by Margot Hunt
Now Ebbie was married to Robert, a potter, and they lived in Asheville, North Carolina. She managed the store where they sold the mugs and platters he threw. We didn’t see her very often. I had no idea how wealthy she and her husband were, but I’d certainly never ask to borrow money from them. My mother and I didn’t have that sort of a relationship.
“We could just enroll the kids in public school,” Todd suggested. “It isn’t that terrible an option. We know people who send their kids there.”
The truth was, we hardly knew anyone who sent their kids to the local public schools. Our friends and acquaintances were the parents of our children’s friends, the people we’d met over the years at soccer games and dance practices and the volunteer shifts that were now mandatory at all private schools.
“I’ve heard that the trick to the public schools here is to get your kids placed on the honors track,” Todd continued rationalizing.
I had heard the same thing. Then again, I had read in the paper that the kid who had been stabbed the previous week had been an honors student. His assailant—not an honors student—had cornered him in the bathroom, brandishing a knife while he demanded the victim turn over his pocket money. The victim had only seven dollars. Several editorials had questioned how the perpetrator had been able to smuggle the weapon into the school in the first place, as the kids had to pass through metal detectors to get inside.
Todd looked at me inquiringly.
“No,” I said. “Liam’s not going to that middle school. The elementary schools aren’t as bad, I suppose, if only because the kids are too young to stab one another. But Bridget doesn’t handle change well. She had a near panic attack just last week when the new soccer schedule came out and she’d been put on a different team than last season. How do you think she’d handle a whole new school, a new teacher, new classmates? It’s in both the children’s best interests to keep them where they are.”
“Even if we can’t afford it?”
“We can afford it with this loan from Kat. Or at least, they can stay where they are for the rest of the year. We’ll worry about next year later. Maybe we’ll be in a better financial position by then. If not, maybe we can look into getting them scholarships.”
Todd perked up at this. “The school has scholarships? Can’t we apply for one now, for this year?”
I shook my head. “No. Not midyear. Anyway, you’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“I have already accepted this money. I’m going to give the check to the school tomorrow,” I said flatly. I stood up to refill my water glass. My head was now throbbing. I rummaged around the kitchen junk drawer, looking for a bottle of ibuprofen.
Todd shook his head helplessly. “We’ll never be able to pay her back.”
“Yes, we will. You’ll find another job. I’ll get more tutoring students. I’ve heard that SAT prep pays well. We’ll make it work.”
I didn’t mention the telephone call I’d received that afternoon from a publisher in New York. I hadn’t picked up, but she’d left a message on my voice mail saying she’d read my book of logic puzzles and wanted to see if I was interested in taking on a similar project. I hadn’t called her back yet, but even so, I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell Todd about it. Perhaps I didn’t trust that anything would come of it. Or maybe I didn’t think Todd deserved to hear my good news when he had hidden so much from me.
“I’ve sent out résumés. No one in town is hiring.” Todd rumpled his hair with both hands. “I have a meeting set up for next week with a firm in Miami. They said they might be able to use me, although probably only on a contract basis. And it would mean a long commute.”
“Not ideal,” I agreed. “But it’s better than nothing.”
Todd shrugged and nodded. “I’ll get something. I’m good at what I do.”
I didn’t doubt that he was a good architect, and it wasn’t hard to believe that earnings were down so far at S+K Architects that they’d had to lay off Todd and two other junior architects. The real estate market had been in a slump for years. Todd’s now former bosses had promised him a good reference, and they might even be able to hire him back if business picked up.
At least, that was what he’d told me. The problem with learning that your spouse has lied to you, and done so repeatedly, is the complete loss of trust. Maybe Todd’s story of his dismissal was true. Or maybe he’d been caught slacking at his job or hitting on the receptionist or stealing office supplies.
Who knew what the truth really was?
* * *
The following day, I dropped off the check to the school bookkeeper, Patricia Davies, a middle-aged woman with a prematurely gray bob and oversize glasses. Ms. Davies held the check, blinking down at it, but refrained from commenting on the amount or signatory.
“I’ll apply this to your account, Mrs. Campbell,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied, feeling oddly hollow as her fingers began click-clacking on her keyboard.
I turned away, trying to shake the feeling that I had just done something very, very wrong. Did I? I wondered, but then I reminded myself, yet again, that I had not accepted this money on my own behalf. I was doing it for Liam and Bridget so they could stay at their school and not have their lives shaken up midyear.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Who had said that? I wondered. Ben Franklin? Dr. Seuss? I couldn’t remember, but it was stuck in my head and set on repeat.
When I got home, I tossed my handbag on the counter and headed straight for my laptop, which I’d left out on the kitchen table that morning. I’d been researching how to become qualified as an SAT prep tutor over a breakfast of Greek yogurt and stale granola.
