Hanging on a String Read online

  I walked away quickly before Nina could ask me any more questions.

  Dinner at my parents’ apartment was usually a stressful affair. Dinner at my parents’ apartment when there was drama surrounding either Thea or me became an exercise in dodging verbal grenades, usually lobbed by my mother. She didn’t mean to be difficult; it just came naturally to her. My mother had summoned both Thea and me to her apartment for dinner. At first, I’d tried to get out of it, citing an unreasonable caseload and an impending trial, but my mother could not be moved. “I expect you here at eight o’clock sharp,” she’d said. “Your sister is coming, too.” I knew that my mother was beside herself with worry about Thea’s marriage, but I didn’t want to be dragged into what I was certain was going to be a prelude to all-out war. My mother was not going to go quietly. I just prayed that cooler heads, namely, Dad’s, would prevail.

  My parents had lived in their prewar apartment on Riverside Drive for over thirty years. The apartment, which had an unparalleled view of the Hudson River, occupied one of the corners of the fifteenth floor. A rarity in the New York housing market, the apartment was roomy, with four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a formal dining room, living room, and separate library. My favorite room in the apartment was the huge, sunny yellow painted kitchen, which was filled with pots and pans, flowerpots jammed with flowers, and my mother’s latest state-of-the-art kitchen appliances. My mother was an accomplished cook, and no matter how hard she worked, whenever I came home, there was always something delicious smelling cooking in her kitchen.

  We sat in the kitchen, my mother, Thea, and I. My father and Reese had been banished to the living room. From the time I walked into the apartment, the atmosphere was tense. I was pleased to see that even though Thea was sad, she was holding her own against my mother, which was no small feat.

  “One divorce in this family is enough,” my mother said as she sprinkled crushed garlic into the sauce she was cooking. “Jasmine, hand me the pepper over there.”

  I did as I was told, but I also spoke up for my sister.

  “Mom, if Thea wants to divorce Brooks, then we ought to support her.”

  Thea mouthed a silent thank-you in my direction.

  “But why?” my mother railed. “She has no proof that Brooks was carrying on an affair ... and she’s got to think about Reese. What’s going to happen to him if Thea leaves her husband?”

  Thea spoke up. “Reese will be fine, and so will I.”

  My mother shook her head. “I don’t know. I was watching one of those talk shows ... you know, with the kids piercing all sorts of body parts that don’t need to be pierced, looking like cannibals ... and most of those kids came from divorced homes.”

  “Mom, don’t be ridiculous,” I said. I couldn’t believe this was the same logical attorney who graduated at the top of her class. She sounded like someone who’d lost the ability to be rational, although I wasn’t crazy enough to tell her that. “There are plenty of sociopaths that came from two-parent homes.”

  “That’s not the point,” my mother said, immediately abandoning her bad argument. “I know that sometimes even kids from the best of homes turn out to be juvenile delinquents, but Reese needs both of his parents.”

  Thea sighed. “He’ll have both of his parents. He just won’t have us living in the same house.”

  My mother started stirring the sauce vigorously. “This will devastate Reese.”

  “He looks like he’s doing okay to me,” I said. “It’s tough, I’m sure, but Reese has a lot of support. We’ll be here to support him.”

  My mother glared at me. “When you have children, then you can talk about what’s good for my grandchild.”

  Thea walked over to the windowsill and sat down. For the first time, I noticed how thin she’d become. She’d always been svelte (while I was described as the big-boned sister), but now she looked downright emaciated.

  “Mom, I know that divorce isn’t an ideal situation for Reese. It’s not an ideal situation for me, either. I still love him,” Thea said.

  My mother stopped stirring her sauce. “Then why on earth are you divorcing him?”

  “Because he cheated on me,” Thea replied.

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Mom replied. “You won’t even talk to him. You won’t even hear his side of the story.”

  There was a pause before Thea asked, “Mom, did Brooks call you?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What did he say?” Thea asked.

