The Whole Golden World (27 page)

Then TJ said just that. Alexandra had called.

Rain only nodded.

“It's going to sound bad,” TJ said. “But I swear it's not true. Alex says it won't hold up well in court, that he only came forward weeks after the police first talked to him; it was at a distance, and he wears glasses. She says a few rapid questions will make him look like a confused old man. She thinks he only came forward now because he wants to be famous.”

Rain nodded. It all sounded so plausible. She realized she should pretend like she didn't already know this.

“So what is it that this confused old man supposedly saw?”

“That the girl came out of my brother's house, while he was away on vacation. But it couldn't be true. I wasn't even there. I was at home, remember?” He leaned forward, veins in his head standing out, like he was straining to lift something. “I was at home with you, all weekend.”

Rain swallowed. “That's what you told Alex?”

“Yes, because it's true. I'm sure you remember. It was when you told me about the baby.”

Rain realized a jury might well believe him. He had committed one hundred percent to the truth of this. He might even believe it himself. “So she's going to expect me to testify?” The thought gave Rain a blast of hot panic.

“You'd only be a rebuttal witness if this guy makes it to the stand. She thinks the prosecutor might not even use him. In fact, she says if they do, it goes to show they're grasping at straws. Hell, it could have been somebody turning around in the driveway. Eyewitness reports aren't that reliable, she said. Plenty of room for reasonable doubt.”

“Reasonable doubt,” she echoed.

“Will you do that for me, honey? If you have to?” He jumped up from the table quickly, a little unsteadily, and Rain wondered how many beers he'd gone through in her absence. He'd taken to putting the empties away, rather than leaving them lying around. As if by putting them away neatly, she wouldn't notice how many there were when it came time to return them to the grocery store. He crossed the room and took her hands, then rested his forehead on the top of her head. “I'm so sorry to do this to you. I don't want you to have to do this, any of this. I'm so sorry I screwed up.”

“You're innocent . . . ?”

“I mean in how I handled it. That I didn't just go to the principal right away. I'm so stupid.”

Rain felt him crying into her hair. What was it with everyone else crying today?

“I don't feel well,” Rain said. “I'm going to lie down.”

She drifted away from TJ, his hands running down her arms and clinging to her hand just for a moment as she wandered away upstairs. She paused at the doorway and locked it; another first, she thought. Along with her husband being arrested, and wearing maternity clothes, she has also locked her husband out of the bedroom for the first time ever.

She curled up, on top of the covers, facing out through the window at the gray wash of sky. He was asking her to lie for him in court. There was no getting around this fact. He had also lied about his whereabouts on a weekend that he had Greg's big, empty house all to himself, and a neighbor saw a girl leaving.

He had cheated on her before, when she was wearing his engagement ring and congratulating herself that when it came time to settle down, he chose her. Her, above all the others.

This girl was half naked in his car. In his car! Miles from anyplace that made sense, off a highway overpass of all places.

She admitted to herself the secret thought that had been tormenting her since the beginning, stalking the edges of her consciousness like a predator in the dark, just outside a ring of firelight.

TJ was just not that stupid.

Something felt funny in her belly, and Rain gasped, and grabbed her swollen abdomen, wrapping her hands over her most precious treasure, the only pure love she had left in the world. There it was again. It felt almost bubbly, ticklish.

The baby was moving. She was feeling her baby move.

She lay on the bed, crying in anguish and delight, while a movie ran in her head of what should be happening just now: running to get her loving husband, telling him, celebrating, laughing at the feisty new life that would be the best of both of them.

39

D
inah was crouched in the warm spring sun, drawing her specials of the day in bright chalk on the display, trying to care about her dying business.

All she could think about was her children in that massive high school surrounded by cruel peers. Jared had taken to wearing all black and complaining his legs hurt more than usual. Connor was constantly frustrated that his voice kept breaking up and down. He sounded like a clarinet blown by a novice.

Jared had also taken to shunning Connor—no real reason, a fit of adolescent pique, Dinah figured—which caused more fights between the two of them. Connor, never one to take rejection well, would lash out as if he thought his brother was the worst person in the world. He'd given Jared a strong shove the other day, knocking him into the table and giving Dinah a terrified flashback to the fight that had broken the vase and scarred Morgan. It seemed to do the same to Connor; he paled and ran upstairs before Dinah could admonish him.

And then, Morgan, insisting on attending school, now, in the midst of this. She had reported that the kids were nakedly curious, asking her crude questions, like whether she blew the teacher in his car. She kept finding lewd notes in her locker, so she put tape across the vents on the inside of the locker door, so nothing could be shoved in.

Morgan would just reply, if she replied at all, “I'm not allowed to talk about it.” This was the answer they'd coached her to give that night before she went back, during an anxious dinner in which neither Morgan nor Dinah ate much of anything.

