Authors: Robin Schwarz
“Yes, it’s common practice, and actually, we happen to be friends. We don’t always agree, but Denise is pretty fair. You’re a first-time felon. You made a mistake, which you have to pay for in one way or another. But you didn’t murder someone; you’re not a pedophile or a rapist. You haven’t smuggled heroin in from Columbia and sold it to first-graders. There’s a lot worse out there. Even the assistant U.S. attorney will see that. So are you ready to talk more specifically about the arraignment?”
“Jesus, I’m in judicial hell. I can’t remember all this stuff Mr. Bloomberg. Can’t we take a recess? They take recesses on
Law and Order
!”
Bloomberg looked at Charlotte sympathetically. It was a lot to absorb. He knew it, and he knew how she felt.
“You’re right. Let’s take a recess. The arraignment is tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be back in the morning, and we can talk about it then.”
“Thank you.”
“I think it’s going to be okay, Charlotte. You’re a good client to have.”
“Oh, I’m a dream. I just wish my parents were still alive to share in this wonderful moment with me.”
Bloomberg laughed. “You’re funny.”
“How many points do they take off for that?”
I
T WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER
when Charlotte was called out again.
“Miss Clapp,” the guard announced, “you have a visitor upstairs.”
“I do?” she asked, surprised.
She followed the guard to a room divided by bulletproof glass and small enclaves, each with its own phone. She looked down the row and saw women talking with husbands, boyfriends, children, and weeping parents. Suddenly, her eye settled on a face she recognized. Her first visitor shocked her, but pleased her even more. There, on the other side of the partition, was MaryAnn Barzini. Charlotte sat down and stared: MaryAnn looked exactly as she had at Charlotte’s going-away party: stiff, cool, and right. Slowly Charlotte began to talk. MaryAnn pointed to the phone. Charlotte nodded and picked it up.
“How are you, MaryAnn?”
“Fine, Charlotte. How are you?”
“Oh, all right, I guess.”
“You got thin.”
“That I did.”
“You finally made it to Hollywood.”
“Yup.”
“Did you meet Tom Selleck?”
“No, never saw him once. I did see Gene Hackman.”
“Was that exciting?”
“Every time.”
“So you robbed the bank, Charlotte. You just took all that money and fled.”
“Pretty much. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d been thinking about it for months or even weeks. I just sort of snapped. You know the whole thing about how I thought I was dying?”
“Yeah, I heard about it on bingo night at the church from a waitress who works at Bickfords and is friends with Jennings’s nurse... old nurse. As you may or may not know, Jennings no longer practices here, so his nurse is working at Bickfords until she can find other work. You know, nursing-type work. Meanwhile, she makes the pastry. And she’s quite good. Especially her Boston creams.”
Jesus, MaryAnn, I’m telling you how I thought I was dying and you’re going on about the dessert tray in Bickfords.
“Anyway, that’s how I heard it. So, what happened, Charlotte?”
Finally.
“There I was, thinking I was dying, when it dawned on me that I hadn’t really lived, and I wanted to. I figured I had nothing to lose. And then the strangest thought occurred to me during that time.”
“What?”
“Do you remember that ceramic frog that was stolen out of someone’s yard one night? I think it was in New Hampshire or maybe in Massachusetts.”
“What frog?” MaryAnn clearly had no idea where Charlotte was going with this. Had she gone mad?
“You know the one. It was all over the news. That decorative frog.”
In an obvious attempt to placate her, MaryAnn smiled, “Right.
That
frog.”
“It was on someone’s lawn, and the next day it was gone.”
Suddenly, MaryAnn
did
remember the frog. “Yes, I remember that frog, Charlotte!” She looked relieved, although still a bit wary.
“Well, whoever stole that frog took it all around the world with them and would take pictures of it in front of the Eiffel Tower, in front of the Kremlin, in front of Buckingham Palace. The robbers kept sending pictures back to the frog’s owners, telling them their frog was having a great time seeing the world and they would one day return it, after it had experienced life to the fullest.”
“Oh, yes, yes, and the owners made a plea to the robbers. They wanted their frog back. They had the matching frog. They wanted them reunited.”
