Dearburn,” I bark. “You ought to know…you went to high school with her.”
“Dearburn,” he repeats, without making any apologies for his mistake. “You’re her guardian.”
I’m so focused on thinking about how even though he’s now an attorney it is clear that Buck Platner is still dense that I don’t hear him.
“So we’ll need you to sign some papers,” he continues.
“Sign what papers?” I ask, not getting over my annoyance easily.
“The guardianship papers,” he explains, and then goes on in depth about some sort of process, but again, my mind is not with him.
“Guardianship papers?” I ask, feeling that perhaps there is something wrong with my whole phone and not just the call waiting, since Buck and I seem to be carrying on two separate conversations.
“Lizzie…Liz, I just explained that you are to be guardian of Tiffany,” he says sounding exasperated and probably thinking that I am the dense one.
As his words finally penetrate, I feel a tightness in my chest and a spinning in my head. I can’t breathe well—short snips of air are escaping out of my chest, but I can’t seem to draw a good breath in. As my head grows lighter, I am somehow able to rationalize that this is a panic attack. I had one once before when my hairdresser and I had a major failure to communicate and I had to attend my college graduation with a permanent wave.
“Relax,” I command myself, but apparently I say it out loud and Buck thinks the command is intended for him, which leads to more confusion between us.
I grab an empty paper bag which was used to bring take-out moo shoo into my apartment yesterday and breathe in and out, hardly noticing the lingering smell of hoisin sauce. My heart starts to slow down, and suddenly my head rationalizes that “guardian” in this case obviously doesn’t mean what I think it means.
“What do you mean by guardian?” I ask, eager to get the misunderstanding cleared up. “Doesn’t a person have to agree to be a child’s guardian? Wouldn’t I have had to sign some sort of legal document?”
“Jesus, Lizzie,” he says, forgetting to correct himself, which is okay since I’m too distracted to notice his mistake, “I thought your folks said you went to UCLA.” He pronounces my alma mater in what I am assuming is his attempt at a hoity-toity voice. “By guardian I mean you are her legal guardian—you have custody. Charla is dead and her will states that if that happens, you raise her kid,” he finishes in a huff, forgetting his professional manner and not bothering to sugarcoat a thing.
I have a horrifying flashback to a conversation in Charla’s dingy bedroom, shortly after she realized she was pregnant, where I wholeheartedly agreed to be the unborn child’s godmother. Does that hold up in a court of law?!?
“But I can’t be a guardian,” I argue. “I’m only thirty-two years old!” I whine, sounding like a twelve-year-old.
“Well, guess what, Lizzie, so was Charla,” he snaps. “Look, what do you want me to do about this? You are who she picked, which I assume means she thought you would be good…although it seems likely she hadn’t dealt with you recently,” he adds under his breath.
His scolding shuts me up. “What am I supposed to do now?” I ask in a pout, my eyes filling with tears, and the panic attack that had subsided returning in full force. I am partially wondering what the legal procedure to come will be and partially wondering about my life.
“You need to sign these papers ASAP, and then Tiffany will be yours,” he says it as if he has just sold me a new hatchback. Just sign these papers and a 2004 Honda Civic will be yours!
“Okay,” I say, highly aware of the fact that I don’t have a choice. “Send the papers to my office on Monday,” I instruct, giving him the phone number to call to get the mailing address from my assistant.
“Thank you, Ms. Castle,” Buck says, returning to his professional attorney persona. “Again, I am terribly sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks, Buck,” I mumble, not wasting time or energy on being formal or polite—even bordering on cynical, before clicking the phone off and setting it on its base with shaking hands.
3
Another world away, Buck Platner hangs up his old beige phone before slamming his fists and then his head down on his scratched desk. That hadn’t gone anything like he had planned and neither had the night before.
The night before, Buck had been sitting home alone with his golden retriever, Wildcat, when his own phone had rung. His nights were usually pretty quiet (boring) and so the ring had startled both Buck and Wildcat, who had been relaxing on the couch, Buck with a Hungry Man TV dinner and Wildcat with a fresh pig ear.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Son,” his father’s gruff voice boomed through the receiver. “We’re having a bit of an emergency situation down at the office. I need you here.”
Buck quickly agreed and rose from the couch, not bothering to turn off the television or throw away the remains of his microwave meal.
He stood almost six feet five inches in his bare size 13 feet. As if these kind of calls were the norm, which they certainly were not—he had never received one before—Buck slid his feet into a well-worn pair of Adidas sandals and brushed the crumbs off his belly before grabbing his shoddy, faux-leather briefcase and keys and heading out the door.
Besides the tacky attaché case and in spite of the spots of Hungry Man gravy on his belly, Buck looked sexy in his Levi’s and white cotton T-shirt. His skin was tanned from spending time outdoors, his athletic physique was clear under his clothes, and his blond hair was neatly buzzed an inch from his scalp. Climbing into his new black F150, he rubbed his blue eyes and looked at the clock on his cell phone. He had definitely never been called to work at this hour before.
The office was only a few blocks from Buck’s home, and within minutes he was parking next to his father’s Cadillac and climbing out of the truck. Hurrying inside, his stomach tightened with worry about the “emergency” inside.
Once in the office, he found his father, the image of Buck but thirty-five years older, sitting at his desk, rubbing his own blue eyes. Sitting across from his father was a teenage girl dressed in what looked like pajamas, but these days what kids wore to school and to bed looked very similar. Her eyes were red, and clearly she had been crying.
“Buck,” his father said glancing up and looking grateful to see his younger son, “This is Tiffany Dearbourne.”
“Dearburn,” the girl, Tiffany, said miserably.
“Hello,” Buck said stiffly, feeling as uncomfortable as he always did in front of clients of the legal practice.
“You went to school with her mother, Charla,” his father went on to explain. “Sadly, Charla and her husband, Chuck Tatham, were killed in a bad car wreck earlier this afternoon.”
Buck’s mouth fell open slightly in shock. Back in high school, he’d known Charla Dearbourne as the best friend of his senior prom date and the one girl he thought about consistently, even though it had been a dozen years since he’d seen her face.
