by Lara Bazelon
“Just get out of the bathroom and file the motion, Will.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, when Jonathan knocks on her door, Abby is dressed again and screwing the lid on the second bottle of milk.
“Heard the news about your motion,” he says, sliding into a chair across from her desk.
Abby looks at her best friend, who is wearing a wool-blend Armani suit that would eat half her paycheck. Jonathan’s boyfriend, Quinn, is a wildly successful Hollywood screenwriter, and Jonathan, with his boyish good looks and impeccable taste, is hands down the most stylish lawyer Abby has ever seen not on TV.
“Word travels fast,” she says dryly.
Jonathan apparently has been checking her out, too. “You look great, by the way.”
Abby looks down at her Ann Taylor Loft sheath, which she bought several years ago and has probably worn fifty times. “Really? I mean, thank you.”
“Yeah, you really do. You look—” Jonathan scrunches up his face, trying to summon the words “—I don’t know. Hot. Filled out. Great color, your skin is glowing.”
“Jonathan, stop. This is weird.” She’s blushing furiously.
“I am just saying what the straight guys are thinking,” he says saucily.
Abby rolls her eyes.
“Anyway, back to the point of my visit.”
“Which is what?”
“Asking if you are going to get off the case.” Jonathan takes off his tortoiseshell glasses, makes a show of cleaning them with his pocket handkerchief.
“No.”
“You should. It might be the best thing for everybody.”
“Et tu Brute?”
Jonathan holds up his hands. “Look, Abby, you know I support you—I am helping take care of your kid, for God’s sake. But this situation with Dars is untenable.”
“It’s not over,” she says.
“Right, your loser motion for reconsideration.” They make eye contact and Jonathan opens his mouth, then closes it as the realization sets in. “Holy fuck,” he says, “you think you can convince him. Why? What do you have on him?”
“Nothing,” she says truthfully.
“But you’re going to go see him, aren’t you? Alone. To bluff?” He nods, answering his own question. “Oh, God, no. That’s a horrible idea.”
Abby busies herself putting away the bottles and zipping up the case that holds her breast pump. In the silence she hears Jonathan take a sharp breath. “Don’t do this, Abby.”
“I never said I was.”
“Please. I’m amazed you’re still here. But you are waiting for later, aren’t you? After everyone’s gone home.” He looks at her and she looks away, not answering him.
“No, Abby. No.” Jonathan gets out of his chair and stands over her, his hands on her desk. “Do you realize how close you were to losing your license the last time you tangled with Dars? If he goes to the state bar again, you are going to be in a world of pain. And this time, he’ll be in a position to testify against you. You know that going to see the judge outside the presence of the prosecutor to talk about an ongoing case is flat-out unethical.”
“Dars isn’t going to report me,” she says quietly.
“Don’t make me go to Paul.”
“You can’t go to Paul,” she says. “You’re my lawyer, remember? The very able lawyer who extricated me from the nasty clutches of the state bar the last time around. You know that going to see Paul to tell him what I tell you is flat-out unethical.”
Jonathan rolls his eyes at her reference to his role as Ethics Counsel within the public defender’s office. It is a thankless job that rotates every two years, with no extra pay and that no one wants. Last year it happened to be Jonathan’s turn, which is how he ended up representing Abby.
“And anyway,” she continues, “I never said I was going to see Dars. That’s just—” she shrugs “—uninformed speculation.”
“It is informed by years of knowing you. Look, even if Dars doesn’t turn you in the word is going to get out. It always does. And you cannot afford more rumors of—of impropriety, especially now. You just had a baby, you met a nice guy, you stopped drinking and doing the—the other stuff.” Jonathan’s eyes search hers. “You have a chance to turn the page on the last eighteen months and prove that you are a different person.”
“I’m not a different person. Jesus, Jonathan, what is that even supposed to mean? That I am supposed to forget everything that happened? That none of it mattered? That I should just walk away from this client, so Dars gets to have her, too?” Abby rubs furiously at her eyes, which are stinging.
