Gold Lame' (That's le-mayy) (Gold Lame' Series)

by C. Pic Michel

  Sipping from her cup, she looked out over the treetops that stretched on for blocks. There was so much to do before the flight left that evening, but it was important to Amelia that she didn't short herself on the time she needed to start her day off right.

  Amelia was determined to make this a good trip. Though the circumstances surrounding her journey had changed, she felt she had salvaged the best possible outcome from the entire situation.

  For a moment she dared to think about David and the two years that had ended up in the toilet two weeks ago. Amelia wasn't inclined to be an emotional wreck after she ended their engagement. In a way, it was like a business plan gone bad, and Amelia was ruthless in business.

  The phone rang and Amelia reached to answer it. Without a thought apparently linked to the motion, her hand suddenly pulled back as if it didn't want to answer the phone. Odd, Amelia thought, and picked up the receiver.

  “Hello, Mother,” she guessed.

  “How did you know it was me? I didn't star-82,” Amelia's mom replied.

  “It's 5:32 a.m., Mom. Who else would be calling me?”

  “True. True.” Karen Bradford gathered her paper list into her hands preparing to read into the phone. “Honey, I have a checklist here and I thought things might go better if we synchronized our day.”

  “Right now I'm drinking my morning coffee. And you?”

  “All right, Smartie. What about last minute shopping? Do you need anything?”

  “I'm sure I will and I'll make a list after I finish my toast.” Amelia hugged the phone to her head with her shoulder while she scooped orange marmalade out of a jar with a knife. “Mom, can I call you back? I’m really very excited, but I just need a few minutes before I barrel ahead.” The silence that was Karen Bradford thinking her daughter was making a mistake was loud and clear. She took a deep breath and did her best to intonate something other than the ‘I don’t care, do what you want’ message that was most likely to fill her reply.

  “Okay, give me a call after you're showered and ready to go.”

  “Mom, don't wait.” Amelia whined by reflex.

  “I won't. I have a cell phone now, call me and let me know what you need.”

  “Okay.” Amelia rolled her eyes. She was happy her mom could come on the trip but wasn't sure how their very different ways of handling agendas was going to interplay.

  “Love you, bye,” her mom concluded the conversation.

  “Okay, bye,” Amelia replied.

  Amelia’s mother had started concluding phone calls with the atypical “Love you, bye” after Amelia’s father passed away. Amelia imagined it was her mother’s attempt to make sure she never regretted not saying it, though she couldn’t imagine her mother feared either of them was going to die anytime soon. Amelia found it easy to believe that her mother and father rarely exchanged an expression of love. James Bradford had been a calculating businessman in the office and at home. Amelia was very much like him, though he specialized in accounting and she in law.

  Karen Bradford on the other hand was a bleeding heart schoolteacher who took every tough case home with her. In addition to professing her love at the end of phone calls after her dad died, Amelia's mom had started sharing her tough cases with Amelia. It was one of the few things the mother and daughter had in common. Though a corporate lawyer, Amelia did her share of pro bono work for the needy.

  Amelia's mind wandered to the latest case her mom had brought to her attention. There were just a few phone calls she should make to assure that details were handled properly in her absence. Reaching in her purse she pushed the button on her PDA and searched for the home number of the associate lawyer who was on the case.

  Trisha Jennings had been with the firm for three years and longed to move up the ladder. Amelia wanted to see Trisha through a little well-rounded experience before moving her into a supervisory position. At 36, Amelia loved to bring young lawyers to the firm. There was, however, always an element of competition between the like-aged co-workers over which she needed to constantly assert herself. Trisha often too easily juxtaposed herself as an equal to Amelia.

  Amelia was personally supervising the often-adversarial Trisha as a way to keep her enemy closer. Trisha was promising to be as ruthless as Amelia in the corporate law setting. Amelia also wanted to see that Trisha was capable of being equally compassionate in the personal setting.

  By making Trisha Guardian ad Litem to Joseph John Jenkins she hoped to give Trisha the space to practice compassion and understanding. The boy had been removed enough times to end up in permanent custody and this latest event might well require such measures since his stepfather had been charged with physical abuse a few days earlier.

  Amelia contemplated the delicate issues surrounding the case and decided that it might be better if she met with the boy personally to talk with him as his teacher's daughter rather than let Trisha have first crack at him in her typical corporate lawyer tone.

  Getting up from the table Amelia headed for the shower. She decided she would call Trisha later to let her know of her plans. If she was going to squeeze in a personal visit before she left, she might just need to phone in her last minute shopping order to her mother after all.

  Pause, pause, pause…

  Karen Bradford drove toward the mall with her headset securely clipped to her collar. She didn’t like driving with the ear bud in place. She felt it looked like she was wearing a hearing aid. At sixty, Karen was becoming increasingly conscientious about her appearance. As she noticed crow’s feet gathering around her daughters’ eyes she couldn’t deny her own crows feet were growing deeper and deeper.

  By focusing more on her thickening jowls and fuzzy cheeks she had become less likely to notice and draw out the younger looking qualities elsewhere in her physique. While she was a powerful teacher to others, Karen often failed to demonstrate exactly what she encouraged others to overcome. She would scold her students, and even strangers in the grocery line for their negative attitudes, while acting on her own.

