Hitting the Wall: A Stonecut County Romance, page 20
“Miss Crowder!” I stand and take his hand. His grip is like a vise.
“And this must be little Mia!” He smiles at her, but it’s perfunctory. His focus is right back on me.
He’s a man in his sixties who’s holding on to his handsome. He still has thick hair, silver and styled. He’s tall, fit, and dressed to the nines. Gray suit and shiny black shoes. He doesn’t look small town. He looks like a TV lawyer.
“I knew your grandfather for many years. My deepest sympathies. Stonecut lost a good man.”
I nod, ignoring the tightening in my throat. Grandpa was a good man. The best.
“If it’s all right by you, Linda’s grabbing some coloring books from upstairs. We have quite the collection for the grandkids, you know. She can keep an eye on Mia here while we chat, if you’re okay with that?”
He smiles wide. He has veneers.
Mia has plopped herself on the floor, and she’s lining up her critters on the coffee table.
“Here she is now,” he booms as Linda bustles back in, arms loaded with books and toys. “Find what you were looking for?”
Linda’s attitude is entirely changed; she’s transformed from a battleax to Mrs. Claus in five minutes.
“Yes, sir. It was all where you said. We’ve got some fun toys here to keep us occupied, right, Mia?” Her voice is bright and phony.
Mia turns her pockets inside out to make sure she’s got all the critters.
The cords in Linda’s neck strain.
“Ma’am, Mia doesn’t talk to strangers,” I try to explain. Sometimes folks get it. Sometimes they don’t.
“I see,” she sniffs and sets down the toys.
“She’ll be fine with her animals.”
“I’ll just sit here then.” Linda lowers herself into an overstuffed leather chair, back ramrod straight.
“She does better if left to her own devices,” I say, but Linda’s already decided to take offense.
Maybe I should bring Mia with me. She doesn’t need to hear this, though. She’s an iceberg. She understands ninety percent more than you’d think she does.
“Linda will take great care of her, won’t you, dear?”
Linda perks up at that. “Of course.”
“Shall we?” Mr. Prescott gestures to the door. His office is directly across the hall. If he leaves the door open, I’ll be able to watch Mia.
I go ahead, and thankfully, he leaves the door ajar.
“Please, have a seat. Would you like coffee? Bottled water?” He unbuttons his jacket and settles himself behind his massive wooden desk in an oversized, leather swivel chair.
“No, thank you, sir.” I sit across from him in another big chair. I brace my feet flat on the floor so my ass doesn’t slide down this slippery leather.
The wall behind him is entirely covered with shelves filled with books that look like they’ve never been cracked open. He has a sleek white laptop on his otherwise clear desk, and there’s a globe on a stand by the window. Paintings of horses in pastures hang on the walls in thick, carved frames with little lights attached above.
Folks in this town sure do love their horse paintings. There’s as many horses hanging here as there are paintings of Jesus back home.
Mr. Prescott clears his throat and offers an encouraging smile. “So, Miss Crowder, what brings you here today?”
I clutch the purse I’ve set in my lap. “I need a lawyer.”
“And why is that?” He clicks a silver pen. There’s no paper. Must be a habit.
“I—”
Crap.
I’ve never really talked to anyone about this before. Not since I told Pandy I was knocked up seven years ago. Mama assumed what she assumed, and I never elaborated much.
I didn’t expect it’d be hard to talk about. It is what it is. I’m not the first single mother in the world. I’m not ashamed. Exactly.
“I need help with Mia’s father.” I swallow past a lump in my throat.
Mr. Prescott waits patiently, his calm expression inviting me to continue when I’m ready.
“See, we aren’t married. We weren’t ever together, and I left town when I was expecting Mia. He never knew about her. But he does now, and I need a lawyer to help make it all legal.”
That came out wrong.
“I mean, to help set up visitation and child support and all that.”
Mr. Prescott leans back and steeples his fingers. His chair creaks.
There’s a knot in my stomach. I peek at Mia. She’s still at the coffee table, arranging her critters.
“What are you planning to do?” he finally asks.
I don’t entirely understand the question.
“I, um, I don’t know? Stay here for now, I guess. Get Mia enrolled in school.”
He swivels ever so slowly in his chair, waiting for me to say more, his face carefully bland. The back of my neck prickles.
“What is it that you want from the father?”
I shrug. “Whatever’s fair. There’s a calculation, right? For child support?”
There is in South Carolina. There’s an online calculator for it and everything. It’s a frequent topic of conversation in the break room at work. Back support, garnishment, withholding, contempt.
“And what would you consider fair?” he asks.
I don’t know. What the calculator says. My temper flares, but I’m careful not to let it show. I’m trying to get this man to do me a favor. I don’t need to get salty because he asks me questions I haven’t thought through.
“I’m not sure, sir.”
“You must have a number in your head. Ballpark it for me.”
I really don’t. Besides, this feels like we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
“Do you think you can help me?” I ask. “I can’t pay out of pocket, but I know that sometimes lawyers make out a deal where they take part of the settlement.”
A look almost of victory breaks across his face. His eyes harden to beads, and he smiles. For real this time. Back teeth and everything.
