Unexpected Dismounts (6 page)

“She kept the bullies from making my life miserable,” Liz said. “I’ll never forget that.”

Obviously Vickie already had because without comment she motioned me to a chair and slipped into hers while simultaneously pulling on a pair of rectangular reading glasses and pushing the retrieved stack toward me with white-tipped nails. Was I the only woman in the city of St. Augustine who didn’t get a weekly manicure?

“Let’s get started,” she said and flicked a glance at Chief with gray eyes that would have been pretty if she weren’t using them like a laser pointer. “Mr. Ellington, I assume you have been through the forms with your client.”

I did my usual double take when someone referred to Chief by his real name. He was, thankfully, in Mr. Ellington mode, and assured her that he had assisted me in filling out the forms, and that as far as he was concerned everything was in order.

“Good on my end too,” Liz said. “Let me just see …”

She dug into her tote bag, and Vickie Rodriguez all but rolled her eyes.

“So, we’re all set then?” I said to Ms. Rodriguez.

But Vickie only watched Liz until she produced the set of papers she was evidently waiting for. I was in agony as Vickie swept her eyes down the pages. It was all I could do not to grab Chief by the lapels and scream, “What is going
on?”

When I couldn’t hold it in any longer I said, “Excuse me. Is there a problem?”

Vickie shook her head, eyes still on the page in front of her. “No, I just didn’t receive these beforehand so I need to read through.” She snapped that stack to the table, picked up another, and finally said, “There are just a few potential red flags.”

Chief squeezed my knee under the table. “And those would be …?” he said.

Vickie scooped up yet another set of papers and scanned the top one. It occurred to me that if in that moment she were blindfolded and asked to describe my face, she wouldn’t be able to. Now, her
paperwork
—
that
she could have probably recited without missing a syllable.

“Your job description indicates that you work with recovering prostitutes.” Vickie’s eyes flashed at me and down again. “You don’t have any currently living in your home, do you?”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “They have their own residence.”

“But you had them residing with you at your address on Palm Row at one time.”

I looked at Chief, who nodded.

“I did,” I said, “before the Sacrament House Ministry was formed and they moved over there.”

“And you do have another form of transportation besides your motorcycle?”

“Uh, yeah—yes, ma’am.”

I was back in Vice Principal Foo-Foo’s office.

Vickie finally looked at me over the top of her glasses, gaze resting somewhere around my upper lip.

“I have a van,” I said. “Well, the ministry has a van that I owned and then donated. I have access to it.”

An eyebrow went up.

“All the time,” I said.

Chief squeezed my leg again, which I was sure meant,
Do not tell her Mercedes has had it for a week.

“Now in terms of financial support.”

Vickie fanned through the pages she was holding, gave her brow permission to furrow only slightly, and picked up the final stack. I resisted the urge to wipe off the beads of sweat she had stared out of my upper lip.

“You are the founder and director of Sacrament House.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That sounds impressive, but I don’t see a salary listed here.”

“I don’t draw one. Yet.”

“Miss Chamberlain is currently working pro bono,” Chief said. “As more funding is acquired for the nonprofit, she’ll be a paid employee.”

He sounded so sure. Vickie Rodriguez, not so much.

“And in the meantime?” she said.

“In the meantime, Miss Chamberlain’s inheritance from Sylvia Mancini is sufficient to support her and Desmond.”

“That isn’t going to last forever.”

“Nor does it need to.”

“Health insurance? Oh, I see that you have the adoptee on your policy.”

The back of my neck bristled. “The ‘adoptee’?” I said.

I could almost hear Chief groaning, but honestly—

“I apologize,” Vickie said, with no audible signs of remorse. “Desmond. He’s referred to here as ‘the adoptee,’ so I—”

“Then might I suggest that you get your nose out of your paperwork and look at me so you can tell what kind of mother I’m going to be?”

Chief sat back in his chair. Liz came forward in hers.

“She doesn’t mean to be impersonal, Allison,” she said. “It’s just that—”

“I can answer for myself.” Vickie Rodriguez lowered the forms to the tabletop and set her glasses on top of them. “I don’t have to look at you to know what kind of mother you’re going to be, Miss Chamberlain. Anyone who would voluntarily take on a twelve-year-old mixed-race boy with the kind of background he has is already mother of the year, as far as I personally am concerned.”

I felt my lower jaw drop.

“The judge, on the other hand, is going to want every
i
dotted and every
t
crossed before he’ll grant the adoption.”

“The judge?” I said.

“I told you—” Liz started to say.

“It will merely be a formality if he feels that everything is in perfect order. So, if we could continue?”

“Absolutely,” Chief said.

He didn’t have to torture my leg again. I was still sitting there with my mouth hanging open.

The glasses went back on. “You own a home free and clear, in a decent neighborhood.”

“It’s a little more than decent,” Liz put in. Was that a pout I saw?

“The biological mother, Geneveve Sanborn, is deceased.”

“Before her death she stated in a legal document that she wanted Desmond put in Miss Chamberlain’s care,” Chief said.

“I see that the father is ‘unknown.’”

“That is what his mother indicated,” Chief said. “You’ll see that in the document as well.”

If Vickie Rodriguez picked up on the fact that Chief sounded like he was measuring his words out with a teaspoon, she didn’t show it. I myself was barely able to keep from blurting out more than anybody needed to know on that subject.

“I’d like to have that spelled out,” was all she said.

“I’ll get on that,” Chief said. He wiggled my leg. “I’m going to have to hire a paralegal just to handle
your
stuff.”

In other words,
Lighten up, Classic
.

