STIRRED 23 page

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 523.

"Anna, why are you so worried about this?"

"I don't know. I… What if…? Suppose he…” If there was a complete sentence in there somewhere, it wasn't coming out.

Lily felt sorry for the woman as she floundered about, trying to articulate her fears. As she finished her packing, she sat down on the end of the bed and patted the space next to her. "Come here, sweetheart."

Anna moved to her side and immediately took her lover's hand. "Lily, it's just that I'm worried that your being gone will upset Andy, and I won't be able to deal with it. Not for me, but for him. What if I can't reassure him? I'm not good at this like you are."

"Honey, you're better than you think. Andy likes you. He loves it when you play with him. I can see it. His whole face lights up when you get down in the floor with him."

Anna smiled a little at her lover's cajoling. She was ashamed at being such a baby about all this. Andy likes me?

"Anna, right now, Andy's afraid too, and he really needs for you to be there for him. I really need it too. You've been wonderful about all this, and I love you more than you could ever know. Please hang in there with me, sweetheart."

"Of course I will." Anna put her arm around Lily's shoulder and pulled her close. "I'm sorry for being such a jerk."

Lily was silent but returned the hug, burying her face into Anna's soft neck.

"You're supposed to say ‘Oh, you're not being a jerk.'"

"Oh, you're not being a jerk," Lily complied.

* * *

Goddamnit! Lily was fuming as she cooled her heels in the lawyer's conference room. Kristy had sent word that she had a visitor, and would join her "lawyer" when visiting hours ended.

Shortly after eight, the door opened and her sister was escorted to the usual chair. Again, a deputy recited the visitation rules, finally stepping outside to her post.

The women eyed each other, Lily with suspicion, Kristy with the usual amusement.

"Mother says hello," she smirked.

"What do you want, Kristy?"

"Is that any way to greet your sister? The mother of the child you're supposedly caring for?"

Lily didn't rise to that bait. She was waiting to know why she'd been summoned again to this jail.

"Okay, have it your way. We don't really need to have any friendly chit-chat."

Still the blonde sat quietly, glaring at the impish woman.

"What do I want? That's easy. I want to beat this and get out of here."

"What do you want with me?"

Kristy's humor disappeared for the briefest moment as prepared to answer. "Here's the deal. Our lawyer says it looks bad for Kenny and me not to have anybody from our families in the courtroom to support us. The jury will think we're scum."

And you're not? The attorney refrained from saying that aloud. The thought of participating in this kind of charade was repulsive.

"So I need for you and Mother to come to court every day and sit behind me. That way, the jury can see that I'm a person who is worthy of being loved." Kristy smiled facetiously, obviously loving this little game.

"I couldn't do that, even if I wanted to… which I don't. You're forgetting that I don't live here. I have a job in LA and in case you've forgotten, a child to take care of."

"Well I can fix it so that the child is not your problem. With me in jail, the state gives a guardian almost a thousand dollars a month for support, and Mom thought that sounded pretty good. And I can do that first thing tomorrow."

Lily was ready to leap across the table and strangle the bitch. Kristy didn't care one whit about her own son's welfare. Still, she held her temper. "And what happens to Andy if I come? We can't both have him."

"No, but you might be able to work something out with her so that you get to keep Andres and she gets a little… financial help from her rich daughter."

"Not going to happen, Kristy," Lily answered adamantly.

"Fine. Then you should get home so that you can start packing his little things. Grandma's going to be so happy," the prisoner sneered.

"I don't think so, Kristy. Because you know all that money you keep talking about? I'm going to use it to hire the very best lawyers I can find. Believe me, we won't have any trouble at all showing what a pathetic mother Lisa Parker would be. And in the middle of all that will be a sidebar next to this trial story about how you tried to use your own child to buy favor with a jury so that you wouldn't look unloved." Lily stood and started for the door. "You want a fight? Bring it on!"

