Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Hi and welcome to the Politics of Justice. It's me, your host, Amy Austin.
[00:00:10] Before we start, I'll talk a little bit about what I'm listening and reading right now. It has been a DNF summer. I've really, really struggled, honestly to find something great.
[00:00:23] So I did, like, flip back on the Kindle. And a few months ago, probably a lot of months ago, I bought a book called the Unquiet grave by Dervla McTiernan.
[00:00:33] It's such a pleasure to have great storytelling. I love Irish storytellers. I love an ambiguous character. I love random people in Irish towns who can't mind their business.
[00:00:45] It's, it's, it's been a delight.
[00:00:47] And as always, I'm listening and reading at the same time. I can listen while I'm in Budapest, while riding the bus, riding the tram, riding the train. There's a lot of public transportation. It takes 30 minutes to get anywhere, which honestly is probably as long as it would take to walk. But I don't always walk, so I listen. And then when I'm back here and not cooking or knitting, I do read on the Kindle.
[00:01:14] I'm enjoying it a great deal. Highly recommend it. If you want to check it out, I'll include a link in the show notes and. And it's just a delight.
[00:01:26] So moving on. So it's been a minute since I have recorded or posted. Just, you know, a lot going on. And if I were better, I have bank episodes. But I just have been busy dealing with the.
[00:01:45] What would I like to call it? The business of writing. There's so much administrative stuff involved in writing, it seems these days, whether it's like dealing with, oh, my God, like international taxes or audiobooks or whatever it is.
[00:02:04] I'm auditing my audiobooks right now and the 29 titles across a bunch of different platforms, just trying to make sure that the information is clear and the books are available everywhere.
[00:02:19] It's a challenge. It's a challenge. But if you're interested, I do have the Casey Court series in audio, so feel free to check it out. I have just been reading Ransomed before to prepare for this, and sometimes my own writing is a delight.
[00:02:38] So without further ado, let's get started. We left off at the end of chapter 22 in the last video.
[00:02:46] Oh, boy. And now we're up to chapter 23.
[00:02:49] Claire. It's January 2, 2004.
[00:02:53] And you know, the delight about this is this is like before social media was like, such a big deal.
[00:02:59] So these people's Lives are so much cleaner.
[00:03:03] I just, I have a book that's done that'll be coming out soon where social media plays such a big part. And it's annoying. It's annoying in real life sometimes, and it's annoying in the book world because like the characters, like the character in the book, nobody leaves her alone. It's like an endless social media barrage. Moving on. Sorry, I am so distracted. So we're chapter 23 where Claire Henshaw, she's standing outside the juvenile court building in Cleveland in January, which, you know, hellish weather.
[00:03:36] I remember standing out there.
[00:03:39] I cannot. Okay, I grew up in New York. I understand. Like Cleveland, Chicago, maybe Milwaukee, these other cities.
[00:03:48] I cannot undersell. Wake effect, wind and snow. It is brutal.
[00:03:57] But one of the.
[00:04:00] So it starts out with I stood outside the juvenile court building, my back to the wind. If the first ex parte hearing had borne fruit, this one would be all thorns. I do like that line. I do like a good first line.
[00:04:10] So at this point you understand that Claire is being bothered, badgered, harassed, I don't know the right word for it. With phone calls from Judge Brody because he would like to experience her and he's not letting out.
[00:04:26] And she is in the space of trying to determine whether or not she's going to discuss this with Casey.
[00:04:38] Like, the highlight is if I told Casey, would judge. The judge had demanded, however obliquely, would the lawyer believe me? And the note here is, this is true. I think about this often. This is the age old question of women everywhere who are threatened or abused by men. Will anyone believe me? I'm actually watching a show where this woman, this man is being awful and it's like in people's faces and they're like, well, it's both sides. I'm like, oh my God, no. So much no.
[00:05:06] But she's really worried because she's in a pickle that her own. The people that she counsels at UAMMA center were also in.
