Chapter 1.3
“Buy you dinner, all right? We’ll celebrate our first successful outing in Family Court.” Thomas wasn’t much of a cook and usually ate dinner at Asqew Grill, Zona Rosa, or Kan Zaman Café when he had a taste for something Middle Eastern, all on Haight and a short walk from the office. But tonight he wanted to go someplace special, maybe Massawa, an Ethiopian spot in Lower Haight with incredible honey wine and vegetable samosa to die for. If they got there before six, they wouldn’t need to call ahead for reservations.
“Celebrate? We haven’t won,” Evelyn said, “yet.” Her grin was infectious, and her voice musical. She said something else, but the blat of a car horn cut her off. The driver leaned on it until it keened in a continuous tone like a siren, and the pickup right behind started honking to add to the dissonant cacophony.
Thomas closed his eyes and unsuccessfully willed the ruckus to pass. They stood in front of the courthouse waiting for the Golden Gate Transit bus. Holder had paid a large enough retainer—the most money the law office had ever taken in since he’d hung his shingle—that Thomas could have rented a limo. He’d nearly done it, too, wanting to arrive in style to show Evelyn what a successful practice looked like. She’d come to him from a small, desperate firm that had closed its doors at the death of its senior partner last year. The partner hadn’t come back from the grave … only a rare percentage of folks did that.
Thomas had been quick to approach Evelyn with his sorry offer of a part-time job when he’d heard the news. He’d tried a case against her the year before. Well, she’d been the legal assistant at the opposing table, but he knew the work had been hers. She accepted, saying she didn’t want a full-time job because she was taking a pretty heavy class load as she tried to finish up her law degree. She was an excellent student. Most of the time, it seemed like she knew the law better than he did.
A police car crawled by, flashed its lights, and the honking marathon subsided. Traffic unsnarled and the line started to move. An old Buick, more rust than paint, chugged by, back windows cracked open and a rap song spilling out—the driver apparently wanting everyone to share his choice in music.
Then the bus pulled up and Thomas courteously waited for the others who had gathered. He and Evelyn got on last and found two open seats in the middle. They were used to public transportation. He thought again about that limo when a teenager who’d gone too long without a shower and with blue jeans hanging more than halfway down his hips walked the aisle and shoved flyers at each of the riders. Thomas folded the Day-Glo orange sheet and stuck it in his pocket without bothering to read it.
He’d noticed an OT two seats behind him, the fellow looking more than a little bit like a troll doll with thick, stubby limbs, a wide face, and a pug-like nose. The other passengers stared, and a few rudely pointed fingers. Thomas, curious but respectful, quietly pulled out his iPhone and did a search on the Internet. It was a creature he wasn’t familiar with, but with a few keystrokes on an OT encyclopedia website (with Silicon Valley so close to the abundance of OTs in San Francisco, it was no surprise there was an app for that), he discovered that his fellow passenger was a bungaya. San Francisco had a sizeable Asian population, and according to the website this OT was Japanese. The definition read:
Bungaya, or Kijimunaa, rare except in Okinawa. Japanese sprite that takes the shape of a short, young boy with bright red hair, sometimes seen playing with fire. Known for harmless pranks, they were first sighted in the tops of Okinawa’s banyan trees. They fear octopi, enjoy sport fishing, and prefer to eat seafood.
In the aisle across from him, two middle-aged men held hands. Thomas glanced at Evelyn. Her hair gleamed like molten copper in the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows.
He adored her. It hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning it was all professional. It was still professional, but lately there’d been a little more to it—lingering glances, fingers brushing, occasional dinners together after work, a few concerts in Golden Gate Park, standing closer than necessary and sharing each other’s breath. He knew she felt something too, a mutual attraction that neither had yet been willing to take any farther.
Evelyn caught him looking at her. She’d been reading the flyer.
“A concert?” he asked, pretending to look at the sheet in her lap. It was easy to see over her shoulder; she was about a head shorter.
“I suppose there might be music. It’s a revival at Saint Agnes Church.”
Thomas was familiar with the church, a one hundred and twenty year old Roman Catholic monument that drew gays, straights, and OTs. Called “the last chance church” by those in the Haight-Ashbury district, it boasted a large library that he’d visited several times.
“Do you want to go?” Thomas knew Evelyn was Catholic and that she sometimes stopped at Saint Agnes’s. “Dinner at Massawa and then—”
“I can’t.” She blew out a breath, fluttering the curls against her forehead. “You know I can’t. Class tonight, admiralty.”
