Cheating at Solitaire(114)

Marcella was in a hurry, and she didn’t understand why Arrow wasn’t in a hurry too. “Come on, now,” she said, checking to see if Arrow had changed into the little pile of clothes she’d brought in with breakfast. “Your mother is waiting for you, and a lawyer, and some other man, the investigator they brought in. And there’s not much time to talk, because there’s a hearing. You’re going to walk out of here today.”

“Yes,” Arrow said, and then, “thank you.” She had to remind herself to always say “thank you,” and “please,” and all those other things, because one of the biggest mistakes stars made was to think that they didn’t have to say those things, that they didn’t have to be polite, because they were not like other people. Stewart Gordon had told her that the first day they were on the set, when he had reamed her out about the way she’d spoken to one of the costume women, and then he’d told her she’d better call her the “costume woman” and not the “costume girl,” because “girl” in a case like that was offensive. Stewart Gordon knew things like that, lots of them. Arrow could never help wondering how he had found out.

Marcella had brought her a pair of jeans and a white turtleneck and a crew-necked navy blue wool sweater. It was the kind of thing Arrow had seen pictures of students wearing on college campuses, but not the kind of thing she had ever worn herself. She wondered where the clothes had come from. She was sure the jail hadn’t provided them, and she was sure her mother hadn’t picked them out. If her mother had picked out something for her to wear, it would have been a designer dress of some kind, and it would have required strappy little sandals. The shoes that had come with this outfit were thick suede boots with a faux shearling lining that went halfway up her calf. They were the kind of boots that were meant to be worn in the snow.

Arrow got into the clothes. There were kneesocks to go along with the boots. Everything had come from L.L. Bean, which Arrow thought was a store in Maine. Back home, the kind of girls who hadn’t liked her had all had clothes from L.L. Bean, the kind of girls whose families went whitewater kayaking on vacations and who grew up to go to colleges in the East. Some of those colleges were probably right around here, if not on Margaret’s Harbor then near it. Margaret’s Harbor was in Massachusetts, and Arrow was sure that one of the places was in Massachusetts, the same place Hillary Clinton had gone to for college, and Hillary Clinton was married to a president. Arrow sat down on the side of the cot and looked at her feet in the big suede boots. She looked exactly like everybody else on Margaret’s Harbor looked, if they actually belonged on Margaret’s Harbor and weren’t part of the film crew. She wondered what she would wear when she got back home and couldn’t have designer dresses anymore. She wondered what she would drink instead of the coffee she had flown in every day from L.A.

Marcella came back, and looked relieved that Arrow was dressed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” she said.“I’d be ecstatic if I was getting out of jail. I’d be over the moon. And I probably wouldn’t be getting out either. Not in circumstances like these.”

Arrow didn’t know what “circumstances like these” were, but she didn’t ask, because she hated making herself look stupid. She followed Marcella down the hall to the same conference room where she had met her mother yesterday. The televisions were all off. The corridor was empty. The corridor was always empty. Arrow wondered what they were saying about Kendra now that she was dead. She didn’t think it was going to be anything good.

Marcella opened the door to the conference room and shooed Arrow through it. Her mother really was there, sitting at one end of the long wooden table with her arms crossed over her chest. Standing next to her was the man who had been hired to be Arrow’s attorney, not her regular attorney from Los Angeles, but a criminal defense attorney. Standing a little farther into the room was a big man Arrow recognized from television as Gregor Demarkian. She bit her lip and waited.

“Well,” her mother said. “Arrow, I want to introduce Mr. Demarkian, the man I told you about. He’s—”

“I really must interject here,” the lawyer said. “I really must protest. I do not believe this interview is a good idea. I do not believe it is in Arrow’s best interests. Arrow, I insist you do not answer any questions until I give you permission to do so. Mr. Demarkian will ask. I will consider the question. I will okay the question if I think it is proper, and then, and only then, will you answer it.”