“I love you, too. Listen, your friend Sarah called the firm trying to track you down. I’ll wait with you until she gets here, okay?”
I pulled Amanda onto a stool and slammed my fist down on the bar. “Seventeen drinks for my lovely young friend!”
“She needs to stop hitting the bar,” Horatio said to Amanda.
“One more drink and I’ll stop,” I promised.
Amanda nodded. Horatio reached for fresh glasses. “She’s your responsibility now.”
He made us drinks. I sipped mine. “It’s so much better with alcohol,” I declared. “So fucking much fucking better.” I took another sip. “Fuck.”
“Oh boy,” Amanda said.
That reminded me of all the things I had to tell her.
And it pissed me off.
“Oh boy? Oh boy?” I smacked her on the arm. “You of all people shouldn’t say that! It’s gendered bullshit. It’s linguistic sexism. It’s men, worming their way into our brains, the way they worm their wormy ways into every other fucking thing. They’ve sunk their penis-shaped claws into hundreds of words. Useful words. Words we need. But to use them, we have to talk about men. Think about it, Amanda. Human. Businessman. Bogeyman. Person. Female.”
Examples were rushing through my brain. I couldn’t stop them.
“Treason!” I cried. “Tamale! Broth!”
“Broth?” Amanda said.
I clutched her arm. “The bros got the broth, Amanda! They got the broth!”
“You’re kind of hurting me.”
“Sorry.” I released her. “I’m glad you’re here. I figured it all out. Men. Women. Work. The whole shitbang. Shebang.”
Because I had. It had come to me in an instant, and I was ready to share it with her.
“Men have these divining rods between their legs,” I said. “That’s what gives them access to sources of immense power. All the power in the world. Are you going to drink that? You are? Okay. Anyway, yes. Men have always had this power. They’ve kept it for themselves, guarded it jealously. They’re not going to relinquish it. We have to make them, Amanda. We have to prune those divining rods. We have to,” I slashed my hand through the air, “cut off their dicks!”
“We should call your driver,” Amanda said.
“You want to start with Jorge? Great! You get the pinking shears.” I slid off my stool. “I have to pee.”
I walked to the back of the bar, mind spinning, truths flying at me. Men and women. Men versus women. Women versus men. The problem was so complicated—but so easy! It was about tradition and culture and propaganda and biology. It was about being a subject, and being an object. Men being the default. Women being raised to defer, to apologize. To react, rather than act. It was about people lacking imagination, and empathy, about everyone being so jealous of their own prerogatives, so reluctant to admit error and so afraid.
So. Fucking. Afraid.
Like I’d been afraid, my whole life.
Everybody needed to stop being afraid, and start being honest, and open, and just…love one another.
The floor was moving. Pitching back and forth. Was I on a ship? I reached for a wall. I saw the sign for the bathroom. Land ho!
In the stall I hiked up my dress and sat down. I glanced at my phone. I had a voice mail.
I nearly cried out with joy. Someone had called me! Someone still loved me! Was it Singer? I fumbled to press Play.
“Hi, Ms. Moore. This is Melanie Seton, from Doctor Emmons’s office? I had some second thoughts after you left the office this morning, and ran a quick test here. Turns out you were right. You don’t have an STI. It’s a severe yeast infection. I think what happened is—”
I dropped the phone. I staggered out of the stall and lay down on the cold tile floor. I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, Amanda was standing over me.
“He didn’t call,” I whispered.
She crouched down. “Hang in there, Raney.”
When I opened my eyes again, Amanda had become Jorge.
“My Jorge,” I said. “How I treasure you.”
“Hey, Miz Moore. Let’s get you out of here, okay?”
He walked me to the front. The door blew open, and a snowy figure hurried in.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Sarah said. “Are you—”
“He didn’t call!” I wailed. “I don’t have the clap, but I don’t have Singer, either!”
I fell into her arms, weeping. She held me while Jorge paid Horatio. Then Amanda helped me on with my coat. My friends. How kind they were. Jorge stood ready to hoist me in his arms, but I had to walk out of the bar myself. Out into the world.
Out into the rest of my disastrous, ruined life.
A life that had been so well-crafted, so satisfying. So complete.
I emerged into a shocking wind. Sarah, Jorge and Amanda trailed behind. As I crossed the sidewalk, a man bumped into me.
“Whoa!” He staggered a little, clutching at me.
I shoved him away. “Watch where you’re going.”
“Easy, honey. You bumped into me.”
“No, honey,” I retorted. “You bumped into me.”
“Whatever.” He looked me up and down. “You should try smiling. You’d almost be pretty.”
He’d been walking with two or three others. They guffawed. I looked deep into his eyes. They were blue. His hair was dark. His teeth white and even.
“It’s you,” I whispered.
“Who?” Sarah said.
“Derek Frasier. We sat next to each other in second grade.” I took a step toward him, poking him in the chest. “He’s an asshole.”
Derek held his hands up. “What are you talking about?”
“Miz Moore, this guy’s like twenty-two. I don’t think—”
I pushed Jorge aside and grabbed the front of Derek’s coat. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Calling me a frog? Telling me to smile?”
