Trial and Error

Seven

“Let me get this straight,” Judge Frederick Barash said. “You’re suing this website where men comment on women they’ve dated.”

“Don’t Date the Bitch-dot-com,” Victoria Lord said, trying not to reveal her embarrassment. She hated cleaning up Steve’s messes, handling cases for his low-rent clients. “The website posted insulting and derogatory remarks about our client, Your Honor.”

The judge licked his thumb and riffled through the complaint. “To wit, that Ms. Lexy Larson is ‘a shallow, superficial gold digger who gives perfunctory blow jobs.’”

Judge Barash harrumphed and peered over the tops of his reading glasses toward the plaintiff’s table. He had served twenty-seven years on the bench and was a few months shy of retirement. A small man with a fine crop of judicial white hair, His Honor would have dismissed every case on his docket if he could, just to play golf every day. You could almost smell the burnout.

“That’s what our complaint alleges,” Victoria said, referring to Steve’s sloppily worded written pleading. Sitting alongside was her client-actually, Steve’s client-Lexy Larson, a six-foot-tall model with spiky blond hair.

“‘Perfunctory,’” the judge mused. “Not a word usually associated with blow jobs, is it?”

“Is that a grammatical question or a personal one, Your Honor?” Victoria shot back.

Dammit, Steve. From now on, handle your own crap.

“Don’t get your undies in an uproar, Ms. Lord. Just tell me, what’s libelous here? ‘Superficial gold digger’ or ‘perfunctory blow job’?”

This is not happening to me.

“Perfunctory?” Lexy whispered, her face scrunched up. “Is that like sloppy? Because I can give head wet or dry.” She made a slurping sound.

This is so not happening to me.

Back at Yale, Victoria had envisioned herself a top trial lawyer, winning major cases, dispensing her opinions on Court TV. In her organized, methodical way, she had charted a path. Five years as a prosecutor, trying hundreds of cases, building a name. Another ten years in a private firm, making some serious money. Finally, the bench. Public service.

“Judge Lord.” It had a ring to it.

Never did she imagine she’d be debating the quality of fellatio performed by a model with a two-digit IQ.

“Sometimes, I spit on the guy’s cock,” Lexy whispered, fidgeting in her chair. “But some guys, if it’s too slippery, they claim they don’t feel a thing.”

“Shhh.” Victoria placed a hand on Lexy’s bare, artificially tanned and superbly toned arm. The model wore a leopard-print strapless cotton sundress, and her oiled skin was goose-bumpy in the meat-locker-cold courtroom. A jumbo Fendi crocodile purse sat next to her feet, which were shod in red patent leather Mizrahi mules. A great outfit for a drink at the Delano, but Victoria would have preferred something more conservative for court. Still, as Lexy usually dressed like a Victoria’s Secret model-which, in fact, she was-it could have been worse.

Lexy was one of the moe-dels-her pronunciation-from Les Mannequins, the second-rate agency where Solomon amp; Lord enjoyed free office space in return for legal counsel. When Steve had rolled in just before dawn, bruised and still wet, he’d asked Victoria to handle his morning calendar. Meaning she had to oppose the motion to dismiss the libel suit, a case as flimsy as the gold mesh bra peeking out of Lexy’s dress.

“Let’s take a look at what else is posted on the website,” the judge said, turning a page, then reading aloud, “‘Don’t date a bitch named Lexy, a SoBe model with mud for brains. She’s a vapid, vacuous airhead who drinks Cristal by the magnum, which she’ll charge to your platinum card.’”

“Creepskate,” Lexy murmured.

Meaning, Victoria figured, a guy who was both cheap and a creep.

“Now, Ms. Lord,” the judge continued, “did your client charge champagne to this man’s credit card?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Victoria admitted.

Not to mention ordering two rounds of drinks for a table of strangers, a twenty-four-ounce porterhouse steak for herself, of which she ate two bites, and a four-pound lobster “to go” for her Himalayan kitty, Veruschka.

“Then I don’t see how you can maintain an action for libel,” Judge Barash said. “All the other comments are statements of opinion, and the law says there’s no such thing as a false opinion.”

“Nine out of ten guys say I give great head,” Lexy hissed in Victoria’s ear.

“Hush,” Victoria cautioned, using one of her mother’s favorite words. She turned toward the bench. “Your Honor, by posting intimate, personal information, the website invaded Ms. Larson’s privacy.”

“I don’t believe your complaint makes that allegation,” the judge replied.

Your complaint being Steve’s flabbily worded pleading. He’d probably dictated it without a minute of legal research. Or maybe he’d just let Cece Santiago, their assistant/secretary/personal trainer, write the damn thing. Either way, it was a mess, just like Steve’s underwear drawer.

“In that case, Your Honor, I would consent to a dismissal without prejudice in order to file an amended complaint stating a cause of action for invasion of privacy.”

“Excellent idea, Ms. Lord.” Doubtless thinking he’d be retired to Hilton Head before this lame lawsuit came to trial.

“What’s happening?” Lexy demanded. “Whadaya mean, ‘dismissal’?”

“Everything’s fine. Go to your Pilates class. I’ll rewrite the complaint for Steve.”

“Where is that cutie? He should have been here.”

Lexy said it with a little whimper that men probably found enchanting.

“Like I told you, Lexy, the cutie had a hard night.”

When he had dropped into bed, Steve mumbled something about trouble at Cetacean Park.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Later. Sleep now.”

He started snoring then, a sound vaguely reminiscent, Victoria decided, of the whistles made by Bobby’s dolphins. When she dressed for court, Steve was still snoring. She checked on Bobby, curled up in his own bed, breathing heavily. As she left the house, she saw Bobby’s bicycle sticking out of the trunk of Steve’s car.

This was the third time in a month the boy had sneaked out, and Victoria was worried. He’d been making progress, seeming to adjust so well. But then his fascination with dolphins pushed everything else aside. He was obsessed with the animals, and it didn’t seem healthy.

“Ms. Lord,” the judge said, “I wonder if you could join me in chambers a moment.”

Now what?

“Is there a problem, Your Honor?”

“Not with this pipsqueak of a case.” The judge eased out of his chair and headed for the door behind the bench, tossing over his shoulder, “A murder trial, Counselor.”

What murder trial?

The firm of Solomon amp; Lord didn’t have any. These days, their clients were mostly Whiplash Willies and hapless misdemeanants. Steve’s job was to hustle most of the cases. But as a rainmaker, he was more of a drizzler.

They’d also had a run of bad luck. Just last week, a jury rejected their client’s claim that he was sleepwalking when he entered the liquor store with gun in hand. When the judge sentenced him to seven years in prison, the jerk said he’d rather get eight years, because 8 was Daunte Culpepper’s jersey number, and the quarterback was his favorite Miami Dolphin, even if he was over the hill. Victoria started to protest, but Steve said he was just thankful the guy’s favorite player wasn’t Jason Taylor. It took Victoria a second to realize that Steve meant Taylor wore number 99.

Something else had been bothering her lately, too.

Can there be too much togetherness?

Working together and living together. Sharing an office and sharing a bed. All Steve, all the time. She loved Steve-but she didn’t love working with him.

She feared that their professional life was beginning to threaten their personal life, but what to do about it? She’d even toyed with the idea of opening her own shop, but when she’d raised the idea, Steve had sulked for days.

“We’re a team,” Steve told her. “Just like the cobra and the mongoose.”

“The cobra and the mongoose fight each other to the death,” she said.

“See. That’s why we’re so great together. I paint the big picture. You point out the details.”