Trial by Fury

by KG MacGregor

Celia slumped in her chair, her mind racing with the potential ramifications. But with Theo ready to do battle on a dead girl’s behalf, it seemed trivial to worry about her own fallout. “I guess that’s part of their game. It’s not enough that they trashed Hayley. They have to drag all her friends through the mud too. No wonder people don’t come forward when shit like this happens.”

  “You came forward, Celia. If Hayley gets any justice at all, it’ll be because of you.”

  * * *

  Frustration and helplessness were common among the women she represented, Theo reflected—even those like Celia who weren’t actually victims. A deflated sense of self-worth was so ingrained that many of them felt defeated before their claims were ever argued. Sometimes it was all she could do to convince them not to settle for crumbs.

  She rested her chin on her hands, readying herself for the speech she gave everyone before formally launching their case. It was important to prepare victims and witnesses for what was coming. “I won’t kid you, Celia. No case is ever a slam-dunk, even when all the evidence is in our favor. The administration is going to fight us every step of the way, and so will the players. They’ll say terrible things about Hayley. They’ll twist your words so hard, your own mother will think you’re lying.”

  Celia sat solemnly, her expression like that of a teenage girl who was being scolded.

  “We have to stay focused, no matter how difficult it gets. Once we go forward, we’re all in—no letting up. This isn’t just for Hayley. It’s for the right of women on campuses everywhere to control their bodies. For their right to feel safe and to know our laws and institutions will protect them.” She jabbed her finger into the table to emphasize her words. “The universities, the police, the courts. We’re sending a message that says there will be hell to pay if you turn away and let this happen.”

  “I’m in already, Theo. You don’t have to convince me.”

  She hadn’t realized until that moment she’d been gritting her teeth, lecturing Celia as she would a jury. “Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. What I’m trying to say is I’ve been down this road before and they don’t scare me. I promise you we’ll be ready for them.”

  “I have no doubt.” Celia smiled for the first time since they’d met, tipping her head to the side in way that made her look girlish.

  Theo sensed it again, that feeling she’d had in her office that she knew Celia from somewhere else. “This is totally off the subject but I can’t stop thinking you look familiar. Is there any chance we’ve met before? Were you ever on one of my juries? Or at a civic club or something where I spoke? I give talks every now and then to women’s groups.”

  “Definitely not. I would have remembered meeting you.” The words carried a suggestive tone, and Celia’s eyes widened. “Because you’re famous, I mean.”

  “Hmm…I forget that. But I’m pretty good with faces. If we’ve never met, then you have a twin somewhere.”

  Celia hissed in a deep breath and held it for a second. “Okay…it’s possible you’ve seen me before, but it would have been a long time ago. A very long time…and I’ve changed a lot.” She winced, apparently contemplating whether or not to spill a secret.

  “That’s it. Now you have to tell me.” She hadn’t intended to meet with Celia for more than a few minutes, but found herself in no hurry to go.

  “You know I teach performance studies, right? Acting, directing, stage management, TV craft.” Celia stared sheepishly at her hands as they twirled her wineglass. “I grew up in LA. When I was a kid, I had my own TV show on KidStop.”

  The mention of the children’s network triggered an avalanche of memories, namely Theo fighting with her brothers over the remote control. “Oh…my…God! You’re Little CeCe. I watched you every day after school. I can’t believe this. I wanted to be just like you.”

  “No, you wanted to be like her. She was a Hollywood illusion. Sorry to crack the fantasy, but the real Celia was a screwed-up kid who went to work every day in the showbiz cesspool. And like most kids whose mothers whored them out to Hollywood, I went home to a cesspool too.”

  That didn’t sound good—and Theo wanted every last detail. “I always wondered what happened to you. And why the hell did they cancel your show? It was the biggest thing on TV for girls my age and all of a sudden it just vanished.”

  Celia brazenly cupped her breasts and lifted them. “Because Little CeCe started getting these boobs when she was only eleven.”

