“So now it’s pretty much a matter of mandatory sentences and precedents. Thank God he didn’t hurt that cow. I know people all through Virginia, but not here. Why couldn’t he have stayed in Virginia? Fuck, we’d be better off if he’d driven into the Potomac.”
“Lars!” Judy said.
“I know. I don’t mean it. Leanne, you know I don’t mean it.”
“How far did he get?” I asked. “I mean, in West Virginia. What county?”
“Jefferson, apparently,” Lars said. “I don’t even know where that is. The driver took me.”
“That’s Charles Town,” I said. “That’s my county.”
Lars looked at me. Judy looked at me.
“You know, I work at the county clerk’s office. Same building as the courthouse,” I told them.
“She works at the courthouse!” Judy said, suddenly excited.
“Not exactly. But in the same building. All the same, I probably know the judge on the case,” I continued. “There aren’t too many.”
“Oh my God, she knows…I mean, you know the judge?” Judy asked.
“I might. I probably do. At least I could find out who it is. You want me to call and find out?”
Lars handed me his cell phone without another word. I took it and stared at it. No one I knew had a cell phone, and I wasn’t sure how they worked. Judy took the phone from my hand and asked me for the number, plugging it in as I told her. She pressed a button and handed back the phone. I heard the ringing tone.
Mr. Bellevue, my boss, answered.
“Hey, Mr. Bellevue, it’s Leanne,” I said.
“We want to keep this out of the papers,” Lars whispered to me.
I nodded. “Something’s come up,” I said to Mr. Bellevue, and told him the story.
I knew that Mr. Bellevue would help if he could, on account of being such a big movie fan. Also I was pretty certain that he was gay, although I’d never asked, and Joshua Reed had a substantial following in that community. Mr. Bellevue listened and sighed a little, and seemed happy to hear that the cow was okay, and then he put me on hold to go find out which judge had been assigned to Joshua’s arraignment.
“Your fella’s a lucky boy,” Mr. Bellevue said when he got back on the phone. “It’s Weintraub.”
“He was Charlie’s, right? That is good news,” I said. I asked Mr. Bellevue to please keep all this to himself, but I wasn’t too worried. I knew that he respected privacy, at least the serious kind. And I promised to give him details when I got there in the afternoon. I handed the phone back to Judy to hang up.
“So?” Lars and Judy were looking at me.
“Yeah, when you paid and asked for the first available court date, that’s good—you got Judge Weintraub. People say he’s pretty progressive and also a nice guy. But what’s cool is that, Sandy, my best friend since third grade? Her brother Charlie got pulled over about a year ago, second offense, drunk driving. Is it Joshua’s second offense?”
Lars and Judy exchanged glances. Lars nodded.
“Because second is usually jail but third always is,” I told them, although I got the impression that they already knew something about drunk driving sentences. “Anyway, Charlie lost his license of course, for a long time, but instead of jail he got house arrest, at home, for I think it was ninety days. Weintraub’s really into families helping each other through hard times. It drove Sandy crazy to have him there. Charlie, not the judge. I mean, they let him go to work, but then he had to come right home. So you might be able to argue some sort of precedent. You know, if you were willing to plead guilty. That’s the thing, Charlie pled guilty. Pled? Pleaded? You get what I mean.”
“But what are we going to do about the movie? I know you’re pissed, sweetheart, but I really want him to be in this movie,” Judy said to Lars. “It’ll be good for all of us. We can’t have him sitting at home in California.”
“He couldn’t do that,” I told her. “Whatever punishment he gets will have to be in West Virginia. Probably Jefferson County. I remember that from my class on jurisdiction,” I said.
Lars smiled at me. “You’ll make a good lawyer,” he said. He turned to Judy. “Leanne’s right. Whatever happens, it’s bound to happen in Jefferson County.”
“What are you suggesting?” Judy said. “That we stick him in a hotel for three months?”
“I doubt that would count as house arrest,” Lars said. “It’s not a house. And I don’t think there’s such thing as bed-and-breakfast arrest.” Lars was almost laughing, but Judy looked serious.
“So who do we know in Jefferson County?” Judy asked. “We must know someone. Can we rent an apartment?”
Lars was looking across the table at me.
“You know me,” I said. “And of course, I know a lot of people.”
Judy turned to me, smiling and exasperated. “I don’t suppose there are any house arrest bungalows available in Pinecob, are there?” Now she was laughing. “Or guesthouses?”
I shook my head. I had a thought, bit my lip, then opened my mouth. I figured it was likely a stupid idea, that it wouldn’t work so there was no harm in saying it. Knowing what I know now, maybe I wouldn’t have said it. Knowing what I know now, maybe I would have kept quiet and looked at my shoes instead. But I did say it. And everything that would have otherwise stayed the same started changing. Like experiments with food coloring we did in home economics, making icing in green and blue and red shades. Put a drop of red into water, and the water will never again run clear. You can keep adding more and make it deeper red, or add blue and make purple. You still have choices like that. But to get back to clear water, you have to pour out what you’ve done and start over. And that doesn’t work in life, with its days and geography. You can’t just start over. You can never just start over.
“The thing is, Judge Weintraub is really into families. That’s why he likes house arrest,” I explained. I remember hearing Sandy complaining about this. “I know he’s not related, but Joshua might be able to stay in Vince’s room,” I said. “There’s probably a legal guardianship thing to work out, and you’d have to convince my mother.”
Judy turned to Lars and raised her eyebrows. Lars turned to me and raised his.
“We could argue a long-term relationship, given the fan club,” Lars said.
“Can you imagine?” Judy asked. “Let’s think this through a minute. For starters, J.P. would hate that.” Judy didn’t add to her list. She stopped talking and looked over at me, too.
Joshua Reed appeared then, hair still wet from the shower but clean shaven and clean clothed. Even damp, he really was beautiful. Judy and Lars looked at him, then turned to me.
“You are really fucking lucky,” Lars said.
“Yeah?” Joshua smiled. He seemed surprised. “Hey, that’s great.”
“Leanne here knows your judge,” Lars said.
Chapter 4
Start Slow
What’s crazy is how it all worked out. The court system in the United States—or at least in West Virginia—really does work on precedent. I’d heard that, but this was the first time I’d seen it in action. I’d always liked that about law. The logic of it. Knowing, at least in some small part, what you might expect.
A