Kissing the Wind

by A. E. Hotchner

  I had taken to ferrying Bhairav and Kishani back and forth with me between the country and the city—they were very well-traveled idols—and more than once I took him off his shelf and told him my troubles. Better to talk to him than to myself. I had sustained the ritual of anointing him with daubs of wine and blood, indulging myself in believing, as the Nepali did, that he might bring me good luck. Whenever I doubted, I always countered it with the same refrain, my own little version of Pascal’s wager: Why not? What have I got to lose?

  Also, most nights, before going to sleep, I’d assume my yogic position on the floor, close my eyes, and chant a series of oms, putting my mind in a kind of neutral holding while I tried to eject any adverse emanations.

  I interrupted my trial preparation for the baptism of Charlie and Lydia’s son. Lydia wore a new flowery dress; Charlie, who was mostly indifferent to clothes, wore a new shirt, tie, and pocket square; and baby Alfred wore a handsome new baptism gown. I presented Alfred with a silver Tiffany rattle. He was the epitome of a picture-perfect baptism baby. Charlie was overloaded with fondness for him, as was Lydia. I could appreciate Charlie’s feeling about the baby he had named in honor of the father who had been so cruelly wrenched from his life, as my co-adventurer, teacher, and advisor had been wrenched from mine. I was very thankful to be named Alfred’s godfather.

  When Lydia picked him up at the end of the ceremony, she asked if I would like to hold him. He looked at me as if I really interested him, and I looked at him with a fatherly surge of feeling. I had been concerned with my personal day-to-day problems, with no thought of a future that I could address with reasonable hope and desire. Now, with this newborn baby in my arms, listening to the little gurgling sounds coming from him, I envied Charlie’s freedom to be able to create a new life. Bubbling inside me was a strange, impossible yearning to have a baby bearing my own father’s name in my arms.

  * * *

  —

  I accompanied Emma in a taxi to the M. G. Bates Studio for her commercial. She was trying to overcome her trepidation but I knew that for her it was somewhat like facing the gallows. She was adamant that I not go into the studio with her; she would call for me later when she was finished.

  I was inordinately nervous for her, about not her performance but her ability to withstand the pressure without succumbing to Ménière’s penalties.

  She was waiting for me at the studio door when I got there, and as I entered she came to me with a smile as beatific as the rise of the sun on a warm June morning. She held tightly on to my arm, leaning her body against mine, and I realized she was in the middle of having a Ménière’s attack, obviously brought on by the pressure of performing.

  She was too unsteady to go much farther than the Starbucks next door. I helped her to a table and got in line for two coffees and chocolate cookies.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said as I placed a coffee and cookie before her. “I just took a Dramamine; that sometimes helps a little.”

  I asked her how the commercial went.

  “I’ve no idea. Most of my effort was in trying to keep my bearings. Won’t see it until it plays on TV. But the director didn’t seem unhappy.”

  “What was it about?”

  She laughed. “I’m an ooh-la-la princess, luxuriously surrounded, with three kneeling knights before me, each proffering a fancy bottle of perfume. I sniff bottle one and reject him, then reject number two as well, but I’m ecstatic over three’s perfume, which happens to be—surprise!—my sponsor’s bottle. What wore me down was having to do so many takes, repeat, repeat, thanks to poopy suitor two.”

  I asked her if she would like to do more commercials. That brought a long sigh out of her. “What I’d like,” she said finally, “is another coffee.”

  chapter twenty-three

  It was a small, neglected courtroom that had only a residue of the grandiosity of the still-impressive courthouse at 60 Centre Street: dated wood paneling, faded velvet curtains, eight rows of benches, a stale pervasive odor left by antiseptic mops.

  It was a six-person jury: four men, two women. During the voir dire jury selection, a streaker had disrupted the courtroom and the cops had had the damnedest time apprehending him. The good news was it wasn’t my syndrome—this time. The bad news was that the nude spectacle had made it hard to get a feel for the jury members.

