Somehow, in the end, Amalia actually managed to have a quiet, restful weekend, and so this morning she was in a good mood. Part of that newly found state of grace was due to the fact that she had totally removed Judge Wyatt and his threats from her thoughts. After much careful deliberation, she had come to the conclusion that his threat to send her on community service could only have been a joke. I mean, come on, who would ever think of forcing a lawyer and an assistant district attorney to do community service? And together! She almost laughed at the memory of the hearing on Friday – okay, yes, it had been pretty humiliating, but at least she had managed to close the case, and not entirely without success: Liz Stubbs had emerged from the mess unscathed, not to mention that Amalia would now no longer have to reach an agreement with the District Attorney’s office. So, from now on, no more Ryan O’Moore, either in the courtroom or out of it. And that alone was enough to make the day look pretty damn good to her.
So when Michelle appeared in the doorway of her office she last thing she was expecting was to be given an official summons.
“Amalia, I’ve just received a really weird email from Judge Wyatt’s office. It has something to do with a few hours of community service? He probably thinks he’s being funny,” she said dubiously. “Anyway, do you know anything about it? I thought it was our clients who were supposed to do hard labour, not the lawyers…”
Amalia strode over to her secretary and tore the email out of her hand.
“You know how it is – all these judges think that they’re just born comedians.” She paused for a second to read the message, and almost passed out. “What?” she exclaimed in disbelief as she read on, “are you kidding me?!”
Michelle didn’t know what to do.
“Err… why is he sending you to clean up a park in the Bronx with a group of prisoners on day release?” she asked anxiously.
“Because we made him lose his temper in court on Friday,” Amalia replied, breathing loudly, “and so he decided to take his revenge like this…”
The secretary looked at her in puzzlement.
“Okay, but you? In the Bronx?”
Amalia’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
“I guess it’s his way of being funny. Well he’s got a pretty vicious sense of humor, the mean old coot!”
“And making you start at seven o’clock on Saturday? That’s just straight-up evil.”
“Thanks, Michelle, I appreciate the moral support,” Amalia said sincerely, still clutching the offending email in her hand.
So Judge Wyatt wanted to test them, did he? He probably expected that they would go crawling to him, begging him to let them off the cleaning up duty. Or at least, he probably expected her to: it was clear that Wyatt had been specifically trying to punish Amalia when he’d put together this unholy cocktail of dawn, the Bronx and cleaning the park in the ice and frost. Not to mention the company of the prisoners: even she had to admit that was almost a stroke of genius.
“So what are you going to do? Are you going to go?” inquired a dismayed Michelle.
“Do I have a choice?” Amalia asked her. “I never was a girl scout, but it looks like there’s always time to give it a try.”
*
Unlike Amalia, Ryan had not had a good weekend. He was exhausted after having to move city and he was still in a foul mood over how silly the hateful Ms Berger had managed to make him look. She was still the same spoiled, stuck-up snob, he thought angrily as he sat in his small office. Of course, having spent the last two days without being able to get her out of his head had made him even grumpier. He really had to remember to stay away from her. Miles and miles away from her, mentally if not physically. No more working on the same cases, no more arguments and above all no more of her damn face in his mind’s eye.
It was because he was so deep in his thoughts that Alex managed to take him quite by surprise when he walked into the office a few minutes later. Ryan was still sitting staring into space, trying in vain to concentrate.
“Excuse me – I did knock, but I’m afraid you didn’t hear me,” the young man explained when he saw Ryan almost jump out of his chair as he walked in.
“No, come in, come in – I was just thinking.” And you really don’t want to know what about, he added mentally. “Have you got something for me?”
Alex blushed slightly. “Uhm, yeah. An email from Judge Wyatt.”
“Give it to me,” said Ryan, getting up and taking the sheet of paper. He stood there reading the mail intently for a while before suddenly bursting out laughing. “What is this, a joke?” he asked, quickly becoming serious.
Alex found himself in obvious embarrassment.
“Erm, no,” he stammered, “it’s not, actually…”
“Oh come on – this is one of those tricks you play on the new guy in the office, right?” Ryan asked, this time more threateningly.
“I swear, Ryan, it’s no joke,” Alex answered nervously. “Putting weird stuff in your coffee is about as far as we go.”
The Assistant District Attorney glanced over at the as yet untouched cup of coffee on his desk and was forced to face up to reality: Judge Wyatt actually did intend to carry out his threat. And it hadn’t been any piddling little threat either. Five hours cleaning up a park in the Bronx on a Saturday morning with a group of cons – how the hell had he come up with such brilliantly mean idea? For a moment he allowed his mind’s eye to linger on the image of Amalia getting up at dawn and putting on her expensive clothes to go frolicking in the dirt. And he almost – almost – smiled at the idea.
