“It’s a big load off. Not that we’re finished with our response. It’ll probably take us till Tuesday or Wednesday to wrap it up and get it back to the judge, but it was a lot like being in law school and stressing out over an exam. Once I saw the questions and realized I knew all the answers, I started to relax. It’s a big relief just to know we have a plan.”
“What happens next?”
“We file a response and wait.”
“Then you go back to court to argue again?” Celia’s knowledge of legal procedures was limited to what she’d seen on TV dramas, which she knew took ridiculous liberties.
“No, this is pretty much final. The judge’s ruling gets handed down by the clerk. A phone call. If the motion’s denied, we get a court date.”
And if not—the case was over.
She’d been pleasantly surprised at Theo’s call to pick her up at Forbes Hall so they could go out for dinner instead of eating in. It was only when they turned toward the community theater she realized where they were headed.
“Are we going back to Sammy’s Pint?”
“I thought it would be fun. We can sit on the barstool and flirt with each other. Like old times.”
“If I recall, that’s where you told me you’d love to go out with me, but sorry. Some bullshit about never mixing business with pleasure. What do you have to say for yourself now?”
“I made your pleasure my business. How’s that?” Theo pulled into a packed twenty-dollar parking lot, handily sliding her own luxury sedan between two others.
“Lexus, Mercedes, Acura. Must be Lawyers Night.”
Sammy’s was packed around the bar with the happy hour crowd, but their old pub table in the back was free. They ordered two white wines, same as before.
“I remember being so excited waiting for you last time. I was still paranoid about anyone seeing me talk to you, but when you walked in, you were so cool. You had on that gray suit and a white shirt.”
“I can’t believe you remember all that.” Today, Theo was more casual, dressed in a tan shirtwaist dress with a wide leather belt.
“I noticed everything about you. Still do, in fact.” She reached over and flicked the deep V of her collar. “Like when you lean forward, I can see down your dress.”
Theo laughed and leaned as far forward as the table would allow. “How long has it been since we were here? Six weeks?”
“Eight. And a half. But who’s counting?”
Their cocktail waitress, a young woman wearing a black miniskirt and low-necked green T-shirt with Sammy’s logo on front, dropped off their drinks. “Are you…by chance, that woman lawyer, the one doing that rape case with the basketball players?”
“I am.” Theo smiled thinly with a hint of apprehension.
She nodded. “Oh…I was just wondering is all. You looked familiar.”
Celia shook her head as she walked away. “That was weird. I thought for a minute she was going to ask for your autograph.”
Theo shrugged. “So anyway, I was thinking…you have some free time over the summer, right? How would you feel about a week in St. John’s? A bungalow on the beach…sailing, snorkeling, sunbathing. The three S’s.” Her eyes went wide and she grinned. “Oh wait, there are four. How could I forget the most important S of all?”
“The most important S…what could that possibly be?” She loved Theo’s playful side. “Sleeping, snuggling…there must be something else.”
Theo wasn’t listening. Instead, her eyes had followed their waitress to another table, where several men were looking in their direction. As two of them started over, she whispered, “Better brace yourself for a couple of jackasses.”
“Ladies.” It was said with a vague sneer by a lanky man in his twenties. He wore khakis and a blue polo shirt with a print shop logo, the name Emilio stitched above it in script. A ball cap was turned backward on his head. Looking directly at Theo, he added, “So you’re that lawyer that was on TV talking shit about Matt the Stat and D’Ant.”
“Talking shit? You mean about them raping an unconscious woman? That kind of shit?”
Celia suddenly realized she was trembling, that her fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in for the latter. “Theo, we should go.”
“No, we’ll stay. These gentlemen will go.” She waved her hand as if to shoo them away.
The other man, slightly older and wearing the same company uniform—Tim was his name—ignored her and leaned his forearms on their small table. “It ain’t fair what y’all did to those guys. All this talk, this…this bullshit ruined their chances at making the NBA. Matt Frazier’s probably the best point guard to come out in ten years. Now his career’s practically over and he hasn’t even been convicted of anything.”
