All the questions swirled in my head. No answers came. And I reminded myself to focus, to be Valerie’s attorney.
When the closing arguments were over, the judge read the jury their instructions and then they disappeared into a back room to decide Valerie’s fate.
“I want to go home,” Valerie said as soon as they were gone and Martin had joined us at the table. Valerie turned to Maggie. “You did a wonderful job up there. I should have said that first. Thank you. But now, I want to go home.”
“The jury may have questions,” Maggie said.
“You told me the jury could take hours or even days.”
“Technically that’s true,” Martin said. “Juries are completely unpredictable in terms of their timing, but they’re usually anxious to get back to their real lives.”
Again, Valerie spoke up. “But if they decide I am guilty, I could be taken into custody immediately.”
“Yes,” Martin said. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then I want to go home. Even if it’s for an hour.”
No one said anything for a second. My mind swirled. On one hand, I understood completely the desire to be home one last time, just in case. On the other hand, we clearly didn’t know everything about Valerie or her life. Or that of her daughter.
“Valerie,” I said. “Is there any chance you are planning on leaving town?”
Maggie shot me a look. We don’t ask that question. I remembered once that Maggie told me she wasn’t entirely disappointed if someone she was representing disappeared because she could imagine a better life for them.
But if Valerie Solara was a flight risk, I wanted to know. I had a duty as an officer of the court to ask it.
“No.” Her voice was just as firm.
Valerie turned away, and it was clear there would be no further discussion. My heart felt singed with pain for her—for the abject fear she must be suffering from. I wished so desperately I could do something to alleviate it.
“Valerie,” I said.
She turned and stopped.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
Her eyes welled up. “Thank you. But no. I want to be by myself.”
The ache in my chest surged again. “Okay.”
No one else seemed to know what to say. It felt suddenly like the most awkward and sad moment I’d ever witnessed.
As she walked away, I watched her, but when she got to the door, my eye caught on someone else. Someone standing just inside the door, looking around, eyes searching. Someone blond.
“Sam,” I said.
72
“Do you remember what you were like then?”
I took a deep breath, fought not to feel defensive.
“I knew you couldn’t help it,” Sam said, still able to read the expression on my face, despite our time apart, despite the fact that he had, apparently, become a different person. A person who would consider taking possession of a multimillion-dollar property that wasn’t his.
But we weren’t talking about that now, sitting in the back of an empty courtroom. We were talking about the months before our wedding, when I had acted, Sam said, like I didn’t like him anymore. Like I didn’t want to get married.
My defensiveness died away. “I know I was probably hard to get along with. I was so overwhelmed with work, so overwhelmed with the wedding.”
“You never wanted that big wedding.”
“But you did. And I loved you.”
I think we both noticed the use of the past tense, although neither of us commented on it.
“It didn’t feel like you loved me then. All I felt was you pulling away.”
“No.” Once again, an ache in my chest, this time for the pain that must have caused Sam.
“And then Forester died, and I was in Panama. I have to tell you something, Red Hot. I felt good when I was there. I mean, I was so worried about you, I could barely eat, and I was distraught about Forester, but I felt like I was needed when I was there.”
I nodded. I understood.
“When I got the document saying I still owned the place in Punta Patilla, I remembered what it felt like to feel good.”
“You don’t feel good with Alyssa?”
“Not like it should feel. Not like it did with you.”
I shifted on the seat and faced front, staring through an open glass door at the empty judge’s bench. “How much did getting that document have to do with you wanting to get back together with me?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I remembered what it felt like to be with you, to feel strong and wanted.”
“Sounds like you know what would be good for you.”
“I do.”
I turned again, looked deep into his green eyes. “Did you think about what’s good for me? Did you think about that when you took off for Panama? When you decided to drop a bomb on me and tell me that not only were you engaged, but you would leave that engagement for me? Did you ever really think about what any of that would do to me or how it would affect me?”
Sam’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
“Because isn’t that what love is supposed to be?” I asked. “Aren’t you supposed to look out for the person you’re in love with, just as much as you do for yourself? That’s what I thought when we were in love.”
“Is that what you were doing when you were pulling away from me? Was that for me?”
“The fact that I hadn’t said anything yet was for you, yeah. Hell, yeah. I didn’t want to dump something on you that might have to do only with me. I was trying to figure it out.”
“How about bringing me into it? Isn’t that what a relationship is about?”
His voice had gotten a little stronger, and I was about to raise mine, when, from out of nowhere, I started to cry.
Sam looked startled, then he moved to me fast and put his arms around me. “Oh, Iz,” he said, pulling me closer.
He hugged me, and I hugged him and pretty soon, I could feel his back moving, his sharp intakes of breath. Sam was crying, too. The air was quiet but for an occasional gulp of breath.
“Hey, what’s going on here?” A man’s voice.
We raised our faces and saw a pissed-off-looking bailiff.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m on trial upstairs and we—”
“I don’t care what you’re doing. You can’t do it here.”
