Falling in Love

by Stephen Bradlee

  My heart was pounding wildly from anger and exhaustion. My gasping breaths were almost hyperventilating. My legs felt rubbery. But I didn’t stop. I wanted my legs to fall off or for me to drop dead or both. I knew that if I paused for even one second, I would head straight to the nearest bar and into oblivion.

  Finally, darkness fell over the field and I couldn’t find the ball after I’d miss my last shot. Only then did I finally fall on the grass exhausted and lay there for an hour. But it had been cathartic. I no longer wanted to drown myself in booze. I just wanted a bubble bath. Both of my legs ached from so many kicks but I managed to stumble toward the subway. At home, I slumped onto the bed still wearing my uniform and slept for thirteen hours.

  For two days, I wasn’t sure whether to return to practice on Tuesday. I wanted desperately to play with these women, to be a part of their team but I was so afraid of the immense risk. I shuddered at how close I had come to the edge. How would I cope when I lost another game for them? Would I really end up in the East River after managing to stay sober for 233 days? With my dismal record, I could do a swan dive off the 59th Bridge without even losing a game.

  I was also so ashamed of my disgusting behavior that I was afraid to face the team. But the thought of never seeing them again, and of never playing soccer again, was too much to bear. At least if I went back, I could delay my demise until at least next weekend. Or Paula might kick me off the team. Then I wouldn’t even have to quit.

  When I sheepishly arrived for practice on Tuesday I wasn’t surprised that Paula suggested we go for a walk.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said though I felt far from okay.

  Paula paused and then said, “Sherry, my life’s greatest—and worst—moments have taken place on a soccer field. If you are going to play this game, you have to be able to handle both.” She stopped and turned to me. “I’m big on second chances. I don’t do thirds.”

  “I’m really sorry, Paula. It won’t happen again.” I meant it. I figured next weekend, I would probably just walk off the field straight for the bridge.

  “I hope not,” Paula replied. “We have young girls watching these games. I want role models, not someone screaming profanities.”

  I felt terrible. I wanted to be a primary school teacher and yet I was the one providing a perfect lesson in horrible sportsmanship.

  Paula’s face softened and we walked back toward the field. “Sherry, if you ever want to talk to me about any problems, you can call me anytime, day or night.”

  I felt Paula’s eyes on me. She knew that this went much deeper than just losing a game. But I didn’t see how I could tell her anything without telling her everything. These women were classier and more mature than school kids. But I couldn’t take hearing another joke behind my back about “Sherry the Slut.”

  Paula didn’t pursue it. “Darcy said that you kicked penalties until it got dark.” I nodded, surprised that Darcy had been watching me. Paula patted my back and added, “She said you were really drilling them.” Then Paula started barking commands and we were suddenly hard into practice. Soon soccer became my life. Before and after practice, I kicked penalty kicks. I kicked so many that my right leg seemed twice as big as the left. So I started kicking with my left foot. On our off days, I practiced passing with Darcy while she patiently conducted her master classes.

  I felt great putting all of my energy into something other than living second to second. Every night, I came home, tired and aching and feeling happier than I had ever felt in my life. I had so many demons associated with soccer and every time I walked off that field, I felt them getting smaller.

  By the fourth game, I was in the starting lineup. On our first free kick, Paula handed me the ball. I drilled the shot for a point. She just smiled and didn’t ask again.

  In grade school, girls used to get mad at me when I wouldn’t show them my moves. I told them that I didn’t know what I did, that “I just think with my feet,” but they didn’t believe me. Yet it was true. Before I had a chance to figure out what to do with a ball, my feet had already done it. My feet thought faster than my mind. In that fourth game, my feet scored two goals, completely apart from me. I hoped that they would always be there for me because those feet were the only part of my body that wasn’t a complete failure.

  Occasionally on the subway I would read a newspaper and marvel that I often knew two people in it. Dede was now pictured in the social pages, attending openings and premieres. She often invited me to join her but I had finally figured out that putting me in a room with booze was a very bad idea. But I did enjoy seeing my sister becoming the talk of the New York.