  Theo felt somewhat guilty that she’d already noticed Celia’s breasts, which strained against her top. They were quite large for such a slender woman.

  “There were a couple of sickos on the production team who found that development a little too interesting, if you catch my drift. But the network brass didn’t want an after-school show about puberty. Thank God for small favors.”

  “Seriously? You had your own TV show and you’re complaining about it? That’s every kid’s dream.”

  “Trust me, it isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. Imagine being eight or ten years old and working all day on a set where everybody forgets that you just want to play with your friends or watch some TV of your own. And your mom feeds you carrots and celery for lunch so you won’t get fat and lose your gig. I was the golden goose, the one who paid the mortgage. That’s a lot of pressure for a kid.”

  Miraculously, the animated expressions and powerful voice were still the same after thirty years. At least they seemed that way to Theo, who was ticking off her favorite episodes in her head.

  “I feel like a fangirl meeting my idol. You’re not going to believe this, but watching your show is what made me realize the world treated women differently. Before that, I thought it was just because my brothers were jerks. Remember that episode about the baseball team? The boys kept jumping in front of the girls to make all the plays. And one of them snatched the ball out of your hands before you could throw it. You got all the girls together and told them just to stand around, not to even swing when you were batting. The boys ended up having to beg for your help, and then you made the game-saving catch.”

  Celia laughed and nodded along. “I remember, but again…that wasn’t me. It was Little CeCe. The real Celia Monroe never played baseball a day in her life.”

  “That’s right. Your name used to be Monroe. You changed it.”

  “I changed it back to my birth name,” she explained. “Kyle Monroe was my stepfather. And my manager. Turned out he embezzled most of my earnings and left my mom and me flat broke. We could have used a Theo Constantine back then.”

  “Where is he now? I’ll kick his ass.”

  “Probably out in the Nevada desert somewhere under a pile of rocks. We only found out about the embezzling because some goons came looking for him after he racked up a bunch of gambling debts in Vegas. The asshole didn’t even show up for my mom’s funeral.” She glanced away pensively and shook her head. “Between them, they were a real Hollywood power couple—she was alcohol, he was cocaine.”

  Theo’s initial perception of Celia Perone was effectively shattered. She was no helpless damsel in need of a knight to fight her battle, but a gutsy survivor who’d probably been forced to scrape for everything she ever got. No wonder she was outraged by what happened to Hayley Burkhart. Both of them had overcome so much to get where they were.

  “This is going to take a little getting used to,” Theo said. “It’s not every day I get such a blast from the past. Seriously, what happened after your show? Did you work on anything else?”

  “Not that anyone would remember…at least I hope not. Ever hear of Bloody Night in Hell? One of those teen slasher flicks. Unfortunately, I did the sequel too.”

  “I missed those.” Theo couldn’t resist scribbling the title on her notepad. “But I’m going to download them this weekend.”

  “Oh, please don’t do that—for your own sake. They were worse than awful. You’ll never get those four hours back.”

  “The more you protest, the more determined I a
m to see them.” Admittedly, she’d never been a fan of the horror genre. Too much violence against women, many of whom were scantily dressed—if they were dressed at all. “You aren’t running around naked, are you?”

  “God, no! I was only fourteen. But one of the older girls—Suzy Flynn—she had to do the bathtub scene where the killer looked in the window, and she ran out with a towel the size of a washcloth. I remember her saying the director made her shoot that scene about twenty times. Such a creep.”

  “Misogynistic pervert.” Theo couldn’t allow herself to dwell on that, or she’d get fired up and want to file suit against the film industry too. There was enough on her plate already. “That’s a truly fascinating story. So how did you get from Little CeCe to Dr. Perone?”

  “After my mom got rid of Kyle, we finally had royalties coming in from international, and it was enough to get me through college after she died. It was crazy to stay in the business, but I guess I had Stockholm Syndrome. I went to UCLA and ended up going for my PhD in performance studies. That’s what I knew. I was addicted to it.”

