Fran was beside him now, her hands moving as she spoke. I couldn’t make out her words through the thick air. Robbie laughed at something, she laughed at something. One of Robbie’s boys clambered out of the water, dripping, stood whining. Robbie put a hand on the boy’s head, made him wait while he talked to Fran. I remembered that I could pretend to look at my phone, so I did that until Max, clinging to the gutter, lost his kickboard; I knelt and reached over the water and sent it sailing to him, then tossed him rings to dive for.
Robbie’s voice grew loud, traveled across the pool. He’d turned in my direction. “I know I can’t talk to Bodie,” he half shouted, “but I hope you’ll tell her it’s good to see her.”
Thank God. I laughed, shrugged, waved again.
He said, to the middle of the room, “Please tell her I think she turned out pretty cool. No hard feelings. Tell her my wife’s a big fan!”
He turned his attention to the younger boy, who looked about seven. As Fran walked back to me, he picked the boy up and swung him—a giggling sack of potatoes—into the water. Robbie backed up, ran to the pool edge himself, grabbed his own legs in a cannonball, flew.
11
At 11:45, a text from Alder: Shit shit shit. I resisted answering.
At 11:47: Very not good.
11:50: Can I not even tell u why??? It’s bad. Britt still on stand, state bringing u into it on cross.
I was at Rite Aid, buying the dental floss and antacid I’d neglected to pack.
11:52: Flipping out. They’re doing the timeline of when u got involved and they’re going, was this the same week her husband was in the spotlight, was this before or after she got backlash for the following tweets. Batshit omfg
11:55: Like, they’re trying to say u did all this to get attention off u and husband?
Fucking Jerome.
If Jerome and his antics and my poor reaction ended up being the reason we lost, I’d never forgive him. Or myself.
I’d stopped in the digestive aisle, by the rows of Pepto-Bismol. I should tell Alder to stop texting, but didn’t I need to know this?
11:59: Making u sound like this desperate person. Amy objecting to like every word but judge allowing??
It was everything I’d once feared—looking like a desperate interloper—but now I cared far less about that than about what this might do to Britt’s testimony, or what it might do to my own testimony tomorrow. Omar did not deserve this.
12:20: So they’ve been in bench conference forever, I can hardly even hear anything ughghghghgh
I was at the checkout counter; I was walking down the icy sidewalk; I was drinking my bottled Frappuccino on the corner like a wino.
12:45: They got like 2 more qs out and now another bench conference
1:15: Can’t believe I’m missing class to stare at these lawyers’ backs
The call from Amy March came a little after five. I was lying on the bed in a sandpapery hotel robe, my hair wet, unable to nap because the elevator was too loud through my wall. She said, “I know you might have heard some things today. I don’t want you to worry. Listen, though, nothing’s for sure yet, but we might—we’re reevaluating if we want you on the stand.”
The smoke detector on the ceiling blinked red—a tiny, constant test-warning.
She said, “It seems their whole tack is to centralize you in all this, to cast doubts on your honesty and intentions.”
“So shouldn’t the judge see me so he knows that’s not true?”
She hesitated. “We do want that testimony about her planner, but putting you up could backfire.” She sounded so apologetic, as if the issue were my ego rather than the case. “We genuinely have enough with the blood. That’s the core of our argument. You’re one person who should’ve been interviewed, but we have others. They’re building up to hitting you hard on cross, and if we don’t put you up, it signals we have plenty without you.”
I said, “That makes sense.” It did, but I could hear the devastation in my own voice and certainly Amy could, too. I said, “We won’t have a chance to name Denny Bloch, then.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “But at this point, I think it dilutes the case.” She sounded so careful, so conciliatory. Not for the first time, I worried Amy thought I was hung up on my own agenda.
I said, “Can I come watch the proceedings, then?”
I already knew the answer: I’d be a distraction there, too. What she said, though, was “You’re still on our list; nothing’s definite. If you can stay in town that’s great, and you’re still sequestered.”
“Right.”
“We’ll probably rest late Monday or early Tuesday, and then you can go.”
I calculated that I could use the next few days as a writing retreat. I was deep into my research on Marion Wong and the Mandarin Film company. I could lose myself in that all day. But writing time was a sorry consolation prize. All I wanted was to be on the stand.
Your name had been sitting in my throat for four years, waiting to get out. I’d been waiting four years to see Omar, to look him in the eyes. I didn’t want or expect anything from him; I just wanted to see his face.
I lay on the bed a long time, listening to the elevator let people off on other floors.
12
I sat on my cracked balcony chair in my coat that evening, staring out at the long, snowy lawn and the river it sloped to. A gazebo partway down, one that might have been used for weddings in summer, sat desolate—a place to break up with someone. The sun was setting, lending everything a golden glaze and a flimsy illusion of warmth. Jerome had texted to wish me luck tomorrow, and I didn’t know how to explain that I was out here for nothing. Yahav, following the case closely via Twitter and getting updates from Alder, didn’t need to be told; not long after I hung up with Amy, he’d texted, They might feel it’s a risk now to put you up there. Any word?
I was thinking of going inside when a man came into view, pacing by the river and talking on his phone. I was fairly sure it was Geoff Richler, although this person strode confidently, with purpose, and didn’t slouch like the teenager I’d known. He wore a fleece, but his shoulders seemed built for a blazer. They were architectural supports that something expensive ought to hang from. When he returned the phone to his pocket, I called out and yes, it was Geoff; here he came leaping up the lawn. He jumped and tried to catch the lower rim of the balcony, which didn’t work the first time but worked the second—and then he was hauling himself up, getting his whole body not over the railing but outside of it, so he stood face-to-face with me, the railing between us. I put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed. He couldn’t hug me back without letting go of the railing and plummeting to the ground.
I said, “Look at you!”
He said, “Look at you!”
Social media had made him enough of a presence that it didn’t seem possible I hadn’t seen him since 1995.
He said, “Fill me in!”
“On . . . the case? My life?”
“Start with the hearing.”
I shook my head. “I’m sequestered, but I don’t think they’re actually having me testify.”
This was not the devastating news to him that it was to me. He said, “They’re not putting Denny Bloch up there? That’s all I wanted, was for them to subpoena him. Why can’t they?” Geoff had developed the variety of crow’s feet that made him look kind and wise and mischievous. He’d kept his freckles.
“I know,” I said, “I know. But the strategy—the thing is, if they get him on the stand and ask, Hey, were you sleeping with Thalia Keith?, he goes No, what the hell. They say, Some kids thought you were. He goes No, never. And he comes off sincere and gentle. End of story, and it looks like we’re grasping at straws.”
“Sure. Okay. As long as I get to knock on his door when this is over and punch him in the face.”
While we’d been cagey on the podcast about what we knew, what we suspected you of, I’d told Geoff everything. Geoff believed you were involved in Thalia’s death even more than I did—which is to say one hundred percent to my ninety-five. And while I felt some combination of betrayed and horrified when I considered you taking her life, Geoff seemed filled with a more primal rage.
The sun was sinking fast, almost gone. I said, “Are your fingers going to freeze to the railing?”