by Tonya Plank
The nice and mean cop told him they had his friends in another room and they were confessing to the murders in the check-cashing store. He hadn’t, until that point, known what had happened inside the store. His friends said he planned the whole thing and assigned himself the role of lookout. The nice officer urged him to “tell your own story” so that “your friends don’t get the last word.” They told him he could get the death penalty, so it was really important he cooperated.
I knew it was his word against Roberto’s and Wilton’s—the other co-defendant. And I knew false confessions were extremely difficult to overcome. But the more I talked to Jamar, the more I believed his “friends”—or Darnell’s friends, rather—had lied and used him. And that he had no knowledge whatsoever of what was about to go down in that check-cashing store that night.
I ordered and read all of the minutes from Darnell’s trial, verifying what the mother had told me—that he’d killed the other boy for calling Jamar a “retard.” I figured we had evidence in this way that others thought he was mentally deficient, even if there were no medical records.
“You want me to work on preparing a motion for the hearing?” I excitedly asked Gunther after summing up the results of my two weeks of work.
“No, no, I’ll do that,” he said. “Edward said he’s really backed up on will preparation.”
Ugh. And so ended my work on Jamar’s case, by far the most engrossing work I’d ever had as a lawyer. Again.
***
My two weeks of rest were officially over and Sasha wanted to make up for lost time, as did I. I tried hard to balance work with competition training, which was all the harder given that Sasha was spending so much more time than I was with Greta now that he was rid—for the time being, anyway—of Cheryl, Luna, and Svetlana. Sometimes—numerous times, actually—they’d forget to tell me they’d tweaked something in my absence.
Greta made little video clips of the changes they’d made but it was hard for me to watch at the office, especially when I was working on Jamar’s case. When I’d returned to the boring wills, I’d tried to make up by sneaking peeks on my phone. But one time I made a really stupid mistake on one of the wills, which my boss caught. Another time, Gunther caught me watching a video on my phone at my desk. He didn’t say anything but I could tell from the look on his face he wasn’t too happy, to put it mildly. I just couldn’t juggle two such disparate things very well. Sasha knew this, and I could tell how hard he was trying to be understanding of all that I had on my plate.
If it wasn’t for Jamar’s case, I would have seriously entertained leaving the job as Sasha had suggested. But he and I both knew I just couldn’t right now. Not until Jamar’s trial ended, which, seeing how slowly hearing dates seemed to be progressing—Gunther didn’t always keep me in the loop—I figured very likely wouldn’t be until long after Blackpool was over.
Furthermore, the mambo team’s first competition, in Irvine, was coming up within days. So I had to concentrate on rehearsing with Pepe and the team ad nauseam. Pepe told me not to worry. This comp was just kind of a test to see how we’d do against other teams in a competition setting. We had other, far more important ones coming up later in the year. I told myself I wouldn’t put too much pressure on myself.
But by the time Friday afternoon had rolled around, of course I was feeling major butterflies. I’d just handed in a short memo summarizing a small research project I’d done for a partner and was trying to decide whether to begin on another will. It was four o’clock and I was planning to leave at five, have a relaxing dinner with Sasha, and get to bed early. Our bus was leaving the studio at nine in the morning, so we’d have plenty of time to get down to Irvine, practice on the actual competition floor, and then dress and do makeup before we went on at eight p.m. sharp. Sasha was driving down later in the day and would drive me home Sunday morning. We both thought it was important I go down with my teammates just to keep that team spirit high.
I was debating whether it was worth it to start a will and have to figure out where I’d left off Monday morning, or just leave earlier. I’d billed plenty of hours over the last two weeks on Jamar’s case to make up for leaving one hour early on a Friday. I’d just decided to pack up and go when Samantha called to wish me good luck and let me know it looked like she was going to be able to make it down after all. She’d had a practice scheduled with her new amateur partner and I’d told her not to cancel it; there was no reason for her to come down to watch a comp in a dance she didn’t care about and was never going to compete in. But she now said she’d had a change of heart as she realized what fun it would be to come down and cheer me on, especially since she likely couldn’t make Blackpool. I was trying to talk her out of it—she and her new partner had decided to enter an important amateur competition and they needed the practice far more than she needed to cheer me on—when Gunther stopped by and stood in front of my open door, his eyes fixating on the phone in my hand, which was obviously being used for a personal call.
