Marsha’s smile drops and she looks tired of me. “No, I don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe. We can talk about your brother too, maybe I can help, but we need to start with you.”
Marsha continues to talk and her ramble leaves me time to stare out the window, enjoy the speed of the freeway and the bay spread out endless, cut up only by the bridge as we make our way toward downtown, closer to the water than any route I normally take. I think back to the interrogation room, the metal, what might have come out of my mouth after all those hours, when I just wanted to go home to Trevor.
Every time I look over at Marsha, I want to move farther away from her, climb out the car window, and dive right into the water. Never really been this close to a white lady before and been expected to believe what she’s telling me. It’s not that she doesn’t look trustworthy; she’s got nice eyes, they move a little too much and she’s kind of erratic, but more like how Trevor gets giddy after we win a couple games in a row and the bets add up, enough to pay a bill or two. Marsha probably never thinks about her bills, just wants to feel like she’s winning, leveling up, buy herself a second car.
She flips on her turn signal to exit the freeway. “When we get back to the office, you’ll need to sign some things so we have attorney-client privileges, contractual agreements. Then we can discuss the details of your case. Generally, I work as a defense attorney, however, at this point, you aren’t looking like the defendant. I can guarantee you’re going to need a damn good lawyer, though, with the crap they’re already pulling, you can expect this might get messy. It’s high-profile, or will be, and we’ll need to be extremely careful about appearances. From now on, everything you do, you discuss with me.”
At that, I press my body against the window. “I didn’t ask for none of that,” I say, breath fogging against the window. “Just tryna help my brother.”
Marsha continues to use her hands while she talks, letting the steering wheel drift for a moment or two before she catches it again. “Nobody ever does. If you don’t want my help, I can’t promise you won’t be the defendant in a couple months, weeks, days. Like I said, I can try to help with your brother too, but nothing I say is going to do anything if you don’t listen to me.”
I don’t get nothing out of being in opposition to Marsha, so I keep on looking out the window and wait for her to pull into the parking lot of a giant office building. We’re in Jack London Square, the coldest part of the city, right on the water. She opens her car door and I open mine, follow the click of her heels through the maze of cars to the building’s entrance.
She takes a key out from her purse and unlocks the door, holds it open for me. There’s a security guard sitting at a desk, chewing on a toothpick. He gives Marsha a wave and she says, “Good to see you, Hank.” Hank blushes on the spot and spins side to side in his chair.
Marsha makes a beeline for the elevator.
“We gotta take this thing?” I ask, flurry exploding in my chest at the thought of being trapped in another metal box.
Marsha looks back at me, blond hair flip. “You’d rather walk up six flights of stairs?”
I know she thinks it’s a rhetorical question, but I don’t mind a little sweat if it means the freedom of my own two feet.
“You the one wearing heels,” I say. She stares at me like she’s confused, like she’s trying to decipher my face. Then, she removes her shoes, leaving only her stockings covering her feet, and carries them toward a door beside the elevator. It opens into these concrete stairs that don’t look like they belong in such a corporate building.
Marsha lets me proceed in front of her, mostly ’cause I think she expects me to give up by the second flight. I don’t. By the time we hit the sixth floor, Martha’s thin hair is damp and her foundation is dripping. I’m huffing, but not any more than I would after a scrimmage with Trevor. Marsha says she needs to stop on the landing and I watch her collect herself, pull a tissue out of her bag, and dab every inch of moisture she can capture.
Marsha’s not only short but she’s tightly packaged, got these muscular shoulders that hide beneath her blazer until she removes it in her sweat. If you didn’t know better, you might think Marsha works out, some kind of casual gymnast, but the muscle is really just her natural frame and I doubt she’s seen a gym since college.
I crouch down, just so my knees can have a break, rest my arms on them and look up at her. “I really gotta be home soon, we gonna get this over with?”