His smile came back. “Great, you pick the place,” he said. And as I walked to the curb with the drum, I told myself not to worry, everything would be fine.
It was only dinner, after all.
LIZ
“What happened to your head?” Brenda’s younger son, Aaron, asked.
“Don’t be rude,” Brenda said, but I waved it off.
Since her kids had finally accepted that I wasn’t a witch, and had even helped set me up with my own section of blanket, an egg salad sandwich, and a drink box, I owed them something in return. So I smiled and said, “My sister threw a can of iced tea at me.”
Ethan, the older one, stared at me wide-eyed. “Did your mom get mad?”
I leaned closer, whispering, “I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to get my sister in trouble.”
“Does it hurt?” Aaron asked.
“Not right now,” I said, which wasn’t surprising considering I couldn’t feel anything anywhere. I stretched out my legs, bounced them up and down, even sucked in my cheeks, hoping for a little sensation somewhere, but came up with nothing. Happy hour was still upon me.
“Stop pestering Liz and eat,” Brenda said, but Ethan asked, “Does your sister always throw things?”
“Not as often as she used to.” I leaned back on my elbows and squinted at the baseball field. “Which team are we rooting for anyway?”
“The blue shirts, who else?” Aaron said, and the two boys rolled their eyes at each other.
“Give her a break, fellas,” Brenda said, and flashed me the kind of grin I had only seen once or twice at the Duck—full and unguarded, the kind that made you want to grin right back. “You have to cheer for blue,” she said, “because Mitch plays first base and my brother Gary’s the shortstop.” She dug a couple of carrot sticks and some celery out of a Tupperware container and laid them on my plate beside the sandwich. “Do you remember Gary?”
I closed one eye and focused on the shortstop. “I do now,” I said, and sat up a little straighter.
Brenda’s husband, Mitch, was short and solid-looking, square really, like a stump with buzzed blond hair. He was probably a nice guy but definitely not my type. Gary, on the other hand, was tall and dark with a wiry, athletic build and a slouchy, loose-jointed walk. The kind of guy who would probably be paunchy and round-shouldered later in life but looked good now, when it mattered.
I had seen him at the Duck a few times over the past couple of weeks. He never stayed long. Just came in to talk to Brenda and then left. He didn’t look anything like her, which had made a few of the regulars question the whole brother/sister thing. But Grace and I were nothing alike either, so you never could tell with families. Besides, Brenda didn’t seem like the type to cheat on her husband. Smack him a good one if he needed it? Definitely. But run around behind his back? I’d have to vote no.
“You should have introduced us,” I said, watching Gary roll his shoulders, adjust his cap. “What’s he do for a living?”
“Electrician, but don’t get any ideas. He’s already recovering from a bad relationship.”
“You’re saying I’d be a bad relationship?”
“Yes. You like pickles?”
I nodded and turned back to the field. “Who’s winning?”
“Red,” Ethan said.
“But it doesn’t matter because it’s all for fun and charity,” Brenda said in a voice that told me this wasn’t the first time she’d made that little reminder. She nudged my plate closer. “Eat.”
I maneuvered half the sandwich to my mouth, took a bite, and tasted nothing. “This is great,” I said, taking another bite anyway because Brenda was right. I needed to eat.
“You don’t have to be polite.”
“No, really. This whole thing is great. The sandwich, the game, inviting me to join your family. You’re much nicer than you let on.”
“We all have weak moments.” Brenda picked up the drink box and held it out to me. “Drink this.”
“Apple juice? Never touch the stuff.” She raised a brow. “Fine,” I said, and stabbed at the stupid little hole with the stupid little straw more times than I could count before handing the whole thing back to her. “Not thirsty.”
Brenda inserted the straw and put the box back in my hand. “Now try.”
“Smart-ass,” I said and was sucking back that juice like it was world-class wine when Aaron said, “Mommy, this could be strike three. Blue could be up soon.”
