Part II: The Journalist.

Wednesday, December 3. 

Her hand was cramping, but she was proud that she got every nugget detail that little Noah had to offer. She stretched out her fingers by playing action heroes with Noah on the courthouse floor while Rui and the CPS worker were discussing next steps in his legal representation of Noah. 

“BLAHHH I AM THE HULK - SMASH!” Jo yelled out as Noah’s little Daredevil came charging for her Hulk. 

“No, Jo-Jo, it's HULKSMASH!” Noah corrected. She wasn’t sure where Jo-Jo came from, but he was so cute that he could have called her a wedgie and she would have let it slide. While she learned the finer points of action heroes and catch phrases, Jo heard a courtroom door slam closed. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a blur of the prosecutor from Department 1122 rushing out of the courtroom with her belongings. Jo made eye contact with Dinah as she tore through the hallway, toward the central elevator bank in the courthouse. Only then did Jo realize that she was so caught up in learning everything she could from Noah that she missed the second half of the hearing following the ten minute recess from earlier. 

“Uh, excuse me - could you three just wait for me for five minutes. I was supposed to be supporting my colleague in court and I need to check in to see if everything is okay.” Before the CPS worker could protest, Rui was turning on his heel, heading towards Department 1122. Jo waited alongside Noah. All three remaining in the hallway stared at the courtroom doors, wondering what the heck was happening inside. But before he could make it inside, Rosie and Max were exiting the courtroom with all of their belongings. They didn’t look celebratory, but they didn’t look defeated either. Jo watched as Rosie animately chatted with Rui, walking towards them.

“She did what?!”

“Rui, she quit. She up and quit. She said that she could not, in good faith, pursue this case and the government’s interests any farther. She had some evil villain monologue moment - ”

“Hang on, now. The woman deserved her moment, whether you liked her or not, counselor.” Max stood in a position of authority, like a parent admonishing a child about everyone’s feelings being important. Rosie huffed in agreement. 

Max picked up the story. “She explained that the interests of justice were not being served in her legal opinion. That the case had no legal merits to begin with, contrary to the government’s assertions. Even when her supervisor threatened to report her to the state and federal bar, she stood her ground. She said by the government’s logic, she would be the next target - the tables would turn on her one day. Although my favorite part - ”

“The best part of the whole thing was when she told the court she had new evidence she wanted to admit into the record. At first, I was furious, but then she said, ‘Counsel, I think you’re going to want to see this.’ Next thing I know, I’m looking at a cellphone picture, on Johnson’s personal cellphone, of her boss's Teams Chat thread with members of the federal administration - ” Before Rosie could finish the thought; “they call themselves the DOGE BROS,” Max interjected.

“Yeah, I thought that stuff was sensationalized fiction in the news. Oh, uh - no offense, Jo.” 

“None taken,” she muttered, as she fidgeted with the toy Hulk in hands, listening in eagerly. 

“She asks to move the image into the record. And it's the whole conversation shit talking Dinah, about how women can’t be lawyers, and about how her only job is to either fu-” but the CPS worker saw where this conversation was going and immediately threw her hand over Rosie’s mouth. Somewhat shocked, Rui shot Rosie a look, daring her to protest. 

Eventually, with some substitutions for language made, Rosie explained the message shared by her boss. In the middle of the courtroom hallway, Rosie and Max reenacted the courtroom scene. Max became Gregory Slade, jumping to his feet to object. Rosie becomes the judge, Dinah, and herself, describing the scene when the judge said that Gregory didn’t have any standing, or a leg to stand on for that matter, to object to the evidence. Rosie the judge then asked Rosie the lawyer whether she had any objections, and Rosie does her best to imitate her stunned face when she stupidly whispers, “uh, no objection I guess.” The judge entered the picture into evidence, and wished Madam Prosecutor good luck as she packed up her belongings and exited the courtroom and her lengthy career with the DOJ.

“But really the best part of the whole thing - the government has 5 days to amend their defense before the judge will entertain our motion of summary judgment. And not business days. Just five damn days.” Rosie beamed at Rui, confident this case would go the government’s way. “I know it might be a long battle after that but - but Rui, hole shhh-shnickies,” a word choice substitution as she saw little Noah watching their conversation with child-like admiration. 

Slowly, he looked at her and mirrored back, “Holy schnikies, Rosie.”

“Holy shnickies,” breathed Max. 

The CPS worker stood in the middle of the conversation, piecing it all together. Understanding about 70% of what was just explained, she was able to gather that the huffy looking woman who stormed out the lawyer must have been the woman who flipped the case on her boss. The CPS worker retraced Dinah’s steps, storming out of the courtroom, making eye contact with Jo where they stood, and then slamming the palm of her fist into the elevator bank buttons. Looking at the spot where the huffy lawyer once stood at the elevator bank (now empty), the CPS worker noted, “Damn. That’s - well. It just goes to show, then.”

“Show what?” Rosie asked.

“Leave the important stuff to the women.”

And as much as Rosie Dixon despised the guts of Dinah Johnson, as much as Dinah annoyed the crap out of Jo in the days she watched the hearing, and as much as Maxine French took Dinah’s words too personally as they were thrown against her on the witness stand, at that moment, they all couldn’t agree more. 