  The front-page headlines often shouted about Mary Denison, the “Murder Mom,” who was now set to finally be executed in less than a week.

  Because Adam’s wife, Lisa, was working on Denison’s appeal case, she was often interviewed. Apparently, at Denison’s original trial her lawyer, a public defender just out of law school, had tried to get her to plead “not guilty due to temporary insanity,” but instead Denison had shocked the courtroom by admitting that she had stabbed her daughter once and her husband twenty-eight times, and that for the grievous sin of killing her beloved daughter, she deserved to be executed and to forever suffer Hell’s anguish and misery. Denison had not participated in any appeals, believing that no punishment was too severe for her. Lisa and another lawyer named Keith Contrell had been trying to apprise the appeals courts of the “extenuating circumstances” which had caused Mary’s temporary insanity but to no avail.

  Meanwhile, the state had rushed the appeals and execution process to bury Denison, and any secrets, as quickly as possible. The “extenuating circumstances” had never been revealed but whispered rumors swirling around the case hinted of spousal abuse, especially after Sister Bernice Alice journeyed monthly to Denison’s prison requesting to speak to her. The previous women prisoners who had been convicted of heinous crimes and counseled by Sister Bernice Alice had all been abused women. For years, Mary had refused to see Sister Bernice Alice. But recently, she had agreed to pray with the Sister.

  My week at work had been a lot less dramatic, mostly because Adam was in Paris setting up a deal and by Friday, I hoped to sneak out early and get in some practice to prepare for Saturday’s tough game against the Vixens, who had finished third in the league the previous year.

  It wasn’t to be. As I returned from a leisurely lunch, David, an associate who worked with Adam, ran out of his office exclaiming, “Lisa just called. The nun got to her! Tell Ellsworth that Denison has agreed to be a part of the appeal.” Then he practically sprinted down the wood-paneled corridor.

  Ellsworth’s secretary informed me that he was in a meeting but when she learned that it was about the Murder Mom case, she promised to slip him a note. I had barely hung up when she phoned back. “They don’t have a conference room available indefinitely so the strategy session is going to be down there.”

  Within minutes the maintenance people seemed to be moving Adam’s desk and tables against a wall and arranging a half-circle of arm chairs facing his desk on which they placed a large TV screen. By the time several lawyers started streaming into Adam’s office, I had abandoned all thoughts of leaving early.

  Adam’s wife, Lisa, led the meeting from their Greenwich home via a speaker phone since she had declined a video screen. But on the large TV screen on Adam’s desk was her co-counsel, Keith Contrell, a lanky angular man with long salt-and-pepper hair and a tan face that looked more like hide than skin. He sported a Western shirt and spoke slowly and deliberately in a Southern accent.

  Everyone knew why they were there. A Stay of Execution had to be expeditiously drafted and signed by a Supreme Court Justice or Mary Denison would be executed at 6 a.m. the following morning, less than seventeen hours away.

  During their conversations, Denison’s “extenuating circumstances” soon came to light. While using a knife to clean fish for dinner, Mary had caught her husband
having sex with their thirteen-year-old daughter. Enraged Mary thrust the knife at him but he had deflected it and the knife had impaled her daughter’s heart. In a mad fury, Mary then slashed her husband over twenty times and herself twice in a botched suicide attempt.

  While paralegals and associates rushed in an out, I fielded the lawyers’ phone calls. The pressure had seemed unbelievably intense until I informed them that the execution had been moved up to midnight. This news turned Adam’s office into a sizzling pressure-cooker.

  The sweating tension was lifted momentarily with the arrival of Roger Ellsworth. Apparently, Roger and Keith had once been partners, working on appeals of capital murder cases before, according to Keith, Roger had “sold his soul” to Wall Street. Keith mocked Roger’s expensive suit as he swung his cowboy boots up onto his desk to show that he was still true to his roots. Ten seconds later they were back murmuring in earnest tones.

