Remembrance of Things Pasternak

These are Elizabeth Koch's notes on the Martha Stewart trial.

Thursday, Mariana Pasternak, Martha Stewart's supposed best friend, shocked the courtroom by putting these condemning words in Martha's mouth: "Isn't it nice to have brokers who tell you those things?" Today the jury arrives understandably wide-eyed and jittery, anxious to hear the quote in context.

Pasternak arrives in a black tapered suit, her hennaed hair shiny and smooth. But she wavers a bit when she nears the stand, looking glassy-eyed spacey, as if a nudge would send her sprawling. Stewart's lawyer, Robert Morvillo, starts from the beginning, leading her step-by-step from takeoff to the December 30 conversation in question.

"When Ms. Stewart first brought up Sam Waksal, you two were relaxing on the terrace in your hotel in Mexico?"

"Yes."

"Were you sitting in chairs?" Morvillo asks.

"We were sitting. I was in a chaise," Pasternak corrects him.

They discussed family and friends, the events of the day, the fact that here they were once again on vacation together without male companionship. Then Pasternak brought up Sam.

"Martha said he'd disappeared again, that he was walking funny at a dinner party. She told me he'd sold or was trying to sell his stock."

"Did you feel she was telling you inside information?"

"No, I felt like she was worried. I said, 'That's so scary, Martha,' because it sounded like he was having financial problems. When she told me she'd sold her ImClone shares, she sounded regretful, or guilty, out of loyalty to a friend." Pasternak drags her words together, as if her accent has thickened overnight.

Morvillo quickly moves on to the second, most damning, conversation she testified to yesterday. "Do you remember what day this discussion took place, where you were or what time it was?"

"No, I don't recall."

"Do you recall if it was before or after the terrace conversation?"

"No, I don't."