Joie de Vivre

by Micheala Lynn

  In stark contrast Riley wore her usual classroom attire—simple tan slacks and matching blouse. She stared down at Bobbi’s hand for a moment before finally shaking it. “Yes, I’m Dr. Riley.”

  “Rod St. James, counsel for Dr. Riley and the University.” He sat down at the table without bothering with a handshake.

  “Great, how about we all get started then?” Bobbi clapped her hands together and sat down as if this were a meeting to plan the annual Christmas baked good sale for her sorority.

  Riley slowly sat opposite Bobbi. For some reason the woman made her skin crawl. Was it possible for someone to Botox their lips into that position?

  Bobbi waved over to the woman sitting in the corner as if she were a child. “We’ll be joined today by Judy Johnson, the court reporter who’ll be recording the proceedings.”

  Riley gave a quick nod to the court reporter and received a small smile in return.

  “Okey-dokey.” Bobbi rustled her papers in front of her. “Dr. Riley, will you please state for the record your full name and your professional title.”

  Riley sat back in her chair, taking her time. She then cleared her throat. “My name is Dr. Kathleen Riley. I hold a PhD in forensic anthropology and am currently the head of the Forensic Lab at Michigan State University where I also teach. That enough?”

  “Yes, yes, that will be fine. Do you mind if I call you, Kathy?” Bobbi again flashed that fake smile.

  It was all Riley could do not to reach across the table and throttle her. Not only did she rarely go by her first name, when she did it was Kate. She was not a Kathy—never had been, never would be. She then leaned forward, adopting a fake smile of her own. If this legal twit could do it, so could she. “Yes. You can call me Dr. Riley.”

  “Oh.” Bobbi’s eyebrows shot up as if someone had poked her in her bony bum with one of her fountain pens. “I see. Yes, I see.”

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page then, Bobbi.”

  “Yes, yes, I’m sure we are.” Bobbi shuffled her papers yet again. “So, Dr. Riley, have you ever been in court before? Are there any questions about these proceedings I can answer?”

  Riley stared at her for a long moment. No one could possibly be this moronic. Didn’t this woman have any idea who she was actually talking to and what her job entailed? It was time to put this woman in her place. “As a matter of fact, Bobbi, I have been in court before. I have given depositions and testified in over one hundred criminal trials across the country as an appointed officer of the court and expert witness where I have logged well over five hundred hours on the stand. So to answer your question, Bobbi, yes I have been in court before. Are there any questions for you that I can answer?”

  Riley could have been mistaken, but she thought she heard a quiet chuckle from Rod sitting beside her. Even the court reporter was suppressing a smile.

  Bobbi huffed, her fake smile vanishing. She shot a glare over at the court reporter as her aw-shucks-can’t-we-all-be-friends demeanor had disappeared. “Fine, let’s get started then.”

  Riley leaned back and crossed her arms, staring across the table at Bobbi. Judging from the beads of sweat erupting under her nose through her makeup, Bobbi’s demeanor seemed stressed. Riley felt relaxed and calm. She could certainly handle this idiot. And from Rod’s easygoing, almost bored look, he must have felt the same way.

  Bobbi cleared her throat, her voice no longer bubbly. There was a definite shake to it now, either from nerves or anger. “So, first off, can you describe in what capacity you knew my client, Joshua Evans?”

  “I’d be glad to.” Riley smiled, more to annoy Bobbi than anything else. “I taught Mr. Evans in my class, Special Topics in Anthropology—Human Osteology. I also knew him through my capacity as advisor to the Anthropology Club.”

  The questioning went on for the next half-hour, each question dumber than the previous. However they all paled in comparison to the next.

  “So, Dr. Riley, do you make it a practice to broadcast your sexual preferences”—here she sneered, her lips curling—“to your classes?”

  Riley stared at her. She had thought nothing would surprise her—she was wrong. “Excuse me?” She then felt a gentle hand cover her forearm.

