reeks of gardenias, which are potted and blooming on every spare surface, including the top of the washing machine. I inhale deeply as I slip out the door and into my garage.
The radio in my Mini Cooper (code-named Anderson) is set to NPR, and after deliberation that lasts about the length of my long, twisty driveway, I decide leave it there, distracting myself with an interesting discussion about transgender elementary schoolers before, about two miles from my destination, I call Jamie.
“Are you thereeee?” she asks, in lieu of a normal greeting.
“Not yet.” I sigh.
“Are you ready?” she asks. “Are you still going to do it?” She sounds perhaps skeptical. I can’t tell for sure. She’s got this thing she does where even I can’t read her intonation. Tricky whore.
I sigh again. “I guess maybe. Probably,” I modify.
“You can do this.”
I sink my nails into the leather of the steering wheel and glare out at the traffic.
“It might help,” she says.
“Might.” I attack the stitching on the wheel’s side with one dark purple fingernail and make a turn toward the courthouse.
“I wish I could be there,” she says in a sympathetic tone. She’s got the weirdest accent—Southern and phonetically proper, all at once—and something about it always reminds me of Scarlett O’Hara.
“It’s okay. I know you can’t be, and it’s no biggie.”
Jamie’s a publicist for country music stars, and one of her mouthiest, most trouble-making clients is filming an interview with CMT in two hours.
“It’ll either go well or it won’t. I’m trying to prepare for either way.” I sound a lot more chilled out than I feel.
“Keep me posted. I’ll say a prayer,” she says.
“Thanks.”
I roll into the Sevier County Courthouse parking lot five minutes late, but still take the time to reapply my red lipstick before exiting the car. It’s an attitude thing. Once I feel as if my ’tude is cemented safely in place, I allow my eyes to linger on the left side of my mouth. I try to see myself the way they’ll see me. The way I saw me the first day I woke up in the ICU.
I can’t, though. Not after this long. I just look like me, and I know that’s probably a blessing: that my eyes can’t see my face with horror.
I lift my chin and practice what I used to call the duck face, back when I modeled. Eyes slightly wide, lips pressed into a pout so subtle there’s no way anyone would actually call it that. The look is requested so often by photographers in shoots because it could be anything: pouty, sexy, innocent.
The look makes me feel pouty and hopefully appear innocent—even slightly victimized—so I hold it as I walk briskly past the Dolly Parton statue in front of the building and up the steps.
I hold my shoulders up straight and even use my model walk as I make my way through the crowd and to the elevator banks.
“Shit.”
There’s a sheet of paper taped to the closed doors.
“OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE STAIRS.”
I inhale deeply, keeping my face neutral even though I want to scream. There are people all around me, people I believe are staring at me. Probably because they saw my picture in that newspaper article that ran a little while ago. Judgy people. The Southeastern United States may be beautiful and friendly, too, but people here are judgier than Saint Peter.
Shit. I’m late and now I have to take the stairs.
My mood plummets further when I see how freaking packed the stairwell is. Some guy huffs and puffs behind me, and I swear I feel his greedy eyes on my ass. Kind of makes me want to turn around and snarile at him.
As I’m nearing the door that opens onto the third floor, a white-haired woman lunges out in front of me to get the door.
“Thank you.” I smile slightly before stepping through.
“Anything for you, dear. You know, my mother’s mother worked in a traveling circus. Dancing bears.”
It’s a good thing the last few years have trained me not to smile—that would be snarile: the one-of-a-kind smile + snarl my paralyzed mouth makes when I try to smile—spontaneously because the way she lifts her brows with circus bear pride makes me want to laugh. Some people are just too clueless.
“Oh?” I say.
Before she can answer, we’re crossing a hall and entering a set of open doors, moving into a room that may actually qualify as hell. Hell is other people. This many of them is probably