by Kate Meader
“So, awesome news about James,” Lucas says.
“Yeah, it’s great.”
There’s no missing his sidelong glance. We know each other pretty well, having met six years ago straight out of law school while we worked at a big firm downtown. We put in our grunt time together, and when Grant and I decided to open our own practice, Lucas, our cheeky chappy Brit pal, was a natural fit.
Somehow the fucker talked his way into getting his name listed first. Said it was more musical to have the names go in order of one syllable, two syllables, three syllables. That the last name of the trio would be remembered most. I fell for it because he’s that good.
“Now, we both know you’re not a hundred percent on board with this, Maxie. Talk to your uncle Lucas.”
I stop because standing still is necessary for what I need to get off my chest. “It’s kind of soon, don’t you think?”
Lucas gives me the respect of not dismissing my concerns with a derisive look or a weird noise. “I’d say for some people, yes. But James has a good head on his shoulders.”
He does. And Gina’s a nice girl. It’s the wedding planner. That’s what’s turned this from a low-level hum of irksome into a full-scale throttle of annoyance. I understand that some people might view my job as feeding off the misery of others, but I’m performing a necessary service. This woman—Charlie Love, if that is her real name—is sucking at the teat of people’s pseudo happiness. Not just that, she’s manufacturing a need that doesn’t exist.
“They have a wedding planner.”
“I heard. I also heard you kind of got into it with her.”
“You and Jim-Jam are awfully chatty, Wright.”
“He thought you might need a shoulder in your time of sorrow and called to prep me for the waterworks. We all know how much you hate change.”
While it’s annoying to be so easily pegged, he’s not far wrong. I had to be dragged into leaving my old firm by Grant. I have routines I like, a life I’ve honed to stability. The one time I stepped out of my comfort zone and invited someone in ended in disaster.
“I like what I like,” I mutter. Maybe it’s boring, but I don’t enjoy surprises.
“You need to have your life shook up, mate,” Lucas says. “Get you out of your rut.”
I need nothing of the sort. I quickly change the subject.
“My parents are thrilled.” They see nothing but promise and joy ahead. I love them dearly but their naïveté about how life works worries me.
“And you don’t have to perform. Number one son is off the hook!” He squints over my shoulder. “What’s the name of that woman you took to the bar association ball in December?”
I’m already running before he can even finish the query. Some people might call it cowardly; I call it a distinct case of self-preservation.
Mitzi von Stueben is a lovely girl, far too nice for the likes of me, which I found out after I took her on two dates and she started talking pets. As in which type of dog we should be getting because apparently sharing custody of a dog is a clear indication of a man’s readiness to settle down. Though it pisses me off to change up my regular trail, I’ve been taking a different running route because since I told her we’re not going to work out, I’ve crossed her path “accidentally” approximately six times in two months.
“She still there?” I ask Lucas as I sprint like my freedom depends on it. He’s doing a fine job of keeping pace with me. The Lucky Escape Fitness Regimen.
“Nah, she turned off the path and headed over to the zoo.”
Good. Maybe she’ll find a monkey she can adopt.
* * *
—
I should have stock in Kleenex.
I hand the box of tissues to Mrs. Steven MacKenna—she still goes by this name even though the next Mrs. Mac is metaphorically cocking her hip and tapping her wristwatch in the Gold Coast pied-à-terre. It’s one of the things that can often impede a fast and efficient dissolution: the knowledge that someone’s waiting in the wings, already measuring the closets.
“I don’t see why he”—read she—“gets to keep the condo on Schiller,” my client croaks out between sobs.
“We went over this, Elizabeth. You’re getting the house in Lake Forest. Ten thousand square feet and eight million buckaroos is always going to trump a pokey seven rooms worth a paltry 3.9 mil.” In this market, more like 4.2 million, but I’m playing it down because the slightest encouragement will launch her into a spiral of indecision. “With the alimony settlement, you’re doing very well out of it financially.”
I use the term “financially,” though I know she’s not quite at the stage where this is a transaction yet. I can get her to a place where she’ll be doing better emotionally, but we need to get closure on the assets first. Elizabeth is a friend of my mother’s and was initially resistant to using me as her lawyer because I peed in her swimming pool at the age of three. She’s since come around, but in her mind, I’ll always be the Little Pee Boy of Winnetka.
A gentle knock that I know to be Sadie, our office manager, is a natural stopping point in our conversation.
“Come in.”
Sadie walks in with a silver tray laden with a full French press, cups, cream, and double-baked almond and apricot biscotti.
“Right here, Sadie, thanks.” I gesture to the coffee table in front of the sofa where I’m sitting with Mrs. Mac. For these emotional conversations, I prefer to treat the exchange as a cozy chat.
Sadie is a model of discretion. A pretty African American woman in her early forties with short black hair and chocolate eyes, she’s been with us from the beginning. Her firefighter husband and five-year-old twins keep her busy—they’re more mature than the three of you, she likes to say. I don’t doubt it.
She leaves as quietly as she arrived.
“Want to hit the plunger, Elizabeth?” I motion to the French press. “It can be amazingly cathartic.”
