Perfect Pitch

by Amy Lapwing

  “Oh.” Yes, she remembered. How to phrase it. “She was surprised because he had seemed like a decent person to her, prior to trying to rape her.”

  “Objection!” shouted the lawyer. Justina’s ears rang.

  The judge admonished her and the lawyer asked her what words Grace used to describe Derek.

  “I don’t recall. I only had the impression that she was favorable toward him up until they stopped in the orchard. From that point on—

  “Thank you, Ms. Trimble.” Despicable smile. “No further questions, Your Honor.”

  The judge dismissed her. She got down and returned to her seat, her subdued eyes upon the door directly ahead. She detected the woman’s glance at Michael, and his smile to her: oh, her, she’s just my wife, don’t worry about her.

  She could leave, she would not be called again, but now she had to stay.

  Michael took the stand and the prosecutor tried to get him to corroborate Justina’s version of how they found Grace.

  “But you heard someone shout, ‘Fuck you, asshole?’”

  “I heard it, but I didn’t know who was shouting.”

  “How did you find Ms. Hardy when you came out?”

  “She was sitting at the side of the road.”

  “Was she upset?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was she crying, or otherwise visibly perturbed?”

  “She seemed worried, yes.”

  “Worried. You didn’t see her crying?”

  “I was across the road. My wife told me to stay there. I couldn’t hear what Ms. Hardy said to her.”

  “All right, when you brought her in, how did she seem?”

  “She was worried.”

  “Did she tell you why?”

  “She did not tell me.”

  “Did you hear her tell your wife?”

  “No.”

  The prosecutor shifted his weight, bobbing from side to side. “Where were you, Mr. Calderón?”

  “I stayed in the kitchen. I made some tea for them. My wife wanted me to stay there while she talked to her.”

  “Okay. Because she knew Ms. Hardy might be upset by the mere presence, even suggestion, of a man, even a man she knew and respected, in light of what she had just gone through?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The prosecutor had been surprised that this witness had been sitting at the defendant’s table; he had been told by the plaintiff that he knew her, he would be friendly. But he appeared to be hostile.

  “You drove Ms. Hardy to the police to report the crime, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you felt she had a reason to go to the police?”

  “My wife told me that Grace said someone tried to rape her. I asked if she wants to report it to the police.”

  “How did Grace seem to you at this point?”

  “She seemed to hesitate.”

  At this utterance, Justina moved her head in an arc over her shoulders, as though seeing him from a slightly different angle would tell her where this fabrication had come from.

  “Hesitate? About what?”

  “She said she thought he is a very nice person, very much a gentleman.”

  “I never said that!” Grace cried.

  The prosecutor had finally realized where this thing about Grace praising Derek had come from, it had come from this supposedly friendly witness. Shit. He should not have called him. Hell, if I hadn’t, the defense would’ve. All right, all right. He continued, “She used the word ‘gentleman?’”

  “I believe she said he is very nice and that he really likes her. ‘Sincere,’ that is the word she used.”

  “Did you hear her give her statement to the police later on that night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she say that he was nice or sincere, in her sworn statement to the law enforcement officials?”

  “I don’t recall that she did, no.”

  The prosecutor sat with relief, he believed he had salvaged some good from this witness’ testimony. Luckily, there were no other peripheral witnesses to surprise him like this one had.

  The defense lawyer reiterated with Michael Grace’s glowing assessment of Derek, and Michael was dismissed. He sat and refrained from smiling at anyone, not wishing to draw attention to himself in any way, Justina thought, after his near-lie. The prosecutor rested his case and the judge adjourned the session, to be resumed after lunch.

  Get out of here, quick, before he finds me. She scurried up the aisle and out. No, I should talk to Grace. Justina hid in a corridor and watched the people come out of the courtroom. It took forever for everyone to leave. And the principals were probably conferring with their lawyers. This could take forever. Here came Jack and then Linda and Grace.

  “Grace.” She went to stand very close to them, screened by them. “I think you did fine.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You did. I could tell everyone’s pulling for you.”

  “What’s the deal with Mr. C?”

  Justina let out her breath. “I should have told you this before.”

  They waited. “What?”

  “He thinks Derek is his son.”

  In response to their confused silence, she said, “It’s a long story, but he thinks he’s his father. I’m sorry, I didn’t think. Of course, you needed to know, just to be prepared. I’m sorry.”

  “No, it’s all right,” said Linda. “It’s all right, Professor Trimble. Don’t worry yourself.”

  They stood huddled, thinking whether Mr. C’s testimony really made any difference, when he came out with Teresa and Derek. He quickly turned his head when he saw the opposition grouped there, and steered his party to the elevators.

  Did he see me and he’s snubbing me? Probably he didn’t see me over Jack. Go, just go.

  The elevator finally opened and whisked away the offensive people.

  “In case I don’t make it back this afternoon, good luck, Grace.” She gave her a quick hug, grasping arms, chin over her shoulder. “I’m sure we’ll win,” she said and she went in search of the stairs, a slow descent, to avoid an awkward meeting in the lobby.