We all turned to watch as the pitcher wound up. Threw the ball. And whack—the hitter was on his way to first. The bench cheered, the boys groaned, and Gary moved back farther and farther—still watching the ball while the hitter kept running. And Ethan and Aaron weren’t the only ones on their feet screaming, “Catch it! Catch it!” when that ball started its descent.
The runner was closing in on third. Gary raised his glove. The boys held their breath. Brenda stopped fussing with the food. All eyes were on that ball when it hit Gary’s glove and stayed put.
“He’s out!” Ethan hollered, and the boys were off and running to greet the conquering heroes as both teams left the field to join family and friends for their picnics. “Third inning stretch,” Brenda explained to me. “You have to love friendly baseball.”
As Gary came closer, I pushed at my hair, brushed the crumbs off my shirt, my lap, the blanket all around me, remembering why I didn’t usually eat when I was drinking.
“Nice catch,” Brenda said when Mitch and her brother reached the blanket.
“Now it’s up to Mitch to bring up the score,” Gary said, hitting another high-five with the boys.
“Don’t count it. I’m really off tonight.” Mitch smiled at me and reached into the cooler. “Who’s our guest?”
“This is my friend, Liz.”
Her friend? I suppose it would be hard to explain the truth with the kids around. This is one of the drunks I talk about all the time. The one with no morals, remember? So we’d have it her way.
“Nice to meet you both,” I said, holding out a hand to each in turn, figuring it was safer than trying to stand up.
Mitch grabbed a sandwich and sat down with Brenda and the boys, while Gary took a seat next to me. Up close, he looked even better. Plenty of thick dark hair, angular jaw, brown eyes. I have always had a thing for brown eyes.
“You look familiar,” he said as he bit into egg salad. “Have I seen you at a game before? Or maybe the Duck?” He snapped his fingers. “That’s it. You were at the Duck last Friday, dancing the Highland fling.”
Brenda laughed. “She’ll do that sometimes.”
I looked down at my sandwich. “Usually after someone has suggested tequila shooters.”
“I’ve never seen such creative use of coasters.” Gary leaned back with his sandwich. “It was very impressive.”
“It’s a skill I’m proud of, plus it looks great on a résumé.”
Gary laughed. “Must open a lot of doors.”
“More than you can imagine.” I raised my head, met those brown eyes again, and that’s when I saw the family resemblance. The smile. Open, unguarded, the kind that made me smile back. Too bad it had been declared out of bounds.
“Hopefully I’ll get to see another performance. What have you got to drink in here?” Gary asked, lifting the lid on the cooler. But he didn’t take anything out. He closed it and got to his feet instead.
“Are you up to bat next, Daddy?” Aaron asked. “Daddy? Are you listening?”
“Sure, buddy,” he said as he rose and went to stand beside Gary.
Brenda looked up from her plate. “What’s wrong?” she asked, and we both turned around to find four men standing no more than five feet from the edge of the blanket.
Two of them were medium, one was large, and the one with the aluminum baseball bat was an extra-large. All four wore sunglasses, steel-toed boots, and more than a couple of interesting tattoos, but not one of them wore a blue or red T-shirt. Baseball bat aside, these men clearly weren’t
here to play games.
Brenda’s face went white, but she recovered quickly, jumping to her feet with a broad smile on her face. “Hi, Hal,” she said, stepping in front of Mitch. “What brings you here?”
The feeling came back to my legs in a sudden rush, so I rose and took a casual step to the left. A quick getaway would be easier without the cooler in my path.
“Hi, Brenda,” the man said. “Having a picnic?”
“Just the usual.” Brenda’s voice was high and bubbly, not at all like her own. She turned to her children. “Boys, why don’t you go and kick the soccer ball around a little? Just stay close.” Oblivious to the stupidity of adults, the boys were running with that ball within seconds. I could not have been more envious.