“Lady, I don’t—”
“Raney!” Sarah cried. “No!”
Too late. I reared back and swung as hard as I could at his sneering face.
The crack! as I made contact was extremely satisfying.
Even though it might have been my hand breaking.
Derek stumbled back, clutching his nose. Blood seeped through his fingers. His eyes bugged out.
“You hit me, you crazy bitch!”
“You had it coming,” I said. Then I smiled. Just like he wanted me to.
That was the last thing I remembered.
PART FOUR
THIRTY-SIX
I opened my eyes.
The air around me was hot, but my body was icy cold. I was sitting on a concrete floor, back against a tile wall.
I ached everywhere. My head throbbed. And my hand…I tried moving my fingers, until a bolt of pain persuaded me to stop.
An overhead light flickered. I rubbed my eyes, blinked, opened them wide. The place was packed with people. Nearby, a tall woman in nurse’s scrubs was pacing and chewing her nails. A young girl was huddled in a ball, weeping drunkenly. Another young girl drunkenly comforted her. To my right, an elderly woman slumped against the wall, snoring gently.
Through the press of bodies I saw bars, a passageway beyond. A man strolled by in a uniform.
Of course. I was dreaming.
Soon a wrecking ball would come bashing through those bars, or a spaceship would land, or the cell would tip into a volcano, and I would gasp awake. Blink. Calm my pounding heart.
Then I remembered.
Templeton. Marty. Aaron. Horatio. Derek Frasier—who wasn’t Derek Frasier at all.
This was no nightmare.
There was a woman to my left, a round-faced little elf with bright yellow hair. She was sitting cross-legged, chewing her bottom lip and staring i
nto space.
“How long have I been here?” I asked.
“Do I look like I keep the motherfucking visitor’s log?” she retorted.
“Is there a visitor’s log?”
With an outraged huff, she turned away.
Through the pain and mental fuzziness, I felt my anger begin to stir. So I was in jail. I’d been in jails before, interviewing inmates for my ACLU case. Somehow, I’d gone from litigating the defects in the criminal justice system, to entering that system. The men—all those pompous, self-righteous, hypocritical men in my life—were going to love this. I was exactly where they wanted me. In a cage full of troublesome women.
Metaphor, bitches.
It was so unfair. I wouldn’t have hit that oaf if I hadn’t been drunk. I wouldn’t have been drunk if I hadn’t been under attack from all sides. And I wouldn’t have been attacked from all sides if the men hadn’t felt so threatened.
I was the woman punished for speaking up. For challenging the status quo. Talk about an insidious narrative. Talk about—
“Don’t be an idiot,” I said out loud.
The sleeping woman whimpered and slumped against me. The tiny blonde glared at me.
“Not you,” I said.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. I wasn’t the victim here. I had abused my power. I had taken my newfound liberation as license to do as I pleased, regardless of the consequences. I had downed those drinks and thrown that punch.
My predicament wasn’t about Women and Men. It wasn’t about sexism. And it definitely wasn’t about other people.
It was about me.
I buried my face in my hands. I was going to lose my job. I loved the firm. It was the only place I’d ever worked, the only place I’d ever wanted to work. Being a partner there was my identity. My world. And it was all going away. If Templeton’s charges hadn’t been enough to oust me, my arrest for assault would surely do the trick.
I gazed around, despondent. The pacing nurse was talking with another woman. Their voices rose and fell in agitation. The drunk girls had quieted down. From farther back in the cell came a bark of laughter, the hum of conversation. The overhead light buzzed. The place stank.
I heard a noise in the distance, coming from somewhere outside the cell. There was shouting and clanging in the corridor. The women arrayed along the bars craned their necks to see.
Soon, a pair of guards dragged a woman into view. She was weeping and thrashing around. One guard unlocked the door, and the other pushed her in. She stumbled a few steps and fell to her knees, close to my feet.
She raised her face, and we looked at each other. She was bruised. Her clothes were torn. Her hair was a mess. My cellmates immediately started protesting.
“Quiet down!” the guards shouted.
I struggled to my feet. “What did you do to her?”
One of the guards just rolled his eyes.
“She’s hurt,” I said. “She needs help.”
“Oh, she’ll get help.” They laughed.
“Hey!” I shouted. Their laughter died. Heads swiveled in my direction.
“Do your jobs,” I told the guards. “Or you might not have them for much longer.”
That got them laughing again, harder than ever. They left the cell. The nurse knelt beside the new woman. A few others tried to make her more comfortable. But she was scared, and didn’t speak English. Eventually she huddled in a corner, and everyone left her alone.
I was fully awake now. Restless. I wanted to do something.
“This place sucks,” I said.
My blonde neighbor snorted. “You don’t say.”
I turned toward her, too quickly. My brain thudded painfully against the inside of my skull. Didn’t matter.
“What are you in here for?”
“Why the fuck should I tell you that?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
She looked me up and down. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
“What happened to your hand?”
“I punched a man.”
She looked impressed. “You might be my kinda lawyer. I’m Lola.”