  While I was frantically scrawling messages from two previous calls, I snatched up the ringing phone and snapped, “Mr. Turner’s office.”

  “Mr. Harrington here.” I gasped. Charles Henry Harrington IV was Whitney’s managing partner, probably the only one in the building who demanded, and received, more respect then Adam. His frequent calls to Adam had always been through his secretary. I had never before personally heard his deep baritone, the voice from on high.

  He had paused, waiting for me to utter some words of serious respect. “Yes. Yes, Mr. Harrington,” I stammered. “But Mr. Turner isn’t—”

  “—How many are in there?” he demanded.

  I glanced into Adam’s office. “About twelve,” I said meekly.

  “How many partners?” he barked.

  I wasn’t sure but four lawyers looked older than thirty, “Four?” I replied nervously.

  He grunted angrily. “Any kind of press release must only say that a Wall Street firm was involved, not our name. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  He paused and then retorted. “Christ, forget it. This’ll become a goddamn circus! Adam owes me big for this.” He slammed down the phone.

  I was breathing heavily, now worried about Adam. What if he got fired over this? I’d be back on the street again. Would it put me under? Sherry! What about his lovely daughters? Everything isn’t always only about you!

  For the rest of the afternoon, I just wanted to handle the calls and then get out of there. At 5:30 I was still constantly on the phone when David asked me if I wanted to work overtime. I loved overtime and its instant 50% pay raise but not that night. This had nothing to do with Adam but it was his wife’s big case. I owed Adam so much. At least I could spend another hour or so taking more messages.

  Food, documents, calls all came and went. As the evening went on, the mood in Adam’s office became more desperate.

  A girl in the DC office named Kelly and I were coordinating the whereabouts of the nine Supreme Court Justices since one of them would be needed to sign the Temporary Stay of Execution. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of Justice Klein, the Justice that the lawyers were most eager to find, was unknown and everyone feared that he had left town for the weekend.

  Although the lawyers struggled valiantly into the night, with less than ninety-minutes left before Mary was to be executed, all seemed lost. They couldn’t find a solid precedent. Apparently no one in American judicial history had waived all of their rights throughout their trial and the appeals process until just before their death when they decided that they wanted their rights back and a new trial. If they could just stay the execution they would have all weekend to try to find evidence for a new trial. But they didn’t have all weekend. They had a little more than an hour.

  Kelly finally informed me of some good news. “Justice Klein is in, of all places, New York. He’s having dinner with friends at the Yale Club. He’s still there but he’s leaving soon and we don’t know his hotel. So someone better get on it.”

  Hours before I had given up demurely handing messages to the lawyers. I had become like a train conductor. I rasped, “Justice Klein in New York. Yale Club. Leaving soon. Don’t know hotel.” Next stop, Croton-on-Hudson. Next stop, Klein-at-Yale.

  Murmurs and scrambling followed. Ellsworth emerged from the office. “I’ll talk to him but we’ll need something! Anything!”

  Then Lisa’s speaker screamed out, “That’s it! It is McCormack! Justice Klein wrote the brief for the High Court!”

  Ellsworth, who had paused, looked dejected and inside the silent office, heads shook. “Lisa!” spat Ellsworth. “We’ve discarded McCormack twice now. Hours ago. The Court didn’t hear the case. They sent it back down.”

  “To where?” Lisa replied with a slight laugh.

  “Oh shit!” cried Ellsworth. He added slowly and softly, “to the great state in which Mary Denison’s resides.” He strode briskly down the hallway, screaming back, “You guys get this damn thing right! I’ll get a cab! David, take the limo! And bring Sherry! Don’t forget…”

  He was out of earshot. But not before I had heard my name. Why me?

  David escorted me toward the elevators, explaining, “Klein once personified a pushy lawyer but now he’s old, serene and hates pushy lawyers. Roger thinks you being there as a go-between will soften him. I’ll do everything. You just serve him coffee or something. You okay with that? Or should I try to get someone else?” It was a question but he was really begging. There was no time to get anyone else.

