“Well, then, good morning, Brooke.”
“Good morning,” she says, before sheepishly adding, “I guess.”
“Like Ms. Welsh said, you’re doing just fine, under what I’m sure couldn’t possibly be more difficult circumstances for you.”
“Thank you,” she says. “And you’re certainly right about that.”
“It sounds as if you and Morgan really were besties,” I say.
“We were.”
“Close enough that she confided what can be a high school girl’s biggest secret, about having finally done it, as we used to say when I was in high school back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Is that correct?”
“It is,” she says, nodding her head.
“So as far as you know, you were the only one who knew that she was indeed doing it, and with a much older man.”
“If any of our other friends knew, they never mentioned it, and that was the type of thing they all would have mentioned,” Brooke says.
“I’m just curious about something, since we’re talking about secrets here,” I continue. “Did you ever confide the same intimate details about yourself?”
“Objection!” Welsh says. “What Ms. Milligan may or may not have confided about her own life is irrelevant to these proceedings.”
“Sustained,” Horton says. “Let’s see if we can stay in our lane today, Ms. Smith.”
“Of course, Your Honor.”
I walk all the way over to the witness stand and lean an elbow on the partition, smiling at her as I do.
“Being told something like that in confidence,” I say, “I assume you didn’t share what Morgan was doing—and with whom—with any of your other girlfriends.”
“I would never.”
“Did any of them confide to you about losing their virginity?”
I wait for an objection, but none is forthcoming, at least not for now.
“No,” she says. “But I wasn’t as close with any of them as I was with Morgan.”
“So as far as you know, you were the only other person at Garden City High School who knew that Morgan Carson was having sex with Mr. Jacobson,” I say.
“You’d have to ask our other friends but, like I said before, none of them brought it up, and I believe that it was something that a high school girl would bring up if she knew.”
I nod.
“While Morgan’s relationship with my client was going on,” I say, “did you happen to have a boyfriend?”
“Objection.”
She sounds almost exhausted just saying it. Like she’s as tired as I am.
“Sustained,” Judge Horton says. “Are we going anywhere interesting with this, Ms. Smith?”
“I believe you’ll see when we get there.”
“Please get there quickly.”
“Have you yourself ever had a relationship with an older man, Brooke?” I ask.