“Um, I have to go, Sam. But thanks for calling. And good luck at practice tomorrow.”
“You dork. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
I put the phone down and looked up at him. “Hi,” I said.
“Did I just hear you saying you were going out of town this weekend?” he said, a note of disbelief tingeing his voice.
I didn’t know why—I didn’t have any urgent work and it was a weekend. “Ah, yes. For tomorrow through Sunday morning, anyway.”
He shook his head.
Oh no. Seriously?
“Are you prepared for the Jackson hearing?”
“Jamar?” I said.
“That would be Jackson. We refer to our clients by their last names, Rory.”
“Um, I thought you…were handling it. You told me last week to stop. And I thought it had been delayed.”
“No, I don’t know why you thought that.”
I didn’t know which thought had been wrong. I was pretty sure he’d told me the pre-trial hearing was delayed and I was absolutely positive he told me he’d be drafting the motion papers and to stop working on the case and return to will drafting. I was beginning to feel like I’d have to tape-record my conversations with this man in the future.
“I…I’m not sure when—”
“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, cutting me off. “We need to have the motion papers filed by midweek. That means I really need you here working on them basically nonstop until then.”
“I can’t,” I found myself saying. “I have out-of-town plans that can’t be changed. I can work late tonight and can come back to the office on Sunday afternoon, but Saturday is out. I’m sorry. I thought you’d told me you were drafting the motion.” I was annoyed with myself for apologizing since I knew for sure he’d told me not to work on the motion. But I was just so non-confrontational with this man.
He shook his head and tightened his lips. “I knew I couldn’t rely on you. Don’t bother. I’ll do it myself.” Then, he actually reached into my office, wrapped his fingers around the edge of the door and pulled it shut with a slam that shook the window and caused my law degree certificate to fall off the wall.
What the—?
I simply sat still in my seat for a couple of minutes trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. I wanted more than anything to work on Jamar’s case. But I couldn’t bail out on my teammates at this late date. Why on earth hadn’t Gunther let me work on the motion earlier? When I gathered myself, I walked to the wall, rehung my certificate, and went down to his office.
His door was shut. I knocked.
“What, Rory?” His voice was angrier than I’d ever heard it.
“Gunther,” I said, opening the door. “I’m sorry, I totally misunderstood what you wanted me to do on the Jackson case. I can work as late as you need me tonight and I can be in by late Sunday morning. It’s just that I made a commitment to others on Saturday and I can’t bail out on them now.”
“Your first commitment sh
ould be to your job. If it’s not, then I don’t know where that leaves us, Rory. I just don’t.”
I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was bending over backward at this point. I promised Sasha I’d rehearse with him all day Sunday so I was already breaking one commitment. Too many people were depending on me to break the other.
“I’m a fast worker, Gunther. If I would have known…” I stopped myself, sick of trying so hard not to place any blame on him. It was his fault he wasn’t prepared. I was available to him all this week. “You specifically told me that you would do the motion and that I was to go back to the wills. I wanted badly to work on the motion. I would have worked on it all this week instead of the wills. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can definitely work a lot of overtime. Just not on Saturday.”
But he just continued shaking his head, as if I had misbehaved and was in need of punishment. “It’s too little too late, Rory. Please, let me get this done. You have a good time this weekend.” His voice was drenched with sarcasm.
He hadn’t responded to my assertion that he’d told me not to work on the motion. And he obviously wasn’t going to. I opened my mouth to plead with him. I knew he wouldn’t let me work on Jamar’s case anymore if I left it this way.
