LITMIR.BIZ

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called back to him. “Maybe she can make you shrimp and linguine.” I was all the way down the big stone steps outside before I shook my head and let myself laugh aloud.

      “Sam again?” asked a voice from behind me.

      I turned to find Grace Simkanian on my heels. Grace was also my neighbor. She lived one floor up from Sam in a one-bedroom unit she shared with Jenny Tower. They had to buddy-up to afford the place. Jenny was a waitress and Grace clerked for one of the criminal court judges. Law clerks are paid worse than volunteers, but they have very bright futures.

      “Sam again,” I agreed. I matched Grace’s stride and we headed for the municipal lot. I always gave her a ride home when I was in court in the afternoon.

      “When are you two going to stop fighting and start clawing each other’s clothes off?” she asked.

      My stomach lurched hard and suddenly. “There’s a ridiculous notion.”

      “Ah. Clawing is beneath you.”

      That stopped me in my tracks. Grace headed on to my car without me.

      “I claw,” I protested finally, shouting after her.

      Grace stopped at the trunk of my Mitsubishi and looked back at me. “When? Tell me the last time you even considered it.”

      I caught up with her and unlocked the trunk, and we tossed our briefcases inside. “Let me think.”

      “This will take a while.”

      The hell of it was, she was right. I was coming up empty. I hadn’t had a date in six weeks and even then, Frank Ethan—the last guy—had definitely not been the clawing type.

      “Well,” I said finally, “I could claw if I wanted to.” Then I frowned. “Why are we even discussing this?” I asked.

      “Because I think you should be clawing with Sam. He’s got the look of a man who’d be good at it.”

      There was that action with my stomach again. I was starting not to like this conversation. “Sam isn’t interested in me that way.” I wondered who he was seeing tonight, if it was the same voluptuous blonde from Monday.

      “You’re touching your hair again,” Grace said. “What’s that all about?”

      I dropped my hand fast. “What?”

      “Whenever you talk about him, you touch your hair.”

      “I do not.” Then I thought about it. As I’ve mentioned, Sam has a strong preference for blondes. Specifically, he likes blondes with a lot of hair. Mine is short and black. I have that kind of face, with small features. Anything more would overpower me. I have that kind of life. I’m a single parent. I don’t have time to fuss with voluminous layers.

      My headache chose that moment to come back with an extra punch. “If you’re that impressed with Sam, then why don’t you claw with him?” I asked her.

      Grace shrugged. “I scare him.” She’s sleek, sophisticated and sharp as a tack. She says what’s on her mind and she makes no apologies for it. She’s a stunning woman with reams of dark hair, a flawless dusky complexion, and the kind of figure that stops men dead in their tracks. Then they get to her mind, and that usually backs them off. At least it does if they have any sense.

      “He tried to snuggle up to Jenny once, though,” Grace said.

      I frowned. This was the first I’d heard of it. Jenny is a sunny blonde transplanted from Kansas.

      “What happened?” I asked.

      “Nothing. He scares her.”

      I nodded, understanding that, too. Jenny is waiting for Mr. Right. The last time I checked, her list of prerequisites had not included good-hearted wolves like Sam.

      I opened my car door. “I want to go home now. I’ve had a long day.”

      “Let’s go to McGlinchey’s, instead,” Grace suggested. Jenny worked at the bar there and would be getting off at five-thirty.

      I looked at my watch and decided that I really didn’t want to cook shrimp for two tonight after all. I took my cell phone out of my purse. “If Mrs. Casamento can keep Chloe an extra hour, then I’ll go.”

      Grace settled into the passenger seat. Grace doesn’t sit, she settles. It’s a kind of gentle floating-down with her. Men tend to be very appreciative of the phenomenon.

      I made the call to the baby-sitter as I got in the car with a little less finesse. Sylvie Casamento keeps me on a short leash even as she laps up the money I pay her. Sam says it’s her express purpose in life to ensure that no one she knows enjoys anything. No one except Sam, that is. Most women adore Sam, and Mrs. C. is no exception.

      I got the okay from the baby-sitter, but not without a lot of aggrieved and chastening sighs over the fact that I might—heaven forbid—have a good time. I started the car. When I turned out of the parking lot, Sam was just stepping into the street. I stomped on the gas to pass him before I was tempted to run him over.

      McGlinchey’s was mobbed, as it usually is at that hour. The bar was crammed with enough bodies to rival a New York subway at rush hour. I was still trying to explain my feelings about clawing to Grace as we squeezed past a knot of people in animated conversation. They, too, were lawyers.

      Philadelphia’s legal community is incestuous. Don’t get me wrong—we all know how to draw lines in the dirt and keep to our own side of them. Favors are owed, calculated and warily exchanged, but that occurs during regular business hours. The rest of the time, it’s sort of a family affair. Many of us have, at some point in time, been married to a handful of the others. For example, Chloe’s father is an attorney here in the city, though I pride myself on the fact that I had the good sense not to go tying any knots with him. But the bottom line is that everyone seems to know everyone else’s personal business, and they talk about it.

      As I shoved my way through the crowd, I saw too many considering expressions on faces I recognized. Here’s Mandy, those expressions said, and she’s with a female friend again.

      I never considered myself exempt from the storytelling, but I did think I knew what they said about me: She’s more interested in her career than in men. Chloe’s father started that one. His name is Millson—Millson Kramer III. If he were going to be honest, he’d tell you that he was actually relieved when I refused to marry him. He was just “doing the right thing” by asking me in the first place. Right after Chloe was born, he suffered a hiccup of conscience and tried to make things neat and legal and tidy for all of us. I declined his offer, and that, of course, looked bad for him, so he saved face by informing Philadelphia’s legal community that he had tried his best but that I was a cold and brittle workaholic.

      I’m pretty sure that Frank Ethan—the last date I’d had six weeks ago—contributed to Mill’s version of Mandy Hillman when I declined to go out with him a second time. There have been a few others like Frank over the years who’ve failed to excite me, so no doubt they’ve all tossed their two cents into the pot, as well. But I’m not cold. I just like my own company. And your perspective on these things changes when you pass that milestone of turning thirty-five, which I had just done. You don’t need to claw quite as much.

      “When you’re in your twenties, you’re just seized by all the possibilities,” I tried to explain to Grace as we waded through McGlinchey’s clientele. For all her jaded world-wisdom, Grace is only twenty-six.

      Someone nearly spilled a drink on her, and she curled a lip in the man’s direction. He apologized profusely. “What possibilities are those?” she asked me.

      “Sexual. Life advancement. Societal compliance.” We finally reached the bar. I had to raise my voice to order. Then we began trolling for a table, each of us armed with a glass of Chardonnay.

      At McGlinchey’s, this is a game not unlike musical chairs. The trick is to be near a table when the inhabitants stand to go. It took us twenty minutes, but we managed

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