“You’re a pretty seventeen-year-old girl from a good part of town, no serious problems, girlfriend of the son of Judge Crevan. What’s not to love about this case? Plus they’re looking for a new reality show, and it looks like you’re their newest target. You represent a generation that will be obsessed with every detail of every aspect of this case, a generation that is pliable, mouldable and just so happens to have more disposable income than any other demographic. Whatever shoes you wear today, they’ll want tomorrow. Whatever earrings you’re wearing, they will sell out by the end of this week. Whatever perfume you wear, there will be a waiting list for it tomorrow. It will be the Celestine North effect. The fashion and sales industry will love you.”
He speaks so fast I can barely keep up with him, and he talks through a smile, which makes it difficult to read his plumped-up lips, which rarely move.
“Every single medium is going to use you for its own motivations – you remember that. You’re a poster girl for the Guild, you’re a poster girl for Anti-Guild, you’re a poster girl for the clothes you’re about to wear and for the lip gloss they’re going to wonder about. Does your daily eating plan include carbs, and how many ab crunches do you do a day? Who styles your hair? How many boyfriends have you had? Have you had a boob job? Should you? Plastic surgeons are lined up and ready to talk about every aspect of you, Celestine North, and I care about all those aspects because they affect the outcome of the biggest question at all: are you Flawed?”
I don’t know if he’s waiting for an answer or not. He is simply studying me, all of me, with his snake-like eyes, which stare at me from under his eyelid-lift, so I don’t respond. I will not give him the benefit, and I wonder again where this stubbornness comes from.
“Everyone is ready and waiting to use you for their own good, just you remember that.”
Everyone? “And what’s your angle?” I ask.
“Celestine.” Mum gasps. “I’m sorry, Mr Berry, but Celestine has the tendency to be so literal about everything.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Mr Berry says, studying me with his big smile, looking and sounding like there is everything wrong with all of that. “Like I said, today is procedural. You’ll deny the charge, then you’ll go home, and you’ll wait until trial tomorrow. It will all be over by the end of tomorrow. You need to think about character witnesses. Parents, siblings, best friends who’d die for you, that kind of thing.”
“My boyfriend, Art, is my best friend. He’ll speak for me.”
“Sweet,” he says, flicking through his documents, “but he won’t.”
“Why not?” I ask, surprised.
“Better if I ask the questions,” he says. “But seeing as you asked, Judge Crevan has decided he’s off-limits.”
I can tell he’s uncomfortable with this decision, and I understand why. Bosco could not ask his son to lie about my helping the old man to the seat. It makes sense to me, and yet I feel deeply disappointed not to have Art on my side. I need him, and I wonder how hard he fought to speak up for me, or if he fought at all.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Nobody needs to hear how your boyfriend thinks you’re perfect. Every boyfriend either thinks that or will lie about it even if he doesn’t. And he won’t be called as a witness to the scene, because there are thirty other people who are leaping at the chance to do just that. In particular, Margaret and Fiona, the two ladies involved.”
I silently fume, then think hard. “My sister, Juniper.”
“No,” Mum says. “Juniper won’t be taking the stand,” she says to Mr Berry.
They look at each other for a while, speaking a silent language that I don’t understand.
“Why not?” I ask.
“We’ll talk about that later,” she says, smiling, but her eyes are warning me to leave it alone.
So Juniper won’t speak on my behalf. Paranoia tells me she is ashamed of me, she has turned her back on me. She won’t lie for me, or my parents won’t let her lie. They don’t want me to drag her down with me. Why lose two daughters when you can just lose one? My bitterness takes me by surprise. Earlier I hadn’t wanted her to get into trouble, and now when I’m sinking deeper into it, I’m angered by those who are stepping away.
“You have other friends, I assume, and not just your sister and your boyfriend. We only need one.”
Art became my life after his mum passed away, and by spending so much time together, we managed to alienate our group, who, though they understood, also felt a little betrayed and left out. But I know Marlena, my closest friend since childhood, will support me, despite how left out she’s felt lately.
“You’ll be out of here by tonight,” Mr Berry says.
“They won’t keep me here?”
“No, no. They only do that in special cases, for those who are at risk of running, like that young man beside you.”
We all look at Soldier, and Mum visibly shudders. He looks so lost, so angry, he doesn’t stand a chance.
“Who is representing him?”
“Him?” Mr Berry snorts. “He has chosen to represent himself, and he is doing a very bad job. You would almost think he wants to be Flawed.”
“Who would want that?” Mum asks, turning away from him.
I think of the Flawed I pass every day, the people I can’t look in the eye, the people I take steps around to avoid even brushing against. Their scars as identifiers, their armbands, their limited possibilities, living in society but everything they want being just out of reach. You see them all standing at the curfew bus stops in town, to be home by ten pm in winter, eleven pm in summer. In the same world but not living in the same way. Do I want to be like them?
“What’s his name?” I ask.
“I have no idea,” Mr Berry says, bored, wanting to move on.
I look at him alone in there, me here with my selection of clothes, my mum, my representation, the head judge himself. I have people. He must hate me, yet that’s what I must do to get out of here with my life intact. A light goes on for me. I could be in a far worse position. I could be in his situation. All that separates me from him is a lie. I must become imperfect to prove that I am perfect. I have to do everything Mr Berry tells me to do.
Tina brings me a tray of food before I cross the courtyard to the court, but I am too nervous to eat. In the next cell, Soldier gobbles every bite as though his life depends on it.
“What’s his name?” I ask her.
“Him?” She gives him the same look as everyone else has, though she hasn’t treated me like that from the moment I arrived.
“Carrick.”
“Carrick,” I say aloud. Finally, he has a name.
Tina looks at me, eyes narrow and suspicious. “You should stay away from that boy.”
We both watch him, and then I feel the weight of her stare on me as I watch him.
I clear my throat, try to act like I don’t care. “What did he do?”
She looks at him again. “He didn’t need to do anything. Guys like him are just bad eggs.” She looks at my tray. “You’re not eating?”
I shake my head. I’d rather eat when I get home later.
“You’ll be fine, Celestine,”