Once my computer had whirred to life, I typed borrower nor lender into an internet search engine. The results popped up, and after a few simple clicks of the mouse, I learned it wasn’t a Ben Franklin quote after all, but a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was in a soliloquy by Polonius, offering advice to his son:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
I felt a shiver of discomfort but kept reading. Polonius was later referred to in the text as a “tedious old fool” before being killed by Hamlet. This did nothing to soothe my frayed nerves.
Would this money, this incredible gift Kat had given me, turn out to be a curse? No, I thought. Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t believe in curses.
My phone rang, or rather, barked, startling me. I glanced at it and saw that the call was from the 212 area code. New York City. I suddenly remembered the voice mail message I’d received the day before from the editor. I’d meant to call her back that morning but had been so distracted I’d forgotten.
“This is Alice Campbell,” I said, trying to sound professional.
“Hello, Alice, this is Lydia Rafferty. I’m an editor with Kidtastic Publishing,” the voice on the other end of the line said. She spoke quickly but enunciated every word.
“Yes, I got your message yesterday. I was just about to call you back,” I lied.
I quickly—and, I hoped, silently—typed Kidtastic into my friend Google. Google replied that in the world of publishing, Kidtastic was a Big Fucking Deal. Their real success came from direct-to-school marketing in the form of fund-raising book fairs and regular order forms. I had seen dozens of these over the years, crumpled up at the bottom of my children’s backpacks. We had actually ordered our fair share of books through this program, which offered competitive pricing and free books to the classroom teachers with enough parent purchases. The books sold were mostly paperbacks, with the occasional book set or merchandising add-on t
hrown in.
“First of all, I loved your book,” Lydia said. “The logic puzzles were great, it was easy to read, and best of all, it was educational. I think you’d be a great fit with Kidtastic.”
“You mean you want to reprint my book?” I asked doubtfully. I couldn’t remember the exact details of my publishing contract, but I was fairly sure I didn’t have the ability to sign it over to another publisher. “I’ll need to talk to my publisher. I didn’t retain the rights to resell it—”
“Oh, no, I’m sure you didn’t. And as wonderful as it was—as it is—” she corrected herself with an overemphasis on the word is “—we were hoping that you could do something slightly different for us.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I’m so glad you asked that,” Lydia said excitedly. “Well, right now the supernatural is hot. Hot, hot, hot. Wizards, vampires, zombies, ghosts. Kids are clamoring for more fantasy books.”
I was confused. “You want me to write a fantasy novel?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound as dubious as I felt. Fiction was hardly up my alley. I’d always preferred biographies and historical nonfiction to novels in my personal reading.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Lydia reassured me.
“I’m not quite sure what you mean, then.”
“We want you to write what you’ve already written—logic puzzles. But what we were thinking of—what I was envisioning—” Lydia paused to inhale “—is a series of books of logic puzzles with a magical background. Problem solving with wizards! Using logic to avoid the undead! It would be such a fabulous joining of the educational—and believe me, Alice, parents are only too happy to throw money at anything considered educational—while setting it in the fantasy worlds that kids love. I just know it will be a huge hit! And I want you—we at Kidtastic want you—to write this series. I can’t think of anyone better.”
I was speechless.
“Alice? Are you still there?” Lydia sounded concerned.
“I’m here. I’m just... Well, that sounds fantastic,” I said weakly, knowing that I wasn’t reaching the heights of appropriately enthusiastic. Ideally she’d chalk it up to my being overwhelmed, which was certainly true.
“I know! I think so, too,” Lydia said triumphantly. “I take it you’re interested?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m interested. Very, very, very interested.”
Lydia’s laugh was a low, deep rumble. “I thought you might be.”
Lydia and I continued to chat—or, more accurately, she talked at great length about her vision for the new series, while I mostly listened and made the occasional upbeat response as needed. She wanted me to agree to write three books for Kidtastic initially, and then more if they sold well. Lydia said they’d hire an artist to illustrate the books and asked how quickly I could write them, as they would like to release the books every two to three months.
“Kids have short attention spans,” she explained. “And if they get hooked on a series, they’ll want every book that comes out. Releasing them in quick succession helps keep the sales elevated.”
Her enthusiasm was catching, and I found myself growing more and more excited at the prospect. I had enjoyed writing the first book of logic puzzles but had never thought I could turn writing into a career. But now, listening to Lydia’s enthusiastic chatter, I started to believe that maybe I could make a success of this opportunity.
By the time we got off the phone, and I sat down to start sketching out my ideas for the first book in this new series, my worries about Kat’s loan ebbed away. I had made the right decision to accept the money, I decided, and with this new opportunity, I might even be able to pay her back faster than I’d ever imagined.
And anyway, Kat was right. It was just money.
16
Present Day
The law offices of Donnelly & Buchanan were located on the twenty-first floor of the Northbridge Center in downtown West Palm Beach. Locals referred to it as the Darth Vader building because of its imposing all-black glass exterior.
