Chapter Ten
Honor reached into her fridge and pulled out the bottle of pinot grigio she’d started last night. To her phone on the island, she said, “I think I’m okay, Mom. For this month, anyway. I’m picking up new clients every week.”
Through the speaker, her mother huffed. “Speeding tickets are not going to keep your bills paid, kitten. Don’t be so brave and independent you end up homeless. If you need another loan, ask for it.”
“What happened to we could never be homeless because home is where it always has been?” Every time in her life that Honor or her brother had ever taken a step away from their parents’ world, her mother had given the same speech, reminding them that home—love and support and safety—would always be right there.
It was that sentiment, and the knowledge behind it—that she had people who loved her and supported her and would never let her fall too far—that was getting her through the violent dips and dives of the past couple of months. No matter what happened in her life—Stalker Tyler, Damaged Judi, Asshole Logan, or simply the terrifying realities of owning her own practice—she had friends, and she had family. She was not alone.
When she remembered that, she felt strong. When she forgot it, everything beneath her shook and crumbled.
She poured herself a nice full glass of wine as her mother said, “You know what I mean. You’ve worked so hard for what you have. I’m proud of you, so proud, for taking this step. But remember that you don’t have to do it alone.”
“I know you’re there, Mom. Knowing that gets me through the hard days. If I need more help, I promise I’ll ask for it.”
“Things are really looking good?”
Picking up the phone and her wine glass, Honor walked to her window wall and stared out at the twinkling Boise night. It would hurt if she had to give up this apartment—and there was a chance she would—but she’d survive it, and, like she and Debbie had done with the office, she’d make a home she was comfortable in. Success didn’t have to mean penthouses and expensive cars. That was a thing she’d always believed but was now truly learning.
“I don’t know about good, not yet. But hopeful. Things are busy—busy enough that I can imagine being in the black someday. It’s not like like BWC, where I could stretch out and settle into one case. None of my clients bring in a lot of money individually, so I have to hustle, and none of the cases I have are as complex as what I did before, but I like it. I like helping people who don’t have access to a lot of help.”
“That’s why your father and I are proud of you for this. You gave up a lot to stand on principle. It really shows your character.”
She smiled and did not tell her mother that she’d had a particularly good day because Evangeline Pollack, a high-end madam, and the one client who’d stayed with her in her transition from penthouse to strip mall, had had her place of business raided the night before. Evangeline had been arrested, and all electronics on the premises had been confiscated; they were going after her for tax evasion.
That had the potential to be a huge case—but also too much work for Honor and Debbie to do on their own. Financial crimes were not her area of expertise, and she didn’t want to neglect her small-case clients who would obviously be her bread and butter. She intended to spend the night working out costing and billing, so she could hire contract investigators for the duration of the case.
The Pollack case was a huge boon and had the potential to keep her fledgling private practice going for several months, if not longer. But while her mother was extolling the virtues of her principles, Honor didn’t want to tell her about Evangeline Pollack, high-end madam. Her mother had been a militant second-wave feminist from the time she first refused to wear a training bra, and she believed most adamantly that sex work was inherently exploitative and misogynistic. Honor disagreed, but knew from hard experience that her mother could not be moved on the issue.
So all she said was, “Thanks. I try to be the woman you taught me to be.”
“You are, my darling. You are. Your father just got home. I’m going to put him on.”
“Okay. Bye, Mom. Love you!” Honor went to the island for the bottle of wine. She settled on her sofa, enjoyed her view, and waited to talk to her father.
She was loved. She was not alone.
*****
The next morning, Honor had cause to draw on the warm memory of her hour-long talk with her parents the night before. She was the first in the office, as usual—Debbie didn’t come in until she got Jed to school—and checked voice mail, as usual.
Always when she did, a little goose of trepidation walked over her heart. Tyler hadn’t managed to come up with her home phone number, and the building had fired the security company whose employee had given Tyler access to her, and the new company had rewired the private floors, so thus far, her personal spaces were blocked to him.
Her office, however, was another story. She couldn’t very well conduct a business without making her contact information there public, and, because it was a place of business, there was more opportunity for him to exploit the gaps in any TRO. Tyler was unstable, but he wasn’t stupid. Her work had become the focus of his attentions—attentions that hadn’t yet shown signs of waning.
This morning, there were seven messages from him—he’d maxed out the time limit and called again, and again, and again, each time picking up where he’d left off in his long, stream-of-consciousness musing about love and life and betrayal.
She listened to every word; it was important to know all she could about this man. He’d never declared his love for her. What he wanted, he insisted, was the chance to fall in love with her and to prove to her his worthiness for her love.
At the end of his last message, as he was finally winding to a close, he said the words I will wait. “I will wait, Honor. I know that what could be with us is worth anything, and I will wait for you to know it, too. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
One fucking limo ride. One fucking drunken kiss. More than two months later, this man was still ruining every one of her days. He was either pulling some kind of shit, or she was on tenterhooks waiting for him to pull it.
Men sucked. Every one of them. Except her father. And, okay, her brother, most of the time.
