When We Were Bright and Beautiful(33)

It’s the end of May, six weeks post-arraignment. I’ve come down from school to New Jersey. Nate, Lawrence, and I are meeting with DeFiore, Felicia, and Paul Martinez, the private investigator, in their office. Eleanor is in New York with Billy, who should be here but bowed out. “I can’t,” was his reason.

“No, Cassie,” Felicia says, which annoys me. “You’re wrong. Juries make snap judgments all the time.” She likes to pretend we’re buddies. Behind DeFiore’s back, she jokes about his “Men’s Warehouse castoffs.” But if he’s in the room, she goes out of her way to shut me down and make me look foolish.

I ignore her. “Billy is complicated, but complicated doesn’t mean violent. Complicated means sensitive. Complicated means overcoming adversity. Show the jury he loved Diana, he was vulnerable, and how in the end, he was the victim. The point is his empathy and her anger.”

Lawrence glances at Nate. My brother shakes his head.

“What?” I ask.

Being up in New Haven for the last few weeks has been great. I love having my own space, outside the drama. When I’m there, it feels easier to ignore Marcus, who’s still calling me, now constantly. I’m stronger away from home and don’t answer. I do have guilt, however, about neglecting the trial. I can tell Lawrence and Nate resent me for flitting in and out of town while they work around the clock.

“You’re right, Cassie,” Lawrence says. “But proving Diana harassed Billy won’t be easy. And we run the risk of alienating the jury.”

“My two cents?” We turn to the investigator. Paul Martinez is an unsmiling middle-aged man of average build whose only memorable feature is a gray goatee. This is the second, maybe third time we’ve met, but I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup. “Probably best to steer clear of the relationship.”

“Since when?” I’m shocked. “Billy and Diana’s relationship is the root of the whole case!”

“Unfortunately, it’s not as cut-and-dried as we thought,” Lawrence says.

“Which means what, Lawrence? Specifically?”

Everyone’s on edge, including DeFiore, who’s barely speaking to me. Granted, he’s not speaking to anyone, but when I’m around, he loves to flirt; he tells me that I’m brilliant, I’m a knockout, if only he were ten years younger. It’s unnecessary and infuriating. But I smile and stay quiet—sometimes I even flirt back—because I can’t risk insulting him.

“Princeton has no record of Diana stalking Billy,” Lawrence says sourly. He gestures toward Martinez. “You did the legwork. You tell her.”

“Your brother claimed the girl snuck into his dorm, showed up in his classes, made a nuisance of herself. But none of this was ever reported.”

“So what, Paul? That’s one small piece of a larger story.”

“For Christ’s sake, Cassie,” Nate interjects. “That piece is called proof. And we don’t have it.”

“But Peter said we didn’t have to prove anything; we only have to defend. Right?” I turn to DeFiore for support. “We need to show the jury what kind of person Diana is. I told you about when she was in our house last November? I caught her holding a vase, checking the bottom to see where it was from. She’s obsessed with money.”

DeFiore doesn’t respond. The room is silent.

“Peter, I told you about that; how bizarre she acted.” I don’t want to badger him, but this is important. “Remember?”

Suddenly, DeFiore shouts at me. “Cassie, enough! Knock it off.” His eyes are blazing. “You don’t know shit.” He is pissed, beyond pissed, and fed up. Peter DeFiore, Esquire, is a stone-cold killer, I see it now, a feral savage who will fuck you, hard, if you get in his way. “So please shut up for one fucking minute.”

My face burns. “I was just making an observation,” I say quietly. DeFiore’s angry outburst humiliates me, a feeling that’s compounded by Lawrence’s approving nods. He can’t rein me in either, so he appreciates DeFiore taking control. When Lawrence looks at me, he has an air of triumph that unsettles me. My pulse speeds up. My thoughts skip. I start to fracture and soon the room feels unsafe, like the web holding the world together is coming loose. Just leave, I tell myself. Go back to school and stay there.

“Despite your fascination with CSI reruns,” DeFiore is saying . . .

Law and Order, I think.

“. . . you’re not a fucking lawyer. I’m a fucking lawyer. You didn’t hire me to show the jurors who Billy Quinn is. You hired me to show them the man they want Billy Quinn to be.”

But who is Billy Quinn? I mean, who is anyone, really?





19


MARRYING INTO GREAT WEALTH DOESN’T ENSURE HAPPINESS or stability. For some people, living among the one percent does the exact opposite: it reveals the depth of their wanting. One infamous woman, born into humble circumstances, married a billionaire. Over the years, she spent obscene amounts of money on plastic surgery. Her rumored goal was to look like a cat, which she more or less achieved, with high cheekbones, feline-slanted eyes, and peaked eyebrows. As her face changed, she became the subject of tabloid covers and society gossip. It’s easy to judge the woman’s conspicuous consumption and frivolous spending, her vanity and bold denials. But to me, she’s a tragic figure. Imagine feeling so unfulfilled and so lacking—for love, for attention, we’ll never know—that you pay millions of dollars to carve up your face.