  Shore and Norgaard sat at the plaintiff’s table on the right side of the room, next to the jury. She was clad in a black three-piece pin-striped Hugo Boss power suit that put my sensible Brooks Brothers wool suit to shame. A retinue of junior associates filled the first row of the gallery behind Shore.

  On the bride’s side of the aisle, I sat at the defendant’s table with Penelope and Charlie. Lois was positioned directly behind me with a pile of documents at the ready. The gallery was nearly full, a mix of court watchers and members of the press. Scanning the crowd, I was heartened to find Emma seated in the back. Assuming that she was real, it felt good to have the support. The night before she had done her best to encourage me, letting me run my opening argument by her and giving me gentle notes on performance. Syndrome fake or not, her presence was certainly a boon to my morale.

  The bailiff cleared his throat.

  “All rise!”

  Judge Peter McArdle strode into the courtroom and took a seat. A dignified jurist in his late sixties, he was firm but fair with lawyers but was known for being quite gentle with witnesses and juries.

  “You may be seated. Is plaintiff’s counsel prepared for opening remarks?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Shore began: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is a simple case. My client Daniel Norgaard is an esteemed poet and a man of high moral character. Yet, for the sin of falling out of love, Ms. Tee has maliciously maligned his character and vandalized his art, all for the sake of drumming up interest in her tacky book. Just because Topiary is a work of fiction does not entitle Ms. Tee to make up facts. Worse yet, Miss Victoria Celluci has also been smeared. What did she ever do to Penelope Tee? She’s just collateral damage in Ms. Tee’s heinous attack.”

  I watched the jury as Shore monologued, trying to read their faces for signals about the way they might be leaning. Because this was a civil trial, neither side needed all six jurors: New York allows a non-unanimous verdict if five out of six agree. That meant if I could identify one holdout based on body language, the best thing to do was to ignore them and focus on the other five. Juror 1, the foreman—a bald, bearded chiropractor in a plaid button-down and khakis—was attentive and scribbling notes. He had served on a jury before and knew the drill. Juror 3, a fratty college student—was his name Chad?—with an unruly mop of wavy curls and a striped rugby shirt, was staring a hole through his Converse sneakers. Was Chad/3 indifferent, hungover, or both? As a precaution, I jotted down a quick sketch of each juror and quietly slid it to Charlie with a note: “which 1s = real?” Charlie put check marks next to all six jurors and gave me a thumbs-up under the table.

  Shore continued. “The testimony you will hear today will prove that Ms. Tee knowingly lied about an affair and subjected my client to immense damages—reputational and emotional. Further, we’ll prove that Ms. Tee stole Mr. Norgaard’s poem. She is nothing more than a graffiti artist, tagging her name on top of someone else’s art. She calls it her art. Well, here in a court of law we call that copyright infringement. I thank you all in advance for your time and consideration.”

  “Counsel for defendant?”

  I stood up, closed my eyes tight for a moment, and took a deep breath. When I opened them, there were extra jurors in the box—ten in all.

  After a lurch of despair, I began to feel an angry rise of resentment, like I used to feel in my college basketball days when the opposition swarmed me to stifle my scoring. Instead of focusing on winning five, now I would need to convince nine. I could feel my body growing taut. I
tried to steal a quick glance at my seating chart to remind myself which were real, but there was a large ficus sitting on the table on top of it. So I took one more breath and tried to push the feeling of dread down into some deep recess of my body.

  “Good morning. I’m sure you all found my opposing counsel’s remarks quite…spirited. But I would be remiss not to remind you that underlying the disputed facts in this case is a very important tenet of our constitutional rights—freedom of speech. I humbly ask you as jurors to keep that in mind as the plaintiff attempts to denigrate Penelope Tee’s art. Oh, and by the way, Danny Norgaard did cheat on my client. Ms. Tee could have spoken to the tabloid press the way Danny Norgaard did, feeding them story after story. Instead she chose to let her art speak for itself. There’s nothing tawdry about that at all. You know, there are two types of novelists—those who write about themselves and those who pretend not to.”