  Knowing this about herself was what played through Karen’s mind as she became increasingly fearful that her daughter would grow impatient with her habits over the two weeks they would be in India.

  She’ll probably leave me somewhere and I’ll need to be rescued by some monk, Karen thought. But maybe I’ll learn something important from some sort of a guru while I’m there and that will change everything. As her inner voice whined on inside her head she snapped her fingers in front of her face over the steering wheel.

  “Snap out of it!” she ordered herself.

  Karen’s habit of belittling herself was a behavior Amelia refused to tolerate. She would never forget the argument they had right after Amelia’s dad died. It ended with Amelia pointing in Karen’s face and delivering the warning, “I’m not here to convince you that you’re good enough. And I’m not going to waste my life waiting for you to approve of me.” With that argument, Amelia had stopped validating Karen as compensation for her insecurities.

  Karen knew she had shifted her dependence for external validation from her husband to her daughter. However, she had failed to consider that her daughter, with her life so seemingly altogether, continued to have inner doubts about herself and her relationship with her parents.

  For a long time Karen had tried to blame her daughter’s emotional evasiveness on the death of her father. Over time, however, she had accepted it was a wall both she and her husband had helped build long before he died. Through the years Karen had done a lot of study and work to undo her way of gaining negative attention by comparing and belittling herself. Today she needed everything she knew to kick in all at once.

  The cell phone vibrated and bleeped its ring tone next to Karen on the car seat. She loaded the ear bud and pressed the button that answered the call.

  “Hello?” Karen yelled through the headset as though she were calling across a valley to hear an echo bounce back.

  “Hi Mom.” Amelia held the phone away from her e
ar.

  “Hey, how’s everything going?”

  “Just fine,” Amelia replied, anticipating her mother’s dissatisfaction as she delivered her update. “I just finished my shower and thought I’d check in on your little boy before we leave. Do you have the number for his foster parent?”

  Karen glanced at the digital clock in the car. She was amazed that her daughter was just exiting the shower at 7:30. The clock is 5 minutes fast, Karen negotiated with her inner critic, but the day is practically half over. Karen feared the critic might win. Opting to express gratitude that Amelia was going to pay a personal visit to her student, Karen shifted from judgmental back to helpful.

  “Okay, are you ready?”

  “You have the number for the foster parent memorized?” Amelia was surprised.

  “No,” Karen laughed, “you can reach him through district two. Detective Alvarez. He’s helped several of my kids. He provides temporary housing for some kids and he’s fostering Jojo.”

  Amelia couldn’t imagine why her mother never moved to a neighborhood school that had fewer incidents of drugs and abuse among the families.

  “Call him at the station,” Karen directed.

  “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  “So,” Karen ventured, “do you need me to get anything?” Karen caught her obsessive helpfulness going into action and held back making suggestions of personal items she thought Amelia might need.

  “Probably will since I’m seeing Joseph, but I’ll need to get back to you on that.” Karen caught herself wanting to go to the ultimatum level and telling Amelia she was in the parking lot of the Super Saver right now and she needed her to think fast.

  “Okay,” Karen held back, “if I’m still out and about I’ll be happy to get something for you.” Amelia could detect the guilt trip forming on the horizon.

  “I’ll call you as I go, Mom. I promise.”

  “Okay, love you, bye.” Karen depressed the button on the cord of her headset and felt successful in not crossing Amelia’s big boundaries.

  Amelia put down the receiver reminding herself that she needed to make some room for her mother in her life for the next two weeks if either of them were going to have a good time.

  As Amelia blew her hair dry she again noticed the fuzzy slippers now lying on the bathroom floor. Oh shit! she thought, I never got the hiking shoes. Amelia remembered the argument she had with David two weeks earlier in his shoe store.

  So much had changed since they had first met in his shoe store. David had established his store to be cutting edge. He had poured his entire savings into stocking it with shoes from the best, priciest, European designers. Three months later he was struggling to keep it afloat. Amelia liked his mannerisms and the selection of shoes and took David on like a pro-bono client, supporting him by throwing parties in his store and wrangling patronage out of her friends and associates. Over the next few months, Amelia didn’t stop to question as the relationship shifted to become more personal than professional.

  It was almost eighteen months later as they were about to be married that Amelia was able to see that the longer they were together, the more David’s attention for both her and the store seemed to be waning.

  When Amelia stopped in unexpectedly to search for shoes for both the wedding and their honeymoon, David had appeared unusually nervous and upset. It was as if he didn’t have time for her. He kept trying to rush her out of the store with shoes she didn’t want.

  “Take these,” he said, “I’ll see you at seven.” David had literally shoved the open box of gold lamé shoes into her hands. When Amelia became equally obsessed with not taking the shoes she forgot all about the hiking shoes and left the store empty handed. There wasn’t another store in town that would carry the shoes she wanted.

  Checking her watch she knew that David wouldn’t be in the store until after noon. Brushing her teeth Amelia decided to stop there first and get the shoes early so she didn’t have to deal with David. Grabbing her purse she remembered to call information to get the number for District 2. Plugging the number into her cell phone Amelia proceeded to leave the condominium complex as she did everyday, completely unaware of her surroundings.

  Without a thought she pushed the buttons for the elevator that delivered her to the lobby. She didn’t make eye contact with or acknowledge the concierge in any way. She held out her keys for the valet. As he ran to get her car, Amelia waited on hold to speak with Detective Alvarez.

  “This is Detective Alvarez.” The voice sounded strangely familiar to Amelia, but she dismissed the connection as impossible since she did no criminal work.

  “Hello Detective. This is Amelia Bradford of Bradford & Associates Law Firm. We are handling the case for Joseph John Jenkins. I was hoping I might be able to visit Joseph this morning before I leave on a trip.”

  Miguel Alvarez took a deep breath to keep from losing his temper with the lawyer. Thanks for the advance notice, he thought.

  “Sure.” Detective Alvarez tried to sound friendly, “He’s at home with the sitter. Five Thousand One Northrup,” he volunteered.

  Amelia slid into her car as she flipped open her PDA and wrote a note with her stylus on the screen. “Five-Zero-Zero-One Northrup,” she double checked. “Where is that?” she asked, not recognizing the street name.

  “South Avondale.” Detective Alvarez was fairly certain she had never been in the neighborhood. He offered instructions. “From Victory Parkway head west on King. Turn left on Vernon. It’s 6 blocks down on the left. Park on the street. Lock your door. Don’t pay any attention to the guys in the white t-shirts. If they think they can bother you, they will.”

  Amelia’s brow furrowed as she tried to determine why a police officer would live in such a bad part of town. Detective Alvarez understood the importance of foster kids being located in neighborhoods close to their cousins and places they knew.

  “So I can stop by any time?” Amelia asked, not even considering her last minute call or visit could seem invasive.

  “Of course.” Detective Alvarez realized the futility of trying to obtain respect from a high power attorney doing her good deed for the year.

  “I will be in India for two weeks,” Amelia advised him. “If there’s anything you need, you may contact my associate, Trisha Jennings at 555-8100.”

  “Thanks.” Detective Alvarez wrote the name and number on the pad in front of him. India, he thought. Must be nice.

  “The sitter’s name is Alicia,” the detective advised in return. “I’ll give her a call to let her know you are on your way so she can make sure Jojo is around to meet you. Do you know when you might stop by?” The detective decided he could try to pin her down.

  Amelia thought of the boy being kept inside on a sunny day. “Probably not until 3:00 this afternoon,” she answered. “If there’s some problem just call the service, 555-4667. They’ll track me down.” Her phone bleeped with an incoming call from her mother.

  “Detective, I have a call I must take. Good-bye.” Amelia didn’t wait to hear his response. She swapped the call to pick up the call from her mother.

  “Where are you now?” her mom asked. The business of getting out of town was in full swing.

  “I’m on 4th Street,” Amelia replied.

  “Doing what?” Karen Bradford missed an opportunity to respect her daughter’s boundaries. “Oh for God’s sake, Amelia. You’re not stopping by David’s store!”

  “Mom,” Amelia sighed, “I need hiking shoes.”

  “Can’t you get them somewhere else? Why do you want to bring this up today?”

  “Mom, I’m not going to see David, and for your information this is already up today!” She felt the heat rising in her cheeks and wondered how it was that she could control her temper in court but not in the presence of her mother.

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” Amelia’s mom backed off first before she dug herself too deep of a hole.

  “I’m sorry too, Mom.” Amelia was able to respond to her mom’s reversal
. “I really don’t think I’m trying to start anything. I just want the shoes and David won’t be there if I go now.”

  “Okay, no need to explain,” Karen finished it. “I’m at the pharmacy, is there anything you need? Mini shampoo? Toothpaste?” Once Karen Bradford crossed boundaries, she had a hard time locating them again.

  Pause, pause, pause…

  Miguel Alvarez turned from his computer and stared out the window of his office, across the parking lot of District 2 Headquarters to the tea lined windows of the Coffee Emporium across the street. He felt he was in a race against time. With what, he didn't know. Seldom did he feel such a compelling need to solve a drug running case.

  The District 2 jurisdiction ran from Madisonville to Hyde Park. He worked with cases involving the poorest to the richest. Before he made detective, Miguel ran a street beat in Madisonville. At night he would often drive up to the busiest corners and scare off big expensive cars. Often when he ran the plates he found that the cars belonged to residents from richer neighborhoods.

  Despite the differences one might anticipate between the rich and poor, Miguel had found the problems were often the same. The difference was that rich people could hire powerful attorneys to get them out of trouble while the poor couldn’t afford to manipulate the law. What bothered him most was when he saw the future of many of the kids who got caught in the middle. Joseph was one of those cases and Miguel was determined to see that he didn’t slip through the cracks.

  Alvarez thought about the lady lawyer showing up at the last minute before she took off on vacation. He was glad he would be home by one and meet her at three. That way he could make sure she understood the importance of the case. He checked his watch. There were four hours left in his shift. Maybe I can get some of these pieces to fall together, he thought.