Her mouth pulls up slightly, attempting a smile. She’s really quite attractive, barely past fifty, with a rosy future ahead of her. She will get through this.
Taking me up on my invitation, she palms the plunger and depresses it with a satisfied exhale.
“Her or him?” I ask.
Her smile shines brighter, more self-aware. I like knowing smiles on my clients’ lips. Knowing smiles imply humps being hurdled. “You think I should be imagining crushing his balls into coarse coffee grounds, I suppose. I understand that he’s to blame and she’s just a symptom, but…” She turns astonishingly clear green eyes on me, and I’m reminded for a moment of Charlie Love, though Charlie’s have golden flecks shot through the irises. “I really feel if given another month, he’ll grow out of this nonsense.”
Steven MacKenna has had eight months to grow out of this nonsense. He actually prefers it and has the resources to indulge his late-in-mid-life crisis.
I’m going to need to take this one to the next level.
“Coffee, Max?”
“Please. And when we’re done, I have something to show you.”
* * *
—
“A gym?” Elizabeth gazes around in wonder at the room we’ve just entered. “Why have you taken me to a gym in your office suite?”
“Do you work out, Elizabeth?”
“I go to Zumba classes like a normal person.”
“No Zumba here.” I give an all-encompassing wave around the room, taking in the punching bags, the grappling dummies, and everyone’s favorite, Bob the Torso. There’s a notable lack of traditional gym equipment such as treadmills or the like. This is not a get-fit kind of place, it’s a get-even kind of place.
“When you said ‘Punch Palace,’ I assumed you meant a place to drink punch.” Only a woman who runs in the society circles Elizabeth MacKenna does would
jump to that conclusion. She completes a small circuit, stopping at Bob, who has a Popeye cast to him, her expression one of curiosity crossbred with distaste. “That is one ugly son of a bitch.”
“He can always get uglier.” I walk over to a cabinet and open it up. Once I find what I need, I join her in front of Bob.
Her eyes widen at what I’m carrying in my hands. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Let’s see how it looks.” Thirty seconds later we’re staring at a scarily accurate facsimile of Steven MacKenna III above a naked torso on a polyethylene sand-filled base.
Elizabeth raises a hand to her throat. “It’s so…I refuse to say lifelike because that implies the bastard is human, but it’s quite remarkable. Creepy. Where did you get it?”
“We have a company that makes the masks for us based on photos we send them. Not everyone gets the treatment but I try to anticipate who might need a helping hand—”
“Or fist.”
“Or fist, to get them over the hump. Right now, you’re caught in no-man’s-land. You hate him but you think there might be hope. From a legal perspective, I think you know that this marriage is over, but your brain isn’t there yet.”
“You think punching a dummy with my husband’s face on it will get me past this?” She hasn’t taken her eyes off fake Steven since the moment I put that mask over Bob’s ugly-ass mug. Stevie’s not much of an improvement.
“I think it can’t hurt to give it a shot.”
“I assume I’m getting charged your full rate while I’m indulging in this ridiculousness.” She can’t decide if she’s impressed or disgusted. “And to think you used to have poor bladder control.”
My three-year-old self still haunts me. “Some of my clients tell me they would happily pay extra for this service.”
Sometimes it has a fortunate by-product. Not only does a discarded wife get to punch the living daylights out of her ex, she often finds the activity addictive. Losing those pounds she acquired in middle age, the ones her ex-husband couldn’t appreciate as the sacrifice she made to bear his children, is the ultimate fuck you to the prick who’s moved on to a newer, shinier model. I get an uncommon kick out of watching a former spouse’s jaw drop to the courtroom floor at the sight of the new and improved woman he trashed for the crime of a too-large booty and her inability to surprise him anymore.
Elizabeth looks down at her elfin, have-never-done-a-day’s-work hands and curls them into fists. “Do I just—”
I place my hand over hers before she can connect with fake Steven. “A broken finger isn’t going to make you feel better.” And will likely result in me getting sued to hell and back. “Let’s get you a pair of boxing gloves.”
Chapter 5
“I promise not to keep score, even if I am totally winning.”
—Unknown
Charlie
“She won’t talk to me,” Nathan says. “She said you either call her back within ten minutes or she’s walking.”
I growl into my phone.
“Down, girl.”
“Nat, why did I hire you?”
“Because I’m your best bud from college, handsome as fuck, and hung like a Kentucky Derby winner.”
“No, my sweet, I hired you because you flirt like there’s no tomorrow and that’s what I need to calm all the diva brides. Now why aren’t you doing what I hired you to do?”
I check my watch, noting that it’s five minutes past the time I’ve arranged to meet Gina and James for the menu and table settings selection at The Peninsula. Beautiful people float by me in the lobby on their way to glamorous lives and afternoon tea.
“I tried everything, but it’s hard to do my best work on the phone,” Nathan says. “You know I’m more effective when I can employ my dimples to maximum capacity.”
