Her Day in Court

by Marcia Yudkin

I sat tensely in the witness box, my vision and hearing narrowed to a rectangle that ran from me to the judge. The rest of the courtroom, including my husband leaning forward on the edge of his seat in the back row, disappeared. I knew only the hard, dark wood enclosing me, the robed man asking solemn questions, and my sacred responsibility, bolstered by all the legal dramas I’d watched on TV up to my age of 40, to tell him the truth. At stake: $4000 and who had fact on their side.

Meredith, the Small Claims Court complainant, had told her side of the story first. Just as during our meetings in my home office, she worked up into a frenzy of blame. She flushed; some words stumbled over one another; her in-breaths hitched. When we’d met, I’d taken that emotionalism as her indignation over the urban housing injustices about which a literary agent had asked her to write a book proposal. A young college professor with tightly curled dark hair, Meredith had hired me to turn her skimpy outline into a document containing all the angles, arguments and content publishers wanted to know about a book project.

I handed her a final product as plump and persuasive as proposals I’d written for my own ideas that had won contracts from well-known New York publishers. “Send it off,” I told Meredith. “Don’t worry if the agent takes a few weeks to get back to you.” All smiles, she handed me a check for the final amount she owed.

During the next week she emailed me and called a few times, her tone more and more upset. “She isn’t returning my calls!” wailed Meredith. After reminding her to be patient, I asked how many times she’d called the literary agent’s office. “Maybe twice a day,” she admitted in a tone that hinted at more than that. Sensing trouble closing in, I cashed Meredith’s final check at the bank branch where she did business, a tactic I’d learned after receiving dodgy payments from magazines in financial straits.

Half a day later, Meredith left me a message, crying that the agent emailed that the project wasn’t right for her after all. “Your proposal ruined my chances! Tear up that check!” she demanded. Hours later she called back. “You sneaky bitch, you cashed the check this morning. Return the money. It’s all your fault,” she shouted into my voice mail.

She didn’t sound like she could be reasoned with, so I didn’t respond. For two days Meredith called me time after time, so shrill and accusing in her messages that I trembled at home, despite having disconnected the phone ringer. On the third day, I heard a loud thud on my front doorstep. Through the spyhole, no person or car was moving. After creaking open the door, I saw several of my books with their covers crookedly ripped off, dripping with what smelled like urine. “That’s like leaving a dead cat at your door,” advised my friend Billie, a lawyer. “Even if you returned the money, she might still come after you. Call the cops.”

My local police sent over an officer. Grizzled and kind, he sat down at my kitchen table, listened to my story and explained that since Meredith lived in a different town, he couldn’t show up at her door. But he could call her. “What’s her phone number?” In the calmest voice, still sitting in my kitchen, he talked to her like a levelheaded uncle. “Look, you’re not getting anywhere harassing Marcia. This isn’t how we settle disputes in a civilized society. Take her to court,” he said. “The judge will hear you both out, and decide. Will you promise not to bother Marcia and just wait till you have your day in court?”

Surprisingly, Meredith honored her promise to the cop. Two months passed uneventfully until our court hearing. Being in the same room with her again brought back my feeling of being under siege. She told the judge that I sabotaged her incredible opportunity to sign with a top literary agent. I’d done shoddy work and refused to return my fee, she said. “She tricked me! She’s a fraud!” Meredith’s gasping fury rose to a pitch I’d never seen in an adult.

When it was my turn to testify, I pulled three pieces of paper from a folder that had become damp from my sweaty hands: the contract Meredith and I had signed, a resume of my publishing experience and the report filed by the peacemaking officer who’d sat in my kitchen. A court assistant handed these papers up to the judge.

On the way to court, I’d rehearsed with my husband four points essential for my case. “Your Honor, I didn’t guarantee the literary agent would take her on, only that I’d do my professional best, which I did.” Through a froth of mental fog, I saw the judge nod at my point number one. Point number two had gone missing, so after a long pause I voiced number three. “Meredith told me she called the agent repeatedly,” I offered. “I can’t be sure, but I believe that’s why the agent didn’t want her as a client. And in the police report—”

The judge made a backhand sweeping gesture above the papers he was reading, so I stopped before finishing number four. The gavel cracked. “Case dismissed,” announced the judge. “The plaintiff did not prove her case.”

The tension that had cinched my nerves drained. I stood and saw my husband rush to the gate separating court participants from onlookers. “Number two was—” He started to prompt me with the point that I’d blanked on. I waved him quiet, as the judge had done to me, and beamed. It no longer mattered. My view of reality had prevailed.

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