[00:05:17] They're vulnerable women in a vulnerable position. And the question is, if they disclose what's going on, are they going to be believed?
[00:05:27] And in her position as a black woman, she believes that the answer is probably no. And I'm not sure she's wrong.
[00:05:35] So there. So she's like contemplating, like she tells Casey, can she get a new judge? You know, are there ways that they can circumvent this particular process that she highly suspects is going to go wrong for her?
[00:05:49] And this is pretty awful. So then like she sees Casey get out of the parking lot, the Parking lot at this time, I think was across the street. The building's long gone. Not long gone. The building's ancient, beautiful building. Then they move the court from there.
[00:06:02] Then, so she sees Casey get out of the car, and Casey, like, stumbles, like, on a pothole, which, you know, is such an awkward move that it gives Claire, like, like, lawyer ick. She's like, how can she trust somebody to, like, help her with this huge dilemma when her lawyer can't even, like, stand up straight?
[00:06:23] So she, like, abandons that. And then they're, like, stuck in small talk land. And, you know, Casey's like, happy New Year. And she's like, you, too. And then she. The thing that she lies where she.
[00:06:35] Now look. First she glosses over, like, time with the family, which is fair. That's, like, not a conversation that she should be having with Casey. But then she straight up lies, and she's like, oh, I cozied up with my boyfriend. Because in Claire's mind, like, this proximity to a relationship, marriage, or a man, a good man in her decision, not Brody, it gives her legitimacy.
[00:07:00] But what's really awful about this is that Casey knows that she's lying because Casey was with Miles on New Year's Eve.
[00:07:10] So then, like. Then, like, Claire doubles down. She's like, yeah, I think we're going to be engaged this spring.
[00:07:16] You know, hopefully this case will be resolved by then.
[00:07:20] And so Clara thinks that she's, like, really, like, like, bolstered her position. And it's actually sad because at this point, you know, as the reader, that Casey knows that her client is just lying. And it's pretty sad.
[00:07:34] And it's just sad. I don't know.
[00:07:37] I don't know what to say about that.
[00:07:39] So they get into the courtroom and let me go back.
[00:07:47] So Casey then discloses that she spent time with Tom, which is also, like, kind of not true. But Casey's doing, like, something really similar where this proximity to power is giving her legitimacy. And she says to Claire, and, you know, he's Tom Brody. You know, Judge Brody's his uncle, which sort of crushes Claire, because at this point, she thinks, and maybe rightfully so, that then Casey is someone who can't be trusted. Casey does have this proximity to power, and that if push came to shove, Casey's going to choose Tom over Claire because Claire's a client. Clients come and go, but having the ability to get cases or be in with a judge is monumental. I mean, the next quote is, even if judges are supposed to be impartial they weren't. I'd seen it with Judge Grant if she'd gone to law school with or even dinner with someone a few times. She smiled a little more, listened to their argument more closely, gave them the benefit of the doubt.
[00:08:51] And the note is, I say is this is very true. Leads to attorneys doing whatever they can to ingratiate themselves with judges.
[00:08:58] And whether that means donating to their campaign or trying to meet with them at, like, conferences and stuff like that. And I will say this, the bar does encourage a certain collegiality with judges, but it does make it so that judges can't be impartial. And I don't know if anybody could be impartial, like, if you had to choose.
[00:09:19] Actually, it reminds me, like, of the things people talk about now with, like, I'm 10 thing reality shows where people. The contestants vote, and if the contestants vote, they usually choose their friends over people that they don't like.
[00:09:33] And it's just human bias. And it's hard to reconcile, like, human bias with the idea of impartiality.
[00:09:43] So they go through this.
[00:09:48] They're still having conversation. Casey asks if, like, she wants a restraining order, but in. Claire says restraining orders or paper tires were paper tigers in Cleveland, which is also true. They are.
[00:10:06] It says here the note is an unfortunate truth in many cities, counties, and jurisdictions, unfortunately. And I think, like, the number of cases where this happens is, like, just too high to count. Where people with restraining orders often die because it's a paper tiger. Like, a piece of paper cannot protect you against violence.
