Love, Joy, Feminism
A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris
Pp. 193-195
It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a peak into Donna’s personal life. We’ve only met Donna’s boyfriend, Stephen, twice so far: once when we first met Donna waking up in bed with him back in chapter 1, and once when she told him about this particular case while eating lunch after the initial hearing. We know that he’s from a rich family and has daddy issues, and that he just graduated at the top in his class from Gonzaga University School of Law. We also know that he’s studying for the bar exam and will be going to Washington, D.C., to take a job that is a “chance of a lifetime” for the next two years as soon as he’s finished with the bar.
Today we’re back in Stephen and Donna’s bed.
Stephen Stockton was wakened by the sound of soft crying. He glanced over at the clock. It was two-thirty. He had only been asleep for an hour after yet another long night of studying for the Bar. Even his Saturday nights were not immune from the necessity of study. He turned over in bed.
“What’s wrong, Donna?”
“Oh . . . oh, nothing.”
This is interesting. Donna usually has a pretty hard exterior and seems very sure of herself. It’s nice to get to peek inside her a bit more, though it’s a bit abrupt. Just a few pages ago she was pushing Blackburn to appeal the case and engaging with Gail the prosecutor about their chances.
As for Stephen, I’m never entirely sure whether or not I’m supposed to like him. He goes out drinking and he’s living with his girlfriend, both of which would suggest that Farris wants us to see him as a bad guy, but at the same time he studies hard and is uncomfortable with Donna’s ethical laps on this case, both of which are things Farris would likely see as positive. Perhaps we actually have a nuanced character, for once?
I’m not so hot on this bit, though:
“OK. We can do this the long way or the short way. Do you want to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to cross-examine you and force it out bit by bit?”
Is “let me know if you want to talk about it, I’m always willing to listen” so hard to say?
“Oh, all right. I’m scared and I’m lonely,” she replied.
Stockton cuddled up next to her.
“I think I understand the lonely part. I have not been very good company lately. This bar exam has got my attention.”
Donna reminds him that after he takes the bar he’s moving to Washington, D.C., for two years, so it’s not just the bar. Stephen reminder her that she can still come too, as he had urged in one of their previous conversations. This interaction ensues:
“Oh, there’s no time for a wedding and everything,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
. . .
“I guess you could come to Washington without marrying me, and just keep on like we are now.”
“But I thought you said your job wouldn’t permit us just living together.”
“Obviously that’s not an official rule. But unofficially, it won’t look good at all. At least not for long. But we could probably get married in Thanksgiving or something. I think they’d ignore us if a wedding was imminent. So are you coming with me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so.” She flung her pillow against the wall in obvious frustration.
Farris has yet to tell us what Stephen’s “chance of a lifetime” job is. I’m wondering, where things really this different in the mid-1990s? From where I’m standing, the only people who blink an eye before living together are evangelical Christians (and, well, Catholics, and other conservative religious individuals, but you get the idea). In fact, I once asked a classroom full of twenty college students how many of them planned to live together with a romantic partner without being married (I promise, it was actually relevant to the subject I was teaching), and all but one of them raised their hand. What job is Stephen taking where he’ll get in trouble if he’s living with his girlfriend?
I’m also wondering about Donna’s motivations for not going with Stephen. Farris hasn’t given us any. We know that Donna tried to convince Stephen to stay in Washington state and take a job for his father’s firm, but not why. There are social work jobs in Washington, D.C., too. What is Donna’s objection? Does she really like her current workplace? Does she have lots of (unmentioned) friends that she would miss? Do her parents live locally and need her help? Is it because she’s a (stereotype) feminist, and doesn’t want to follow her man across the country? We don’t know, and that makes really getting inside Donna’s head here difficult.
Anyway, Stephen asks Donna again what’s bothering her. He’s not willing to let this one go.
“It’s stuff at work and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“What kind of stuff at work?”
“ . . . Blackburn. He’s on my back about this particular file.”
