“So, so...” He reached out and, with a hand that shook as much as he could make it, made a show of trying to pick up the water glass that sat there, but it clattered to the side and rolled along the table. He grabbed it before it fell, and filled it up with water from the jug on the table. He took 'grateful' gulps. “So she was in a horrible mood, as you can well imagine. They were going to fire her. The airlines, I mean. And they did fire her for that...that violence. I wasn't surprised. She was always violent.”
“Yes, so I've read in your complaint.”
“I didn't always know how to act when she was angry. There were many times she threatened me with violence. It's embarrassing for a guy, you know, when his girlfriend...girlfriend punches him. Batters him. Terrible. You feel so bad. No self-esteem. Like you're a failure.”
“Yes, yes, battered husband syndrome, I know all about it. A terrible tragedy. So what did you do?”
“I tried to help her with her anger issues. But, no. Useless.” He sighed, as if still recovering from the effort. “Anyway, I went downstairs and bought myself a scratch card. I always do it when my life seems useless. When there's little to live for. It gives me hope.”
Judge Edna Lee's jowls shook as she nodded with understanding.
“I bought it from this gentleman here,” he nodded at the bodega man, who was bobbing his head up and down, and Gretchen felt a stab of betrayal. Though, she realized with a sinking heart, Mike had actually bought it, and probably from him. The bodega man probably thought the same about her as the judge did. She looked over at Roz, but her roommate was too busy arranging her hands on her knees in such a way that each of the rings would be given ample airtime. Gretchen felt alone. Alone before the audience she was sure had turned against her, before the judge who hated her, between the cameramen who she suspected were mocking her and sneering at her, though she couldn't see their faces.
“And then,” Mike continued, “I was still scared to go back to the apartment. She usually breaks things when she's angry like that. She hit me on the head with a toaster oven once. So I sat on the curb, even though it was almost a hundred degrees and very muggy that night—I have the weather report here with me, if you'd like to verify that...?”
He hauled up the massive sheaf of paper that was his evidence and motioned towards the bench.
“I don't think that'll be necessary, dear,” Judge Edna Lee said. “I believe you.”
Gretchen's nostrils flared bull-like, her fingernails dug into the wood of the desk before her, her heart raced and every fiber of her being willed hatred across the studio towards Mike Brown.
“I was lucky to find a dime in the gutter to do the scratch card with. It'd been my last five dollars. I didn't even have any change. If I hadn't found that dime, I would've had to try to scratch it with my fingernail, or maybe a key or something. Anyway, as you know, I won. $50,000. But with taxes taken out, and they did that immediately, it only came to $30,000.”
“I'm so sorry about the taxes, honey.”
“Thank you. Anyway, I didn't know that at the time. I ran upstairs. I was excited, as you can probably imagine.”
“Yes, I can. All your dreams come true.”
“And when I told G-Gretchen,” He gave a little cough here, “I'm sorry, she put me through so much, it's difficult for me to say her name.”
The judge clucked her understanding, and down the length of the witness row, the others did the same. All heads turned towards the defendant's table and glared as a unit at Gretchen. She shrank behind her mic, willing her anger to dissolve, dissipate, disappear. She knew if she roared out, she would be fanning the flames of Mike's fantasy.
“When I told Gretchen I'd won, she snatched the card out of my hand. She said that what was mine was hers. She had always said that, repeated it over and over as she took from me, since we got together. She ran into the, our, bedroom, and hid the card somewhere. Fearing for my life, I stayed in the living room. But I think she had locked the door, in any event. I slept on the sofa.”
The audience gave a collective moan, as if this was the worst thing imaginable. How Gretchen longed to whip around and tell them to wise up. She closed her eyes as she fumed, tried to count to ten, but couldn't remember what came after three.
“When I woke up the next morning, she was gone. She had already left to go to the lottery place to cash it in. And when she came back, clutching the money in her hands, taunting me with it, she told me I wouldn't get a penny. Then she told me that I was crap in bed,” another moan rang through the rows of the studio, “and that she had never loved me, and that she was kicking me out. She gave me ten minutes to gather together some meager belongings. She didn't even let me get my toothbrush from the bathroom.” Another moan, this one tinged with outrage.