  “He said that he loved you. He said that he loved Reese. He said that he’d made a big mistake, but he doesn’t want to lose his family.”

  “And that doesn’t sound like an admission of adultery?” I asked my mother.

  “Well,” said my mother, “I’ll admit it doesn’t sound too good, but Thea should at least listen to him. We don’t know for sure that he cheated on her.”

  “Excuse me,” Thea said, clearing her throat. “I’m still in the room, you two. Remember me?”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. I swear, I get around my mother, and before I know it, I start acting just like her. Lord help me!

  “Thea,” my mother continued, “you have to make sure that your husband actually did cheat on you before you leave him. Just talk to him!”

  “Why?” Thea cried. “He hasn’t touched me in months. He’s supposedly been working late. He doesn’t answer his cell phone when I call. He’s distant and moody. And I found a letter from a woman suggesting they get married.”

  I sat down next to my sister on the windowsill. “Hell, let me call a lawyer for you. He’s a mother—”

  “Jasmine, we can do without your profanity tonight. Your sister has enough to deal with.” My mother poured the sauce over her seasoned chicken cutlets, which were simmering in a frying pan.

  I shook my head, puzzled. “Mom, what would you do if Dad cheated on you?”

  “I’d divorce his ass in a heartbeat.”

  “Mom!” Thea and I gasped in unison. We’d never heard our oh-so-proper mother use that kind of language, ever.

  “But what I would do and what Thea should do are two different things,” my mother continued, as she kept a watchful eye on her chicken.

  “Come again?” I asked.

  “I am a hard woman. I can live without a man. Thea needs Brooks,” said my mother.

  Thea stood up. “I love Brooks,” she said. “But I don’t need him. I work every day, and I pay my own bills. As a schoolteacher, I might not make as much as you and Jasmine, but I can take care of myself and my son, thank you very much.”

  My mother’s voice softened. “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Thea didn’t back down. “Yes, you did. You meant every word.”

  “Thea, I know you’re a bright, accomplished woman,” my mother said. “But you’re not like me and Jasmine.”

  “Don’t put me in this,” I called out.

  My mother continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Jasmine’s a lot like me. She plows through life regardless of the consequences.”

  I had never considered myself having anything in common with my mother. And the way she constantly criticized me, I didn’t think mother had, either. I wasn’t sure that I exactly liked this description of myself.

  “But you’re like your father. You’re good and kind. People like you get hurt if they don’t have people like me and Jasmine to watch out for them.”

  “Mom,” said Thea in a remarkably calm voice, although her eyes were blazing, “I respectfully have to say that you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Thea, there’s no need to talk to me that way,” my mother said in an injured tone.

  “And there’s no need to talk to me like I’m a three-year-old. I just caught my husband cheating on me. I can’t live with a man I can’t trust. Do you think I want Reese to grow up seeing me take that kind of treatment?”

  My mother shook her head.

  “I’ve got to do this, Mom. I know you don’t want
to see me hurt, but I’ll hurt a lot more if I stay with Brooks.”

  For once my mother had nothing to say. Somebody take a picture; somebody take a picture.

  “We understand,” I said.

  My mother heaved a large sigh. “Just talk to him, baby. Even if you decide to divorce him, you can’t walk out on a marriage without first talking to the man.”

  I went home later that evening, feeling vaguely melancholy. My sister’s marriage had been the one union, with the exception of my parents’ marriage, that I was convinced was indestructible. I couldn’t imagine Brooks could have ever cheated on my sister. What on earth was wrong with him? Thea was a great catch and not just because she was my sister. She was loyal, smart, and drop-dead beautiful. What more could a man want? Were they ever satisfied with anything?

  Thea and Reese stayed over at my parents’ apartment. My mother had managed to salvage the rest of the evening by cooking an incredible dinner and by refraining from any discussion about Brooks or divorce. I think that Thea was beginning to feel claustrophobic in my tiny garden apartment, but she’d promised to return to my home the following day.

