Waiting to Exhale, page 14
When we passed the sign that said Sedona was however many miles, Lionel said, “You wanna check it out?”
“No,” I said.
“Why not?”
“It’s a detour, Lionel, and second of all, my girlfriend’s waiting for me.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Yeah, didn’t I tell you I was staying with a girlfriend when I got here?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, that’s the plan. I’ll put you up in a motel for tonight, and we can check to see how much it costs to fly you back tomorrow, just like I promised.”
“I was hoping to spend some more time with you, Savannah. I’m enjoying your company. Immensely.”
“Well, I’ve been enjoying yours too, Lionel, but I start my new job in three days, and I’ve gotta find a place to live.”
“I didn’t know you were starting work so soon.”
“Yep.”
“Well, look,” he said, appearing rather worried. “What line of work is your girlfriend in?”
“Why?”
“I’m just curious.”
“She’s a controller for a real estate management company.”
“What about her husband?”
“She doesn’t really have a husband. They’re going through a divorce. But he owns a software company.”
His eyes lit up. “You mean as in computer software?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Look, when we get to Phoenix, do you think you could introduce me to him? I’d like to ask him a few things about how you go about getting into the software business. I know a lot about computers myself, and I’ve always wanted to throw my ideas back and forth with somebody who knows the ins and outs of the business.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Yeah, but just because they’re going through a divorce doesn’t mean you can’t talk to him.”
“Look, Lionel. It would be kind of tacky for me to deal with him under the circumstances, circumstances that I don’t fully understand myself.”
“Can I stay with you?” he asked.
I just looked at him like he was crazy.
“So it’s like that,” he said.
“I’ll drop you off when we see a motel that looks like it’s in the middle of town.”
“Drop me off?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t you want to spend a little more time together?” he asked.
“I would love to, but I’m tired and I’ve got a million things to do in the next few days. We’ll see each other again, won’t we?”
“I hope so,” he said.
When we got inside the city limits, we stopped at a gas station and asked for directions to central Phoenix. We drove until we came to Camelback near Twenty-fourth Street, which was lined with one beautiful hotel after another. I kept driving. “Where you going?” Lionel asked.
“There should be a travel agency around here somewhere,” I said.
“Why are you looking for a travel agency now?” he asked.
“To get your airline ticket, Lionel.”
“But we just got here. I wanted to at least check the city out.”
“What’s to stop you?”
“Well, it seems like you’re in a big hurry to get rid of me or something.”
“That’s not true. I’m tired, Lionel, and I’ve got a lot of business I have to take care of.”
“Well, I’m a little tired of Denver myself, and from what I can see already, Phoenix doesn’t look too bad.”
I couldn’t even twist my mouth to respond, so when I saw a travel agency, I turned in. We got out of the car, and I left the windows down so Yasmine could breathe. It was actually pretty warm here. Hallelujah. We walked inside, and an agent was able to help us right away. I asked her how much a one-way ticket to Denver would cost. Leaving tomorrow. When she told me two hundred and nine dollars, I felt like screaming.
“Shall I book that for you both, ma’am?”
Lionel bent down and said, “Can I talk to you over here for a minute?”
I excused myself, and we walked over by the door.
“Look. Could we do this? I really don’t wanna miss this pork guy, but he won’t be here for another two days. Could you just let me have the plane fare, and I’ll hang out at a cheap motel for a couple of days and take the bus home?”
“Are you serious?”
“I’m serious.”
“Don’t you have any money?”
“I’ve got about sixty dollars in cash on me.”
“Haven’t you got a credit card?”
“Not anymore. I got rid of ’em. Look, Savannah, things have been tough for me for a while. And I’m trying to see if I can get something going in the pork business. If you could introduce me to your friends, or if I can catch up with this pork guy, my luck might change.”
I wanted to vomit, but instead I told the reservationist that we wouldn’t be needing her services after all. I got behind the wheel and looked for the closest bank that took my ATM card. I withdrew two hundred dollars, handed the money to him in silence, then drove until I spotted a cheap motel, where I politely dropped his ass off. When he asked me for Bernadine’s phone number, I made one up. “Can I at least get a kiss?” he asked.
I took a deep breath, rolled my window halfway down, and let him kiss me on the cheek.
“I’ll call you tonight,” he said.
“You do that,” I said, and put the car in first gear and sped off.
Discovery
Bernadine was steaming. She’d just left her lawyer’s office and was on her way to the bank. She was trying to maintain her composure. “You lying, sneaky, conniving bastard!” she yelled, and bit down on her cigarette. She replayed what Jane Milhouse had told her: According to John’s financial disclosure statement, his annual income was eighty thousand dollars—nowhere near the four hundred thousand Bernadine had estimated it to be. “He’s lying through his teeth,” she had said. “How in the hell did he come up with that figure?”
“Well, it appears that John sold his half of the partnership late last year and is now a salaried employee.”
“He’s what?”
