Em and Em

by Budzinski, Linda

  The judge called both attorneys to the bar, where they spoke in hushed tones. The next thing she knew, the attorney was pointing a remote at the screen, and there she was, big as life, bikini top in hand. At least they’d had the decency to put a big black bar over her chest. To Emily’s horror, the video was more than just the GIF. It went on and on for what seemed like forever—her waving and making kissy faces at the camera and, ugh, letting the guys in the hot tub put their hands all over her. She had never seen the full clip.

  As the freak show came to an end, silence enveloped the courtroom. She avoided her mother’s eyes, the jurors’ eyes, pretty much everyone’s eyes. She stared at the railing in front of her, a dark cherry probably, or maybe mahogany. She blinked hard. She would not cry. She wouldn’t give Jimmy d’Angelo the satisfaction.

  “Ms. Slovkowski.” Jimmy’s attorney assumed a pitying tone. “I understand this video was filmed over a year ago, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “And do you recall who filmed it?”

  Did she recall? He asked the question as breezily as though he were asking if she recalled what she ate for breakfast that morning. She raised her eyes and met Jimmy’s level gaze. For a moment, she fantasized about standing and pointing and dramatically shouting out: “He filmed it! He’s the person who ruined my life!” But of course, that would play right into their hands. Not to mention, it would be ridiculous.

  “Jimmy,” she said.

  “James d’Angelo, the defendant,” the lawyer confirmed. “And isn’t it true that this video has caused considerable damage to your reputation, and that you have wanted to get back at the defendant ever since its creation?”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean, yes, it hurt my reputation, but this isn’t about getting back at him.”

  “I see.” The attorney walked toward her. “In your statement to the police, you indicated you believed you had been drugged in this video, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were drinking?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any proof that you were drugged, or do you just believe you were drugged?”

  “I know I was. Just like Rosa.”

  “I see. Just like Rosa. Of course, we have no proof that Rosa was drugged, and you have no proof that you were drugged. But you believe you were. Wouldn’t that be a convenient way to explain your behavior? Isn’t it possible, Ms. Slovkowski, that you imagined the discoloration of Rosa’s beer? That your allegations are in fact based on your desire to find an excuse for what took place that night in this video?”

  Emily closed her eyes. What if he was right? What if she’d imagined it? What if it was all some fantasy in her head to make Jimmy the bad guy? No, she knew what she saw. She opened her eyes, sat up straight, and said in a loud, clear voice, “No. I didn’t imagine anything. I’m confident Rosa was drugged.”

  The attorney assumed the most condescending smile known to mankind. “Thank you, Ms. Slovkowski. No further questions.”

  As Emily climbed off the witness stand, a bit dazed and thoroughly humiliated, the attorneys and judge discussed their next move. The prosecutor suggested a lunch break before calling his final witness.

  Break or not, Emily was ready to get out of there. She sat down stiffly beside her mother, still unable to look her in the eye. What must she think of her? Emily stared straight ahead at the judge. Please dismiss us for lunch. Put me out of my misery. As she pled silently for an escape, her mom’s arm settled around her shoulder.

  “I’m so proud of you.”

  Emily melted into her mother’s side, and the tears she’d held back during her testimony surfaced. Her mom believed her. And was proud of her. At that moment, she didn’t care what anyone else in the whole stupid courtroom thought.

  The judge called for a lunch recess. Emily’s mom handed her a pack of tissues, and she wiped her eyes. She had skipped breakfast—no way could she eat anything this morning—and was suddenly starving. She kissed her mom on the cheek. “Let’s go get Trina and hit the café.”

  She, her mom, and Deputy Steuben rode the elevator downstairs, and as they stepped off, a cute boy boarded. As the doors closed, he turned to look at her, his eyes widening in recognition.

  Zach?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Emily had never seen Zach in a suit, with his hair pulled back like that. What was he doing here? She took off toward the staircase.