This was not at all the reaction Kristy had expected. She was supposed to be the tough one, not this fancy lawyer who was made soft by a privileged life. And now, her only chance to beat the hangman was walking out the door.

"Wait!"

Lily stopped and turned coolly. If she hurried, she might make the ten o'clock flight home.

"I need your help, Lily. They're going to kill us for this." For the very first time since they'd met, Kristy showed her vulnerable side. The magnitude and seriousness of the trial had suddenly dawned on her when the prosecutor had laid out his case on Friday.

"Why shouldn't they, Kristy? If the DA's story's right, you killed that man like a couple of savages."

"But I didn't do it." The tough façade was gone now. In its place was a frightened woman–a girl really–looking for some kind of lifeboat that might save her from death row.

Lily slowly walked back to the chair but didn't sit, instead placing her hands on the back and leaning forward. "Are you saying that your story about finding those things in the dumpster is true?"

The shaken woman didn't answer right away. Kenny and their lawyer had told her over and over that they had to stick to that story. "No, but it's not what you think. We just wanted some money. But he wouldn't tell us where it was… and Kenny just lost it. I kept yelling at him to stop and let's get out of there. But he just kept stabbing the guy."

Lily absorbed her sister's words, filtering them both as an attorney and as a skeptical sister. "Then why is your attorney saying otherwise?" The public defender could be disbarred for knowingly allowing his clients to perjure themselves. Of course, it still remained in doubt whether McGinnis or Kristy would testify.

"It's the story Kenny told him. Then he said he didn't want to know anymore. I never get to talk to him without Kenny, and they both tell me not to say anything."

More than anything, Lily wanted to believe the woman, wanted badly to believe that her sister was incapable of such a brutal act. If what she said was true, McGinnis and the public defender were gambling with her very life on the slim hope that they would both be acquitted. If they were wrong, her sister would likely die for a crime she didn't commit. But the older sister wasn't convinced.

Besides, even if it were true, it didn't excuse her sister's participation in the crime, or in the cover-up. "Kristy, even if it's proven that McGinnis did the actual killing, that's no guarantee you won't be convicted just the same. But your best chance to save your life is to come forward. If you cooperate, the DA might be willing to settle for a life term."

"Lily, if I tell that story, Kenny could get a needle up his arm," the younger sister said grimly.

"Are you willing to risk dying for him, Kristy? Is he worthy of that? It sounds to me like he's willing to risk your life, but not his own." Lily pushed away from the chair. "You'd better think hard about that. Somebody needs to tell the DA what really happened."

As the words left her lips, Lily realized that she was in deep shit. Had she been here as Kristy's sister, she could do what she wanted with all of these revelations. But in the jail's records, she was here as an attorney, and therefore prohibited from revealing their conversation to anyone without risking disbarment. No doubt, the public defender had been looking ahead.

But the worst part was that her attorney status meant that she could be considered an officer of the court for the case. If Kristy were to testify to McGinnis' version of events, she could be disbarred for not speaking up.

"Will you stay? Please?" The bravado gone, the small voice was pleading.

"What about Andy? I want you to quit jerking everybody around with him. None of this should concern him."

"Fine. He can stay with you." For the time being.

"I'll come tomorrow. After that, I won't promise anything."

* * *

Anna bent over the tub, adding two capfuls of Bubble Big to the running water. Her first thought had been to do the bath thing as expeditiously as possible: get in, get clean, get out. But Lily had explained that Andy enjoyed his time in the tub when he got to play a little bit, especially with the bubbles. Dutifully, the tall woman kept reminding herself that it wasn't all about what she wanted. Adding two more capfuls, she reasoned that if bubbles were fun, twice as many would be twice as much fun.

"Andy? Are you ready?"

The boy came into the bathroom and eyed the growing white mass excitedly. Quickly, he discarded his clothes and placed them in the hamper behind the door like Lily had shown him.

