“I gotta go shit and shower,” Hammer announces and rolls his rank carcass off my bed. “I’m a worker bee. Tell me which target to destroy and it’s gone. But I’m for Mr. Texas. Ace will come around.” At the door, he pauses, “Either way, I’ve got your back.”
“Same,” Darryl declares and disappears with Hammer. Only Masters remains.
“You know you gotta do this,” he tells me.
“No, I don’t know anything.” I find my wallet and stick it into my back pocket. The room is stifling. I need to get out of here.
“Matty, you gotta be the leader here.”
“Why?”
Masters gives me a perturbed look. “Sophomore year we played Penn. We were set for a blitzing play, but I ended up intercepting the ball. Why?”
“When we got to the line, the offensive was set up for a dig route across the middle by the slot receiver. Blitzing would have put our guys out of position.”
“Right. You came over to me and we changed it up. Had four men rush the quarterback. I dropped back, and the ball landed in my hands. “
“You ran it back for a touchdown.” I grin. That was a good play.
“Because you recognized the offensive play. I didn’t. I have great natural talent, but you memorize the game. We sit in film and you see it once and it’s imprinted in your head. That’s why the defense is going to follow you.”
“I don’t want that. I don’t want that kind of responsibility.”
“Too bad,” he says unsympathetically.
“This isn’t even leadership,” I scowl. “It’s mutiny.”
Masters tries a different tack. “You once told me your favorite character from your favorite series was the bad guy who’d done a heinous deed because it helped save the world.”
I pause with one arm shoved into my winter coat and glare at my friend. “That’s fucking low, Masters. Real fucking low. I was drunk off my ass when I told you that story.”
“I know,” he says unrepentantly. “Don’t change the facts, though.”
7
Lucy
“You grabbed the steering wheel as the ice resurfacer took off?” Heather Bell asks, her voice heavy with disbelief.
In the chair we designated as the witness seat, Emily Hartwig nods with pretend wariness and probably very real confusion since Heather is not supposed to be cross-examining her.
“Is that a yes?” I mutter under my breath. Heather misses her cue, though, and stands, forgetting that all non-verbal responses have to be verbalized or it’s not part of the appealable record. It’s something we’re specifically scored on in competitions. I hold my breath. Please tell me she’s not going to approach without—
“Let me show you what you said in your deposition,” Heather says and swishes her way across the fake courtroom floor.
Beside me, Randall groans. Heather whips around with a glare hot enough to make the papers in front of us burst into flames.
“What did I do wrong this time, Mr. Perfect?”
Randall rests his fists against the surface of the table, looking ready to spring out of his chair and launch himself at Heather. “How long do we have because that entire line of questioning is completely insane. Emily is our client. We don’t cross-examine our own client.”
“Randall, she’s new,” I remind him. The last thing we need is for Heather to blow her top, too. In the four practices we’ve had since the semester started, these two have been at each other’s throats, rendering the whole team tense and unhappy. Regionals are in the middle of March, right before Spring Break, and none of us is going to make it to the tournament at this rate. We’ll have clawed each other to death well before then. It’ll be our own version of the Valentine’s Day Massacre.
“Are you sure you’re Paul Bell’s daughter? Surely he would have taught you something,” Randall remarks snidely. I kick him under the table, and that earns me an unhappy look.
On the makeshift witness stand, Emily’s once perky brown hair lies limply around her face. She’s wearing the same expression we’re all sporting—tired and defeated. She’s been up there for the last thirty minutes, while Heather has tried to work her way through a direct examination—something she’ll be required to complete error-free in under eight minutes at competition.
The rest of our mock trial team shifts impatiently behind us. It’s time to call it a night even though we achieved nothing productive.
I get to my feet. “We’ve been at this for two hours. Why don’t we adjourn for tonight and we’ll take it up again in two days?”
“Hopefully Miss Bell will practice in those two days. Maybe read a few of our materials on how to conduct an examination?” Randall sneers.
Heather’s response is predictably tart in return. “At least I actually bring some emotion to this dead room. Your opening was so monotone that five minutes felt like five years. Plus, do you have any clothes that don’t scream tacky? Hand to God, I’ve seen mannequins at the Salvation Army tricked out in better clothes than you have on.”
Beneath his dark skin, Randall blanches and turns ashy pale. Heather’s good at dishing out insults like this. And Randall, a scholarship student like me, readily takes the bait. “If only you’d inherited some actual skill from your dad instead of just his wallet.”
When Heather opens her mouth to deliver another cutting remark, I jump in. “All right. We don’t need to snap at each other. I think we’re tired, hungry, and just need a break. Heather, if you could, there’s a set of sample questions in the original packet that show the difference between cross and direct. I can resend them to you via email if you want.” Hell, I’d write the entire examination if she’d agree to memorize and read it, but any time I’ve hinted at offering help, she shuts me down. “Randall, Heather’s new to this. We’ve got ten weeks, and I’m sure we’re all going to make mistakes between now and the Regionals, so let’s give each other room to make them. Patience.” I give them both a smile.