  “Emily!” her mom called after her, but she ignored her.

  She tore up the steps, Deputy Steuben close behind, shouting for her to stop. She had to see him. And she could tell by the look in his eyes he was excited to see her, too.

  “Zach!” She caught him as he stepped off the elevator.

  He smiled, a huge, sexy Zach smile. “Hey, Em.” He grabbed her and hugged her, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around.

  She buried her face into his neck, breathing him in. How she’d missed his beachy scent.

  He pulled away. “I like the red.” He ran his fingers lightly through her hair and around her ear, giving her earlobe a light tug. “I missed you.”

  “Me too.” She kissed him. It was a light kiss, quick and sweet and … awkward? It had a weird vibe, or was that her imagination? Emily pushed away the thought. She was being silly. Anyway, they were standing in the middle of the crowded courthouse hallway with Deputy Steuben looming four feet away. A little awkwardness might be expected. “What … what are you doing here?”

  Zach looked down at his feet. “Same as you, I guess.”

  “Same as me? You mean, you’re a witness?”

  He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “I need to run. Cool seeing you again.” And with that, he took off.

  Emily’s stomach twisted. Cool seeing you again? She turned to Deputy Steuben. “He’s a witness? On which side?”

  Deputy Steuben cursed under his breath. “Let’s go back downstairs. Your mother and sister are waiting.”

  “Tell me.”

  He sighed and pressed the elevator down button. “He’s a witness for the prosecution, same as you, but—”

  “Oh, thank God.” She breathed a sigh of relief. So after all of his protests for her to drop it, Zach had decided to testify as well. But what would he say? He didn’t know anything about the case, did he? Unless Jimmy had told him something incriminating. Or maybe he was going to be a character witness for her, tell everyone that he knew Emily Slovkowski better than anyone, and he knew she was not the person in that video. “Can I come back and watch?”

  “No.” Deputy Steuben was emphatic. “You’re going to stay downstairs in case you need to be called again.” He boarded the elevator and held the door for her. “Come on.”

  “I know you want me to stay downstairs. But do I have to? Legally?”

  He gave her a pointed stare. “You’re holding up the elevator.”

  “Fine.” She got on. “Do I have to?”

  Deputy Steuben’s jaw tightened as they descended. He watched the numbers at the top of the elevator door. “The judge didn’t order witness exclusion, but—”

  “So I can come back and watch. Excellent. I’ll do that.”

  Steuben closed his eyes and groaned, but he didn’t protest.

  ***

  After lunch, Emily and Deputy Steuben slipped into a bench in the back of the courtroom. Her mom stayed downstairs with Trina. As they waited for the judge to return, Emily overheard the man and woman sitting in front of her reviewing the facts of the case. They were young lawyers, or maybe law students.

  The woman shook her head and sighed. “All I can say is, this next witness had better be good, or the prosecutor should lose his job for bringing this case to court.”

  “Lose his job?” The man snorted. “He should be disbarred from ever practicing again. This is an embarrassment. If you look up ‘hopeless case’ in next year’s Law Practice 101 text, I’ll bet you find a picture of him and th
at last witness.”

  The woman giggled, and Emily gripped the edge of her bench. How dare they? But what if they were right? Did the jury feel that way? Was the case hopeless? For the first time it occurred to her that everything she’d been through and had put her mom and sister through might be for nothing. Jimmy might walk.

  At last, the bailiff called the court to order, and Zach took the stand. His testimony started out simply enough. Yes, he was there the night Rosa died. He’d seen Jimmy talking to her before the volleyball game. And yes, he had tried along with Jimmy to perform CPR. Then the prosecutor changed his line of questioning.

  “Mr. Reagan, earlier we watched a video of one of your friends, Emily Slovkowski, in a hot tub, a video that was filmed by the defendant. Are you familiar with it?”

  Emily’s face burned. Did he really have to bring up the striptease again? Wasn’t he the one who’d protested earlier that it had no bearing on the case?