“What do you want me to tell the Judge’s office?” asked Alex hesitantly.
“Nothing – except that I will be there.”
Despite everything, he wouldn’t miss this show for the world.
And anyway, that day really had plenty of room for improvement.
*
The Bronx had been cleaned up a lot in recent years, but Ryan was relieved to note that Amalia had nevertheless decided to take a taxi to the park. On Saturday mornings, New York tended to wake up slowly and at that time even the best-known streets were often still deserted. The Bronx, though, was the exception that proved the rule.
It wasn’t that he was actually worried or anything: it would have been against the rules to be worried ‘for her’. It was a perfectly understandable desire to avoid any unnecessary complications.
He arrived at the designated location only two minutes late, just as Amalia was getting out of the taxi – it was as though they’d synchronised watches, A-Team style. And there they were, just the two of them, standing outside the entrance to the park staring at one another pugnaciously.
Ryan noted with a hint of pleasure that Amalia had attempted to dress down for the occasion but had failed miserably: in fact, she was wearing an expensive-looking pair of close-fitting jeans that hugged her legs. How in hell did she figure she was going to be able to bend over with those on? He doubted she would…
And what she was wearing on her feet was no better: Amalia had abandoned her beloved six-inch heels and was wearing a pair of designer sneakers that, ok, were flat – but too flat, and too white too. For a job like this you needed boots, not fashionable footwear that would be covered in mud after ten minutes. Not to mention that the short jacket she was wearing might be fine for running errands uptown – jumping out of a taxi outside the office, say, or walking a few yards down the street – but there was no way in hell it was going to keep her warm for the next five hours. What had she been thinking when she got dressed that morning?
And that damned hair. Who the hell goes out to clean the streets without tying their hair up? Only someone who has never picked up a broom in her life, obviously.
It was the first time he had seen her with her hair down since he had come back to New York. Of course, he remembered how it looked from back in college, but luckily the memory was only a vague one which had started to fade over the years. What was now in front of him, instead, was no memory but a flesh and blood girl whose curly blonde hair swayed rebelliously in front of her eyes. Which, he had to admit, had returned to the color he remembered – their usual sapphire blue. Whatever had been wrong with her last week, she seemed to have made a total recovery. It annoyed him that he wasn’t able to decide whether that was a good thing or not.
“Are we the only ones here?” asked Amalia, looking around uncomfortably.
“Looks that way,” replied Ryan, not exactly pleased at the prospect of having to make small talk. After initially trying to avoid looking at him as much as possible, she eventually relented, observing with curiosity the difference in the way they were dressed. He was wearing an ancient pair of threadbare jeans and a winter jacket that looked as though it would really keep him warm. On his feet were a pair of hiking boots that would cope with any puddle or mud that he came across. He was deliberately dressed as someone who would soon be collecting garbage. No excuses.
Visibly taken aback, Amalia raised an eyebrow. The kind of men she usually hung out with would never have dared turn up in front of her dressed like some barbarian trucker. Ryan was no fool and knew that the clothing was important and for that reason was well aware of the transformation in him once he had abandoned the elegant suits that made him Mr Deputy Prosecutor.
“What do we do? Wait for them?” she asked, pulling her jacket tightly around her against the bitter cold.
“What about if we go and take a look at the park?” suggested Ryan, who was getting nervous at the idea of just standing there together. He wanted to get to work to avoid the temptation of moving aside the rebellious curls which kept falling across her forehead. The instinct to touch her was almost uncontrollable. So much so that he had to grit his teeth to force himself not to. Oh, no – he would sooner chew off his own damn arm than give in to that particular impulse. Was he being infantile? Maybe, but there it was.
“Come on, let’s go and see if the rest of them are already in there,” he suggested as he strode off rapidly, driven more by the growing awareness that he was not entirely indifferent to her than by any great desire to start picking up trash.
They walked for a few minutes, he ploughing ahead with great strides and Amalia trailing behind him, deliberately keeping her distance. At one point she stopped for a moment to take a better look at the park: it was a large open space which could quite easily become a source of pride for the district. Too bad about the piles of abandoned junk which threatened to suffocate the plants: there were even bits of old appliances like washing machines and, worse still, pieces of cars. In fact, some of the locals seemed to have turned the place into a kind of open air dump. They certainly weren’t trying to win any prizes for being model citizens.
Ryan’s voice aroused her from her thoughts.
“What are you doing?” he asked, sounding irked that he’d had to stop and wait for her.