[00:10:28] If it could, it could. If it could, it would, I guess. And so at that point, Claire's upfront, at least with this part, and she's like, no, no, no. I need custody.
[00:10:36] So they're talking about, like, Darius is like, jail.
[00:10:41] And she says that this is a highlight. I knew that Judge Brody or one of his kin had waved the wand and let Darius out of his cage. If I wanted that wand waved again, I knew what I'd have to do.
[00:10:52] So when Darius got out in a way that. In a place that's not necessarily easy to just skip out of jail, Claire knew that the screws were tightening on her.
[00:11:08] So they.
[00:11:13] Claire starts. It starts doing this thing that, you know you can't do, but I know people do, where she was like, she starts rehab. She starts, like, going back, like, the. Down the hole of regret. And this particular, like, thing is regretting, like, meeting Darius. She's like, if I'd stayed at home the whole day instead of rushing out to the last lecture or if I'd eaten breakfast or taken in another bus.
[00:11:37] And then she's like, I shook my head vehemently because then I wouldn't have Luke. He was the light of my life without Darius. I wouldn't have a little boy who loves spongebob, the color orange and apple cinnamon Cheerios all in equal measure.
[00:11:52] Oh, so the note says Woulda, coulda, shoulda was my favorite post divorce activity. I wrote this book long before that, but the feeling is universal, I think.
[00:12:00] And when things go wrong, I believe that a lot of us spend time thinking if we had done things differently. I actually now believe, separate from this note and separate from this book, that this is not like some weird woo woo fatalistic sort of thing. But I believe in many ways that our lives would be the same, but different. I think there'd be a parallel track, but I don't think it would be substantially different.
[00:12:28] I think that Claire in this book, if I were to analyze her, which is not like, I'm not saying this is like something I'm great at, would have made a similarly bad choice because she was trying too hard to be something that she wasn't. Leave that there.
[00:12:50] So at this point they have the hearing.
[00:12:54] Darius has my, one of my favorite characters, Vernon Dinwiddie, who is like the local black like loud mouth attorney who is always there when there's a crisis in the black community.
[00:13:11] But I do, he comes back and forth because I do like the idea of those attorneys. There's one now representing. Well, it doesn't matter like when I get distracted. But they exist in the US and they pop out whenever there's a crisis.
[00:13:26] And so they're going back and forth in this hearing. And from the first one where there was ex parte hearing where Claire won her case handily, there's a complete flip where the judge is like, oh, well, he seems like a good father who tried hard and it's like, you know, we should give him a second chance.
[00:13:46] And at this point Casey's like freaked out because she like she walks out of the hearing having gone from like winning absolutely. To losing. Absolutely.
[00:13:56] And just wondering like what happened in apologizing. So while she's apologizing, she's trying to make like Claire feel better and she's like, okay, let's have an appointment where we like, you know, regather our, like circle the wagons and figure out how to turn this around in a long term way. Because what Claire ultimately wants really is custody.
[00:14:21] But while she's Doing that, she opens a briefcase and a watch, an expensive watch, falls out. And the thing is that Claire knows that the watch belongs to Miles, but she can't figure out how it got in there.
[00:14:36] And so they make an appointment, and Casey leaves. So Claire's now left wondering not only does she lie about spending time with Miles, but wondering why Casey may have been spending time with Miles. But before she can leave the courthouse, one of the judge's assistants comes out and says, the judge will see you now.
[00:14:57] And she goes back, okay, this is like, complete impropriety. Judges cannot see litigants separately from counsel, separately from opposing counsel and opposing parties.
[00:15:09] But clearly, like, you know, Judge Brody's not on the road of, like, propriety.
[00:15:14] So he says, it looks like, you know, she says. He comes out looking like a cartoon villain.
[00:15:21] And she. He says, looks like you're going to have some free time with your little boy off your hands. Won't you come see me this weekend? And he presses another card with her hand with an address.
