A Past That Breathes

by Noel Obiora

  “And Thomas?”

  “What about Thomas?”

  “Do you blame him for thinking the man spent the night?”

  “What the hell was he doing snooping around my apartment anyway? I am not his property.”

  “He sent someone to tell you where to find me. And they found him at your apartment.”

  “Why didn’t he call?”

  “He didn’t want to use the phone in case your father was listening.”

  “No, I mean why didn’t he call to ask me what Kenneth was doing there.”

  “Because apparently the discussion didn’t go so well the last time he ran into the two of you.”

  “Oh, spare me. What’s with this cloak and dagger thing with Dad, anyway? Can you tell me what’s going on? I don’t want to talk about Thomas. Certainly not with what’s going on with my parents.”

  “You are not going to use this decision by your father as a further justification to delay getting married or live a life of spinsterhood.”

  “Mom, men are enough excuse for a life of spinsterhood. I don’t need to justify it any more than you need a prison to justify that criminals exist.”

  Looking outside as they approached her hotel, off Mason Street, Alana explained that she had moved to a hotel because Thomas was throwing a Super Bowl party this weekend. She told Amy she would go to see her father this weekend. The news had been a shock to her, and she did not want him to see her fall apart. However, he was telling people it was all a mistake. He had merely asked his lawyers to let him know what the figures would look like if he were to explore the option of a divorce, and they had mistakenly delivered the document to Alana when he asked them to deliver a different document that provided legal advice on the family foundation instead. Amy was quiet through this explanation, knowing Alana was telling her this story because she wanted Amy to support her.

  “I would like you to go to Thomas’s party.”

  “Did Thomas tell you that my new boss who was eagerly waiting for my arrival, so she could test my mettle, was his one-night stand?”

  “He conceded he might have deserved being pushed away.”

  Amy rolled her eyes and turned toward her window.

  “Amy, dear, you are old enough now where I can tell you this: No man alive is a saint. Exhibit one, your dad.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “So, will you call him and tell him you are coming?”

  “Oh, I intend to see him on this visit. I guess the Super Bowl is as good a time as any.”

  They said nothing more on the subject. Amy turned her attention to finding out about Edward and his girlfriend. Edward and Angela would join them, Alana told her, and Amy devised a plan to get them to go to Thomas’s party with her.

  Before the party, she went to see Thomas to tell him she did not want to attend the party as his girlfriend. They needed a fresh start, she told him, but first she wanted a break. She confessed she crossed a line with Kenneth. He wanted to know what line she crossed, but she would not tell him. It sufficed that she had confessed and she was sorry. She also would appreciate it if Thomas did not share this confession with Alana, given what Alana was going through at this time. Thomas seemed offended by the suggestion, but Amy did not mind.

  Edward’s girlfriend, Angela, was shy but assertive and much more engaging with Amy than she was with anyone else in the family. Amy took to her as well, which pleased her brother. Edward had never formally introduced Amy to any of his girlfriends, much less flown one across the country to meet her. When they arrived at the hotel, before leaving for Thomas’s party, the first person Angela’s eyes appeared to settle on in the lobby was Amy. They both smiled. Angela tugged on Edward’s sleeve and hurried toward Amy.

  They hugged like old friends, Amy and Angela, and Amy pinched Edward on the cheek playfully, seeking to leave him red faced. He was wearing a casual black blazer and a pink shirt with soft leather shoes.

  “How has your visit to the Bay Area been so far?” Amy asked Angela after they were all seated.

  “She’s from here,” Edward explained. “Brought up in Berkeley. Her father was a Dutch professor and her mother is American.”

  “Alright, then,” Amy continued. “You went all the way across the country to find the girl from the public school across the street.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put it,” Angela said. “We’re segregated in our own backyards and have to leave home to find ourselves without the boundaries. I like it.”

  “She has depth, too. I like her,” Amy said.

  “She thinks that’s what happened to you,” Edward said.

  “Who said anything happened to me?”

  “No one…” Edward said.

  Amy turned to Angela, who shrugged. They went to a café, and every opportunity Amy had to steal glances at Angela without seeming obvious, she studied her. Her skin was the hue of Mediterranean tan, her cheekbones rose and her eyes got wider when she smiled, grinned, or laughed, but when she was not amused, they reflected a vulnerability at once sad, hopeful, and apprehensive. This vulnerability led Amy to trust her implicitly. She sent Edward up to see Alana before joining them to leave for the party, and within an hour after meeting, Amy and Angela had discussed everything about Edward, Thomas, and the incidents with Kenneth. She agreed that Amy should take a break from Thomas.

  23

  Professional Responsibility

  Kenneth and Cassandra arrived at Bauchet Street on Tuesday evening. Kenneth had gone to UCLA late in the afternoon and waited at Cassandra’s office while reading a case she had printed for him. The title of the case was People v. Jackson, and boldly across the title page, Cassandra had written, “Karma or Coincidence” and had drawn a smiling face.