“Just thinking about how much potential this park has,” she replied, not at all intimidated by his gruff tone.
“Oh sure,” he said sarcastically, “tons of potential.”
“No, I’m serious. This place could actually be nice if they didn’t use it as a dump.”
“Exactly – if. But you can forget about that ever happening.”
“Why?”
“Do you really think that this park is ever going to end up looking like one of those beautiful green lawns in the Hamptons where you used to play when you were a little girl?”
He was definitely in a grouchy mood, and was making little or no attempt to hide the fact.
“Well, it looks like somebody got out of the wrong side of bed today,” muttered Amalia, walking over to him and brushing his cheek with her hand. She had intended her gesture to be a joke, a playful little slap, but Ryan froze at her sudden proximity. He could smell her perfume on the breeze, and the electricity of her touch – however fleeting – had blazed through his whole body like a lightning bolt.
“Would you mind not touching me?” he snapped, flinching.
Her presence made him nervous. He had never spent as much time around her as he had in recent weeks, and it made him realize why he had avoided her like the plague in the past. She was as stubborn as a mule, but she was also so incredibly attractive, and he felt himself being drawn to her like a magnet. Just like back in college…
But back then it had been easy to avoid one girl out of the many in his year – now, however, he was in serious trouble: he had accepted the post of assistant district attorney knowing that Amalia was a leading New York lawyer, and he had been well aware that he would be seeing plenty of her and would probably even have to work with her from time to time. After not having seen hide nor hair of her for about a decade, the fact that they were in the same city should have been irrelevant. It certainly shouldn’t have reduced him to this state after only two weeks. But whether he wanted to admit it or not, the way things were going he was on the verge of losing his mind.
Amalia pretended not to be hurt by his gruff response, elegantly concealing her disappointment behind a bored look.
“God, it was only a joke,” she muttered darkly. “I didn’t think you were so sensitive.”
“Quit yanking my chain,” warned Ryan.
“Fine – I solemnly promise that I will never ‘yank your chain’ again,” she assured him, staring at something in the distance. “Look, there’s a group of people over there – could it be them?” she asked hopefully. At this point, it was clear to both of them that even prisoners on day release would be better company than each other.
“Looks that way,” he agreed, equally relieved.
“Come on, Mr Assistant District Attorney, get those knees up,” urged Amalia as she raced past him. And Ryan, who didn’t like being second at anything, had to run to catch up with her.
*
Amalia looked at her watch for the third time in a matter of minutes. It was still only eight o’clock! How the hell could it still only be eight o’clock?!? Had time stopped or something, leaving her trapped out there in that frosty park collecting trash?
After having eyed each other askance for several long, interminable minutes, they had joined the group of inmates who were led by a social worker called Evan. A handsome blond guy not yet in his thirties, Evan had a nice way about him, and was obviously respected and trusted by the group. And instead of being intimidated by their presence, Amalia had discovered to her surprise that it was she who frightened them. They looked at her anxiously, barely daring to speak to her.
Evan had divided the lucky participants into pairs. It was obvious that she would end up being with Ryan, she would have bet on it, but after less than an hour of freezing half to death from the weather and from his icy glares, Amalia was almost ready to beg for a change of partner. At this point, even a serial killer would have been preferable.
“Can you hold the damn bag straight?!” scolded the assistant district attorney, frowning as he tried to put the paper they had collected during their shift into the large trash bag Amalia was holding.
“The bag is perfectly straight – it’s you who’s twisted,” she said with affected boredom. He had spent the whole time telling her: don’t pick it up like that, don’t keep getting up, stop moving about, look how I do it… Amalia was beginning to seethe with anger. Well, at least it kept her warm. She rubbed her hands again in an attempt to revive her frozen fingers, but it wasn’t much use. How many degrees was it that morning? A thousand below?
“Why the hell don’t you wear the gloves they gave you?” asked Ryan, looking critically at her efforts to warm herself.
“These are fine,” she said, indicating the ones she was wearing.
“No, they are not. They’re handmade leather gloves without any insulation, I can see that just by looking at them. What are they, deerskin? You need proper gloves,” he pointed out, sounding like an expert on the subject.
“Hey, what do you care what gloves I wear?” she snapped. “As long as I do the job that’s been assigned to me…”
It was obvious that Ryan was not of the same opinion. “You’re slowing down the work because you’re cold. How the hell do you think you’re gonna make it through the morning?” he asked irritably.
“Jeez Ryan, what’s got your panties in a bunch this morning? You’re being a royal pain, even by your standards! Did you get bitten by a spider or something?” she snapped angrily while her partner picked up large heaps of paper and dumped them into the bag. He must be trying to work off some energy, she thought as she watched him repeat the action dozens of times in a row.