  “You don’t have to explain that part to me. Everyone should follow their bliss. I was the same way about law school. What I don’t get is, if you had the showbiz bug, why’d you leave California for a place like Atlanta?”

  Celia drank the last of her wine. “I’ll need another drink to tell you that story.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Is the food here any good?”

  * * *

  “…and in the last year of my PhD, I got involved with Gina Worley. You might recognize that name. She was the assistant coach for the women’s basketball team at UCLA, but then Harwood hired her away. Her first head coaching job. She got me an interview here that year. In fact, I got hired as part of her deal…one of those spousal placements, since we were living as domestic partners. It was a plum job for somebody right out of a doctoral program. I wasn’t all that crazy about living in Georgia, but Harwood’s the kind of place you can get used to in a hurry. Everything’s first class.”

  Theo shook her head in an exaggerated double-take. “Excuse me, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Little CeCe was a lesbian. No wonder I liked that show so much.”

  Celia laughed with delight. From the moment she’d revealed her childhood identity, their conversation had shifted from business to personal. “How do you think she got all those girls to go along with her?”

  “Wait! What if I wasn’t even gay before that? What if you made me this way?”

  “I’ve been known to have that effect on women,” Celia said almost flirtatiously, doing her best not to crack a smile.

  If anyone could make a straight woman jump the fence, it would be Theo Constantine. Perfect white teeth that lit up her whole face when she smiled. Hypnotic blue eyes. Thick blond hair with dark streaks underneath…perfect for gripping during sex.

  The second glass of wine had gone to her head, Celia realized with panic, and her meal hadn’t yet smoothed its effects. It was a miracle she hadn’t blurted out her thoughts.

  “So what happened with you and the coach? Did you get benched?”

  “Other way around. She got canned a couple of years ago. Took the Harwood women to three Sweet Sixteens and a Final Four. Then she hit a wall and had six losing seasons in a row. Now she’s coaching at some little state college in Ohio. No thanks, not moving to Ohio.” The way she said it made it sound worse than it was. Neither she nor Gina had been particularly sorry when their relationship ended. “We were already more miss than hit by that time. In fact, she tried to blame me for her last three losing seasons. Said I didn’t support her enough, that she was distracted by her home life. Could have been true, I guess. Once she started losing, she wasn’t a whole lot of fun to be around. I started working with the community theater so I wouldn’t have to come home at the end of the day. Sorry if that makes me a bad person.”

  “Those things happen. Sometimes people grow apart.”

  Celia had gone online and read dozens of profiles of Theo—and yet none of them had gone into great detail about her private life. Beyond her confirmation she was a lesbian, she’d given nothing away. Was there a partner lurking in the shadows? Children? She’d told The Advocate she thought it best to keep those close to her in the shadows, given the controversy that followed her.

  “That’s enough about me. I looked you up on Wikipedia. I want to know how you got rid of your Jersey accent without picking up a Georgia drawl. That’s one of the toughest things to teach theater students.”

  “South Jersey’s more of a Philly accent, not so noticeable. What I had, they neutralized my first year at Barnard. They’re big on diction.”

  “Barnard…and then Columbia Law. That’s right, I read all about you,” she confessed. “What I don’t get is why you’d pick a place like Atlanta after so many years in New York. You’re hiding your talents down here.”

  Theo grinned and pushed her empty plate aside. She looked completely relaxed now, having removed her suit jacket and tucked her scarf into the pocket. The sleeves of her white silk blouse were rolled to her elbows, revealing an expensive gold watch and delicate chain bracelet. Not a ring in sight. “Hiding my talents, huh?”

  That was more of her wine talking, Celia realized, trying to be complimentary without coming right out and gushing over what a rock star Theo was in the legal world. “New York’s the biggest stage on the planet. You just don’t strike me as someone who’d be at home down here in the Deep South.”