She saved the messages, transferred them to her laptop, into a file marked ‘OKEEFE,’ where she was amassing all the photos, audio files, emails, and other documentation of his harassment. In about two weeks, Tyler O’Keefe would stand before a judge, and Honor would be there to detail everything he’d done.
After she listened to the actual work messages, she used the office phone to call the police and speak with Officer Kalinski, one of the officers assigned to her case. Honor heard the sigh in the cop’s voice but didn’t get huffy about it. She was pretty damn tired of all this, too.
“If we can, we’ll run by his house later this afternoon and talk to him again. Or we could go by his work this time.”
“I told you, I don’t want to mess with his job. If he feels I’m doing things to hurt him—more than rejecting him—he could get more aggressive.”
“Well, he’s so thoroughly focused on you I don’t think anyone else is at risk at this point, but if that changes…”
“I understand. I don’t want anybody else at risk. I just also don’t want to put myself at greater risk if I can help it.”
“I don’t know if going by his house is going to do anything. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t put much stock in our visits. We’ve got no teeth this way.”
“I know. I don’t want you to do anything this time. I just want it on record. I’ll deal with him in court.”
“Okay. I’ve got your call logged. If you want it to be an official report, you know the drill.”
By now, she sure did. As Debbie came into the office and they exchanged a body-language greeting, Honor replied, “I’ll swing by after lunch to sign it. Thanks, Geri.”
“No problem, Honor. Watch your back.”
“I am. My neck aches
from all the watching. Have a good day.”
When she put the receiver back in its cradle, Debbie had her hands on her hips. “What did he do this time?”
“Left a long string of long messages on voice mail. I think he was stoned out of his head. More of the usual, just a lot more rambling. No active threats, or anything really new. Just Tyler being Tyler.”
Debbie turned a maternal frown on her. “Watch yourself with that. Don’t let your guard down, just because he’s keeping a little bit of distance. This guy tried to get into your home. He tried to take a police officer’s gun. He knows he’s supposed to stay entirely away from you, and he won’t comply. He is dangerous, Honor. Don’t forget it.”
“I haven’t. I’m just tired of him. Even if he does get time, it’ll be less than a year, probably. I’m getting the feeling that’ll just be a break from all this, not a solution. As soon as he gets out, he’ll be right back, making my life difficult.”
“Did you ask the prosecutor about making counseling part of the sentence?”
“Yeah, but that’s up to the judge, since Tyler won’t talk about a plea. I guess we’ll see at the hearing.” She sighed and cleared out of Debbie’s way so her assistant could sit at her desk. “Let’s get to work. I have a hard stop at noon, so I can get to lunch.”
*****
Years ago, Honor and her friends had made a solemn pact that, no matter how busy their lives became, they would keep at least one day a month sacrosanct for each other. On that day, no matter what else was going on, they would, at the very least, share a meal together. Because no matter what, they had to eat, and they needed each other.
Usually, they saw each other more often in any given month than that single meal, but still they kept it sacred. Over the course of their friendship, each one of them had had cause to pull back and hunker down—a new love, or a bad breakup, a new job, or the loss of one, something in work or love or life that made making time for friendship seem a luxury rather than a necessity. Sometimes, more than one of them was going through shit at the same time. But still, they kept that one day a month, and at least got together for lunch. And they were still as close as ever. No one had drifted from the fold.
These days, it was Honor who’d been doing all the backing out. Since the night of the mayor’s banquet in early May, she hadn’t gone out with the girls at all. She’d seen Lizbet, Callie, and Emily only once before today: at their May lunch. Actually, now that she thought of it, the only text or call she’d returned from any of them in almost two weeks had been a ‘K’ to Callie, confirming the lunch. Her every waking moment had been devoted to work, and ducking Tyler, and trying to get Judi on her feet—oh, and trying not to let Logan Cahill turn her insides out. It took some mindshare to keep that asshole out of her brain.
When she was twenty-five minutes late to today’s June lunch, bustling into the restaurant muttering, “Hi, hi, I’m here!” she faced three faces full of consternation.
“We were about to send out a search party,” Lizbet said and poured white wine into the sole empty glass.
“Sorry.” She slid into the empty seat at the table and took a sip of the wine. “Couldn’t get a client out of my office on time.”
“Well,” Callie said with a smile and lifted her glass. “We’re all here now. Let the holy meal of the sisterhood commence!”
They all lifted their glasses and brought them to the middle of the table, clinking them together in their simple, silly ritual toast.
“Okay!” Emily perked. “So, Honor, you go first. Catch us up. We’ve all been dying to know everything.”
A thing Honor had learned about herself as a friend: her ear and shoulder were much stronger than her mouth. While she listened with deep interest to her friends, with joy for their victories and concern for their defeats, it was much more difficult for her to share her own. She did, but she applied filters first. So, in arranging her thoughts to share with these best friends, she filtered out all of Logan, who should be—who was—inconsequential, and evidence of the weakest parts of herself anyway. Besides, they had a rule against talking about boys at their sacred lunch.