Gretchen shrank from the daggers shooting from Judge Edna Lee's eyes. And Ed's. Even Roz seemed to be wavering.
“I stayed with my friends here, Louise and Carly Rae,” Mike motioned to them, and they bobbed their heads in unison, “I tried to call h-h-her,” he nodded at the plaintiff, “tried to claim what was rightfully mine. Well, no, I was going to split it with her, of course. As any good boyfriend would, ex or not. But she had blocked my number, deleted her Facebook account, and I couldn't get in touch with her. Finally, I filed this lawsuit.”
A hush had descended upon the studio. Gretchen could feel the accusation, the hatred from the audience burning into her spine, branding her flesh through the bright blue blouse she had chosen for the show.
“Disgraceful,” the judge said, though calmly. Which made it seem even more disgraceful. “Never in all my years have I heard such heartbreaking testimony. My heart goes out to you. Truly. I know I'm one myself, but the female of the species and all that. Although I suppose that's only half the story. Unfortunately, according to the laws of this country, we must give the accused a chance to plead their case, no matter how weak it may be, no matter how guilty they so clearly are. And they can devise quite cunning lies. Perhaps we are about to hear some. Perhaps?” Her eyebrows arched over her glasses, and there was some giggling from the audience. Mike shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “it seems a waste of all our time, but if the laws of the land say it must be done, then so be it.”
This is what Gretchen had feared. She had watched episodes like this before, when the judge took a sudden shine to either the defendant or the plaintiff, and, regardless of the facts, vilified one and bestowed sainthood on the other. The judge really was in need of therapy.
Judge Edna Lee's head swiveled slowly atop her gizzard-like neck. She peered accusingly at Gretchen, like lasers were shooting through the lenses of her spectacles. Then she looked quickly down at her file and found Gretchen's name again.
“And now you, Ms. Gretchen Barnett,” she said with sneer, “what have you got to say for yourself? What lies have you got to share with us here in the courtroom and with the 8 million viewers at home?”
Gretchen's legs were like water. She clenched and unclenched her hands. She cleared her throat. She opened her mouth and began to speak.
CHAPTER 13 NOW
WHEN GRETCHEN WAS CLIMBING up the stairs from the subway to go to Darko's office the morning after she had confessed, a homeless man was staggering down them. He seemed to be reaching out for her. She screamed into his blistered face, then apologized, as she realized he had no hands, only stumps, so how could he hit her with a rock? Whoever her enemy might be, it wasn't him.
“Racist bitch!” he snarled up at her, and a passing white woman made Gretchen wither with the glare of disdain she shot her as she passed.
“Still?! In this day and age?!” the woman muttered incredulously as she made her way up the steps.
Gretchen waited until she was gone, then continued her climb on trembling legs. She leaned against the wall of the Starbucks and sobbed silently. Then she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, looked at her watch, saw she was fifteen minutes early to teach Darko, and delved into her purse for her phone. S
he had to call her parents. Not for financial support, but emotional. The kind Jed and the fiery Ursula, he with his cowboy hat and she with her eggplant-dyed bob, Cowboy Jed and Eggplant Ursula, King and Queen of SlimJed Jerky. She dialed their landline.
“Aye?”
Gretchen almost sobbed down the line as her mother answered.
“Hi, Mom. It's me, Gretchen.”
“Och, sure, Gretchen! What about ye?”
“I'm fine.”
Gretchen could hear a hand cupped over the receiver, though not all the way.
“Jed! Jeddd!” Ursula wailed, “Grab the other phone, would ye? It's wer Gretchen, sure!” Her mother spoke down the line. “It's grand and lovely to hear yer voice, love.” And it was grand and lovely for Gretchen to hear her mother's voice, with its barely comprehensible Northern Irish accent. She wanted to wrap herself in her mother's voice, let it carry her away, back to her childhood, back to safety. Though how safe she had been, those childhood years during the tail end of the Troubles, she didn't know. She blinked away a sudden tear and forced a smile into her voice.
“And yours, too. I hope things are going great in jerkyland? Sorry I haven't been in touch. So much has been going on.”
