Young Squatters (11 page)

If Nora had noticed anything of their exchange, she hadn’t showed it.

Now he sat in his office, surrounded by a building that he had made with his own two hands, at least financially.  This was the one place he could still call home, but he certainly couldn’t bring Nora and the kids to live here forever, while all of their memories and belongings were at a different place.

On his desk sat a picture they had taken a couple of years ago, when Nora had forced him to take them all on vacation to the Bahamas.  Colin and Clara looked so young.  Nora looked beautiful, kissed by the sun and wearing a straw hat to cover her beautiful blonde hair.  He hadn’t been in the picture; he’d been the one behind the camera.  They were the perfect family, he remembered thinking, and he wouldn’t have traded them for anything.  Even though Nora had still been offish to him romantically, and even though Colin had been having trouble in school, those hardships had all seemed worth it.  Clara’s smile and awe and Nora’s uncharacteristic quiet solitude stuck out in his memories, too, as the rewards for working so hard to be able to provide for them.

“Mr. Donnelly?  Call on line two for you,” one of the new secretaries, a young blonde college graduate, told him.

He watched her ass in her tight pencil skirt as she walked away bobbing her head this way and that as her heels clicked and clacked on the floor.  When had he become such a pervert?  he wondered, and shook his head, trying to stop himself from thinking about her...inappropriately.  Maybe the stress had made him into something he wasn’t.  Or maybe he had been this way all along, just repressing things because he had loved Nora and thought that one day they might be able to salvage what was left of their love life.

“Hello?” he said, picking up the phone.

“Hello, Nick,” an unfamiliar female voice said.  “This is Millie Parker, from next door.  How are you, dear?”

Parker. He searched his memory for the name.  He could recall a Millie Parker who had tried to make trouble for Nora when they had first moved in, spreading rumors that she had slept with her boss to get hired in such a coveted position.  When the rumors had proved false, Millie had called a couple of times to apologize, but Nora had never been very trusting of her after that, keeping her distance from everyone in the neighborhood.

“Hello, Millie, what can I do for you?” he asked, his voice void of emotion.  He had thrown all his emotions out the window during this whole situation.

“Well, Nick, as you probably know, Nora has been explaining this whole squatter incident with me.  I have to say, it sounds like you two have quite the problem on your hands,” Millie said, her voice unreadable over the phone.  “She told me that you might be open to some help in getting rid of this pesky…” she hesitated, looking for the right words, “…situation.  You see....”

“Nora told you to call me?” he asked.

“Yes, she thought you might need some help.”

Nick fumed.  Was this Nora’s way of trying to tell him that he was useless, that he couldn’t handle his own family and this crisis?  He was sure she had set Millie up to this, begging her to help, to tell him that she could help.  Nora had a way of manipulating things to her advantage.  She probably knew the call would upset him; that it would spur him into some action that he hadn’t tried.

“No, Millie, she told you wrong.  The situation is getting resolved.”

“Ah,” Millie said.  “Yes, Nora was telling me about the lawyer’s help.  You think he’ll be able to solve things soon, then?”

The nosy bitch
. “Oh, absolutely,” he replied, trying to sound confident.  “Derek and his firm know exactly what they’re doing.”

“Have you given any thought as to where the children are going to stay until the situation is resolved?” Millie asked.

“Of course,” Nick replied, a hard edge creeping into his voice.  Was this another one of Nora’s tricks?  He knew she missed the kids, but they couldn’t very well let them back in the house, especially since Colin knew that Bradford character and there was clearly something between them that caused unspeakable tension.  And they didn’t need Clara to be anywhere near Bradford, either, especially with his apparent affinity for younger girls.  “We’ve got a new plan, don’t you worry, Mrs. Parker.”

“Oh,” Millie’s voice sounded disappointed.  He hadn’t given her the juicy tidbits she had wanted, and he hadn’t given into Nora’s plan of revealing what he planned to do about this whole thing, if that had been her plan.  He had one victory in this mess, and for that he felt at least a little proud.  Her voice raised up a pitch, trying to sound cheerful as she said, “Well, you just let me know if you need anything at all, sweetie.  Have a great day.”

“You too,” Nick said, smirking.

His smirk faded as he hung up.  What exactly did he plan to do about this situation?  Something had to be done, and fast.

He couldn’t stand looking at himself in the mirror anymore, knowing that he was a useless human being, someone who couldn’t even protect his family when they needed him the most.  What the hell could he do?  That was the question of the minute, the hour, the day, the year.

What the hell could he do?

***

“I’m telling you, Harper, we’re going to win this thing.  I thought of everything.  I’m going to be pre-law, I watched every episode of
Law and Order
growing up, you know.  I got this.”  Bradford propped his feet up on the headboard, staring up at the ceiling.

They were lying in their bed in the finished basement, talking quietly about their case so no listening ears could hear them.

They’d done a lot to make the place their own.  They’d bought new shower curtains for the adjacent bathroom, new curtains for the basement windows, even painted the walls.  Harper had found a cute off-white with a blue tint that she really liked.  It had been a little expensive, but Bradford had come up with the money somehow.  It seemed he could always come up with some money when they needed it.  He didn’t say how, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but it helped their case.  As long as they treated the place respectfully and acted like any other good tenant or homeowner might act in taking care of it, it made their claim more legitimate, or at least that’s what he’d told her.

But Harper was worried.  They couldn’t afford a real lawyer, they didn’t have real jobs.  She was working as an intern herself and that didn’t pay anything.  He only had his student loan checks coming in each month for room and board.  She’d said as much already.

