Reasonable Doubt (1-3)

by Whitney Gracia Williams

  Silence.

  “Let’s try this again!” He stepped back. “On my count, start the song from the second stanza…”

  I leaned back against the wall, watching Aubrey effortlessly dance again, as she made everyone else look like amateurs. I watched until I couldn’t anymore, until her old director spotted my shadow and yelled at “the goddamn intruder” to leave.

  Later that night, I walked into the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of bourbon—pouring myself a shot. It was two in the morning and I was beyond restless.

  I hadn’t been able to sleep since I came home and spotted a note from Ava on my door: “I’m not leaving until we talk—Ava.”

  I’d crumpled it and thrown it into the trash, wondering which person at GBH had been stupid enough to give out my address.

  As I tossed back a shot, my phone rang.

  “It’s two in the morning,” I hissed, holding it up to my ear.

  “Um…” There was a slight pause. “May I speak to a…A Mr. Hamilton, please?”

  “This is he. Did you not hear me say what time it is?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hamilton.” She cleared her throat. “I’m Gloria Matter from the parole board in New York City. I’m sorry to call you so late, but I didn’t want to turn in until I returned your inquiry from last week,” she said. “The inmate you called about is no longer an inmate. She was released recently and is now on parole.”

  “I’m aware that she’s on parole.” I poured another drink. “However, I’m pretty sure leaving the state is a direct violation of those terms. Is New York soft on crime now? Do you let previous offenders roam the world as they please?”

  “No sir, but she checked in with her officer this morning. We also checked her monitor the second we received your phone call so she’s still in the state. I must warn you that we don’t take too kindly to false reporting, Mr. Hamilton. If this was some type of—”

  “I know what the fuck I saw.” I seethed. “She was here.” I hung up. I didn’t care enough to think about Ava right now.

  I headed into my bedroom and lay against the sheets, hoping this second round of alcohol would work better than the first.

  I lay there for an hour, watching the seconds on my clock tick by, yet no sleep came and thoughts of Aubrey began to fill my mind. I was thinking about the things she’d told me when we we’d first met, things she’d told me about her sex life, and I had the sudden urge to hear her voice.

  I rolled over and scrolled down to her name.

  “Hello?” She answered on the first ring. “Andrew?”

  “Why haven’t you sucked a cock before?”

  “What?” She gasped. “How about ‘Good morning, Aubrey’? Are you awake?’ How about asking those things first?”

  “Hello, Aubrey.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re clearly awake, so I’ll bypass that unnecessary question. Why haven’t you sucked a cock before?”

  She was silent.

  “Do I need to drive to your apartment and make you answer the question in person?”

  “Are you really in need of this information at three in the morning?”

  “Desperately,” I said. “Answer the question.”

  “It’s just something I ever wanted to do.” There were papers shuffling in the background. “One of the guys I used to date would ask me to do it to him from time to time—to reciprocate, but I just…I didn’t like him enough to do it.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Silence.

  We hadn’t had an actual phone conversation since the last time we had phone sex, right before I found out her real name was Aubrey and not Alyssa.

  “Were you thinking about me?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Were you thinking about me?” she repeated. “You’ve never called me this late before. Are you lonely?”

  “I’m horny.”

  She let out a soft laugh. “Would you like me to tell you what I’m wearing?”

  “I already know what you’re wearing.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really.” I put a hand behind my head. “It’s Wednesday, which means you had practice until midnight, which means you went home and showered and immediately put your feet in an ice tub without putting on any pajamas.”

  She sucked in a breath.

  “And from the way you’re breathing right now I take it you’re still naked, and the reason you picked up my call on the first ring is because you want to touch yourself to the sound of my voice.”

  Another gap of silence.

  “Am I wrong?” I asked.

  “No…” Her voice was low. “I don’t think you’re horny right now though.”

  “Trust me. I am.”

  “Maybe, but I think you called me because you like me—because you want to hear my voice since we haven’t talked on the phone in a while.”

  “I called you because my dick is hard and I want to make you cum over the phone.”

  She laughed again. “So, you don’t like me?”

  “I like your pussy.”

  “So, the white roses and the “He’s just yelling at you because he knows you’re the best. Don’t let him get to you,” note that was on the hood of my car today wasn’t from you?”

  I hung up.

  Retraction (n.):

  The legal withdrawal of a promise or offer of contract.

  Andrew

  “How do you think we should proceed with the client, Harriet?” I leaned back in my chair the next night, dreading my “Let the Interns Help with One Case per Month” required hours.

  “Um, Mr. Hamilton…” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “My name is Hannah.”

  “Same thing,” I said. “How do you think we should proceed with this case?”

  “We could put his ex-wife on the stand. She could vouch for his character.”

  “They were married for thirty days.” I rolled my eyes and looked at the intern sitting next to her. “And that was ten years ago. Bob, what do you have?”