But he held up his palm. “I’m ordering you to leave me alone. We’ll talk again on Monday. Believe me, we’ll talk. Now go.”
I felt like crying, but I wouldn’t. It was clear now he was trying to punish me for something. I didn’t know exactly what it was—it definitely wasn’t for mishearing him, but I wasn’t going to let him see me break. “Thank you for your time,” I said, not knowing what else to say, and shut the door.
I didn’t allow myself to cry until I was in Sasha’s arms that evening, in the hot tub with him and a glass of champagne, no less.
Needless to say, practice wasn’t going so well since my mind was way too focused on Gunther. Instead of giving in to frustration-induced panic, which would have caused him to yell at me all night, Sasha decided I needed more than anything to relax before the team comp the next day. So we stopped early and sat outside in the warm bubbles and cool breeze. We were way past having uncomfortable silences, and I mostly just sat in his arms as he kissed my head and neck and massaged my shoulders.
I could have spent all night just like that. But we both thought I needed to get a good night’s sleep, which meant going back to my own place.
“Someday…we will…have to stop doing this…I mean, every night,” Sasha murmured as he opened his car door for me.
I giggled. Nonsensical as that sounded, I knew exactly what he meant. At least I hoped I did: someday, I’d have to stay over more permanently!
Chapter 2
I forced myself to put Gunther out of my mind and focus solely on mambo as the minivan, driven by now-team-mom Mitsi, chugged down the I-5 toward Irvine Saturday morning. As it happened, though, instead of giving each other good, solid team support, I found myself embroiled in hyper, nervous energy that made me worry all the more about my current situation—both with Sasha and the job.
Roxy, for some reason, was suddenly terrified Enrique would drop her in a rag-doll dip. Never mind he hadn’t made a single mistake the last ten or so times we’d rehearsed. But he’d leaned too far forward on that dip once about four months ago, and she fell backward. Now all of a sudden she was sure he’d do it again, but this time she might break her neck. Pepe tried to calm her down, but to no avail. She told him she’d leave the team and sue the school if anything happened, causing him to promise her he’d consider trading partners with Enrique in the future. As ridiculous as her fears seemed, I knew you just never knew. I automatically rubbed my knee, hoping nothing bad would happen. I wasn’t going to wear the Ace bandage under the costume or it would show through the pants leg and look ridiculous. Nothing could go wrong again. I couldn’t take any more time off from Blackpool training. I just couldn’t.
I found Lilly’s angst the saddest, and I actually learned a lot about her on that trip down to the O.C. She hadn’t talked much about her husband before but apparently he was some kind of high-powered studio exec who worked eighty-plus hours a week. The whole reason she took up ballroom dancing in the first place was because he was never around and she was bored. She’d originally thought if she learned to dance—to do pretty things with her body—it would rejuvenate her husband’s sexual interest in her. She’d bring him to the studio, and soon he’d take lessons with her so they could go out dancing together.
But her growing passion ended up having the opposite effect—it created a distance between them. She became obsessed, which I now knew wasn’t hard to do, and began doing showcases and competitions with her teachers. He spent even more time away, and she suspected he might be having an affair. This drew her even more to the studio, and men like Pepe became kind of substitutes, although not romantic ones. Still, she longed for her husband’s support, and always invited him to her competitions and showcases but he never came. I got a lump in my throat wondering if, if there had been no Sasha and I’d stayed with James, the same thing would have happened to us.
The current drama wasn’t that her husband wasn’t going to be at our performance—she’d now accepted that he’d never make an appearance at one of her competitions—but that he’d blown a fuse over last month’s credit card statement. She’d been quadrupling up on privates for the O.C. competition and she and Larry, her partner on the team, had been taking privates twice a week with Pepe to prepare for our team comp. In addition to our costume, she also had to buy costumes for herself and her instructor for the O.C. comp. And of course they both needed new rhinestone-studded shoes. And she needed her hair and makeup professionally done.
“How much was the damage?” Roxy blurted out.
“It was only twenty-seven thousand eight hundred,” Lilly said, on the verge of tears.