[00:15:30] And at the end of the chapter, Claire thinks, what would this man do to my little boy if I didn't do what he wanted?
[00:15:37] Okay, so we're up to chapter 24. It's Miles. It's January 8th, and he is in a meeting with the other assistant U.S. attorneys and the FBI agent, Valdespino, whose name I sort of love. I don't know. There's a lot about these characters I sort of love.
[00:15:54] I've been with them for years, and, you know, they all have a special place in my heart.
[00:15:59] So Valdispino. The meeting opens with Valdepino saying, I think we have an eyeball witness.
[00:16:07] I'm sorry, with Miles thing, I think we have an eyeball witness. Mile used to be a cop. So he does have that speak in my head. It was Valdispino because of the way he spoke. So Valdostino puts down the coffers he'd volunteered to get, and he says, you shit me not.
[00:16:20] And Miles says, no. Kind of backed into it over the holidays. So they discuss, like, who this witness may be. And the thing is, like, that annoys me about this is Miles, like, brings it up and he goes, oh, she won't talk.
[00:16:31] So I think, like, in a sense, he's, like, posturing because, like, he's a low man or the person with the least seniority in the office.
[00:16:39] But this is clearly going to be a big case, and he sort of wants to assert that he knows something about it as well. You know, he's Just not as in the dark as other people.
[00:16:48] So he says he does this. The FBI agent wasn't buying it, but he sort of half regretted it bringing it up.
[00:16:56] And Valspino's like, okay, what's the deal? And Miles has to admit that he overheard it in a context that wasn't, like, the investigation, and that he thinks that the witness won't talk because who's going to go against this family, right?
[00:17:16] So, you know, Valino, like, they start talking about, like, what other.
[00:17:23] What else they have in the case. But because. And then we bought this before that because, like, the judge preys on witnesses who have, like, competency issues or other issues that would make them bad witnesses, that they're really, like, strung out for witnesses.
[00:17:40] And so they're going to the conference room with all the other U.S. attorneys at this point, and the lead prosecutor on the case, Chaz says, okay, it's been three months. What do you have? And that was like, other cases to work on.
[00:17:56] And Chaz is like, look, we're either gonna go to the grand jury or let it go.
[00:18:01] And this is the thing, like, that's. That sometimes fires up prosecutors in a way that I don't like. They do know that, like, there is some endpoint they can investigate forever.
[00:18:13] So they Sometimes they, like, really push hard to get a prosecution.
[00:18:18] And I don't even know if, like, if there's no time limit, then sometimes I think they should be more deliberate. But that's my personal thing. I'm getting sidetracked. So they're on a whiteboard. They're discussing the witnesses. They're discussing the viability of the witnesses.
[00:18:35] And at this point, the same issues come up with, like, who.
[00:18:42] Who it is. So Miles. So here we are again.
[00:18:46] And Blue Velspina, like, basically throws Miles under the bus and says, why don't you tell him about your eyeball witness, right? And he says, if I could have put a fist in Miles, you know, his face and gotten away with it, I would have.
[00:19:02] He says, I miss being in the cop shop where little fisticuffs would have been overlooked. So then Charles of Chaz is like, okay, you can't be discussing cases out of the office. You know that, right?
[00:19:15] And Miles has to admit that it was basically. I don't want to say this, but basically gossip.
[00:19:22] And so they move on. They're like, okay, fine.
[00:19:27] Will she testify or not? Rachel asks.
[00:19:30] And he's like, the conversation never got that far. And he does feel like a betrayal of Casey. So he basically says, she's Tom Brody's girlfriend. And Rachel's like, oh, shit.
[00:19:42] And Miles admits that, like, Casey walked in on something she shouldn't have seen or, well, she shouldn't have seen that it was unfortunate that she witnessed and how they can, like, get her forward. So they're really pushing Miles for her name. So at this point, he gives up that it's Casey core, and they're like, ah, crap.
[00:20:05] And.