  “It’s…It’s actually Bryan.”

  “It’s whatever I say it is. What. Do. You. Have?”

  “I was doing some research on his background and he apparently was reprimanded for breaking his university’s firewall his senior year. We could start there and build a case around his past of anarchy…”

  I sighed. “He’s our client, Bryan. Why would we intentionally make him look bad?”

  He blinked.

  I turned toward the last intern in the room, a petite brunette. “What do you suggest?”

  “You’re not going to try and guess my name?” She smiled.

  “I just realized that you weren’t my janitor today. What do you have?”

  “This.” She slid a folder across the table. “If we’re trying to prove that he wasn’t in breach of his company’s policies when he took out his initial shares, we could use this case as a reference.”

  I opened the folder, reading the first line of a case that was not only over a hundred years old, but it had been overturned by the Supreme Court decades ago.

  “Did you all smoke the same drugs before your interviews?” I shook my head. “You’re in law school. A few years away from potentially having someone’s future in your hands and this is the type of shit you come up with?”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Hamilton…” Bryan spoke up. “Is there even a right answer to this question? I mean…Is this one of those ‘Ha-ha this was just a test to see how our minds work’ things? Is there really an answer?”

  “Yes.” I stood up.

  “Really? What is it?”

  “It’s go the fuck home.” I started stacking my papers. “All of you. Right now.”

  “But—”

  “Now.” I glared at them, waiting until they all left the room.

  The second I was alone I let out a sigh and sat down again. I was better off letting Jessica help me on this case. She didn’t know shit about the law but I was sure that she would at least try.

>   “Mr. Hamilton, I—” Aubrey stepped into the room with a cup of coffee. “Where did everyone go?”

  “Home.” I took the cup from her, frustrated. “You’re free to go, too.”

  “Are you ever going to formally give me my intern position back or am I forever stuck being your coffee and file organizer?”

  “You’re also in charge of taking phone calls. That’s a responsibility you shouldn’t take lightly.”

  “I’m serious…” She rolled her eyes. “As much as I enjoy having sex with you every morning with your coffee, I would like to go back to feeling like I actually have a purpose here.”

  “Fine.” I took a sip from my cup. “Have you been keeping up with my current case?”

  She nodded.

  “Great,” I said dryly. “How do you think I should proceed?”

  “I think you need to first find the man who erased your client’s identity.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  She took a folder from her purse and set it in front of me. “My parents taught me how to research someone’s background very, very well. That’s the one thing I can credit them for.” She flipped a few pages. “Your client has school records from his childhood—test scores, address changes, et cetera. There’s a record of where he attended college, grad school—even a record of the time he broke into his school’s firewall and got suspended for an entire semester. After that, there’s a short failed marriage to some woman he met in Cabo, and a few founding records for his company. But after that—with the exception of these recent allegations, there’s nothing.”

  I glanced at the pages.

  “Don’t you think that’s odd?” She looked at me. “How you can google someone and nothing about them pops up? How you can search several databases for information and find entire decades are missing?”

  I shut the folder. “It’s slightly odd.”

  “Slightly?”

  “Yes. Slightly. Is this all the evidence you have?”

  “It’s all the evidence you need.” She stared into my eyes. “Find the guy who erased him, or find the guy who erased you and you might have yourself another win under your belt. If not—”

  “Aubrey…”

  “People don’t just come out of nowhere, Andrew,” she said. “You know that, I know that, and I’m pretty sure your client knows that.”

  “Now we’re talking about the client?”

  “There is no record of Andrew Hamilton in any of the state’s registered lawyer databases.”

  “I’m not facing a trial.”

  “I called every law school in the state and pretended to be an alumna searching for a fellow alum and there was no record of an Andrew Hamilton getting his degree from any of them.”

  “Are you that obsessed with me?” He smirked.

  “I did the same thing for the law schools in New York. That was a bit trickier, but the results were just the same. There was no record of you going to school during the years you would’ve been in attendance.”

  “And this affects you how?”

  “You humiliated me when you found out I lied to you.”

  “I apologize.”

  “Don’t.” She shook her head. “You made me cry because you told me that I was a liar for hiding the truth and pretending to be someone I wasn’t.”

  “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be the only person to classify you as a liar after what you did.”

  “Yet, every day that I see you, every night that I talk to you on the phone, I’m no closer to getting to know anything about you.” There was concern in her eyes. “It’s always me talking about me, or you talking about abstract things that make up a blurry picture.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I told you that I—”

  “That you’ve never lied to me,” she said. “I believe that, and for a moment I thought that you were always completely honest with me, but when I look back, you’re only honest about what you want to talk about. Hence, the random appearance of Mrs. Hamilton, and—”

  “I’ve told you about that already.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her close to me. “So, I’m not going to waste my time rehashing shit I’ve already gone over with you.”

  “Just…”

  “Look.” I pressed my finger against her lips. “You’re the only woman I’ve fucked regularly in six years.”

