by Elaine Fox
“The only way to live a quiet, honest life is to have money, Truman. Take it from me. Money’s the only protection you have in this world and that’s the God’s honest truth.”
“Money,” he said.
“That’s right.”
He laughed again, without humor. “Well, that’s your version.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Jesus, you are so condescending. I know a hell of a lot more about this than you think. You can believe I was trying to better you for my own ends if you want to, but all I ever wanted for you was for you to live up to your potential. You’re an intelligent, industrious man. Why are you working construction? Why are you living where you are? You could do so much more.”
“You mean I could be so much better.”
“Of course! Truman, you—” She shook her head and looked away, so frustrated she could barely find the words. “Right now you have no future. You don’t even seem to want a future. Is it okay with you to be living in a slum? Is it okay with you to be living hand to mouth? Do you really want to be sitting on a duct-taped couch ten years from now? Twenty? Thirty?”
“Maybe,” he said, facing her with his own intensity and frustration. “Maybe that slum in Southeast is exactly where I want to be.”
She felt as if her throat were closing up. As if he were standing there telling her he wanted exactly the opposite of what she wanted because he didn’t want her.
“It’s not where I want to be,” she said in a voice quavering with emotion. “And you can bet twenty years from now I won’t be sitting on any duct-taped couch.”
“Well, guess what, sugar, I didn’t ask you to be.” He glared at her a long moment, then looked away.
She felt as if she’d been slapped. “Then what is this all about? Why are you so angry with me? Why have I disappointed you so much? What in the world have we been doing these last few weeks—”
She broke off, unable to continue. Why was she doing this? What would arguing with him accomplish? They were two different people. Too different people.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, turning away toward the ballroom. She needed to get her coat, she thought. She needed to get her coat, find her keys, and get out of here, back to her apartment. Back to her empty, white apartment. Where she couldn’t even have a dog.
She turned back, hoping against hope, against her own reason even, that he would smile at her and make some joke that would enable them to get past this, if only for the moment. “If you want, I’ll give you a ride.”
He looked at her. His eyes appeared almost confused, tormented. “No. I’ll get a cab.”
She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “Fine,” she said, and walked away from him down the hall.
Fine, she thought. I was fine without you before, and I’ll be fine without you now. I’ll figure out a way to take Folly, or I’ll find a friend who will take her. I won’t need you for anything.
But when she got to the coat check she turned to look back at him.
He was gone.
The lobby might as well have been empty.
16
Sunday, November 17
WORD-A-DAY!
HYPOBULIA: n., the decreased ability to reach a decision; or a state of mind that makes for wild vascillations about people and whether or not they are appropriate to date
Despite misgivings about contacting him, Marcy messengered Truman a note on Saturday asking if he could meet her on Sunday to prep for his deposition, which was to be held the following Wednesday. Regardless of how she felt about him, she had to do what was right for the case. There was no avoiding Truman this time.
She asked the messenger to wait for a reply if Truman was there, but he wasn’t. Instead, Sunday afternoon she picked up a message he’d left early that morning on her voice mail at work saying he didn’t need to prepare. He was going to tell the truth and that was all the preparation he needed.
He ended the message by saying, “And don’t worry, I’ll show. I’m not going to blow the case for you.”
She hung up the phone—saving the message—and again felt as if he’d been reading her mind. And not the charitable part of it. Since their altercation Friday night she’d worried that he was so disgusted with her he’d go out of his way to make sure she lost the case—a sentiment she knew gave him no credit.
Someone knocked on her office door and she called for them to enter.
Trish cracked the door open and peeked inside. Even in jeans and a long-sleeved cotton T-shirt—standard attire for Sunday work—Trish managed to exude elegance.
“Hi,” Trish said. “Got a minute?”
Marcy sat up straight in her chair and stretched. “Sure, I’d love the break.”
“I was just wondering how the party went Friday night. April said she saw you there but didn’t see your date.” Trish’s eyes practically glowed with curiosity.
“Oh no.” Marcy put her palms on the sides of her head. “Please tell me you didn’t tell April Smith who I was there with.”
Trish waved the question off. “Don’t be silly. I just told her you had a hot date and I wanted to know what he looked like. So? How’d it go?”
She dropped her hands and to her own mortification felt the sudden urge to cry. “It was awful. Trish, it was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“Why? What happened?” Trish looked stricken. “Oh Marcy, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known it didn’t go well. Do you want to talk about it?”
Marcy paused. “I’m not sure.”
She’d never told Trish about the circumstances of her childhood. Not that they were anything to be ashamed of, but just as she hadn’t let Truman know she wasn’t a trust-fund baby, she’d never contradicted Trish’s assumption that she’d grown up with money either. Why, she wasn’t sure. And she certainly didn’t want to analyze it now.
“Well, I’ll be working all day if you want to talk,” Trish said. “You know where to find me. God knows I’ll be wanting a diversion.” She started to get up.
“No, wait.” Marcy leaned her elbows on the desk. “I guess I do want to talk about it a little. See, I’m not exactly sure what happened myself.”