“What?” I said. “You mean I’m not your only client?”

He rewarded me with a smile.

“You won’t need a paralegal for this case, I don’t think,” Vickie said. “I never make promises, but I honestly don’t see anything standing in your way.”

“Okay, I just want to make sure,” I said.

“We’re making sure, Allison,” Chief said.

“No, I have one more question.”

Vickie nodded at me.

“Does the fact that he’s still struggling in school—is that going to go against us?”

“The fact that he’s even in school is a hundred percent improvement,” Liz said. She tilted her chin up at Vickie until Ms. Rodriguez gave her a grudging nod.

“That’s right,” she said crisply. “Nobody expects him, or you, to be perfect.”

Well, then, there was that at least.

Vickie flipped open a large calendar book and ran her nail down the side, turned the page, trailed it down some more. What was she scheduling, the Louisiana Purchase?

“I’m going to request a court date of April fifth,” she said. “Does that work for you?”

Chief had his hand around my arm before he and I even got to the elevator. I was sure he’d have put the other one over my mouth if the bunny rabbit of an admin aide hadn’t been scampering past us on her way down the hall.

“Tell me you didn’t expect to walk out of there with the signed adoption papers in your hand,” he said.

“No. But I didn’t think we’d have to wait until April.”

Chief steered me into the elevator and mashed a button. “Do you think something’s going to happen between now and then to stop it?”

“Do you?”

The elevator reached the first floor, but Chief pushed the CLOSE DOOR button. He turned his face down to me, eyes going right into mine.

“You’re worried about Desmond’s father.”

“That wasn’t what you’d call full disclosure in there,” I said.

“Geneveve stated it in the guardianship document: ‘Father unknown.’”

“We both know she lied. Sultan is his father.”

“Was. You were there when he died.”

“I wasn’t there when somebody made off with his body. We don’t even know if there’s a death certificate.”

“All the more reason to let Geneveve’s document do the talking for us.”

I pushed both hands through my hair. Chief caught my wrists in his and held them together at his chest.

“I’m asking you to trust me, Classic. Can you do that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just freaking out.”

“Does Desmond know you’re freaking out?”

“No. But I think
he
is.”

I filled him in on Desmond’s debate with himself in the kitchen the night before. I could see Chief’s mouth resisting a smile.

“What?” I said.

“Desmond thinks you’re a good listener.” He pressed the OPEN DOOR button. “I’d like to see him tell that to Vickie Rodriguez.”

“Yeah, what is with that woman?” I said as I walked with him across the lobby. “Does she have, like, ice tea in her veins?”

“Too bad you didn’t rescue
her
from bullies in high school.”

“First of all, she wasn’t even born yet when I was in high school, and second of all, I bet she
was
a bully.”

Chief stopped to let me pass through the door and into a drizzly rain. “You think she’s that bad?”

“I think I’m just intimidated by anybody who could possibly take Desmond away from me.”

The tears in my eyes surprised me. I yanked the sunglasses I didn’t need out of my bag and fumbled them onto my face. The rain misted them at once.

“I hear ya, Classic,” Chief said. “I hear ya.”

I had paperwork to take care of for Jasmine’s insurance, but I didn’t head home to do it. I was going to need some distance from my Vickie Rodriguez experience before I felt anything close to competent about forms again. Besides, I had the undeniable urge to make a pass down West King to see if Zelda was hanging around. It wasn’t likely. The street was usually all but deserted until sundown, but I had to start somewhere.

True to form, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Not even the homeless guy who usually slept with his dog in front of the Dumpster no matter what the weather. As I pulled my Classic into the parking lot at Sherry’s dad’s auto repair shop and looked across the street, I saw why.

A large SALE PENDING sign hung on the door of the tattoo parlor, which until last week had been one of the few going concerns on the block. The real estate agency had obviously cleaned up the place. There was no garbage regurgitating over the side of the Dumpster, and no Dog Man curled up to his canine friend below.

That wasn’t the only FOR SALE or SOLD or PENDING sign I saw. The entire other side of the street was a veritable gallery of the things. The representing agencies were all different, but the force behind them was as obvious to me as the beer-and-cigarette stench belching from the Magic Moment Bar. It had Troy Irwin and the Chamberlain Enterprises written all over it. Who would give this barely human block a second glance if Troy hadn’t sold his gentrification project to every investor he could lure to his Learjet? He’d warned me in December that it was “on” between us. So far, it looked like he was winning. The people I had hope for were being sold to the highest bidder.

“You don’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain?” said a voice behind me.

I turned, already grinning at Maharry Nelson, who stood wheezing in the doorway of his beloved Choice Auto Repair Service with an open umbrella. I met him halfway, dodging pothole puddles as I went. The storm had picked up and water was already running down my neck when I got to him, but I ducked under the umbrella anyway. There was still something of the gentleman left in Maharry, and since he didn’t have a whole lot else going for him, I couldn’t deprive him. Or point out that the holes in the nylon rendered it pretty much useless.

“You better shake like a dog before you come any farther, Miss Angel,” Sherry said from behind the counter. “I just mopped in here.”

I had to admit the place had improved since Sherry started clerking for her dad again a month before. She’d been in his employ some before she got clean, though the word
worked
had been used loosely back then. But now the piles of tires were straight and dusted, and I could actually tell what color the floor was still trying to be. Beyond the counter, through the now-clear glass window, I could see a land yacht primed for a paint job. That alone made me coax out a smile.

“Business is picking up, I see.”

“That’s your friend Stan’s car,” Sherry said.

“Very cool. He sold me my motorcycle.”

“He tried to sell Daddy one.”