“You and Liz should go with the boys,” Mitch said, moving her around behind him.
I was ready, but Brenda shook her head. “Now, Mitch, that would just be rude,” she said, still smiling as she put herself between the two men again—like a little dog who doesn’t know when she’s in danger, or doesn’t care. “So how’s Debby?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her in ages. And the kids? Are they with you?”
“Brenda,” Mitch said, his voice low and warning as he moved her around behind him more firmly this time. I was tempted to reach out and grab her, haul her back where she belonged, but the determination on that little smiling face kept me in my place.
“Speaking of rude,” she said, stepping right back into position, “where are my manners? Hal, you remember my brother Gary, of course, but this is my friend Liz.”
I smiled and nodded—wondered if this was the perfect time for that getaway.
“Hal has worked with Mitch for years,” Brenda continued, then turned that smile back on him. “How long exactly has it been now, Hal?”
“Five years,” Mitch said, stepping around her. “He’s worked with me for five years. And like I told him this afternoon, we’ll talk at the shop on Monday.”
Hal thumped the bat against his palm. “I want to talk now.”
Gary held Brenda back and said, “We should take this somewhere else.”
A couple of blue shirts stopped by the blanket. “Hey, Mitch, everything okay?” one of them asked.
“Everything’s fine. These men were just leaving.”
Another blue shirt showed up and another. Then a player from the red team and her boyfriend wandered over. Soon it was eight to four and our little corner of the park had the full attention of all players.
Hal may have looked dumb, but at least he could count. “That’s right,” he said, lowering the bat. “We were just leaving.” He pointed a finger at Mitch. “I’ll see you on Monday morning. Nine o’clock sharp.”
The band of men strolled off and both teams went back to the business of having fun. Only Mitch and Gary kept watch until Hal and his buddies disappeared beyond the bathrooms.
“What the hell is going on?” Brenda finally asked.
“We need to take a walk.” Mitch turned to Gary. “Will you watch the boys?”
He waved them away. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Mitch started walking, heading for the path with Brenda hurrying along beside him. “There are brownies in the cooler,” she called over her shoulder. “Make sure Liz eats a couple.”
“I’m good,” I said when Gary opened the cooler. “In fact, I should be going. Places to go, people to see and all of that.”
“Plus you’re worried that those guys might come back.”
I picked up my backpack. “With guns or something worse.” I glanced over to where the boys were kicking around the soccer ball, then knelt down beside Gary and lowered my voice. “What kind of trouble is Mitch in anyway? Because if it’s something illegal, you need to get Brenda and the kids out of that situation as soon as—”
“It’s nothing illegal. Mitch is squeaky clean.”
“Really? Then why was that guy threatening him with bodily harm in a public park?”
“Because Mitch owes him money and Hal’s a hothead. He doesn’t think before he acts.”
“So this was all about money, yet you expect me to believe there’s nothing dirty going on?” I rose and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders. “The arrogance of men astounds me.”
Gary got to his feet. “I’m telling you the truth. Mitch runs a legitimate business, but he’s having financial difficulty right now, just like everyone else.”
“Everyone else doesn’t have guys with bats after them.”
“Everyone else doesn’t know Hal Meaney.”
Brenda and Mitch were over by the water fountain, standing close together. He was doing most of the talking, but every once in a while she’d nod and reach out. Touch him, lightly, briefly, as though saying, It’s okay, I’m here. I hoped that wouldn’t prove to be a mistake and turned back at Gary. “What happened to Mitch?”
He shook his head and sat down again. “In a nutshell, he took on a big job, the customer won’t pay, and now he’s left holding the bag.”
I remained on my feet. “Won’t pay? Why? Did Mitch screw something up?”
“No, and you really ought to stop beating on him like that. Mitch is the only one who isn’t being an asshole in this whole thing.” Gary opened the cooler, dug around inside. “What I wouldn’t give for a beer right now.”
