3. Janet
JANET
"You said Mr. Willis was in the office with you until nine pm."
Diane Ashford sits in the witness box with her hands folded too neatly in her lap.
"That's right. About that time.”
"Working on what, exactly?"
"The Hendricks account. We were completing projections before the board meeting."
"Just the two of you?"
"Our assistant was in and out."
I let that sit for a moment, then change direction completely.
"Ms. Ashford, you made purchases from the James Parson boutique on Madison Avenue and Sixty-Third Street."
"Yes, I have."
"And do you own a James Parson ivory slip?"
Something flickers behind her eyes, gone almost before it arrives. "I might. I don't recall every piece of clothing I own."
"This one's distinctive enough most women would recall it." I let the silence hold a beat. "Would it surprise you to learn that exact piece was found in your apartment?"
"I have a lot of lingerie."
"There's no record of you ever purchasing that piece."
"Maybe I paid cash for that item. Sometimes I do."
"Maybe you did. Let's see. I checked your credit card statements.
Last month you bought thirty-four items under twenty dollars on your credit card, but you paid cash for a two-hundred-dollar slip at James Parson's boutique.
You haven't taken money from the ATM in over six months.
But sometimes you pay cash. Is that what you want us to believe? "
"Sometimes."
"Your Honor, my client answered the question. Is there anything else?"
"Yes, Mr. Willis purchased that same item."
"Maybe it was for his wife," she says.
"She doesn't have it. But you do," I say.
"Objection, Your Honor."
"Is there anything else, Ms. Graham?" the judge says.
"One last thing. How much cash do you have on you right now?"
"I don't know."
"We can check. More than a hundred?"
"No."
"Over fifty?"
"About forty dollars," she says.
"Forty dollars. Not three hundred." I let that sit a second.
"Am I done?"
"Were you having an affair with Tom Willis?"
"How dare you?"
"Doesn't answer that question."
"No."
"But he bought you very fancy underwear?"
"Objection, Your Honor, please?"
"I'm done, Your Honor." I sit down. My hands are steady. My pulse is not.
"Nicely done," Peter says afterward in the hallway, grinning like I handed him something expensive. "Cash and credit card statements."
"I kind of feel bad for her. Her husband was there."
"She did this to herself." He squeezes my shoulder, already half-turned to head into courtroom five.
I'm still riding that current later that evening when I stop at the supermarket on my way home. I need milk. There he is, in a dark blue tailored suit that fits the V of his back perfectly, grabbing a box of Captain Crunch cereal.
I don't move.
He turns to me.
"Janet."
"Hi."
"Hi," I say.
"How was the chicken?"
"Good. Are you new to the neighborhood?"
"No, but I've been having meetings around the corner this week. I own a bar slash lounge downtown. Looking at a second location. You should come by for a drink sometime?"
He hands me his card.
I take it. Nocturne Lounge.
"Or I could take you to dinner now?" He's looking right into my eyes.
"I'll take door number three."
"Wow, that's really forward of you. I suggest we slow down and start with a drink."
"I will pass." I look at his chest; it’s hard not to.
"I'm in trouble. That's strike two."
"I have to get going."
He doesn't move to stop me, doesn't reach for anything. "I'll see you around, Janet."
I walk away straighter than normal, sensing his eyes on my back.
I leave before I can look back.
My apartment is messy. It gets that way during an intense trial. All the clothes I tried on for court this morning.
I don't clean it.
One glass of wine turns into half a bottle while I sit cross-legged on my couch, case file open on my lap, none of the words landing. I read the same paragraph four times. I give up and close the laptop.
The apartment is too quiet. It's been too quiet for six years, but tonight the quiet has a shape to it.
I go to bed too early. I lie on top of the covers in an old t-shirt, staring at the ceiling, and I let myself think about him for one second. Just one.
It isn't one second.
The way he looked at me, like he could read the whole win off my skin. His hands — big, steady, the hands that would take their time even when nothing else about him is slow. I think about what he'd do if he had me alone.