I literally spit out my water. “Twenty-seven thousand eight hundred dollars?” I repeated in disbelief.
Roxy and Judy both looked at me with quizzical, what’s-your-problem expressions. But Pepe’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline and stayed there for a good few seconds, and I could see Mitsi through the rearview mirror smiling and shaking her head in bemusement. So I knew I wasn’t the only one who was floored by that number. I couldn’t imagine ever putting that much on James’s credit card in a year, let alone a month.
“I know it’s a lot,” Lilly continued, “but this is all I have. He doesn’t pay any attention to me.” She began sniffling.
Judy put her arm around her. Roxy patted her on the back. They’d known Lilly longer than I had. They must have known this was a sore spot with her.
I suddenly felt horrible. I’d made it worse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s okay. It’s not your fault,” Lilly muttered through her tears, which were now flowing uncontained.
But the more I thought about it, I could definitely see all the private lessons adding up. I didn’t know much about the expense of costumes and competition fees, though. It made me wonder how much money Sasha had and how that was all going to be paid for. Blackpool was probably going to make a U.S. competition look like attending a discount matinee movie in comparison.
“So what is he going to do?” asked Judy.
“Gawd, I hope he doesn’t take the credit card away,” Roxy bellowed.
This caused Lilly to cry harder. She buried her head in Judy’s chest and really wailed. Judy shot Roxy a nasty look and mouthed something I couldn’t make out.
Pepe, sitting directly behind Lilly, patted her head. “He wouldn’t do that, come on,” he said.
I was sitting in the row behind the other women and to the right of Pepe. I couldn’t reach Lilly to give her a comforting touch. So I tried a gentle suggestion. “Could you tell him how you feel? I mean gently. Then maybe he’ll understand. And maybe he’ll even spend more time with you.”
She lifted her tearstained face off Judy’s chest and shot me an angry
glare. “You think I haven’t tried that before? You think you know him better than I do?” she snapped.
This was indeed a very sore spot. I felt badly. “Of course not!” I laughed nervously. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Maybe you shouldn’t stick your nose into other people’s business,” she quipped.
“Oh come on, honey, don’t let her bait you,” Roxy said, rubbing Lilly’s back more vigorously.
‘Bait you,’ I thought? How could anyone interpret what I’d said as attempting to do that? But then Roxy looked at me and rolled her eyes, mouthing, “Sensitive. Very, very sensitive.”
I nodded my understanding.
“And I needed everything I bought. I’m an old lady. I’ll never get better on my own. I need the privates,” she said, looking around at all of us now, as if we’d all put her on the defensive.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Everyone training for competition needs as many privates as they can get. It’s got nothing to do with age,” Judy said.
“Yes, yes, and last month was the rhythm championship.” Lilly nodded rapidly, sounding more excited now that she had an understanding audience. “The costume was only eighty-four fifty. I think. ‘Course there were the shoes. But I can’t help it! How can I help it? It was beautiful, right?” she wailed.
“It was gorgeous, honey,” Judy said, kissing her curly head.
“That was worth it. You felt good,” Roxy agreed, removing a cigarette from her pack and opening her window, eyeing me with a look that said, Support her or else!
“You did. You looked absolutely gorgeous!” I shouted. I wasn’t lying. That costume had looked really hot on her. I just couldn’t believe it was that blasted much.
“Thank you!” she said, turning to me, a genuine smile now on her face.
But I didn’t know how good of a job I was doing hiding the sick feeling I had in the pit of my stomach. If Lilly’s dress was eighty-four hundred dollars, how much was my Blackpool gown going to cost? I remembered Sasha saying some of the competition costs would be paid by the sponsor but certainly they couldn’t pay all of it. And how could I ever afford any of it if I left my job? Even if I didn’t leave my job? No, I didn’t want to go back to fixating on that. I could feel my heart rate increasing and I took deep breaths and tried to calm down. Sasha will make everything okay, I told myself.