I can’t disagree. Nathan is a magical unicorn in the wedding planning industry: a heterosexual man who loves the thrill of putting together a couple’s dream day. Everyone assumes he’s gay and then gets annoyed with him on behalf of all the gay wedding planners he’s supposedly rooking out of jobs. We met in college and after a short stint in events management for a large hotel chain, he joined me when I broke out on my own two years ago with Perfect Day, my wedding planning company.
The client he needs me to talk down off a ledge is Kennedy Faulkner, who has taken the role of bridezilla and decided to ramp it up to Oscar bait levels. I’m usually exceptionally present for my clients but Kennedy…I missed three of her calls while I was in a meeting, then ignored two more because I suspect it’s a storm in a teacup. And I’m right. According to Nathan, the bride-to-be is worried that the foie gras on the wedding reception menu might be produced from natural feeding instead of the traditional means of force-feeding that all foie gras aficionados know and love. In other words, Kennedy needs an assurance that the most barbaric and cruel practices possible were employed to produce her first course.
“I already called the chef,” Nathan says. “He said he only ever uses the real thing—in fact, he sounded insulted I’d even ask—but she needs to hear it from you. Says her father won’t eat anything else, and he’s concerned someone will slip in some ‘faux gras.’ ”
My time in group homes where a PB&J was considered gourmet didn’t prepare me for this. “Give her Chef Fontaine’s direct number.”
“Really?”
“Yep. She might say she wants to hear it from me but really she wants to vent, so she may as well do it in his ear.”
“Atta girl.”
We chitchat about a few outstanding items on our lists, then I sign off. Ten minutes late now. I’m not pleased about this because the timeline on this wedding is much more contracted than usual. I pride myself on being able to pull off anything but I need client cooperation.
My phone buzzes with a text from—uh-oh—Gina.
Sorry, my car broke down on Lake Shore and James got stuck at work.
Damn, a complete waste of my time.
Typing…typing…
I can get there in about twenty minutes, but in the meantime we’ve sent someone to get us started.
Typing…typing…
I don’t need to read the next message because my skin is already goosebumping with awareness. Asshole Alert! Apparently I must have crapped on a god’s head in a previous lifetime. I look up just as The Cynic™ appears.
“Ms. Love.”
Guys have tried to speak my name knowingly, even flirtatiously before. I’m used to men digging deep for their inner Barry White, drawing out that single syllable, and inviting me into a world where the husky pronunciation of this one word is supposed to make me cream my Vicky S high-cut bikini.
It’s never worked. Until now.
And boy, does that get on my tits.
Max Henderson says my name like I should fall to my knees and praise the deity who chiseled this man from angel poop. While I’m at it, I should probably unzip, untuck, and unhinge my jaw to show my true gratitude. And now I have no choice but to stare at his zipper and all the business that surrounds and strains against the zipper. Strong thighs, trim hips, narrow waist, all encased in a navy pinstripe suit that fits him perfectly.
“Mr. Henderson.” I stand because I feel at a disadvantage while sitting. Upright isn’t all that much better but at least I’m no longer eye-level with his crotch.
“Call me Max. Did you hear from Gina?”
“Just now. We can probably reschedule for another time—”
“And have you add this to your bill? I don’t think so.” He looks at his watch, something incredibly expensive peeking from the cuff of a shirt that probably cost several of my monthly mortgage payments. “I already said I’m happy to help, and Gina should be along soon enough. How about we get started?”
I pin on my fakest smile.
“Sure, why not.” As I lead the way, I speak to him over my shoulder. “I’m not sure how much Gina and James filled you in. Today we’re going to choose table settings and try a sample menu. Do you know if anyone in the immediate family has food allergies?”
Max Henderson is busy looking at my legs.
I stop so he can come alongside me.
“Spoilsport,” he says with a tip of his mouth up at the corner. He’s really far too attractive for my own good.
“Food allergies?” I prompt.
“Rubbery chicken priced over a Benjamin per plate.”
I make a big to-do out of noting that in my phone. “That didn’t take long.”
“What didn’t?”
“You reverting to type. Scroogy MacScrooge Pants and Bah Humbug ‘are there no poorhouses?’ ”
“Now how did you know my nickname in high school?”
“Oh, I bet that wasn’t it.”
He leans in and, holy pinstripes, he smells incredible. Like a manly orchid. A manorchid.
“You’re right, it wasn’t. Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”
Max Henderson hit on me pretty hard at that bar a week ago and turned cool when he found out who I am and what I do for a living. But I suspect he’s gotten over his initial gripe. After all, why allow principles to get in the way of the needs of your penis? Who cares about liking or respecting someone when she has a warm, wet hole going begging?
It would be so easy to fall into those dangerous blues, let myself be swept up in a torrid exchange of bodily fluids with no strings. But I’d hate myself in the morning.
“I hope you’re hungry,” I say. “The food here is divine.”
His eyes stay fixed on my lips, then snap to my eyes. “What’s your favorite Hitchcock movie, Charlie?”
The change of subject and caress of his tongue over my name send my pulse rocketing.
“What makes you think I have one?”
His eyes crinkle in a “come on, I know you do” way. There’s something soft in that eye crinkle, something that speaks of a man who might have the capacity to surprise me.
