Mr. Longworth sat at the table opposite me, talking about violation of gag orders, libel, attempted assault, tortious interference. “Considering the gravity of these charges,” he was arguing, “and the defendant’s mental state…” He was flanked by another set of lawyers, men holding brown accordion folders. So much of the law profession is pageantry and paperwork, one person speaking louder than the other. “The damage to the Earthshine brand is incalculable.”
Mr. Longworth kept talking, and the judge looked bored; his cheek sagged against his fist. At some point, I looked behind me. The courtroom was packed. The rows of benches were full and bodies pressed against the walls, three people deep. I saw Edith standing by the door.I saw the librarian seated near the aisle. The rest, I didn’t recognize: women in yellow visors, or not. Some were old or young or held babies or held hands with one another. Some were tall or short or wearing T-shirts or business attire or ripped jeans or dresses or coats still buttoned up because they weren’t sure if they should stay, if they should be there in the first place. Jane Does, each one.
“How do you plead?” the judge asked. My lawyer nudged my arm. She was young, eager, ambitious, working pro bono because she’d gone to high school with one of the original Jane Does. I bent the mic toward my lips.
I’d said the same words before on camera when I played a bit part on the local cops-and-robbers show. And now I said them again, this time playing me: “Not guilty, Your Honor.”
The judge looked typecast: white hair. Thin lips. Sharp features. Wire-rimmed glasses that slipped down his nose as he read the files in front of him. “The defendant has violated the terms of her contract—and I agree that immeasurable damage has been done to the brand in question…” He looked up at me over the rims of his glasses. “However, the defendant had been summoned by federal court to testify in a deposition. And that, coupled with the media exposure to these unusual allegations that predates the defendant’s accusations, could be construed as participation in a public forum, the right to which cannot be denied to any free man.” He removed his glasses. “Or woman.” He continued: “While I’m not absolving the defendant of her actions, which are serious in nature, I’ll remand this case to federal jurisdiction where I believe it belongs.”
The judge released me until the next hearing, and the courtroom emptied, and after a meeting with my lawyer and some paperwork to sign, I made my way outside, to the courthouse steps, where I knew a crowd would be waiting.
I paused before I opened the door to the steps of the courthouse, because I could already hear it: “Nona Dixon! Nona Dixon!” the chant of my name from the crowd. Myrealname—not Stella or theEarthshine Girl or some role I played. I opened the door and immediately a circle began to form around me, so I was forced to take a step back, the heel of my shoe catching the edge of concrete. Someone grabbed my wrist to keep me from falling.
It was Wyatt.
He’d shaved his beard. I recognized his chin, the little divot I hadn’t seen in years, the one I used to press, claiming it held my fingerprint. The daylight disoriented me after being inside so long. I had to blink to bring him into focus. His hands reached out to catch me, and I recognized them, too, the way they felt when they clasped my own, as they did those years ago before we jumped into that pool with our clothes on. Before he pulled me to the surface. I would remember these details later, when I’d tell the story—not to a camera or legal counsel, but privately, to him. I’d tell him the story again and again, understanding it a little more with each telling, how I’d lost myself but then found myself again. And this is who I was now. This is who I am.
I planted myself into the cave of Wyatt, who in the end, like the comet itself, had returned.
This is how I tell it.
That day we were swept up in the crowd as it moved toward the Earthshine factory. Police had blocked off all the entrances, so we took to the paths among the trees. As we neared, I could hear the crowd. My body brushed against Wyatt’s, and I felt something between us still. History. Stories. Muscle memory, perhaps, but memory all the same. Our brains are trained to want the familiar, but this crowd was like nothing I’d ever seen.
Were there ten thousand people there? Fifty thousand? A million? The news outlets reportedtwo thousand, but I can tell you, it felt like the whole world was there in front of the Earthshine Factory. It felt like the whole world was chanting now.
We are not your Earthshine Girls. We are not your Earthshine Girls.
A gangly man clambered to the top of Bertie’s statue again androped her thick, bronze body. He stood on her shoulders, working the rope, like a cowboy tying up a hog. Then he threw two long ends of the rope down to the people below. From where I stood with Wyatt, I could see the strain of the rope, pulled taut like a V. I thought of the first time I’d seen that statue, as a young girl. I hadn’t met Bertie yet, but I imagined her to be a giant of some sort, and in a way I suppose she was.
I remembered this moment, just the other day, when the Earthshine trialfinallybegan, more than ten years after the first Jane Does came forward. Now, of course, we know all their names. Now we know how lawyers from the class-action lawsuit hired chemists to reverse engineer the soap, and how they linked it to those Comet Pills in the formulary I’d turned over to the authorities. In her sworn affidavit, Bertie claimed she hadn’t known the effect of the chemicals in the soap. She believed Earthshine helped women. Her whole life had been a testament to women’s rights. She had always done what she could within her means. She’d always used her powers for good. She’d cited passages fromThe Juggernaut. The company could not be reached for further comment.
I watched the opening arguments from our living room. Wyatt was with me, and I asked him if he remembered right before the statue fell, before the protesters scattered and the police arrived to make arrests, and we held hands and ran as fast as we could back to his car. How after the protesters dislodged two of the statue’s anchors, and the casting of Bertie began to tilt, Bertie hovered above the earth, her arms outstretched, a giant bird frozen midflight, and her shadow cast a momentary darkness over the crowd. Then, we heard the deafening boom.
“I don’t remember it making a sound,” Wyatt said.
Was I happy to see that statue fall?
No. I was not.
Dozens of police cars and ambulances arrived, parked at an angle, like a closing scene fromMiami Vice. Nobody in Cincinnati sawthe comet in 1986. It was too cloudy. Nothing but low-hanging clouds—a typical Midwestern winter day. I’ll be dead when the comet comes again. I missed my only chance to see it.
What will the world look like in 2061? I wonder.
A few years ago, Charlie hired a private investigator to do some research. He used his connections and money to exhume the body of Opal Doucet and to obtain a DNA test. He’d found out the truth about his biological mother—but his other parent remained a mystery. After all that he called me up to apologize. It was the first time we’d spoken since my arrest and my legal troubles that followed me for years, until finally I’d won a settlement.
“They say her brain was damaged by the effects of narcotics. That’s why she took her own life.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It was all there in her hospital records. But—” he paused. “I know the feeling of being pinned in, like all your choices have already been made for you.” I’d handed those old letters from Madame de Fleur over to the authorities, too, and I could only assume Charlie had read them.
“You seem to have everything you want,” I said.
Charlie laughed, but it was a sad one. “Not everything. Maybe that’s where Halley got it; maybe longing, like addiction, in our genes.”
“She was more than her genes.” My words did not come out as anger, just a statement, a reminder not to reduce her to a single fact. “Look at what she did—how she helped people—despite her pain, despite the fact nobody believed her. That wasn’t an easy thing to do.”
“The world wants what is easy,” Charlie said.
