Worship You

Chapter Nineteen - Bug in a Glass

I was nervous sitting in the courtroom waiting for Cassie to testify. I stared at her but she wouldn't look my way even though I was sure she could feel me staring at her. 

I finally gave up and picked up a pencil and started scrawling stuff on the writing pad they give you in case you have any brilliant legal stuff to tell your stupid lawyer. It was the first time I had touched the thing. 

And I see there's a little cockroach come walking over the edge of the table and coming right at me. Right there, with me and Cassie on trial for murder, this insect is ignoring her and me and all of the USA and its laws, walking on the defense table without a care in the world except finding something to eat. 

I took my drinking glass and turned it in my hand. Then I put it down over the cockroach. I watched the bug walk to the rim of the glass and then follow it around and around looking for a way out from under. He didn't look excited or worried. He just walked around the rim of the glass cage he was in, looking for a way out. That's bugs for you. Cool under pressure. Or stupid. 

Finally the judge came in and blah, blah, blah they called Cassie to the stand. 

Cassie stood up and smoothed the skirt of her suit over her hips. I'd never seen her make that gesture before, of course. She never wore a skirt. But there was something so refined and stylish, about the way she did it that it made me feel inferior. Like she was someone from a completely different place, someone with class and money. A college education even. And I knew she didn't have that.  

And then I knew: she was imitating her lawyer. She had soaked the woman up like a sponge, had become her in a way. It was all an act. 

Still, it made me feel small somehow. And dumb. My face was turning red, I could feel it. 

Cassie's lawyer - what was her name? - stood up and walked past Cassie, smiling at her. Then she looked at me and slipped me a smile and my body thrilled for an instant with the secret communication. She walked on, looking directly at the jury as she approached them.  

First, she asked Cassie about Ron Gazowski's testimony. Cassie answered calmly, with a hint of sadness as if she couldn't believe it had come to this and a slight smile because it was so ridiculous. No, she'd never asked Ron to blow up the high school or bring guns to school and shoot everybody. The idea was crazy. No, she had no idea why he would say such a thing. Then Cassie said that when boys get rejected, they'll say all sorts of stuff. Who knows why? 

Cassie's lawyer walked across the courtroom, head down as if thinking hard, high heels cracking like doom on the cold stone floor. She was warning her audience that coming up was the truth, the serious stuff. 

"Miss Cioukowsky have you and Lloyd been intimate." 

Cassie smiled and laughed quietly. 

"Is something funny, Miss Cioukowsky?" 

"No. It's just I never heard anyone call him Lloyd before." 

"I mean the defendant, Mr. Lloyd David Harper?" 

"David. I call him David." 

"Have the two of you been intimate?" 

She turned her head and smiled at me. It was the first time she looked directly at me during the trial. My heart was hammering against my ribs, harder than the judge hammered his desk. 

"Oh, yes," she said. 

"I'm sorry but I have to ask you: Does that mean you had sexual relations?" 

"That depends on what you mean." 

"You kissed?" 

Cassie nodded. The judge sat up and leaned toward her.