  Zach answered that he was familiar with the video, and that he was in fact at the party that night.

  “Was there anything unusual about Ms. Slovkowski’s behavior in that video?” the prosecutor asked.

  “Objection!” The defense attorney stood.

  “I’ll rephrase the question. Based on your interactions with Ms. Slovkowski, were you surprised to see the way she behaved in the video?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  Emily breathed a sigh of relief. So he had been called to be a character witness. He’d agreed to stand up for her before God, the jury, and everyone else in the courtroom.

  Only Zach didn’t stop there. He stared down at the same railing she’d trained her eyes on a couple of hours earlier and continued, his voice low and shaking. “I mean, I was surprised at first, but later it made sense.”

  What? Emily’s mouth dropped open. The man and woman in front of her looked at each other, eyebrows raised.

  “Let’s go.” Deputy Steuben nudged her to stand, but Emily refused to move. Train wrecks may be horrifying, but you don’t take your eyes off them.

  The prosecutor urged Zach on. “Tell us what you mean by that.”

  Zach cleared his throat, still staring at the railing. “I found out a couple of days later that she had been drugged. With Royphnol.”

  Emily’s head began to swim, and her breath grew shallow. He knew? He’d known all this time?

  “I see,” the prosecutor continued. “Do you know who gave her the Royphnol?”

  Zach glanced up ever so briefly in her direction before gluing his eyes once again to the railing. “I did.”

  The woman in front of Emily gasped, and the courtroom erupted in a cauldron of murmurs. Emily grasped Deputy Steuben’s arm. What was he saying?

  Zach cleared his throat and looked straight at her. “It was an accident. I swear, I had no idea. It was some stupid joke Jimmy played. He gave me a spiked Jell-O shot and told me to give it to the next hot girl who walked in the door. I didn’t know it had a rufie in it until a few days later.”

  He thought she was hot? Even then? Emily shook her head. She was missing the point here. Zach had drugged her. And maybe it was an accident, but he should have told her sooner. Much, much sooner.

  Zach testified that he’d heard Jimmy talk about giving girls rufies a few times since then. He hadn’t actually seen him spike Rosa’s drink, but he believed it was very possible.

  As he climbed down off the stand, Emily rushed out of the courtroom. She needed to be alone, so she headed for the one place Deputy Steuben wouldn’t follow her—the women’s room.

  She leaned against a stall door, shaking. How could he? He knew she’d been drugged. He knew other girls were being drugged, had in fact witnessed the death of one of those girls, yet his reaction until now had been silence. “Let it drop,” he’d told her, over and over. Coward. What an idiot he was.

  What an idiot she was.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Emily checked the clock beside the bed. It was almost eleven, so why was someone knocking on her hotel room door? Maybe it was her mom. Maybe she and Trina were having as much trouble sleeping next door as she was. She set down her book and swept Oliver off her lap. She peered through the peephole to find Deputy Steuben grinning and practically bouncing up and down in the hallway.

  “What’s up?”

  “Sorry to bother you. I saw that your light was on, and I just had to tell someone … ”

  “It’s fine. Tell me what?”

  Steuben grasped both her arms. “I just got the call. Jimmy confessed. You don’t need me anymore.”

  “He confessed?” Emily beamed. “So what does that mean? Prison? How long?”

  “Well, like I said, for starters, it means you’re free. No one has any reason to threaten you or Trina anymore. You get your identity back.”

  “Okay.” She guessed she should be excited about that, or happy, or at least relieved, but mostly she felt numb. Getting to be Emily Slovkowski again didn’t seem like such a great deal at this point. “What about Jimmy? What’ll happen to him?”

  Steuben let her go and looked down at his hands. “He turned state’s witness against some guys we’ve been trying to nail for a long time.”

  “Wait. What? What does that mean exactly?”