*****

Jo sat over a greasy burger and a cold beer with Max, Rui, and Jo. She was going to charge the meal to her mom’s emergencies-only credit card, but Max gently nudged her out of the way and told the bartender to put it on her tab. “But if you write about me, you should probably disclose that somewhere. The world is going to shit, but we still have to be ethical about things, right?” Jo nodded.

The four of them sat at a small hightop table, crowded with bar food and beverages. They discussed the objectives of the next five days - “Full court press!” - Rosie shouted over the noise of the Billy Goat Tavern. Jo laughed, wondering if Rosie actually understood that expression. She continued to inhale her burger with the rest of them. 

“One more night at that hostel then? Why don’t you just crash on my couch?” Rui offered this to Jo multiple times; every time, she said no. Tonight, again, she said no. It was the ethical thing to do. 

“None of us will tell on you. Plus, from the way you describe it, I think I’ve slept on better cots overseas than what you are paying for at that place.” Jo wiggled her eyebrows in agreement back to Max, but didn’t offer any reply. It was only one more night; the continuance of the hearing in five days, she would figure out later. She’d figure it out, like she always did. 

The only thing she hadn’t figured out in this mess of a story was her own story with Toni. Since she left that morning of November 5, 2025, they hadn’t spoken. She didn’t dare trespass when Eleanor had clearly fired warning shots on her way out the door. Or at least that was the reason Jo told herself when she felt guilty for not trying to clean up yet another mess she had made with the one woman she actually loved. As the chatter of legal strategy, of government insight from Max to try and help little Noah, continued, Jo pulled her phone out of her back pocket. She looked down at the home screen - 7:21 p.m., December 3, 2025. There were no new notifications. No text messages from her bosses at WISSU, which she guessed was a good thing. Maybe the college kids weren’t fucking it up too badly. But also, no text messages from Toni. She wasn’t sure why she was waiting for one; she knew what she had done. But somewhere within her, the hopeless romantic wondered if Toni would come and save her, and save them together. 

Jo, a lightweight half a beer deep into something stronger than a cheap budlight, was pulling up her text thread with Toni. Pulling open the thread labeled Toni <3 she looked at the last messages sent between them on November 3, 2025 - just one month prior: 

It made Jo smile. Subtly, Toni always had the right reply to Jo’s defensive sarcasm. It ignited this ache in her chest, so pervasive that Jo felt compelled to pull up the keyboard of their text message conversation. She began to type a new message back, the first one sent since that Monday morning, a month prior:

But before her liquid courage could take hold of her inhibitions, she felt her thumbs reaching for the delete button -

As quickly as they came, the letters began to disappear. Seconds into her deleting frenzy, she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder. She dropped the phone in her lap, looking up to find a fresh, cold beer placed in front of her and the profile of the former Vice Admiral of the U.S. Navy in her peripheral vision, a few inches from her face. “Send it, Jo,” Max whispered to her as she gently squeezed her shoulder. Jo turned around on the bar stool, facing Maxine who had somehow escaped with another round of beers in the moments she was sucked into her cellphone daydreams. 

 “Send the message, kid. I know you’ve done your homework on me and I get the sneaking suspicion that my status in the military is not what drew you to covering this case.” Jo tried to offer some explanation, but before she could, Max continued, “Ah - ah. Friend, let me finish. You’ve done your homework on me. You’ve read the articles, the rumors, the swirling conspiracies about me. I wasn’t too much older than you, sitting in some beat down military bar in the middle of nowhere, wishing I would have just called her. Don’t be me, kid. Send the message and make it work. If I fought for anything for you, it was your freedom. Maybe not from tyranny, enemies foreign and domestic. But in my own way, I fought for you to send that message without fear, and to make it fucking work. So, if you gotta chug that second beer, go ahead. Do what it takes to send the message and go get the girl.”

Jo sat there, staring at one of the most powerful women in the United States, giving her …. relationship advice. She never thought in a million years that she’d be sitting in the Billy Goat of all places, being pushed into chasing after the woman she’d been chasing (and simultaneously running from) for years. She opened her mouth to say something, and as soon as Max’s hand was gently raised, telling her to stop, she understood. Max smiled as she watched Jo slowly spin back around in her barstool to face her fresh beer and her friends. 

Max approached her seat, new beer in hand. She raised her glass and the others followed suit. “For the girl,” she said, as she nodded at Jo. For Toni, for love. 

“For the woman,” Jo followed, as she gestured her glass towards Rosie. For Rosie and Dinah, for the good fight. 

“For the mother,” Rosie chimed in, looking at Rui. For Noah’s mom and the fight to come. 

“For all the women we love,” Rui concluded. For his friends, his clients, his own mother - for this moment. 

“For the women,” they all murmured and chimed their glasses together. 

After a few long pulls on her fresh, cold beer, Jo left her two half finished beers on the table. She picked her phone up from her lap and opened the text message thread. A few fervent movements of her thumbs, and then she shared her screen with Max:

“Go get her, kid,” Max grinned and slipped her a $20 bill for the cab fare. 

As she headed towards the door of the Billy Goat she heard her friends hooting and hollering, a mix of “go get her!” and “can’t wait to read the badass story, Jo!”

/////

Return to Home