Free The House Girl by Tara Conklin Page B

you can put in some creative thinking.
    “Now, Lina,” and Dan pointed an index finger in the direction of her nose. “I want you to concentrate on defining the class.” The finger descended to the table, jabbing for emphasis. “This is a biggie, and I think it’s worth you looking at full-time. We need to nail this class down, and get ourselves a great lead plaintiff. Maybe a few to choose from. Think about the injury—what’s the injury here, what is the nature of the harm? We need the face of that . We need someone to show us the harm. But be careful about sympathy fatigue. There are only so many sob stories people can hear before their eyes start to glaze over. Slavery was bad, yeah, yeah, what else? I want something stirring, a new angle, something compelling . And don’t forget photogenic—these people will be on TV, they’ll be in the papers, they’ll be giving interviews. We need some great people, Lina, some great stories. The evils of slavery, of course, but also picking oneself up from the dust, yadda yadda, do you know where I’m going with this?”
    Automatically, as she always did when Dan asked her a question with only one acceptable answer, Lina nodded.
    “All right then!” said Dan. “Ron, we will get cracking asap .”
    At the door, Lina shook hands with Dresser. He placed his left hand on top of her right and clasped them together so she could not pull away. “Thank you,” he said, looking directly at her for the first time. “I know this isn’t an easy case. I know you’ll work hard for our success.”
    “I look forward to working with you,” Lina said. Dresser’s skin pressed warm and dry against hers. His eyes flashed a bright hazel.
    Lina had never considered the issue of slavery reparations before. It was not something she had studied at law school, it was not something that had ever crossed her mind. She was a twenty-first-century white girl from New York—what did she know about the enduring harm of slavery or $6.2 trillion in unpaid wages? The dozens of briefs she’d written to date at Clifton marched before her in a mental parade, each case and client distinct but essentially the same. Each client an LLP or PLC or Ltd. or Corp. Each complaint a variation on the same broken-contract theme. But Dresser had brought to Clifton something utterly new. Two hundred and fifty years of nameless, faceless, forgotten individuals. Yes, they were America’s founding fathers and mothers as much as the bewigged white men who laid the whip upon their backs. Why didn’t Lina know their names? Why hadn’t she studied their histories? Where was the monument? Where was the museum? What had they wished for and worked for and loved?

Josephine
    A t half past nine the doctor’s coach rattled into the yard. Josephine and Missus Lu had been waiting on the porch since just after breakfast, stains widening under the calico arms of Missus Lu’s dress as she rocked in her chair. Josephine fanned a hand in front of her face, feeling the sweat dry coolly on her upper lip. Her legs ached from standing, her mouth was sticky with thirst.
    Dr. Vickers climbed down from the carriage bench and removed his hat with great solemnity. The horse twitched its ears at a snarl of flies as Dr. Vickers stood for a moment gazing up at Missus Lu on the porch. His bald head gleamed shiny as a peeled potato, his belly round, his back slightly stooped, and too-short legs bowed away at the knees like a chicken’s wishbone. His face had the look of a carved apple left to dry in the sun, the skin pinched and pulling into itself, eyes wide set and dark. “Good day, Mrs. Bell,” he said.
    At once the doctor’s face and voice flared familiar, and Josephine’s breath caught as a drawer opened, a memory released. The bald head like a peeled potato, and Josephine returned to the night she had first tried to run, when she came back to Bell Creek with a pain deep in her belly, so sharp that she could not breathe. The pain: