“She’s lying,” Xenia Delancey said.
“Mr. Lawrence,” the prosecutor said, “would you and Mrs. Delancey be good enough to wait in the hallway for a moment?”
The defense attorney grumbled and stood and motioned Xenia Delancey to come with him.
Leigh and the prosecutor sat alone at the cigarette-scarred conference table. The prosecutor’s glance nailed Leigh through half-tinted lenses. “What did you see exactly?”
I wish I’d had time to prepare this, Leigh thought. And then she remembered what Stella Adler used to say in acting class: Who has time for sense memory? Improvise!
For the next two minutes Leigh improvised.
“You realize,” the prosecutor said, “if you change your testimony, the defense will accuse you of lying. They’ll attack you, not just on the stand but in the media.”
“I realize that.”
“The attacks will be personal, they’ll be savage, they’ll reflect on your character, your habits, your morals, your marriages, your movies, your lovers, and, above all, on your use of medications, mood changers, and liquor.”
Leigh understood that the prosecutor had sized her up and was strongly advising her to reconsider. But she had no intention of reconsidering. She had given her daughter very little in life, and she was determined that Nita would at least receive justice in death. “I realize all of that.”
The prosecutor held up the leather-bound book. “Whether this diary is a forgery or not, the defense will use it to attack and destroy your daughter. They’ll use it to create sympathy for Jim Delancey. He stands a good chance of going free. Are you willing to take that chance?”
Leigh nodded. “I’m willing. Absolutely.”
The prosecutor stood motionless, staring at her. “Miss Baker, I hope you’ll excuse my frankness, but in all honesty I have to tell you something.”
Christ, Leigh wondered, have I gone too far?
“Thanks to your courage I believe we have a chance of nailing Delancey.” The prosecutor shook Leigh’s hand. Then she crossed swiftly to the door and flung it open and leaned triumphantly into the corridor. “Mr. Lawrence, Mrs. Delancey, would you come back, please? We’re not taking the plea.”
Xenia Delancey looked at Leigh with her mouth closed so tightly that her lips made a line like a fresh scar. “You’re making a stupid mistake,” she said. “The world is going to know what your daughter was.”
“And maybe,” Leigh said, “they’ll learn what your son is.”
SIX WEEKS LATER Leigh Baker entered a packed, hushed courtroom and crossed in front of the jury to take the stand.
She had fortified herself today with thirty milligrams of Valium and thirty of Dexedrine, fifty percent more than her usual morning dose. She had washed the medicine down with a two-ounce shot glass of vodka.
She had never, despite fourteen years as a performing actress, felt less sure of the effect she was about to make. She was wearing a navy Galanos with Barbara Bush pearls. Her mouth was dry, her skin on fire, her heart thumping so hard she couldn’t hear anything else, and the light in the courtroom seemed to dip in rhythm to each heartbeat that rocked her.
Dear God, she prayed soundlessly, just get me through this and I swear I’ll never break another contract, I’ll never sleep with another man I’m not married to, I’ll never take another drink or drug.
“How many abortions did you procure for your daughter?” the defense attorney asked.
Leigh jumped to her feet. “That’s a lie.”
The judge directed her to answer the question.
Leigh sat. “Nita never had an abortion.”
“Did you always give your daughter cocaine for Christmas?”
Leigh looked out at the courtroom. From the front row of the spectators’ section, Xenia Delancey watched her with slit-eyed hatred.
“You’re lying again,” Leigh said.
The judge directed her to answer the question.
“Nita didn’t take drugs.”
“How many lovers did you share with your daughter?”
“You’re lying and you’ve lied from the start of this trial.”
“Objection.”
“Every word you’ve said, every question you’ve asked, every glance and shrug you’ve directed at the jury has been an attempt to defame my daughter.”
“Objection.”
“Sustained. Witness will limit her response to the question.”
Leigh had a panicky sense that the walls of the courtroom were slanting in on her.
“How many lovers,” the court stenographer read from the trial record, “did you share with your daughter?”
There’s got to be a way to answer this, she thought.
“My daughter and I loved many people in common. We never shared a lover. The only lover Nita ever had is the man who took her virginity, and he’s on trial here today.”
“Objection.”
“Jury will disregard the witness’s response.”
But they didn’t disregard it. Thirty-two days after the trial began, following seven hours’ deliberation, the jury of seven men and five women found James Delancey guilty as charged.
“We did it, toots!” Leigh’s husband sang out. They celebrated the verdict by sending the chauffeur to score eight grams of coke and four boxes of David’s macadamia chocolate chip cookies.
Four days after the verdict, at three-thirty in the afternoon, California time, two bodyguards didn’t exactly walk her and didn’t exactly carry her but somehow managed to stand her up in front of the crisp, sober, smiling redheaded nurse at the admissions desk. Fortified with what she swore to God would be her last eight vodkas ever, Leigh Baker picked up a squirming pen and signed herself into the Betty Ford Clinic.
TWO
Tuesday, May 7
“THE KING WENT INTO the garden the next morning, and he saw …” Leigh lowered the picture book.
On the floor four feet from her the child was playing with his battery-operated toy xylophone. Each time a key lit up he pressed it, and a note sounded. The result after he had pressed enough lit-up keys was a tune. Until six months ago the xylophone had known a variety of tunes, but something had happened to the wiring and the only tune it seemed to know nowadays was “The Happy Farmer.”
For the last half hour the child had shown no awareness at all of Leigh or the fairy tale, but he seemed to realize she’d stopped reading. He turned his head and at last she had his attention.
“Can you guess what the king saw?” Leigh said.
The child gazed up at her, his hair spilling out around his head like a frazzled black helmet.
“Do you think the king saw the blackbird?”
The child screwed up his face.
“Do you think the king saw the gazelle?”
The child was thoughtful.
“Then what did the king see? I bet you already know.”
The child shook his head.
“Yes, you do know,” Leigh said. “That’s why you’re smiling.”
“I’m not smiling,” the child said.
Leigh’s heart gave a jump inside her chest. He’d said an entire sentence. He hadn’t said an entire sentence for how long now—almost two weeks. “Oh, yes, you are smiling. I can see the smile right there.” She reached out and touched the corner of his mouth.
He burst into giggles.
She opened the picture book again. “The king went into the garden the next morning, and he saw that the snow had vanished and all the queen’s—” She peeked around the edge of the book. “And all the queen’s what?”
“Roses!” the child shouted.
Leigh stretched the moment. She peered into the book with a baffled look, then back at the child with a disappointed look, then back at the book. “You’re right!”
Something skimmed across the child’s face, and he opened his mouth and let out a high, wild, rippling laugh.