He could lie, of course. “She looks like Howard Stern in drag.”
But the first time Connie had the clerks over for dinner, she’d brain him with a lamb chop. “As a matter of fact, she’s quite attractive,” he said.
“I thought you had a bounce in your step when you came home today.”
“I had to pee.”
She walked into his study from the master bedroom. She was wearing a sleeveless black silk cocktail dress, a triple strand of pearls, and matching earrings.
“My God, you’re beautiful,” he said.
“Look at you!” she cried. “You’re not ready.”
“Ready for what?” he asked, even though it occurred to him that she was dressed for a party while he was wearing a twenty-year-old Wake Forest sweatshirt with holes in both Ds of Demon Deacons.
“The reception at the Watergate. It starts at seven. Hurry up. I’ll find your tux.”
“What reception?”
“The benefit! The one Stephanie and Harold invited us to, bought our tickets, a thousand dollars each.”
“Not the one sponsored by the National Association of Manufacturers,” he said, vaguely recalling having told his brother-in-law thanks but no thanks.
“Who cares who’s sponsoring? It’s for the hospital. It’s nonpolitical, nonsectarian, nonoffensive even to a holier-than-thou associate justice on the Supreme fucking Court.”
“I told Harold we couldn’t go,” he said guiltily, realizing he’d forgotten to tell Connie.
“What! Why?”
“NAM is amicus curiae in a major case on punitive damages, and they’re involved in another half dozen cases with cert petitions pending. Besides, I can’t accept a gift from a lobbyist.”
“You must be kidding. Do you think you’ll be compromised by eating their goat cheese on endive?”
“No, but my attendance makes it appear they have access to the Court.”
Holding her high-heeled black shoes in one hand, Connie waved her hairbrush at him with the other. “Don’t do this, Sam! Don’t do this to me. I’m going stir crazy in this damn shoe box.”
“I know it seems silly or quaint, or just plain stupid, but a Supreme Court Justice has to live like a monk.” He thought of the chief, who wasn’t right about many things, but on this one, he was. “Some justices won’t even attend the President’s State of the Union address because of separation of powers. Even those who go refuse to applaud.”
“You’re right, Sam. It is stupid. Now, are you getting dressed or not?”
He looked into her eyes, which were ablaze with hostility. All the disappointments and frustrations of a life that didn’t turn out the way she planned seemed to be reflected in her glare, in her bearing, in the way she pointed the hairbrush at him as if it were a Saturday night special manufactured by one of her brother-in-law’s clients.
“I can’t, Connie. I’m sorry, but I can’t”
She threw the hairbrush at him. He slipped his head to the side like a boxer dodging a punch, and the brush clattered against the wall. She hastily pulled on her shoes, smoothed her dress over her flat stomach, and looked at him, her upper lip quivering with anger. “All right, Mr. Supreme Court Justice,” she said, spitting out the words. “Be a monk. Be a bishop or a cardinal or the damn pope for all I care.”
She turned dramatically and left the room, looking like a leading lady playing her big scene in her shimmering black dress. She started down the narrow staircase, two flights to the ground, her stiletto heels clapping against the wooden stairs like rifle shots. “But I’ll tell you this,” she called out, “I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a nun!”