  “Fair enough. Turns out I ended up here the same way you did—I followed a woman. We met at Barnard, and when I was finishing up at Columbia, she got a job teaching philosophy at Spelman. Shonnie Thurman’s her name.” She said it with unmistakable affection. “We moved down here together and I hung out my shingle. I like Atlanta. The pace is a little slower than in Manhattan, but it’s got its own sophistication. Besides, there’s Harwood, Emory, John Marshall, Georgia State…it’s a good pipeline for young, smart attorneys.”

  “Spelman.” Celia had worked on a community theater presentation of Showboat with several members of their drama department, all of whom were African-American. “So you’ve been together for…”

  “Oh, we’re not together now. What you said about New York, about it being a bigger stage…you’re right. But it’s more than that. It’s a whole different culture there. Cosmopolitan. Shonnie and I fit together well in the city, but not so much here in Atlanta. She found a better kinship at Spelman…closer to her cultural roots.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Though it made no sense at all someone would throw over Theo. “So you got your heart broken.”

  Theo shrugged. “It worked out for the best. She has a wife now. I went to their wedding last year. We’re still friends…not as close as I thought we’d be though. We’re different people now.”

  So where did that leave Theo? Most likely on the receiving end of women throwing themselves at her. She was rich, successful and gorgeous. And fortunately for Celia, the effects of her wine had faded, enabling her to think that without saying it aloud.

  Instead she managed something more benign. “And now you’re married to your job, I bet. Just like me.”

  “Feels that way sometimes. Good thing I love what I do. Do you?”

  “Most of the time. I’d like to be teaching TV classes instead of theater…and seniors instead of freshmen. But it’s fun seeing students get excited about the performance arts. Kids like Hayley and Michael. Hayley had real talent…maybe even too much of it for her own good.” A shudder ran through her as she recalled their last conversation. “She told her sorority sisters what happened to her. Apparently some of them thought she was just being dramatic, that it wasn’t as bad as she made it out to be. Ironic, huh? You’re so good at something that it kills you.”

  Theo’s smile faded, and Celia realized hers had too. Here she’d sat chatting up a woman who piqued her sexual interest when the whole reason they’d met in the first place was a girl
who’d killed herself after being raped.

  * * *

  After a full glass of wine, Theo had been careful to watch the clock—an hour since her last sip. It wouldn’t do for someone of her notoriety to get pulled over for DUI. The press would eat it up.

  “Where are you parked?” she asked as they stepped onto the sidewalk. In the last few days, the humidity had crept upward, reminding everyone in the city that summer was on its way.

  “At the MARTA station in Dunwoody. You couldn’t pay me to drive in this city.”

  That meant they were heading in opposite directions, unless… “I can give you a ride to your car if you like. I’m in the garage around the corner.”

  “Thanks, but it’s probably easier on both of us if I take the Red Line. Pretty hard to beat a sixteen-minute ride.”

  “Very true.” To say nothing of the fact that it probably wasn’t a good idea to feed her attraction to someone who was practically her client. She hadn’t been drawn to a woman so quickly since the first time she met Shonnie. Something compelled her to say so. “I don’t mean to be crass about this…considering we met because of Hayley’s assault, that is. I’ve enjoyed talking to you, hearing your story. It blows me away that I watched you on TV when I was a kid. Maybe one of these days…if our circumstances are different, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you.”

  Celia stopped abruptly. Eyebrows up, mouth agape. She was Little CeCe all over again.

  “Geez, that sounded pretty arrogant, didn’t it?” Though she hadn’t expected Celia to be shocked.

  “And we can’t see each other now because…?”

  So it wasn’t shock after all, though it left Theo with what felt like a sterile explanation. “Because of your involvement in this case. It would be way too easy for me to forget how important you are as a witness. If we file this suit, I need to focus on my legal obligations to Hayley.” As difficult as that might be. It was critical she keep her objectivity about Celia’s credibility and potential effectiveness, and not let herself be swayed by personal feelings that had nothing to do with the case.