  Rod leaned forward. “Might I remind counsel that Dr. Riley’s sexual preferences as you put it are not relevant to this case.”

  Bobbi then smiled, looking as if she might spring from her chair at any moment and exclaim gotcha. “I quite disagree, Mr. St. James. I quite disagree. We are arguing that Dr. Riley, along with her assistant Ms. Grace Krege who shares the same sexual preferences, discriminated against my client based both on his gender and his deeply held religious views, which makes it very relevant if Dr. Riley broadcasts her deviant sexuality openly to her classes.”

  “Ms. Montgomery, need I—” There was a dangerous tone to Rod’s voice now but Riley cut him off.

  “No, Rod, I want to address this for the record.” She sat up straight. So, Joshua Evans was going to play the God card. Talk about irony. If this woman honestly believed Mr. Evans was a man of deeply held religious views, she was in for a rude awakening. “In no way do I broadcast to my classes that I’m a lesbian. I neither make it a practice to disclose nor to hide my sexual orientation. However, the fact that I am a lesbian has nothing to do with my professional capacity either in the classroom or in any other way possible.”

  “Well, Dr. Riley, if that were the case, how is it that my client knew you were a lesbian?”

  Riley didn’t think it was possible for Bobbi to look more smug. “The fact that Joshua Evans even knows that I’m a lesbian, and even more so that Ms. Grace Krege is too, speaks more of his aberrant, inappropriate behavior and perverse character—”

  Bobbi quickly cut her off, a note of panic in her voice. “We’re not here to talk about my client.”

  Riley smiled. Reading people wasn’t one of her strong points, but if she had to bet, she’d wager everything she had that Bobbi knew what a lecherous bastard Joshua Evans was. Why she was even with him begged the question.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Montgomery.” Rod pointed his pen directly at Bobbi. “You brought up the question concerning my client broadcasting her orientation in the classroom—Dr. Riley needs to finish her response for the record.”

  Riley smiled internally. She knew what Rod knew. By asking her how Mr. Evans could possibly know she was a lesbian, Ms. Montgomery had opened the door for her to disclose Mr. Evans’s behavior concerning the subject. A rookie mistake. “Thank you, Rod. As I was about to say, the fact that Mr. Evans even knows my or Ms. Grace Krege’s sexual orientation has to do with his own deplorable conduct. From what I have observed, and as I am sure many will testify, he made a habit out of making sexual advances toward every woman in my class, the Anthropology Club and pretty much the entire department. It was when he approached Ms. Krege, that she told him that she was gay. That did not dissuade him. In fact, it only encouraged him all the more to the point that I had to step in and talk to Mr. Evans. I told him not only was his predatory behavior unacceptable at this university, I found it personally offensive. That was when he learned of my orientation.”

  Riley watched Bobbi across the table. Far from looking like a professional, she now resembled a child refusing to hear something she didn’t want to. Riley had no doubt that if Bobbi could have shoved her fingers in her ears and sung la, la, la, la, la, she would have.

  “Fine, fine, fine.” Bobbi now shot back as snottily as she could. “That’s not important anyway. Let’s talk about something else.”

  Riley cocked her head, giving Bobbi a nice lopsided be-my-guest smirk.

  “I have with me a paper written by Mr. Joshua Evans.” Bobbi reached over and pulled a paper out of her briefcase, sliding it across the table in front of Riley. “Do you recognize this?”

  Riley glanced down. She saw her bright red F scrawled in her handwriting across the top of the page. “Yes I do. That was Mr. Evans’s final paper in my Special Topics i
n Anthropology class.”

  Bobbi waited but seeing no further response, she continued. “If you would be so kind, can you please explain the reason you gave this paper a failing grade and subsequently failed Mr. Evans in your class, ruining his chances at entering the graduate program.”

  “Simple.” Riley reached out and tapped her finger hard below the red letter F she had inked on the top of the paper. “I gave this paper a failing grade because Mr. Evans plagiarized it. The rules in my classroom, and pretty much university wide, are if you get caught plagiarizing, you fail the course. That was the case here.”

