by Laura Wiess
I picked at the fresh Band-Aid on my forearm.
Humming, she opened the fridge and selected a Diet Pepsi. “Thank God his juvenile records are sealed and he hasn’t gotten into any other trouble as an adult. It’s imperative he stays spotless until the trial. I think I’ll pull a few strings and get us a speedy court date, just in case. We don’t want the media to lose interest.”
Her confidence slapped me numb.
“We’ll get all the right community backing, of course,” she continued, her polished nail tapping like a metronome against the countertop, keeping count of her coup. “After our Christmas offering, the priest at St. Anthony’s definitely owes me a favor…. Hmmm, I wonder if this kid was ever a Boy Scout? I’ll have to check into that.”
“I thought he was drunk,” I said finally.
“Breathalyzer showed alcohol in his system but he wasn’t over the legal limit,” my mother said, waving a careless hand. “Youthful indiscretion. Boys will be boys. Or, on the other hand, he may have been drinking to avoid dealing with the trauma of being continually harassed by the police. Perhaps he was intimidated and didn’t know how to handle it.”
It was hard to think clearly over the sound of her purring.
“All it takes is a reasonable doubt and Kozlowski knows it. I’ll guarantee you one thing, Blair. By the time this is over, that bitch will never forget my name again.”
Horror was melting my mask. I rubbed my forehead and reshaped my features into bland interest.
“The harassment claim has potential, too. After all, this cop was so out to get him that he even circled the house on the night of my client’s eighteenth birthday party, hoping to provoke an incident.”
My mother sipped her soda. “There are additional issues to work out and Kozlowski’s case to rip apart, but when I present my handsome, clean-cut, remorseful young client to the world…”
And then she kissed my cheek and zipped away to her office to plot her win, leaving me chained to the chair and screaming inside.
I know what you’re wondering. Why didn’t I tell her that her client was a dog and a scumbag…or at the very least, that he was the infamous Ardith’s brother?
I don’t know, maybe because it had been so long since I’d told her anything that I didn’t know how to anymore. Maybe because even the smallest confession was too big and would have exposed too much. She would have had questions and if I had answered them, I would have lost Ardith forever.
Or maybe that’s bullshit.
Maybe I didn’t tell because I knew it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Maybe I knew she wanted to burn Kozlowski more than she wanted to protect me. That the Christmas rape would have been my fault for letting him in, for not realizing that lust isn’t love and groping isn’t caring. Maybe I knew she’d be madder at my lying and deceit than at his brutal invasion. Or maybe she’d sell me out, tell me it didn’t matter because he’d been a juvenile and he was an adult now, or that my story sounded weak because there was no evidence and I’d waited too long to come forward.
Maybe I knew all of that and just didn’t want to deal with it.
So I swallowed it, listened and learned.
Ardith and I called the hospital every day. Resurrected prayers we hadn’t said in years. Sent get well soon cards signed “your caring friends, your worried friends, your concerned friends Ardith and Blair,” and even tried to donate blood, but we needed parental permission and that would have raised questions, so it was an automatic no-go.
I invaded my mother’s files and made a copy of the hospital report.
We almost threw up reading it.
Broken jaw, split cheekbone, whiplash, punctured lung, ruptured spleen, bruised liver, and some kind of kidney disaster. There was more but I don’t remember the medical terms.
And then the pictures…
I’ll never forget Ardith’s face when she saw what her brother had done, and what he was going to be found not guilty of. I thought she was going to go straight home and take a hammer to his head.
And I would have been right there beside her, with mine.
Because we knew that my mother would get him off.
And that when she did, it would be totally unacceptable.
Chapter 26
Ardith’s Story
Time is not your friend. It doesn’t care if you live fast or die slow, if you are or if you aren’t. It was here before you arrived and it will go on after you leave. Time doesn’t care who wins or who loses, if your life span is full or empty, honorable or shameful.
Time is indifferent. It simply doesn’t give a shit.
You never knew it before, but you know it now.
You’ve battled long and hard to be better than you are, resisted the combined assault of nature and nurture, but you aren’t winning anymore. You’re not even holding your own. The Ardith you were hoping to be has taken to whispering an ominous Fight fire with fire in your ear, not seeming to care if her hands and her soul are dirtied in the process.
You hold her off. Bury her advice without examination because you’re afraid of what you’ll find if you look too closely.
You’re afraid she’ll make sense.
High school starts and so begins the blitzkrieg.
Gary breaks up with you in the hall outside your homeroom on the very first day. He doesn’t look back when he walks away and later that afternoon you see him with his arm around a junior. They don’t look awkward or new and you realize he must have been cheating with her all along.
Blair’s mother gives her first round of interviews and your sober, earnest-looking, all-American brother stands quietly beside her. He’s not allowed to speak to the media yet, but Blair’s mother gives them a high-drama account of the pain he’s suffered from being the target of the local law enforcement’s ongoing reign of terror.
Yes, he’s seeing a psychologist. Yes, he has a job. He works at the Gap after school and on weekends. Yes, he’s trying to put his life back together.
