“Not really,” I said. “I respect cheerleading. It’s very athletic. But football never made sense to me, and that’s really the only thing they cheer for.”
“What a waste. We need some Mock Trial cheerleaders,” said Grace.
“Well. We now have at least one,” I said.
We turned off the highway and bumped down a smaller road much like mine.
“Almost there. She’s number thirty-three.”
Over the hill filled with bare trees rose a powder-blue house surrounded by a white fence. Grace expertly pulled the SUV up against the berm and shifted into park. I followed her to the front door, where she rang the bell.
“Gracie! You don’t have to ring the bell. Just come in!” said the woman standing in the doorway. The woman who must have been Grace’s aunt looked at me. “And who might you be?”
I stuck out my hand. “Emilia Goodwin, ma’am.”
She shook it, with a nice, firm grip. She wore yoga pants and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved top with a llama captioned LLAMASTE.
“Just call me Kay. Do you two want any tea?”
“No, thank you,” we said.
“Muffins?”
We both took her up on the baked goods. Her kitchen smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. The sun poured into her breakfast nook, warming the cushioned benches that surrounded the table.
“Your mom tells me you need help with a school project,” Kay said to Grace.
“It’s a bit longer term,” I said. I told her the whole sordid tale of being dumped and starting my own team. “We have a practice scrimmage that you wouldn’t really need to attend. Then the competitions are three weekends total in February and March. Maybe states, maybe nationals. I really want to go to nationals.”
Kay looked into my eyes for a long moment. “You want to go to nationals to beat the other team that kicked you off?”
“No.” I thought about it. “Or if so, only a little. If I could have anything, honestly, it would be to lead the team I had to nationals, the dude bro team, because that has been my goal for years. That’s what I thought we were all working toward. But it turns out we weren’t really a team. I’m not going to get that back. I want this new group to really be a team and to be the best. Because who doesn’t want to be the best?”
I took a breath. If the calming energy of the universe were anywhere, it was in that breakfast nook with these whole-grain blueberry muffins.
“I see,” said Kay. She glanced over at Grace. “You want to win, too?”
“I am doing it for Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” said Grace. “And the women of the court. And I was new, but they welcomed me with open dockets.”
Kay carefully peeled back a baking cup, contemplating the organic crumbs that fell onto her lap. “This kind of thing can get to you, you know,” she said. “Winning. Losing. Trying to get ahead. Is it really fun to set yourself up to fail?”
“Who says we’ll fail?” I said.
“No one,” said Kay. “But if you love the law, why not just study it? Why not observe real-life trials? Even the thrill of the work wears off, on a long enough time line. Disappointments and glass ceilings, why do that to yourself…”
I waited for her to say more, but she stayed silent. I glanced at Grace, whose face clearly read, I know my aunt is being kind of weird and you only just met her.
“I mean. It’s my life,” I said. “I love it. I’ve poured myself into it. And I’ve already been disappointed in it, since my team turned out to be a bunch of jerkfaces. Maybe you are right and Mock Trial and the court system and the world are filled with jerkfaces. It would explain a lot about judicial backlog and unjust sentencing. But why not try to change it? Why not start here? You have to start somewhere.”
“What if trying to change it just wears you down, with little discernable reward?”
Kay was awfully full of questions for someone who may or may not be active with the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
“Because I’d get too bored not trying,” I said.
“Same for you?” Kay cocked her head at Grace.
“Supreme Court justices. I’m a fan. Or maybe it’s just the dissent. I don’t know. Did I mention the instant new friends part?” said Grace.
Kay raised her eyebrows at us, and small chills ran inexplicably down my spine. This lady must have terrified the other side in sidebars.
“I have a lot of time on my hands,” said Kay. “Lots and lots of time. My Śīrṣāsana is by far the strongest in my training program. I should probably just do the full one-thousand hours at Kripalu at this point. But I’d have to move away from all of you.”
“That’s great?” Grace said. “That sounds … relaxing?”
