“You can pawn your emotions now?”
He looked up at her fake green eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You said he had pawned his self-righteousness.”
“Are you an idiot, Jennifer? Honestly, are you a complete idiot?”
Her bottom lip began to quiver. “Jeffrey, I’ve told you not to call me names.”
“Well, you have to be. You have to be completely stupid. No, I’m the idiot! I’m the one who married you.” He got up from the couch, the tail of his white shirt swaying against his pajama bottoms as he paced.
“You’re a really, really mean man,” Jennifer said through her tears. She tottered slightly on her three-inch heels as she stood up from the sofa. “I don’t have to listen to this. You can just get your stuff and stay over here until you learn how to treat me.”
“Me?!” He stopped pacing to stare at her. “I’m not going anywhere. You, however, can get your things and get out of my house!”
“Jeffrey!” She gasped. “You’re just stressed, baby.” She reached out her hand to touch his face, her fake fingernails coming at him like tiny bayonets.
“Don’t touch me, Jennifer. I mean it. You need to pack your stuff and go.” He waved his hand toward the door. “I’ll get you an apartment. A condo. Whatever. But you’re not staying here. This relationship is a joke, and we both know it. You can get what we settled on in the prenup. That should keep you perfectly satisfied, and then you won’t have to wait around on my father’s money.”
He saw the blotch of red start at the base of her pale neck and work its way up to the top of her pristinely shaped eyebrows. “It’s her, isn’t it? You’re seeing that foreigner, the one with the big bazookas that you claim she arrived on the planet endued with. Enparted.”
“It’s endowed, Jennifer.”
“I knew it! Well, don’t think for a minute you can get rid of me that easy! Besides, I have an appointment next week with you for liposuction! Let’s just see what you do when I show up at your office!” she shouted and then stormed from the guesthouse.
He didn’t care what she knew or thought she knew regarding him and Pamela. He’d give her a liposuction vacuum in the settlement if that would keep her happy. From now on, she could suck out her own fat.
Half an hour later, Jeffrey made his exit from the oceanfront golf community. He had successfully avoided the children and Jennifer as he left the house. Hopefully she’d be gone by the time he got home, but for now all he wanted to do was feel the wind blow through his hair and forget about this unbelievable game his father was trying to play with his emotions.
The salt breeze came off the ocean as he headed toward down-town Charleston and watched the golf course fade in his rearview mirror. He had never liked golf; he bought the house for its prestige. But he did love the story told by Charleston Carriage Tour Guides. When the Scots immigrated to America, the guides said, they brought with them religion, scotch, and golf. There are eighteen holes of golf because there are eighteen shots in a bottle of scotch.
It worked for him. And since Charleston was the home to the first golf course in America in 1786, he thought it only fitting he should live on one.
On the radio, Shania Twain was singing “It Only Hurts When I Breathe.” Jeffrey wondered briefly if the song was about having a heart attack. With the pain in his own chest, the lyrics seemed rather fitting. The DJ came on and assured him that there would be five more in a row. That would get him to the office. The office would get him back to normal. Whatever normal was. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he’d ever known normal.
The phones were buzzing like a plague of locusts when he opened the back door and stepped into the office. The geometrical pattern on the carpet made him dizzy even when he didn’t have a hangover. But the interior designer he had hired, briefly slept with, then fired because she had charged him for those hours, too, had assured him it would hide dirt.
He spotted a stain in front of the door and cursed the woman under his breath as he continued down the hall to his office. He unlocked his door—an unresolved issue, his office manager, Helen, had informed him. “If you can’t trust me after I’ve worked for you for the last five years, then you’ve got far deeper issues than a locked door.”
He had locked it every day since, mostly to prove a point. He walked behind his desk and moved his mouse so that his screen would come up. He never turned his computer off—something else that drove Helen crazy. His calendar popped up.monday and Tuesday were his days for seeing patients, and he did surgeries the rest of the week. But it was technically his first day back since his father’s death, so he had appointments back to back. He sat down behind his desk and closed his eyes. His body ached everywhere. He’d enjoy not sleeping on the sofa tonight.
Pamela tapped lightly on the door. She entered with a beautiful tan and an even more beautiful smile. “Hello, handsome.” Her exotic black eyes sparkled as she locked the door behind her and headed in Jeffrey’s direction.
He was so tired he could hardly muster the energy to act excited. “Hey, beautiful.”
Her sleeveless taupe silk dress shimmered in waves against her perfect figure—one he hadn’t helped sculpt a lick, despite what Jennifer thought. Her black hair fell gently across her shoulders and glistened as she walked toward him. He had always had a thing for brunettes. His first two wives were brunettes, another reason he had never really figured out why he married Jennifer. She thought it was destiny because both of their names started with J. That should have been his second clue.
Pamela pulled his chair out from under his desk and sat across his lap. She bent down and kissed him with all the passion and fire that belonged to her heritage. She reached for his tie and began to remove it.
“I didn’t hear from you last night,” he said through their kiss.
