Mike and I crooked our necks to observe her kitchen, and then turned back to her.
Mike had not met Sara before, and I could tell that he thought her pretty. But she overwhelmed him, as did our situation. He’d been the one to insist that we meet and discuss what had happened, and how he might help. Now in her apartment he seemed not to know what to say.
Music from one of her neighbors filtered through her window, Beyoncé and Jay Z’s “Crazy in Love,” God help us. I got up and closed the window, which muffled the noise.
Sara sat across from us on a dining room chair, legs crossed, barefoot, and she tapped an unlit cigarette against her palm. She never did light it. She wore her cowry shell necklace, and her hair was in two braids, pulled back from her scalp so that her face seemed more open and vulnerable and childlike. When she talked, she looked to my right, as if she was afraid to meet my eyes.
“I used to tell Even,” she said to Mike, “that he thought way too much about his family. ‘Just wait,’ I’d tell him, ‘when you turn eighteen, you can go away, never come back, go to college,’ because I knew he had to break free from them first. That’s when all the good things would start for him.
“I had to get away from my parents, and once I did, it really helped. I didn’t fit in my own life before. They’re so messed up, my parents. There wasn’t any way for me to be around them without being messed up, too. You know? You’ve got to get away sometimes first, just to separate and figure things out. Not that I’ve got everything figured out.”
She glanced at the AA meeting directory on her coffee table. “I’m going to meetings again,” she said as an aside.
She paused and her shoulders went down. “Now Even can’t get away from them. I’m almost sorry that I called him, because now he’s stuck. Even if he leaves, he’s stuck now. He’ll always feel responsible.”
Another long pause, and then she set the cigarette on the coffee table. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said.
I resented Sara’s assessment. I wanted to tell her: At least I’m not estranged from my family like you. I still have my family.
I felt like everything was unreal—part of some crazy-ass dream—and that soon I’d go back to my old life: a mild alienation from my father mingled with a staggering affection and respect.
With Gabe, a shared sense of omnipresent despair, and the feeling that we would get through life together, that we understood and loved each other no matter what, and so we wouldn’t be defeated.
As for my mom, I loved her but that was it. I didn’t much like her or want to be around her.
Mike’s voice broke the silence: “I have to ask”—he shifted his weight on the couch—“I have to”—he shook his head—“it’s just, what’s on that videotape? Why’d he go on the news to try to get Even to come forward? There’s got to be something on there that’s really bad—not that rape isn’t bad—but what happened? I mean, god, what’s on there?”
For the first time that afternoon, Sara’s eyes met mine. Her face paled, and I wondered if mine did as well.
She took a deep breath, and then she said, still looking at me, “Picture something so terrible that for the rest of your life you don’t know how you’ll deal with it.”
A long pause, and then Mike asked, “Where were her friends? Why didn’t anyone stop them?”
“They’re not really her friends,” I said.
I saw that Sara had shut her eyes.
Mike bit his cuticle and started fiddling with his fingernails.
Sara went into the kitchen.
I sank into the couch, as if lead weights had been sewn into my clothes.
When she returned, she set a glass of water near me on the coffee table. She also brought over a plate of Oreo cookies.
“Did something happen to him?” she asked, sitting again. “I mean, when you were kids or something. Did someone molest him or something?”
I shook my head, but later I remembered a pimply-faced babysitter who had Doritos breath. Gabe and I must’ve been ten and nine respectively. He forced Gabe into the bathroom with him, and when they came out, the babysitter had a towel wrapped around his waist, and Gabe wouldn’t tell me what had happened. Gabe also made sure to keep me away from the babysitter, making me play in another room. When the babysitter knelt to get a tennis ball from this little pond that we had in our backyard, Gabe pushed him in. “I don’t like him,” he said. The babysitter had to wash his wet and muddy clothes and dry them before our parents came home—smirking and thinking it funny, he walked around the house holding sofa cushions to cover his penis and ass—and he made it just in time, pulling on his jeans as Dad parked the car in our garage. The next time the babysitter came over, Gabe threw a fit, and our parents decided not to use him after that—not worth the hassle.
“It’s his friends,” I said. “Gabe doesn’t have good friends like me.”
I meant them, and they both knew it.
“Why don’t you tell him?” Mike said. “Tell your dad. Tell your brother. Tell them why you did it, what you saw, and explain.”
While they waited for my answer, I drank down my water and set the empty glass on the table. Then I said, “It would hurt them too much,” and added, “and it would hurt me too much.”
“What about your mom?” Mike asked. “Can’t you tell her?”
“She’d hate me.”
“Are you afraid of disapproval?” Sara asked. When I didn’t answer, she said, “Your mom’s, dad’s, or Gabe’s—or all of them?” I still didn’t answer, and she said, “God, Even, don’t you get it? They should be afraid of yours!”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I said, angry and hurt. “I don’t know who I am. I’m sixteen. I’m still just trying to figure out who I am, and you expect me to know?”
No one spoke for a moment.
“I’m not telling them,” I said, “I won’t do it.”
“Okay,” Sara said, “but I’m not really talking about the camera. It’s about more than the camera, Even.”