“If you don’t give it a rest we can change jobs – I’ll hold the bag and you can put the trash in,” he threatened, those annoyingly green eyes of his flashing with rage. Outdoors they became an even more intense green than usual. At this rate Amalia would end up hating the color, even though she always used to like it.
She decided to take the bull by the horns and shrugged. “Listen, I know that it’s going to be my turn later – it never crossed my mind to let you do the harder jobs for me.”
Although, to be honest, she actually was a bit surprised: whether he had realized it or not, the way Ryan had been working almost seemed protective of her. Which was pretty weird, if you thought about it. But no one could deny that he had taken on the more physically demanding work – complaining all the time, mind you. But working so hard seemed to have had no impact at all on his endless reproaches for her lightweight and, in his opinion, completely inappropriate clothing.
I mean, come on! It wasn’t like she was wearing a cashmere coat and a pair of Jimmy Choos! Ryan really ought to calm down and stop treating her as though the fact that she was cold was any of his business.
Her good intentions didn’t last long, though, because after the umpteenth criticism, Amalia lost her temper.
“Ok, let’s swap! You take hold of this damn bag and shut the hell up for once!”
And so saying she dumped the bag on the ground and began picking up all the litter they’d collected from around the park. Wow – all piled up like this it was actually really heavy!
“Quit fooling around, pick up the bag,” Ryan barked, gesturing to her to carry out his order. Because there was clearly no doubt in his mind that it was an order.
Amalia had no intention of obeying, however. As far as she was concerned, after his last digs at her Ryan could forget all about her meekly doing as she was told.
“No way! What’s fair is fair, and now it’s my turn.”
“Amalia…” mumbled Ryan, pronouncing her name threateningly. What a shame that her DNA made her constitutionally incapable of taking orders when she didn’t want to. It was just too bad…
Evan turned up just in time to prevent hostilities breaking out.
“How’s it going, guys?” he asked, giving them a searching look. “Ok, cool – you’ve nearly finished with the paper. When you’re done here we can start loading those dumped appliances onto our garbage truck.”
“No problem,” said Amalia immediately, continuing to put paper into the bag without changing pace.
But Ryan found something to object about with that too. Thinking about it, it was probably no coincidence that he’d chosen to become an assistant district attorney.
“You can’t let her lift those heavy objects!” he said almost indignantly.
Amalia raised her eyes to the sky.
“Pay no attention to him, Evan. It’s no problem: just let us finish off here and then we’ll move on.”
It was peculiar, but the fact that Ryan was so obviously annoyed actually made her feel pretty cheerful – cheerful enough to do pretty much any job, even lifting up washing machines – just to annoy Mr Know-it-all.
The things you do for a good cause…
A little over half an hour later they had finished bagging paper, and went to the place where the abandoned appliances had been collected, just as Evan told them to.
“So how do you want to do it?” she asked, looking at the mountain of stacked junk that rose before their eyes. “Shall we start with the heavier ones that take up more space?”
“There’s no way you can lift this stuff!” was his only response.
Amalia laughed. “Oh yes I can. Who the hell do you take me for?”
“Have you ever in your life tried to pick up a washing machine?” Ryan asked her, folding his arms over his chest.
“There’s a first time for everything,” said Amalia, giving him a broad smile. It was obviously meant to be a challenge, but the result was that he stood stunned for a moment. Much more than a moment, in fact. Ryan was frozen, staring and unable to tear his eyes from her face until his penetrating gaze made her feel so uncomfortable that she eventually turned away.
“So shall we try to lift that one, then?” she suggested, pointing to the carcass of a long defunct washing machine.
Ryan sighed heavily and resigned himself to going along with her. “You sure you want to start with that?” he asked doubtfully. But Amalia wasn’t one to shirk a challenge.
“Sure. Come on,” she replied with conviction. After all, how heavy could it be? It certainly couldn’t be any heavier than her suitcases, which were always way over the weight limit imposed by the airlines. Kayla was always teasing her about it, but at least it meant that she had some training when it came to weights.
She squatted down beside the washing machine searching for a solid handhold.
“Ok, on three – one… two… three!”
The unexpected weight of the appliance took her breath away. In comparison to this heap of rust her suitcases were like bags full of feathers. Okay, she might have bitten off more than she could chew.
Amalia took a deep breath as she struggled to keep the washing machine off the ground. Handling this kind of weight was well beyond her abilities, but she tried to bite the bullet to avoid looking a fool: she’d gotten herself into this, and now she had to get herself out of it in the most dignified manner possible. Which, however, didn’t look as though it was going to be easy…
“Ok – slowly, slowly… let’s walk it over to the truck,” he instructed her. “That’s it, nice and slow.”
