"Amy…"
"Please."
"Amy?"
"What?"
"Amy… don't cry."
"I'm not crying."
"Please, honey."
"I'm… not, Daddy."
"I'll call her. Only please don't…"
"Daddy, you don't have to. I know you really…"
"Now stop crying, Amy. Please."
"I'm sorry, Daddy."
"Amy?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine."
"I'll call her."
"Thank you."
"How's… how's everything there at the school?"
"Fine."
"Everything okay?"
"Yes. I got an eight on a Latin test — that's eighty, you know. And we…"
"Yes, I know."
"… won a soccer game against St. Agnes."
"Honey, what time will you be coming in? On Friday, I mean."
"Well, we usually get to Penn Station at about six."
"Would you like me to meet you?"
"Oh, could you, Daddy? I'd love it. Hey, I bought something very nice for you in New Hope."
"I'll be there. Six o'clock Friday, Penn Station."
"Daddy, if the train's late…"
"I'll wait, don't worry. I miss you, Amy."
"Yes."
"Well…"
"You'll call Mother, too, won't you?"
"Sure, honey."
"Thank you."
"I'd better say goodbye now. I've got some people waiting."
"Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
"Who's this?"
"Sidney."
"Who?"
"Sidney. Your son."
"Oh, Sidney, Sidney! I thought you said Shirley."
"No, I said Sidney."
"I was wondering how a Shirley could have such a deep voice."
"Yes, well, it's me, Pop."
"What's the matter? You're not coming?"
"No, I'll be there."
"Good. I found some nice things for you, Sidney."
"Oh. Fine."
"I'll show you tomorrow, when I see you."
"Okay. Fine."
"You're coming, aren't you?"
"Yes, certainly. I said I was. Have I ever missed a Thursday."
"Well, I know you have a trial."
"No. I'll be there, don't worry."
"Six o'clock?"
"Six o'clock."
"Some nice things, Sidney."
"What is it? I have a headache."
"I just talked to Amy, and—"
"What does she want this time?"
"Apparently she saw an item about you in—"
"That's true, I was drunk."
"Christie.
"Anything else?"
"Nothing except she was concerned enough to call you three times last week…"
"I haven't been home."
"… and then finally call me in desperation. Now look, Christie, your life is your life…"
"Here it comes."
"… and I don't give a damn what you do with it…"
"But our daughter is our daughter."
"Yes."
"I am fully aware of my responsibility to Amy."
"Then why haven't you written to her?"
"I wrote to her last Tuesday."
"She said she hasn't heard from you in weeks."
"She's lying."
"Amy doesn't lie."
"That's true, I forgot that Amy is a paragon who doesn't lie, cheat, steal, swear, smoke, screw, or—"
"Christie…"
"Christie…"
"Christie, you've…"
"Christie, you've…"
"Christie, you've got a twelve-year-old…"
"… twelve-year-old…"
"… daughter two hundred miles away from home…"
"… away from…"
"Damn you, Christie, cut it out!"
"Jonah?"
"What?"
"Go to hell, Jonah."
"Did you know she'll be coming home Friday?"
"Yes, I knew."
"I told here I'd pick her up at the station. Is that all right?"
"That's fine."
"In the meantime, you might call to let her know you're alive."
"All right, I will. Is that all?"
"That's all."
"Goodbye."
Dris is right, Ebie thought. Nothing in that courtroom is real, it can't be. All of them have their own ideas, the truth is only what they want to believe. Even the judge, even he doesn't know what's real, and he's the one who's supposed to decide. How can he? Does he know what the book is about? None of them do. So how can any of it be real, the courtroom, the conversation here at this table, how can any of it be the slightest bit real?
"I don't think I get you," Jonah said.
"There's no reality in that courtroom," Driscoll answered. "There can't be."
"It seems real enough to me each day," Jonah said. "What do you think, Mrs. Driscoll?"
"I think it's real enough," Ebie answered.
"Anyway, the reality is that you didn't steal his play," Jonah said. "And the further reality is that it's a bad play, and no one would have wanted to steal it."
"Who says it's bad?"
"Jimmy, there's no question about it."
"You mean the critics said it was bad, and the movie companies, and the editorial expert, Chester Danton, right?"
"That's right."
"So that makes it a bad play."
"I would say so."
"Constantine doesn't think so."
"Constantine is mistaken."
"Yes, and the man who produced it was mistaken, too, because he obviously thought it was a good play. And the actors who agreed to play it, they were mistaken as well because they thought it was good. Everyone involved in it was apparently mistaken because the critics came to see it and said it was bad. Tell me something, Jonah. If the Honorable Frank H. McIntyre decides I stole Constantine's play, will that suddenly make it good?"
"You didn't steal it."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Constantine is a bad writer who wrote a bad play. Whatever McIntyre decides, it will still be a bad play. There's your reality, Jimmy."
Reality, she thought.
My first year in New York was real, the school and the small apartment I took on Myrtle Avenue, the elevated trains roaring past the window. And after that, and before I knew James Driscoll existed, reality was a boy named Donald Forbes, who limped. I'm a cripple, he said, okay? You're not a cripple, I insisted. No? Then what? I drag my leg, I limp, I'm a cripple, don't lie to me, Ebie, I'm a goddamn cripple. Holding him in my arms while he wept. He was not a good-looking boy, he reminded me of Phillip Armstrong whose nose had been too long ("I used to have this little turned-up button nose, but I had an operation done to make it long and ugly") and who was always coming down with a cold or something. Donald was that way, thin and looking like one of the hundred neediest, with large pleading Keane eyes. He took to carrying a cane in January because there was such a heavy snow that year, he said. That was just before I began sleeping with him.
"… real or otherwise, that's my point."
"You may be giving him more credit than he's due. I'm still not sure he really thinks you stole it."
"Then why did he bring suit?"
"There's a lot of money involved here, Jimmy."
"There's more than just money involved here. Constantine thinks I stole something that is very valuable to him, no matter what anyone else says about it. He wants credit for his work."
"No. He wants credit for your work."
"What makes my work any better than his?"
"Jimmy, this is a foolish argument. You know The Paper Dragon is far superior to Catchpole. Now why…?"