“That’s what it says here,” Jane said. “He claims to have sold his interest in the company to his partner for a mere three hundred thousand.”
“Three hundred thousand! Dollars?” Bernadine lit a cigarette, even though Jane Milhouse had a No Smoking sign in her office. “Now I know why women kill their husbands,” she said.
Jane went on to say that since John’s income was significantly lower than his last year’s tax returns reflected, and his income-to-debt ratio was exceedingly high, his lawyer claimed that John was unable to meet Bernadine’s support request. Jane said there had clearly been some level of deceit on John’s part, as it was obvious that he’d sold the business to reduce Bernadine’s community property interest. It sounded like “a scam,” Jane said. She believed the reason John had been so eager to sign the deed to the house over to Bernadine was to abrogate his equity, which in turn could be “exchanged” for partial value of the sale of the business. Bernadine was confused, but a few minutes later it all made sense. He was trying to get over on her.
In listing his assets, Jane said, he had also failed to comply with the court’s standard discovery order, because he hadn’t provided the required evidence to substantiate his claims. She suggested that Bernadine go to the bank today to make sure John hadn’t made any major withdrawals. If he had, Jane advised her to withdraw half of what was left and put it into a new account. In her name only. “I don’t trust him. If he sold the business without your knowledge, and at such an unreasonably low price, then there are probably other things he’s hiding.” She said it was common practice for spouses with considerable assets to use any tactics they could to protect themselves financially.
Jane also felt it would be wise to hire an investigator to do an asset search, which would enable them to assess everything that was on his statement and, possibly, things that weren’t. She advised Bernadine not to discuss any of this with John, and under no circumstances should she try to negotiate with him on her own.
As a matter of fact, Jane urged Bernadine to stay as far away from John as possible until after the custody and child support hearing, which was two weeks from now. At that time, Jane planned to ask the judge for four things: to challenge the authenticity of John’s financial disclosure statement; to invoke an order that would basically “freeze” his assets; to secure temporary support and visitation privileges; and to grant her request for a six-week continuance, giving her time to conduct a full and thorough examination of John’s financial assertions.
“How much more will this cost me?” Bernadine asked numbly. Jane said that would depend on how extensive the investigation became. She told Bernadine not to worry. If the judge granted her requests—and she was positive he would—and if John failed to comply with any of the court’s orders, he could not only be forced to pay her legal fees but be held in contempt, and even go to jail. “Right now,” Jane said, “the most important thing for us to do is get the company appraised so that we can determine why and how he sold the business for less than market value, what he did with the money, and if there are any other assets he may have that he hasn’t disclosed.”
But Bernadine was worried. What if the judge only made John pay her support based on the income he claimed he was making now? There was a big difference between eighty and four hundred thousand. And what if they got this continuance and she had to wait it out? What was she supposed to do in the meantime? Their living expenses ran close to sixty-five hundred dollars a month. She brought home about fourteen hundred dollars every two weeks. How would she pay her bills?
Bernadine was on her third cigarette by the time she pulled into the bank’s parking lot. She put the car in park and sat there for a few minutes. What kind of man would stoop this low to avoid paying for his kids? And how in the hell could she have ever fallen in love with somebody who had absolutely no respect for anybody but himself? If she had known this was the kind of man she was marrying, she would never have said “I do.”
“I’d like to open a new checking account,” she said to the bank officer, “but first I’d like to know the balances in these accounts in order to determine how much I want to transfer into the new one.” She handed him the account numbers for the money market, two CDs, and a checking account.
The officer started punching his computer keys, and Bernadine saw her and John’s name appear in orange on the top of his monitor. “Oh, dear,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” She leaned over his desk to get a closer look.
“I’m afraid these accounts have been closed, with the exception of the checking account.”
“Closed?” she said, and leaned even closer. “What do you mean, closed?”
“I see here that Mr. Harris closed them out earlier this week, but he’s left the checking account open; it has a balance of three thousand ninety-two dollars, and there’s three thousand available in the overdraft as well.”
“But he can’t just close these accounts without my signature, can he?”
“Well, yes, he can and he did.”
“But I’m his wife,” she said.
“I understand that, Mrs. Harris, but these were the terms under which the accounts were set up, and I’m not sure what to say, except that I’m sorry you’ve had to discover it this way.”
You motherfucker, she thought. And then panicked. Last week, she had given her lawyer that five-thousand-dollar retainer, which she must not have deposited yet, and yesterday she’d paid bills as usual. She had written close to three thousand dollars’ worth of checks, which didn’t include the mortgage. It wasn’t due for two weeks. “But I’ve got checks—bills—that are going to bounce.”
“I wish there was something I could do,” he said.
“I’d still like to know how much was in these accounts before they were closed,” she said. “The combined total.”
He got his calculator out and looked at the monitor and started punching. A few seconds later, he wrote a figure on a piece of paper and handed it to Bernadine. It said thirty-two thousand dollars and some change.
“We’re going through a divorce.”
“I assumed as much,” he said. “Would you like me to go ahead and open that new account for you now?”