  Bobbi smiled triumphantly. “However, we contend that in fact, Mr. Evans did not plagiarize anything at all, but rather was failed by Dr. Riley because of my client’s gender and professional jealousy. What do you say to that?”

  Riley struggled to contain her amusement. Professional jealousy? Who the hell was he trying to kid? She didn’t know what was crazier, the fact that Joshua Evans believed it or that this idiot woman in front of her actually bought it. “Let me get this straight, I’m supposedly jealous of Mr. Evans?”

  “Yes, that is our position. My client, Mr. Evans, believes that you gave him a failing grade because you felt threatened by him.”

  Rod shifted slightly in his seat beside her. Riley could be wrong, but she had the distinct feeling that Rod also was having difficulties grasping this. Joshua Evans couldn’t possibly believe that, could he? And if he did, what kind of delusion was he living? Now had come the time to pull out her little ace in the hole. “First off, I make it a practice of mine to photocopy any paper that I fail.” She leaned over and drew a copy of Joshua Evans’s paper from her satchel and dropped it on the table between her and Bobbi.

  “I don’t see where that would be any different than the paper I have brought for evidence.” Bobbi crossed her arms and refused to look at the paper in front of her.

  “This one I have taken the liberty to go through and highlight all the plagiarized passages.” She reached out and opened the paper to the first page that showed a large section blocked out with a yellow highlighter.

  Bobbi now seemed to take a bit more interest. “I don’t see how you can prove that my client plagiarized that.”

  That was what she had been waiting for. She reached down and drew another paper out of her satchel, dropping it on the table beside the first and opening it to show another highlighted section. “As you can see, these two passages are identical, word for word.”

  “That doesn’t mean a thing. The second one…the second one could have plagiarized my client.” However, by her tone, it was obvious Bobbi was unsure of her own words.

  Riley now smiled. This was going to be good. “That would be rather difficult, you see, since that second paper is an excerpt out of my doctoral thesis. Your client not only plagiarized his paper, he was too stupid to even look at who the author was.”

  Bobbi looked defeated as she stared first from one paper to the other. She seemed to be shrinking on the spot. If it weren’t so pathetic, it would be laughable.

  At that, Rod stood up from his chair. “I think we’re done here.”

  Riley also stood, leaving her papers face up on the table. She didn’t need them—she had more copies. Score one for her obsessive file keeping. Plus, the look on Bobbi’s face as she stared at them in disbelief was priceless. As they left the room she glanced back over her shoulder to see Bobbi still sitting there, her mouth agape as she continued to glance from paper to paper.

  Once in the hall, Rod leaned over as they walked along together. “You did an amazing job in there. I don’t think we’ll be hearing much more about this.”

  “Good. One less thing I have to worry about.” Now that it was over though, instead of elation she felt a cold, hard lump settle in her chest. She had plenty else to worry about. She’d rather deal with a dozen frivolous lawsuits than what awaited her.

  Rod clapped her on the shoulder. “After what happened in there I’ll be filing a motion to dismiss. As soon as I hear anything I’ll let you know, but I don’t expect this to go any further.”

  “Thanks, Rod.” She stepped outside into the cold December afternoon, taking a deep breath of the frigid air. Even as it seared her throat, she fought hard to keep from screaming. If only everything else in her life were that easy to fix.

  If the past few days had taught her anything, the very nature of her job sucked the life out of people. And Lisa was so full of life, the embodiment of joie de vivre. That was a very rare gift, especially after the loss Lisa had already suffered. But if Lisa stayed around her, learned about her taxing, soul-destroying work, would that eventually have an impact on Lisa? Would that zest for life that she had come to love so much in her fade with time, all because of what she did as a forensic anthropologist? That wouldn’t be fair to Lisa. Not at all. As hard as it was to admit, Lisa deserved better than that.