In the two weeks that Andy had been there, Anna had never seen him completely naked before, avoiding the upstairs altogether when she knew it was bath time. To her mild surprise, he wasn't the least bit modest, far too distracted by the allure of the bubbles, which now surpassed the rim of the tub. Oops.

When they got back from dropping Lily at the airport, Anna heated a frozen cheese pizza for Andy's dinner, and threw together a salad for herself. He seemed happy enough with his food, but both struggled awkwardly for conversation. Most of her questions drew one-word answers; attempts to draw him out were met with silent shrugs.

After dinner, he played quietly with his cars in the floor of the family room. The highlight of the night was their usual short walk with Chester through the neighborhood, which the threesome had done together every night since the dog had returned home. Anna couldn't help but smile as the small boy skipped ahead a few yards, then clapped his hands for the basset hound to catch up. Andy was undeniably cute.

Despite her reservations about bath time, the stand-in caretaker found herself having fun. Comically, she piled bubbles on top of Andy's head, even fancying a beard and moustache on the child. As the bubbles started to fade, she helped him scrub his neck and ears, then his back, chest and arms.

"How about poking that filthy foot out here?" she teased, scrubbing and tickling first one then the other, all the way up past his knees. As Lily had instructed, she then soaped the washcloth and handed it to child, asking him to finish up by washing his own private parts. Thank goodness.

"Is there a particular story you want to read tonight?" Andy was dressed in his dark blue pajamas with the rocket ship on the front. He shrugged again, the familiarity of the playful bath scene forgotten.

"How about this one?" she asked, extracting a story of children who had stowed away to the moon. "This story has a rocket, just like this one." She started to tickle the appliqué on his chest, but suddenly remembered Lily's cautions about getting him excited. The last thing on earth either of them wanted tonight was another asthma attack.

Grabbing his Dodger bear, Koufax–Lily had suggested the name to honor the pitching great–Andy pushed his feet under the covers and made room for the tall woman to stretch out beside him. A mere twelve minutes into the story, the weary boy was sound asleep.

Anna mentally checked off a day on the calendar. She had survived their first night alone. Only two more to go, and Lily would be home.

* * *

At 10 minutes to nine, the courtroom door opened, allowing the spectators and the press to enter and scramble for seats. Lily's pass, which the public defender had left with bailiff, allowed her reserved seating in the row directly behind the defendant's table. The blonde hoped that Lisa Parker had gotten the message that there was nothing in it for her to show up.

Moments after nine, the public defender appeared, leaning over with an outstretched hand. "I'm Terry Causwell, Kristy's attorney. You must be Lilian Parker."

"Stuart," she corrected icily. No one had ever made that mistake, and she couldn't help but wonder if it hadn't been a mistake at all.

"Of course, I'm sorry. Thank you for coming. I really think it will help your sister."

At that moment, the side door opened and the two prisoners were escorted to the table. Kristy met her sister's eyes and mouthed a silent "thank you," which surprised the blonde somewhat. The last few people filed in, the bailiff waiting for the courtroom to settle before summoning the judge. The last person through the door was Lisa Parker, who quietly took a seat beside the daughter that had been taken from her almost 30 years ago.

"All rise!"

* * *

"Good morning, Anna. Flat tire?" Carmen said cheerily to her boss, who grunted and stormed past on the way up the stairs where she slammed the office door shut.

Anna kept a change of clothes behind the door, ever mindful of the mess one could make when it suddenly became necessary to disassemble a motor. Angrily, she ripped off her tan Tahari jacket and ivory top, both of which now sported greasy black smears from crawling under the X5 for the matchbox car that Andy had dropped. Naturally, the navy top she kept for emergencies clashed horribly with the dark green slacks, so she was forced to change into the matching plaid navy skirt. That move necessitated hose, which she kept in her bottom drawer, and heels, which she did not. The first person who commented on her casual brown shoes would be fired.