Sam followed me into the lobby and outside. Thankfully, the press was all inside or in their trucks. Once in the plaza, I moved to the left, toward the handicapped ramp that scrolled around the side of the plaza, part of it out of view. I stopped when I reached that part and leaned my back against the cement wall.
It was steamy hot outside, a scent of Mexican food and cigarette smoke surrounding us. Sam stood in front of me, eyes worried, pained. Over his shoulder, I saw cars snaking down California Avenue.
“Iz,” Sam said, his voice heavy, sad. But he spoke nothing else.
Finally, I did. “I have a question for you. If I said I needed time, if I said I had to sort out some things in my life and I wanted you to wait for me, what would you do?”
“You’d be with me at the end of that time?”
I paused. “I wouldn’t be able to say that.”
“Then, I don’t know, Iz. I mean, why would I wait?”
I thought of Mayburn, saying he’d wait for Lucy to make up her mind. I thought of how evident it was that he loved her tremendously.
I looked at Sam and wondered if I could say the same thing here. Did he love me like that?
Then a better question appeared. Did I love him like that—right now, and not based on our history?
The answer came fast.
73
Feeling the heat of the air and liking it, Zavy Miller strolled down Oak Street, a few Barney’s shopping bags in hand, his seersucker jacket over one arm. He’d purchased a steel cuff bracelet that he knew Amanda’s daughter, Tessa, would love, and a flouncy skirt for Brit that the salesperson swore someone of nine
would die for.
He couldn’t wait for them to come home from Amanda’s sister’s place. He would care for them; he would love them. And he truly, truly did love them, even if no one understood. It was love to him. Even when his fatherly affection turned into a lover’s passion, he would never force that passion on them if they didn’t want it. He had never, ever done that, wouldn’t.
He moved to the window of the next store, pausing for a moment to study pink pearl earrings Tessa would appreciate. He checked his watch. The closing arguments should be done by now. The case was probably being given to the jury. He hadn’t wanted to be there for the closings. He had seen all he needed.
Getting called to the stand again—he hadn’t seen that coming. Hadn’t imagined the line of questioning about the living room and why Amanda had been there. But they hadn’t taken it further than that. He had feared they had other evidence, too. But they hadn’t, for example, gotten a surveillance video of the CVS pharmacy, which would have shown he never went there that night. They hadn’t asked him anything about the bruises on Amanda’s wrists.
It had been terrible to lose Amanda. Because she was a wonderful woman. She was. But life was simpler now, especially as he looked to the future with the girls, as he prepared them, the way he had Layla.
He marveled at how solutions for some of the greatest problems in his life had been found out of nowhere. He had come so close to losing everything. And then? Then the universe swept in and made it right. Now, there was one more step to be made, a decision twelve people would have to make, but he knew they would make the right one.
Zavy moved to the door of the store and pulled it open.
74
“So where are we going for cocktails?” Q snapped his briefcase shut when I came back to the courtroom and made my way to the counsel’s table. “I’m ready.”
When I didn’t say anything, he raised an eyebrow and looked closer at me. “Sheesh, looks like you could use a drink. What the hell happened? Is it this case? Is it getting to you?”
“The case is getting to me, but it’s not just that.” I looked over my shoulder and saw Maggie and Martin sitting near the jury box, deep in conversation. She’d told me Bernard would be at the CSO for the rest of the afternoon, and she looked relieved to have some time alone with her grandfather.
I looked back at Q. It would take too much to tell him the whole story about Sam, and I didn’t have the energy to analyze it, as I knew Q would want to.
When I’d answered my own question—did I still love Sam at this moment? Did I want our relationship to grow from there?—the answer was a quick no. And I think Sam felt the same, even if he wouldn’t admit it.
Grief washed through me as I thought of that last embrace in the August heat.
“I’ll tell you soon,” I said to Q. “But will you wait with me here? Just wait for a while.” I simply wanted to stop moving. To sit and let everything settle in.
Q’s eyes were filled with concern, but he nodded and put his briefcase on the floor. “Of course.”
And so we waited, and we waited. We texted Valerie that there was no news. We called a law clerk from Maggie’s office to pick up the audio-visual equipment. We went downstairs to the so-called Gangbanger’s Café for bottles of water.
When we returned to the courtroom, the jury still wasn’t back. The state’s attorneys were gone, probably somewhere else in the building already working on another case. Maggie and her grandfather were still deep in conversation.
“Iz, let’s play Would-You-Rather,” Q said. We settled into chairs at our now-empty counsel’s table and began the game that we often played to pass time—when we were in a car on our way to a deposition or waiting for the verdict, like we were now.
Usually, Q asked me ridiculous questions. Would you rather pole dance naked around a lamppost in public or pole dance naked in front of the executive committee of the firm? Would you rather have your eye fall out at random times or have uncontrollable, constant drool? But this time, the questions were different.