  Awaiting us was the longest limousine I’d ever seen. David and I sat in the soft leather back seat facing long plush leather bench seats on each side. At the front end was a bank of computers, phones, a fax machine, filing drawers and a clock which said that Mary was going to die in forty-six minutes. I glanced up at a long wooden panel stretching along the ceiling. David held his hand over his cell phone. “It comes down into a table,” David informed me, “for meetings.” David was talking to both Ellsworth and the lawyers still remaining in Adam’s office.

  At one point, David cried out, “I know. I know. ‘Fuck the facts and go to hell.’” When he hung up, he turned to me, embarrassed. “That’s lawyer, huh, huh—” He paused, staring at his perfectly-shined wingtip shoes. “There’s an old law school saying that in court first you argue the law. If you can’t argue the law, you argue the facts. If you can’t argue the facts, you argue like hell. When Justice Klein was Chief Advocate for the ACLU and arguing a case before the Supreme Court, that phrase was his colorful way of saying he only wanted to argue the law. That’s why we have to have the law to get to him.”

  Outside the Yale Club, Vanderbilt Avenue was teeming with well-dressed nightlife but David was all business. “As soon as they start faxing the Stay, I’ll compile it and you, very carefully, take in the sections so Justice Klein can begin reading it immediately.” He glanced at his watch. “This is going to be close.”

  We got out and I heard, “Sherry? Sherry! I didn’t know you were a Yale Club member?” I turned around to see Christine Cane laughing. I had only really seen her in a soccer togs and she looked absolutely stunning in a cocktail dress. She hugged me and turned toward a tall, distinguished-looking older man. At five-ten and wearing heels Christine would tower over most men but her husband had her by at least two inches. “Baxter, dear, this is Sherry, our new star.” He nodded and smiled. Christine looked approvingly at David, my “date,” who during the introductions, referred to Baxter deferentially as Judge Walton. “No late stuff,” Christine admonished me. “Big game tomorrow.” With a glance at the limo, she added, “Nice wheels,” and she and Baxter strolled toward Park Avenue.

  Behind them stood Ellsworth and a small, ancient-looking man with a pearl-handle cane. Ellsworth handled quick introductions. He had booked a private room for Justice Klein to read the Stay but the Justice had another idea. “Seems easier for me to just read it in the limo.” He turned to me. “Would you please join me, my Dear?” When David protested that I was just a secretary and didn’t compile documents, Justice Klein waved
him away with a crooked wrist. “We’ll be fine.” The Justice held door open for me.

  He had to be kidding! Me? Mary dies because I screw up the paperwork! I turned to David but he looked helpless. “Sherry?” The Justice was waiting. As I got in, I thought I saw David drop his cell phone on the floor before he closed the door.

  Inside the limo, Justice Klein informed me that I was to retrieve the pages from the fax machine, hand them to him and under no circumstances was I to touch his pile of read pages. The fax was the fastest I had ever seen and pages started shooting out of it. When the Justice informed me that different sections should have different tabs, I ruefully admitted that I had never before compiled a document. Paralegals had always done that. Justice Klein patiently had me rummage through the file drawers until I found the correct tab and then he inserted it into the document. Great, I thought, she dies because I didn’t find the right tab in time.

  Whenever I retrieved more pages, I couldn’t help staring at the silently-ticking clock. Only eight minutes left. While Justice Klein seemed deadly calm, I could feel my heart beating furiously inside my chest. He never once glanced at the clock but just seemed to be leisurely reading.

  With less than two minutes left, the pages stopped. Justice Klein asked for the last tab. I couldn’t believe it. Mary was about to die! As I furiously went through the drawers I suddenly had a horrible thought. What if the clock was slow! If it was already passed midnight! I heard him whisper, “It is correct!” Fuck! This guy can read minds, too? I found the right tab and rushed back to him. “It’s not legal unless it is stapled,” he said. “Please find a stapler.”

  I’d been through almost all the drawers. “There isn’t one.”

  “It’s a legal limo, Sherry. It has everything,” he said calmly. Fifty-eight seconds!