Invisible Boy (47 page)

I nodded.

“Do you feel like we died and got relegated to tufted-chintz hell?” she asked. “Seriously. Maybe we got hit by a bus out on
the sidewalk. Maybe this is our punishment for all of fucking
eternity
.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What are the chances Satan reeks of rose petals?”

“I think they call it brimstone.”

“Brimstone is sulphur. It smells like rotten eggs.”

“How do you even fucking
know
shit like that?” she asked.

“I spent three years in Syracuse,” I said. “Trust me, hell is Upstate. And it smells like rotten eggs.”

“I’m getting this creepy feeling that someone wants to reincarnate me as an overstuffed love seat.”

“Let’s just get it over with. Find a sales chick.”

“How can you tell who works here and who’s just shopping?” she asked. “They’re all remote-controlled zombie-assassin Stepford-pod
androids enslaved by the receiver units tucked inside those humongous plaid hairbows.”

“Pagan, we can take these bitches. We’re still in the goddamn
Social Register
.”

“No fucking way. They can smell fear. They’ll turn on us with their capped zombie
teeth
.”

“Oh, for chrissake,” I said. “We survived the
Granta
Bitches. Don’t
make
me slap you.”

I walked over to the nearest counter, Pagan trailing behind me.

“Hi,” I said, addressing the zombie Stepford-pod android directly in front of us.

“My name is Courtney, how may I help you today?”

Courtney. God help us.

“We’re here to pick up two bridesmaid dresses?” I said.

“Mm-hm,” said Courtney, head bobbing. “What’s the name of the wedding party?”

“McClintock,” said Pagan.

“Mc
Cormack
,” I said.

Pagan shrugged. “Like it will matter six months from now.”

The woman ignored us. “Here we are—let me just go to the back and bring those out for you to try on, all righty?”

“Thank you so much,” I said.

“This is going to suck,” said Pagan, the minute she walked away. “I bet you they picked something yellow. Or pink. Floral
monstrosities with fat sashes and great big foofy sleeves. Big and foofy and lame.”

“We’re going to look like a pair of fucking cabbage-rose armchairs,” I said. “Mark my words.”

I saw Courtney coming back with a big fat pair of dry-cleaning-bag-encased dresses draped over her arms.

“Um,” I said. “You may want to close your eyes.”

“Fucking
plaid
? You have got to be kidding me.”

“It’s a nice
dark
plaid. Be grateful for small mercies.”

“Small mercies my ass. What next, they beat us to the ground with haggis and light us on fucking
fire
?”

“Yes. If we’re lucky.”

Courtney gave us a capped zombie-pod Stepfordian smile.

“I’ll get you set up in a dressing room, all righty?” she said.

On the bright side, the damn things fit us like big, fat, foofy-sleeved plaid gloves—even with my cast.

There was a polite little knock on the dressing room door. “It’s Courtney? I forgot to give you something?”

“Come on in,” I said. “We’re dressed.”

The door swung outward and she stepped into the plush little cell with us.

“These are your headbands,” she said, holding up a pair of the damn things. “In matching tartan.”

I started laughing so hard it made me choke.

“Is everything all right?” asked Courtney.

No longer able to inhale, I waved my hand, helpless, and collapsed onto the room’s tufted little cabbage-rose chaise longue
over in the corner.

I beat the thing’s femme-y down-filled upholstery with my left fist, positively
gagging
with laughter.

Alarmed, Courtney tossed the headbands in Pagan’s general direction before scuttling out backwards and shoving the door firmly
closed behind her.

My sister stared down at the pair of big padded-plaid horseshoes that now lay at her feet, centered akimbo on the room’s lushly
carpeted floor.

“Shoot me,” she said. “Shoot me right fucking
now
.”

Dean called that night, a few hours after they cut my cast off.

“Can’t wait to see you, too, Bunny. I’ll miss the rehearsal dinner, but I should make Bar Harbor by midnight if I drive your
car straight up from New Jersey.”

“I can’t believe it’s not possible to come from La Tuque direct.”

“It’s four hundred bucks to change my flight. I can’t ask Christoph to cover that.”

Right, like Astrid doesn’t tip more than that for cocktails she doesn’t actually consume.

“It just seems crazy,” I said. “You sure you don’t want to blow off Maine?”

“It’s your mom’s
wedding
.”

“So you’ll catch the next one. No biggie.”

“How’s your arm look?” he asked.

“Pale. Kind of skinny.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” he said. “Sucked having twenty pounds of plaster between me and your fine buxom self.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t I know it?”

I
was packing for Maine when the phone rang Tuesday morning out in the living room. My entire closet’s dispirited contents
lay spewed across our unmade bomb crater of bed, a sartorial nuke-test-detritus cacophony.

But at least my right arm was free of plaster.

I jogged away from the textile-explosion’s epicenter, relieved.

Pagan tossed me the receiver. “Your buddy Kyle.”

“Hey,” he said as I sank down into the sofa.

“Hey back,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“The jury.”

“How soon?”

“An hour, tops. Hit the subway right now and you’d be here in time.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I said.

“Bullshit,” said Kyle. “Get on that train.”

No good-bye, no chance to tell him our rental car was already parked out front—just
click
and then dial tone.

Pagan gave me the hairy eyeball, arms crossed. Her bag and Sue’s stood at parade rest in the front hall, ready for deployment.

“Listen,” I began.