“Sorry, darling. A new campaign had me tied up last night.”
As her fingers grazed his neck, all Jeffrey’s nerves came alive, along with a terrifying thought. His eyes opened as they kissed, and he scanned the room frantically. Someone could be watching—when they least expected it, the Executor said.
He reached up quickly, placing her hand in his own, and stopped her before his tie was completely removed. He hadn’t done that, in—well, ever. “Pamela, I’m sorry, I can’t.” He removed her arms from around his neck and helped her get back to her feet. He didn’t perform for crowds.
“What’s wrong with my darling?”
“It’s just, well, something strange happened last night and with my dad’s death and all and . . .” He shifted his mouse again. The computer screen came back to life. “With all these appointments today, I’m just trying to get caught up here at the office. I just need a few days to regroup and get myself together.”
She walked over and pressed herself against him, her arms wrapping around his waist. “What’s really going on, Jeffrey?”
He kissed the top of her head. Her smell alone was intoxicating. He still didn’t know how someone could be this beautiful without his assistance. It seemed downright otherworldly. And holding her there in his arms, he told her all the events of the previous evening.
He saw her nose crinkle. That meant she was thinking.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
She smiled at him. “You know, as crazy as this may sound, we might be able to use this to your advantage.”
He puffed and walked back to his chair and sat down. “You’re right. It sounds crazy.”
“Seriously.” Her accent thickened as her excitement grew. “We could use this as the perfect opportunity to get a press release out on you and market you to areas outside of Charleston.”
He propped his feet up on the edge of his desk and leaned his chair as far back as it would go. “How would leaving a practice I’ve spent years building to go work for some nonprofit boost my career? Anyway, have you met my clients? There are few so demanding.”
She seated herself in a leather chair opposite his desk.
He tried to remove his attention from the thigh-high slit that had just exposed her perfect leg. “What person wouldn’t admire a man who felt led to go help a needy organization for a year? This could get you more media than you could imagine. Charleston Magazine would finally give you that cover you’ve been longing for.”
“Make a publicity stunt out of this?”
“Call it brilliant marketing.”
The thought made him smile.
“My boy is smiling. It’s good, no? You spend a year having this entire city come to think you’re one of the greatest heroes since Oprah.”
He wouldn’t have picked Oprah. “This is crazy.”
She smiled that insanely inappropriate smile. “This is a gift.”
chapter six
Mary Catherine slipped into the shower and turned the water on so hot the steam had fogged the glass door before she could even get her body soaped. She wanted all remnants of last night gone. She wanted to forget it all.
Her fingers massaged her scalp trying to work out the dull ache of little sleep. Her index finger felt some foreign object underneath it; she pulled at it frantically until the black burlap string was hanging in front of her face. She dropped it like it was a flying cockroach and pounded it down the drain with her foot.
This was a nightmare—the abduction, the terms of the will, everything. But she needed her daddy’s money. She’d really rather have him back, but if he was gone, then his money was the only way to afford the lifestyle she wanted.
And now she was supposed to work? The only real job she’d ever had was student teaching, and that wasn’t even a paying gig. Besides, she had never really liked kids. She probably shouldn’t have majored in education, but she hadn’t taken into consideration that she might actually have to come in contact with the germ-infested, runny-nosed, whiny little creatures.
Fifteen kindergarteners. They had tormented her for a solid year. Driven her to Prozac. Of course, there had been one or two . . .
She pushed the thought aside and shut the water off. She heard the doorbell and the sounds of Coco sniffing at her bedroom door and whining. When she opened it, Mary Catherine found Nate sitting by the door waiting too. He was holding the copy of her father’s will that had just been delivered.
She talked to Coco and ignored Nate. “Sorry, baby girl, Mommy shouldn’t have left you out here with this mean old man.” Coco slipped in beside her, and she slammed the door again and locked it.
“Come on, Mary Catherine!” Nate pounded his fists on the door. “You’ve got to talk to me, baby.”
“Are you sorry?”
“Very.”
“Sorry, sorry?”
“In triplicate.”
She opened the door and peered at him through the crack.
“We’ve got to talk about this, Mary Catherine.”
“I don’t want to. I’m traumatized. I’ll probably need therapy for a decade after what I went through last night. And another decade after that just to deal with the fact that during my torture you were snarfing down spaghetti and watching sitcoms. Wonder what a judge would say to that?”
“Now, baby . . . baby.” He pushed the door open and wrapped his arms around her before she could slam it again. “You just need to calm down. And don’t even speak the word judge or divorce. This is forever.” He kissed the nape of her neck. “Now, come on. Sit.”
He led her into the bedroom and eased her down onto the bed. “You have to think through what happened last night. And not just the horror of it all, but what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t do something pro bono.”
“What about just going to work for an antique store or clothing store or something? You could do that for a year free.”
“Are you crazy? Every antique dealer I’d be willing to work for would talk trash about me all over town if I asked them for a job without pay. Besides, I think pro bono means doing something good for the community. You know, like helping people. Like a nonprofit organization. Not just working at Dairy Queen.”