  Michael took Teresa and Derek to lunch at the Nine Mile Inn. He got them a table in the corner and they discussed strategy, one more time.

  “You don’t have to lie,” said Michael.

  “But it was just for sex,” said Derek.

  “It doesn’t matter what you were thinking. What you did and what she did, that’s what this is about.”

  “What do you think the jury’s going to think if you start out saying that?” said Teresa.

  “What’s wrong with it? That’s why she went out with me.”

  “You don’t know that, Derek,” said Michael. “Anyway, she could have changed her mind.”

  “So, what do I say? How do I conceal the truth, and not lie?”

  “No,” said Michael, shaking his head, trying to clear Derek’s head as well as his own. “Look, you parked, you did this, she did that, so you did something else. All the time, you thought she was giving you signals, to go ahead.”

  “She was, I thought.”

  “Exactly. Then, suddenly she gives a different signal. So, you respond correctly, and it’s over. You leave.”

  “Won’t it look bad that I didn’t drive her home?”

  “She said, ‘Leave me alone’ or something, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you did. It’s too bad it wasn’t a nice time, but you didn’t want to be together anymore, so you left. She was just a half mile from her house, takes ten minutes to walk.”

  “But it was the middle of the night.”

  “It was her neighborhood, she could go to a neighbor if she needed to.”

  “Which she did,” said Derek.

  Michael sat back in his seat and looked at his plate.

  Derek said, “God! You could have told me your wife didn’t like me.”

  “No,” countered Michael, “that’s
not it, she—”

  “She hates my guts.”

  “She doesn’t hate you. She just sides with her student.”

  “Her testimony,” said Teresa without looking at Michael, “was not that strong, I don’t think.”

  “Everybody was looking at her with these really sad looks when your wife was telling about how she was crying and everything.”

  That’s true, Michael and Teresa seemed to be saying with a look.

  “And then you said she was so upset she couldn’t even stand to be in the same room with you! Her beloved Mister C! ‘Cause you’re a man! Shit!”

  “I was only trying to tell them I didn’t see any of it.”

  Derek bobbed his head forward.

  “That was too little for the jury to remember. They’ll remember the last thing they hear best. And that’s you.” Teresa leaned forward to get Derek’s attention. “You listen to your father, he’s right. You should just give the facts, don’t let them have any hint that you had sex on your mind before this mess started.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if the jury even knows what a slut she is,” Derek snorted. “They’ll know what was on my mind.”

  “Don’t use that word,” Michael cautioned.

  “What word?”

  “Slut. Don’t use any bad words, Derek, remember.”

  “I would never do that. You think I’m stupid?”

  Michael said, “No,” and smiled as the waitress laid plates in front of them. “We might as well eat as much as we want, I don’t think anyone will be falling asleep this afternoon.”

  His lawyer had Derek tell the jury everything that happened, up until she said, ‘No.’

  “Why didn’t you drive her home?” the lawyer asked.

  “I thought she just wanted me to go.”

  “Did she ask for a ride home?”

  “No.”

  “Your witness.”

  Justina closed the door softly behind her and found a seat in the back. She could see Michael’s head from where she sat: sitting with them again.

  The little prosecutor hitched up his pants and swaggered up to Derek.

  “You say Ms. Hardy got out of the car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she get out, or fall out?”

  “She opened the door and got out.”

  “Didn’t she have trouble with the lock?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Do you remember locking her door with the master lock on your door?”

  “I definitely did not lock her door. If it was locked, she did it.”

  “Now, when you were outside, you say you slapped Ms. Hardy?”

  “I tapped her.”

  “Tapped her, slapped her. You hit her, didn’t you?”

  “I tapped her.”

  “How many times?”

  “I don’t know. Not more than twice.”

  “Twice, that’s right. Why’d you hit her the second time?”

  “Something about the way she was looking, I thought she wanted me to.”

  “She didn’t say, ‘no,’ after the first time?”

  “She never said, ‘no’ till the very end.”

  “You say she ‘gave chase.’ What does that mean, exactly?”

  “She got up and ran off a little ways.”

  “Didn’t that tell you she wanted to get away from you?”

  “No.”

  “What did that tell you, then, Mr. Bartel?”

  “That she wanted me to chase her.”

  “And what did you do when you caught her?”

  “I kissed her.”

  “And what did she do?”

  “She kissed me and she, like, held onto me.”

  “By ‘kissed me’ do you mean she shouted, ‘leave me alone?’”

  “No.”

  “And when you say, she held onto you, do you mean she pushed you away, trying to get away from you?”

  “If she pushed me, she did it playfully.”

  “‘Playfully?’ She ‘playfully’ pushed you?”

  “Yeah. She used, just, so little pressure, it could only be that she was being playful.”

  “Ah. And how much pressure do you need before it becomes actual pushing, to you?”

  “Objection!” shouted Derek’s lawyer. “Argumentative.”

  “Yuh,” said the judge. “Wrap it up, counselor. We’re not learning anything new here.”