“That’s right. Thursday.” Thomas concentrated on his cases so much that sometimes what day it was eluded him. She had classes Tuesday and Thursday nights, Monday and Wednesday mornings, and into the afternoons.
“Dinner would be nice.” The smile reached her fog-gray eyes. “But I’d better not skip class. There’s only six weeks left in the semester, and the bar exam is coming up in February. I need to pass it on the first go. I don’t want to wait for the August testing.”
He had no doubt that she’d pass. And then how could he afford her after she got her law license and could work full time? Would she go elsewhere? Some firm that would pay her what she was worth? “So dinner tomorrow then?”
“Tomorrow.” She nodded. “Been ages since I’ve been to Massawa. And it’d be good to celebrate.” She gently squeezed his arm.
Thomas turned to watch the middle-aged couple, not wanting Evelyn to see his broad grin. He thought about taking a peek over his shoulder to get a better look at the bungaya, but worried that might be rude. He got his look, though. When he and Evelyn got out at the park stop, the bungaya got out there too, but sauntered off in the opposite direction doing an odd soft shoe shuffle step.
The park stop was a little ritual when it wasn’t raining. There was one stop closer to the office, but Thomas enjoyed the brief walk, and the temperature was agreeable for the first of November, a balmy sixty-five. It was forever interesting to see who was in the park … sometimes mimes—a few of the regulars were quite good; often panhandlers that Thomas refused to encourage; frequently saxophone buskers who took requests; and always a smattering of colorful folk, a few of which weren’t quite human.
Then there were the buildings along Haight Street that he often paused for moments to study. He never tired of looking at them, not just from an architectural standpoint, but to see the merchant displays, and to be pleasantly surprised by the scattered renovations in progress with the old Victorians.
After graduation from Stanford, and opting to follow his heart and avoid his father’s firm, Thomas had purposely looked to hang out his shingle in this neighborhood. He liked the aura of the place; the “vibe” as residents from a few decades past would have called it. And he appreciated the lower rent. While he didn’t have any college loans to pay off—thanks to his father and a few scholarships—he had only a little savings to throw at this venture.
He and Evelyn crossed the street and headed toward the law office, passing a fruit vendor and a trio of girls playing hopscotch in front of a thrift shop. The law office was just down the block.
“I really feel for Holder, you know,” Evelyn said. Her gaze was cast downward, no doubt so she could watch for the uneven blocks in the sidewalk. Thomas knew the sidewalk by heart. “Not able to see his kids? I think that’s just horrid, Thomas. I want him to win, us to win.”
“It’d be good to make a difference, wouldn’t it?” Thomas really believed that. He wanted to make a difference—for the better—for the Other-Than-Human element in this crazy world. And he was beside himself that Evelyn shared his vision. He knew she’d been a little skeptical at first about this particular case, actually worrying if Holder’s children would be bothered by seeing their father as a ghoul. But she was the one to find the studies about children being more nonplussed than adults around the undead and more accepting of oddities and alternate lifestyles in general.
The office was a long, narrow, three-story brick building on the corner. It dated to 1905, the year before the big earthquake. This entire neighborhood had somehow avoided the fires that followed the quake and had consumed more than eighty percent of the city. There were two sections on the top story where the bricks had noticeably shifted, either from that quake or the not-as-big-rumbler in 1989, not jeopardizing the structure, but giving it a hair more character. One of the quakes had also taken down a corner gargoyle, leaving one that wasn’t especially obvious, but the stony protrusion made the old building a little more interesting.
The law office was on the first floor. An apartment occupied the second and another on the third, the latter of which was Thomas’s. He liked the notion of walking up and down three flights for a little extra exercise, and he liked going out onto the roof. The basement was an earthen crawl space where he kept cartons of soda and bottled water for the office fridge. Cozy. But more to the point it was within his budget. If he got more cases like Holder’s he might be able to rent—or buy—better digs. But something in this neighborhood. This place beat with a rhythm found nowhere else. Hell, maybe he could buy this building if the landlord would agree to let it go.
“See you tomorrow,” Evelyn said, disrupting his musings.
She was standing close to him, her lilac cologne teasing his nose, and there was a hint of strawberries remaining from the fruit salad she’d had at lunch. He could get drunk on the scent of her. He should kiss her now, he thought, as he leaned in.
For a moment it looked like she would oblige, tipping her face up, the setting sun making her hair look like liquid fire. But a rust bucket trundled past and coughed up a backfire. The moment lost, Evelyn turned and headed toward the side door that led to the stairwell. She rented the second floor apartment from him.
“Have fun in admiralty,” Thomas said.
If she said something in reply, it was lost in the sounds of the traffic, which had picked up as people headed home from work.