Emilio wedged himself between Celia and Tim, his thigh brushing hers under the table in a way that felt deliberate. “That’s what sucks about this country’s rape laws. Girls get to make up shit and everybody just takes their word for it.”
Theo rolled her eyes dramatically. “You can’t be serious, Emilio. I may be just a shit-talking lawyer myself, but I know my rape statistics. Only three percent of all rapes end up with somebody going to jail. That’s ninety-seven out of every hundred where no one does time. Where are all these police and prosecutors and juries who take a woman’s word for it? Please share that little nugget with me. I want to file all my future rape cases there.”
Tim wasn’t having it. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like for these guys, these sports stars. Girls throw themselves at them all the time.”
“Yeah, I heard somebody say that on one of those talk shows,” Theo said, nodding as though she were having a serious conversation with a reasonable person. But then she poked a finger at him, not quite touching his chest. “Did you ever stop to wonder why they didn’t choose to have sex with one of those girls instead? You know, somebody who was actually awake?”
“How do you know she didn’t come on to them? Were you there?”
“Were you?” Celia finally spoke up, “It so happens I knew the girl they raped. She wasn’t like that.”
Theo shook her head, a barely seen warning not to say anything else. “Come on, guys. Do you have any sisters who like getting gang-banged while they’re unconscious?”
“This ain’t about my sister,” Emilio snarled. “That slut flat out begged ’em for it so she’d be popular. Then she went crying to everybody so they’d know she got it. You can’t just take her word against three guys.”
“I don’t have to. I have a video…because one of those idiots was stupid enough to record it and post it for his friends. You saw that, right?”
To Celia’s eye, Theo was enjoying herself. Her voice was lively and engaged, and her eyes bore accusingly into theirs as if demanding they account for themselves.
“Tell me something, Emilio. What is it about men who like having sex in front of each other? Does it turn them on? I mean, do you get excited thinking about watching your friend Tim here pounding away on somebody?”
“Now you’re just being rude,” Tim said, jutting out his lower lip and acting wounded.
“I’m sorry…seriously, I am. I’m sure your friend here knows you wouldn’t do something like that. You took it personally, what I said. I can see how that would bother you. It’s like when I come across a woman I know for a
fact
was raped, and I hear other people who don’t know shit call her a liar.”
His face reddened as he shifted his weight from side to side. “I didn’t call her a liar. I’m just saying there’s two sides to every story.”
“Tim, what if I told you her toxicology results showed she had a date rape drug in her system? Would you still think there were two sides? I mean, who takes a date rape drug on purpose? ‘Hey, I want to have sex with a bunch of guys but I don’t want to be awake for it.’”
Celia was shocked Theo would give away inside information, but then realized she was drawing him into a competing narrative, the way she would a jury.
“Or if I told you there was a witness? An actual confession from someone who was there, who participated?”
Tim’s jaw twitched and he finally said, “If you showed me all that, I’d be forced to believe she was telling the truth.”
Theo nodded slowly. “So you’d have to see all that ironclad evidence before you’d believe her. But you don’t need any evidence to take those guys’ word for it even when you have a video staring you in the face.” She looked past them and waved a menu at the waitress to signal they were ready to order dinner. “We’re done here, guys.”
Emilio stepped away and mumbled under his breath, “Cunt.”
Celia’s fury surged. Drawing courage from Theo’s defiance, she called his name. As he turned to face her, she snapped his photo on her phone and went to work on her keypad. “I’m sharing this on Facebook. Next time you make an ass of yourself in public, you might want to wear a different shirt.”
He took a step toward her but was caught by Tim. “Cool it, dude.”
“It’ll probably go viral…hundreds of thousands of people will see it and know exactly what you think of women. Good luck getting a date after tonight.”
“Bitch isn’t posting my picture anywhere.”
No longer intimidated, Celia added, “And then there’s all the one-star Yelp reviews for your print shop. Good thinking.”
Tim shook him. “Stop being such a dick, Emilio. Apologize, or we’re both going to get fired.”
Emilio sputtered in protest before realizing Tim had him in an iron grip. “Okay, fine. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe with a little less hostility?” Celia said, noticing his glare had turned to panic. He truly was an idiot for not realizing the trouble he was in.