  They both left the campus after Cassandra’s meeting and some time for Cassandra to leave her books in the office and check her messages. Kenneth avoided the freeway because of rush hour traffic and took the inner streets, which were not much quicker.

  He weaved the car through traffic on Sunset Boulevard, found Vermont Avenue, and headed south on Vermont.

  “What will you tell Paul about her?” Cassandra asked.

  “The DA in your case is someone I fell in love with in law school. We hooked up again in Los Angeles before I knew she was going to be assigned to this case,” Kenneth replied, glancing at Cassandra before turning his attention back to the road.

  “And you call that a disclosure?” Cassandra asked, clearly unimpressed.

  “What else would you like me to say?”

  “I think you’re actually supposed to tell him the nature of the relationship and exactly how long it has been going on. Didn’t you read the case I gave you while you were waiting?”

  “Hooked up means seeing each other,” Kenneth said.

  “In Ebonics or some other language?” Cassandra retorted.

  “Paul will know what I mean.”

  “Okay,” Cassandra said. “I’ll make sure he does.”

  They were quiet again, but only for a moment, as if to allow what disagreements they had about the issue to dissipate. They came to a traffic jam on Vermont Avenue near the freeway exit, where there was some road construction. Cassandra rubbed her hands together, periodically massaging the palm of one hand with the thumb the other, while looking at him.

  “I don’t remember the last time you admitted that you were in love with anyone.”

  “You know the strangest thing was, before college I had never been to Texas, and everyone asked me not to pick Texas. My mother wanted me to go somewhere near home, unless it was Ivy League or a historically Black college, but when Ivy League didn’t pan out, I insisted it was Texas for me. I remember my mother saying it was going to be the same experience as with a Black college anyway. You guys are gonna be socializing with the few African American classmates you get, and the white kids will
socialize with their white classmates, and so on. But while Mom talked about social apartheid, I thought worse. Then my friends kept trying to talk me out of it. Like, man, you even sneeze on white folks down there, and they’ll send those big old police dogs trained to catch brothers for Jim Crow after you.”

  “I’m guessing this was the nineteen-eighties, not the eighteen-eighties, right?” Cassandra asked.

  “Regardless, I was drawn to that school, but I didn’t know it then.”

  “How did you lose her?” Cassandra asked. Kenneth kept his eyes on the road even though the car was fully stopped in traffic closer to downtown Los Angeles. He appeared as though he had not heard the question but after a while began speaking to it.

  “She said it would never work between us,” he said, then turned to look at Cassandra.

  “Why?” Cassandra asked in a gentle tone.

  “She never said why.”

  “And now?”

  Traffic was moving again, and Kenneth seemed glad to concentrate on the road.

  “I guess I confirmed what she thought,” he said. A shy smile formed on his face. Cassandra did not ask any more of him.

  After parking the car, they hurried into the receiving area, where the deputy sheriffs watched them like wild cats considered zoo visitors. Kenneth went through his usual routine of emptying his pockets, and Cassandra went through unmolested. They found an unoccupied bench and took up positions on one side of the table. Not a word passed between them after they passed through the metal detectors.

  A sheriff’s deputy led Paul Jackson into the meeting room again. He looked toward Kenneth and Cassandra as he waited for final clearance from an approaching guard.

  “Is this your client? ” Cassandra asked.

  “Yes.”

  Paul walked toward them in a pink jumper, with his hands in handcuffs, followed by a guard.

  As soon as the guard left them alone, Kenneth patted Paul on the shoulder and squeezed his hand.

  “I want you to meet someone. She’s the professor at the UCLA Law School I told you about, Cassandra Rayburn.”

  “Hi,” Paul said and shrugged, reaching out with his free left hand.

  “I understand,” Cassandra said and squeezed it. “How are you?”

  “Okay, I guess. Are you gonna be working on my case, too?” Paul asked.

  “That’s what I’m hoping,” Kenneth said before Cassandra could answer. “She’s the best young legal mind in California, but eh…there are some things she wants cleared up before she can come in.”

  “Okay. I thought you got the money all squared up now?”

  “Yes, it’s not about money.”

  “What’s it about?” Paul asked with a perplexed look, which he turned toward Cassandra.

  “First, it is important Paul that you make absolutely certain that your father and Mr. Jones understand that they are not representing you in any capacity while we are your attorneys,” Cassandra said.

  “I agree, I told Kenneth I’ll take care of that already.”

  “And about this letter they said was sent to the victim after she died…” Cassandra started to say.

  “Yeah, I’m gobsmacked about that, too. I’m not even kidding you. I didn’t mail anything to Goldie. Don’t know what the heck they keep talking about.”

  Cassandra and Kenneth exchanged glances like they were trying to decipher what language Paul was speaking.

  “Paul, you realize that we have an advantage over the DA if we know what’s in this mail but they don’t. Keeping what’s in it from us is giving them the advantage over us,” Kenneth said to Paul.

  “I did not mail that letter, Kenny,” Paul said emphatically.

  “Maybe it was mail that was delayed. When was the last time you put something in the mail for her?” Cassandra said.