“Settlement?”
I shrug. I don’t know the exact words. I clutch my purse to my chest. This doesn’t feel right.
Mr. Prescott pushes back from his desk and crosses one lanky leg over the other. “I’m sorry, Miss Crowder, but I’m not able to take you on as a client.”
The knot in my stomach grows.
“It would be a conflict of interest, I’m afraid. I’m council of record for the Price Trust.”
Price as in Van Price, Kellum’s uncle?
“The Prices and the Walls are longstanding clients. But I can give you the name of a colleague up in Anvil who does family law.”
Well, crap.
“I’d appreciate that.”
There’s a murmur from the other room. Linda’s trying to talk to Mia in a high singsong voice. I strain to hear what she’s saying, but my brain’s cranking, flipping around like the wheel on that game show. Tick, tick, tick. I can’t focus.
And then it clicks in place.
This goddamn weasel.
I never told Don Prescott that Kellum is Mia’s father. The only way he knows he’s got a conflict of interest is if he knows that already.
He knows who I am.
He was pumping me for information.
Asshole.
“Right then.” I stand and swing my little backpack on. Should have known. The Walls and Prices own the town.
“Miss Crowder. Please.” He gestures to my chair. “I can’t take you on as a client, but I can make you an offer. It might solve your problems. No lawyer needed.”
He bares his teeth, his eyes glittering and hard.
I string my thumbs through my backpack straps and wait. Men like these don’t need permission to go on.
“Ten thousand dollars,” he says with a pause between each word like he’s announcing the grand prize.
My heart rate kicks up a notch.
“For what?”
“A fresh start. Take your beautiful daughter. Go back down south or maybe start over somewhere new. Florida. California.”
Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, but it’ll last you maybe half a year in South Carolina if you stretch it and make the pennies squeak. I watch storage auctions on TV; I’ve seen what those folks pay for things. I don’t think ten thousand would last three months in California.
And why is history repeating itself, anyway?
Back when I was pregnant, Kellum’s folks wanted to save his reputation. Hide the evidence. Are they seriously still worried about what folks will say? Nobody’s gonna care if a divorced man has a kid.
Is it themselves they’re worried about? They don’t want the scandal? It’s not the fifties. It’s hard to believe anyone worries so much about a baby born out of wedlock these days. Even in this old-fashioned town.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why?” he repeats.
“Why do the Walls want Mia and me gone so bad? If they don’t want anything to do with us, they can steer clear.”
He flat out ignores the question. “Think about it Miss Crowder. No paternity test. No court dates. No ugliness.”
Do they still think she’s not Kellum’s? And hold up—court?
“Why’d there be court dates?”
“Miss Crowder,” he sighs. “I’m sure Kellum is reeling right now, discovering you’ve withheld his alleged daughter from him for six long years—”
My cheeks burst into flames. “I—”
He whips up his hand and speaks right over me. “But I can guarantee you that after the shock fades, and he understands what you did by hiding the child from him, robbing him of the chance to be a father, he will make sure his interests are protected.”
He pauses, letting that sink in. And then he asks, all sly, “How confident are you of a paternity test, Miss Crowder? And how do you like your odds in court in Stonecut County.”
My heart thuds, and my gaze flies to Mia. She’s okay. It’s quiet again in the other room. My throat is tight with panic, but I can hold it together because Mia is fine.
“What does that mean?”
He leans forward. “There’s not a judge in three counties who doesn’t golf with Van Price. That’s a fact. Of course, our judges are impartial. Same as you’re the innocent victim of a big, bad man who took advantage of you. Such a dedicated mother, done so wrong, you didn’t seek out support from the child’s alleged father for six years.” He sneers. “That’s your story, isn’t it?”
My gut churns. I’m gonna puke. “I don’t have a story.”
“Sure you do. And I bet it’s an interesting one.” He slides me a long glance, thin, gray eyebrows raised. “What have you been doing the past few years, Miss Crowder, eh?”
Working at the damn Food Fiesta, stocking shelves. What the hell does he think?
I force myself to breathe. I’m twenty-three years old. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not gonna go curl up in a ball on a bathroom floor.
This man figures I’m some sort of grifter. He can’t seem to get it straight in his head, though.
Am I passing off another man’s child as Kellum’s? Or am I trying to shake his people down through a custody battle? And then there’s the ten thousand dollars, which seems to say they don’t care which it is, they just want the garbage to take itself out.
The knot in my stomach sits there, gross and heavy as lead, while my breakfast churns. Eggs on a hot day. I knew it was a bad idea.
I bet this comes down to the fact I belong to the help. I’m not a decent person like them.
That’s how they all see me, isn’t it? I’m trash. Cheap slut. Liar, conniver, whatever. But above all, cheap.
That’s how they see me, and that’s how they’ll see Mia.
My heart sinks, but my brain keeps plugging along, impervious.
Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money for cheap.
I curl my toes in my flats. They gape at the sides. At least my dress itches less now that it’s damp from sweat. It was a flea market find. So was the cute little backpack purse. I know it’s a young look for me, but I always wanted one in school, and I never had one.