“No. Yoga school is hard. I’m fifty, you know? The two-hundred hours was enough. It’s fantastic for you, yoga. I thought of studying Sanskrit. Like I said, I have the time. But I’ll stick to Hebrew. More local teachers. And a lifetime of practice there. It all feeds the soul, really.”
I was pretty sure at this point Kay had forgotten she was talking to Grace and me.
“And the baking is going well. I thought about opening a little pop-up. Scones and tea. Maybe grow some fun herbs in the garden and make my own blends. And there’s no end of causes to get involved in.”
“Do you want to learn to knit? There’s some local judge who needs some vaginas,” said Grace.
“Knitting? What? You think I need a hobby like the heartbroken girl in some love advice column?” said Kay.
“Oh! We know her!” I said.
Grace sniffed. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Yarning is for everyone. Unlike, I guess, baking or tea brewing. I didn’t hear you complaining when Mom made you all those toeless socks.”
Kay laughed. “Fine, fine. I guess you got this from your mother. It was my job as a big sister to make fun of her for anything she was good at that I wasn’t.”
“We have spent a fair amount of my life together,” said Grace.
“It would probably annoy your mom if I said yes.”
Grace shrugged. “It was her idea in the first place. Said you might have—time—for it.”
“Yes. Time. I used to work eighty, ninety hours a week. Now I work twenty. Maybe thirty if people want extra classes picked up. Leaves a lot of time for studying. And baking.”
“And tea,” I said.
She pursed her lips. “If I help you, it’s because I have family loyalty.”
“Yes,” said Grace. “I appreciate that.”
“And maybe I like the law. Seems a shame to waste the UC Berkeley degree. It cost enough.”
“It really does,” I said. I knew that from the spreadsheet I’d started in fourth grade of law-school tuitions across the country.
“Fine. You’ve got yourself a legal consultant. Forward me whatever it is Mock Trial uses these days.”
“Fantastic,” I said, rising out of my seat. “I consider this a binding verbal agreement.”
“You need two witnesses for that,” Kay said.
“And we are leaving right now before you can change your mind,” I said. “Come on, Grace.”
Grace and Kay followed me to the coatrack by the front door.
I stuck my hand out again for Kay to shake it. “You won’t regret this,” I said.
“We’ll see,” she said.
As we drove home, I forwarded the documents I had saved in my cloud drive from my phone.
You have a real future in this, kid, she emailed back almost immediately.
I grinned the entire way home.
FEBRUARY 8: THE PARTIES
I went straight to the library after lunch. Ms. McClain gestured to one Nikita Varman to distribute file folders to Grace, Veronica, Izzy, and Raina. Nikita wore brushed gold on her eyelids and fingernails and everything about her, including her evident apathy, was radiant. I was by far the least adventurous dresser out of anyone on this team, including Ms. McClain and the fifty-year-old ex-lawyer yoga teacher baker adviser.
&nb
sp; “Welcome, Nikita. Glad to have you on board.”
“Glad to be here,” she said flatly.
She and I took the remaining seats around the table. Ms. McClain handed me the remaining folder.
“I took the liberty of printing everything for you,” she said. “I know you’ve seen the case before, but I thought it might be helpful for each of you to have all the materials for reference. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you!” I said. I loved librarians. “Okay, everyone, here’s the deal. We talked Grace’s aunt into being our adviser. Grace, Veronica, and I are the lawyers. We are going to develop a strategy for both defense and prosecution. Raina, Izzy, and Nikita—you will each be playing two witnesses. One for the defense and one for the prosecution. Look through the files and see if any part calls to you. Nikita, I don’t suppose you have any experience with this sort of thing? Acting? Or law?”
“I’m a cheerleader,” she said.
“Fantastic,” I said. “Close enough.” I had no other options but to affirm her for what she could bring to the table.
