Indeed, with her hair in a ponytail and wearing white sweats, Amy looks more like a college student than a woman who surely has to be close to thirty.
“Have fun!”
Amy calls to her as Sarah bounds down the front stoop, keys in hand. My daughter, who has barely said hello to her, nods but doesn’t speak.
I had wanted Sarah to sit down and visit, but Amy was delayed by a phone call. I shut the door and complain, “That was successful, wasn’t it?”
Amy reaches down to pet Woogie, saying mischievously, “Well, you should have had me over to dinner. I would have been on time.”
I lead her into the den.
“Sarah could have waited a few more minutes. It wasn’t as if she had to go put out a fire somewhere.”
Amy comes up behind me and bumps me with her shoulder.
“She’s darling. And mad as hell at her old man for blowing it with Rainey, and taking up with a young bimbo, and probably for a million other sins you’ve committed that I don’t know about.”
“You’re not a bimbo!” I yelp.
Amy sits on the couch, and I plop down beside her.
“I’ve got my work cut out if I want to hang around the Page gang, don’t I?” she says merrily, but I can’t tell whether she’s kidding or not.
“The old guy’s a lush and still mooning over his former girlfriend who’s getting married on him; his daughter is furious because she’s nearly the same age as his girlfriend. This is a tough crowd, huh, Woogie?” she says to my dog, who has jumped up beside her.
“I’m not a lush!” I say plaintively.
“It’s a bit dog that barks,” Amy says cryptically, then reaches up and kisses me.
I don’t get this woman and tell her so.
“Why do you like me?”
“I can’t explain it either,” Amy says, a big grin on her face.
“I know this will end in disaster for me. But what else is new? How was your day?”
Before I tell her, I get the Arkansas-LSU game on the radio from Baton Rouge. As I expected, the rest of the Hogs’ season has been terrible. Without Dade, the offense has shut down completely, and we haven’t won another game. While we listen, I explain to Amy for the first time about my grandfather.
“Goodness gracious!” she exclaims when I am finished.
“A little Southern gothic soap opera. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
I turn off the game. We’re hopelessly behind (21 to 0 in the fourth quarter). “Hell, I don’t know. I was embarrassed, I guess,” I admit. I get up to get a beer. Amy has already refused one.
“You didn’t do it,” she says.
“Besides there’re a million stories like that all over the South. Some worse, some better.”
I come sit back down by her. Things heat up on the couch, and I am all for going back into the bedroom, but am deterred by the possibility that Sarah may return for something.
“She’s practically heard us,” I say, as I put my hand under the top part of her sweats, “she might as well see us” “I can’t imagine a more delightful scene,” Amy says, only halfheartedly pushing my hand away.
“This is your new mother, Sarah. She’s even cuter without any clothes on, isn’t she? Stop it!”
The next morning during breakfast I manage only two sips of coffee before asking Sarah, “Well, what did you think of Amy?”
Sarah chews on a piece of buttered toast, swallows, and then lectures me: “Dad, don’t do anything foolish like getting married right now. You’d just be doing it to spite Rainey. You’re on the rebound. Don’t forget it.”
I put down the sports pages, unable to continue reading about the massacre last night. My daughter is a piece of work.
“I wasn’t sending you a wedding invitation. I just asked, what did you think about Amy?”
“She’s all right,” Sarah says grudgingly.
More than satisfied, I do not risk a followup question.
An hour later after she drives off to return to school, I pick up the house and realize that Sarah did not make me try to agree again that I would ask the court to let me withdraw as Dade’s attorney. Maybe she thinks we should be all one big happy family. The court wouldn’t let me withdraw at this late date anyway.
14
“Your daughter is on the phone,” Julia says, appearing in the doorway to my office.
“She sounds a little anxious.”
I have been ignoring the beeping sound in my ear that indicates another call. Julia does not make a practice of being sensitive to anything involving my welfare, so I dare not ignore her. I check the calendar. December 18.
The last time I talked to Sarah was on Pearl Harbor Day.
It was a curious conversation. The day before. Dr. Beekman, an unlikely ally if there ever was one, had taken up Dade’s cause and argued that Dade might well be innocent. I had to give her a hard time, since the guy parroted every argument I made to her. God knows what else Beekman knows. He probably can trace my family tree now better than I can.
“Tell her to hang on,” I say.
“I’ll be off in two seconds. Thanks.”
Julia nods. Women have to stick together, her expression says. I am on the phone with Gordon Dyson, who has told me his wife is flying off to New Zealand the day after Christmas. I had completely forgotten about him.
He is reminding me to send him a power of attorney for his wife to sign before she departs. He says excitedly, “I can’t even get my son to rake the leaves in the front yard!”
I am amazed that he is actually following through with the eviction. Most of my clients ignore my advice and perhaps for good reason. Now, two months later, my suggestion seems a little extreme.
“Call me the day after your wife leaves, and I’ll draw up the complaint. Don’t worry; we’ll get him out.”
“You’ve got to,” he pleads.
“He’s driving me crazy.”
“It’ll be a piece of cake.” I feel like a pest exterminator.
I remind him of my fee and tell him I have to get off. I pick up Sarah’s line, wondering what she wants. She finishes her first-semester exams tomorrow afternoon, and I can’t imagine any call that can’t wait twenty-four hours.
“What’s up, babe?” I ask.
“Julia says it sounded important.”
“Well, it’s probably not, and I don’t feel good about telling you this, because I don’t know how relevant it is, but here goes: there’s a rumor that’s been going around, and it’s only a rumor, that Robin was having an affair with Dr. Hofstra in the history department this summer.
Depending on the source, it was still going on this fall when Robin filed rape charges against Dade. That may not be true at all though, because the girl who said Robin was still involved with Dr. Hofstra when she said she was raped is a cheerleader and was her big rival.”
I make notes furiously. Ever since Thanksgiving it’s been as if Dade’s case was on hold. He is still refusing to take the polygraph despite his mother’s encouragement. I have been hoping he would begin to feel some pressure of the upcoming trial date and would cooperate.
“How long have you known about this?” I ask, marveling at my daughter’s ability to keep a secret, a feat, despite my obligations as a lawyer, that I don’t always manage.
“I heard it the day before I quit the jay vee cheerleaders,” Sarah admits, “but Paula convinced me not to say anything. She said it was gossip and that a statute called the ‘rape shield law’ made it inadmissible in court. Is that true?”
I try to contain my exasperation. That was back in October
“It’s up to the judge. If the court can be convinced that a past sexual relationship has some particular bearing on the case, evidence of it can be admitted, but under most situations, the statute prohibits mention of it,” I ex plain.
“Why are you telling me now? Have you been talking to Dr. Beekman again?” I ask, hoping she has had a falling out with WAR.
“Some,” she admits, “but I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got back from Bear Creek, and so I finally called Dade this morning and confronted him. He swears he didn’t rape Robin. I think I believe him. He’s pretty convincing.”