4th of July

Chapter 81

“DON’T FORGET THAT YOU’RE on trial from the minute you arrive at the courthouse,” Yuki said as we walked together through the cool and darkening night. We entered the Opera Plaza Garage on Van Ness and took the elevator down to where Yuki had parked her taupe two-door Acura.

Soon we were driving east on Golden Gate Avenue toward my favorite watering hole, although I was sticking to Cokes tonight. Just to be safe.

“Come in a really plain car, not a cop car or a new SUV or anything like that.”

“I have a four-year-old Explorer. With a ding in the door. How’s that?”

“There you go.” Yuki laughed. “Perfect. And what you wore to the prelim was good. Dark suit, SFPD lapel pin, no other jewelry. When the press climbs all over you, you can smile politely, but don’t answer any of their questions.”

“Leave all that stuff to you.”

“Bingo,” she said as we pulled up to Susie’s Bar.

A surge of happiness warmed me as we stepped inside Susie’s. The calypso band had put the dinner crowd into a fine mood, and Susie herself, wearing a hot pink sarong, was doing the limbo in the center of the dance floor. My two best friends waved us over to “our” booth at the back.

I said, “Claire Washburn, Yuki Castellano; Yuki, Cindy Thomas,” and the girls stretched out their hands and shook hers in turn. I could see from the strained look on their faces that my buds were as worried about my upcoming ordeal as I was.

When Claire took Yuki’s hand, she said, “I’m Lindsay’s friend—and I don’t have to tell you, I’m also a witness for the prosecution.”

Cindy, looking quite grave, said, “I work for the Chronicle and I’ll be yelling rude questions outside the courthouse.”

“And chopping her into bite-size chunks if that’s the way the story goes,” said Yuki.

“Absolutely.”

“I’m going to take good care of her, you guys,” Yuki said. “We’re going to have a real nasty fight on our hands, to be sure, but we’re going to win.”

As if we’d known in advance we were going to do it, we clasped our combined eight hands across the center of the table.

“Fight, team, fight,” I said.

It felt good to laugh, and I was glad when Yuki took off her suit jacket and Claire poured margaritas for everyone but me.

“My first one of these,” Yuki said dubiously.

“It’s about time, Counselor. But drink it nice and slow, okay? Now,” said Claire. “Tell us all about yourself. Start at the beginning.”

“Okay, I know, what gives with the funny name?” Yuki said, licking salt from her upper lip. “First, you should know, the Japanese and the Italians are like polar opposites. Their food, for instance: raw squid and rice meets scungilli marinara over linguine.” Yuki laughed, a lovely sound, like the ringing of bells.

“When my petite, demure Japanese mom met my burly, passionate Italian American dad at an exchange student mixer, it was pure magnetism,” Yuki told us in her funny, rapid-fire delivery. “My daddy-to-be said, ‘Let’s get married while we’re still in love,’ which they did, about three weeks after they met. And I arrived nine months after that.”

Yuki explained that there was a lot of prejudice against “half-breeds” in still-conservative Japan and that her family moved to California when she was only six. But she remembered well what it felt like to be tormented in school because she was of mixed race.

“I wanted to become a lawyer from the time I was old enough to know what Perry Mason did on TV,” she said, her eyes glinting. “Believe me, I’m not bragging, but just so you know, I got straight As at Boalt Law, and I’ve been on the fast track with Duffy and Rogers since I graduated. I think that people’s motives are critical to their performance, so you guys should understand mine.

“I’ve always had to prove something to myself: that smart and that super good aren’t good enough. I have to be the best. And as for Lindsay, your old friend and my new one, I know with all my heart that she’s innocent.

“I’m going to prove that, too.”