Page 25 of Courtroom Drama
We both take a sip, eyeing each other as we do. His gaze burns my skin.
Finally he relents, tilts his head back, and finishes the can. “I have a list, too,” he says, setting down the empty can and taking a step toward me. “About you.”
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows, imploring him to go on.
“AnAuthentic Momssuperfan,” he begins. I open my mouth to object, but he continues before I can. “Rule follower, or so I thought.”
This makes me smile, the idea of his perception changing in such a short time. He goes quiet, staring at me, his eyes focused on me withan intensity that makes my stomach twist. I look away first, out the window at the remnants of the colorless sunset. “What else is on the list?” I ask, playing with the tab of my beer can with my thumb and index finger.
“Beer drinker,” he says. I watch as he returns to the mini-fridge and pulls out the two remaining Natural Ice cans. He walks over and hands me another. I accept, though the one in my hand is still half full.
“This list makes me sound...” I trail off, wondering how much of this register was built from before versus now. If he has also found differences in me that he’s attempting to reconcile.
“Fascinating?” he offers, though I can’t tell if he is serious or teasing. His face never gives him away, always tidy with barely any expression. I find myself laser-focused on him when he speaks or when I’m looking for some kind of reaction, watching for a twitch of his chin or flex of that jaw muscle that curves around the bone for insight into his thoughts. They rarely offer much.
“Is that the whole list? About me?” I ask.
“No,” he says, though he doesn’t continue. He opens the new beer, takes a long sip, knowing I’m watching and waiting. I eye his throat as he drinks, regard his Adam’s apple as it bobs.
“Are you really not going to tell me what else is on it?”
His mouth does that playful, barely there frown thing, and I bite at the inside of my cheek. This is the first time we’ve been alone—really alone—since the trial began. I want to bombard him with feelings and questions about the past. Say all the things I’ve kept bottled up for ten years. Ask himwhy. I’m annoyed that I haven’t already. But I’m equally afraid to broach the subject, fearful I’ll show him (and myself) just how much I am still consumed—and hurt—by it all.
As if reading my mind, he speaks into the silence the words I’ve waited ten years to hear. “I am sorry, Syd.”
I attempt to laugh, act as though I don’t know what he’s apologizing for. But I know exactly what he means both because of the seriousness of his demeanor and some intuitive understanding that this is the time. “For what?” I say through an awkward chuckle.
“For back then.”
I swallow a cough, causing my chest to ache.
“That I didn’t handle it all better,” he goes on. “That I didn’t stay in touch.” His eyes are sulky and narrowed, aged from a moment ago. It looks as though he has more to say, but I don’t allow it.
“Please,” I say dismissively. “We were kids. It was ten years ago.” I swipe my hand in the air for good measure. I’ve been waiting for this moment—this conversation. But now that it’s begun, I know I’m not ready. My self-preservation kicks in, willing me to shield myself from really going there with him.
“Yeah, but—”
Not ready to face it, not ready to alienate him with my upset, I make a sharp turn. “She’s not a villain, you know.” I press the tab of my can back and forth until it snaps off. I set it on the table. “Margot.”
He leans against the table again, elbows back with his hands bracing the corners. He lifts his right hand and rubs at the back of his neck. He seems to be contemplating whether to allow my subject change or to press. Finally, he says, “No one is the villain of their own story.”
His words singe my esophagus. My heart burns.
Needing to look away, I walk over to the sliding door and focus on the alleyway. “There’s this one episode ofAuthentic Moms, season four I think, when Margot and Joe were eating with their kids at Neptune’s Net,” I say, then continue, largely in avoidance of the alternative conversation aboutus. “It was funny because picture Margot—thisMargot”—I turn to face him and reference with my hand in the general direction of the courthouse—“sitting on an outdoor bench just a few feet away from the PCH, with paper baskets of fried shrimp and fish and chips next to a table of bikers.”
He huffs, and the corners of his mouth bend upward, ever so slightly, in acknowledgment. I appreciate his willingness to allow me to turn the discussion.
Until that point in the show, I had only ever seen Margot consume arugula salads and lemon ginger kombucha, with the occasional emotionally induced double cheeseburger. “Anyway, they’re sitting there, and Dover runs off to watch the water from the patio rail. Emblem wasjust a baby. And Margot tells Joe she’s had a miscarriage.” I stop, wanting to gauge his reaction. Damon nods, losing the tension along his eyebrow ridge in a flash of empathy. Just a flash, gone as quickly as it came.
It’s not hard to imagine what he thinks—or, at least, what he thought before this case. ThatAuthentic Momsis a trivial show about rich, apathetic housewives living lives of privilege who drum up drama with one another because they’re bored with their lack of responsibility and purpose. And perhaps there is some truth to that. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned watching, it’s that these women, though wealthy and glamorous, they deal with it—life and all its tithings.
“They’d been trying for a while, since just after Emblem was born. Thankfully she wasn’t too far along, ten weeks I think, though I doubt that made it any easier. She fought back tears, stealing glances at the kids. And do you know what Joe’s reaction was?”
Damon shakes his head. Once.
I swallow. I know I shouldn’t be telling him this. It’s a clear violation of jury rules. It could color his—our—interpretations of the case. But I want him to know. I want him to understand Margot as more than a character built for entertainment, more than the “cold” woman he sees in the courtroom.
I need him to be on the same side of something as me this time.