  * * *

  Lisa turned up Riley’s street and her heart leapt as she saw her truck parked out in front of her house. After four days she had finally tracked her down. Now she could get some answers.

  She bustled up the walk to Riley’s front door. Normally she would just let herself in. But until she found out what was going on it didn’t feel right, so she took a deep breath, reached out and rapped her knuckles hard against the wood door. She stepped back and waited, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, teeth chattering. She glanced back over her shoulder at Riley’s truck. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere without that, would she? Then again, if she had gone somewhere with someone else… Lisa shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to go there. Not until she knew different.

  She turned around and reached out to knock again, this time with the side of her fist, but as she did the lock clacked and the door slowly opened. Riley stood there in the doorway, propping herself up with one hand against the jamb. Lisa jumped back, her eyes flying wide. Riley had deep, dark circles under her eyes as if she had been bar brawling and now sported two decent shiners. She looked as if she were about to fall over. Whatever she had been expecting when she finally found Riley, it certainly wasn’t that. “Oh my God, Riley, are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” Riley stared down at the porch, not meeting her eyes.

  “Holy shit, Riley, you certainly don’t look fine. What the hell happened to you? You look like crap.”

  Riley took a long, labored breath, still standing in the doorway. “I’ve just been busy. That’s all.”

  Riley seemed to be blocking the doorway. She certainly wasn’t giving any invitations to enter. Whatever relief she may have been feeling from finally finding Riley was now giving way to something else—she was starting to get pissed, deeply pissed. “You’ve been busy doing what? First you run out in the middle of the night and then I don’t hear word one from you. What the hell’s going on?”

  Riley took another deep breath. “Look, Lisa, I’ve been busy. Can we just leave it at that?”

  Lisa could barely believe her ears. What the fuck? What kind of person would do that to someone? All she could do was stand there and stare. Riley still wouldn’t meet her eyes. That alone was probably pissing her off the most. Riley didn’t even have the courtesy to look at her. Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer and she stomped her foot down hard on Riley’s wooden porch. “What the hell is going on here, Riley? Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. And why on earth did you leave in the middle of the night?”

  Riley finally looked up but instead of defiant, she looked sad, tired. “I left a note—”

  “What? That scrap of paper you left on your pillow?” She cut Riley off. “That was supposed to make everything all right? Something came up, have to go. What the fuck was that supposed to mean, Riley? That didn’t tell me diddly-shit.”

  Riley dropped her eyes again and mumbled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  Lisa let out a cry of frustration and clapped her hands to her head. She could barely get two words out of Riley. What
had happened between two o’clock Sunday morning and now? That was the million-dollar question. Riley certainly wasn’t volunteering anything.

  Riley reached up with her free hand and slowly massaged her temples, closing her eyes. She shook her head back and forth then let out a long, painful sigh. “Look, Lisa, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m really sorry for that. Lord knows, that was never my intention.” She sighed again, this time wincing. “But I’ve been thinking a lot lately—maybe it would be best if we don’t see each other anymore.”

  Lisa stood there open-mouthed. She felt as if someone had sucker punched her. Of all the things she had thought Riley might say, that had never once been one of them. Her body now felt numb. “Is there someone else?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She didn’t know what else to ask.

  Riley looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time since she had gotten there. “No, God no. Never. I wouldn’t do that to you.” A tear spilled from the corner of Riley’s eye and ran down her cheek.

  “What…what is it then?” She had a hard time speaking with the lump now rising quickly up her throat.

  “I’m sorry, Lisa. It’s just for the best.” Riley stepped back and closed the door.

  Lisa stood in stunned disbelief, the icy wind whipping snow flurries around her feet. She could barely feel the cold she was so numb. What the hell had just happened? Riley hadn’t just dumped her, had she? It all seemed like a nightmare—some freezing-ass, bitter cold, can’t-be-happening-to-me nightmare. But as she stared at the closed door, she had to admit that was exactly what had happened. Riley had dumped her without an explanation. She turned and slowly walked back to her car.