Tell Everything. Sally Cooper

coming on.”

      “Maybe you need a doctor.”

      “I need surgery. A long recovery. Something to make it hard to talk or think.”

      “Brain surgery. Or throat.”

      “What about the face? You could disguise me.”

      I rubbed his hips with my thighs while he hovered above and made fingernail dents on my temples and neck where he would cut.

      “Not your face,” he said. I closed my eyes as he moved the crotch of my panties aside. “I need to know it’s still you.”

      “Why is Friday the holiday and not Monday?” Alex bit into his morning plum. “Anybody can die. Rebirth is the niftier trick.”

      “Don’t complain. Maybe you’ll see some stigmata today.”

      “One can only hope.”

      Inside the box, with the door closed, I pictured myself on the witness stand. Ramona might look right through me or give a sign — a wink, maybe, or a lip-curl. I didn’t know which I’d prefer. I’d never told Alex and I’d never told my dad and I shouldn’t have to tell anybody now. I didn’t care if my testimony helped put Ramona in jail for murdering James. I didn’t care about the future sex slaves I might keep from harm. I’d even stopped caring about K. If I could only forget everything so not telling was not lying. Who would know? Only Ramona, and she had no reason to spill. Though she might think I wanted to protect her. Ramona wouldn’t understand shame.

      St. Mary’s Hospital was up the street from the courthouse. Alex had convinced me to drive in with him on Wednesday. But what would I do until then?

      The answer came to me. Too bad if Ron wanted me out of the courtroom. I would see Ramona Hawkes.

      Thirty-nine people stood in line outside the courthouse across from the obelisk and the sculpture of three soldiers on University Avenue. The sky was lightening over squared roofs, and headlights dimmed. At the end a greyhaired couple had set up woven Maple Leafs lawn chairs. Beside them, a girl sat crosslegged on the interlocking brick tying washers and bolts onto a black leather cord and singing, “An-ger is an energy.” The Manson family came to mind, cross-legged outside Charlie’s trial with Xs carved in their foreheads. Charlie had Xed himself first. With what? Maybe his fingernails. His long, dirty fingernails. The Manson girls heated bobby pins to red hot to burn their Xs then ripped the Xs open with needles.

      After Alex left for work, I’d pinned up my hair and put on three sweatshirts, scrub pants, and Doc Martens and tucked my old fake ID into my pocket. At the last minute, I punched on a fedora, Alex’s, from his artist days. I walked up to the highway and caught the bus into Toronto. I disliked driving in the city.

      The crowd shuffled and a lawn chair bumped my knee. My heel landed on the girl’s corduroy bell-bottom.

      “Sorry,” I said and stepped away. She licked her lips. Under a fatigue jacket and a down vest, her black T-shirt read “Too Drunk to Fuck.” She looked familiar but like no one in particular. She stretched the collar and scratched at a tattoo on her breast.

      “You get used to it.”

      “You’ve been here before?”

      “Every day. Lots of us do. It’s a drug.”

      How many days had I spent combing the newspapers when I could have disguised myself and come here, to the source?

      “I’m waiting to see if they’ll put her on the stand,” the girl said. “Not likely. I’m Joy. This is my first.” She tied the ends of the cord in a double knot then snipped them. She put the necklace over her head and dropped the washers under her shirt.

      “Pauline. Mine, too.”

      “Why don’t you sit? I’ll make you one. The metal feels good on your skin. Like a piercing, without the pain.”

      More than ten people stood behind us now. “That’s okay.” I pictured the cold washers between Joy’s breasts. I moved back and looked up. Buildings bar-graphed the sky.

      “Everyone’s buying her story,” Joy said, standing. She had half a head on me. “Like Wanda Kake in the Beaconsfield Slaughter. They even had blood evidence, but Wanda looked good and spoke sweet and the jury let her off.”

      I remembered the blood on Alex’s scrubs, the flutter I’d had later that night when we’d played surgery. I hadn’t met someone who liked talking about murder in a while.

      “That’s because nobody wants to convict a woman,” I said.

      “They’ll be making a big mistake if they let her go.”

      “Why do you think?”

      “I don’t know.” Joy started another necklace. She told me she’d run away last year. She was catching up on what she’d missed at an alternative high school called FreeTeach. “My Canadian History project’s on women who murder,” she said. “This is my research.”

      I liked Joy. I hadn’t connected with anyone this fast in years. Joy knew as much about this case as I did. I told her that I read murder stories and that I wrote them, but I didn’t tell her I’d waited here once, outside Osgoode Hall, the summer after Grade 13. I didn’t tell her about Ramona.

      Security guards moved in, arms outstretched, and blocked the cordoned-off line. Television crews hauled equipment and barked into walkie-talkies. As the old couple folded up their lawn chairs, the lineup wobbled. Sunlight wrapped the buildings and drivers extinguished their lights. Joy fingered the necklace under her shirt, her hair swinging near her hips. She kept her eyes on mine until the court van splashed past and everything shifted. Then she smiled and I looked away.

      Inside the courthouse, Joy headed for the stairwell.

      “It’s faster this way,” she said. “We’ll get better seats.”

      “You go ahead,” I said. “I don’t care where I sit, and I need the ladies’.”

      I passed the Crown Attorney’s office. Maybe Ron was in there. He’d told me to wait in the hall outside the courtroom until my name was called when I came to testify. I moved into the crowd by the elevator.

      Detective Stanton stood at the door as people filed into the courtroom. I hadn’t expected him. I hesitated. He could charge me if he caught me at the trial before my testimony.

      Someone pushed me, and I caught up to the old couple, who stood behind Joy now. When Stanton stopped her, she showed off her T-shirt, hands on hips. He didn’t see me edge past. I found myself a seat by the far wall. Moments later, Joy plunked down beside me.

      “That cop’s a perv,” she whispered.

      A man in black biking tights sat down, and Joy slid closer.

      “Sorry,” she said, her leg resting against mine. She smelled like gasoline, maybe motor oil. I wanted to sniff her palms, her cuffs, chase down her scent.

      As an escort officer led Ramona to her seat, I shivered, nauseous. To keep myself from jumping up and screaming, I sat on my hands and inspected on Ramona’s clothes. The navy dress was boat-necked, the matching jacket too broad for her shoulders. The ends of a limp navy bow grazed each ear. The Telstar’s shot of Ramona descending from the court van had shown spice-toned hose and patent-leather pumps.

      The overall effect was matronly, save for her face, which she’d caked with foundation, crimson lipstick, and brown shadow blended up to the brow.

      “Bitch,” said Joy.

      “You think so?”