  I poured myself a glass of chilled Vouvray wine and sat down on my couch. I loved my living room. I gazed through the French doors at the little garden, with tiny white lights in the trees, which my landlady turned on every night. Typically, the sight of those white lights on the trees cheered me up, but as I sat listening to a Sarah Vaughan CD, my melancholy mood deepened. Brooks’s cheating had brought back some bad memories of my ex-husband. I didn’t wish the savage aftereffects of infidelity on my worst enemy, and I hated that my sister had to go through the pain, with which I was intimately acquainted.

  The telephone rang, and I debated answering it. In the end, I picked it up on the fourth ring, just before my answering machine clicked on.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “Jasmine, I’m sorry to call so late.”

  It was Marcus Claremont, and I was ashamed to say that while I didn’t exactly burst into giddy laughter, my mood did elevate somewhat.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  “Oh, I can think of about a million or so ways to answer that question.”

  That caught me off guard. I cleared my throat, which had suddenly grown increasingly tight. I didn’t realize until I looked down at my hands that they were fisted in the material of my pajama bottoms. I consciously loosened my grip. I took a sip of wine in my dry mouth and ended up choking on it.

  “Marcus, are you flirting with me?” The wine was making my tongue loose.

  I was immediately rewarded by a deep chuckle. “As much as I would enjoy flirting with you, Jasmine, this is a business call.”

  Disappointment brought me sharply back to reality.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I can’t really talk about it now, but can we meet tomorrow? I’ll explain everything then.”

  We agreed to meet the next day at three o’clock. Before he hung up the phone, Marcus asked me, “So ... what are you wearing?”

  I couldn’t help myself. I burst into laughter. “Good-bye, Detective.”

  “Wait!” he said before I hung up the telephone. “Really, what are you wearing?”

  “Do you really want to know?” I asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’m wearing sweatpants, an old Columbia Law T-shirt, and pink bunny slippers.”

  Sad to say, it was the truth.

  “Those pink bunny slippers are a definite turn on,” Marcus responded. “Think I’ll ever get a chance to see them sometime?”

  “If you’re lucky,” I replied before hanging up the telephone.

  As I sipped my wine, I thought about Marcus. I was starting to be intrigued. Very intrigued.

  10

  The next morning I awoke exactly an hour later than I had planned to. Either my alarm clock had failed to do its job or, more likely, I had slept through the noise. I tried to call Lamarr both on his cell phone and his home phone, but I didn’t get an answer. I called work to see if he had come in yet. It was only eight thirty, but Lamarr was known to get an early start to the day. The receptionist hadn’t seen him, but she cheerfully informed me that she’d let him know I called.

  I placed the telephone receiver back in the cradle and got out of bed. I was going to have to hustle to get to the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in time. Luck, in the form of a taxi on Lenox Avenue, was on my side, and I made it from Harlem to Brooklyn with seven minutes to spare before my conference started.

  “All rise!”

  Judge Ishmael Lawrence did not like me, and the feeling was mutual. One of the few African American judges on the federal bench, Judge Lawrence went out of his way to prove he held no favoritism toward members of his own race; in fact, he was more likely to give you a hard time if you looked like him. Consequently, in the five years I’d been appearing before him, he’d seemed to live for the sole purpose of giving me hell. Dahlia would say I was just being paranoid and a bit too self-involved when I would tell her the judge was out to get me. “I think his Honor has a lot of other things on his mind than how to make Jasmine Spain’s life miserable,” she would say gently. But I remained unconvinced. In my mind, Judge Lawrence wouldn’t rest until he had run me out of the profession.

  I took a deep breath and waited for the onslaught to begin. Judge Lawrence walked slowly to the bench, as if he were savoring every step to his throne. He was a large man, well over six feet, and it was rumored he was pushing three hundred pounds. The black robe covered a lot of the evidence, and so did the always dark, well-tailored suits he wore when he was not on the bench. He had once been a good-looking man, but the years had not been kind to him. He had a large head, which seemed to sit on his shoulders, without the benefit of a neck. This gave him a very disconcerting appearance.