The morning had been… somewhat less than ideal. Andy had probably had a restless night due to Lily being gone, and was very difficult to arouse. Twice, Anna had returned to his room to find that he'd fallen back to sleep. Must be in his genes, she mused, thinking of how Lily loved to languish in bed.

Finally dragging the small boy into the bathroom, Anna readied the washcloth as Andy stripped from the wet pajamas. She had laid out his clothes, but when he joined her in the kitchen few minutes later, he was wearing the favorite ragged t-shirt with the hole in the side. It immediately brought to mind Lily's well-worn purple tank top. "No, no, Andy. That's a shirt for wearing at home, not for going out."

So back he went to change, but now his mood was no better than hers. It didn't help that she poured for him the same bran cereal that she always ate for breakfast… which he didn't like. After watching the boy push it around in his bowl aimlessly for a while, Anna relented and dumped it out, discovering to her chagrin that they were out of the round oats. In a moment of inspiration, she smeared peanut butter and jelly on a piece of bread and folded it half. Over Andy's protests that sandwiches were usually only lunch food, he finally finished all but the crust, but not without dropping a large blob of jelly on his clean shirt and shorts. That too must be in his genes.

Anna thought seriously about sending him on, but worried that he would tell her mother that he had in fact done this before leaving home. So back upstairs they went to find something new to wear. Anna threw the sheets and all the dirty clothes into a single load and started the washer.

Finally on their way out the door, the boy remembered his favorite toy–the matchbox Z8 convertible that Anna had given him on the first day they'd met. Andy rarely went anywhere without it. Twenty minutes later, Anna found it underneath the couch in the family room, but not before Chester had left a dirty footprint on the back of her top because she was, after all, crawling on the floor. A quick change and she too was ready to go.

She didn't have time to switch the car seat to the convertible, so off they went in Lily's car instead. Now 10 minutes late for pre-school, Anna hurriedly pulled him out, which caused him to drop the small car so that it rolled underneath the big one. And the rest, as they say…

"Anna, Greg Cahill is here to see you," came Carmen's voice over the intercom.

"Send him on up, Carmen." How rude would it be for me to be barefooted when he got here?

* * *

Lily watched dispassionately as the public defender made his opening statements. In a skilled maneuver, Causwell took advantage of Friday's turn of events, deliberately confusing some of the DA's conjectures. Sure, the jury had had the weekend to mull the prosecution's case, but they would have his statements fresh in their minds when they first began hearing the evidence.

From the corner of her eye, Lily could see Lisa Parker looking at her. The attorney was determined not to engage the woman at all. The very idea that this sorry excuse for a mother thought she could get money from her in exchange for Andy was repugnant.

When the court recessed for its mid-morning break, she quickly scooted to the opposite end of the bench, exiting and walking all the way around to the door. Lisa Parker waited, chatting briefly with her other daughter and the public defender.

Once in the crowded hallway, Lily dug for her cell phone and checked for messages. Finding none, she quickly dialed her lover's office, hoping to leave a message of encouragement about Andy and share the news that Lisa Parker was sitting beside her in court.

"This is Anna." Recognizing the number on the caller ID, the car dealer had excused herself from Greg just a moment to take the call. "Is everything okay?"

"Peachy. You'd never guess who's sitting next to me."

Anna knew at once. "How are you handling it?"

"Alright, I guess. How did your morning go?"

"Peachy. But I survived, and so did Andy." They had talked at length the night before, and she had assured Lily that she and Andy were getting by just fine, but that both of them wanted her to hurry home.

"Listen, I can't talk long. This is just a break. Will you be around at lunchtime?"

"Yeah, but I don't have much time today, sweetheart. Greg Cahill's here, and Geri's on her way over. We need to put the final touches on my speech for the Chamber meeting. Can we talk tonight?"

"Sure." Lily was disappointed but she understood. Besides, Anna was certainly doing her part to lend support. She couldn't wait to hear how the morning had really gone.

