A Southern Girl: A Novel

29

Flow 293 longer than necessary, a gesture seemingly unnoticed, although from the corner of my eye I see Adelle turn away, perhaps weary from the excitement of the race. j 29 i The Swilling jury is about to make him the richest ninth grade dropout in the state. His attorney simultaneously harbors the hope of becoming the richest lawyer, and his contingent fee on the demanded five million dollars in compensatory damages and another fifty million in punitive would do it. Expert witnesses for Swilling have agreed that he will require “extensive vocational rehabilitation;” words chosen by Dr. Peter Spain, MD, one of his experts paid $4000 for his impartial report and testimony. Scott Edwards reports that summations will begin this afternoon with the case expected to go to the jury by the end of today. I marvel at the nature of Swilling’s rehab. Has his beating at the hands of the police deprived him of his memory so that now, absent this gilded treatment, he will have to look up the pager numbers of his runners before dialing his car phone? Has his brutalization left him so befuddled that he might actually declare on a tax return a portion of his income, estimated by police to have been in excess of three million dollars last year, most of it diverted or extorted lunch money from the schools? Is he sexually impaired, raising the tragic specter of abandonment by his bevy of cocaine-breathing beauties who nightly, in twos and threes, trick him into exhaustion? It’s enough to make a man, and a jury, weep. Allie moves with brittle deliberateness this morning, the fluid flex of her arms and legs poured out onto the track in Camden. Her spirits show more resilience. She hums softly as she prepares breakfast and gathers her books for school. I lower the newspaper. “You’re moving slowly this morning.” “I’d kill for a Jacuzzi,” she says. I clear my throat. “I saw you and Natalie spending some time together.” “Yeah, she’s pretty neat. She used to ride so we talked horses.” “Just horses?” A Southern Girl 294 “Just horses. You spent some time with her yourself. What did you guys talk about?” “Stuff,” I say, raising the paper. “Right.” “Well, I felt badly that she was wandering around without any friends.” “You took care of that, not that I’m complaining. She told me I rode with courage.” “That was very thoughtful, and very justified.” “Thanks. It was scary but fun. Next time I’ll win. Gotta go or I’ll be late.” She disappears, stiff-legged. The outing in Camden seems to have softened her. Possibly, my chance encounter with Natalie, our chumminess at the Cup, eased her back toward my corner, if only psychologically. Her restraint is still detectable in the way she shortens dialogue, cuts her thoughts in half when she might otherwise expound on some experience or feeling. For instance, when we returned home after the Cup, a postmortem on the race was dictated by familial pattern. This would have been the time for her to reveal her butterflies while waiting in the starting gate, Carbon Copy’s demeanor during warm-ups, incidents concerning her rival jockeys or horses, nearfouls or worse out on the course. She relishes these details, as she relishes describing them to me. But it did not happen. She stowed her gear, ate some yogurt and went to bed, showing no sulk or pique, only fatigue, as though lack of energy was the sole cause of her withholding. But I know better. Approaching the courthouse after lunch I notice an abnormal number of lawyers flocking inside. Swilling’s summation is bringing them out like Aztecs to a sacrifice. The courtroom is SRO, or so it seems as I enter. Scanning , I see Natalie wedged among blue suits in the second row. The bailiff barks, Judge Tyler swoops in from a door behind the bench and gavels the room to order. Swilling, as plaintiff, has the first and last word with the three men and three women who have patiently listened to three weeks of testimony during which their private lives have been put on pause. His principal lawyer, a dapperly dressed black man named Morrison who has been commuting on weekends to Charleston from Washington, D.C. by chartered plane, begins the laborious but crucial task of recapitulating the evidence [13.59.218.147] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 12:54 GMT...