“Aye, so I gather. Ye'll never believe it, but not ten minutes since, yer auntie Louella was after ringing me. What's this I hear about ye being on the telly? On that Judge Judy program?”
“It wasn't Judge Judy. It was Judge Edna Lee.”
“One of them eejits, anyroad. And here was me thinking ye'd had no fancy man in yer life. C'mere til I tell ye, wee girl, I know I keep harping on at ye about now's the time I wanny be calling meself a granny, wanny see the wanes popping outta ye, not that that flimmin bloody chancer, if wer Louella can be believed, was a suitable match for ye, but, God bless us and save us! Why did ye not tell us ye were having problems? Why have ye not made mention of him before? Ye know we're always interested in yer life.”
Gretchen knew why. Right after parents' lottery win, Ursula and Jed had poured money into the wedding that was canceled. When Gretchen had been singing with the Sparkly Earrings, she had been going out with Ax Trenton, the lead singer of rival band, Boom, and the two groups, as the relationship had grown, had even toyed with the idea of a duet. Gretchen and Ax had even written the song together, though it was never recorded. Young and dumb, she had paraded him around proudly as her future husband, the father of her children, babbled incessantly to her parents about him in call after call, got their hopes up, set the date, ordered the dresses and the invitations and the catering. And then Gretchen had found Ax in bed with his drummer, male. She would never again make that mistake. She'd only tell her parents about a boyfriend if it looked like they would really, truly make it to the altar together. And, in her heart of hearts, she must have realized that, no matter how she tried to convince herself otherwise, Maximus Voo had never struck her as husband material. How right she had been.
“Oh, Mom, he's out of my life now anyway. So it doesn't matter. He was a mistake.”
“Me poor wee lovely girl! That New York City be's fairly bursting with all sorts of mad creatures. Geebags and toerags and I don't know what! Do ye not think ye should move yerself over here to Wisconsin for to help yer daddy and me run the business? Jed! Jed!!! Pick up, would ye? What's he playing at? He's out the back garden with Mu— Och, naw, here he comes now, sure.”
Gretchen could hear a half-remembered country song twanging from some speaker in the room, and the playful, or it sounded more passive-aggressive, yipping of her parents' poodle Muffins. Ursula and Jed had gotten him after Gretchen had left home. Gretchen regarded Muffins not as her parents' new pet but an adopted alien insinuated into the family home to take her place, closer to her parents than she and her brothers were now. But enough about Muffins. Gretchen hadn't called to speak to him.
“Gretchen! Who's this Michael Brown?” Jed asked from another phone in their home.
“Oh, Daddy, don't worry about him.”
“Leave the poor wane be, Jed,” Ursula said, “I've all the bars. I'll tell ye later.” Bars, Derry for gossip. “And speaking of bars, what about ye, Gretchen, love? Any bars?”
There were 'bars' aplenty, but none that Gretchen would want to admit to her mother, to her parents. She wanted to protect them, let them think they had raised someone with the correct moral compass, all those Sunday mass lessons learned, and had sent her out into the world correctly. What could Gretchen say? “I've been shitting on the kitchen floor. I've been delivering drugs for the Svardian mafia. I've been lying to you for years about where I work. I've never been to São Paulo. Only Ypsilanti. I was fired by that horrible airline, in any event. For putting a passenger in intensive care. Oh, and I'm destitute.”
“Er, well, I guess Louella told you both I won big on that scratch card.”
“Woo hoo!” Jed said. “But I guess that didn't turn out so good?”
“C'mere, are ye not meant to be one of them New York coppers by now?”
“Well, yes, Mom. I should be hearing back from them soon.”
The moment Gretchen said it, she wished she could take it back. But she couldn't. That was another confession and another phone call in the future she'd have to make. To tell them she had decided the NYPD wasn't for her.
“We're so proud of you, honey,” Jed said.
“Aye, right ye are, dear,” Ursula said.
“Remember I wanted you to go into the military like me?” Jed said. “But you wanted to study Art History instead. But now, with you being a cop, it's sort of like the military.”
“Me and yer daddy have decided, haven't we, Jed—?”
