Order in the Court (14 page)

“We are the best team!” she sung loudly and to no particular tune. “We’ve got the most food! We’re helping people and everything is great!”

Abby raised her eyebrows at me as we pushed the cart together, and I shrugged helplessly. When we got back to the home base and our food was weighed, our group was briefly at the top of the list. We were given red markers to fill in the donation thermometer, our group’s addition bringing it three tick marks closer to the end goal. The coloring went on until the next group came in with an even bigger payload, and we shuffled off to eat the candy we’d been given by the lovely supportive grandmas on Front Street.

“Grape or lemon?” I asked Valerie, sitting down beside her and holding up two lollipops. She smiled and took the yellow one.

“Thanks.”

“You’re very innovative,” I told her, watching as Abby bartered with Sasha for a mini-Snickers. “The shopping cart idea was great. We should return it to the Walmart after.”

Valerie shrugged, twisting her lollipop back and forth so that it clicked between her teeth. “I’m not all that good at people. It’s easier if I take charge and stay separate.” She looked off into the distance, staring at nothing.

“You could’ve taken a turn,” I said, feeling bad that she’d been on cart duty the whole night. “I should’ve asked.”

Valerie smiled and her eyes caught mine. “That’s sweet,” she said. “But I like being the lone wolf. You don’t have to worry about me.” She stood up and stretched.

“It’s in my nature,” I said. “I’m a worrier.”

Valerie nodded vaguely. “I’m going to return the cart and head home. It’s on my way,” she added when I opened my mouth to object to her doing it alone. “Thanks for the candy.” And then she was gone out the front doors into the crisp night.

DR. WAGNER
called my mother on a Saturday to make an appointment for Monday morning. She had never called us directly before. Her assistant usually handled appointments, and we always booked the next one before we left the office.

I surrounded myself with comforting things by wearing the high-waisted shorts I’d liberated from Jessa’s closet during the cleanout, one of Ricky’s graphic T-shirts, and a bracelet Kate had made me. Something from all of them touching my skin. I paced the waiting room when we made it to the office half an hour early. I could tell something was wrong. With the trial rapidly approaching and exams starting at the end of the week, I was already a raw nerve, sensitive to the slightest friction. I didn’t need any more stressors.

“Corey.” I was surprised by Dr. Wagner’s voice rather than her assistant. She beckoned us into her office, where my mother tentatively chose an overstuffed armchair and I the other. She had never been back here before, always waiting in the front room.

“I’m sorry to have called you in so unexpectedly,” she said as she settled herself behind her desk. The bookcase grinned crookedly at me.

“What seems to be the issue? You made it sound urgent over the phone,” my mother said, impatient as ever. Dad called her brusque, but it really was just impatience and arrogance. Her time was valuable. These weren’t billable hours.

“I wanted you to hear it from me, so there would be no misunderstanding.” Dr. Wagner folded her hands on her desk and looked at me apologetically. My heart was racing. “I’m being called to testify at the trial of Dustin Adams.” She paused. “By the defense.”

Somewhere a clock was ticking. A bead of sweat rolled down my neck and settled in my collarbone. My mother’s hands gripped the soft arms of the chair, her knuckles turning white.

“For what purpose?” my mother asked, breaking the tense silence.

“I’ve been asked to make up a psychological profile of the defendant. Although I own a private practice, I do, from time to time, testify in criminal cases. I’ve been an expert witness in other cases. I’ll be asked to interview him over the next few weeks and make a report of my findings.” She still looked so apologetic.

“This is despicable.” My mother was practically muttering, cursing under her breath. “The defense must be looking in on us, trying to find our weak spots… those
assholes
….” I was the weak spot. My panic attacks, my anxiety. That was their endgame.

“They’re going to ask you about me,” I said. I wasn’t even angry. I felt numb and betrayed. Not by Dr. Wagner, but by God or the universe or whatever controls fate. I was constantly drawing short straws. “They’ve picked you because I’m your patient.”