“Dars didn’t get to have Rayshon. You won last time, remember?”
“What a victory,” she says bitterly.
“That case is over. That part of your life is over.”
The firmness of Jonathan’s tone, its sanctimony, infuriates Abby, and she lashes out at him. “You sound like Nic. Expecting me to have some magical motherhood transformation. That’s never going to happen.”
“Walk away, Abby. Walk away.”
“If I wanted your advice, counselor,” she says coldly, “I would have asked for it.”
Monday, January 8, 2007
6:45 p.m.
Chambers of the Honorable Dars Ducey
Los Angeles
“Abigail.” Dars does not get up from behind the enormous desk. He’s in shirtsleeves, monogrammed cuffs rolled up, his black robe hanging on a coatrack behind him. His dark hair is slicked back in its usual pompadour, his small eyes trained on her like he’s hunting. He’s jowlier than she remembered.
The room is cavernous. Red-veined marble walls, twenty-foot ceilings, old mahogany furniture—in addition to the massive desk, there is a long conference table to her left, ringed by eight upholstered chairs. The carpeting is so thick Abby’s heels are sinking. Directly over her head a giant iron multipronged light fixture hangs like a malevolent spider. If it fell it would crush her, but the light it casts is dim and gloomy.
Dars has not invited her to sit, but Abby picks one of the upholstered chairs opposite the desk and deposits herself in it anyway. Her calves ache from wearing heels all day after weeks of padding around the house in Nic’s gym socks.
She can feel Dars eyeing her silently as she removes her purse from her arm and sets it on the empty chair beside her. She makes sure to take her time, smoothing her skirt and crossing her legs.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Dars.”
“That’s Judge Ducey to you.”
“Not in here.”
“Ah, Abigail. How I’ve missed our banter.” Heh-heh-heh. She’d forgotten about that laugh. How much she hates it. “Odd, though, that childbearing doesn’t seem to have softened you any. My wife on the other hand—she never could lose that last ten pounds after our third one. Got some saddlebags on her now.”
Abby tries not to let her revulsion show on her face.
“Then again—” Dars is still musing on this theme “—you look a bit, how shall I say this? Inflamed. Then again, at least you didn’t get fat in the face. That happens to a lot of women.” He puffs out his cheeks to demonstrate. “Not you, though. Those last few months, you looked like a garden snake that had swallowed a basketball.” Another heh-heh-heh.
She continues to look at him, saying nothing.
“Which marshal was it again?”
“Why?” She nods toward his private bathroom. “Are you thinking of giving him extra work scrubbing the skid marks off your judicial toilet bowl?”
Dars waves a hand. “Being linked to you for the rest of his life is punishment enough. You didn’t marry him, though, did you? Or was he the one that didn’t marry you? Which is really saying something, given his station in life.” He shakes his head. “Well, either way, Abigail, single-parent households are not good. Not good at
all. But of course, I don’t have to tell you that, do I? Sad situation for the poor kid, especially if it’s a boy. And you had a boy, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Cal.”
“Calvin?”
“Macallan.”
Dars shakes his head. “After the scotch?”
“The place.”
“In Texas?”
“Scotland.”
A long pause. Dars rubs his chin, then gives. “So, to what do I owe this most unexpected of visits? And without Mr. Ellet? Never mind the prosecutor. Quite unusual, this sort of ex parte contact. Not very kosher, but then, it doesn’t exactly surprise me coming from you.”
Abby leans forward. “You need to recuse yourself. My client has a constitutional right to a fair and impartial judge. That’s not you, Dars.”
Another head shake, more vigorous this time. “I’m sure Mr. Ellet has advised you of my ruling.”
“So un-rule. It happens all the time. Upon careful reconsideration, you have reached a different conclusion.”
“The fact that I bear an abiding personal dislike for you has nothing to do with my ability to be fair to your client.”
