“I was looking at the football you were holding. Did I read somewhere that you were captain of your college team?”
“No, I wasn’t good enough for that. I was captain of the special teams.”
“What made them so special?”
He laughed. At least she wasn’t an expert on everything. “At Wake Forest, nothing, I assure you. I was the long snapper.”
“Sounds like a fish,” she said with a feminine shrug.
“I spent all my playing time looking between my legs, snapping the ball to the punter or field goal kicker. It’s a knack, seeing the world upside down and putting a tight spiral on the ball, getting it to the punter, nose up, in seven-tenths of a second, thigh high, so he can think just about the kick. A good snapper gets the ball to the punter faster than the quarterback can throw it the same distance.”
“Really? I guess it’s much more complicated than most people realize,” she said, encouraging him.
“It sure is. You fire the ball with the right hand, guide it with the left. Before the snap, if you squeeze the ball, or cock your wrist, the defensive linemen will time their rush and get a jump on your linemen. So no hitches, no nerves, and most important, you’ve got to have the perfect stance. You’ve got to keep your ass down.” He laughed and went on, “Which, come to think of it, was the president’s advice when he appointed me to this scorpions’ nest. ‘Keep your ass down until you get the lay of the land.’“
“Sounds smart. You’re here for life. Why be impatient to make your mark?”
“I’ve never been good at laying low,” he said, then walked to the credenza and picked up the partially inflated football. Although he didn’t ask her to, she rose from the chair and joined him there, putting her hands on the cracked leather. It was, in its way, an intimate gesture, each of them touching the other, through an intermediary, the old football. She ran her fingers across the chipped white paint that spelled out, WAKE FOREST 16 – FURMAN 10.
She has beautiful hands. What’s happening? Jesus, Sam, act like a judge, not a schoolboy.
“It was my last game, my only game ball. A reward for playing three years without a bad snap. That and some tackles on the kickoff team. Unfortunately we didn’t kick off much.”
“I know enough about the game to understand that. You didn’t score often, right?”
“Often? The Demon Deacons were scoreless in October.”
‘“Scoreless in October,’“ she repeated with a laugh that trilled like a pine warbler in the Carolina woods. “Sounds like a movie tide.”
“Or a lonely fraternity boy’s lament,” he said, chuckling.
“Or the number of opinions the junior justice writes his first month on the bench,” she said, keeping the ball in the air.
“I’m afraid the C.J. would agree with that,” Truitt said. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to being the new kid on the block. I was playing basketball with Justice Braxton yesterday, and he started calling me ‘Junior’ just to mess up my jump shot. Did you know there’s a basketball court above the courtroom?”
She nodded. “The highest court in the land.”
“Right again. You seem to have a feel for this place.”
And for me. What am I going to do? She’s almost too good to be true.
Lisa watched him squeeze the old football, seemingly lost in a private thought. “You speak very fondly of your football team,” she said, “even though…”
“We were really abysmal,” he said, finishing her sentence.
“But winning wasn’t everything to you, was it?”
“I haven’t thought about it much, but you’re right. We lost ten games in a row before beating Furman. I loved the game and I loved my teammates, even though we were probably the worst team in the history of college football.”
“No,” she said in mock disbelief.
“You can look it up,” he said, but of course she already had.
“In 1974, we were shut out five games in a row by a combined score of two hundred and ten to zero,” Truitt said. “North Carolina, Oklahoma, Penn State, Maryland, Virginia, and Clemson.”
“Wow, is that some kind of record?”
“Maybe. We even lost to William and Mary, and I suspect Mary could have done it all by herself.”
She laughed, knowing he’d used the line many times before. She was turning the tables on him, becoming the interrogator. “What did you learn from all the losses? About life, I mean.”
“No one’s ever asked me that,” he said, seeming to think it over.
C’mon, Sam. Every man I’ve ever known loves to talk about himself.
“The value of hard work, patience, and discipline,” he said after a moment. “That to win you have to sweat and sacrifice and put the team first and even if you do all of those things, you may still lose, but that it’s no disgrace to lose with honor. Most of all, I learned that you’ve got to play the game within the rules, and that surely goes for life, too.”
The rules. Max Wanaker makes his up as he goes along. Sam Truitt follows the ones engraved in the marble.
The phone buzzed just as Truitt was telling how he got the nickname “Scrap” and how the little-used kickoff team was called the “Scrap Pack.”
“The chief says you’re to come to his chambers right away,” Eloise said over the speaker.
“Tell the chief I don’t work for him,” Truitt replied.
“No, sir!” Eloise screeched over the intercom. “We’re not going to start off seeing who’s got the biggest bulge in his briefs. I’ll tell him you’re in conference and will be there the instant you’re free.”
The intercom went dead, and there was a moment of silence as interviewer and interviewee tried to remember exactly where their conversation had ended.
“That’s probably the only time anyone will catch you quoting Justice McReynolds,” Lisa said.
“You picked up on that?” Truitt asked, astonished. “That’s a really arcane bit of Court trivia.”
He looked at her with something approaching awe, and Lisa smiled.
“Back in the 1930s,” she said, “Chief Justice Hughes left a message with McReynolds’s secretary. ‘Tell the justice to come to my chambers at once, and wear his robes.’ McReynolds responded with… well, just what you said. ‘Tell the Chief I don’t work for him/”
“McReynolds was a real misanthrope, a racist, and a bigot,” Truitt said. “But you probably know that, don’t you?”
“I know he wouldn’t appear for the Court photo because he didn’t want to be in a picture with a Hebrew. That’s what he called Brandeis.”
Showing off now. Put a lid on it, Lisa.
“That was him. And you’re right. It’s the only time I’ll quote the bastard.” Truitt glanced at his watch. “Whoa. We’ve been at it for nearly two hours.”
Sensing that was her cue, Lisa said, “I want to thank you so much for your time, Justice Truitt.”
“I’ve enjoyed this. I really have,” Truitt said. He paused a moment, as if she shouldn’t leave just yet.
Sam Truitt couldn’t pinpoint the moment he changed his mind about Lisa Fremont, couldn’t even say exactly why he had. She was smart and savvy, and they seemed to have great synergy, and he was tired of interviewing candidates. There was such a relaxed nature to their conversation, he felt as if he had known her forever. So without ever actually consciously deciding, Truitt reached the conclusion that she’d be perfect. He would hire her despite her great looks, though he didn’t think his wife would buy that for a second.
What is he thinking? Lisa wondered. Am I overstaying my welcome? Should I curtsy and head for the door?
“Once the session begins,” Truitt said, breaking the silence, “I’m afraid there won’t be time for what Elly would call ‘high-falutin’ gabfests.’”
As if I already had the job.
“And from now on,” he continued, “it’s just plain ‘Judge.’ That’s what Vic and Jerry call me. Ask Elly for the forms you’ll need to fill out, then get ready to roll up your sleeves.”
Omigod! What did he say?
“You mean I’m hired?”