“Maybe,” said Mike, “we should get back to the reason I wanted to meet. What can I do,” he continued, “to help you? What can Sara do to help?”
“Don’t tell anyone,” I said.
“What else?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen,” he said. “How about I say that it’s me? That I turned in the camera?” Mike had obviously been thinking about it, and he seemed to have convinced himself.
“At this point,” Sara said, “it’s not so much about the camera anymore.”
“Mike,” I said, remembering Dad’s threat from the night before, “you can’t do that.”
“Why not?” he said. “I don’t care what your dad and brother think of me.” He laughed. “Half the time, your dad doesn’t remember my name.”
That got me to laugh. But then Sara said that she’d looked up some things about my dad, and that she thought he might be dangerous.
“I know he’s your dad, Even, but he’s done some shady stuff. I mean, it’s on the record.”
“You don’t know anything about business,” I said, my face heated. “He’s a self-made man. He got to where he is because he’s smart.”
“He is that,” she agreed, looking away from me.
The last thing that Sara said to me before we left was: “I know that you admire your father, Even. But he’s not a good guy. You’re better than that.”
When I got home, I locked myself in the bathroom and hit my fists against my arms and legs, hard enough to bruise them. Then I heard Dad calling to let me know that it was time to eat dinner, so I stopped.
22.
THE REPORTS THAT our dad spent over nine million dollars on Gabe’s defense are not true. It’s not true that he hired a dream team similar to O. J. Simpson’s, consisting of twelve lawyers (two from Simpson’s own defense), a team of private investigators, and a public relations expert.
Not entirely true, that is. If I’d ever questioned the power and us
efulness of money, I no longer did.
Gabe’s head lawyer, Jonathan G. Cavari, Jimenez’s so-called wolf and a good pal of Sheriff Krone’s, had earned a reputation as a dogged, ruthless fighter. Well-tanned, with oil-black wavy hair, he owned a mansion in Newport Beach and a fleet of luxury cars. He came from a tough New Jersey neighborhood and liked to remind people—in his New Jersey–heightened accent—of his street-savvy working-class roots.
Dad asked me to come with him to Gabe’s initial consultation with Cavari.
Cavari knew how to make people turn and take notice of him, and everything about him—the way that he dressed and talked—spoke of intimidation and success.
Cavari sat at his desk, smoking a fat cigar, his black eyes fastened on Dad. In front of him was a thick file with TOVE KAGAN written in permanent marker across it.
It was a gaudy office filled with lots of modern, expensive-looking sculptures and ugly oil paintings of what looked like Italian landscapes. On the walls were diplomas and a certificate for a martial arts class. The wall behind Cavari had been decorated with plaques and photographs of him with his arm around various celebrities: some whom I recognized (Corey Feldman, Larry Hagman, Donna Mills, MC Hammer), some who looked vaguely familiar, and some whom I didn’t recognize.
Our chairs—upholstered in burgundy leather—fart-squeaked against our thighs and butts if we moved too much.
“This girl came to your house, alone, without her girlfriends, on the night of the Fourth,” Cavari said to our dad, “knowing full well that she would have sex with all three of these boys. Now that there’s a porno—which, by the way, she wanted to make—and now that her parents know, she’s crying rape, because what else can she do?” He shook his head in exaggerated disapproval, and then added, “The lying little nympho.”
Dad took a puff on his cigar (a gift from Cavari), his expression solemn.
“She,” Cavari said, tapping his cigar ash in a crystal ashtray, “should be the one charged with rape, for forcing herself on these three young, decent men.”
Cigar smoke hung in the air, and I could see Gabe’s foot—propped on his knee—shaking restlessly.
“Look,” Cavari said, setting his cigar in the ashtray, “I know this is difficult. But before I go on, I need you to understand something—all three of you.” He paused for dramatic effect, taking a sip from a squat cut-crystal glass.
“That’s good Scotch,” he said. “You sure you don’t want some?”
Dad grunted a no.
Cavari took his cigar and regarded its tip, and then he eyed each of us.
“This is war,” he said, his voice grave. “She’s your enemy. Her lawyer, her family, her friends—they’re your enemies. If we’re going to win—which, by the way, we will, because I always win—you need to hate them.” He paused for us to take this in.
“I don’t care,” he said, “if they have a terminally ill mother or a child with cancer”—he fisted his hands and pretended to rub his eyes, as if wiping away tears—“boohoo! I don’t care!”
He smiled angrily and leaned forward. “Make no mistake. They want to destroy you. But we’re going to destroy them first. You need to hate them.” He looked at each of us intently. “Do. You. Understand?”
“I understand,” Dad said.
Gabe nodded.
When I didn’t speak, all three of their faces turned to wait for my response.
“I can’t hear you,” Cavari said to me in a lilting, cajoling voice, cupping a hand to his ear.
“Okay,” I said, barely audible.
He gave me a look of contempt. “Now’s not the time,” he said, slowing his words, “to be a pussy. Now’s not the time.” He pounded a fist on his desk. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, my face burning.