“An abiding personal dislike,” Abby repeats slowly. “Yes. Though you said it a bit less elegantly over a year ago when we met in the executive suite of the US Attorney’s Office to discuss Rayshon’s case. Back then I believe your exact words were, ‘I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last cunt on earth.’”
Dars smiles. “Your memory may be a bit faulty on that one, Abigail. That’s common in women who have recently given birth. Yet another reason, perhaps, to reconsider the length of your maternity leave.”
She nods. “Except it’s not actually my memory I’m working from. I have it recorded on my cell phone.”
A shadow passes across his face but it’s only for a second. “Bullshit.”
“Not bullshit. True shit.”
A finger point. “There was no reason for you to record that meeting. It was about a favorable plea offer that we were extending to your wholly undeserving client.”
Abby settles back in her chair. “Yes, of course, but I didn’t know that at the time. I was walking in blind. Blind and alone. And you sounded so, well, how shall I say this, so frantic on the phone the night before. It made me wonder, Dars. It really did. I just had no idea what was going to come out of your mouth. And I was nervous, too. My first meeting on the fifteenth floor with the big shots. I wanted to make sure I remembered every minute of it.”
The finger point is now a stabbing motion. “No. It’s a felony to record someone without their permission and you know it. I could have you indicted.”
“You could,” she says agreeably, “but at what cost?”
“Give me your phone.”
“I’ve upgraded since then. But not to worry, there are plenty of copies. One safely stowed with my lawyer, Jonathan. You know Jonathan, right?”
“Play it for me.”
“No.”
He sits back now, too, relaxing. “I knew it. There is no recording. It’s reckless beyond even what you are capable of.”
“Oh, but I am capable of it, Dars. You tried to prove there was something wrong with the way I got the ballistics report that exonerated Rayshon Marbury. Unfortunately, the dirty cop’s wife who gave it to me wouldn’t cooperate with the state bar investigators you sicced on me.” Abby lifts her shoulders and gives him a wide fake smile. “Too bad. But now that all of that unpleasantness is in the rearview mirror, I can give you the details. Unless, of course, you’d rather not hear about it.”
“Do go on,” Dars says, “you know how much I love your stories.”
“Late in the trial, after I realized that Rayshon was probably going to get convicted, I got desperate and showed up at the wife’s house late one night uninvited. She had gotten a restraining order against the dirty cop at that point and I thought, maybe she has something on him.”
“After she complained to my office that you were harassing her and the judge told you to stay away from her.”
Abby nods. “But that’s not the half of it, Dars. I watched while she drank herself into incoherence. I told her she would lose custody of her children if she didn’t help me take down her husband, legal advice that was unsolicited and almost certainly wrong. I interfered with and polluted the relationship she already had with her own lawyer. A lawyer who, unlike me, was acting in her best interests.”
Dars shakes his head. “You’re lying.”
“About what I did to win the case?”
“About your cell phone.” He motions with one hand. “What you did to let that murderer walk free is entirely in keeping with your character. But he didn’t get far, did he?”
Abby feels her throat close. She had sat between Nic and Paul at the memorial service. Rayshon’s little boy had cried and cried. At the time, it had literally been noise to her. Remembering it now makes her want to cry herself, not that she would ever give Dars the satisfaction. Being a mother, she’s come to realize, is a terrible vulnerability.
“Give me your bag.”
She hands it over and he dumps the entire contents out on the desktop: baby wipes, nipple guards, a spare diaper, two pacifiers—both covered in lint—crumpled tissues, lip gloss, dental floss, Tic Tacs, her cell phone, her date book. He inspects every item, leaving the phone for last.
“What’s the password?”
“I told you it’s not on—”
“What’s the password?”