All of a sudden, Bernadine felt confused. Why would he do this to her and the kids? What had she done to him that was so terrible it would make him want to wipe her out, leave her like this? Like it was no big deal. Like her life meant nothing. Were the kids’ lives invalid to him too? Was this payback for the cars? And did he find out about the garage sale? But his lawyer had already taken that into account and included it in John’s complaint.
“Mrs. Harris?”
Bernadine snapped out of it. “Yes, I’d like to go ahead and open another checking account. Please.”
He handed her the little cards, and she signed wherever there was an X. When Bernadine stood up, it dawned on her that she was broke. “You motherfucker,” she said aloud this time, and startled the bank officer. She put her blank checks inside her bag, said thank you, and walked out of the bank into the hot afternoon sun.
Bernadine stopped the car and looked at the sign: HARRIS SOFTWARE & COMPUTER SUPPLY. How unoriginal, she thought, as she turned the ignition off and got out of the car. At least they could’ve changed the damn name. The building itself was dark gray, and the front of the store was black glass. The “executive” offices, as John called them, were in the back, and behind them, the warehouse. The first person she saw was Lena, standing behind the counter. She looked surprised to see her. “Hello, Bernadine,” she said. “And how are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said loudly.
“Are you here to see John?”
What a stupid question, Bernadine thought, but then again, she knew Lena was in an awkward position. Her husband and John golfed together. “Of course I’m here to see John, Lena,” she said. “Is he still in the same office?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll buzz him,” but Bernadine was already on her way down the hall and had turned the corner when she saw John pick up the phone and put it back down. What a perfect little picture, she thought, as she looked through the plate glass. Kathleen was sitting in front of his desk. Her hair was even blonder than Bernadine remembered. When she saw Bernadine, Kathleen sprang up from the chair. John’s hand went up, as if to say, You don’t have to leave, I’ll handle this.
Bernadine walked inside his doorway and stood stock-still. She looked in Kathleen’s face, down at John, and back at Kathleen. Kathleen’s face was red. Bernadine’s felt redder. Past the boiling point. She was trembling so that she didn’t know her arm had flailed up and slapped Kathleen in the face until she saw Kathleen fall against John’s desk. Before he could get from behind it, she grabbed Kathleen by the hair and yanked her so close that Bernadine could smell her breath. “Now. Would you mind terribly if I had a few moments alone with my husband? I won’t be a minute.”
John lunged up, pushed his chair to the side, and tripped over his briefcase. Bernadine loosened her grip, and Kathleen fled from the room. When she turned toward John, she clutched her purse and rolled her eyes so tight they looked like slits. He stopped dead in his tracks. Bernadine felt pleased and powerful. “Don’t worry. I don’t have a gun,” she said, and sat down in the chair Kathleen had abandoned. “And you better be glad I don’t.”
“You must be delirious or something,” he said. “You’re really testing my patience. You pull a stunt like this again, and I’m getting a restraining order. If Kathleen wants to press charges against you, I’ll be a glorified witness. What are you doing here?”
“I just left the bank.”
John sat down. “You’re not playing fair, so neither am I.”
He sounded just like a white boy, she thought, which is what he’s always wanted to be anyway. “Why’d you have to do it like this, John?”
“Why’d you burn up all my things? Why’d you sell my fucking car, a car I spent years restoring, for a goddamn dollar? All I’m doing is what I was instructed to do by my attorney.”
“And what am I supposed to do about money?”
“I left you close to seven thousand dollars in the checking account. You’ve got a job. This should tide you over until we reach some kind of settlement. You really should get a better lawyer. If she’d accepted the amount we offered, we wouldn’t have to waste time and money going to court.”
Bernadine was tempted to tell him she knew everything he was trying to do, that she was hip to him, but she realized she wasn’t supposed to be here. And she didn’t want to blow it. “Look, John. I had to pay my lawyer a five-thousand-dollar retainer.”
“That’s too bad. Lawyers are expensive these days, aren’t they?”
“And I just paid all the March bills. I’ve got checks that are going to bounce. What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“Bernadine, can we be civil about this?”
“Civil? You’re the one who closed the fucking bank accounts! The mortgage is due in two weeks. Who’s going to pay it?”
“It’s your house,” he said. “If you’re willing to reconsider my initial offer, I’d be happy to pay the mortgage and give you fifteen hundred a month until we settle this thing.”
“Fuck you, John.”
“Look, I gave you the damn house. Sell it.”
“Sell it? Today? I will, as soon as I get home. I’ll get right on it. Tell me something, when did you take it upon yourself to sell your half of the business?”
“Six months ago.”
“Did you really think you’d get away with this shit?”
“I wasn’t trying to get away with anything.”
“I hate you, you know that?”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Bernadine.”
“Who do you think helped build this fucking company? Did you really think you could just take the money and run?”
John got up and closed the door. “The business hasn’t been doing as well as you think it has, and don’t worry, you’ll get something out of it.”