My hand moves before I decide to let it.
I tell myself I'll stop. I don't stop.
I imagine his hand sliding into my hair, tilting my head back, that low voice saying my name the way he said it earlier — like he was deciding he liked it.
My fingers find the elastic of my underwear and slide beneath it.
I'm already wet. Embarrassingly, achingly wet.
He backs me against the cool marble wall, his mouth on my neck instead of words. I picture the scrape of his jaw, the weight of him pressing the breath out of me. I circle slowly, then faster, my hips lifting off the mattress to meet a hand that isn't his.
Janet, he says in my head, low and certain, the same way he said it tonight.
I imagine his fingers instead of mine. Two of them, sliding into me while his thumb works slow circles, while he watches my face like he's seen nothing he wanted more.
My back arches. My breath goes ragged in the dark of my bedroom.
I haven't done this in years. I have wanted no one enough to bother.
I picture him lifting me, my legs wrapping around him, his name turning into a sound instead of a word in my mouth. My fingers move faster, desperate now, chasing something I gave up expecting to feel again.
When I come, it's his name I almost say out loud. I catch it behind my teeth at the last second, but only just.
After I lie there in the dark, heart slamming, skin damp, undone by a man I have met twice for a combined total of ten minutes.
Three days later, I'm on the subway to a Broadway show with Rosemary. She got the tickets for my birthday. It's a show I've been dying to see.
We dressed up. I'm in a tight black skirt and a low-cut top that makes me feel bolder than I am, all long legs. Rosemary's dark curls are pinned back in that careless way that looks accidental and absolutely isn't.
"You want Peter to move you up?" I say. "Stop waiting for him to notice you."
Rosemary looks at me.
"You ask for the juicy cases. The ones with cameras outside the courthouse. The ones everybody's afraid to lose. You win one of those, suddenly people are like, 'Oh, there she is. You're the woman they need in the room where it happens.'"
She smiles a little. "It's not that easy?"
"No, it's not," I say. "That's why it works. You want a bigger office, a better title, put your name on the cases that matter. Fight for it. Nobody hands women like us power because we were patient."
I almost didn't recognize him at first — another tailored suit, charcoal this time. Headphones in, scrolling through something on his phone like a man with somewhere important to be. He looks up, finds me across the car.
I nod.
"Who is that?" Rosemary asks.
"Some guy from my supermarket."
"That guy doesn't work at the supermarket."
"No, not work there, shops there."
"He's hot, and he's checking you out."
"He asked me out. Twice. Don’t look.”
“I have to. You said no to that guy? Something's wrong with you," she says.
"Who asks anyone out in person anymore?"
"He does," she says. "Cause he looks like that."
He heads our way.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi, this is my friend Rosemary."
"Hi."
"I'm Mike." His eyes drop, come back up to mine, unhurried about it in a way that makes my skin warm under my coat.
"Nice to meet you, Rosemary.”
"We headed to see a show. The Scarlet Pimpernel on Broadway."
"Oh, yeah, they search him here, they search him there, those Frenchies search him everywhere."
"You've seen it?" Rosemary asks.
"Not the show, the movie, years ago."
"You guys should come to the lounge after. I have to hop off. Good seeing you again."
The doors open.
"It's Nocturne, downtown. Overpriced drinks. Better company, if you let me prove it."
The doors start their warning chime. He gets off.
The train pulls away.
I pull the card from my bag, the one he gave me three days ago.
Black on heavy cream stock, an address in Tribeca, and beneath it, in smaller type — Mike Trent. Nocturne.
"If you don't say yes to that, I'm done with you."
"Calm down. I'll go, but only if you come with me," I say.
"Hell yeah."
Throughout the show, my mind keeps slipping back to him. His smile. His hands. The way he looked at me, like he already knew some secret my body hadn't finished confessing. By the time the curtain falls, I'm warm everywhere.
The cab pulls up outside Nocturne, and for a second, I forget every reason I had for saying no the first two times.