Britney was supposedly protecting her, telling people off who were rude, eating with her at lunch when no one else would. Dinah tried to be grateful when Kelly reported this, but she couldn't shake the feeling that Britney enjoyed having a role to play in their drama.

Ethan came in to the Den once in a while, to let Dinah know how Morgan was doing, from what he could tell.

Joe got reports, too, though he wasn't supposed to, but normal rules seemed to be going out the window. So teachers would tell him throughout the day, “She seemed fine today, people left her alone” or “I had to send a couple jokers to Pete Jackson for hassling her outside the music room.”

Joe told Dinah he needed the reports, but he hated receiving them. He could tell how much pity and schadenfreude was behind these missives
.
The other assistant principal, Kate, had taken to regarding him every morning with a sympathetic pout, asking sotto voce, “How are things?”

Dinah felt a shadow over her shoulder. She turned in her crouch to be greeted by Helen Demming. “Oh. Hello.” She turned back to the board to continue with her chalk.

Speaking of schadenfreude.

“Hello, Dinah. I wondered if I could have a word.”

“Go ahead. You'll forgive me if I keep working.”

Helen pulled up one of the wrought-iron outside chairs and sat with her pantsuited legs crossed and her hands folded across her knees. “I was hoping for a bit of privacy, but I guess this will do. Not exactly a stampede of customers here.” She laughed lightly, as if she were joking.

“What can I do for you?” Dinah asked through a heavy sigh. She was done writing the specials and began adding little swirly designs to the edge of the board, to give her something to do besides looking up at that pretentious horse-face bitch. She'd had a flair for art in school, but didn't work very hard at it, since it was no way to earn a living.

“I was wondering if you'd ever consider selling the Den?”

Dinah finally abandoned the chalk and rose to stand over Helen. “What, to you? As you so carefully note, there is not exactly a flood of traffic.”

“The location here is prime, and not just for high school kids. I think you have an untapped market here, for a more sophisticated customer.”

“Thanks for the advice, now if you'll excuse me . . .”

Helen drew herself up to her full height, which was still shorter than Dinah, even in her heels. She was wearing platform heels even, Dinah noted with a suppressed grin.

“I'm serious, Dinah. We've known each other long enough, you can give me the courtesy of serious consideration.”

“We've known each other long enough to be up-front about the fact we can't stand each other. And since you torpedoed my entertainment license I don't even feel the smallest inclination to pretend otherwise.”

“You don't have to like me for a business deal to work. So much the better, really. It can be so awkward between friends.”

“I'd be surprised if you know that from experience.”

“Even I have friends, Dinah.” She fished into her purse and withdrew a letter. “Read this over, consider it. That's all I ask. This place can serve kids just like it does now, but adults don't come here, have you noticed? Sure, a few moms with kids at midday, but the reason grown-ups don't come is that they're not welcome here. The kids don't want them here, it's obvious. You ever see an adult walk in there when it's full of teenagers? You can almost hear the groan. But for a business to be a success, long term, everyone should be welcome. Not just a select few. Anyway. Please, take this. No harm in looking, is there?”

Dinah snatched the envelope, folded it in half, and jammed it in her pocket. “Okay, I took it. Good day.”

Helen clicked away in her heels, and Dinah fantasized about her tripping and crashing face-first to the concrete.

It would be a cold day in hell when she sold her beloved business to that hypocritical, scheming bitch. She'd rather torch it herself.

 

Morgan threw her backpack into the backseat of the car, narrowly missing Jared's head.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, folding her arms and slouching low in the seat.

Dinah pulled the car away from the school, unable to rally herself to get on Morgan's case.

“Boys, I have to drop you off home. Morgan and I have an appointment.”

“Appointment where?” Morgan asked her, slit-eyed.

“With Henry Davis.”

“The prosecutor? Screw that, I'm not talking to him. This is all his fault.”

Dinah ignored her and switched on the radio to hear a droll NPR announcer talking about the coming presidential election as the silence crackled between them.

“How was school?” she asked, her forced brightness grating to even her own ears. No one bothered answering.

 

Henry greeted them with appropriate sobriety for the occasion and excused himself for just a moment to talk with an associate in the other room.

Morgan simmered with rage in the seat next to Dinah, across from his desk.

Henry had called Dinah the night before, asking her to bring Morgan in. He felt he could persuade her to testify if he framed the conversation well enough. Dinah tried to tell him it was useless, that indignant rage was Morgan's near-constant state, but Henry thought if it wasn't her mother asking, she might reconsider.