[00:20:07] And so Miles is not, like, in on all the backstory, I don't think. But basically they're like, that's the person who lost the Judge Grant case.
[00:20:17] And then Rachel says she's sitting down Brody. She's. He's a catch.
[00:20:22] She said, like, Casey was lucky to land a man like Tom.
[00:20:27] And Miles thinks I'd met him. He was the lucky one. Oh, he thinks.
[00:20:32] He thinks I. The post it note I have is, he never knew how good he'd had it the first time around.
[00:20:39] So at this point, they're discussing, oops, she might marry him.
[00:20:47] She said so herself. And he's like, no, I wouldn't bet on it.
[00:20:52] And he has a sense that their relationship is over. But I think he's sort of the catalyst for that.
[00:21:04] But we leave the chapter there.
[00:21:10] The next chapter is 25. It's a Casey chapter. It's January 9th.
[00:21:14] She's meeting with Marissa Ellingworth, the rich European common law marriage client. And it's going actually really well because once Marissa dropped her bid for cash, he dropped his bid for custody, which is something that happens, actually, quite often, which is sad, but we will move on.
[00:21:43] So they're wrapping it up, and Marissa, like, says, how serious are you with Tom Brody?
[00:21:54] And Casey's like, oh, gosh, she's gonna be one of those.
[00:21:58] And so she sets a boundary. She's like, well, I appreciate having you as a client. I try to keep my work and personal life. And she's about to say separate or whatever. And Marissa's like, look, Marissa is, as people say, and I hate this, a girl's girl. And she says, we're not friends. But as one woman to another, I want to tell you to want to say this. No one's going to tell you what you're getting into. They all have too much to lose.
[00:22:18] And Casey's like, I dated him years ago. I know all there is to know about him. And Marissa's like, and yet you don't. She says, do you know why he broke up with Lizzie? They were engaged. Newspaper announcer, big party in Lakewood. All of it. Suddenly, one day they're apart and you're back in the picture. Did you not wonder? And of course, the thing is, like, this is like, it's such a. It's like such a knife to the chest. Because of course, Casey wondered. Casey wondered, like, why he called her out of the blue, but she's like, trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth because this is something that she had always wanted. She lost it in her mind unfairly, and this is an opportunity to get it back.
[00:22:59] So Casey just like, sighs and she's like, okay, fine. Casey's like, fine, what do you want to tell me?
[00:23:06] And Marissa's like, have you heard about the prostitution stings on the. On the west side?
[00:23:11] And like, it's. It's. I could just like, Casey's just like, oh, my God. Like, she's thinking about like, like managing this woman's like, custody and money issues on one hand.
[00:23:23] And in this, on the other hand, she said, free floating pieces of my brain started to fit together like a game of Tetris.
[00:23:30] Because of course, like, maybe she glanced at the newspaper or whatever and there's lots of things going on, but everything that happens in the world, one does not relate to oneself. Maybe some people do, but most people don't.
[00:23:41] So Casey, like, shook her head vigorously and she was like, what's going on? And Marisa's like, well, Tom nearly got arrested. Casey's like, what are you trying to say? Like, just get to the point.
[00:23:55] And Marissa's like, you weren't born on the moon. You can guess. Now, I don't know why Marisa's being like, all coy at this point, but who knows?
[00:24:03] And so Marissa's like, I mean, Casey's like, well, maybe he was there for work. I mean, prostitution's not a felony, but maybe there's a trafficking thing. Like, she's starting to like, come up in her head with like, all sorts of like, excuses as to why Tom could have been hanging out your women who engage in sex work.
[00:24:26] And Marisa's like, look, Lizzie caught him once. She found pictures of dark skinned girls. At first, maybe she thought they'd fallen from a file, but then the cops did the courtesy of dropping him at home. He couldn't deny it.
[00:24:41] And like, at this point, all the pieces come together.
[00:24:45] The doubt, the weird behavior, like the intuition that Casey ignored in favor of the fantasy that she was living in.