She gives it to him and waits while Dars scrolls through the various screens, checks her list of callers, her voice mails, and her photographs. Once it would have been mortifying: the drunken texts and other evidence of her numerous hookups. Now there is absolutely nothing of interest. Messages from Nic, Jonathan, Will, Paul. Her mother. And the pictures, the endless shots of Cal: cooing, sleeping, screaming. Lying on his side, staring wide-eyed at nothing she can see.
Dars is still scrolling, his mouth twisted. “Ah, Jonathan. I do recall him now. Your coworker, personal lawyer, and little gay bestie. Sure is interested in this baby of yours. Make sure to text him back as soon as you leave, sounds like he and Quinn—” Dars’s voice goes up an offensive octave “—are hanging out with your baby daddy at your house and wondering if you’ll be home in time for dinner.”
Abby takes a slow, quiet breath, before pasting on an inviting smile. “You should check out the video of the birth. Kind of gory, though. I needed twelve stitches.”
Dars drops the phone into her purse and shovels in the rest of the contents like he’s sweeping up garbage. “Come over to my side of the desk.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to pat you down.”
“You think I’m wearing a wire?” This she had not expected and her heart starts beating fast. He’s taking the bait.
Dars snaps his fingers. “Let’s go.”
The thought of his hands on her body feeling her up and down is so awful Abby can’t suppress a shudder. “I’m not going to let you touch me, Dars.”
“Well, then, we have a problem, don’t we?”
The solution that pops into Abby’s head at that moment is so crazy she can barely believe she’s even considering it. Jonathan’s warning flashes through her mind—word is going to get out—even as she hears him saying, “Hot. Filled Out. Great color, your skin is glowing.” On her best days, she is pretty; never hot. Too pale and sharp-edged with her little girl’s body. The fact that the idea is inspired by Jonathan’s stray comment before he started scolding her makes it delicious. If he’s right, he’s just handed her a new tool.
Now she says to Dars with a dead calm that surprises even her, “We don’t have a problem and I’ll prove it. I am going to take off my clothes.”
Dars snorts.
/> “Don’t believe me? Watch.” Abby stands up, removes her suit jacket and lets it drop to the floor. She unzips her skirt and leaves it on top of the jacket. She pulls off her shoes, slowly peels off her pantyhose, and drops the lot onto the growing pile. Standing in her white cotton underwear, she unbuttons her blouse and opens it. She feels both intensely present in her body and outside of it at the same time, as if the real Abby—the nice-looking but not hot one—is watching her from somewhere high above alternatively screaming at her to stop and cheering her on.
Dars is staring at her, eyes wide open.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Dars moves his head a fraction to the left and back again. If she’d blinked, she would have missed it. Or maybe she had imagined it. But he wasn’t saying a word.
Abby gives him a big smile as she removes the blouse, then twists her arms behind her back to undo the row of hooks that hold up her nursing bra. In ten seconds, she is standing, one hand on her bare hip, fully exposed. She smiles, and it is genuine this time. It’s intoxicating, the power she is exerting over him. “Underwear?” she asks politely.
His nod is almost imperceptible, and Abby looks down on her white cotton Hanes Her Way bottoms as if considering it. Too bad she hadn’t planned this out in advance, she’d have gone out and bought something sexy. Something Hot Abby would have worn. She snaps the elastic band. “No, I don’t think so. You wouldn’t really be checking for a wire at that point, would you? But your interest is much appreciated.” She smiles again. “Especially after, well, that hurtful comment you made that day on the fifteenth floor. It still stings, Dars. Every time I replay it.”
Beads of sweat have formed on Dars’s hairline.
“Want to see some more?” Abby walks around to his side of the desk so that she is standing directly in front of him but well out of reach, her arms at her sides. She raises them so he can see she isn’t concealing anything, then puts her hand back on her hip, shimmying as she does a slow 360-degree turn. Jesus fucking Christ this is empowering. Jonathan is right: this is quite possibly the best she will ever look. Suddenly conscious of the size and hardness of her breasts, she has to force her baby from her mind. No leaking.
