on it. Still swearing, she climbed back into the giant vehicle, squealed off down the road, turned sharply and roared up the hill to the old Wallingford Estate, now known officially as Le Domaine Wallingford.
I couldn’t help but watch her, but Jean-Claude didn’t take his eyes off me. “You could get something a bit more modern, lots of places with nice views a few miles north. Perkins, Kazabazua, Rupert.”
“I like the view I have now.”
“Continue to think about it,” he said. “I will be very fair to you. You’d have money to buy a new place and enough left over to pay things off. Relax a bit. Get some clothes, perhaps travel.”
I turned back to Jean-Claude. “Not a chance,” I said with a tight smile that hurt my mouth.
Jean-Claude had pressured my late aunt Kit in her final years. She’d left me the little house on the two wooded acres near the water. It came with all the memories of the happy summers I’d spent there as a child. I’d promised her I’d never let him get his manicured mitts on it.
“You wouldn’t have to worry about money any more.”
“Not happening.”
“And you could use a new car as well.”
I turned to cross the street.
“Well, give it some more thought and get back to me,” he called after me.
When you talk to Jean-Claude, it’s as though nothing you say registers. But this time, he seemed even more confident and arrogant than usual. Did he have some way of knowing that I was already worrying about my overdue tax bill? Jean-Claude had a finger in every pie in town. Everyone owes him something, except me, and he’s related to half the town. He probably knew the state of my bank account and how little time I had to settle my tax bill before the municipality could take my property.
I kept my head high and didn’t notice an object on the ground until I stumbled over it. I bent and picked up a leather wallet with a leopard print design. The red-headed woman must have dropped it.
I opened the wallet and checked for a name. Harriet Crowder would notice the loss of her ID, credit cards and five hundred dollars pretty quickly, I thought. I couldn’t find a telephone number. Maybe the people at CeeCeeCuisine would know how to contact her.
The sight of all that cash reminded me that I didn’t have a sou. I pulled out my cell phone and called Philip again. This time I didn’t even get Irene.
Across the road near CeeCeeCuisine, a huge sign said: Rafaël et Marietta seront ici!!! What did that mean? Who were they? Some people with a big budget were getting married? I wasn’t the only one who was asking. A small, excited clutch of people were pointing at the sign. Apparently, it was big news. Not big enough to take my mind off the horrible accident I’d seen, the fact that Marc-André was languishing in the rehab centre, while Phil was stonewalling, my bank account sat below zero, and Jean-Claude was scheming to get my property.
I had hit rock bottom.
That made me crave food with an equal measure of fat, starch and salt. The kind of stuff that you find in small-town greasy spoons. Stuff like poutine. I had just enough change to manage it. I made my way to Chez Fred, my favourite greasy spoon. The Chez has air conditioning, and air conditioning trumps everything. Plus the greasier the spoon, the better the poutine.
I glanced down the street and spotted a rickety bicycle hurtling toward me. The bike squealed to a halt, and fifteen-year-old Josey Thring hopped off and propped it against the wall. She angled it carefully so the homemade sign for her handygirl operation, THE THRING TO DO, showed to advantage. Josey’s freckles stood out against her pale skin, and her cowlicks were on full alert.
“Hey, Miz Silk, I’ve been hoping to run into you.” Josey likes to get business out of the way early in a conversation. “You must need a lot of stuff done in your garden. I’ll come by and cut your grass. Heat wave like this, you must be up to your neck in weeds. Dust too, I suppose.”
“Don’t worry about it, Josey.”
“It’s a pretty hot day. You’re looking kind of cooked. I could walk Tolstoy for you.”
“Thanks, but it’s too hot for Tolstoy to walk right now. He’s hiding out in the basement, sound asleep. I’ll have to wait until it cools down.”
“Oh sure, I can come by later.”
With Josey, you have to fight fire with fire. “Shouldn’t you be studying tonight? You must have your exams coming up.”
“I had a study day today. I guess I should check your gutters too.”
“And what exactly were you studying?”
Who was I kidding? Josey never studied for a minute, and as far as I could tell, she rarely went to school. On the other hand, she passed with excellent marks every year, and I did need my grass cut. It wasn’t even summer yet, and I’d already given up the war against the weeds. And for all I knew, my gutters did need cleaning. I was a bit unclear on that detail. Josey could provide any kind of house maintenance service you needed. She was clear on details and finer points. Plus she was one of those people who are born knowing how to do things. Too bad I was not one of those people born knowing how to earn enough money to have things done.
“Trouble is, I’m pretty broke, Josey.”
“What about your divorce settlement?”
“Still dragging on. That’s one of the problems with divorcing a fast-talking lawyer who doesn’t plan to remarry any time soon.”
“Yeah right, who’d marry him anyway?”
“I did.”
Josey shook her head. “Doesn’t count. You were young and probably really foolish. Maybe even drunk.”
“I wasn’t drunk! And I wasn’t young enough to fully explain my foolishness. He had a certain attraction, big man on campus, that kind of thing. Good-looking, smart, ambitious. Somehow, over the twenty-five years, it faded.”
“Maybe because he expected you to iron his socks.”
“I never actually ironed his socks, Josey.”
“Of course not, but face facts, Miz Silk, he’s a real jerk. Anyway, you’re free now, so you have to make sure he doesn’t take advantage of you. You need a good lawyer.”
“I have an excellent lawyer. Marie-France Sauvé. Unfortunately for me, she works on her own. No back-up. Right now she’s on her honeymoon, and she’s out of communication range. When Marie-France gets back, she’ll fix Philip’s wagon but good.”
“Get another lawyer and take him to court, Miz Silk.”
“That’s one of the problems. Philip’s really plugged in to the legal community. He made sure I’d have trouble finding a lawyer in West Quebec. Marie-France came up against him in some case and didn’t like his tactics. I was lucky to get her.”
I wasn’t so sure I should take legal or relationship advice from Josey, given that she hadn’t quite hit sixteen and her mother had headed out for a pack of smokes