He’d just smiled at her.  “I already hooked us up.  We’ve got a lawyer through the community law center, it won’t cost us much, and when they lose, they’ll owe
us
money.”  He’d winked at her with those handsome blue eyes of his.  “Chill out, I’ve got it all covered.  We just have to stand our ground until this is over.  This is what you wanted, right?  A house of our own, someplace we could raise our family.  Just look at this neighborhood.  Yard, pool, cul-de-sac. People would
kill
to live in this neighborhood.”

Harper wasn’t so sure anymore.  She liked the neighborhood, of course.  Who wouldn’t?  Everybody had gardeners that came every Tuesday and housekeepers, even though their housekeeper had quite a while ago, mumbling something about Bradford on her way out the door.  She didn’t mind that Sarah had gone away; she was just as bad as the Donnellys, when it came to judging them.  The few times they had come face-to-face, Sarah had backed away, as if Harper had been sent by the devil himself.  Everyone had nice cars too, and their kids went to good schools.  It was always quiet in the evenings.  Anyone, rich or poor, would have considered themselves lucky to live in such a safe environment, a perfect place to raise a family like she and Bradford planned to do.

And Bradford had been her saving grace, as usual.  He provided for her; just as she thought they had run out of money, he would always come up with more, and more.  He’d been in high spirits, lately, constantly planning future events and talking about how they would win the house from the Donnellys without having to even lift a finger.  His happy mood was infectious.

But he was gone a lot, either out and about or going to school.  She, on the other hand, only had her internship at the health clinic to rely on, and that only took up two days each week, so most of the time she stayed at home and took care of things here.  Somehow, despite the beauty of her surroundings, she still felt out of place.

“Bradford, the other women on the block are always scowling at me when I leave and come home from work.  That woman’s been saying who-knows-what horrible things about us,” she said, referring to Nora, who, despite the fact that Bradford had said the Donnellys would move out immediately, still lived upstairs.

She lurked around like a ghost all the time; Harper was afraid to venture upstairs too often, because Nora could be there, ready to yell and scream at her like she did to her husband every night.  Although the woman hadn’t actually confronted her besides the first day of their arrival, Harper had pinned her as unpredictable, and therefore tried to stay out of her way, even though Bradford had told her time and again to be confident, that this was
their
house now, their right. 

What she had said was true.  The looks from the other women made her skin crawl.  Someone had even scrawled the word “Squatter” on her old BMW with shaving cream one night while they were sleeping.  She’d taken it straight to the car wash the next morning, but everywhere the shaving cream had touched was four shades lighter than the rest of the car, so you could still read the word.  She had even taken it to a BMW dealership.  It cost them two hundred dollars to have the car stripped and waxed, but the next morning when the dew had settled on it, you could still see the writing etched in the paint.  Now the dealer was telling them it would cost another four hundred dollars to buff the car and get the writing off.  Bradford had said it wasn’t worth it, that she’d have to live with it.

And the Donnellys weren’t speaking to them either, but that didn’t mean they were quiet.  The old bitch had been screaming at her husband almost every night.  She refused to be in the house alone with them, at least without the safety of her locked bedroom door, and she’d told Colin and Clara, who occasionally stopped by to see their parents during the day, not to speak to them either.

“I know, baby, but we’ve just got to stay strong, you know?  A united front, right? You and me against the world, baby.”  He hugged her tight, kissing her forehead.  “You’re the perfect girl, Harper.  I know you can pull through this; you’ve lived through so much worse.  And now you have someone who is going to love you forever, don’t you?  Things will be so much better once the house is really ours, after those Donnellys move out of here.  We’ll have a perfect life, Harper.”

He gently pinched her chin between his thumb and forefingers, making her look at him.  She nodded.  He did take good care of her, and she should have been grateful to him.  Even though things were hard during the day, having him here beside her every night made this time the happiest time of her life.

“Did I tell you Colin and a couple of his buddies tried to corner me on campus, like they were going to beat me up?” he asked her suddenly, letting her chin go and stretching his arm out toward the ceiling.

“Oh my, no!”  She looked up at him, her face a mask of horror.  She couldn’t imagine what she would have done without him; just the thought of him being bullied or potentially hurt made her skin crawl.  “What’d you do?”

Bradford shrugged, as if the situation had only been a minor bump in the road.  He was so brave, her Bradford.

“I just kept away from them and dialed nine-one-one right away,” he recalled.  “Then I held the phone up and kept the line open after I got the dispatcher on the line and explained what was happening.  Colin and his punk friends didn’t have the guts to try anything while I had the cops on the line, and Colin’s friends took off when the cops showed up.”

Bradford laughed a little at the memory.  “Colin screamed at them that I was stealing his family’s house, but the cops and dispatchers had all the threats he and his friends made recorded while I was holding up the phone.  Coward wouldn’t even stand up to me himself; he just kept hiding behind his big jock friends, like they were going to do something real bad to me.  Yeah,” he scoffed, “right.”

“But Bradford, my gosh, you could have been really hurt!” Harper said, hugging him tightly, leaning her head on his chest.  He wore his characteristic white polo shirt and khakis today.

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her.  “They asked me if I wanted to press assault charges, so I said yes.  They had no choice but to cuff him and take him in.”  He smiled broadly at her.  “They never even touched me, but all you have to do is make a threat to get charged with assault, so what the hell?  It won’t help his family’s case any if they’re threatening us, and they’ll have to spend even more money on that lawyer of theirs to fight the assault charges.”

Harper had never seen him so full of pride, so—well, almost arrogant, but not quite.  She didn’t think evading Colin and his friends was something to be proud of at all.  The whole incident should have made him worry about her and his safety, even though Colin was in jail now and out of their hair for a least a couple of weeks.  But really, she had never seen this side of him before.

Finally he wrapped his arms around her tightly, making her smile a little, though the thoughts of what could have happened still lingered, unwanted, in the back of her mind.