She told Trish the gist of the argument, as she remembered it. But even as she recounted what she thought they’d both said, she couldn’t remember how it had gotten so heated.
“I guess he just hit a nerve in me. And I hit a nerve in him. But, damn it, what am I supposed to do? Go crawling back to him and apologize for who I am? For all I’ve accomplished?”
“Of course not. He’s being totally unreasonable. It sounds like he’s one of those men who are so insecure they can’t stand it when their woman makes more money than they do.”
Marcy shook her head. “I really didn’t think he was like that. Plus, I don’t think he thinks of me as his woman. But maybe you’re right. Although…he only really got mad when I suggested he could do better. He seems determined to live hand to mouth. He has no desire to get a better job, make more money, move to a nicer place. He has no future! What if he broke his back and couldn’t work anymore? What if his wife ended up having to support him? How would they ever have kids? And what kind of role model would he be?” Marcy exhaled, feeling hopeless. “How could any woman in her right mind contemplate having a relationship with someone like that? And for him to judge me, well, that just really burned me up.”
Marcy paused. She felt like her insides had been bruised by an enormous bowling ball since their fight.
Trish was quiet, so Marcy went on.
“Still, I think I was most hurt by his disapproval. And the fact that he seemed to have no idea at all of who I really am. All this time I’ve been so attracted to him, I felt as if he knew me, really knew me. As if he could look into my eyes and see who I am without me having to say anything.” She laughed once and shook her head. “Apparently, I was dead wrong. Either that or I really am the money-grubbing prima donna he seems to think.”
Whic
h was a thought that gave her dreadful pause.
She glanced up at Trish, who was looking at her gravely.
“Want to know what I think?” Trish asked.
“Of course.”
Trish took a deep breath. “What I’m hearing is, and correct me if I’m wrong, that you’re upset because he misjudged you. Or rather the fact that he judged you at all, and then misjudged you on top of it.” She flashed a small smile. “He doesn’t understand what you’re working for, why you work so hard, that money and status are not your priorities.”
“Right,” Marcy said, planting a light fist on her desk. “Exactly.”
“But Marcy, I’m also hearing that he’s upset about the same thing. That you’ve judged him to be without ambition, without a future. In short, maybe he’s upset because you don’t seem to understand him, either.”
Marcy bristled at the thought. She wasn’t judging him, she was only trying to help him.
“If that were the case,” Marcy objected, feeling inexplicably defensive, “why wouldn’t he contradict me? Why wouldn’t he tell me that he does have ambition? Or he does have plans, or something. Why wouldn’t he correct me? Make me see?”
Trish shook her head. “I don’t know.” She paused, then said cautiously, “Did you correct him?”
Marcy busied herself the rest of that weekend and in the two days before the deposition getting ready for the case. She was lucky, she thought time and again, that she had something pressing to throw herself into, so she didn’t sit around thinking about what a mess her feelings were.
If she hadn’t had so much work to do she’d no doubt have devoted days to the question Trish had asked her. Why hadn’t she corrected him? Why hadn’t she told him that the reason she worked so hard was to make sure she never, ever went back to the way of life in which she’d grown up?
Because she couldn’t, was all she could think. Because bringing all that up, explaining it all, telling him she was so much less than what he believed her to be…
She stopped. She wasn’t so much less. She knew that. She was just different than he thought. And yet…and yet less was how she felt. She was ashamed, she realized. She was ashamed of her roots.
What’s more, she thought, feeling truly unbalanced, she was ashamed of her shame.
It was a revelation she had no idea what to do with. She needed a shrink, she thought. Or a guru. Maybe a psychic.
In any case, she was smack dab in the middle of a case and couldn’t afford to indulge in psychological analyses of herself. She needed to work.
So work she did.
The day of the deposition she was a nervous wreck. She waited for Truman in the lobby of the opposing counsel’s building with her hands, heart, and stomach all in a knot.
What would he say to her? What would she say to him?
As far as she was concerned, she thought as she stood there in her power suit, he owed her an apology.
She was working herself up into another self-righteous lather thinking about all he’d said to her at the party when she saw him enter the building. She glanced at her watch. Great, they had five minutes to spare. Five whole minutes for her to prepare him for what could be a nasty barrage of questions lasting hours.
He was briefly silhouetted against the light from the front doors but she could see he wore torn jeans and a denim jacket. In fact, she saw when he got further into the building, he looked quite a bit more shabby than he ever had before in her presence.
She pressed her lips together. He was doing this just to piss her off, she thought. To prove he didn’t give a damn about what she or anybody else thought of him.
His hair had gotten so long he’d pulled it back in a ponytail, and he wore those dark glasses he’d had on the night he’d met her in Georgetown. It was a look she was sure would be welcomed by the opposing counsel.
As far as her case was concerned, at best he didn’t look credible. At worst he looked like a desperation witness dragged off the street to give the only favorable testimony they could dig up.
Thank God there was no judge at a deposition.
“Hello, Marcy,” he said solemnly when he got close. He nodded to her once, all business.