He gathered himself and sighed. “I apologize…to both of you.”
“That was pretty lame.” She grudgingly trashed the photo.
“Apology accepted,” Theo said firmly. She waited until Emilio had retreated and addressed Tim. “Thanks for sorting out your friend.”
Tim shrugged. “He’s not a bad guy. Just a little immature.”
“He just called me a cunt for representing a rape victim who killed herself. You really ought to look for a better class of friends.”
Celia waited until he was gone to speak. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the toxicology results and the witness. Theo, that changes everything.”
“It would if it were true.” Theo raised her eyebrows a couple of times and smiled. “All I said was, quote, ‘What if I told you?’ I never said any of that actually happened. But I’ve sewn a couple of doubts. Who knows? It could even be true. A friend will tell a friend will tell a friend. Next thing you know, it gets worked into a newspaper column. Somebody on the players’ side planted that story about Hayley being a basketball groupie. For all we know, it could have come from somebody in the administration. That’s how the game’s played.”
It was hard to imagine a guy like Emilio changing his mind. Clearly he had no respect for women. “Do you ever wonder what these guys’ mothers would say if they heard their sons talk like that?”
“Scary, isn’t it? If you ever want to know what constitutes a hostile work environment these days, you should read through some of our depositions. That was perfect what you did, by the way…taking his picture. People who behave like that need to be called out.”
“So how come you shushed me when I said I knew Hayley?”
Theo took her hand, running her thumb across the knuckles. “Because you were letting him know it was personal. Guys like Emilio…they love getting under people’s skin. Women in particular. You can’t show them any vulnerability or they’ll exploit it for all it’s worth.”
Celia recalled the day she’d been waiting for Theo, when the man came over from the bar and told her to smile. “I always wanted to see you in action. I bet you’re a holy terror in the courtroom.”
“Only if I think holy terror will play well for the jury.”
Penny leaned across the desk with an appointment calendar as they mulled Theo’s possibilities for vacation time. “This week you have the BPW luncheon, and you promised to present one of their awards so you can’t cancel. This one’s a bar meeting but you can skip those.”
Other than the Harwood case, Theo was working a smattering of client files with estate updates, court appearances and business filings. Nothing that couldn’t be rescheduled. The potential problem was the woman in Rhode Island, whose hearing could get postponed at the pleasure of the prosecutor.
“Three weeks to pick from between now and the end of August,” Penny said. “You want me to see what kind of package I can get?”
“Perfect, thanks.” Theo didn’t like the idea of using her administrative assistant for personal tasks, but Penny knew her schedule better than she did and would make sure she didn’t miss a critical appointment. She handed her one of Celia’s business cards with ticketing info scribbled on the back. “Celia’s okay with any of those weeks. Call her cell if you have any questions.”
Sex. The other S was for Sex. In the bed, in the hammock, on the sand—wherever they found themselves alone. It would be oh-so-nice to leave the stress of their work behind for a few days and focus only on each other.
Celia had managed to enter her life at the very moment her heart was open for love. Could she possibly know after barely two months that she’d want Celia in her life forever? In the moments after making love they’d revel in their closeness. Their afterglow was getting longer. It was time to talk about the next step…about—
“Theo!” Penny appeared again, smiling and breathless as though she’d run down the hall. “I just got an alert from the courthouse. Motion for dismissal denied! Trial is set for January thirteenth.”
A sense of triumph surged through her as though she’d actually won the case. Despite her hard work and optimism, she’d never truly expected to get this far, not with the legal precedent stacked against her. “Get my team in here. We need to get started on discovery. Oh…and book the terrace at the Weller Regent for this afternoon. This calls for a celebration.”
* * *
Though an afternoon rainstorm had come and gone, the result was a virtual steam bath that had all but shut down the rooftop terrace lounge at the Weller Regent. Only the covered bar was open, the same hideaway where Theo had met Celia to hand her off to Bill Auger so they could date.
“Cheers!” Kendra clinked her glass to Theo’s as she passed on her way to a table.