He gave a belabored sigh. “Better,” he said, wheeling his chair to a file cabinet. “A little better.” He opened the cabinet and sifted through its contents. “We need warriors, not pussies,” he mumbled. He pulled out a folder and opened it, wheeling himself back behind his desk.
“This,” he said, running his index finger down a page, “is our time line.” When he reached the bottom, he lifted his hand and licked his index and middle fingers, using them to turn the page, and then he began the process of dragging his finger down it again. This went on for a few minutes. Then he said, “I want to go over the time line in a very general way, Gabe.”
Gabe’s foot stilled with the attention. I knew that he’d abused his anxiety medication again, since his face was very pale and his eyes—though glossy—had a startled quality that the pills couldn’t erase.
“Now,” Cavari said, “she lied to her parents and said that she was spending the night at Crystal’s, the night of the third of July. She also impersonated her mother in a telephone conversation with Melissa Stroh’s mother, so that Melissa could also come with Crystal to your house on the third to swim and hang out, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” said Gabe.
Cavari smiled. “Such good manners,” he said. “How could anyone think a boy such as this”—he shook his head sadly—“could do what they’re saying he did?”
Because there’s a video, I wanted to say. I’ve seen it.
“Okay,” Cavari continued, “one of these girls, this Crystal Douglas, is your girlfriend, correct?”
“No, sir,” said Gabe.
“Hmm,” Cavari said.
“We just hang out,” said Gabe.
“I understand.” Cavari looked back at his time line. “Don’t want to tie a man down. Young and handsome, no need to get tied down, no, no,” he said, while scoping the page.
“Now, Tove,” he looked back at Gabe, “drank about ten swigs of Bacardi rum, along with the other girls, and you and Kevin and Kent, and you all got drunk.”
“No, sir,” said Gabe. “Crystal and Melissa said they were on the Atkins Diet, and they couldn’t drink. They seemed real serious about it. I only drank beer and smoked pot. I don’t know about Kent and Kevin. But I didn’t get that drunk.”
Cavari took a pen and scratched notes on the paper. “So Tove,” he said, “made a video with Kent Nixon in late June, and you watched this porno together on the night of the third? Correct?”
“Yes, sir. Nixon made the video of them. I tried to take one of me and Crystal but she wouldn’t let me.”
“But Tove gave her permission and participated. Correct?”
“I don’t think that she knew. When she figured it out, she told him to stop.”
Cavari coughed. “Were you there?” he asked.
“No, sir. I was in another room.”
“So you don’t know that she told him to stop.”
Gabe nodded in confused agreement.
“At this point, when you watched the video on the third, Tove had consumed a shot of tequila?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She said, ‘Look at me. I’m a porn star.’”
Cavari beamed. He scribbled frantically, saying, “That’s wonderful.”
“She was being sarcastic,” I said.
Cavari stopped writing and looked at me. “Excuse me,” he said.
“She was trying to make a joke, because she didn’t know what else to do.”
“How would you know?”
“I saw her and heard her. Me and my friend Mike. We left for a party after.”
Cavari scribbled again. Then he said, “No offense, son. But whose side are you on?”
I felt like he’d punched me in the gut.
A long silence as I stared at the grainy pattern of the wood floor and the fringe trim of what looked to be a flashy southwestern-style rug.
Then I heard my dad say, “Leave my boy alone,” and Cavari said, “No one told the detectives that you were there. Let’s keep this between us.”
Dad’s hand squeezed my shoulder.
“Tove,” Cavari continued, his tone weary, “then went into the pool wearing her
work clothes. At some point, her friends helped her go to the bathroom behind a bush, and they removed her pants at her request, so that she could urinate. Correct?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“When Tove returned to the pool, she sat at the shallow end, took off her top, and then she had sex with Kevin Stewart. Correct?”
“To be honest, sir, I don’t know. I was doing my own thing with Crystal at the other end of the pool.”
“You were having sex with Crystal in the pool?”
Gabe looked away.
“So, if you’re being honest, you don’t know if Tove was having sex with Stewart, because you didn’t see, because you were busy having sex as well?”
A quiet “Yes, sir.”
“Honesty,” Cavari said in a contemplative voice. “Let’s think about this word. ‘Honesty.’ ‘Honesty.’ Honesty is about what you know in your heart of hearts, even if you’re not sure of specifics. The emotions”—he thumped a widespread hand on his chest—“make it true.”
Although Gabe seemed confused, he nodded.
“At around one in the morning,” Cavari continued, “you all smoked pot in your bedroom, and then everyone left your bedroom except for you and Tove. Correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Crystal and Melissa fell asleep in Even’s bedroom?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait, what?” I said.
Gabe faced me. “Yeah,” he said. “They looked at some of your books and photos and stuff.”
I hadn’t known that anyone had been in my room, and it really bothered me to think of Crystal and Melissa poking around and invading my privacy.
Cavari gave me an annoyed passing glance, letting me know that he had no concern for my feelings.
“Tove,” he continued, “fell asleep in your bed. You woke her and began rubbing her thigh. Then you removed her boxer shorts”—he laughed. “Does she think she’s a man? Boxer shorts?”
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