“Our season starts too soon for my comfort, but it is what it is. Our first trial is on February twentieth, our second is on March sixth, and districts is on March thirteenth—unless it snows, but it has never been postponed before so we should be fine. States is April tenth and then nationals is in May. We will get there. One trial at a time.”
I had the witnesses move their chairs into a semicircle away from us lawyers. I looked at Veronica and Grace. “Let’s read the documents again, and then we can start talking about what we need to do to get started.” The other two nodded. All of us sat reading. After everyone finished, we reconvened.
“Okay, so tell me what we’ve got,” I said. That’s how Mr. Darr always started us out on the other team.
“As I understand it,” Veronica said, “the plaintiff, Jane Marsh, met her best friend at a party celebrating some sort of corporate milestone. Jane’s partner, Jess, was there as well. The two of them talked to the defendant, Chris Banks, about a patent they were going to file for a product they developed as a pet project, a robot that scrubs floors, in their home makerspace. Chris had been a big part of the development of the robot and the three of them got into an argument at the party over whose intellectual property the Scrub-Bot really was. A few weeks later, Jess the partner is dead, and Jane is convinced Chris is at fault because of the particular circumstances surrounding their unfortunate demise. But the evidence is circumstantial. Maybe. If that’s the word.”
“Great summary. I don’t suppose you picked parts?” I asked the witnesses.
“They let me be the defendant,” said Raina.
“I want to be the mean friend,” said Nikita.
“There’s a mean friend?” said Izzy.
“The one who thinks Chris is guilty. The one who was at the party and the after-party. Reminds me of pretty much everyone in dance troupe,” said Nikita.
“Oh, that’s a prosecution witness. I can be Jane for prosecution and Beth from their development team for the defense,” said Izzy.
“And I can be snarky boss for the defense,” said Nikita. “If we do that side.”
“That leaves the other person from their development team who thinks I’m guilty on prosecution. I’m fine with that,” said Raina.
“That makes you the tech expert who says Chris rigged…” Izzy looked at her notes. “Jess’s car to explode. Can you be a tech expert?”
“I just have to memorize these five pages?” Raina asked. “I don’t have to study explosives, do I?”
“No, you just need to know what’s in your part, and maybe the case documents,” I said.
“Then I’m an expert.”
That was almost too easy. The guys always fought over the parts. There were dude tears. Eventually, Mr. Darr made them pull parts out of a hat and then everyone silently resented one another for the rest of the year.
“You could rotate parts if you wanted, in case you get sick of your character,” I said. That was always Mr. Darr’s suggestion, which no one took.
“There are only, what, five shows? Six? Surely we can do it for a short run like that,” said Raina.
“It’ll take me at least one to even figure out my motivation,” said Izzy.
“Isn’t it prison or no prison?” said Nikita.
“No, my internal motivation,” said Izzy.
Raina nodded in solemn agreement. Nikita just threw them a blank stare.
“Great, well, that’s settled, then.” The surprise at the instant teamwork made my voice go up an octave or two. “We can assign parts for the lawyers.”
“You do opening and the first witness, I’ll do second and third witness, and Veronica can close for defense. I’ll do opening, Veronica first and second witness, and you do the third and close. You tell us how to order the witnesses,” said Grace.
“Works for me,” said Veronica. “All the prosecution skills!”
I grinned. Angry (or motivated) girls were several orders of magnitude more efficient than the calmest of men. They were already team players.
“Well then,” I said. “What’s next?”
9
RAINA PETREE,
:
IN THE COURT OF
:
REVENGE OF CAMBRIA
Plaintiff,
:
COUNTY
:
v.
:
:
VARSITY LEVEL MEN,
:
Case No. KNIT4GUD15901
:
:
Defendant
:
FEBRUARY 9: REQUEST FOR RELIEF
“You’re mumbling to yourself,” my mom said.
“I’m running lines,” I said.
“Oh? You’re in Our Town all of a sudden? You told me not to reserve tickets. Those shows sell out early, you know. Not much else to do in this town.”