[00:24:59] And Casey said, I thought I. She says, all that time I'd spent trying to make myself sexier, all that money had spent on comfortable Lingerie. I thought I was lucky because I didn't have one of those boyfriends who pestered me for sex. And it had never. It had never been me he'd wanted. Like, that's.
[00:25:14] It's another stab to the heart, but from a different thing. It's, like, a lot of stabs right now. It's this for me. Like, for me writing this and for Casey, it just feels really brutal.
[00:25:30] So she, like, at this point, she's like, I can't do this.
[00:25:37] She's contemplating, like, moving. Like, maybe she moves to, like, Cincinnati or Dayton or some other place where the Brody family has, like, less influence. Like, she can change her life because she's like, at this point, she's made some mistakes that she's, like, burned Cleveland to the ground, and now she's supposed to meet with her best friend Lulu. She ignores Lulu's calls. She ignores Tom's calls, and she just goes home, right? So she's like, I'm gonna go home. And I don't know, like, lay down and just, like, try to, like, take it all in. But as she's, like, walking home and it's January, I just imagine she's, like, all bundled up and, like, just ready to, like, be, like, warm and cozy in her own place with her cat and just not have to deal with this. Miles is standing in front of her apartment. She says, miles was at the front of my apartment when I trudged up. Was there no relief? I needed to be by myself. I didn't want to hear what I should or could do. I wanted to make a decision with the influence of someone who'd said they had my best interests at heart but was really thinking of themselves, which is there's been a lot of that in her life.
[00:26:37] And she's like, how can I help you?
[00:26:39] She said even she could hear the edginess in her voice. And he's like, hey, hey, hey. I thought we were friends.
[00:26:46] Because he doesn't know, obviously, what's happened. And she's like, what do you want? And he's like, can I come up and talk to you? And she's like, whatever.
[00:26:55] She said, if you followed, fine. If he didn't, that was fine, too. I hadn't forgotten about that kiss. As a matter of fact, I was reminded of the most inopportune times.
[00:27:03] So on the other hand, one hand, like, they had this, like, New Year. They shared this New Year's Eve kiss. And on the other hand, she's, like, got to reconcile with the fact that her, like, boyfriend probably doesn't really want her, which is pretty devastating.
[00:27:18] So she's thinking, this is actually horrible. She's like, oh, I know he wasn't with Claire on New Year's Eve. Poor thing. I thought it was important to lie. She's like, but I wasn't dying to pick up my client's sloppy seconds. So she just walks upstairs to her, like, walk up, and she relents, letting him in and closing the door. And she's like, do you want a glass of wine? He nods. And so she's like. Now pulling up wine from the fridge. She filled her glass more than half.
[00:27:43] She makes a smaller glass for Miles. And he's like, I want you to testify.
[00:27:48] She's like, I took a long drink. Then said, I guess no one's ever accused you of beating around the bush. And he's like, what did you see? And she's like, what I assume is consensual sex between Judge Eamon and a girl.
[00:28:00] How old? You know, girl makes a lot of implications. She's like a young woman.
[00:28:04] She's like. She's, like, trying to banish it from the mind. She's like a young black woman. She was bent over the desk. He was naked except for his robe. And she's like, it's sex. She's like, what I thought looked like sex.
[00:28:14] And.
[00:28:16] And Miles says that's out of character. Usually uses his apartment. And they talk about, like, they run this rundown apartment, this, near the railroad in Lakewood.
[00:28:27] And Casey's like, this is somebody else's life. She's like, maybe he was having an affair.
[00:28:34] What is like. Like, what do I have to do with this?
[00:28:38] And he's like, who is the fix? She's like, I don't know anything else. She's like. She's like. She finishes her wine.
[00:28:44] She gets up to refill her glass. Because she's like, I need. Like, I need a drink.
[00:28:49] And he's like, when was it? She's like, I don't know. September?
[00:28:53] And then she starts, like, laughing. Like, she can't stop laughing because the whole thing is just crazy.