* * *

"Sorry, Greg. Where were we?" The two were sitting side by side on the leather loveseat in Anna's office, poring over the four-page speech she would make next Friday to convince Chamber members that she should be their vice-president.

"I gather that was your… significant other?" Greg had heard a bit of gossip recently from a couple of the members when he'd talked up Anna's candidacy. In a subtle way, he'd chastised their behavior, noting that in a city like LA, their strength was their diversity.

"My partner, Lily. She's in San Francisco today."

"What kind of work does she do? Is she a member of the Chamber?"

"She's an attorney. I think her boss is a member, Tony LeFevre, but his is an individual membership."

"Oh, I know him. He's the guy that runs the legal aid clinic downtown. Nice fellow."

"Yeah, Tony's great. Lily's been working there for almost seven years."

"I hope I get a chance to meet her someday."

"Me too, Greg."

Geri arrived soon after, and the threesome polished the speech for the rest of the morning. Geri suggested lunch at a popular Beverly Hills restaurant, but Anna declined, citing a backlog of work. In truth, it was the shoes.

* * *

"This court will stand adjourned until nine tomorrow morning." The public defender had finished his opening statement by 3:30, and both parties agreed to wait until tomorrow to present the first witness. The judge had given the jury strict instructions not to speak to anyone, to avoid news reports about the trial, and most important, not to form any opinions with regard to the case.

Lily picked up her purse and started again to slide out to the side when she was stopped by a hand on her arm.

"Lily? Aren't you even going to say hello?"

The blonde woman turned and met the eyes of the mother who had failed her, now nothing more than an Oakland cocktail waitress whom she didn't know at all, and didn't want to. "Hello," she said simply, and turned again to leave.

"Lily, wait. I want to talk to you about Andres."

"I think I've already heard your thoughts on the subject, and the answer is no." If Lisa had more to say, Lily didn't hear it, spinning abruptly and walking out, bypassing the elevator for the stairs. At the bottom, she hurried to the revolving door and pushed through, drawing in a deep breath as she exited. What a piece of work!

Walking back to her hotel room near Union Square, Lily fumed at Lisa Parker's nerve. The very idea that she had any chance at all for custody of Andy was absurd. There was no way a judge would give her the child, even if it meant sending him back into foster care. Was there?

Lily quickly paced through the menu on her cell phone until she found the number for John Moss.

"This is John Moss. Can I help you?"

"Thank god you're there! This is Lily Stuart. Is there any way I could drop by for a few minutes to talk about something?"

"Sure. Are you nearby?"

"Union Square. Give me 20 minutes."

Sooner than that, Lily was sitting in John's cubicle, ranting about the woman who had sat beside her all day. "So I have to sit there and look supportive like one big happy family, or she'll pull Andy out and send him home with that useless excuse for a mother. Can you imagine having yet another child in this world raised by Lisa Parker!"

"Lily, if it's any consolation, I don't think it would happen. Unless her circumstances have changed, she works nights, and the foster care system really frowns on that."

"But she's married to that Haney guy. What if he stays home when she goes to work? Wouldn't they argue that having somebody there all the time was better than putting him in day care? And god knows what she'd make of that DUI thing. And Anna! Wouldn't she have field day with that!"

Moss could only listen as the blonde woman finished her laments. When she finally took a breath, he jumped in. "I wouldn't worry about the Anna thing at all, Lily. If there's any kind of hearing, it'll happen here, and cases like this don't get decided on the basis of sexual orientation. The gay community wields a lot of power in San Francisco."

That was a relief. "But what about Kristy? How much does her opinion count here?"

"Probably not at all if she gets convicted. We'll move to sever rights as soon as the verdict comes down. But if she's not, it's really all up to her. Technically, she can just ask to have him returned, and we're obligated to do that."

