Page 12 of Courtroom Drama
I take in every detail of Tenley, knowing Mel will demand a replay. While Margot elected for a subdued but elegant black-and-white woven tweed suit that I assume is Chanel, Tenley has opted for a hot-pink skirt suit, the blazer unbuttoned to show off a tight white bodysuit underneath.
Tenley is undeniably beautiful. Younger than Margot, I know—early thirties to Margot’s late forties—but her face is plumped with filler, making her appear older than she is. She’s wearing very little makeup, her cheeks are clearly blushed and lashes coated with black mascara, but otherwise, her face is surprisingly and charmingly bare.
She and Margot did hit it off in the first few episodes of season three, I recall. When Tenley lost her mom to breast cancer just two episodes in, it was Margot who brought a bottle of Grey Goose and joined her on the floor of her closet. She did this for a woman she barely knew. The scene stuck with me because I had many of my own closet floor moments—the first when I initially learned of one of my father’s affairs, not realizing at the time it wasn’t the first or the last.
And then, finally, a last one at the liberation of their divorce. I cried quietly in my closet that night—out of relief, out of frustration, out of some sense of personal ownership of the failure—despite feeling like sixteen was far too old to be in my familiar spot in the far back corner. Damon had been gone almost six months by then, and in that moment, I thought of him as I cried.
I’m immediately intrigued as to why Tenley Storms would be taking the stand, especially as the prosecution’s first witness. Of course she doesn’t like Margot, that’s no surprise, but what evidence could she possibly bring to this case?
“How long have you known Margot Kitsch?” D.A. Stern asks after Tenley is sworn in. He asks all the basics of their relationship. “How did you two meet?” “What was your relationship like?”
Despite knowing the answers to D.A. Stern’s introductory questions, I record her responses anyway. Tenley’s known Margot for fouryears, introduced to her in season three ofAuthentic Moms of Malibuby one of the other cast members with whom she shares an ex-husband. She lives in the same gated neighborhood as Margot, three streets over. She was most recently married to Harry Tucker, a former professional baseball player for the Oakland A’s, though that marriage ended with her dropping him quite unceremoniously two years ago when he was caught up in a career-ending doping scandal. As a result, herAMOMtagline is “My ex may have stolen bases, but I steal all the attention whenIwalk into a room.”
Her new husband, whom she started dating shortly thereafter, is a plastic surgeon with a reality show of his own where he specializes in re-creating celebrity features. There are a lot of Angelina Jolie noses in and around L.A. thanks to him.
Damon gently knocks my thigh with his. It’s happened so many times already I’ve lost count. It doesn’t seem intentional, and it’s not that he’s manspreading necessarily. It’s just that he’s so... big. I look down, momentarily distracted by the size of his thigh. It makes mine look minuscule beside it, and I wonder what items I might place next to his thigh to gauge its size. A robust watermelon, perhaps.
I press my eyes shut. Nothing should be distracting me from Tenley Storms on the stand.
Just after a seemingly innocent question about Tenley’s relationship to the Kitsch family as a whole, D.A. Stern drops a day-one bomb. “How long were you having a sexual relationship with Joe Kitsch?” There’s a collective drawing in of breath across the courtroom, including from my own mouth.
My first reaction to the idea of a Tenley-Joe affair is that there’s no way. In this age of invasive information glut, Tenley Storms having had a secret affair with Joe Kitsch seems, well, impossible—technologically and prying eyes impossible.
I watch Margot, who continues staring at Tenley, a look on her face that I can only describe as controlled revulsion. Her skin looks pulled taut, eyes slightly narrowed, jaw squared, cheeks hollowed as if she’s biting at their insides.
My face burns as Damon clears his throat beside me. We both work to avoid acknowledging each other at this news.
Tenley glances down as she smooths her skirt, then looks back up at D.A. Stern. “A little over a year,” she says, and there is another rumble through the courtroom.