  “It means he’s going to testify against—”

  “I understand what state’s witness means. You’re looking at one, remember? What does it mean for him?”

  “Listen, Emily, I—”

  “Oh, no. Don’t even. If he walks … ”

  “He won’t walk. He’ll do some time. At least a few months, and then probation.”

  “A few months?” And then he’d be out—hanging out on the shore, playing volleyball, going to school, working, dating—like none of this had ever happened. Emily launched herself at Deputy Steuben. He held her back, but he let her punch at his chest. She was sobbing now, and punching, and sobbing and punching. “How could you let this happen? This was the plan all along, wasn’t it? You knew they were going to offer him a deal.” She crumpled to the floor, her face buried in her hands. “You know who didn’t get a deal? Rosa. Rosa doesn’t get to come back after a few months. I’ll bet her mom would give anything to have her come back after a few months.”

  Steuben said nothing for a long time as she sobbed. Finally, he walked into her room, back toward the bathroom, and returned with a tissue box. “If it makes you feel any better, the men he’s testifying against are the ones who ran the rufie operation … among many other criminal enterprises. And they should be going away for a long, long time.”

  She blew her nose. That did make her feel a little better. At least some good would come of all this. “So what now?”

  Steuben offered his hand and helped her up. “Get some sleep. In the morning, we’ll meet with your mom and figure out what happens next.”

  Getting some sleep was easier said than done. As Emily fought with her sheets and blankets and tried to get comfortable in a hotel bed that she couldn’t seem to get used to, another knock came. This time it was past midnight, and she peered out to find Zach staring through the peephole at her.

  Crap. Where was Deputy Steuben? Shouldn’t he have intercepted him? Oh, right. She was free of him, which meant he was free of her, too. He was probably down in the hotel lobby bar enjoying a cold one.

  She rested her head against the door. “Go away.”

  “Em, please. We need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t. We really don’t.”

  “Please. Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”

  She said nothing for a solid minute. When she looked out again, Zach was still there. He wore a pair of jeans with a hole in the knee and her favorite heather-gray sweatshirt—the one that brought out the blue in his eyes. Double crap. She opened the door and retreated into the room. She sat on the edge of her bed, grabbing a pillow in case she felt like doing some more punching.

  Zach stood awkwardly inside the doorway. “What do you want me to say?”

 
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re the one who said we need to talk.” No way would she help him out.

  “Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Let me start with I’m sorry.”

  Emily crossed her arms in front of her chest. Sorry for what? Sorry for drugging her? Sorry for lying to her for the past year? Sorry for letting the entire school call her a slut—treat her like a slut—when he knew all along she’d been drugged? Or maybe he was sorry for telling her over and over that she should abandon the case—abandon Rosa.

  “You have to understand … I didn’t know what would happen to me if I told anyone. I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for giving you that shot.”

  Ah, so he was sorry for being a coward. Fair enough.

  “Could you please say something?”

  Emily sighed and threw the pillow aside. She had no desire to punch Zach. If anything, she felt sorry for him. He wasn’t a bad person. He was weak. Weak and immature. He went in and out with the waves, never really thinking about anything but the ride, never looking far enough beyond his surfboard to consider the enormity and depth of the ocean.

  “I do have one question.” She hated how her voice shook. “You and me. Was that you feeling sorry for me? Or guilty?”

  “No. No way.” Zach sat down next to her and took her hands in his. “That was real. A hundred percent. I loved you, Emily. I still do. And I still want to make this work.”

  She leaned into his chest and let him put his arms around her as she cried. She didn’t realize how badly she’d needed to hear that, how terrified she’d been that their entire relationship had been a sham and that maybe no one ever had or ever would truly love her.

  A huge part of her wanted to stay like this forever. She let him stroke her neck and whisper into her hair that everything would be okay, that they’d find a way to get through this, and he’d make everything up to her. For so long, she’d wanted nothing more than to be back in his arms and to get back what they’d had before the night of the bonfire.