  His features had been distorted by the passing years, his love of good food and good wine, and all the evil he had accomplished. A nose that was too large for the face competed with puffy cheeks and small dark eyes, which darted around the courtroom constantly, no matter what he was doing. He wore glasses, which were always pushed down to the tip of his nose, but which, miraculously, never fell off his face, no matter how vigorously he shook his head while he was belittling counsel, the client, the defendant, or his law clerk. The only person who escaped Judge Lawrence’s wrath was Mario, Judge Lawrence’s docket clerk. A short Italian man who was as thin as Judge Lawrence was fat, but who shared the same joy in being mean-spirited, Mario was feared almost as much as the judge because of his great influence over Judge Lawrence.

  The courtroom was mercifully free of the usual spectators, who were law students, retirees, or people who actually found the judicial process entertaining. Whenever I appeared before Judge Lawrence, the results were never pleasant, but at least there was no audience, except for my client, and the opposing counsel and his client, to witness whatever condemnation Judge Lawrence saw fit to heap on me. Usually, no matter how mean Judge Lawrence was, he would inevitably rule in my favor. Apparently, he just believed in giving me a hard time. Besides, I did not respect him. While he was unquestionably a brilliant legal scholar, the man had no heart, and therefore, in my opinion, he couldn’t be a good judge. Still, recent events had left me feeling out of sorts, at the very least, and I was just not up to the inevitable verbal sparring with Judge Lawrence.

  Like the man himself, Judge Lawrence’s courtroom left much to be desired. His courtroom was small compared to those of the other judges. Each time I entered his courtroom, it seemed as if the walls were coming closer together. The walls were crammed with portraits of former judges, long dead. The judge seemed to take great pride in those pictures, and I had caught him on several occasions staring fondly at the faces of these dead judges instead of listening to my oral argument. The rest of the courtroom was equally undistinguished. The judge’s seat, the witness seat, as well as the jury box were all made out of the same pale oak, which at one time mi
ght have looked smart, but now looked worn and dull. Above the judge’s seat was a plaque with Latin words, which I could not decipher.

  I heard my client clear his throat nervously for the third time in a row. The owner of a chain of food stores who was being sued personally for sexual harassment, my client seemed overwhelmed at finding himself in Judge Lawrence’s dreary courtroom. He fidgeted nervously by my side. It was his first foray into the world of courtrooms and judges, and the whole experience was, as he put it shortly before we walked into the courtroom together, “nauseating.” There were times, I must confess, I was inclined to agree.

  I glanced over at the opposing counsel, an affable fellow with dollar signs in his eyes. He had immediately dismissed me after meeting me as being an unworthy adversary. I was not offended. I was used to the look that dismissed a young female attorney. The look that clearly meant that a black female could not possibly be a good lawyer. At first, this attitude had bothered me, but I had later learned to use this to my advantage, and although my mother has always told me pride is a sin, I am happy to report this young female attorney has never lost a trial. Either my case is settled favorably for my client, or I win at the trial level. I knew the day would come when my streak would be broken, but looking at my cocky, self-assured opposing counsel, I felt confident that my winning streak would continue, at least where this case was concerned.

  “Mr. McDowell, where is your client?” Judge Lawrence’s voice thundered through the courtroom. He sat down and waited for a response. One bushy eyebrow was cocked, as if to say “well?”

  My opponent was taken aback. “Y-your Honor,” he stammered. “As this is an initial conference, I assumed my client’s presence wouldn’t be necessary. Your Honor, she just started a new job, and she found it difficult to take the time off... .”

  Judge Lawrence’s bushy eyebrow rose even higher, edging toward his scalp. “Are you telling me, Mr. McDowell, that your client’s career choice takes precedence over the rules of this court?”