  “Am I supposed to be proud of that?”

  I pulled her into my lap. “You’re the only woman—only person actually, that I talk to outside of my hours at this office, the only woman I’ve ever fucked over the phone, the only woman who’s been in my car, and the only woman who’s lied to me and still gotten me to stay…”

  She sighed, staring back at me.

  “Now,” I said, “if you don’t mind, I’m going to fuck you in this chair. And when we’re done, I’ll kindly show you how to research someone the right way, because contrary to what you think, my client does have a background.”

  “No, I double checked everything and I—”

  I pressed my lips against hers. “After I fuck you.”

  Consent (n.):

  A voluntary agreement to another’s proposition.

  Aubrey

  Subject: New York /Your Panties

  For the record, I did go to law school in NYC. I was the valedictorian of my class.

  —Andrew

  PS—If you stash one more pair of your wet panties/“For your fetish” notes in my desk drawer, I’m going to assume that you do want me to sleep with your pussy over my face. My tongue has been aching to do that since I first “met” you so there’s no need for unnecessary hints…

  “Aubrey?” My mother’s voice took the smile right off of my face. “Aubrey, were you listening to your father just now?”

  “No, I’m sorry.” I sighed, dreading that I was still sitting at a dinner with them.

  They’d called me the second my rehearsal was over and demanded that I drive home so we could all ride to our “favorite” restaurant together. It was where all their country club friends ate regularly, and I knew they just wanted to come here to assert our seemingly perfect family image.

  “Are you listening now?” My father raised his eyebrow.

  “Yes…”

  “We brought you here so we could tell you that I’m running for governor in the next election,” he said.

  “Do you want my vote?”

  “Ugh, Aubrey.” My mother huffed and snapped her fingers for the waiter. “This is one of the happiest moments of your life.”

  “No…” I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure it isn’t.”

  “All those years of hard work, building our firm to be one of the most impeccable in the city,” she said as she looked into my father’s eyes, “it’s about to payoff in a huge way. We already have a few verbal commitments for the campaign’s budget, and since we’re going in on the same side as the incumbent—”

  “You have a really good chance of being governor.” I cut her off. “Congratulations, Dad.”

  He reached over the table and squeezed my hand.

  My mother couldn’t seem to shut up. “We’ll have to take new family photos—stocks, you know? Photos we can give to the press for their write-ups, so you’ll have to wear your hair in something other than that ballerina thing.”

  “It’s a bun.”

  “It’s an eyesore.”

  “Margaret…” My father chided. “It’s not an eyesore. It’s just—”

  “It’s just what?” I looked back and forth between them.

  “It’s important for us to look like a cohesive All-American unit on the campaign trail.” My mother took a glass of wine from the waiter and waited for him to step away. “We may have to make some stops together as a family.”

  “You’re running for governor, not President, and what twenty-something do you know travels with her parents during a campaign just for photo-ops?”

  “Our opponent has twenty year old twins who are homeschooled,” she said. “They trav
el to third world countries every summer to help the poor and I’m pretty sure they’re going to be at every stop on the campaign trail.”

  I snorted. “Why are you trying to compete with genuine people? Don’t you think they’re the type that deserve to win?”

  “Aubrey, this is serious.” My dad looked upset. “This has been a dream of mine for a very long time and we want to make sure that nothing stands in the way.”

  The two of them exchanged glances and I raised my eyebrow.

  “Nothing like what?” I asked.

  “Okay…” My mother lowered her voice and looked over her shoulder before speaking. “We need to know if there are any skeletons in your closet—any pictures on social media that make you look like a party girl, any ex-boyfriends or sexual partners that you may have dealt with, or anything that would make us look like bad parents.”

  “You are bad parents.”

  “Stop it, Aubrey.” My father gripped my hand and squeezed it hard. “The two of us have given you everything you could’ve ever wanted growing up and all we’re asking for is a small sacrifice from you.”

  “I don’t have any skeletons in my closet.” I gritted my teeth.

  “Good.” My mother put on her fake smile. “Then, when you pull out of school for your senior year to help us on the trail, it won’t look suspicious. We’ve already spoken to your department chair about online classes and they are, in fact offered. For the ones that aren’t, you’ll have to show up to campus to take those, but they make special considerations for students with circumstances such as yours so—”

  “No.” I cut her off. “No, thank you.”

  “This isn’t up for discussion, Aubrey. This is for the benefit of—”

  “Dad’s dream, right?” I tried not to lose it. “Because he’s the only person in this family who has a dream?”

  “Yes,” my mother said through smiling teeth. “We’re talking about real dreams, Aubrey. Not ‘no-chance-in-hell’ and failed ones.”

  “Excuse me?!” I stood up. “You want to talk about failed dreams when the two of you have failed more than anyone I know at the expense of your own daughter?” There were tears in my eyes.