CASEY WOKE TO THE SOUND OF HER CELL PHONE RISING ABOVE the alarm she'd been too lazy to shut off. She cleared her throat and coughed, picked it up, and answered.
"Where are you?" Stacy asked.
Casey swatted the clock radio into silence, woefully eyeing the bottle of sleeping pills on the nightstand. She widened her eyes, worked her jaw, and wagged her head to clear the ill effect of the pills.
"I'm coming," she said, clearing her throat again.
"You sound like shit," Stacy said.
"I feel great, though," she said.
"Sorry."
"You saw that last night?" Casey asked.
"How's Jose?"
"I better get going here," Casey said.
"The TV trucks got here before me. I showed them where to set up."
"How do they look, the reporters?" Casey asked.
"Hungry, I guess."
"Good. They're about to get fed," Casey said, then hung up.
A cold shower cut through the fog of the sleeping pill. She dressed quickly, gulped down a glass of tomato juice, and hurried out the door with her briefcase tucked beneath her arm.
She darted in and out of the morning traffic, which was thinning now with the lateness of the hour, until she found herself in front of the courthouse with a pounding headache. TV trucks jammed the drive with more than just the local news and she pulled up her Mercedes behind one of them like just another reporter risking a ticket and a tow. She found three Advils in her purse, swallowed them dry, and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. She got out into a sun standing well above the horizon, too bright and too hot to look at.
Stacy appeared beside her wearing a new dress and high heels that made Casey stare.
"I figured," Stacy said, looking down at herself, "TV and everything."
Casey nodded. "Thanks for coming."
Although there was no press podium for her, the media had coagulated around the usual spot on the granite steps, in the shadows of the main entrance, where lawyers, jurors, and families of the accused hurried to and fro to receive their portion of justice. Among the media, she thought she detected mic flags from CNN, E!, and Access Hollywood. Casey breathed deep and fiddled with her hair, tucking it in and out from behind her ears as her own mind wavered between images of a powerful, meticulous lawyer and of a sympathetic woman unjustly accused. As she stepped to the spot in front of all the lights, cameras, and microphones, she went with both, one side of her red hair pinned back behind her ear, the other falling loose across the edge of her cheek and jaw.
She set her briefcase down on the steps, extracting her five-page statement with trembling hands. After the blazing morning heat, the deep shadow of the courthouse tower sent a chill down her spine. She forced a smile at the reporters, thanked them for coming, and began to read.
Somewhere in the midst of her denials and pointed counteraccusations, she began to wish she'd postponed speaking to the press. Her consternation over Jose, a bad night's sleep, and a hangover from the sleeping pill left her feeling nauseated and less than sharp mentally. Not knowing how to go back, though, she plowed through to the end, thinking she could make a quick exit before she threw up.
But when she finished her statement and the questions came zipping at her like traffic on a busy highway, her legs seized up.
"Are you saying that your history of mental illness isn't connected with these wild allegations?"
Wham.
She scowled, searching for the source of the question.
"That is a lie," she said, gritting her teeth, knowing she shouldn't even address it, knowing she should just leave, but somehow unable to keep her mouth shut. "I have no mental illness."
"We've seen your date book from two years ago," said a bleached blonde in a red skirt and jacket, pointing at Casey with a microphone. "You saw a Dr. Eppilito over a dozen times. The psychotherapist. Are you saying you have no mental problems?"
Casey sighed, smiled wanly, and asked, "Who doesn't have problems? My marriage was a train wreck. A former client tried to kill me."
"And you took antipsychotic drugs for your mental illness?"
"What's wrong with you people?" Casey barked, even while the lawyer in her shouted to walk away. "A man was murdered. They cremated his body to destroy the evidence. The US government deported his wife and baby to cover it up, and you want to know about a couple Xanax I took two years ago?"
Cameras flashed and clicked and the reporters began to jostle one another, undulating like a polluted sea, their questions coming like breakers, jumbled together and smashing into her. Gangs. Drug deals. Movie contracts. Corruption. Dirty cops. Murderesses. Madness. Sex. They hit her with everything, until, finally, her stomach heaved. She snatched up her briefcase, choking back the bile, and vacated the steps.
They followed her in a pack, snapping at her with insistent and outrageous questions and accusations. Stacy locked an arm into Casey's and acted as buffer, escorting her down the steps with a stiff back, jutting out her chin and glowering. At the bottom of the steps, the young bleached blonde in the red skirt and heels darted in front of them, microphone first.
"Are you going to return the money you've taken from charity?" she said, her blue eyes bulging and spittle flying from her cherry lips.
The foam bulb on the end of the microphone bumped Casey's nose hard enough to make her eyes water.
"Are you!" the reporter yelled.
Casey grabbed the microphone and yanked it. The reporter held tight, crashing into Casey and careening off of the elbow Stacy fired into her ribs. The reporter sprawled to the pavement, her long legs akimbo. She screamed, but gripped the microphone with both hands and stabbed it at Casey.
Casey knocked the mic aside, stepped over the woman reporter, and marched on toward her car. The pack closed in and the tirade of questions, now indignant and angry, cascaded down on her and Stacy.
"Fucking animals," Stacy said with her arm across her face.
Casey jerked open the car door and looked up at the mob.
"This shitbox is my Mercedes!"
She threw herself inside, and crawled away through the swarm with her full weight on the car's horn.