She filtered out about half of Tyler. She didn’t want them to be at risk, so she gave them enough information to keep themselves protected but held back how freaked out she was daily, and how weary his constant attention made her. She filtered out most of Judi, mainly out of respect for the girl’s privacy. All she shared was that she was still in contact and trying to help her figure out a life.
What she did share fully was work. For these friends, she laid out the struggles and fears she had about opening this little practice and starting over again almost from scratch. She updated them on her developing client list and the successes she’d had as well as the challenges.
“I’m still so impressed,” Callie said, reaching across the corner of the table to squeeze Honor’s hand. “It took a steel vagina to make this move, and you’re making it work.”
“Thanks. I’m scared every day, but every day, something happens to make it look a little bit more like it’ll work. I get a new client, or a case settles and pays out, or something. Like someday I’ll be sure I made the right call.”
“You should already be sure, love. It was the right call.” Callie insisted.
“Evangeline Pollack is your client, isn’t she?” Emily asked after swallowing a bite of salad.
“She is, yes. Red zone, though.” Every now and then, Honor’s work as an attorney bumped up uncomfortably with Emily’s work in the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office was a political arena, of course, not a legal one, but there was enough overlap to make a quagmire at times.
“I know. Just talking about stuff in the news, that’s a big coup for the local Feds. Can you manage a case like that from the Bench?”
Feeling a little bit defensive, Honor answered, “I’ve put together a budget to contract help. And sirens are starting to go off, Em. Let’s talk about something else. My report is concluded. Who’s up next?”
“I’ve got something, maybe,” Lizbet said. “Colin Laughlin has asked me to join his trip to Italy in July.”
“BECHDEL TEST!” Honor and Emily both yelled, too loudly, at the same time. Nearby diners all around them turned and gave them assorted variations of stinkeye, and all four friends giggled.
“They’re right,” Callie laughed. “No boy talk at this lunch.”
“That rule was your idea, Liz. You should know better.” Honor filled their glasses, emptying the second bottle of wine. She needed to watch herself; she had work things to do this afternoon, including a stop at the police station to sign the report about Tyler’s call.
She picked up her water glass and took a long swig.
Lizbet defended herself. “It’s not boy talk simply because Colin happens to be male. This is a university-sanctioned trip with students. I am an expert in Italian Renaissance art. A trip to Italy is scholarship, not romance.”
“And the fact that you’ve been gagging for Colin since he was hired has nothing to do with his invitation or your interest in it, I’m sure,” Emily said.
“I mean,” Honor teased, “how many times have you been to Italy? Are there any Renaissance works left you haven’t already studied?”
Lizbet put on her haughty face and took a regal sip of wine. “Fine, fine. Have your laugh. Meanwhile, I’ll be in Italy for three weeks, enjoying all the nazione has to offer.”
Callie turned to Honor. “Honor, make the call. Should we let Liz talk about her Italian getaway with the scholar of her dreams?”
“I’ll allow it. Let’s hear about this trip.”
Emily signaled for the waiter to bring another bottle of wine. This lunch was going to go on for a while. Honor checked her watch—she had at least another hour before she had to think about leaving. So she finished her glass of water and promised herself that she’d have a full glass of water between each glass of the good stuff, and stop completely after two more.
*****
Honor made good on her self-promise, and she was happy and mellow, but not even tipsy when the friends finally left the restaurant. Emily and Lizbet had gotten pretty seriously plastered, so Callie took them both home while Honor headed to the police station to finalize the latest report on Tyler.
With her life so complicated and chaotic these days, it was easy to forget how important time with her friends was. For the first time in weeks, Honor felt truly calm, and not simply because of good food and wine. She’d offloaded some burden, too. And she’d laughed, a lot.
She felt strong. Full of love and sisterhood, she could finally breathe.
On the way back to the office, she stopped at a little artisanal bakery and picked up a couple of fancy cupcakes for her and Debbie to enjoy at the end of their day—lemon meringue for herself and red velvet for Debbie. They sold little arts and crafts from neighborhood people, and there was a new piece, a pretty, blown-glass paperweight with swirls of orange and blue, on the shelf near the counter. On a whim, Honor bought it; Debbie’s son’s school colors were orange and blue.
At the office, she parked her Porsche in a nearly empty lot. She wasn’t surprised; Friday afternoons were always quiet here. Only Debbie’s SUV and the familiar cars of employees elsewhere in this tiny strip mall filled the lot. Perhaps an early end of the day was in order. She had one new client meeting at three, but, unless Debbie had scheduled any other appointments during her absence, that was the end of their day.
She carried the pink box of cupcakes and the white sack with her impulse gift into the office.
Judi sat at Debbie’s desk, dressed in the navy blue suit Honor knew so well from her days on trial. There was something else, something even stranger, but at first Honor couldn’t make sense of anything more than that: Judith Jones was sitting at her assistant’s desk, her hands folded primly on top of Debbie’s closed laptop.
Someday (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 2) Page 13