[00:29:03] And then she says, even to my own ears, I sounded like a hyena, or what I imagined a hyena sounded like. She's like, never I'd seen with the zoo nor the emerald necklace. And then she says out loud, what marketing team came up with the emerald necklace? Which is what they call the loop of parks around Cleveland. And if you look at a map of, like, Cuyahoga County, Ohio? There's like, all these little green places that are like green spots that are parks. And I guess that kind of loosely looks like a necklace.
[00:29:35] Miles is like.
[00:29:36] Miles looked like he'd rather be anywhere but in a place full of full up with crazy hysterical female. Are you okay?
[00:29:44] And she's like, okay? And then she goes from laughing to crying.
[00:29:48] And she's like, oh, they probably know about the prostitution ring all along.
[00:29:54] And he's like, what? And she's like, lizzie Thompson. That'd be beautiful. Rich put up with that shit. And he's like, what? She goes like, lizzie, come. Francesca, you should look her up. You must have access to all the FBI agents and databases in the world. Her driver's license is probably spectacular.
[00:30:13] He's like. She watches his face and he's just like, so this girl dumped who because he's trying to put it together. Like he walked into a room, like she put something together earlier. They're both like trying to like put all these like little facts together. But it's just like so chaotic, all of the behavior.
[00:30:31] And she says, oh, Tom Brody, you know, whatever, like is doing this thing. And she's just kind of like, just like spitting a lot of words.
[00:30:40] And she's like, my poor ass drives over to Lakewood hoping the whole time my transmission doesn't seize up on the highway because a fat girl in a tight dress waving down a good Samaritan holiday traffic is too sad for words.
[00:30:54] And then the note I actually wrote is, I can't ever decide if self deprecating humor is sad or funny. Maybe it's both. So she's like talking about like the Ellingwoods and common law marriage. And then she's like, you know, she's like. And then Tom takes me to Charlie's Crab and proposes. We get back together. She's like, turns out I can be bought for $80 of farm seafood plus some molten chocolate dessert. I hear wedding bells have playing clans coming out of my ears and I got my get out of jail free card. And she's like. She's like, don't nod your head.
[00:31:26] And then she explains that, like, that she was going to be the perfect beard, but he really likes a different kind of woman.
[00:31:38] And she's like, now I've witnessed a crime of the century. She's like, my ego is crushed. She was like, I'm. She's like, I'm not going up against another influential family. She's like, sign me up. So he's just like, oh my God. Like he's one of those men I think, who can't take a crying woman.
[00:31:56] So he ends up kissing her. And actually, honestly, they end up sleeping together, which is not great.
[00:32:03] At some point, she said the only words he spoke were, do you have a condom? And, yes, I answered, because I did. I'd been saving them before I thought was inevitable with Tom, she's like, I wanted to both get it over with and make the obliteration of the pleasant present last forever.
[00:32:19] And, well, that's actually just sad.
[00:32:22] So when it's done, they're, like, laying in bed just, like, talking about whether she's going to testify because he wants something.
[00:32:30] She just wants comfort. And then the phone rings, and it's. This is like, this is 2004.
[00:32:37] So her answering machine picks up, and so the answering machine picks up, and the disembodied voice says, casey, I wanted to make sure your schedule was clear for the soiree on Valentine's Day. I was hoping. This is weird to say to a machine, but here goes. I want to announce our engagement that night. What do you say? Call me. The machine clicked to a stop. I looked at Miles, and she says, I can't testify before the grand jury.
[00:33:06] And my note is, this is what happens when Casey gets everything she always thought she wanted. It's tainted. And that's the end of chapter 25. I was going to go to chapter 26, but I actually have, like, a meeting to talk to somebody about a book. And then I have another meeting to talk to somebody about another book. So since I'm going to be on Zoom for the next 9,000 hours, I'm going to conclude this recording, but I will be back really, really soon with the rest of it because I'm really enjoying where this book goes and the quandary that everyone is.