She shook her head, pissed. “Madeline, do not even
think
about fucking with me.”

“We’re making a pit stop.”

“No.”

“It’s on the way.”

“No.”

“The car’s on my Amex and I’m driving,” I said. “You don’t like it, go stick out your thumb on Sixth Avenue—see how fast
that
gets your ass to fucking Bangor.”

I heard her say “Bitch,” but I was already sprinting to grab my toothbrush and the stupid plaid dress still veiled in its
dry-cleaning plastic.

Pagan called shotgun, but Sue was the better co-pilot so I sent her grumbling to the backseat instead.

“You’re bitch-at-the-switch as consolation,” I told Pagan, handing her my pile of CDs.

I started the car and she tossed me some Hendrix.

Sue took one look at the dashboard clock, said, “FDR,” and we shot uptown like a Roman candle through gift wrap.

“Bridge or tunnel?” I asked, as we streaked past Twenty-ninth Street.

“Tunnel,” said Sue. “No question.”

Sliding down toward the narrow tube’s eastern mouth, I hit the exact-change toll-bucket with a fistful of quarters, through
so fast we set off the scofflaw buzzer—nothing but net.

Twenty minutes later I parked next to Kyle’s car outside the courthouse.

“I am so fucking carsick,” said Pagan, telescoping her legs out of the backseat. “You drive like shit.”

I could see Kyle’s head craning, anxious, from behind the crowd inside.

I pointed him out to Pagan. “He’ll get us through fast. There’s a decent bathroom pretty close.”

My adrenaline was contagious by that point.

“No worries,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m cool, so let’s

boogie.”

Boogie we did.

The courtroom felt different that morning. Like there was some kind of low-grade, sub-auditory buzz infecting everyone inside.

“That’s her up there?” whispered Sue. “The mother?”

I nodded.

“What is she, our age?” she asked.

“Younger,” I said.

Kyle leaned forward to quiet us, warning finger to his lips.

The bailiff stood up to say, “All rise.”

We got to our collective feet, the room filling with muffled clatter.

The judge’s door opened slowly outward behind his empty chair, and then the man himself strode in, broad shoulders proud beneath
his robes’ black yoke.

“Hear ye, hear ye,” intoned the bailiff. “The Supreme Court of the County of Queens is now in session, Judge Malcolm Arthur
presiding.”

Someone coughed behind us.

Another door opened and the jury filed into its box.

Pagan leaned in close. “This is
intense
.”

I nodded and grabbed her hand, glad to have her and Sue beside me.

Another cough, and Judge Arthur turned toward the jury. “In the case of the State of New York versus Albert Williams, has
the jury reached a verdict?”

One of the elder church ladies stood up. “We have, Your Honor.”

The bailiff walked toward her and she gave him a folded slip of paper, which he ferried back to the judge.

The judge unfolded this missive and looked down at it, taking a moment to digest its contents.

Pagan clenched my hand harder.

The judge raised his head slowly, handed the paper down to the waiting bailiff, and then shifted his gaze back toward the
jury’s elected captain.

When the bailiff had carried the printed verdict back to the solemn woman standing in the jury box, the judge cleared his
throat.

“Madame Foreperson,” he asked, “how do you find?”

I held my breath and closed my eyes.

“On the count of murder in the second degree,” she read, “we find the defendant Albert Williams not guilty,” she said.

My eyes snapped open, tears already pricking at their corners.

“On the count of manslaughter in the first degree,” she continued, “we find the defendant—”

Here Pagan gave my hand another squeeze.

“Guilty.”

I exhaled with relief, ducking forward to catch Kyle’s eye.

He mouthed “Yes,” giving me a new thumbs-up when each of the next six counts came back guilty, as well.

Pagan hadn’t let go of my left hand yet, but as the bailiff carried the leaf of paper inscribed with Angela Underhill’s verdict
toward the judge, Sue threaded her fingers through my own on the right.

Judge Arthur unfolded this second sheet, again taking a moment to absorb its contents before looking toward the jurors in
turn.

“In the case of the State of New York versus Angela Underhill,” he said, “has the jury reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor,” replied the woman to whom he’d addressed his words.

“Madame Foreperson,” asked the judge, “how do you find?”

I closed my eyes, gripping Pagan’s hand even harder, and all I could hear was the woman’s voice saying “Not guilty, not guilty,
not guilty…” over and over again, until she reached the very last count and paused.

“On the count of filing a false police report,” she said, as Sue gripped my other hand, “we find the defendant
guilty
.”

The room exploded.

I watched Elsie reach across the railing between herself and the defense table, in order to hug her no-longer-pregnant granddaughter
close.

Good God.

When she turned around and saw me, she dropped her eyes.

I felt comforting hands settle on my shoulders, but I shook them off.

I looked over at Kyle. His eyes were clenched shut, and he shook his head slowly back and forth.

“What does that mean?” Pagan asked him. “They’re just going to let her
go
?”

“They’ll set bail first,” he said. “She’ll probably get probation.”

The judge banged his pointless gavel, calling for order.

My voice was hoarse. “I can’t
be
here anymore.”

Pagan tugged at my wrist, her hand gentle.

“No,” I said. “I just can’t fucking
stand
it.”

“Maddie,” said Kyle.

“She got off, Kyle. She fucking got
off
!”

There was a glitter of shared pain in his eyes, but I bolted out of that room all the same.