When I exited the elevator and pushed open the glass door etched with the law firm’s name, I was surprised at how modern the office was. I had expected a law office that specialized in trusts and estates to be conservative, perhaps with leather wingback chairs and pictures of hunting scenes on the walls. Instead the reception area was decorated with low-slung tan leather Barcelona chairs, sleek aluminum tables and palm trees in square concrete planters. There was a large modern painting on the wall that I thought I recognized from K-Gallery. I looked closer at it and saw that the artist was Crispin Murray, whose work Kat often carried.
“May I help you?” the receptionist asked me. She was an attractive woman about my age with a sleek blowout and wearing a dark skirt suit.
“I’m Alice Campbell,” I said. “I have a two o’clock appointment with Mr. Donnelly.”
“He’s expecting you.” She stood. “I’ll take you back.”
I followed the receptionist down a long hall, admiring how deftly she navigated the dark hardwood floors in her cripplingly high heels. At the end of the hallway, she knocked on a door and then opened it.
“Mr. Donnelly, Mrs. Campbell is here to see you,” she said, then stepped aside so I could pass into his office.
John Donnelly stood and smiled when I entered. “Hello again, Mrs. Campbell.”
His corner office with two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows had an amazing view of the water and the island of Palm Beach beyond. After we shook hands, Donnelly sat down behind a large modular desk of dark lacquer that was bare except for a sleek tablet and gestured for me to sit in one of the caramel leather visitors’ chairs facing the desk. An enormous modern painting of a horse rearing up hung on the wall. With its bared teeth and flaring nostrils, the horse appeared menacing. I looked away.
“Thank you for coming in this afternoon,” Donnelly said. “Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea, mineral water...?”
“Water would be great.”
“Evelyn, we’ll have sparkling water,” Donnelly said to the receptionist, who was still waiting at the door.
“Of course, Mr. Donnelly,” she replied. She disappeared and then returned almost immediately with a tray with two chilled glasses and a large bottle of San Pellegrino. She set the tray down on his desk and then turned to leave.
“Hold my calls,” Donnelly told her. He cracked open the cap, poured the water into the two glasses and handed one to me. I took a small sip to be polite—I detested sparkling water—and then set it down.
“I don’t know how you can get any work done with this incredible view,” I remarked, gesturing out at the panorama. The sun sparkled on aqua water, and a large luxury boat was making its way slowly down the Intracoastal. “I’d spend all day staring out at the water.”
“That’s the thing about life. You can get used to just about anything,” Donnelly deadpanned. “And anyway, working my ass off is the only way I can afford the view.” He winked. Even though this and everything else about him was borderline cheesy, I couldn’t help being charmed by the attorney.
“Thank you again for your help yesterday.”
“Don’t mention it.” Donnelly waved a hand at me. “And don’t forget what I told you. If the police want to question you again, call me first.”
“I’m assuming Kat sent you?”
“I’ve known Kat since she was a little girl.” Donnelly smiled, his teeth gleaming like a toothpaste advertisement. “She was a precocious child, as you might imagine. One time when she couldn’t have been more than five, I was meeting with her father at their house. She pulled me aside and asked what I was doing there. I explained that my job was to help people organize their family finances, while obviously doing my best not to mention death or anything else that might scare her. She looked at me with a very serious expression and said, ‘Well, just so you know, my daddy
loves me best. Much more than my brother.’”
I smiled. “Kat told me she’s always been a daddy’s girl.”
“She definitely is that. And I think she was right. Her father always has favored her over Josh,” Donnelly admitted.
This was not surprising. I’d met Josh only a few times, but whenever I had been around Kat’s brother, I’d been struck by how pompous and self-congratulatory he was. He had the conceit to believe he had earned his place in the world, when in truth, everything he had in his life, from his two-thousand-dollar home espresso maker to his vanity job as a vice president of Wyeth Construction, had come directly from his father.
Donnelly was reading my mind. “Then again, who wouldn’t prefer Kat to Josh? She got the looks, the brains and the personality in that family. Kat has the whole package.”
“Speaking of Kat, I’ve been having a difficult time getting hold of her,” I said. “I’m sure she’s just overwhelmed with the funeral and all the emotions and details involved with Howard’s death. Will you please let her know I appreciate her sending you to help me out yesterday?”
Donnelly cleared his throat and folded his hands on the desk in front of him. “Kat didn’t send me.”
“She didn’t?”
“No. Her father did.”
I frowned. “But why would Mr. Wyeth do that? He barely knows me. How did he even find out I was at the police station?” But of course, I knew the most likely answer to this second question. Kat must have told him.
“Look,” Donnelly said, his smile still in place, “I’m sure you’re aware that Thomas Wyeth is a powerful man. He’s unhappy that the police are investigating Howard’s death as a homicide. It was hardly a secret that Howard Grant was a severe alcoholic. His death was obviously an accident. Everyone should just be glad that he wasn’t driving that night and didn’t kill anyone else.”
