Judy Blundell - What I Saw and How I Lied

"Was anyone else on the beach at that time?”

“No, it was beginning to get quite windy.”

“What happened then?" I hesitated.

"Miss Spooner," Mr. Markel said in a gentle voice, "please go on."

"Well, Wally kissed me. And I guess he lost his head. He pushed me down on the sand. He ... pulled up my skirt. I tried to get him off me —"

Just the fans whirring now. That was the only noise. It was like a roar in my ears. I had to speak through the noise. I saw a woman in the third row, her round blue eyes trained on my face. I saw sympathy there, and sur­prise, and ... greed.

"I'm sure he didn't mean to frighten me —"

Suddenly Mr. Forrest rose from a middle row. I hadn't seen him. His big sunburned face was red. "Liar! You led him on! You're a whore like your mother!"

The word whore was like a bomb thrown into the courtroom. A couple of women shrieked, and Joe half-rose, as if he'd deck Captain Sandy, and the judge called, "Get that man out of my courtroom!"

Whore. How strange it felt, to have that word thrown at my head.

I had to concentrate on the roar of the train in my head, of the shadow that noise could cast.

The silent man on the aisle, watching me. Never tak­ing his eyes off me.

I leaned over and buried my face in my handkerchief. I wasn't crying. Tears were so far away from me now, it was like they were in another country. I just kept my head there, until the gavel stopped banging and the room went quiet, and I knew that Mr. Forrest had been escorted from the courtroom.

"Miss Spooner?" The judge spoke in a nicer voice than I'd heard before. "Can you continue?"

Slowly, I raised my head. The women had stopped fan­ning themselves. The reporters were furiously scribbling in their notebooks and looking at me at the same time.

Everything happens underneath the same moon. Things you never thought you'd see. Or do.

I was sorry about Wally. But I had to do it. I had to tell them what happened so that they wouldn't believe him over me. But I couldn't let it stay like that.

"I'm responsible for what happened," I said. "I went with Wally to the beach alone. And when he suggested we find a place in the dunes, I went with him. And when he kissed me, at first I was so surprised that I didn't say no. I guess he thought... well, I guess he thought I was fast. I don't blame him for that."

"What happened after the ... incident?" Mr. Markel asked.

"He walked me back to the hotel. My skirt was torn. I was upset. And the hotel manager, Mr. Forney, he saw us. He was outside. He called to Wally, and later on Mr. Forney told me that he fired Wally because of what happened. It's not like I think Wally would hold a grudge against my family or anything...." I looked down at my twisted handkerchief. "I mean, I hope he doesn't blame me for his getting fired. He saw someone with Peter that night, and I guess he thought it was my mother. It's not like he was making anything up. He just got confused because of the blue dress, maybe."

It was almost over. I looked out at the woman in the third row. She was nodding just a little bit as she listened.

The state's attorney was looking down at his notes. His bald spot was shiny with sweat. It was his turn now.

I answered every question, and he couldn't rattle me. He tried to do his job, but I knew by his eyes that he believed me, too. After ten minutes he gave up, and I was dismissed.

When I walked down the aisle to leave, I had to pass the man. I looked right into his face. His eyes were light green. I could see how handsome he'd been once. He had the hands of a fisherman, thick and useful-looking.

He had a way of looking at you, like he could get the full measure of you in one long glance. Peter must have inherited that. Now I faltered as his father took me in, and I felt afraid. I wanted to say something, but what?

I'm sorry.

I loved your son.

I wanted justice for him, too.

I'd answered every question, I'd thrown mud at a good boy's reputation, I'd lied, I'd been called a whore. But it was that one man's wave of contempt that finally made the tears come.

VERDICT IN COLERIDGE CASE IS

ACCIDENTAL DEATH BY DROWNING

Joseph and Beverly Spooner Exonerated

__________________

Lack of Evidence for Trial, Rules Judge Friend

We were packed and on the road by noon. It was a long way home, and a long way to go without talking. Grandma Glad and I shared the backseat, keeping a careful distance, even when we slept. She sat with her feet planted on either side of her brown valise, and she never moved or com­plained, even when the sweat dripped off her nose onto her bust. She wouldn't talk to Mom, and Mom wouldn't talk to her, and I didn't know if Joe and Mom were talk­ing to each other.

The miles ticked off under the car wheels. The weather got cooler, and we had to dig for sweaters. We never looked at each other. We looked at Georgia and South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Maryland. Delaware. New Jersey.

When nobody looked at you, it made it so easy to feel like you'd disappeared.

All the way on the drive, I just wanted to get home, but when we got there on Saturday morning, there was something that made me and Mom both stop in the driveway and look up at the house, hesitate about going in. I'd been thinking of my room, and my bed, and the white bedspread, and my own pillow. I hadn't been thinking that I was going back to Grandma Glad's house, a place that had never really been mine.

Mom and I looked at each other, really looked at each other, for the first time since Florida. Then she gave a little tilt to her head and shrugged. She picked up her suitcase and walked up the path. I remembered the night in the car when she'd tilted the rearview mirror and put her lipstick on. How she made herself do it.

Being an adult — was this it? Doing the thing you most in your life didn't want to do, and doing it with a shrug?

I picked up my suitcase and followed her. Grandma Glad was already on the porch, her hand tightly gripping her valise. Joe slipped the key into the lock. We stepped into the dark hall. Every house has a smell, but you can't smell it if it's your own home. I could smell Grandma Glad's house.

Grandma Glad went up the stairs and I followed her. She turned into her room and I stopped, waiting. I peeked through the door. She stood, looking around for a minute, then opened the closet door and put the valise on the top shelf, grunting while she did it. As she closed the closet I scooted down to my room next door.

I hadn't even finished unpacking when Margie arrived. Thanks, no doubt, to Mrs. Clancy's gossip know-how. I knew as soon as she saw our car that she'd pick up the phone.

I could see in a moment what Margie wanted, how greedily she greeted me, how her eyes swept over my hair and my figure.

"Tell me everything," she said dramatically. "It was in the paper here, you know. My mother said it was an ordeal for your stepfather. An ordeal, she said. But then you said it was you all along who loved him. An older man!"

I felt my lips close. There weren't any words I wanted to use to talk to Margie.

She had been my best friend for six years. There were all of the secrets we'd whispered, sweaters we'd borrowed, homework we'd done together at her kitchen table. I'd been practically adopted by her mother, brought into family dinners and stickball games, hoeing their Victory Garden, washing their big old '39 Ford with Margie on sunny Saturday afternoons.

I didn't want to be her friend anymore.

She settled herself on my bed and smoothed out her skirt. "You can tell me," she said. She lifted her face to me, all expectation. She would have the gossip before anyone.