“Yeah.”
“—that we're gonny fly to New York for yer graduation from the, well, what does it be called? The police academia, is that right?”
“The academy.”
Gretchen felt the tears well, heard the shudder in her voice. The guilt pressed down on her shoulders, seeped into her flesh. She gripped the phone so tightly the plastic seemed to bend.
“Mom, Dad, it was so great to speak to you. I-I'm proud of you, too. Oh! I never told you! I walked into the bodega a few months ago, and you'll never guess what I saw on one of their shelves.”
“SlimJed Jerky!” Ursula and Jed chorused with glee. Muffins barked excitedly in the background.
“Wow, yeah,” Jed said, “and Louella said you gave us a, what's a called, a plug, I think? On the show?”
“Sure, now I understand where that spike in sales came from! Och, that was grand and lovely of ye, Gretchen. We're gonny put together a wee care package for ye to thank ye, love.”
“Come on, Ursula,” Jed said. “Let's sing it...”
“Och, go on away a that.”
“Come on!”
“If we must...”
“It's Jerky, Jerky, SlimJed Jerky.” Her parents sang the jingle down the line, Ursula's choir voice, Jed's baritone.
Gretchen almost burst into tears.
“Oh! I-is that the time?” she said. It was a struggle to sound happy. “Sorry, but I've got to go. It was great speaking to you both! Keep up the good work!”
“Aye, you too, love. Call again soon, would ye? I'm biting me nails to the quick here worrying about ye in that den of sinners, love.”
“I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad.”
“We love you, too. Of course,” Jed said.
“Aye, surely, we love ye, love.”
Gretchen hung up. She loved them too much to tell them the truth about herself. She felt worse than ever.
“DARKO. WE MUST TALK.”
“Yes. Is what we do. Talk English.”
“No, I mean...”
Gretchen jerked her head towards the shoulder blades and dangly earrings at the desk. “Can you ask her to leave, please? I need to speak to you privately.”
She made shooing motions with her hand, aimed towards the secretary, so he would understand. Darko looked shocked. He crossed his arms and took a step back from her, press
ing himself against the edge of his desk.
“I tell you I marry. Love wive. Have childs. Not want the hanky panky. Want you teach. Only.”
Gretchen struggled to maintain her composure.
“It's not that. Please ask her to leave so I can speak to you alone. It's important.”
He considered for a moment, and then understanding gleamed in his shiny dark eyes.
“You want say about emotion, yes? American love say about emotion. I see on TV. Emotion problem, talk, talk, talk. You want I advice. I understand. Okay, yes. You talk. I listen. I help.”
He blabbered off some command in his tongue, which Gretchen was coming to suspect was just an array of consonants flung together with the occasional hacking sound. The secretary tensed, then slipped out of the office. The door closed on the cloud of cigarette smoke from the worker bees outside.
Gretchen placed her purse on his school desk, opened it, and pulled out the package.
“What,” she asked, “is in here?”
After shaking it, trying to peer through it with a lamp behind, after weighing it on the bathroom scales, she and Roz had spent the night with the package sat before them on the coffee table next to the nail polish and bits of jewelry, staring at it in puzzlement and suspense, and debating ways it might be opened, inspected, then wrapped up again with Darko none the wiser. Roz was becoming increasingly helpful and supportive to Gretchen and her myriad problems, just like the old Roz circa the Sparkly Earrings. Gretchen knew she had loved her for a reason. She was feeling increasingly worse, guilty, about the turd dump in the kitchen, if that was possible.
“Just go into that office and ask the crook what's in the damn package!” Roz had finally said. “And, if I were you, I'd quit while I was at it.”
“But...I've told you about...the homeless problem.”
“These countries and their mafias! Their cheapness of life! If I had known you were struggling for a job, I would've have you work at Gems of Buddha. Why didn't you say something? The girl I have there now is a ditz. The amount of money I've lost because of her! She never seems to see the last '0' of any price! Things for $100, sold for $10. Things for $10, sold for $1. I ask you! Am I running a ninety-nine cent store? One dollar for handmade jewelry?”
Emergency Exit (The Irish Lottery Series Book 6) Page 21