“Truman,” she returned stiffly. “I see you got out your Sunday best for the occasion.”
“I came from work. The truck broke down so I didn’t have time to go home and change.” He gazed at her with those blank, sun glassed eyes. “Not that it should matter. Showing up and telling the truth is what matters, not how someone looks while they’re doing it.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Perceptions are as important in this game as words. Maybe not so much now, for the deposition, but definitely at the trial.”
“That’s your problem, you see it as a game. I see it as justice.”
She laughed cynically, feeling stung to the core. “The day you see justice given without prejudice, preconception, or bias being taken into account, you let me know.”
She started walking briskly toward the elevators. Truman lagged behind but she could see him from the corner of her eye.
“I’m going to get you a suit for the trial. I know that offends the hell out of you but you need to—”
“I’ll get my own suit.”
She shot him an openly skeptical look. “I’m serious, Truman, you need to—”
“I said I’d get one.” He said it sharply, but when she looked at him he didn’t appear angry so much as frustrated. Perhaps he knew she was right and that was what bothered him.
For a second her heart lifted in hope. If he could just understand why she did what she did…
They stopped in front of the elevators. “Listen, I need to tell you a few things, to prepare you for what you’re about to do. I’d have rather had time to practice this with you—it can be pretty intimidating—but there’s no sense lamenting that now.”
“Thank you for not bringing it up, then,” he said, watching the lighted numbers over the elevator.
She gave him an exasperated look, despite the fact that he wasn’t looking at her. The doors opened and they stepped into the elevator. Thankfully they were the only ones in it.
“First,” she said, “tell the truth.”
He started to speak but she held up her hand.
“I know that’s been your intention all along, but when they ask you how you were prepared, I want you to be able to say the first thing I told you was to tell the truth.”
She thought she saw a slight smile on his lips.
“Second,” she continued, “pause before answering each question. Make sure you understand what they’re asking. This gives me time to object if I have to, and it also gives you time to think through your entire answer before you begin. I want you to know exactly what your last word will be before you start speaking.”
“Got it,” he said, arms folded over his chest.
She nodded once. “Good. Remember, the transcript won’t reflect how much time you take to formulate your answer, so don’t worry about that.”
“I won’t.”
“Now, we can’t consult while a question is pending, but if you’re unsure of anything or you have a question for me, just ask to take a break. It’s a courtesy; they don’t have to let us; but as long as it’s not just after they’ve asked a question, most of the time it’s not a problem.”
“I don’t expect I’ll be needing any advice.” He stared at the elevator doors.
“All right.” She took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Third, be brief. Don’t volunteer any information. This is very important. Witnesses get hung by their own words all the time. Do you understand?”
He glanced down at her. “Sure, don’t volunteer information.”
“I mean it. Nothing extra. Do you know what time it is?”
He shifted his arms and looked at his watch. He opened his mouth to tell her, then paused, and smiled wryly. “Yes.”
She grinned. “Excellent. Perfect.”
The doors
opened into a small area just across from a set of glass doors. Truman pulled his sunglasses from the top of his head down over his eyes.
She stopped at the glass doors. “You don’t plan on wearing those glasses during the deposition, do you?”
He looked down at her, his expression flat and unreadable thanks to the glasses. “Don’t worry about me, sugar. I’ll get the job done. No matter what I look like.”
A week later Marcy still couldn’t believe it. The afternoon of the deposition had been surreal. Truman had answered the questions like a pro, starting with her test in the elevator. Most people, when asked that question, answered by saying what time it was, but that was, technically, elaboration. If a yes-or-no question was asked, then a yes-or-no answer was all that was required.
Truman had been brief, truthful, confident, and compelling, despite the fact that Planners had four attorneys sitting in, no doubt hoping to intimidate the witness—not to mention increase their billing to Planners, which made Marcy happy.
Truman had worn the damn glasses throughout, but rather than make the other attorneys feel superior, it had instead seemed to rattle them. Here was a witness who was unshakeable, despite their using every trick to make him nervous: staring at him after a short answer, hoping he’d keep talking; leaning forward into their questions; being alternately confrontational then friendly. None of it had fazed him at all.
After each answer he even sat back in his chair, signifying he was finished and no amount of staring by the opposing attorney would compel him to elaborate. That was a technique Marcy usually went over in preparation, but she’d forgotten it in their hasty ride up the elevator.
It had been exhilarating, watching him. He seemed to be a natural at handling contentious lawyers, but she didn’t allow herself to think about what this could mean for his future. Apparently he had the job he wanted. And so did she.
As a result of Truman’s performance, her case was even more rock solid than before. Planners’s attorneys were fools if they didn’t see it. Still, they didn’t want to settle and that was fine with her.
Though she’d been nervous about seeing Truman again after their fight on Friday, she was profoundly disappointed when, after the deposition, there was no chance to speak with him. Immediately after Truman’s testimony, Marty Strape, the defendant’s lead counsel, had asked if she could stay and clarify something she’d sent over in some discovery materials.