a guy.”
“I don’t have dirty little secrets, Jonathan,” I said, scowling. “I have a…problem. And I don’t think it’s anything Bruno can help me out with.”
Bruno was one of those wannabe Hugh Hefners littered across the California basin who made local news for depressing real estate prices, erecting neon signs and waving freedom of expression banners everywhere he went. His was the first case Jonathan and I worked on together, and when he came to us he was convinced that his eighteen-year-old stripper wife, Claudia’s refusal to keep dancing at his club meant that she was cheating on him. Yes, the strip-club owner was worried that the stripper was cheating on him. In much the same way as a dog owner worries that his dog might be licking itself while he’s away. I, for one, was shocked.
Before breaking the news of the impending divorce to his wife, Bruno came to us to find out how much it would cost him. Although he could have gotten the same advice for a cheaper price from any of our lesser-profiled competitors who catered to the rich, if not-so-famous, Bruno, like so many others who worshipped at the altar of celebrity, needed desperately to believe that his life mattered to the general public, and was therefore worthy of Steel-strength confidentiality.
At one point, after yet another grueling day of poring over his convoluted tax returns, Bruno invited us over to the club for some drinks. Rather than offending the client, I went along to The Cinnamon Lizard for just one drink, and then made my escape on the premise of an early appointment with my personal trainer. Honestly, I hadn’t seen that much purple neon lighting since the weekend I spent in Atlantic City. The next morning Jonathan informed me that our client’s real name was in fact Eugene Bronstein. A good Jewish kid from the tree-lined suburbs of Massachusetts, Eugene had moved to Los Angeles to reinvent himself after the collapse of his career as a stockbroker and the failure of his first marriage to his high-school sweetheart.
Emboldened by all those shots of Jim Beam, Bruno had decided to brag to Jonathan about the sophistication of his entrepreneurial operation. He gave him a personal tour of the two-story building that housed the most popular of his three strip clubs, located just off Sunset Boulevard. Below street level there were two additional floors, containing an X-rated bookstore, private lap-dance suites, bachelor party rooms, six-person showers surrounded by one-way mirrors, peep shows and even a carpentry shop where Bruno’s artisans built and repaired the peep show booths on site. None of these ancillary sources of income, it turns out, had been mentioned anywhere on Bruno’s tax returns.
According to Jonathan, their conversation had turned (as I’m sure that it so often does amidst flying G-strings, plentiful rhinestones and women whose breasts refused to shake when they did) toward religion. Being Jewish himself, and a devout temple-goer, Jonathan knew what he had to do. Somehow, before he arrived at work wearing the same suit and reeking of smoke and other people’s misery the next morning, Jonathan had managed to help a drunken and reluctant Eugene Bronstein see the ungodliness of trying to bilk Claudia out of her share of his empire.
Over the next few weeks, we worked out a private settlement that took good care of Claudia while sparing Bruno the ugliness
