“I see,” I said again, this time without even pretending I had a point.
That’s when I realized my mind was completely blank.
I was standing in front of a silent room. I started to hear the rustling of people shifting in their seats. I didn’t dare look up at Bernini. A few uncomfortable coughs in the crowd…
I stalled.
“Just a moment, please, Your Honors.”
I walked back to our table and stood over it, pretending to flip through my notes. Daphne leaned over. “What the fuck are you doing?” she hissed in my ear. I nodded thoughtfully for the jury, as if she were giving me priceless information. “Listen to me very carefully,” she whispered. “You are not going to fuck this up for me. What’s the matter,” she jeered, “you can’t cross-examine a girl? You think she can’t take it? Don’t insult her and don’t insult me. You need to grow a pair of balls.” I pretended to jot something down, but really I just wrote Fuck and underlined it.
I stepped back from the table.
“You’re appearing here on behalf of the defense, aren’t you, Dr. Casey?”
I tried to make Doctor sound like a dirty word.
“Yes.”
“And they are paying you for your testimony, aren’t they?”
“No, sir. I’m being paid for my time. My testimony is my own.”
Damn it. It was an old trick, and she dodged it perfectly. Nigel and John had prepped her well. Damn them too.
I looked at Sarah on the stand. I didn’t want to hurt her. She’d trusted me. I liked her. Maybe more than like.
I don’t want to do this, I thought. I won’t do this.
I could see it now. It was a dead heat. All those weeks of sleepless nights, endless motions, skipped meals, nightmares, sneaking into the men’s room to puke my nerves away. I hadn’t talked to my parents in a month. I hadn’t gone on a date, seen a movie, had a beer. I was so sure that this was the way to the V &D-to success beyond my wildest dreams-that I hadn’t studied for my classes or even attended them. God help me if I had to rely on those grades! I had all my eggs in this one basket. This case. I couldn’t lose. Not to mention Daphne, who hadn’t laid a hand on me since that night outside my dorm room. Goddamn her lips! My career, my future, my life. The whole damn thing hung in the balance.
I don’t want to do this.
On the stand, Sarah looked relaxed now, calm. She caught my eye, and there was a hint of a smile-a shared secret. She’d already decided I wasn’t going to hurt her. It was almost smug when you thought about it. So confident in her power over me-that I would throw away my life, my future, everything-to cover up for her lie.
Who did she think she was?
I felt a shock of guilt, or pain-that voice saying Please, I don’t want to hurt her-but somehow it lost out to other dreams and urges.
I made a decision.
“Dr. Casey, you are appearing as an expert witness, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And this jury is trusting your opinion because of your credentials, right?”
Suddenly she seemed wary.
“Yes.”
She looked at me hard, searching.
“You are a neurosurgery resident in the top program in the country. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Getting this position, it shows you had top grades in medical school, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And all of this-your grades, your position in a top residency-all of this is the basis for your expertise here today, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered, looking at me desperately, trying not to reveal anything, begging me with her eyes.
“And that’s not all. Your honesty. Isn’t that part of your expertise here today? The jury can trust what you say because you are an honest person?”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes starting to well up, perceptible only to me, standing so close.
I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath.
Daphne was swept up in my new rhythm. She looked curious, excited. I found my own righteous anger and turned back to the witness.
No going back.
“Dr. Casey, isn’t it true that your application to this program contained serious misrepresentations about your abilities and accomplishments in medical school?”
John and Nigel erupted.
They had no idea where I was going, but they let out a string of objections.
“Yes or no?” I pressed.
Sarah froze, stunned.
“Yes or no, Dr. Casey? Why are you hesitating?”
She shook her head no.
“Dr. Casey,” I said, the word doctor now sounding absolutely pornographic, “did you or did you not allow your father to cover up numerous failed classes during your medical school education?”
“I don’t have to put up with… this isn’t real.”
Her lips were trembling.
“Yes or no, Dr. Casey?”
No answer.
“YES OR NO?”
Her face started to break.
“Did you or did you not get this prestigious residency as a result of lies and cover-ups?”
“Yes,” she said softly, her voice cracking.
“Did you allow this cover-up to occur?”
“Yes,” she repeated, now sobbing.
“Did you go from interview to interview, passing yourself off as something you are not-to get a job you did not deserve?”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The objections were raining down now, washing over me.
I didn’t pay attention.
I didn’t even listen for her last answer.
The damage was done. The witness was toast.
I sat back down at our table. Daphne gave me a look of such pride it was almost lustful.
I heard Sarah’s steps as she left the courtroom. But I couldn’t find the courage-not even for a single second-to look up and watch her go.
13
We won. That’s what the head juror announced, holding a sheet of paper. The judges critiqued our performances, but I can’t remember a word they said. I just kept repeating the phrase-part cheer, part question-over and over in my head: we won, we won, we won.
The sun was nearly down, the courtroom filled with purple light. The judges were gone. Most of the crowd had gone home.
“Let’s go celebrate,” Daphne said.
“Sure. Hang on a second.”
I walked toward John and Nigel. “Where are you going?” she called after me.
They were still sitting at their table. John was staring at his notes. Nigel looked ahead blankly, like a kid who has just learned his dog died.
“Come on,” I said to them. “We’re going out.”
They looked at me like I was crazy.
“I’m serious. We’re going out. It’s over. We’ve been killing ourselves for a month. Come on. I’m buying.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Nigel said.
“I don’t care. I’m buying us a round of drinks. After that, you can leave if you want. You owe me that much.”
I wasn’t taking no for an answer. Somehow I bullied them into joining us at The Idle Rich. Mostly, I think they were numb. The four of us sat around an oak table with the rapport of funeral directors, until the second round of drinks, when things loosened up a bit.
“Something about this place,” I said. “It’s corrosive, isn’t it? When did we get so serious?”
“You didn’t have fun destroying our case?” Nigel asked. His tone was only halfway bitter, a major improvement over the last hour.
“How did you know that about our witness?” John asked, shaking his head. We hadn’t met each other’s experts before the trial. We hadn’t even known their names. He must have been baffled.
“I know her,” I said. “We met on campus.”
“Lucky her,” Nigel said dryly.