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He held all the cards, and he used this meeting, with his offer, to discuss custody as a big stick that he’s used to beat compliance out of me. He picked the date, the time, the place, everything.
The fallout from my public shaming wasn’t just my reputation. It endangered something that means even more to me.
My podcast, The Jezebel. I started it after my mother suggested it, but not for the reasons she did. I knew that when he got here, I’d have to tell him the truth. But first, I had to hear myself say it all out loud. And that’s what I did with the podcast, used it as an outlet. But then, people started writing to me, commenting and sharing their stories, too.
But it turned into something completely different, which makes the timing of this picture’s publication, with my tattoo visible for all the world to see, even worse.
Two days before the picture was published, the podcast was mentioned in a news report and was credited as the source of information that led to the re-opening of a case involving a prominent plastic surgeon here in Houston. He’d been acquitted of a sexual assault charge after the woman, who accused him, was discredited during cross examination. The woman, who chose to remain anonymous during the trial due to safety concerns, had been a prostitute and that was enough to convince a jury that whatever he did to her, she asked for. He was acquitted, and she was left to get on with her life.
Then, one day, she sent me an email. Lori, as she called herself, found the podcast, inadvertently. She asked me to tell her story because she’d been so maligned in the press. So, I did. That opened the floodgates. It turns out that since the trial, there’d been more complaints from women who no one cared about. I started getting emails from women, mostly sex workers, who’d been his patients at the free clinic he volunteered at, with stories very much like Lori’s.
They had dates, times, complaints they filed, officials who ignored them. I compiled them and used The Jezebel’s email address to forward them to a staff writer at the Houston Chronicle.
There was an outcry from Dr. Zimmerman’s powerful friends and patients. He was one of them. Their golf partner. Their campaign donor. Their museum patron.
They wrote op-eds, claiming he was being “framed, hustled, and schemed on by desperate, broken and deluded women who were angry that he’d spurned their advances.”
But, this time, it’s not his word against hers or one vulnerable prostitute who could be steamrolled. It’s a tidal wave of women who have come forward to stop this man from hurting one more person.
So far, no one has made the connection and noticed that the name of the podcast is the same as the name emblazoned on my back. But it wouldn’t take much for Marcel to figure it out. And I know he’ll use it as leverage.
With my reputation so tarnished by this picture that everyone has seen, being associated with me could cast doubt on their credibility, again.
Thankfully, I have a big stick of my own that I’m going to use to bind his tongue.
My hunch the possibility of a hidden camera behind that mirror paid off.
There were also cameras in our children’s rooms, and the small library I used for my monthly sit down with my accountant. I was livid.
Until Dina, brilliant woman that she is, called to say she’d struck gold. She hacked the Drop Box where the surveillance videos were stored. He recorded me in that library, but he also recorded himself.
What I saw made me sick, before it made me smile.
When Remi watched it, he insisted on representing me himself. He’s one of the country’s most decorated litigators. And as relieved as I am to have him on my side, I hate that it comes at the cost of that disappointment in his eyes.
I soften my posture and take his hand in mine.
“I know this is hard for you, too. Let’s not argue. I can’t change who I am or how I cope with things any more than you can. So, let’s just cut each other some slack. Once I have my children back under my roof, I’ll curl up in my huge bathtub with an entire bottle of champagne and cry myself dry, okay?”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I’m sorry all of this is happening. I’m sorry I didn’t see who he was,” he says, in a voice made rough from a week of shouting arguments and late nights, followed by mornings, so early it felt like we hadn’t slept at all.
“We only know of other people, what they let us see and you’re not a mind reader.” I nod at the phone. “Go on, let’s watch to the end.”
His finger hovers over the triangle on the screen. “You don’t have to. It’s not like you don’t already know what happens,” he says, in that way he has of being kind, but managing, at the same time.
I give his hand a resolute squeeze. “I want to watch it. The man in this video is who Marcel really is. I’ll need that reminder when I sit across from him today. Press play,” I say, with resolve.
The video resumes. I’m prepared for what comes next. But my throat still constricts as the worst day of my entire life replays on the screen.
My heart is tied into a million tiny knots. When we get to the worst of it, I close my eyes. And even with no volume, I can hear the sounds of mayhem and destruction from that day - my shouts, my daughter crying, Marcel’s thundering silence.
“What men?” I growl, the fear in my eyes morphing into rage that turns them into slits of fire and brimstone.
I hit pause and close my eyes. Sweat beads my upper lip, and my nails dig grooves into the palms of my curled hands.
I flatten them against my thighs and let the black wool soothe the hot stinging skin of my palms. But it doesn’t. Instead, it launches another round of memories that are as painful as the ones I just watched. It was a gift from my grandfather.
When my mother told him Chanel was too extravagant for a twenty-one-year old, he’d laughed.