“Right. And then one day the frog did return. In a limo. And there was a big celebration.”
“I remember,” said MaryAnn, but she still couldn’t imagine why they were talking about frogs.
“Well, I kept thinking about that ceramic frog. That frog had seen more of the world than I had. It had done more and seen more than me or anyone else in Gorham, for that matter.”
“So?”
“How could a ceramic frog have more to say at the end of its life than me? I mean, if I couldn’t have a better life than a ceramic frog, I’d say that’s pretty damn pathetic.”
“When you put it that way, it does seem somewhat depressing.”
“Well, I’d say that frog and I are even.”
“So you’re even. But . . .” MaryAnn looked down, then looked up again directly into Charlotte’s eyes in a confused and searching way. “But, Charlotte?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you call me?”
“I knew you’d wonder that.”
“I have. I’ve scratched my head over it a hundred times. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I’d come.”
“Why did you?”
“Because...”
“Don’t lie, MaryAnn. We’ve got nothing to lose anymore.”
“Well, to be perfectly honest, I was just busting with curiosity.”
“Okay.”
“So why
did
you call me?”
“You know why? This past year has been an amazing one, MaryAnn. In so many ways. And I have to tell you, you were on my mind a lot of it.”
“I was?”
“Yes, you were. I thought about our friendship when we were kids, about high school, about T. J., about Tom, about how things changed between us. I thought about how bad I felt for so many years and how I couldn’t seem to move on from that feeling. I got fat and sad, and angrier with you. It just seethed under the surface, like the La Brea Tar Pits.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, never mind. Anyway, I’m really glad you came today, because I’ve been wanting to tell you something.”
MaryAnn braced herself. She was ready for Charlotte to take her down, tell her she was the most horrible person on earth and that she hated her now more than ever.
“Yes?” MaryAnn asked tentatively.
“You did what you did, good, bad, or indifferent. And so did I. But you know what, MaryAnn? It’s okay. I want you to know that whatever happened—your marrying Tom, your silence and rejection after T. J., your general feeling for me—I forgive it all. I love you, MaryAnn, for the person you once were and who I believe is still in there somewhere, somewhere deep down. The same funny girl who played freeze tag with me after school, the same girl who cut her thumb so that we could be blood sisters way back when, the same girl who promised, no matter what happened in life, somehow, someway, we’d always remain friends. That’s what I choose to remember, MaryAnn, and to celebrate. If I learned anything this year, it is that life is too short to do anything else. Not forgiving eats you alive.”
MaryAnn sat looking at Charlotte, trying to process what she was hearing. After everything, Charlotte forgave her. Even as she sat in jail and awaited her uncertain future, she was forgiving the past and all its big and small injustices.
There was no denying it: On MaryAnn’s part, there had been many. And she had hardened her heart to feel justified. But now, looking at Charlotte through the glass, something in her softened. She was undone, utterly unprepared for this. And she began to cry. It was as if she’d waited years for someone to say something first, but then, after a while, she’d become lost within her own bitterness, and that had become her life. Perhaps she’d even forgotten it could be any other way. But Charlotte hadn’t, and today she reached right through the barrier that kept them separated, and hugged her with her heart.
“Charlotte?” MaryAnn whispered, her whole being changing with every word. “I don’t know what to say....I...I...”
Charlotte simply nodded her head yes and understood. She knew that words wouldn’t have said it at that moment anyway.
“And now look at you. In jail. How could someone like you ...?”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“How?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Christ, maybe it won’t. But you know what?”
“What?”
“The most wonderful thing happened to me this year, MaryAnn. It almost puts this in perspective in some weird way.”
“What happened?”
“I got something that I’d wanted all my life. The one thing that I never seemed to get, the one thing that slipped through my fingers, or got away, or somehow was never truly there in the first place.”
“What?
“I found love.”
“You did?”
“Yes, I fell in love with a man who is kind and smart and good. And do you want to know what the best part about the whole thing is?”
“Yes. Tell me.”
“He loves me.”
MaryAnn looked at Charlotte with a mixture of happiness and envy. She had finally found it. The elusive, unexplainable luckiness of love.
“Who is he?”
