“A point is coming, Your Honor,” D.A. Stern assures.
“Continue,” the judge says, her voice as firm as I’ve come to expect. I, too, would like to understand the relevance of this soon.
“What day was this... this sudden tarantula outbreak?” D.A. Stern asks.
Tenley straightens. “It was the day after Margot confronted me about Joe.”
Murmurs abound from the gallery.
D.A. Stern works hard over the next few minutes to make some absurd inference that Margot could somehow be responsible for atarantula outbreakin Tenley’s backyard—as though that could somehow mean she was capable of murder—and I’m amazed he’s able to keep a straight face as he says it. It would be an outlandish storyline even byAuthentic Momsstandards. It’s almost enough to distract me from the initial shock of Tenley’s revelations on the stand, but not quite. I wonder why D.A. Stern would highlight an affair that defames Joe and undermines the “family man” claims he made in his opening statement.
But then I realize.
Motive.
8.
Adjournment (n.)
the temporary suspension of proceedings until the next scheduled session
when jurors come to life
We eat dinner at the hotel, in the same narrow dining area off the lobby where we grabbed breakfast. The evening of the first day of the trial, dinner includes clearly once-canned green beans, liquid-y mashed potatoes, powdery dinner rolls, and two mystery meat options. I opt for three dinner rolls.
I sit down next to Tamra at one of the five round tables. Today, she wears a brown-and-white-spotted muumuu that reminds me of a cow, though, somehow, it’s incredibly flattering on her.
“Hi,” I say, setting my plate beside her, feeling a bit like it’s the first day of school.
She nods politely, and we exchange form introductions before she returns to circling her spoon in her puddle of mashed potatoes. “My cousin was on a jury once. They got Outback Steakhouse,” she muses, staring at her plate.
“Lucky them,” I say, placing the roll I’d been holding back on my plate, opting to stare at it rather than eat.
I know I should be making small talk, building relationships with the other jurors, but I can’t stop mulling over today’s revelations in court.
Tenley met Joe on camera at a dinner during her first week of filming in season three, a birthday celebration for Meredith, another cast member. A few weeks later, he attended her book signing at the Ripped Bodice in Culver City while Margot took their kids to seeWickedin New York.
Tenley told us of how she and Joe began sharing phone calls. How he told her his marriage was “ornamental,” which I found a curious description. How Margot learned of the affair two months in because of that naked selfie with her face cut out. How, on cross-examination, Durrant Hammerstead got Tenley to admit she continued the affair for ten more months after Margot found out. How, after confronting her, Margot never brought it up again, despite four more seasons and countless events and hours filming together. That Joe’s reaction to Tenley when Margot learned of the affair was simply telling her, “Margot and I have an understanding.”
The thrown wineglass doesn’t seem to indicate an understanding.
Tenley then told us of how she eventually met the man who would become her now husband and immediately cut Joe out. That was nearly a year before he died.
Occasional bad behavior doesnotmake Margot a murderer. But I know how these things go. Margot is likely to be judged more harshly for her lack of decorum at finding out about Joe’s affair than Joe will be for the actual affair. I just hope the other jurors will give her the allowance to be human while considering her fate.
As her time on the stand wound down, Tenley was sure to take the opportunity to plug her book. “It’s calledMy Real House Life. It tells of my life with my ex Harry,allthe sordid details,” she crowed, eyes circling the gallery. I picture the cover of her book as I did when she made the statement, which I’ve seen splattered across social media—hot pink with a close-up of her smiling face taking up most of the area, her blond curls wrapping around its edges.
I stare at the dinner roll on my plate as my thoughts shift to Joe, of the husband I had thought he was, of the love story I had thought he and Margot shared—all of it shattered with the first witness on the first day.
“Hold me closer, Tony Danza,” I mutter to myself on an exhale.
“What was that?” Tamra asks, leaning closer.
“Oh,” I say, only now realizing I spoke the words aloud. “It’s just this silly thing I’ve done since I was a kid. If I’m nervous or in a bad mood, I say incorrect song lyrics. It’s just this thing that somehow makes me feel better.”
Tamra takes a long blink and then smiles kindly. “Hold me closer,tiny dancer. Elton John. I get it,” she says with an accepting nod, and I appreciate that she doesn’t seem to be judging my quirk.
Damon and the baby-faced one make their way to our table, Damon taking the seat beside me. Despite his niceties today and attempts to break the tension, my first instinct is still to flee, but I know I can’t do that in front of the other jurors. I have yet to figure out how I’m meant to act when it comes to him or why he keeps materializing beside me.
