since it’s the best thing for the entire family.”
“But it hardly costs anything to keep Frankie. Really.”
“But it will, believe me. Wait till he wants to drive. Wait till college. We have to settle these things now, make it part of the divorce settlement.”
The elevator arrived on the third floor and Charlene got off. When she realized that Sherry wasn’t beside her, she turned around. Her client stood in the elevator, paralyzed. “You’re kidding, right?” Sherry asked.
“About what?”
“About driving. About college.”
Charlene laughed. “I have a twenty-five-year-old daughter—it’s nothing to kid about.”
“Charlene, Frankie is a goose.”
Charlene’s expression was frozen, her mouth hanging open slightly. She did a memory check of all the times Sherry had said things like, “Frankie is such a precious goose,” and “I don’t know what I’d do without my little goose.” She couldn’t remember one time she’d actually been informed that this was not a minor child.
“A goose…with tail feathers?”
“Beautiful tail feathers.”
“The kind of animal down comforters are made of?”
Sherry gasped. “God forbid!”
“Oh my Lord,” Charlene prayed.
That night Jake entered Coppers. The bar, once named Toppers, had been rechristened when the owner realized a large percentage of the clientele was from the police department. Jake stopped first at the bar, procured a beer, said hello to a couple of guys he knew, and finally migrated to a booth near the back. A woman waited there, nursing a cola.
“Hiya, Merrie, honey.” He slid in across from her. “You’re all set. You have an appointment with Charlene next Tuesday—10:00 a.m. Can you do that?”
“I reckon so…. But does she know I ain’t got nomoney?”
“She understands about that. Charlene is good, Merrie. You’re going to need someone good to get ahead of this guy.”
“Jake, I just don’t get it,” she said, shaking her head. “He didn’t want nothing to do with us. Only saw Josie one time, that’s all. Never gave me any money, let the apartment lease run out with me sitting there with no place to go. And now? He wants his daughter so she can have a good life? What does he think she’s been having the last eleven years up till now?”
Meredith was a thin, washed-out blonde, all of twenty-seven years old. She was just a little bitty thing, about five foot two, a hundred and ten pounds maybe, soaking wet. If it hadn’t been for her little tiny breasts, she’d look like a kid. A tired and worn-out kid. She had hardly any fat on her, and her eyes were big and blue and innocent…but she was not. She’d had a hard life. Even before this. She’d been only fifteen when she’d gotten pregnant with the child in the custody dispute. Her ex, Rick, had been thirty, and quite possibly agreed to marriage as a means of escaping any charge of statutory rape.
Meredith was broke, not terribly bright and didn’t live the most wholesome of lifestyles. She also had a daughter at home, aged eight, fathered by another man who was not her husband. Rick, on the other hand, was forty-one, stable and married with a second child. He made a good living, lived in a decent house and went to church on Sunday.
Jake saw a dark shadow on her cheek. “Merrie?” he asked, leaning across the booth and squinting. “Merrie, you got a bruise?”
Self-conscious, she touched the exact place. Then she reached into her purse to retrieve her compact and studied her reflection. She powdered the spot. “It ain’t no big deal. Not really.”
Jake took a long pull at his beer, pursed his lips and looked away, trying to mentally gather restraint. “He’s really starting to piss me off, Merrie.”
“You?” She laughed.
“When did this happen?”
“He came over this morning when I was getting ready for work. He found out where’d I moved to and that you were helping me out, helping me get a better job. He wanted to talk to Josie and I wouldn’t let him past the door. He found out about the whatchamacallit…order of protection.” She laughed hollowly. “It made him mad.”
“Jesus Christ. You call the police?”
She looked into her cola, defeated. “I just took the kids over to the neighbor’s, told her to be sure he didn’t bother them and then came on t’work.” She looked up. “I know I should’ve called the police like you said, but I’m just so tired of him. Of everything. And I didn’t want to be late for work again.”
“You gotta do this by the book, Merrie. Follow through. Or you’re gonna be real late for work, you know what I mean?”
“Oh, I don’t think he’d actually kill me,” she said quietly. “So, how’d you talk your ex-wife into helping me out? You don’t have to pay her for this, do you?”
“No, nothing like that. She likes having me owe her. It makes her feel powerful.” He grinned.
“You must have a pretty good relationship with her, even after the divorce.”
“We were married one twenty-sixth of the total time we’ve known each other, and we’ve gotten along better in the last twenty-five years than we got along in that one. Most of the time I irritate the shit outta her.” He grinned, as if it was an achievement. “But, like I said, she relishes opportunities to remind me that I am a lowly cop and she is a big fucking attorney.” Merrie lit a cigarette. “Hey, I thought you quit.”
She exhaled away from him, trying to spare him the secondhand smoke. She touched her purplish cheekbone. “I’m under a lot of stress.”
“Soon as this is over, you gotta try to quit again. That stuff isn’t good for the kids. Y’know?”
She shook her head. “How’d you end up single? Good-looking guy like you, with such a big heart? Seems like some woman’d have you locked up tight.”
“They do that regular, Merrie, honey. Regular.”
“Well, listen, I gotta git,” she said, stubbing out the barely smoked cigarette. “Get the kids home and in their own beds before my neighbor has a fit. Jake, I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t such a good guy.”
“Hey, no problem. C’mon, let’s go.”
“You think I’m going to get through this, keep my Josie?”
“I’m telling you, Charlene is the absolute best lawyer in family law in this city. Judges pick her to arbitrate all the time. She’s so good she even took a case to the Supreme Court. And she’s a nice person. You’ll like her. She’s got a lot of…What’s the word I’m looking for? She’s got a lot of spunk, that’s for sure, but that’s not it. She’s got class, but that’s not it either…. Dignity. She’s got dignity. You spend a little time