“His name is Skip—well, that’s really his nickname. But that’s what everyone calls him. Skip.”
“Skip’s a nice name.”
“Thinking about him is the only thing that helps get me through these days and nights. I just keep going over the wonderful times we had, and somehow I’m able to deal with it.” She paused. “I wonder if I’ll ever see him again.”
MaryAnn’s heart ached at that moment for her old friend. She wasn’t even sure where it was coming from. Perhaps from the deep well of shared experiences and innocence, of an untouched time that even the hurt of past lives couldn’t taint. She saw Charlotte in her sky blue snowsuit, sledding down that hill behind the 7-Eleven. She saw her twirling a silver baton and borrowing frosted lipsticks. She saw them both hiding together in Charlotte’s bedroom, sharing the strange and mysterious secrets of how boys were different from girls. How faraway this all seemed now. And yet, a certain closeness prevailed between them, and MaryAnn wished she could make it better for Charlotte.
“Of course you’ll see Skip again,” she said, breaking free from memory. “There is no doubt about it. You will see him again, Charlotte, and don’t think otherwise.”
It was the first soft thing she’d said to her in years. And it felt so good, yet Charlotte’s gaze still clearly indicated sadness.
And MaryAnn wanted to rescue her from it. “So what happens next, do you know?”
“My arraignment is tomorrow. My lawyer tells me that’s when they set bail. It doesn’t matter. I can’t afford it anyway. We’ll see.”
“All right,” a middle-aged, overweight guard barked, a guard who looked more like a man than a woman, sporting a slight mustache, “visiting hours are over. Say good-bye.”
Jesus,
Charlotte thought,
do all guards go through the same training, the Mein Kampf obedience school for dogs? One thing was clear—they could all use an Epilight treatment.
“Charlotte, can I come by tomorrow? Would that be okay?”
“Sure, just check outside about times and all.”
“Charlotte?”
“Yes?”
“Do you mind if I come to the arraignment? Me and the other girls?”
“The other girls?”
“Yeah, everybody: the Ladies’ Auxiliary, the Horticultural Club, the Church Society.”
“They want to come?”
“Yes! They’re all on your side with this.”
Charlotte couldn’t imagine why, but it felt good to know. “Sure. It’ll be nice to have the support there.”
“So we’ll see you later, then. All right?”
“Yes, see you later, then.”
And MaryAnn lifted her hand to the window, and Charlotte lifted hers, and their hands fit together, just as they used to.
T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Charlotte’s lawyer went through the prceedings with her in her cell.
“So you understand what’s going to happen upstairs?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“The judge is going to explain in factual terms the reason for my arrest so I can understand the nature of the charge and know my constitutional rights.”
“Excellent. Then you’ll request a preliminary hearing, and the judge will give us a date to appear for it, which will be ten days from now.”
“Right.”
“By the way, the prosecutor informed me that the camera that hangs over the door at the bank wasn’t working. Did you have something to do with that?”
“Absolutely not. In fact, I forgot all about the camera. It never worked. Had it been on, you would have seen me, but I swear I didn’t touch it. You can check the maintenance records.”
“I believe you, but besides that, we still have a pretty unconvincing case for innocence.”
“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“I know, but it’s my job as your lawyer to be as informed as possible and make sure we do the right thing to get you a lesser sentence. So what I’m suggesting is that we simply go upstairs and ask for a preliminary examination. After he gives us the date, he’ll set bail.”
“Then what?”
“Then you go back to jail until bail is put up. Do you have a suretor?”
“A what?”
“Is there someone who can put up bail for you?”
“How much will it be?”
“I don’t know.”
“A lot?”
“It could be more than a hundred thousand dollars,” said Bloomberg. He knew it could be more than that, but didn’t have the heart to tell her.
“A hundred thousand dollars? Are you kidding?” She put her hands up to her face and covered her eyes. “I’m a lifer.”
All she could think of was Skip. She would never see him again. She tried to comfort herself with the story of Patricia Arquette and Nicholas Cage. They dated for only three weeks and then didn’t see each other for another eight years after that. But when they finally met again, the love was still there and they got married.
Maybe this could happen to me.
But they got divorced a few years later.
Jesus.