That Andy would go back to his mother was unimaginable to Lily. Yet, the only sure way to prevent that could be devastating also. Lily felt no compunctions about holding her sister responsible for her part in this crime, but she genuinely feared that Kristy might indeed be executed for her indirect role. From what she'd read about the case and what she'd heard in the opening statements, the outcome was a simple roll of the dice, and there wasn't much middle ground.

"What happens if you sever rights, John? Where will Andy go?"

Moss leaned back in his chair and smiled slightly. He had been thinking ahead since the first time he met the woman across from him, and he liked giving good news. "I think there's a better than average chance that he could be adopted by the first solid family that speaks up, especially if he's already prospered under their care."

No, Anna can't handle that, and I can't ask her to. "That's not what… I just want to know that he'll be alright, and that he won't go to Lisa Parker. That's all."

* * *

"Do you want to spread out your roads again?" Anna reached for the box beside the couch that held all the street segments and accessories. "I need to go take a shower, then I'll come back and play. Is that alright?"

Andy nodded, immediately dumping the box in the middle of the family room and sorting the pieces to build his little city. Anna was impressed that he never seemed to construct the same setting twice, and he had begun incorporating other items, making tunnels by stacking paperback books. I bet he grows up to be a city planner.

Just to be on the safe side, Anna left the bedroom door slightly ajar, thinking she could hear if there were any kind of emergency.

A hot shower would feel good. The service manager had popped into her office after lunch wearing a big grin, guiding her to the window where he showed the car that had just been brought in for a tune-up: a 1959 507, BMW's timeless roadster. Unable to resist, Anna changed into her jumpsuit and spent the rest of the day in the garage.

The hot water penetrated her pores, soothing the tired neck and back that had bent over the classic engine all afternoon. Had Lily been home, she would have suggested the hot tub, but she couldn't see going out there with the small boy.

The small boy… was now standing in her bathroom… where she was completely naked. Nervously, Anna wiped a wet circle from the shower door. Yep, that was Andy, alright.

"Is something wrong, Andy?" What should she do? Turn the shower off and cover up with her towel? Just carry on and act like it was no big deal? Tell Andy to leave the room at once?

"Can we go swimming?" he asked innocently.

Anna was still frozen in place. Nothing was wrong. He had asked a question.

"Uh, Andy? Would… would you mind going to sit on my bed until I'm finished? I'll be out in just a minute and we'll talk."

"Okay." She couldn't make out his features through the steamy glass–and hoped that he couldn't make out hers–but she saw him disappear from the room. Hurriedly, she finished rinsing off and stepped out, wrapping herself at once in an oversized towel. Crossing the open doorway to retrieve her robe, she noticed that the child sat obediently on the end of the bed.

"Thanks for waiting out here, Andy." What to say next? "Uh, when you get a little older, you'll start taking baths all by yourself. For older people–like me, for example, or like Lily–taking a bath is more… private. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't come into the bathroom when an older person is taking a bath or a shower, okay?" There, that wasn't so hard. Anna congratulated herself for getting all that out.

"But the door was open. Lily told me to knock when it was closed."

"You're right, Andy, and I know that's confusing. I forgot and left the door open. It's okay."

"Are you mad at me?" He looked as though he might cry.

"No, of course not. You didn't do anything wrong." Anna couldn't help but notice the look of relief on his face. "And you know what? You've never done anything that made me mad. Not once. Or Lily either. Now, what was it you wanted to ask me?"

"I wanted to know if we could go swimming."

Andy asked for very little, so Anna hated to tell him no. "You know, it's kind of late already. I had to work a little late tonight, and we only have few minutes before it's time for your bath."

"But if I went swimming, I wouldn't have to take a bath," he reasoned.

"Oh no, it doesn't work that way. Baths are with soap. That's how you get clean. Swimming is just water–no soap."

Andy nodded as though he understood, though he was noticeably disappointed about not going swimming.

"Tell you what. I'll try to get home a little earlier tomorrow and we'll go swimming for a little while. But you still have to take a bath, okay?"