“Nothing you’ve said here is admissible in court,” she was quick to assure me. “Doctor-patient confidentiality is still in effect, even in a criminal case. You’re not the one on trial, Corey. They can’t ask me what you’ve said here, or if I’ve diagnosed you with anything. They can’t even ask if you’re my patient.”

“But they will.” My palms were sweating, and I wiped them on my bare knees. “They’re going to use you as a character reference for me to bring doubt to my testimony. Suggesting I’m your patient, even if they can’t get you to say it, could put the idea in the jury’s head that I’m unstable. That I’m mistaken or brainwashed or manipulated. That my testimony shouldn’t count. And the prosecution’s case hinges on my testimony.”

“You don’t have any say in the matter? Isn’t it a conflict of interest for you to testify for the defense?” my mother demanded. Her cheeks were flushed. Five Feet of Fury, my father sometimes calls her, the redheaded spitfire in killer high heels.

“It’s only a conflict of interest if I admit that Corinna is my patient and has revealed information pertinent to the case, which breaks confidentiality laws. My hands are tied.” Dr. Wagner unfolded her hands and held them up defensively, universal code for “I come in peace.”

“Will you consider consulting with the prosecution? Obviously the defense is going to try to force your hand in giving a statement that corroborates their story, but—”

“My report will be honest and complete,” Dr. Wagner said, and my mother’s jaw snapped shut with a soft
click!
“And it will be made available to the prosecution before the trial, at the same time it is given to the defense. My testimony will reflect the findings in my report, nothing more nor less. It’s entirely possible that the defense could drop me before the trial if my statement isn’t to their liking. I might never make it to the witness stand.”

“If they drop you as a witness, can the prosecution call on you? Can we use your findings if they help make our case?” I asked. “Because calling you to testify after the defense has dropped you as a witness could be very powerful. It would look to a jury as though the defense were trying to cover something up.”

I glanced at my mother, hoping for an answer. She looked proud. The fondness in her eyes made me stop for a second, appreciating the kind of glance I used to long for as a child when I came home with a macaroni masterpiece or an A on a spelling test. I so rarely got it, I’d nearly forgotten what it looked like. When Dr. Wagner began her answer, I forced myself to look away.

“Either side can interview potential experts, get reports made up, have opinions given, without having them put officially on the docket. I doubt that without my findings the defense has officially declared me. Usually, the prosecution wouldn’t know who’s been approached by the defense until after I’ve been entered as a witness. So it would be up to the judge whether a report intended for the defense can be used by the prosecution.”

“So it’s a definite maybe,” I said, cracking a halfhearted smile. Dr. Wagner smiled at me sadly.

“It’s a definite maybe,” she agreed.

“Thank you for informing us of this,” my mother said, standing up. “We’ll factor this development into our plans if we can.” She offered Dr. Wagner her hand for a shake, which Dr. Wagner returned delicately.

My mother sometimes forgot that she wasn’t the lawyer on the case and spoke as if she were.

“I didn’t want there to be any nasty surprises. Your health and well-being is the most important thing to me, Corey. I didn’t want you to think of this as a betrayal.”

I nodded and smiled before we left the office, but I couldn’t help but think,
If this isn’t a betrayal, how come it feels so much like one?

THERE’S SOMETHING
soothing about being in a used bookstore. I’m not sure if it’s the smell of old books, or the hush of being surrounded by walls of paper, or the closeness of the stacks and the necessary delicacy of walking through and around them. You can’t find it anywhere else.

Abby introduced me to the small building just off campus that was sandwiched between a Subway and an office building. It was nearly hidden in the shadow of the office’s concrete parking garage. It was a well-known secret that this place would buy your textbooks for more than the university bookstore and would sell it back to the next kid for less; Abby and I had both stocked up on our second semester of books for half the price, although, with midterm exams in a few days, we hadn’t sold our first semester’s books yet.

Coming back alone to explore the fiction section was the best decision I could have ever made. The stress of exams made me feel like I was being dragged down, my limbs heavy and my body lazy from lack of sleep. Studying had drained me.