A few members of the gallery shimmy to the ends of their respective benches and out the courtroom door. I imagine they each want to be the first to report this day-one revelation. The remaining journalists scrawl notes so forcefully I can practically hear graphite and ink slicing against legal pads. This news is about to break and immediately trend across most, if not all, social platforms and media channels. It’s odd I won’t be able to see it, read comments, analyze how the other Moms choose to weigh in. It’s the first time I’ve truly felt the loss of access.
Shifting my attention back to Tenley on the stand, I think of the first time I saw Joe in episode one ofAuthentic Moms of Malibu. Halfway through the episode, he and Margot ate dinner together at their home, which Margot still technically resides in. They sat at their massive circular glass table, leaning over plates of chef-prepared miso salmon and roasted broccolini. They shared a bottle of cabernet from his family’s vineyard in Temecula, baby Dover in a Stokke Tripp Trapp high chair beside them (a baby shower gift from Margot’s friend and eventual costar Alizay DuPont), while they discussed an upcoming trip to the Seychelles. Joe joked that Margot would have too much luggage to fit on the private island they were renting for the next two weeks, and they shared a laugh. Between the way he kissed the top of her hand and how he looked at her so adoringly, I decided he was the type of doting husband a woman like Margot Kitsch indeed ends up with.
But now I know that Tenley Storms was sleeping with Joe Kitsch for over a year. All while the two women were filming the show. Together. Sitting at dinners in Tenley’s beachside backyard, drinking champagne on chartered yachts, galivanting across the world on private jets, all with this unnerving secret. Awell-keptsecret, based on the response from the room.
I had no idea.
There have been rumors of Joe’s infidelity, sure. It comes with the reality TV territory, having your life and loyalty questioned. But never has there been specific and formidable evidence of it. I, like most fans, chalked it up to the insatiable rumor mill.
The anger inside me boils up to the tips of my ears. Yes, Tenley’s relationship with Margot took a turn after those first few episodes, when Tenley was going through her divorce from Harry Tucker and she accused Margot of playing up her care for the cameras, but... how could she do this to the woman she once, albeit briefly, called a friend? How could she do it at all? More importantly, how couldhe?
Damon glances down at me and shifts his focus from my face to my legs and back again. I realize I’m kicking my crossed leg forward viciously. I interlock my fingers over my knee to halt the movement.
“From your understanding, how did Margot learn of your affair with Joe?” D.A. Stern asks.
“She saw some...” Tenley looks to the ceiling, searching for a word. “...sexy messages. Photos, specifically. Ineversend pictures with my face. I know better than that, but Margot, she must’ve recognized theLIVE, LAUGH, LOVEtattoo I have...” She pauses to press her first two fingers to the side of her right breast. “...here.”
“Excellent,” the baby-faced juror behind me remarks amusedly.
I learned of my father’s last affair via the salacious text messages my mother had printed out and left in a messy pile on the kitchen table after confronting him. It had been with Ms. Dwyer, a remedial English teacher at my high school. She wasn’t evenmyEnglish teacher, which somehow stung. My mother later brought up the texts again in the divorce proceedings, along with other evidence of far more affairs than I’d realized. I’m not sure why Ms. Dwyer was the final straw. Why of so many, some even more scandalous, it was the final straw that caused my mother to leave the marriage. I suddenly want to ask her.
Tenley lowers her hand to her lap before continuing. “Margot asked me to meet her for lunch. She told me I ‘wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last.’ Then she threw a full wineglass at me. There was crystal and wine everywhere. I apologized to the waitstaff on her behalf after she stormed out,” she adds, as if there’s some high ground to stand on here.
“Ms. Storms,” D.A. Stern continues, “was there another odd situation you found yourself in around that time?”
“Yes!” Tenley proclaims as though reminded of something long forgotten. “I walked into my backyard, and it was overrun bytarantulas. Dozens of them! In all the years I’ve lived in Malibu, I had never seenone. And then this particular day, they are crawlingeverywhere. I was afraid to leave the house!”
Durrant Hammerstead objects, citing relevance as I ponder the sharp turn in questioning.