“What about using your education?”
She tilted her head.
“Yeah? You’ve been thinking about that?”
“Well, I know how to do it. Kind of. At least I know Prozac can get me through it.”
“You’d be a great teacher.”
She crinkled her nose, and he laughed and leaned over to kiss it. “You would. A great teacher.” He released her and stood up. “That’s it, then! You’ll teach for a year, and then you’ll have all of your daddy’s money! Because you don’t have another sibling who’ll ever be able to do what my Mary Catherine can do.”
“You want me to work, don’t you? You want me out of the house.”
He knelt down and took her hands. “I want my baby to get what she deserves. You’re the only one who even paid your father any attention over these last few years. He’d want you to have it all for that reason alone.”
“I did take care of him.” She sniffed.
“I know you did, baby.” He kissed her again. “Now, you get dressed and we’ll figure all of this out.”
“Me and you, Pookie?”
“Me and you.”
Will jumped from the bed. The clock read twelve thirty. He hoped that meant midnight, but the sun streaming in from outside was a pretty good indicator that it was afternoon.
He swore under his breath as he ran to the bathroom and studied his appearance. Still dressed. That would save time. He breathed into his hand. Not too bad. He’d keep his distance. He slid his feet into his flip-flops and headed to the door, grabbing his car keys and wallet as he went. The suction from under the door sent a white envelope fluttering down the hall away from him. No time. He’d get it later.
The car wasn’t in the parking garage. His hands ran through his hair as if that would awaken his memory. It worked, because a brief flashback of his buddies’ prank the night before came alive. He’d let them have it about not getting his car back to him. He’d also let them know how lame this prank had been compared to the last time.
He jogged down Laurens Street and went up Anson until he hit George, where he cut over to the College of Charleston.
His car was right there where he had left it, across from the fraternity. He slid into the silver Porsche his dad had bought for him after he had totaled his other one. Of course his father refused to buy the more expensive one, so he’d had to settle for the eighty-four-thousand dollar model. But not for long.
He sped through the streets of downtown Charleston to his father’s office on King Street. He muscled through the rotating doors, pushing them harder than they were willing to go, and waited impatiently until the elevator arrived. On the third floor, Tabitha sat behind the large reception desk and gasped as Will came bursting through.
“Will, what in the world is going on?”
“How late am I? Is anyone else still here?” He couldn’t hear her response because he was already halfway down the hall. He jerked open the door of his father’s office. All that stared back was an empty chair and his father’s wall of books. He ran through the office and swung open the door on the far side that led into the conference room.
Three men in dark suits stared back at him. “The will. I’m here for the reading of the will.”
A balding man with a fringe of gray hair stood from his chair and removed his glasses. Will recognized him. He was the attorney for his father who had gone to college with his dad and been a part of his business since the beginning. “Will, I was informed that the reading took place last night.”
“What?” Will laughed. “That? That was nothing but a prank by my fraternity brothers. So tell me, what’s up? What did the old man leave me?”
The attorney scratched his forehead and looked at the other two men in the room. They offered no help. “Your sister came to see me this morning and told me that the reading was held last night. The reading of a new will that I witnessed your father sign. I was not the executor
of it, nor have I been given any details of it. It’s apparently sealed for a year to anyone but his children. All I can prove is the authenticity of it.”
Will ran his hands through his hair. “This is crazy. This is so crazy.”
The elderly man put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “If I can do anything else, just let me know.”
“Yeah, uh, sure. Well, I guess I’ll just go, then.”
Once he was out of the building and back in his Porsche, Will dialed Mary Catherine’s number from his cell phone. She didn’t answer. He dialed Jeffrey’s. No response there either. Then he dialed Elizabeth.
Elizabeth stood in front of her bathroom mirror, her wet hair still dripping down her back. Her cell phone sat ringing on the edge of the stone countertop. She studied the caller ID, shook her head, and debated answering. Finally, reluctantly, she slipped on her earpiece.
“Hello?”
“Elizabeth, what’s going on? I just left Dad’s office and nobody’s reading the will.”
“You were there last night, Will.”
“Would y’all quit talking about last night? That was nothing but a dumb prank by my college buddies. They do stuff like that all the time. Please don’t tell me that the attorneys think that was real and now aren’t even going to bother reading the real one.”
She listened to his naïve and pitiful voice. This is what my father has created—a child who can do nothing on his own.
“Okay, little brother, why don’t you just sit back, then, and wait until someone contacts you about the real will?”
“Well, duh. What did you think I was going to do? Go do pro bono work for a year?”
She hung up the phone while he was still laughing. The way he said it reiterated just how absurd it really was.
Jeffrey closed his office door behind him. After all the body parts he had seen today, he just wanted a drink. He poured some amber liquid into a small glass and drank until he could see one eye staring back at him from the bottom.
The Will of Wisteria Page 5