  “If I write her, I usually just send somebody going her way to drop it off for me. I haven’t written her in a while. She was in London, and I didn’t have her contact address.”

  “You have no idea what could be in that mail?” Cassandra asked.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Kenneth contemplated what Paul had said for a short while and nodded.

  “There is something else I need to tell you before Professor Rayburn comes into the case. Not that I wouldn’t tell you otherwise.”

  “What is it?” Paul asked.

  “I went to college with the young deputy DA on your case—back in Texas. She and I, together, and before I knew she was gonna be on your case, we hooked up again in LA.”

  Kenneth and Cassandra waited for Paul to say something, but it was unclear whether he was angry or disappointed.

  “You used to go with the DA in my case?” he asked.

  “We didn’t really date, but we were close in college,” Kenneth said.

  “Big was right, that’s why you didn’t want the case.”

  “No, I didn’t even know of it until Big brought it up,” Kenneth said.

  “Why couldn’t you look me in the eye and tell me the truth, Kenny?”

  “There was nothing going on. If there was, I would have told you.”

  “And now?” Paul asked.

  “Still nothing.”

  “Look, Paul, what’s important is that we let you know that the deputy DA and your attorney may have been in an affair and may have a mutual social interest in each other. And this has been fully disclosed to you,” Cassandra said curtly.

  “I get the picture,” Paul said. “What can I do about this?” he asked Cassandra.

  “You could fire him and get another attorney,” Cassandra said. “There is still time for you to find someone who can represent you effectively in this case.”

  “Will you take the case from him, if I fire him?” Paul asked Cassandra.

  “No, I have too much on my plate right now; I wouldn’t even consider working on this case if not for him,” Cassandra said.

  “What else does the law say I can do?” Paul asked.

  “The law says I have to tell you the truth about it, so you can do whatever you want,” Kenneth said.

  “I don’t want you seeing her, Kenny, unless it’s in court on my case,” Paul said.

  Kenneth turned to Cassandra impulsively, a rush of adrenalin and blood to his head, and all the while Paul was staring at him.

  “You can’t stop him from seeing anyone because he is representing you,” Cassandra said sternly, as Kenneth began to answer.

  “No, Casey. Let me take care of this,” Kenneth said.

  “That’s right, Kenny. Do the right thing,” Paul said.

  “I can understand why you’d feel that way, Paul. Still, you don’t get to dictate whom I see because I’m your attorney.”

  “She’s on the wrong team, Kenny. We go way back and you’re gonna choose this thing with her over me? My life? You ever tried a murder case before in your life? And you are gonna let her mess with your head on my case…with my life on the line. I’m saying I believe in you on trust. You think she believes in you like that?”

  Cassandra shifted restlessly, as Paul spoke with vehemence.

  “I hear you, but I’m not doing anything that would put your case in jeopardy. That’s the point. She just works there and happens to be on your case,” Kenneth said.

  “And if I do come into the case, the relationship will not make any difference,” Cassandra added. Paul seemed somewhat reassured by Cassandra’s statement, so she continued. “You can replace him now if you want. That’s what we came to tell you. We won’t have this discussion again after today. So, this is your chance.”

  “Are you in?” Paul asked.

  “As soon as Kenneth says we’ve got a deal,” Cassandra said.

  “Good, then it doesn’t matter, like you said,” Paul said.

  Paul yanked at the handcuff attac
hed to the table to get the attention of the sheriff, who started walking toward them to take him away.

  Barely outside the meeting room, Kenneth had an urgent question for Cassandra, “Do you believe that?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He seems like an intelligent defendant, which is more than you can ask for.”

  They walked past the cats in the receiving area who watched them silently, blinked, and turned their attention elsewhere. Kenneth considered that their world was different from his for a reason, and the bars separating the two worlds stood like due process, without which the treatment he received from them could have been much worse.

  24

  A White Lie

  Amy’s mail and new assignments occupied her morning on a busy Monday. Kenneth’s Association of Counsel for Cassandra was among them, as well as a motion to inspect Goldie’s apartment with experts. He has been busy, Amy thought. She was happy for him, knowing it gave him a platform to build experience upon, but the idea that he could identify with Paul Jackson, even on the basis of race, still riled her and motivated her to beat him.

  He had tried to reach her all weekend, but she had turned her phone off for most of the time she was in San Francisco with Alana and at Thomas’s Super Bowl party. Since she returned on Sunday night, she had not called him back. Instead, she had continued to ruminate on whether she had been fair to Thomas. Alana had wondered aloud whether she would have acted so quickly to extricate herself from Thomas, or felt so offended by his affair with Kate, if Kenneth had not suddenly come in to the picture.

  “He didn’t suddenly come into the picture. I’ve known him since college. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him to you before.”

  “What exactly is he to you?” Alana had asked.

  “A friend; someone I was fond of…and I’m still fond of.”

  “And you are willing to throw away what you have with Thomas for him?”

  “I’ve told you that I’m not doing it for him…What exactly do I have with Thomas?”