LOVER’S LEAP (Part One of a Short Story)

MEETING ANTHONY

Nadine surveyed the grand vista of the courtroom, paneled and wainscoted in carved mahogany, the jury box to the left, prosecution and defense tables in the center. Classic marble columns on the right separated the row of windows reaching to the ceiling. The American flag stood behind her, the seal of the State of New Jersey on another flag within her peripheral vision. All of this, the very picture of justice, just as she had imagined it.

As the judge rapped his gavel, the tableau crumbled into a mosaic of attorneys sitting down, jurors filing into the box, spectators jockeying for seats, uniformed officers shouting directions to open the business of the daily session.

The prosecutor bent slightly forward and held the documents up close to his face, an odd position. But the intent in his voice commanded the full attention of the judge—and the entire courtroom—as he read the allegations of felony assault and attempted murder for the brutal attack on a black student leaving the Rutgers Law Library late at night in Newark, New Jersey.

Five years before, the city had been devastated by the 1967 street riots but had not yet truly recovered. Looting more than racial strife had characterized the event. The crime rate remained high in the inner city neighborhoods. The central downtown area near the train station—the courthouse, the department stores, the law firms, the insurance company buildings—was safe enough during daylight business hours, until deserted by the shoppers and suburban commuters after evening rush hour. The law student hadn’t considered that, but his attackers apparently had.

Once he completed the formal recitation of charges, the prosecutor lowered his sheaf of papers and turned to the jury to begin his opening argument. He no longer referred to his notes but waved them in the air for emphasis, then turned to the public defender and did the same. 

Nadine, the judicial law clerk for the year, sat one level lower on the bench and to the judge’s right. With her full-on view of the proceedings, she flinched when the prosecutor—his name was Anthony D’Amico—straightened his right arm out to the side and sliced the air uncomfortably close to the defense lawyer’s face. He pulled back from the nearly accidental touching and brought both hands down to the table, leaning forward and laying his palms flat. 

Nadine stared at his large and powerful hands, as if they were holding the table down, instead of the table holding them up.  His fingers flared out from under white shirt sleeves connected by silver cuff links.

She guessed that Anthony was thirty-two or thirty-three. Nadine was twenty-six but behind in her career curve. She had wasted the year after college in a dead-end federal government job recovering from a bad romantic break-up, but now she was ready to aim for more.

Judge Halliday, a pleasant older gentleman, had personally given her a tour of the courthouse on her first day. He introduced her proudly to his colleagues, “Meet my new clerk, Miss Jacobs. You will see great things from her!”

This was starting out to be a promising year.

In the early months of her clerkship, she had seen other star prosecutors accept lucrative criminal defense partnerships in the greater Newark law firms. By way of courtroom chitchat, she picked up that Anthony had appeared every day in this courthouse for seven years. He could have chosen from many private practice offers with his stellar record of convictions in high-profile cases.

She was certain, however, that no amount of money would lure him to the “dark side.” She concluded early on that his commitment and high purpose defined him, bringing to mind a quote on a framed poster she kept on her bedroom wall, Justice, justice shalt thou pursue.

Nadine reported directly to the judge in his chambers each morning to sort out her assignments. She relished the theatrical moment when the double doors parted and they took their places at the bench, the judge on high and Nadine perched on a chair to the side, just one step lower. She felt privileged in her vantage point from the bench. Nadine understood her good fortune, a young lawyer awarded an opportunity thanks to the bold move of the judge, the first in the county to hire a female for the position. He caught the new wave of women entering the legal profession in the 1970s, the wave she was riding.

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She occasionally had lunch in the cafeteria with the other law clerks. Steve Grace worked for a sterner judge who handed him assignments to take home every night. Steve seemed to thrive on this, talking on and on about his cases and the legal theories he discussed with his judge. Nadine knew she could not have survived those rigorous terms of employment. It alarmed her to think she could have as easily been selected by the demanding judge who expected his clerk to throw himself into research and writing even if it meant working at night and on weekends. Her gap year after college had broken the spell of all academics, all the time.

Even so, Nadine became especially interested in a zoning case involving a preliminary injunction against the opening of a progressive private school in a Newark neighborhood. She researched extensively, receiving permission to spend time in the library during court recesses. Judge Halliday agreed with her proposed conclusions and didn’t change a word. He freely gave her credit for her part in writing this and another decisions that was published in the official State Reporter. She preferred the social justice cases to the criminal matters that occupied the majority of his courtroom time.

Each day added to her confidence, her optimism. 

Anthony strode in each morning, often wearing a charcoal gray suit with pale pinstripes, slimming down his solid build, but always a starched white shirt and wide burgundy tie. He carried a soft-sided leather satchel stuffed with motions, legal pads, and bundles of marked exhibits to arrange on the prosecution table. 

Nadine noticed his arrival each day, but she didn’t think he noticed her, specifically. He wore glasses with black plastic frames, thick enough to hold lenses that resembled—there is no polite way to say it—the bottoms of Coke bottles. Even with glasses, he could read only if he held the page within six inches of his eyes. Nadine had no idea if he could make out faces or how much of the courtroom he could see, if at all.

She wondered about the extent of his impaired eyesight. Were both eyes equally damaged? Was it a progressive condition? What kind of private visual world did he live in? She imagined him working late into the night with his head bent over his desk, moving a ruler down the page to read cases line by line, perhaps reaching his hand back to rub his neck every so often and relieve the strain. She caught herself with a reminder that she had no idea and clamped down on her wandering thoughts.