  “To the contrary, your honor, I believe we are getting an interesting view inside the mind of an attempted rapist.”

  “Before the bench, counselor,” wearily ordered the judge. “Strike the last,” he said to the court steno.

  ‘Attempted rapist,’ thought Justina, gah! She saw the archetypal man conferring with the archetypal woman, his hair touching hers. Justina’s empty stomach splashed her esophagus with acid and she held her belly. She wanted this to be over today, so Michael would come home tonight and never see them again.

  The chastened prosecutor returned to his mouse. “Mr. Bartel, you say you believed you and Ms. Hardy were engaging in foreplay that was ‘on the rough side?’”

  “I thought that was what she wanted.”

  “And you were anxious to please.”

  “Objection!” shouted Derek’s lawyer.

  “Strike it,” said the judge. “Counselor?” he sighed.

  “I’ll rephrase, Your Honor. Mr. Bartel, could you tell us what made you change your mind? At what point did you believe that rough play was no longer what Ms. Hardy wanted?”

  “She was leaning back against the car and I was kissing her and she said, ‘No.’”

  “Weren’t you trying to penetrate her?”

  “I was not trying to penetrate her.”

  “Do you deny that you had your pants unzipped and your penis out and under her skirt?”

  “It was nowhere near her.”

  “But you just said you were kissing her. You must have been very close to her. All of you, your entire body, must have been quite intimately close to her.”

  “I never touched her with it. She said, ‘No,’ I left.”

  The prosecutor put on his best skeptical look and glared at Derek while he thought where to go from here.

  Derek said, “I never tried to rape that girl. She seemed to like me, I thought she wanted to have sex with me.”

  Michael sat taller in his chair and willed Derek to shut up.

  “She changed her mind. So I left her alone.”

  Michael slumped back in his chair, with a glance at the jury.

  This kid’s too smooth. He had no further questions for this witness, the prosecutor told the indifferent judge.

  Michael kept from looking at Derek as he came back to sit down. When Teresa leaned across him to say something to her son, Michael put his hand on hers and she sat back. Self-congratulation would leave a bad impression with the jury.

  The judge inexplicably called a halt to the proceedings for the day; resume tomorrow morning at nine.

  Good, thought Justina, Michael will come home now. I’ll just go get him, I’ll say, Michael has to come home now. And he won’t be coming to your house to play anymore, sorry.

  But she had to endure it, his conferring with them, walking out with them, lingering over his goodbyes, hugging Derek and kissing Teresa, giving her an extra squeeze of encouragement. Justina ducked out ahead of him.

  From her car, she watched Michael leave them and get into his car. It was only the middle of the afternoon, he was probably going back to school. Concert Chorus. Grace would probably not show. Then he had private students, till six. He would come home to help with dinner. Maybe she would stay at school. But she had to go home, to make sure he did. Beautiful, beautiful day, New England-clouds-scudding-across-the-sky, colors past peak, except for the vermilion oaks, their time to be brilliant, no one to upstage them, they would bring down the curtain. Then nothing, just brown and gray until the first snow. Then the first nor’easter, to cover everything, change it. ‘You will be
transformed!’ I am deficient. She is complete. He wants me to be like her. Because he wants to be with her.

  The prospect of his son’s acquittal the next day was orderly in Michael’s mind, he came into the house expecting to find a reflection of his certainty and faith. Justina stood at the counter peeling asparagus. She looked up at him as he entered the kitchen, expecting a blow. He approves of rough foreplay, now, doesn’t he?

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” she answered, turning back to her task. What, what, what to say. Something nice. “How do you think it went?”

  Her air is not sarcastic, he noted with satisfaction. “Very well.”

  She did not respond.

  “Don’t you agree?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You mean, you don’t know if Grace has won?”

  “I just don’t know.”

  “She has no case.”

  Oh, he’s hard, that’s a hard look. He wants it out with me. I am wrong to support her, so wrong. I must correct myself for him.

  She said, “You know as well as I do that her case is sound.”

  “Justina, how can you support her? She is the campus slut!”

  She took the asparagus to the sink to rinse them. “I’m not going to talk to you about this.”

  He came closer, resting a hand on the counter where she had been working. “Why not?”

  “You just want to argue with me. You know I won’t budge, but you want to argue anyway.”

  “Yes, I know you won’t budge.”

  She turned to see him. He looked about to pounce.

  “You are my wife. You oppose my son. How can you do that?”

  “Your son!”

  “You are my wife. Why you don’t support me?”

  “Because you’re wrong!”

  “I must have your support! You are my wife!” His fist came down on the cutting board.

  He wasn’t going to pounce, he was going to riddle her with arrows. “What the hell does that mean?” she shouted.

  “I cannot permit you to opposing me! You think you are independent, you are not.”

  “I have to think whatever you think?” Her face broke with incredulity as she said ‘think.’

  “When I am sure, of course!”

  “You know better than I do?”

  “This time, yes.”

  She looked at him, her mouth open. “You don’t even know if he’s your son!”