Page 4 of Leave It to Us
It was Lana’s turn to paste on a fake smile as she glanced at Brenda. “Then it’s amazing that you still have a job, with all the other ways customers can be assisted.”
The dismayed look that crossed Brenda’s face only amused Lana, because hell, she hadn’t told the woman to keep pushing her buttons. All she had to do was smile and do her job.
Lana wasn’t the confrontational type like her baby sister, Tami. That girl was always looking for a fight—physical, when she’d been in middle and high school, and verbal, now that she’d entered the land of adulthood. If Tami didn’t like something or felt she was being wronged in some way, she was damn sure letting you know. She’d been a spitfire since she’d first learned to talk and had gotten herself into more than a few bouts of trouble because of her sassy mouth and bristly attitude.
No, Lana was the calmest of her sisters, the most levelheaded, and the peacekeeper. Or, as Tami often said, she was “the bougie bitch.” She didn’t mind that title as much as she probably should’ve, because she’d always been well aware that she was nothing like Tami or Yvonne. Never had been. In fact, she’d often wondered if she’d been adopted,since Tami and Yvonne resembled each other, with their brown-sugar complexions, round faces, and pert noses. They were the cute sisters, while she’d been blessed with blunt good looks—a toasty-brown complexion; wide, full mouth; long nose; and expressive eyes. Her tall, slim frame had even landed her two years in modeling school, where she’d discovered she preferred being behind the camera and controlling the shots rather than posing in them.
“There are four accounts with the name Alana M.Butler-Camby on them. One as the sole owner of the business AMB Photography, and the remaining three as co-owner with Isaac J.Camby,” Brenda said, reading from her computer screen.
“Correct,” Lana told her. “I’d like that check deposited into the AMB account.”
It was her payment from the gallery where she’d had her third showing last summer. The yearlong contract was ending next week, and she would need to decide whether to allow the three photos that hadn’t been sold to remain at the gallery. If not, she would put them on her website with the other prints she sold directly.
Brenda’s lilac acrylic nails danced over the keyboard before pausing to pick up the check and run it through some type of imaging machine. Then she pulled a deposit slip from her drawer and filled that out before attaching it to the check. She pushed another button, and a receipt printed from yet another machine. She pushed that across the desk toward Lana.
Lana picked it up and slid it into her purse.
“That gives you a balance of $10,367.89 in the AMB account,” Brenda told her before pushing more buttons. “And $3,665 in the joint checking account. The savings has a balance of $264.95, and the money market account is at the minimum amount to keep it open: $3,501.”
Dammit.
Of course, Lana didn’t say that out loud. Instead, she nodded and snapped her purse shut. “Thank you so much for your help, Brenda.”
“Oh,” Brenda said, and looked at Lana as if she couldn’t believe the woman wasn’t asking her to do something else. “Will that be all for you today, ma’am?”
A few minutes ago, she hadn’t wanted to do the two things Lana had asked, and now she was asking about doing more. “Yes, that sure will be. Again, thank you.”
With that, she walked out of the woman’s cubicle and out of the bank.
She was back in her car again before she slammed her palms against the steering wheel. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit, Isaac!”
Chapter 3
YVONNE
“As you know, I was contacted by Jeremiah Sinclair about six months ago to assist in executing the directives in the will of Elizabeth Lorraine Coleman-Butler,” Robyn Crawford said.
Yvonne thought the attorney was probably around her age, but she presumed the woman was a lot less stressed than she was at this very moment. The attorney they’d met a couple of weeks ago, when she’d called them to this same office, wore a nice royal-blue skirt suit and kept her gaze level with Yvonne’s and her sisters’ yet discerning. Robyn—as she’d asked them to call her—was another professional Black woman focused on doing her job to the best of her ability. Yvonne could respect that. Even if she envied the fact that Robyn also looked like she enjoyed doing her job.
“Yes,” Yvonne said evenly, when she really wanted to yell for Robyn to hurry up and get this over with. “We understand that because Grandma Betty passed away on Daufuskie Island, the correct jurisdiction for all of her legal dealings is in Beaufort County, South Carolina.”
“That’s right,” Robyn replied, with a nod toward Yvonne.
There was a snicker to her left, but Yvonne didn’t turn to see which one of her sisters had made the sound. She figured it was Tami—theyoungest, at twenty-nine, and still the most impetuous and irritating of the threesome. Lana, at thirty-five, had grown into exactly the type of woman Yvonne had thought she would—professional, powerful, and perfect.
“You’ve already told us about the cremation and the memorial service that we didn’t get the chance to attend,” Lana said. “What else is there to discuss? Why are we here now?”
Grandma Betty—or Elizabeth Lorraine Coleman-Butler, as Robyn and the obituary that Yvonne had printed and still carried around in her purse referred to her. Or Betty Butler—the renowned, award-winning R & B singer of the sixties and seventies—as a good portion of the world had known her. However she was known, she was gone. Yvonne’s father’s mother, the only grandmother the sisters had ever had a relationship with, had passed away.
Two weeks ago, Robyn had contacted them and told them Grandma Betty had suffered complications from pneumonia. She’d been immediately cremated, as per her instructions. By the time Robyn had gotten them all together for that first meeting, the memorial service—which Grandma Betty had also preplanned—had already taken place because their grandmother had left strict instructions for everything to be done within three days. Like she hadn’t been raised a Black Baptist in the South, where the whole family gathering—funeral, burial, and repast—could take up to two weeks. And really, that wasn’t even something that was relegated to the South. Yvonne recalled when they were younger and their uncle, Mama’s only brother, had passed. It had taken a week for Aunt Irene to get all her family in town, then wait for donations toward the funeral expenses, before the funeral home would even set a date for the services.
Anyway, Yvonne had the same question Lana did, so she waited impatiently for Robyn’s response.
“Mrs.Butler was adamant about every one of her wishes being carried out in exacting order,” Robyn continued.
Yvonne wasn’t shocked; Grandma Betty had always been a bossy one. How many times had Daddy shaken his head and said, “You’re just like your grandmama”? Too many for Yvonne to count, although the memory had the corners of her mouth threatening to tilt into a smile.
“Of course she was.” Lana sounded less than surprised, as they all probably were. She’d crossed one leg over the other so that the red bottom of the expensive pump she wore was visible to everyone sitting on this side of the desk.