Once, walking past the prosecution table during a lunch break, she noticed the large block letters—the handwriting of an elementary school child—spaced on every other line of his yellow legal pad. She averted her eyes quickly, upset with herself at her invasion of his privacy, secrets not meant for anyone, surely not for her.

Nadine being the only female law clerk in the entire seventeen-floor building, she often browsed alone during her lunch hour in the department stores on Broad Street, trying on a tailored suit, maybe a silver necklace to go with it, nothing too showy. When she pulled her chestnut hair up to the left to decide on a pair of earrings, she examined how her long neck, her cheekbones, her high forehead formed a proud and striking profile.

She broke from her musings and completed her purchase, the teardrop–shaped pearls with an opalescent surface.

No one told her about a formal dress code, but she felt personally responsible for upholding the prestige of the court. Cora, the judge’s secretary, gave her some additional pointers, “Young lady, don’t fraternize with the prosecutors or the public defenders. We are the line of defense that protects the judge’s appearance of impartiality. We know his integrity is unquestioned, but we never do anything to taint it. Got that?”

Nadine expected that these standards would go along with her job. She just didn’t expect a scolding when she was informed of them. She was out of school and in the real world where once judged, a man could go to prison for the rest of his life. She knew for herself that a place like this required adherence to rules, both spoken and unspoken. 

She took her mission to heart, same as Cora . . . and just as seriously as the prosecutor.

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Nadine had moved back with her parents into her childhood bedroom after four years and as many roommates in Boston apartments. Soon after graduation from law school, she sold her textbooks, broom-swept her off-campus apartment, and packed her belongings for her return to her home state. But this time she owned a law degree, the promise of a clerkship—and a tiger cat, Columbus.

She left behind the on again, off again law school boyfriend, a divorced guy with two kids. They had no future plans, nothing to stop her from accepting the offer to work in the New Jersey courts. She’d save her salary while living rent-free at home. She took the train back to Massachusetts with less and less frequency. Instead, she thought more and more about a direction for her career, an agenda that she took to heart.

But for this post-graduate year, the courtroom was her safe harbor under the tutelage of the fatherly judge. She researched and passed in assignments just as she did in law school. She signed up for evening sessions of the bar review course, running into a couple of college classmates with degrees from New Jersey law schools. They welcomed her back as if New Jersey were still her home. She didn’t say it out loud but felt that she had moved further in her four years out of state, an adventure that departed from a predictable path.

She also learned by closely watching Anthony—his courtroom demeanor, his thorough preparation, the skillful way he built his arguments with a consistently strong delivery irresistible to listeners—especially those most important listeners, the jurors. He spoke to them—that was it—as if they were equally as important as he was in protecting the rule of law. 

On occasional afternoons, when the judge asked her to find a case in the law library, she would see Anthony at a table amidst piles of books. She assumed he was working on appeals and hesitated to start even a brief conversation. She remembered Cora’s stern warning about fraternization, which is why it startled her this time when Anthony noticed her pulling books off the shelf and asked, “Hi Nadine, how are you? Can I help you find something?”

”Thanks Anthony, I’m all set. The judge left some reporters at home so I’m just replacing them for today.”

”Okay, sure . . . and I hope you’re liking it here.”

The conversation was innocuous, but Anthony kept it going, and so did she.

“Yes, for sure I do. And tomorrow, a municipal judge is visiting from London, Lady Kenyon. I’m supposed to show her around. I think the judge wants us to get to know each other as women in the law.”

”Looks like you’ll get the day off to hobnob with the aristocracy. I hope it goes swimmingly!”

”Thanks Anthony, appreciate it. I’m sure the courtroom will survive for one day without me.”

He smiled at her, then added, ”I guess it’ll have to . . . . see you the day after, then.”

Nadine went by his judgment that their conversation did not exceed the bounds of protocol. Anyway, no one but they would know about it. She picked up her stack of books and walked out, all the while wondering if he was watching her leave. She just had a feeling about it, but didn’t turn her head, not wanting to embarrass him—or herself.

In April, Nadine heard that Anthony had left for a vacation to visit his family in Italy. She felt slightly unsettled in her expectations when court opened each day. Another staff prosecutor filled in, a younger guy with an air of superiority in the way he marched in with his slim leather attaché case, snapped it open loudly on the table, then sauntered up to the judge’s bench with a show of casual confidence. Once, after a holiday weekend, she overheard him ask the judge, “And what did you do for the holiday?” She cringed at such obsequious banter. 

She questioned her reaction. Was it out of proportion to his actual behavior? Did the judge even care? Was she the only one who picked up on it?

Nadine disliked him.

When Anthony returned after two weeks away, she felt the courtroom hum again with the passion and purpose he brought into it. She relented from her generic “Good Morning, how are you today?” and offered a warmer, more concerned tone, 

“Welcome back Anthony, nice to see you again. Hope you had a great trip.”

“Thanks Nadine, it was mostly family, and quite wonderful to see them again.”

“How long since you saw them?”

“Way too long. I went there the summer after college . . . ten years ago.”

“Sounds like they rolled out the red carpet for you.”

“You know, it felt just like that, yes,” then added “And it’s nice to see you here again too.”

She noticed that his olive skin had taken on more of a golden tone, projecting an air of well-being. 

It pleased her to see it.

[to be continued]