They’d almost made it when Amalia suddenly tripped over something lying on the ground. She lost her grip on the heavy carcass and went crashing to the floor, the machine landing on the ground beside her but luckily missing her by inches.
Ryan instantly leapt over to help her back on her feet.
“Damn it, I told you it was too heavy!” he shouted angrily. “You could have got hurt! And badly!”
“I just tripped over!” Amalia defended herself, “It could have happened to anyone.”
Of course, she had ended up falling into a puddle and so now she was entirely covered in disgusting brown slime. Never mind, she had known right from the beginning that the morning would be a nightmare, and it was turning out exactly as she’d expected – if she’d been a betting person she would have put money on it going like this.
“God, this is exactly the sort of thing that always happens to me,” she huffed as she climbed to her feet and tried to clean herself off as well as she could. Which wasn’t very well at all – wet mud isn’t known for just brushing off clothes.
“And do you know why they happen to you? Because you never listen to anybody else. You’re as stubborn as a mule…”
“Well I’m very sorry to inform you that I’m still here and I’m alive and kicking,” said Amalia, trying to make a joke out of the whole thing.
Ryan, however, wasn’t in the mood for jokes.
“Don’t you ever dare say anything that dumb ever again!” he hissed, sticking his face dangerously close to hers. “And anyway, I’ve had a bellyful of being your babysitter – Evan!” He shouted to call the social worker’s attention. “Evan! Team me up with someone else! Send over someone who can lift this heavy scrap and set Miss Mud here to picking up something harmless, ‘cause I’m afraid she might hurt herself even picking up leaves.”
And so saying, he stalked off, fuming, in the opposite direction.
It would have been her who got hurt – what the hell was Ryan’s problem, exactly?
Noon arrived just in time to save Amalia from certain death by hypothermia. Never mind gym shoes and a jacket – for next time she vowed to buy a thermal ski suit. All the physical effort had only managed to warm her up briefly because her clothes got wet when she fell into the mud, so now she was tired, frozen and more dirty than she had ever been before in her entire life.
Thanks a bunch, Judge Wyatt.
She and Ryan kept their distance from each other after their last run in, which was a blessing, because the assistant district attorney was being a total grouch. Clearly it must be part of his character. What had happened to all those coy smiles and cryptic one-liners that he had forever been coming out with at university? With the other girls, of course – never with her, God forbid.
Back then she had watched him for a while before she had summoned up the courage to ask him out. She wasn’t proud of the fact, but the truth was that she had found him attractive right from the start. She had sat right at the back of the lecture hall on the first day of class and glanced quickly at all those present. And her eyes had immediately fallen on Ryan.
Damn that first look…
During the following lectures she had tried to sit at a distance that would allow her to see how he interacted with others without having to speak to him. Because, for the first time in her life, her heart accelerated dangerously at the very idea of speaking to someone. She had spied on him for a while and come to the conclusion that he knew perfectly well what he was doing. She was so far out of whack that she had even thought he was nice. But then she had made the stupid mistake of asking him out.
Oh yeah, he had turned out to be real nice. About as nice as a trip to the dentist.
“Guys, I want to thank everyone for your hard work,” said Evan to the assembled group. “You have all worked hard – and Amalia, you in particular. I’m glad you didn’t give up after your little accident.”
Give up in front of the man who stood in front of her? Not on your life!
“Well, Evan, I can’t say it’s been fun,” she answered, “but at least the park has actually started to look like a park!”
“What we’re hoping is that we’ll be able to raise enough money through charitable initiatives to create a playground for the neighborhood children,” said the social worker. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
“Let me have a think about how we can help,” she said, her mind already working on how to help raise the necessary sum.
“Ok guys, see you next time!” shouted Evan, waving goodbye to Amalia and Ryan.
Ryan accompanied Amalia to the park entrance without a word, and even managed to flag down a taxi for her.
“Get in, Amalia,” he said firmly, opening the door of the yellow taxi that pulled up.
“I don’t usually take kindly to being ordered around, but in this case I’ll try and make an exception – in fact, I’ll do whatever it takes to get the hell away from you,” she answered, slamming the door shut in his face. She could have offered to share a taxi with him, but she felt like she’d done enough good deeds for one day.
As the taxi pulled away from the curb, she turned round just long enough to see him standing immobile on the sidewalk. And even from that distance she could see the frown on his face.
Now there was a guy who really needed to learn how to smile.