Under the Table(37)
“That was so fun,” he remarked, sticking the microphone back in the stand.
“I have to go,” Zoey said quickly, taking off the guitar. “I forgot I have some price quotes to work up.”
It was an excuse, but the walls felt like they were closing in and she needed to get out of the room before she did something she’d regret.
Tristan looked confused.
“Oh. Okay,” he said, trying to mask his disappointment. “I was going to make dinner tonight.”
“I’m going to have to take a rain check. I’m late with these quotes as it is,” she lied. She gathered up her things and hustled out the door, unable to look him in the eye.
Her feet dragged as she made her way back home. It seemed fitting. Her spirit had begun to drag as well. Maybe it was the lyrics to the Foo Fighters song, the symbolism she was mistakenly attaching to them—about looking for someone to save him—and the heartfelt way he sang them, the way he already knew most of the words. Maybe Ruth had been right all along, about the unlikelihood of being able to make a platonic friendship work. It didn’t matter. There was no way around it.
She had fallen for Tristan Malloy.
Chapter 15
When Tristan called her the next day to chat, Zoey told him about what was happening with Ruth before he could extend any invitations. She stopped short of telling the part about her sister’s ill-conceived idea to handle the situation without a lawyer. She was grateful that this time she had a valid excuse for telling him that the next few days were going to be busy.
“That guy was a judge? Wow. Is there anything I can do to help?”
His words and genuine concern were comforting, but all Zoey felt was stress. She had betrayed their friendship by falling for him. And now she was too scared and selfish to tell him for fear of him backing off. She was too drawn to him to have any hope of walking away herself.
“There’s nothing for you to do, but thanks,” she told him. Her voice was shaky, something that she hoped he’d interpret as worry.
“Do you want me to come along for support?” Tristan persisted in his desire to lend a hand. “I was there and can testify that he was buzzing around her all night.”
“Hopefully, it won’t get that far. But I hope that offer stands if it does.”
“It certainly does. Good luck with all of it. Keep me posted?”
As Ruth got closer to her court appearance, her bravado started to nose-dive. Zoey accompanied Ruth on her shopping trip to transform herself into a prim schoolmarm. She wanted to make sure Ruth was dressed as conservatively as possible and be there to talk her out of wanting to wear something more Ruthie if she gravitated toward it. It was an eye-rolling ordeal.
“Is this made of polyester or sandpaper?”
“This is not cashmere. It feels more like dog hair.”
“The neckline on this piece of crap is trying to strangle me.”
“Are we trying to conceal my figure altogether?”
“I wonder if wearing this would entitle me to a senior citizen discount?”
Zoey bit her tongue and figured Ruth was lashing out, trying to hide her worry about her potential sentence. But she was also hurt. The majority of the garments Zoey selected she personally found attractive. As she presented countless armfuls of clothing that were ridiculed she reflected on two thoughts:
This wasn’t half as fun as when she took Tristan to Barneys, and she remembered why she stopped shopping with her sister in the first place.
Ruth finally settled on a lovely three-quarter-length flower-patterned dress with a navy-blue cardigan that Ruth declared she would gladly donate to Zoey when she was done if it fit, which they both knew it wouldn’t. Luckily their feet were within a size of each other’s, which mercifully saved Zoey having to replay the whole rigmarole while shoe shopping too. Ruth was content to borrow a pair of plain black flats.
Neither of them had any appetite the morning of Ruth’s hearing. The entire cab ride to the courthouse was an ongoing lecture of how Ruth needed to keep her mouth shut unless she was spoken to and to take whatever chip she had on her shoulder and brush it off now, before she came face-to-face with her accuser. Once they got to the courthouse and took a good look around, all of Ruth’s defiance about raging against the machine came to a grinding halt. After going through the metal detectors, they found their courtroom and took their seats among a multitude of other grim and dazed faces. The people who didn’t look fazed by what was going on around them were even more frightening. It was a real eclectic group of potential homicidal maniacs and their weary-looking public defenders. They waited as one by one defendants stood before the judge. Some of them were already wearing prison jumpsuits. Others were completely shackled as they shuffled their way to the front of the room to utter the one or two words required of them while their attorneys did the rest of the talking before being led back to wherever they came from. Some looked hopeless, others helpless. If they weren’t so worried about the fate that awaited Ruth, they would’ve been depressed just being there. At times, Ruth grabbed Zoey’s hand and gave it a squeeze. They waited as the process continued and there were only a handful of people left in the courtroom. They heard the judge call her case and Ruth went up to stand behind the defendant’s table. At the same time, the prosecutor began searching through the amassed papers and folders that were stacked in front of him.