The astounding part is that people seem to believe what they see. Maybe not everyone, like the girls he’s screwed over or your neighbors or the rest of the police force, but they all operate under the radar anyway, especially the neighbors, who know that even if your brother does get convicted, the rest of your family will still be here among them every day and it’s just easier not to get involved.
There are a lot of new people in town, though, thanks to the ever-multiplying McMansions and the easy city commute, and they don’t know your family at all. What they see in the sound bite is a polite, good-looking, middle-class young man driven to extremes by the unrelenting vendetta of a strict-looking cop with a grudge, and then it’s click, on to the Bloomberg channel or whatever, to check their stocks.
It’s a farce, and it just keeps getting worse.
Your brother becomes some kind of cult hero, a representative of the downtrodden tormented by fascists, and supportive websites spring up everywhere. His Nissan is totaled but Mrs. Brost makes sure he retains his license, so he drives your mother’s boat of a Cadillac to school. He never exceeds the speed limit and obeys all traffic signals.
Your parents begin to believe they are public representatives of the downtrodden, too, and in the interest of preserving the myth shoo everyone home. There are no more pool or keg parties, no skinny-dipping or girls to rub against in the shadowy back hallway. Your parents and brother still drink, of course, but only behind closed curtains, and not with anyone outside the family. Your father shaves his chin stubble and trades his faded T-shirts for new, navy blue cotton work shirts. For the first time in memory, your mother’s Daisy Dukes go into hibernation before October and she puts on new Levi’s. She dyes her hair chestnut brown and shuts down her adult website.
There is, after all, a civil suit to think about once your brother is found not guilty.
Reporters camp on your front curb, so you climb in and out of your window and cut through the woods to catch the school bus at a distant st
op.
Your honors classes are no refuge as you share them with Della, who recognizes your last name from all the media coverage and takes an intense interest in you. She partners with you in biology lab and whispers incessantly about how you shouldn’t worry about your poor brother because her best friend Blair’s mother is the defense attorney on the case and everyone knows she’s the best. And then she insists on introducing you to her friend Blair, and you become a threesome.
The situation would be laughable if it wasn’t so grim.
The first week of school passes and you find yourself envying Della’s incredible brainpower. Sitting next to her is like having a state-of-the-art search engine at your disposal. She knows things, lots of things, and as you try to absorb her smarts by osmosis, you wish desperately that your father was an acclaimed surgeon who shared all aspects of his work and education with you.
But he’s not, and a bitter, resentful It’s not fair rises in you whenever Della casually mentions her father’s vast, in-home medical library or the surgery she’s been allowed to watch along with a small and select group of med students.
It’s just not fair.
You think of the doctors working to save Officer Dave and want to be one of them. You think of the photos you’ve seen and ache to slip into his hospital room and lay his borrowed windbreaker, which you still cherish, over his body in the hope of healing him.
It’s a crazy thought, but you clutch at any straw because he can’t die. If he does, there’s no limit to what you might do.
Fight fire with fire haunts your dreams, wears down your will.
You confide as much to Blair, who doesn’t disagree. Sleepless nights and trying days have left purple smudges under her eyes and a knife edge in her voice. She looks as frayed as you feel.
Something’s got to give.
Your brother’s first interview comes on the same day Officer Dave loses a kidney. You watch it on the news in the TV room with your family and study your brother’s profile as he tips back a beer. You imagine rising and smashing the can in his smug face.
“Ooh, you look so handsome,” your mother says, smiling at your brother and giving your father’s drinking arm an enthusiastic shake. “Doesn’t he look handsome, Gil?”
“Jesus, Connie, don’t do that,” your father says, wiping the spattered beer from his pants. “I was going to wear these again tomorrow.”
“Hey, check it out,” your brother says, leaning forward. “That reporter—Janica Silvain—had me stand on the school’s front lawn so the camera guy could get the flag waving in the background. Mrs. Brost thought it was a good idea, too. She said it made a statement about liberty and justice, you know?”
“She’s doing right by you,” your mother says, nodding.
You watch as the reporter asks your brother what he’d like to do with his life once the case is over and he can put these dark days behind him. Your hands curl into fists as he gives her an angelic smile and says, “That’s easy. I want to give something back to my community. Maybe work with little kids, give them self-esteem, and try to keep them out of trouble.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“But I’m also interested in, uh, medicine and I might like to study, uh, podiatry, too.”
You stare across the room at him. He shoots you an enormous, shit-eating grin and puts his finger to his lips. There is, apparently, more.
“And I want to tell kids that if they need help, they should ask for it,” he says in a nauseatingly earnest voice. “That’s what all those professionals are for.”
The reporter thanks him and closes the segment.
You sit like a stone as your parents say how good he did and watch as he drains a second beer. Listen as he mocks the reporter’s willingness to believe him.
“Shit,” he says, smirking. “When she asked me what I wanted to do with my life, what did she think I was gonna say? ‘Rock ’n’ roll all night and party every day’? I mean, come on.” He folds his arms behind his head and grins at your father. “She was a real hottie, huh?”
“Who wouldn’t be, with their own hair and makeup team?” your mother says.
The phone rings.