  A couple of the jurors smiled and nodded. I was pretty sure they were real because I remembered them from voir dire when we first empaneled the jury.

  “So, at bottom, Danny Norgaard not only wants to be able to treat women as disposable, he wants to make sure that he owns their stories too.”

  Juror 5—a bouncer at a nightclub who’d said during voir dire that his sister wrote poetry—perked up and scribbled something on his notepad while the vaudeville clown next to him dozed off, his head resting on his fellow juror’s broad shoulders.

  “Not only that, he wants the world to know that his opus ‘Cacio e Pepe’ is off-limits. Hands off. Don’t touch his precious masterpiece. Last time I checked, there was something called the First Amendment. The First Amendment is number one in the Constitution and in my heart, because without it the Danny Norgaards of the world get to tell us what to say, to write, to paint, to create. The testimony you’ll hear today will show you that Penelope Tee is a truth teller and artist. I thank you as well for stepping up as citizens to uphold the rule of law.”

  “Thank you, counselor,” said Judge McArdle. “Ms. Shore, who is your first witness?”

  “Mr. Norgaard, Your Honor.”

  Shore teed them up and Norgaard knocked them out. He was a stand-up guy, had always tried to do right by Penelope but nothing was ever enough. When he left, he tried to be classy about it. Once Topiary came out, it was humiliating. Publishers were backing off from signing him; a promising fellowship evaporated. He felt the chill of longtime friends icing him out. And then to top it all, he had to see his magnum opus turned into a poop joke. Norgaard teared up at that last part—possibly genuinely. I would have to be careful on cross-examination.

  “Mr. Norgaard, is it true you are currently dating Ms. Celluci?”

  “Yes, it’s true. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Respectfully, I’m asking the questions.” The cowboy on his horse standing next to the witness box tilted his hat and gave me a wink. I started to shoo him but managed to catch myself and pulled my hand toward my hair, mussing it back like I was a kid whose high-five had gone unrequited and had to play it off smoothly.

  “And how long have you known one another?”

  “Oh, going on three years now.”

  “How do you know each other?”

  “Penelope hired her for a shrub consultation at my summer house in the Hamptons. We knew a lot of people in common and the three of us became friends.”

  “And when did the relationship turn romantic?”

  “Look, I’m not going to deny there was chemistry from the beginning, but I’m a gentleman and I was committed to making it work with Penelope. It wasn’t until the relationship ended several months later that I asked out Victoria.”

  “Do you recall which day you broke it off?”

  “I remember waiting until after New Year’s because I didn’t want to ruin her holiday.”

  “And when was your first date with Ms. Celluci?”

  “I didn’t tell Victoria how I felt until a few weeks after that.”

  “So there was no overlap between your romantic relationships with Ms. Celluci and Ms. Tee?”

  “It was strictly platonic.”

  “All business?”

  “Objection, asked and answered,” said Shore.

  “Withdrawn. I’m introducing a photograph of Mr. Norgaard and Ms. Celluci, appearing in the New York Post.”

  “Go ahead, we’ll mark it Exhibit One,” said the judge.

  “Do you recognize this photo?”

  “Yeah, this is the pap photo taken of me and Victoria, maybe six months before my breakup with Penelope. I was in LA for a reading, she was there getting some custom pruning shears, and we grabbed dinner.”

  “Was it a date?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Objection, asked and answered,” Shore interjected once more.

  “Overruled, but do try to get to your point,” Judge McArdle admonished me.

  “Can you read the caption for me?”

  “ ‘Pretty-boy poet Danny Norgaard cozies up’—this is ridiculous.”

  “Please finish.”

  “ ‘Cozies up to tree trimmer to the stars Victoria Celluci over a romantic plate of pasta at chic hotspot Chi Spacca.’ ”

  “Sounds romantic, no?”

  “It’s typical tabloid bullshit.”

