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Cat drops to her knees, right there in the middle of the floor, sits cross-legged, and after shoving her long blonde hair behind her ears, starts reading one of the openings. She’s only about halfway through and she crumples it and tosses it over her shoulder. God, I love this woman. She grabs another and Elsa and Richard start debating new ideas I tune out. This isn’t working for me and in ten minutes Cat obviously agrees as she’s tossed all ten openings back into the pile of tossed paper balls.
“Let’s appeal to the child in everyone,” Richard says.
Cat starts to stand and I catch her arm, helping her to her feet, her eyes meeting mine. “Can we step into the kitchen?” she asks.
I give her a nod, and we leave Richard and Elsa in heavy debate. Once we’re in the kitchen, we do as we always do when we debate, her on one side of the island and me on the other, both with our hands on the counter. “Tell me,” I say.
“You know what your problem is?”
“Like I said, tell me.”
“You prepare brilliant opening statements. You. Alone. I don’t even help you beyond listening to the final product and offering a tweak here or there.”
“Well in advance, and I don’t have that luxury now.”
“You don’t have the luxury of doing it any other way. Nothing I just read was you. Unless you need to work on additional prep, I think you should send them home and do this your way.” She glances at the clock on the stove. “It’s only six, Reese. You could spend the next four hours, working on this, and still get a good night’s sleep to be fresh tomorrow.”
I thrum my fingers on the counter. She’s right. I push off the island and walk into the living room. “You two, go home or somewhere else. I need to do the opening statement on my own.”
A few minutes later, they’re gone and my wife points up the stairs. “Bedroom. That’s where you pace, while I write, and magic is made.”
I grab her and pull her to me. “You’re the magic.”
“You were magic in the courtroom when I met you, Reese. I watched you work your magic on a jury while you worked it on me right along with them.” She takes my hand. “Come on. You start to work and I’ll order dinner.”
Three hours later, we’ve both changed into sweats and we’re now sitting in our favorite spot, the couch in front of the window in our bedroom, eating pizza, and I’m feeling so much relief. Thanks to Cat centering me, I have one hell of an opening statement all but a few tweaks from ready for tomorrow’s trial. “When can I hear it?” Cat asks for the third time.
“Soon,” I say, taking a bite of my pizza.
“I can’t wait,” she says, picking a green olive off her pizza and setting it aside. “I love reading your openings. I love watching you deliver them even more.”
I frown. “You aren’t eating the olives? You love olives.”
“They taste funny.” She motions to the pizza. “Taste one.”
I laugh. “They taste funny so you want me to eat it?”
She crinkles her nose. “Probably not a good idea the night before your trial.”
I shut the pizza box and set it on the floor, pulling her leg across my lap. “This is where I proposed to you.”
“Yes. It was. I remember being naked when you set the ring on my stomach. I love that part of the story even though I can’t exactly tell it.”
I caress her cheek. “Two years, Cat.”
“Going on three.”
“And in those years, we’ve been inseparable.”
“I like that about us.” She frowns. “You like that about us, too, right?”
“How can you even ask that? You know I do.”
“Then why do I feel this is leading somewhere?”
“Because it is. I know you, Cat. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing bad,” she says. “In fact, something good now. I have a secret project that I’m working on and it wasn’t going well. I had a breakthrough.”