“If you had the choice,” he said, “would you rather work for Maggie and Martin or go back to Baltimore & Brown?”
I answered quickly. “Maggie and Martin.”
“Would you rather work for Maggie and Martin or another big firm that was going to pay you the exact amount you made at Baltimore?”
That one I had to think about. I’d made a lot of money at my old firm, more than any other associate, and I was in dire need of cash now. Still, the game acquired absolute honesty. “Maggie and Martin.”
Q ran through a whole series of similar questions, asking me if I’d rather work for the Tiffany’s store on Michigan Avenue, or for the Chicago Bears, or as a cabaret singer, or as a Vespa salesperson and a million other professions. Or would I rather work for the Bristols?
Every time I answered the same. “Maggie and Martin.”
Finally, Q stopped the game and nodded to where Maggie and her grandfather sat, their heads inclined. “Sounds like you need to ask for a job interview,” Q said.
“I told them I would help them out whenever they need it.”
“Would you rather work for them full-time or part-time?”
“Full-time,” I answered without hesitation.
“Well, there ya go.”
I thought about the past week, being on trial with Maggie. I thought about how we communicated so easily, the way we divided out tasks as if we’d been doing it forever. I had loved it. And I loved the times when we worked with Martin.
I looked back at Q. “If the firm has room for a trial assistant or a graphics coordinator or whatever, are you in?”
Q looked around the room, as if he were going to mull over the question, but then he looked back at me fast and answered loudly. “Yes.”
Forty minutes later, Q and I were still talking to Maggie and Martin, working out the details of our entry into their firm. I was excited in a way I hadn’t been for a long time, and not just because I would have a regular paycheck again, starting Monday. The excitement came from the fact that I was getting back into the law, and more than that, I would get to work every day with my best friend, Maggie, and my second best friend, Q.
Martin Bristol seemed thrilled about the new additions to his firm. Since I was coming into their practice, he said, he would slowly begin taking a step back.
“Grandpa,” Maggie said, dropping the use of his first name for once. “You’re not old enough to retire. Mentally, you’re still at the top of your game.”
He gave curt nod. “Thank you for saying that. I will need those mental faculties because although I won’t be working as much at the firm, I will be working on the matter of Javier Solara.”
“What do you mean?” Q said.
Martin filled him in on the case of Valerie’s father. “Yesterday afternoon, I contacted the Center of Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern.”
“They investigate people in jail who might have been wrongfully convicted,” Maggie said.
“That’s right. I will be working with them to clear Javier’s name. I’ll be working very hard, I suspect.”
All of us went silent.
“Sir,” Q said, moving forward in his chair a little bit. “I think you’re a very honorable person, and I’m honored to be working for you.”
I looked at Maggie and saw that she had tears in her eyes as she studied her grandfather. She vaulted out of her sitting position and hugged him tight around the neck. He smiled and returned his granddaughter’s embrace.
Mayburn came in the courtroom then and walked up to us. “Anything new on Zavy?” I asked him.
“Not yet, but I’m supposed to meet your dad here.” He pointed at the other side of the gallery. “You want me to sit over there and wait for him?”
“Certainly not,” Martin said. “Izzy and Q will be working with our firm now, and it’s my hope that you will do more of that, too.”
Mayburn smiled, one of the first smiles I’d seen in weeks. He nodded,
took a seat.
Just then, the door opened and we all turned. There was Lucy DeSanto, standing in the door surrounded by what seemed like a ring of sunshine. She wore a navy blue dress and white espadrilles. She looked very pretty and very adult, not at all the way she looked last night with Theo and C.R.
She walked to us. “Hi, all,” she said. “Izzy told me you would probably get a verdict today, so I came to support you, to see if anything has happened yet.” She looked around the courtroom, taking it all in the way people do when they haven’t spent much time in a courtroom.
“That’s so sweet,” I said, standing to hug her. “The jury is still out. Wait with us.”
“Okay,” she said. She looked at Mayburn and took a few steps toward him. “Can I sit here?” She pointed to the spot on the bench next to him.
Mayburn couldn’t hide the longing on his face whenever he was in Lucy’s presence and it was palpable now. “Of course.” He stood.
But before she stepped into the bench, she looked at him. “I came to support you, too.”
Mayburn seemed not to know how to respond. “Thanks. That’s…that’s nice.”
Maggie, Martin and Q began to talk again, sensing the need for Mayburn and Lucy to speak by themselves. Yet I couldn’t help but listen.
“John,” Lucy said, her voice low, “I have to tell you that I don’t want to get back together. Not right now.”
A pause of disappointment. “That’s okay,” he said finally.
“But I would love for you to have breakfast on Saturday. Just a casual thing.”
No pause this time. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, definitely.”
I felt elation for them, which was quickly followed by sorrow. Sam and I wouldn’t be doing that, wouldn’t be spending a little time together to see how it went. We were out of time.
The sheriff entered the room.
“All rise!” he boomed, although there was no one but our little group in shouting distance.
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