“No! God no, Mom. It’s for Mock Trial. I’m the defendant. I’m memorizing all of my information. Although, to be honest, I think I did it.”
“What?”
“Millie says these cases are meant to be ambiguous. But I’ve read everything, and I feel like I murdered Jane’s partner. Or maybe I just meant to hurt them and ended up killing them. I don’t know. I’m awfully good at this remote detonation stuff. Well, it wasn’t actually a detonator. It was more of a robotic prank thing that was too close to the engine so the whole thing exploded. Then again, I’m pretty savvy with these sorts of devices, so wouldn’t I have known what would happen when I put the exploding thing close to something so flammable? Anyone who pumps gas knows you turn the car off because any kind of spark could blow everybody up.”
Mom squinted at me. “I don’t know if I should be frightened or happy that you are getting back into your acting groove.”
“The answer here is frightened,” I said. “Hey, speaking of my acting groove, can you ask off February twenty-seventh?”
“Why?” she said.
“That’s the last weekend for CMU auditions. Could you take me?” I could drive, technically, but I’d never gone more than a few miles from home.
“Um … I’m really, really sorry, Raina. But I don’t think I can. We have one girl out on maternity leave, and the new guy just threw out his back. I can see what I can do, but it’s not looking good. I would probably need the car. Can you get a ride from someone else?”
“Maybe?” I said.
Just then, Mom’s phone burst to life.
“Oh, it’s Daddy,” said Mom. “I forgot he said he was going to call. He’s even FaceTiming us. Wonder who taught him to do that.”
“At seven in the morning on a Tuesday? Are you kidding?” I said.
“He wanted to get us when we’d both be home.”
Dad’s face popped up on Mom’s screen. “How’s my girls?”
“Russel?” my mom said, almost like she didn’t believe it was him even though she knew he was supposed
to call. So much time away did that.
“You were expecting another man?” he said.
“Never,” said my mom.
“What are you up to, kiddo?”
“Not much, Dad.” That wasn’t true. Even a little. But this is what it felt like to talk to Dad—off-balance. I knew Mom was happy, but she and I had a system when he was gone. A routine. I did whatever I wanted, and Mom let me because she didn’t have time or energy to do much more than pray that I was as boring as I seemed to be. But since Dad was home so infrequently, even a call threw me. It was nice to know he was still alive, and he loved us, but it was never enough interaction to fully get me, because I’d grown since the last time he’d tried to fit into my life.
“How’s the boy? Benjamin, was it?”
Case in point.
“No boy. Boy gone,” I said.
“Really? You were with him for at least a year!”
It’d been almost four. But who was counting?
“He dumped me for another girl,” I said.
“What? Well, he’s an idiot, then,” he said.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“What play are you in now?”
The man was trying, but this is what happened when you didn’t bother to spend more than five minutes on the phone once every few months.
“No play. I’m in Mock Trial now. Law.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m playing a witness.”
“Oh.” He rubbed his beard. “That’s neat. I’ve heard of that. Your grandfather did that in college.”
“What?” I’d never heard that.
“Yeah, Pap wanted to be a lawyer, you know. What was it he did … Moot Court? It’s where you argue constitutional law. It’s not a trial. More like a speech competition. He did real good in that. ’Course he was drafted right out of school. Vietnam wasn’t good to him, and he always said he couldn’t think like he used to when he got back. Went to work in the mills here instead. It’s a shame you probably don’t remember him.”
I didn’t. There was a picture of him having a tea party with me when I was about two years old. And another of him letting me cover him in stickers and me laughing hysterically. Sometimes I felt like I remembered him, flashes of his soft skin and green eyes. But that might just be me reading into the pictures or reconstructing stories my grandma told before she died. Dad looked more like the Pap in the pictures each time he came home from the latest run. Dad had wanted to be a fighter pilot, but his eyesight prevented him from even enlisting. Mom mentioned that he might have wanted to be a writer at some point, too, but talked himself out of it before he even tried.
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