We shook, awkwardly, with our left hands. “Why were you arrested, Lola?”
“I jacked a cockatiel,” she said.
“I have no idea what that means.”
With a kind of aggrieved patience, she elaborated. “I committed grand larceny in the fourth degree upon the person of my landlord’s nasty-ass bird, due to its inability to shut the fuck up, like, ever.”
“Alleged,” I said automatically. “Alleged grand larceny.”
“Yeah, well, I did the whole alleged building a goddamn alleged favor. We were like zombies from the sleeplessness.” She gave a righteous little jerk of her head. “Bunny had to go.”
“Grand larceny,” I said. “You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“Was the bird worth more than a thousand dollars?”
“That raggedy-ass thing? Please.”
“Then you didn’t commit grand larceny.”
Lola’s smile transformed her face. “No shit?”
I smiled back. “No shit.”
* * *
—
Hours later, I was led out of the cell and up several flights of stairs to a small interview room. It was painted a sickly green, furnished with a metal desk and two chairs. The guard waited outside—I could see his stubbly neck rolls though the grilled window.
The door opened, and a man hurried in. He was youngish, pale and paunchy, wearing a stained tie and a put-upon expression. He tossed a file folder onto the desk and pulled out a chair.
“Ms. Moore? Matt Bergman. I’m the assistant district attorney handling your case.”
“Why am I here? None of the other women have been brought out of the cell.”
“They’ll come up in about an hour, when arraignments start. I’m trying to get you out of here before that.” He opened the file. “I’ve spoken with your attorneys—”
“Who?”
He looked up. “Amanda Hewes and Sarah Kellerman.”
“Excellent. I’d like to see them.”
“They’re waiting upstairs. I thought I’d go ahead and present our offer to you now, so that—”
“I need to get back to the cell.” I stood up. “Can you have my lawyers meet me down there?”
Bergman passed a hand over his face. “Ms. Moore, I’m sure you’re overwrought, but if you could try to focus. My boss clerked at your firm during law school, years ago. He’s got fond memories of the place. We’re offering you a deal.”
“I’m not taking any deal.”
He squinted at me, perplexed. “You’re facing a serious charge. Assault in the second degree is a—”
“I’m not guilty.”
“I have witnesses. And a complainant with significant injuries. I can convert the criminal complaint into a desk appearance ticket, and you’ll walk out of here in twenty minutes. All you have to do is agree that,” he picked up a sheet of paper and began to read, “on the evening of April twelfth, you did willfully and with—”
“I’m not agreeing to anything.”
He dropped the sheet of paper, exasperated. “We’re trying to do you a favor. Why are you being so difficult?”
I didn’t like Bergman’s superiority, his air of harassed importance. I didn’t like how he was wasting my time. And I definitely didn’t like his tone.
“If you think I’m being difficult now,” I said, “wait an hour.”
“Huh?”
The guard opened the door. “The women are causing a racket downstairs. Say they want to see their lawyer.”
Bergman sighed. “You know the drill. They’ll be assigned someone from Legal Aid as soon as they come upstairs.”
“They say they’ve retained a lawyer.” The guard pointed at me. “Her.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
The bridge officer called out, “CR-164271, People versus Rona Evans.”
A bailiff led my next client—the agitated nurse—into the drafty, grungy courtroom. I pulled a file from the stack on the table and scanned its contents.
I leaned toward Amanda, seated at counsel’s table beside me. “I need the elements of criminal mischief in the third and fourth degrees.”
She started typing on her phone. I turned to Cameron, perched behind us in the first row of the gallery. “I need the factors judges use when determining bail.”
He got busy, too. On the bench beside him, Emily from the ACLU was huddled with the reporter.
“So the problem is bad lawyering?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Emily said. “Most lawyers want to represent their clients effectively. Defects in the system prevent them from doing so. For example…”
“Counsel,” the judge boomed. “Maybe we proceed?”
I rose and stood next to Rona, giving her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “Yes, Your Honor.”
For the fifth time that morning, the bridge officer inquired, “Do you waive the reading of the complaint?”
For the fifth time I said, “We do not.”
The bridge officer sighed. The judge glowered. Bergman, seated at the table to my right, looked at me with loathing.
I was having a blast!
A criminal arraignment is a pure formality. The defendant stands before the judge, enters a preliminary plea and is either granted bail or held without release. The process typically lasts two to three minutes. A five-minute arraignment is painfully long. A fifteen-minute one is unheard of. That morning, court had been in session for ninety minutes, and we’d completed four.
It wasn’t entirely my fault. Bergman had argued that I shouldn’t be allowed to represent my cellmates. We spent twenty minutes debating the issue before the judge decided in my favor. My first cases went slowly, as I familiarized myself with the process and the jargon. But now I was getting the hang of it.
And I had help. When I finally managed to see Amanda and Sarah, I had them call Cameron, who raced downtown with office supplies, aspirin and suit jackets to cover our evening gowns. Amanda also called Emily, who hurried right over, eager to drum up publicity for our indigent defense lawsuit. Sadly, Sarah had only been able to stick around for two cases before leaving to pick up the kids.
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