In that phone conversation, he had mentioned the possibility of subpoenaing her with the threat of jail if she refused to cooperate and Dinah had exploded at him. He listened to her eruption, then replied patiently, “I wasn't going to do that to her. I was just letting you know what the options are.” Dinah reminded herself she really should listen to a whole sentence before flipping her lid, as she told Connor at least three times a week.

Henry returned to the room and greeted Morgan with a tight professional smile. She looked away as if she were trying to melt a hole in the wall with her glare.

“How are you holding up?” he asked.

“Just fine when people leave me the hell alone. People including you. I've got homework and I don't want to be here. I'm not helping you.”

Henry settled down on his desk chair. He looked at Morgan with the detachment of a psychotherapist. “If I subpoena you to the stand, you are legally obligated to testify.”

Henry darted a look at Dinah. He was bluffing, but it still twisted her guts to hear it.

Morgan huffed. “Whatever. Even if I sit there on the stand, you think I'll help you with this farce and travesty?”

“A farce and a travesty. My, my.”

She whipped around to face Henry. “Don't patronize me. I'm not some ten-year-old winning a spelling bee.”

“You're right. I apologize. People don't take you seriously, do they?”

“No. They don't.”

“And that's not fair. From what I can tell, you're smart as hell, mature and poised, and you have every right to be taken seriously.”

Morgan tossed her hair, then readjusted it. She straightened her posture. “Yes. Also true.”

“You think this case is about you being treated like a child, and that infuriates you. A child who can't make her own choices about whom to love, with whom she is intimate.”

Dinah thought she might be sick.

He was scoring points with Morgan, though. She nodded, leaning forward now, slightly. Henry folded his arms, leaned back in his chair. “That's not the point, though, and that's what no one has taken time to explain to you. For that I apologize. It's our failing.”

A teenager likes nothing better than an adult who eats crow in front of them. Morgan was loving this. Dinah wondered if TJ made her feel that way, too: adult, mature. But didn't Dinah? Hadn't Dinah in fact treated her too much like an adult, in the end?

Henry continued, “This is about a teacher who behaved inappropriately and failed in his duty to keep his student relationships solely in the professional realm. You are an unusual case, Morgan, in how sophisticated and mature you are. This is not the first case of this I've run across in my career, you know. Most times, the girls are in thrall, and being manipulated, and once the spell is broken, they feel the full damage of a relationship that's inherently unequal. You believe you are TJ Hill's equal, and in many ways you are, and in fact far superior. But he”—at this Henry thumped his desk with his index finger—“did not treat this as a relationship between two equal adults. He treated you as a side project. A girl who would run to his beck and call, have sex when it was convenient, to be put aside at will. What kind of representative of the people would I be if I stood by and let that behavior stand? If I said, ‘Well, but Morgan Monetti is so mature, I'm sure it was just fine.' I can't do that and I won't. We're not trying to convict him of murder and lock him away for life. We want to hold him accountable for what he actually did, and only that. Because right now, he's lying, Morgan. This man whom you want to think treated you with respect is now saying you are lovesick and crazy and made it all up.”

Dinah realized with a burst of dizziness that she'd been holding her breath. Morgan seemed to be trembling in her seat. She could almost hear her daughter's defensive shell crack. Dinah gripped her chair arms to stop herself from jumping up and down to say,
Yes, exactly, that's what I've been saying all along!

Morgan had been looking down at her lap. Dinah watched her daughter take two slow breaths. In, out. Then she looked up at Henry, her eyes slitted and her chin jutted forward. “He's only doing what he has to because of what you all are putting us through. Why don't you let TJ plead, if it's just about ‘accountability'? Offer his lawyer something light that keeps him out of jail, then, if that's all you care about? Nuh-uh, this is about trying to persecute him because you're all hysterical prudes who really do think I'm a child. You almost had me going there, Mr. Prosecutor. Well done, did you rehearse in front of a mirror?”

Dinah began, “Morgan . . .” but could think of nothing helpful to say.

“I'll be in the car. Don't forget, Mom: July 11.”

Her eighteenth birthday.

Morgan swept out of the room, and Dinah felt cold in her wake.

 

At dinner, Morgan snatched up her plate and took it to her doorless room, ignoring Joe's demand that she rejoin the family. He muttered that her behavior was unacceptable until Dinah snapped, “So what are you going to punish her with? We're pretty much down to taking her behind the woodshed by this point.”

In her head, banging like a gong, Dinah heard,
July 11 . . . 11 . . . 11 . . .

The trial would probably be over by then. Henry thought they'd get a date in early June. “Just in time for graduation,” Dinah had muttered. On her eighteenth birthday, Morgan could pack a bag, get on a bus, and vanish, and there wouldn't be a damn thing anyone could do about it.

She had to do something, and something big, soon. Or no matter what happened to TJ Hill, Morgan was as good as gone.