It’s always for your brother these days, so he’s the only one who goes for it.
“Well, I have to say I’m pleased,” your mother says, swirling her cosmo. “I was a little iffy about remortgaging the house and betting the whole shooting match on a female lawyer, but now I have to admit that you were right, Gil. The ice queen does make an excellent attorney.”
Your gorge rises like bitter gall. Are you and Blair the only ones in the universe who hope it isn’t over yet?
“Uh, yeah, she is,” you hear your brother say and he’s looking at you.
It must be Blair, although she rarely calls. Worried, you start to get up.
“What? Yes, it is. Well, thanks.” He shakes his head and waves you back down in your seat. “Oh, you did? Thanks, that’s really nice.” He leans against the wall and adjusts his crotch. “No, she hasn’t. No, I…” He straightens. “Ohhhhh…okay, yeah, I know exactly who you are. Believe me, you’re not easy to miss.” His voice grows husky. “Mm-hmm. Oh yeah.” He laughs.
You know that laugh. That tone.
“Give me the phone,” you say, springing out of your chair.
Scowling, he straight-arms you. Wait, he mouths, annoyed.
“No,” you say and dodge his arm.
“Look, it was good talking to you but I’ve got to go,” he says hurriedly, grunting as he fails to fend you off. “Yeah, me, too. Looking forward to it.” Frowning, he surrenders the receiver. Asshole, he mouths, shoving you as he passes, and plops back onto the couch.
Heart pounding, you take the phone around the corner into the living room. “Della?”
“Oh my God, Ardith, I can’t believe I just got to talk to your brother!” she says, and her squealing bores a hole through your eardrum. “And he’s just as nice as he is cute! I knew he would be!”
“How did you get my number?” you say, standing by the window in the darkness. If you accept eighteen spankings and one to grow on, will Officer Dave cruise up in his patrol car, smiling and ready to take back his windbreaker?
“Huh? Oh, Blair gave it to me,” she says, and it sounds like she paces when she talks. “I called her because I watched the news and I wanted to tell you that my mother said it couldn’t have gone any better, especially since the police department refuses to make any statements of their own, other than on that cop’s condition, which she said makes them look like they’re hiding something.”
“It’s probably just procedure,” you say, pressing your forehead against the warm glass and searching the sky for the North Star. You need to make a wish. Badly.
“Oh, she knows that. She’s a politician, remember?” Della giggles. “She just said that’s what it looks like to the general public. Blair’s mother knows it, too, and that’s why she keeps publicly pushing the cops for more than they can give. She’s hoping they’ll say something that’ll mess them up even more.” Della laughs again. “She’s really good, you know. I told Blair that, too. Her mother’s definitely going to make judge.”
So it’s down to this. Blair knows what has to come next even better than you do, and since she gave Della your phone number, the decision has been made. All that’s left is for you to do your part. “I know,” you say softly and close your eyes.
And as you stand there hollowed out, seeing nothing, wishing for everything, all the fragmented, unresolved pain that has been multiplying inside of you like virulent bacteria coalesces into something dark and unthinkable and, God forgive you, ultimately useful.
You push the thought away, violently, but it returns vivid and alluring, perfectly formed and easy to implement. Easier now than when you and Blair first discussed it, as the initial revulsion has worn off. It would solve everything, too, and leave you and Blair absolutely blameless. There’s no way it can be tracked back or get either one of you in trouble.
Why not? The only punishment you receive will be from your own conscience.
Use her.
Your weakened resistance bucks once, then surrenders, exhausted.
Yes. All right.
You open your eyes.
“Public school is way more exciting than being homeschooled,” Della burbles. “I mean, if I didn’t go to school, then I wouldn’t know you, and your brother would be just another news story, but now he’s not. He’s real, and I almost know him. And I was thinking…what if we threw him a support party? We could have it at my house, and take donations, and my mother could invite her richest friends—”
“I have to go now, Della.” Your voice is calm and gives no warning as to what will follow. You recognize this and your new impassivity chills you.
“No, don’t go,” she says. “I want to talk about my idea. I wish you had your own phone. Then we could talk till bedtime.” And in the next breath, “Listen, don’t tell your brother about the party idea, okay? I want to surprise him.”
Your heart gives one dull, hollow, speed-bump thud. “No problem.”
“Good!” She sounds all smiles again. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow. ’Bye. Oh, and say ’bye to your family for me, too, okay?”
“Of course.” You hang up, wander back into the TV room, and sink into your chair. Begin a silent count and are only at four when your brother glances over at you.
“That girl you were just talking to,” he says, stretching and propping his feet up on the coffee table. “She’s a sophomore, right?”
“Yeah,” you say, toying with the silver band encircling your ring finger. “Why?”
“The one with all the hair?” he says, tipping his head back into the cushions and watching you through sleepy, narrowed eyes.
“Yeah,” you repeat, feigning suspicion. “Why?”
“Hey Gil, you gotta see this girl,” he says, glancing over at your father and rolling his eyes. “Holy shit, and I mean it. She’s got, like, long, black Lady Godiva hair and a pair of tits that just don’t quit.”