Perri O’Shaughnessy - Breach Of Promise

The whole town appeared to have come out in force to hear the verdict, a testament to the extraordinary amount of media coverage the trial was receiving. Every seat was filled. Many people stood at the back of the room.

Nina took her place next to Lindy. Sandy sat on the other side of her. Genevieve and Winston were already waiting. They nodded shortly and turned their attention to the dais. Nina crossed her fingers on her lap and also waited for Milne with an eagerness so extreme it felt painful.

The next few minutes, while the judge got settled and the jury was brought in, she passed through eternity and came out the other side. If they lost…

Mrs. Lim adjusted reading glasses on her nose. She cleared her throat, looked up at the court, and then back down at the paper she held in her hand. She read the verdict.

They had won.

The jury awarded Lindy Markov a total of sixty-eight point six million dollars.

Nina anchored herself to the table with her hands, suddenly unable to see through the blur of activity, or hear through the din. Dimly, she saw the judge leave, and the jury, casting smiles her way, filing out.

They had won.

The room around her rocked like a foundering ship. Nina’s awareness narrowed to the whiteness of her hands and further to the sensitive tips of her fingers where they held tight to the wood as wave upon wave of elation swept over her, knocking the breath out of her.

They had won.

And she couldn’t believe it. Because in spite of all the plans, in spite of the fantasies, she had never expected to win.

Her sense of unreality extended into her surroundings. The courtroom had altered, and now appeared more palatial, grander, as if the roof had opened up and sun now streamed in where dull incandescents had once prevailed.

Steadying herself, trying to control the distorting tumult of her emotions, she stood up.

Lindy had squeezed her lids down tight over her eyes. Riesner talked rapidly into Mike’s ear.

Mike’s face looked drawn. On the way out, he fell against a guy from CNN who was leaving one of the rows and who just managed to catch him.

“Congratulations,” the crowd in the courtroom told Lindy and Nina, who fielded a dozen handshakes and high fives.

Lindy’s friend Alice hugged Nina, saying, “You did it, doll. It’s a left hook to the face of all those grinning baboons out there!”

Lindy grabbed Nina by the arm. “My God,” she said. “If my dad could see me now!”

“Lindy, I’m so glad for you,” said Nina, but the words fell flat. Nothing short of a mountain falling down could truly articulate something so huge and so fantastic.

She could feel Lindy’s fingernails squeezing into her arm, could smell the excitement in the close air of the room. She could hear the voices, all merging into pandemonium. She stood still, soaking up the sweetness of the moment, thinking of Bob.

But the crowds were pushing, and Lindy’s hand on her arm began to tremble.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nina said.

“We’re trapped,” Lindy whispered, looking panicked.

“We’ll have more to say later when it sinks in,” Nina said to the reporters, pulling Lindy away.

“Take the private hallway,” she told Lindy and Alice. “Stay there until they’re gone.”

“Thank you for everything, Nina,” Lindy said, clinging to her hand.

“It’s a goddamned triumph,” Alice said, pulling her away and hustling her through the door by the jury box.

And a triumph it was.

With Genevieve and Winston on one side of her and Sandy on the other, Nina gave the victory salute on the steps of the courthouse seen across California and the country on the evening news.

That evening, Matt and Andrea came over with two bottles of champagne. While the kids took pillows off the sofa and bounced down the stairs on them, the adults grabbed jackets and retired to the deck.

Matt drank one bottle entirely by himself. After several toasts, he said, “There’s something I want to say to Nina.”

“Sounds serious,” Andrea said, filling her glass.

“It is,” he said. “Nina, now I don’t think it’s a secret I’ve never liked what you do. I’ve never hidden my opinion of your chosen profession. You work too much. You drive yourself too hard for a bunch of troublemakers who could never be grateful enough, in my opinion.”

“Oh, now, Matt,” Nina said.

He put up a hand to stop her. “I never thought it was worth it. I’ve said it before. That shouldn’t surprise you. Well,” he said, “I’m going to admit something. Today proved I was wrong. Apparently, what you do has some merit after all.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Andrea laughed. “Now and then, three and a half million bucks worth of merit!”

“That’s right,” Matt said. “And I hope you know how much you deserve it, too, Nina.”

“And it couldn’t happen to a nicer specialist in horrible cases,” Andrea said, patting Nina’s hand.

“Nina, has it sunk in yet?” Matt asked, looking at her. “From now on, you can pretty much buy anything you want.”

“A Roche Bobois couch,” Andrea said. “Duette blinds for the front windows. Hey, Nina, you can finally break down and buy yourself a decent pair of jeans. I’ve been meaning to tell you that the ones you’ve been wearing have a couple of holes under the back pocket.”

“A yacht,” said Matt.

“Really? Could she buy a yacht?” Andrea asked.

“Yes, she could,” Matt said. “I think. How much is a yacht anyway?”

“I have no idea,” Andrea said.

“To answer your original question, Matt,” Nina said. “No. It hasn’t sunk in.”

“Okay, here it comes,” Andrea said. “Here’s the question every celebrity in mourning, every landslide victim, and every lottery winner must answer at some point to satisfy the curious onlookers.”

“What question is that, Andrea?” asked Nina.

“How does it feel?”

Nina lay back on the lounge chair and pulled her coat tightly around her, staring up at the sky. “It feels like one of those stars up there just fell into my backyard.”

The vote had been nine to three, the minimum. Patti Zobel made it clear afterward, as she spoke to the press in the hall, that she had been the ninth vote favoring Lindy. Courtney Poole said it had been terribly close. Right before Cliff’s collapse, he had just about persuaded several of the other jurors to change their minds and vote for Mike, but then the judge had said to start fresh. When they returned to their original positions, and added in Patti’s emphatic arguments in favor of Lindy, Mike’s support had evaporated.

For two days, Nina enjoyed her brush with fame. Interviewed by the major networks, public television, radio and even on a website Bob helped her organize, she didn’t have any more time to deal with her own shock.

The attention often had a slightly hostile quality to it and generally varied according to gender. Men expressed disbelief and outrage at Lindy’s success. Women called the case cataclysmic and a vindication.

Nina disliked watching the issues get melted down by the media into a gender war. She said over and over in the interviews that the truth lay somewhere in the middle. She reminded everyone that the Markov case was unique in its details because of Lindy’s participation in the business. Most palimony cases had more to do with a long-term emotional connection and involved a request for support or rehabilitation. She didn’t think it would advance the cause of female financial equity between couples who lived together. Several other jurors, also interviewed, seconded her guess, saying that the issue was always Lindy’s work.

The jury had agreed that the separate property agreement was not a valid contract, that Lindy had signed the agreement with an understanding that there was a promise of marriage attached. They also agreed that some form of oral contract existed between the parties that promised Lindy not half of the company, but a share, which they had struggled to quantify, settling on one-third.