Page 14 of The Wrong Side of the Law

“We’ll start with why you’re here in Florida instead of Manhattan. You should have started the new semester two weeks ago. And then we’ll move on to why you’ve been home for a month and didn’t call me.” Rita drums her fingers on the table, waiting for me to answer.

She’s not going to let it go, and concern grows in her eyes with every passing moment of delay.

God. I have to talk to someone. I’ll explode if I can’t. I’ve told Lisa and Barbara the barest outline of the problem, and my new boss, too, but I just can’t invite them to my pity party. Rita’s been there for me for so long. So many years. We’ve cried on each other’s shoulders over crappy boyfriends and bad test scores and every other problem… but this time, my pride is just getting in the way.

I swallow, hard, forcing that pride back down as best I can, and choking back the tears that have been threatening for the last several minutes.

“I’m not going back to school,” I say, my voice tiny. “I can’t. Not right now.”

“What?” Rita’s eyes flare. “What happened? Did somebody hurt you?”

“Huh? No!” I hold my hands up. “No, no. I mean, yes, but not like that! God, no.”

“Okay, good.” Rita grabs my hands. “What happened? Gawd, going to law school is all you’ve talked about doing since you were, like, six years old. And now you’ve suddenly caught my school allergy?”

“Life happened,” I say, grimacing. “I’ve been out looking for a job.” My hands are still gripped tightly in hers, so I use my chin to point down at my blazer and blouse.

“Job?” Rita doesn’t get it.

“Well, you’ve made something of yourself without going to college, and after, what, five and a half years of school? I just…”

“Oh, please.” Rita snorts, letting go of my hands and waving dismissively at me. “You know what my deal was. I swore on graduation day that I would never sit through another day of school in my life. And I haven’t.”

“Sure, and it was all just luck since then, right? You didn’t have to do anything to succeed in real estate?”

“Well, you know.” She smirks. “Sometimes you just get lucky.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know you.” I roll my eyes at her. “You’re working eighteen-hour days and hustling clients at two in the morning to sell another building.”

“Well, duh,” Rita says. “But we’re here to talk aboutyouright now. Why,” she asks, reaching across the table to poke me in the chest, “did you need to go out looking for a job?”

“She spent it all, Rita.” I force myself to look her in the eyes. “Every penny. And she sold everything that wasn’t nailed down.”

Rita’s mouth works silently as she stares at me in disbelief.

“I haven’t been able to work it all out yet—go figure, I can’t afford to hire an accountant—but as far as I can tell there’s not a penny left in any of the bank accounts. She liquidated all the stocks, all the bonds. Even if there were penalties. The only thing she didn’t do was take out a mortgage on the house, and that’s only because her name wasn’t on the deed.”

By the time I finish my sentence, my teeth are clenched and I’m fighting tears again. Rita’s eyebrows are raised in stunned horror.

“How can she have been so selfish?” I ask. “I’ll manage. I mean, I can work. I can figure out a way to get back to school someday. I’ll find a way, and I’ll make it. But Francis? I just… he’s… you know him. He’s Francis. He’s been the sheltered little boy his whole life. When the world comes crashing in on him, he’s going to need all the help he can get.

“No no no no.” Rita has caught her breath and shakes her head wildly at me. “No. This can’t be right. Your father had abunchof real estate assets. What happened to those?”

“I… don’t know?”

“Commercial real estate ain’t cheap to rent, girl. He had tenants.Goodtenants. I know they’re good, because I found them for him. Where’d all that rent money go?”

“I don’t know that either? I assume she wasted it all?”

“Maybe she did. But there should be money coming in each month. Unless she sold the buildings and blew the money. Did she?” Rita doesn’t even wait for me to answer. She’s talking to herself as much as she is to me, now. “No, of course not. I’d have known. There’s no way she could sell without me knowing.”

“Are you sure?”

My friend cocks her head to the side and graces me with a smile so condescending that I’d have slapped it right off anyone else’s face.

“Yes,” she says, patiently. “I’m sure. I don’t pay my condo fees by ignoring listings for prime commercial real estate.”

She certainly seems convincing enough. For the first time in a month, it seems like the light at the end of the tunnel might not be an oncoming train. I lean back in the booth, relaxed—trulyrelaxed—for the first time since coming home.

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