“You and me both.” Mitch and Brenda were still talking, but now Mitch was pacing back and forth, running a hand over his face, through his hair. To be fair, he didn’t look like a bad guy, and Brenda was probably too smart to hang around if he turned into one. So I dropped my bag and sat down again. “Okay, I’m willing to reconsider. Give me the details.”
Gary took out the container of brownies and let the lid fall on the cooler. “Mitch is a millwright. Specializes in moving and installing heavy equipment.” He plunked two brownies on a plate and set it on my lap, held up his hands when I balked. “You can take it up with Brenda later, but I know better than to disobey a direct order. Besides, you should try one. She makes the best brownies.”
“Fine,” I said, taking a bite and discovering he was right. Brenda’s brownies were fabulous. Chewy and fudgy with pecans, not walnuts. I popped the last mouthful and went for the second.
“Told you,” Gary said, putting two on a plate for himself. “So Mitch coordinated the moving and rebuilding of three shot peening machines as well as the installation of two new dust collectors. It was the biggest single job he’d ever undertaken, and he came in on time and under budget. But the company refuses to pay the last third, which is well over a hundred thousand dollars.”
I had no idea what a shot peening machine was, and the only dust collectors I knew were the Royal Doulton figurines Great-Grandma Lucy brought with her from the old country and that Ruby regularly threatened to leave to me one day. But the details of the equipment didn’t matter because I could already see where this was going to end.
“I’m guessing the company that hired him is big, giving Mitch a lot of comfort while he was climbing out on a limb to make the job come together.”
“They even showed him a letter of credit from the bank, proving they had the financing for the move.”
“And based on that, he probably maxed his line of credit plus every one of his credit cards. Maybe even reached out to family and friends to get this job done.”
“We all helped out, yes.”
“Then there’s something you all need to know. I guarantee that Mitch is never going to see the rest of the money.”
Gary stared at me. “What are you talking about? He has a signed contract. The equipment is up and running.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I finished the rest of the brownie and wiped my fingers on a napkin. “They’re gambling that he’ll go bankrupt before they’re forced to pay.”
“But how can they do that?”
“Unfortunately, all too easily. If Mitch’s company doesn’t survive, then the debt is wiped out and the money stays in the other guy’s pocket. It’s dirty, but it happen
s more often than you’d think.”
Gary put his plate down, his appetite clearly gone. “How do you know all this?”
I smiled. “Because I’m more than a fabulous Highland dancer. I’m also a lawyer. At least I was a lawyer.” And it amazed me how quickly the blocks had fallen into place. Like Mark said when I cleared out my desk: You can take the girl out of the courtroom, but you can’t take the—
“Were you disbarred or something?”
“Nothing that exciting. I just got tired and quit.”
“What are you doing now?”
“Pursuing my options.”
“At the Duck?”
I started to get up. “I should go.”
He laid a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, it just seems like a waste, that’s all. You obviously know your stuff, and Mitch could use someone like that right now.”
“Doesn’t he have a lawyer?” Gary nodded. “And what’s he done for him so far?” I asked.
“Lots of letters. He says the next step is a lawsuit.”
“Which will be expensive, with the costs due up front, of course. He’s probably explained that it will take at least two years to get to court and by then Mitch’s company will be bankrupt anyway so what’s the point. And for this he’s already charged him an arm and a leg.”
“Two legs, I believe.”
I shook my head. Goddamn lazy lawyers. No wonder people hated us.
Hated them.
“Well, Gary, I can tell you with every confidence that the lawyer is wrong. There is indeed something else that he can do.”
I opened my backpack, hunted around until I found a pen and a scrap of paper. A receipt from the liquor store, what else? I turned it over, printed on the back petition into bankruptcy, and handed it to Gary. “The lawyer won’t want to do this, so Mitch will have to insist.”
“What if he still won’t?”
I zipped up my backpack. “Then he needs a better lawyer.”
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