  Judge McArdle cleared his throat. Bouncer/juror 5 chuckled while number 4—a schoolteacher who wore a diamond cross—rolled her eyes.

  “Excuse me—tabloid…garbage. Victoria was raving about the penne and that I had to try it, so I slid over to her side of the booth—for a second!—and had a bite. That’s cozy?”

  “Look, the heart wants what it wants.”

  “Objection!”

  “Counselor, is there a question?”

  “I suppose the question is, do you really expect us to believe there was nothing hinky going on?”

  A hush fell over the courtroom. I turned around and saw Charlie and Lois steal an “oh no you didn’t” glance at each other. Among the jury, Spider-Man seemed particularly impressed, though his expressions were hard to read behind his mask. Although juror—was it 2?—was vigorously shaking his head. Uh-oh. Maybe he was a misogynist.

  “Objection, argumentative.”

  “Sustained. The jury will disregard Mr. Tremaine’s previous question.”

  Number 2/vigorous head-shaker was staring daggers at me. Only now, on his right side, an identical double of the man was doing the same.

  “Apologies, Your Honor. I’ll move on. Mr. Norgaard, do you recall what you were eating that night?”

  “Objection—relevance.”

  “Counselor?”

  “The relevance will be apparent soon. Scout’s honor.”

  “Objection overruled.”

  “Well, then objection, asked and answered. He said it was penne.”

  “Counselor?”

  “The penne he referred to was Ms. Celluci’s.”

  Judge McArdle sighed. “Is it important that we know what shape everyone’s pasta was?”

  “It is.”

  “Oh, what the heck. Objection overruled. But if I hear a question about which sorbet he ordered I’m holding you in contempt.”

  “Thank you, Judge. Mr. Norgaard—the question was, what kind of pasta did you eat that evening?”

  “I don’t recall. I’m partial to their lasagna.”

  “But you’re certain Ms. Celluci had penne?”

  “Not one hundred percent, no.”

  “Okay, in that case, I’m going to introduce some evidence that might refresh your memory. This is a copy of the menu from the evening in question, attached with an affidavit from Chef Nancy Silverton authenticating it.”

  Norgaard turned beet red. Shore jumped out of her seat.

  “Objection!”

  Judge McArdle
was exasperated. “You’re objecting to a pasta menu?”

  “Uh, no, Your Honor. Withdrawn with apologies.”

  I returned to my cross-examination. “Can you read for me the menu?”

  Norgaard put on his reading glasses. “It says it’s a special Memorial Day menu, with a couples’ prix fixe of Caesar salad, cacio e pepe, and lemon sorbet…” His voice trailed off.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear that. Did you say cacio e pepe?”

  Norgaard looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon, and soon would be forced to eat the rest of the tree.

  “Ahem…I did. I guess I forgot that was on the menu.”

  “The couples’ menu?”

  “Er…yes.”

  “What a coincidence. Isn’t ‘Cacio e Pepe’ the title of your magnum opus?”

  “I wouldn’t use those words, but Poet’s Digest did call it that.”

  “What inspired you to write this poem?”

  “Well, if you must know, I wrote it for Penelope. So you can imagine how I feel seeing it defaced like that.”

  “That’s sweet. When did you publish the poem?”

  “It was part of my latest anthology, Dickin-son, which came out two years ago.”

  “So after the cozy dinner but before the breakup.”

  “Yeah—I mean, no. I mean, yes, it was in between those dates. I mean, it was in that specific time period. But I didn’t get cozy.”

  A single bead of sweat dripped down Norgaard’s brow.

  “No further questions.”

  When I sat back down at the defense table, I could feel the buzz in the courtroom. Charlie nudged me and whispered, “Great job making him admit to eating couples’ pasta, but where exactly are you going with this?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Next up Shore called Celluci as a witness. Celluci insisted she had great respect for Penelope and would never make a move on someone who was taken.

  Now it was my turn.

  “Ms. Cespuglio…excuse me, Celluci. Mr. Norgaard says he kept things strictly platonic until after the breakup. Is that true?”