From where Mr. Prescott sits, I must look like I’m not worth much.
But I’m not seventeen anymore, and math was never my weak subject. If Kellum makes a hundred thousand a year, child support has to be at least five hundred a month. At least. So they’re offering me a year and a half of support to get lost forever?
They think I’m stupid. And greedy. Probably desperate, too. I’m not any of those things, and except for desperate, never was.
“You give me ten thousand dollars, and Mia and I just leave?”
“There’d be some paperwork. Assurances on both sides. But yes, in essence.”
“And Kellum’s okay with this?”
Mr. Prescott’s expression gets cagey. “As the attorney for the Price trust, I act in the best interest of all beneficiaries of which Kellum is one.”
Well, that’s a sentence where the words came out in the most backwards possible order.
“Kellum knows about this offer?”
“Miss Crowder, it’s really quite simple. You could use this generous settlement to make a new start. Or you could persist on your present path which will end up in front of a judge, and not one inclined towards a woman who kidnapped a child and kept that child from her father.” He clicks his pen. “I can guarantee that will not end well for you. Are you willing to risk that? Risk your custody of that sweet little girl?”
Fear floods my chest.
There’s a time I would have folded under a threat like that. The day Kellum’s folks paid me that visit. And when Mrs. Rice took me aside and told me if I was going to miss so many school days, it’d be better to drop out and get my G.E.D. Easier on everyone. Spare myself all the loose talk. And heavens forbid if my water were to break right there in class. Would I ever live that down?
There was a time I assumed other people knew better than me.
They don’t.
And we might be poor, but we’re not cheap, and we’re not trash. And I’m sure as hell not stupid.
Mr. Prescott did not answer my question about whether Kellum knows about the offer. I’m gonna guess he doesn’t.
I wonder how high this cheap girl can get this fancy lawyer to go.
I almost say a hundred thousand, but I remember the stacks in Kellum’s safe. These folks don’t operate on a ten times scale. They’re a thousand times better off than people like me.
“Five hundred thousand dollars.”
I expect incredulity, but instead, Mr. Prescott’s beady eyes narrow. “Three hundred.”
Oh, the asshole is lowballing me. If he started at ten thousand, and he would go as high as three hundred, he’s lowballing the hell out of me.
“Eight hundred.”
He chuckles, pure condescension. “That’s not how a counteroffer works, Miss Crowder.”
I press my lips so I don’t smirk. This is fun, in a barf-inducing, awful, rickety-carnival-roller-coaster way.
“I know, Mr. Prescott. But I figured if you’d leap up from ten thousand to three hundred without batting an eye, maybe your pockets go pretty deep.”
Oh, that pisses him off. He hikes his chin in the air so he can look down his nose at me better.
“I’m happy we’ve dropped the pretense. Three hundred fifty is as high as I’m authorized to go.”
Authorized? So he sat down with Kellum’s people and a calculator and they worked out how much it’d be worth to get rid of us?
I grit my back teeth. Screw them.
But damn, that’s a lot of money.
I glance across the hall. Mia’s on her knees, folded in half over the coffee table, Kellum’s horse in her hand. Her hair’s falling in her face, but I can make out her lips moving. She does that when she’s deep into her play. There’s no sound, but she’s forming words.
That’s how I knew the school psychologist’s tests were crap. If you watch her closely, you can read her lips.
With three hundred fifty thousand dollars, I could find a place in a good school district. I could send Mia to private school, even. I bet they don’t let children hit each other when the parents are writing checks.
I could get a job where I’d be there when Mia got home every day. An apartment where we both have a room to ourselves. I could get off SNAP. No more nasty looks in the checkout line.
Three hundred fifty thousand dollars would make us safe.
I need to face facts. Mia and I are crashing in someone else’s house, I have less than two hundred bucks to my name, I haven’t got any family nearby, no job, and rich, powerful people want us gone. Badly.
I never knew my father. I never missed him. Mia doesn’t know who Kellum is to her. She’ll have nice memories of a visit to a farm. A man who was kind.
It’s more than I have.
But if we leave…
No more horseback rides. No more sugar cubes.
My eyes burn. I blink.
I can’t think around Kellum like he’s not part of the calculation. My brain’s been ducking thoughts of him all day ‘cause I’m a coward, but even if I put last night away in a little box and shove it deep down, I can’t ignore the rest.
He’s pushy, and he’s got an ornery streak as wide as mine, but he’s been nothing but good to Mia.
Does he know how badly his folks want us gone?
Is that what the black eye was about?
If push comes to shove, would he pick us over them? Even if he did, if they really want us gone, can he stop them? I’ve seen In the Arms of Love. It’s a soap, but in my experience it’s not total fiction—people with money have the audacity to try things that’d never occur to normal folks.
Mr. Prescott clicks his silver pen, rapidly, three times. He’s getting antsy.
He can wait another minute. I’ve never turned down three hundred and fifty thousand dollars before. I have to collect myself.
All these what ifs are buzzing in my head, but my eyes are on Mia. She’s had Kellum’s horse in her grubby paws since he gave it to her. Right now, she’s galumphing him across the coffee table.