“It wouldn’t happen to be the case you told me about a couple of weeks ago, would it? The one where you . . . uh . . . stretched the facts a bit?”
Corliss flopped backwards on the bed and gave a loud moan. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”
Come on, Stephen, when she said she didn’t want to talk about it you should have let it go.
Regardless, Stephen asks if she’s in trouble because Blackburn found out she’d fudged things.
“Are you kidding?” Corliss replied. “He does it all the time. In fact, he invented the whole idea. He even calls it Code B, like we were some kind of secret agents or something.”
Donna explains why she’s in trouble as follows:
“We lost the trial. The kid went back to her cutesy, cutesy mother when her obnoxious attorney got involved. We’ve never lost a Code B case before. Blackburn is furious.”
Stephen asks if Blackburn is threatening her, and Donna says “not directly.” She says Blackburn is looking into an appeal and “wants everything sanitized” first. She explains that a document was entered into the record that might reveal the Code B stuff.
Stephen is suddenly very uncomfortable. He tells Donna not to tell him any more “factual secrets” and explains that it could create “ethical problems” down the road.
Corliss felt even more abandoned. She stared at the ceiling, feeling not just alone, but stripped of all protection and comfort.
“How can you sanitize a file that’s on appeal? Once you are in the appellate courts the file cannot be opened. This guy sounds crazy.” Stockton rolled over and put his arm around Donna’s sounders and held her tight. “Listen, I want you to come to Washington with me. This sounds weird. I want you away form all this stuff. Do you hear me? I don’t know how to protect you from this Blackburn creep if you keep working there, but I know how to get you to of town.”
Corliss said nothing, but tears streamed down the sides of her face as she lay flat on the bed. After about fifteen minutes of silence, Stockton noticed she had fallen asleep. He quietly turned off the light, glad to be finished with the topic, and attempted to go back to sleep.
So wait a minute. Did Donna want to talk about it or did she not want to talk about it? She protested many many many times that she didn’t want to talk about it, and Stephen had to drag it out of her. When he found out it was about unethical things, he became very uncomfortable—either because he has a strong conscience or because he’s becoming a lawyer and wants to keep his nose clean, it’s not entirely sure which (or, at least, how much weight rests on either)—and then she got upset with him for not being willing to talk to her about it.
Ordinarily, I’d accept this as humans being humans, but given that this is Farris writing, I have to wonder if there isn’t a gendered “women, so fickle” element going on here, especially with all of Stephen’s talk about protecting Donna. For supposedly being a raging feminist, Donna isn’t acting like one here—or, well, I wonder if this is Farris showing that Donna’s feminist exterior is covering her actual female weakness? I mean just look of all the talk of her needing Stephen to “protect” her from this situation at work, and from her boss.
And so here I am, now, trying to think about what this passage does to further develop Donna’s character. We learned a lot about Stephen—he doesn’t take no for an answer, even in personal relationships, and he views himself as Donna’s protector, and Donna as in need of his protection. What about Donna? We’ve learned that she’s scared, but not really what she’s scared about, specifically. At this point she doesn’t know that Peter is going to sue her and her department, and she’s the one pushing the appeal. If she was scared about this stuff coming out, you’d think she would just let it be.
There’s some suggestion here that Donna is scared of Blackburn, and it’s true that he did dress her down for losing the case. Even then, Donna was the one pushing him, urging him to authorize an appeal. Donna didn’t have to do that, and Blackburn only sent her to make sure everything was “sanitized” after talk of an appeal.
In the end, I may know that Donna is scared, but I feel like I actually understand her less well than I did before. Perhaps she’s simply majorly conflicted? Perhaps she’s not sure who she is? Because we don’t see underneath her firm exterior except for moments like this, it’s really hard to understand what’s going on in her mind at other moments, such as during her meeting with Blackburn about filing an appeal. And that’s frustrating.
Or am I being too hard on Farris here? Does Donna’s character actually make sense? Feel free to weigh in!
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