There was so much more pressure to do well in college than in high school. Even the threat of SAT scores and rejection letters hadn’t been as stressful as the thought that my parents were paying a lot of money for me to be here. If I didn’t do well, I was wasting their money. It was stressful to think about, how one skipped class was like tossing money down the toilet. How anyone could casually skip class to get drunk baffled me.

I wasn’t skipping. I had a free period and needed a break from the nose-to-the-grindstone studying I’d been doing during all my free time. There was little more I could do if I didn’t know the material by now. So I was at the bookstore, tucked in behind a tower of books in the small LGBTQ section near the back. Ironically, the shelf across the tiny aisle was labeled Religion in messy handwriting on a Post-It and was stuffed with Bibles of all kinds.

With my back against the Bibles, I sifted through the LGBTQ fiction, running my hands over the covers, reading the backs to get a feel for the stories. I wanted something new and interesting. Every English class I’d ever taken required reading about straight, white teenage boys and their problems in boarding schools and upper-class society.

I wanted a nice little story about girls like me—something light and funny, maybe, with girls who kissed girls and walked on beaches hand in hand.

“You might want to reconsider that one.”

My head snapped up, and I nearly brained myself on the corner of a leather-bound King James. Valerie Mason stood over me, the drawstring from her McMinn hoodie hanging from her mouth. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

I shrugged, feeling more invaded than startled. My tiny little bubble of peace had been popped. “It’s okay,” I said, for lack of anything better. Awkward silence hung between us for a moment. Valerie pointed to the book in my hands.

“I’ve read that one. It’s a Dead Lesbian story.”

I turned over the paperback and reread the blurb. It didn’t say anything of the sort. The cover had two girls holding hands on it. On a beach. “A ‘Dead Lesbian’ story?” I asked, because that didn’t sound right.

Valerie nodded. “A lot of these books end in suicide or murder. Killing one half of a happy lesbian couple is practically cliché now. I’ve read most of these, and they’re all like that. No happy endings.” She ran her fingers along some of the spines at eye level. “I found that out the hard way. I figured, with your—” She paused and then made a little fake-cough sound at the back of her throat. “I figured you were looking for happy endings, maybe.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” I said, shifting the promising-looking paperback into my “no” pile. Valerie sat down where she was standing, her legs folding gracefully beneath her.

“Let me look at what you’ve got,” she said, picking up my “maybe” pile. She held up the first one. “Double suicide.” The second. “Murder.” The third. “Corrective rape. Why would you even pick this one up?”

“It has a daisy on the cover,” I protested, flushing. I hadn’t read the description for that one, granted, but it had looked pretty on the shelf.

Valerie shook her head, looking bemused. She stood up abruptly and began pulling books from the shelf, ones I hadn’t gotten to yet. “These are probably the closest you’ll get to Happy Ever After.” She dropped four books into my lap. “Everything else suffers from Dead Lesbian Syndrome or is about whiny gay men.”

“That’s it? For the whole section?” The section was tiny to begin with, but that sounded ridiculous. “That’s not fair.”

Valerie shrugged one shoulder. “Most of these were written before the nineties. The only way to get lesbians past the censor was for them to have unhappy endings. Couldn’t go around ‘encouraging the queers,’ right?” Her finger quotes made the sentence all the more sarcastic, though her tone of voice would’ve been enough. “Newer stuff might be better, but it gets snapped up fast. I always check for new stuff when I’m here.”

I turned over the four books she had recommended. Only one of them even remotely looked like what I wanted, so I offered the other three back for her to reshelve.

“Thanks,” I said, genuinely thankful that I hadn’t accidentally read one of the Dead Lesbian books. It would have been just the icing on the cake for me to fall in love with characters like me only for one of them to die. It would be art imitating life a little too much. I could only imagine the nightmares and panic attacks something like that might trigger.

“Don’t mention it. We got to stick together, look out for each other. It’s a rough world.”

I didn’t know whether she meant for people in Pride or people who went to a support group, but I nodded anyway. I didn’t know why she went to group; she hadn’t shared much at the meeting.

“Wow, this might seem like a dick move, but um… here.” Valerie thrust a scrap of paper at me, tucking it under the cover of the book I intended to buy. “That’s my number.”