Tree Climbing For Beginners

by Joyia Marie

  Then I it hit me. My father was J. Dudley? The J. Dudley? Yeah, I had seen his work, but I never put it together. I thought the last name thing was a bit of a coincidence, but nothing more than that.

  J. Dudley was a fashion photographer who moved on to doing celebrity portraits back in the late eighties. He is famous for his black and white photographs of celebrities doing non-celebrity things. That picture of Beyonce blowing bubbles? Yeah, that’s J. Dudley, and apparently my father.

  What a trip. I really needed to dig out my digital and give it a go. With that kind of talent running in my veins from both sides surely I could do something magical with a camera. Then I blew it off. Why mess with perfection, and right now, I was perfection as LV. I enjoyed what I did and so did many other people.

  “Okay, what did he want?” I asked apprehensively. If he asked about me, great and about time if he hadn’t done so before. If he wanted to do the big Dr. Phil reunion, then not so much. I didn’t have time for any more drama right now.

  “Oh, to say hello. He wants to have a drink if I’m ever in New York again. That kind of thing,” mother said as she grabbed a bottle of water.

  Water and tea are what my mother exists on. She’s as bad as I am about eating. She was looking a bit thin which was normal when she came in from the cold as the old spy movies used to call it. Her guides could get her from place to place, but they didn’t know to shove food under her nose from time to time.

  “So he didn’t ask about me?” I asked, hurt, I was unable to hide in my voice.

  “No, Helen, but don’t take it that way. I know he wants to see you, but after all this time he’s not sure how you’ll react. Your father is the King of Avoidance,” Vivian said tenderly, affection and exasperation warring in her voice.

  I looked at her in wonder. My mom had the biggest heart in the world if she could still feel affection for a man who had deserted her and her baby. Then, I smiled as I pictured my dad and my husband fighting over that particular crown. I shook off my hurt. Time was a wasting and Jillian would be here soon. My dad and his issues had waited for this long, they could wait a little longer.

  “Okay,” my mother said after I took another panicked look at the clock. Jillian would be here any minute. I did not want those two to meet right now. My mother might be acting all queen of serenity right now, but the sight of Jillian might push her over into Xena, warrior princess.

  “I’m going to pop over to see Raphael and hope he can get me in,” she said after she dropped her empty bottle in the bag she set up for recycling.

  I will admit I’m not the best with the environmental stuff. Mrs. Gunderson would go behind me and sort the trash at home. Mother is a bear about it. I guess I can see her point.

  Without nature, there would be no need for nature photographers and she would be out of a job. That’s not the only reason, but it’s the one I chose to focus on. If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m not very good with the finer emotions.

  I looked up after she came back from grabbing the tiny bag she used as a purse. The backpack was still on the bed, probably full of some of the most valuable vacation photographs on earth. I would take my mom out of a decent meal later or join her and Raphael.

  She would eat like a stevedore, then come back here, sleep like the dead, then bright and early tomorrow morning she’d be off to a dark room to start processing her film. Mom has not made the leap to the digital age, even though she will pick up a digital camera for pictures not involving her work. The pictures she took of the twins were done with a digital camera so she has the skill to use one but she likes the old-fashioned way.

  My mother and I were enjoying another hug when the knock came at the door. Oh, show time and there was one too many players on the stage. My mom laughed at my panicked expression and gave me a fond pat on the cheek. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ll give you first crack. I won’t step in unless you need me.”

  I nodded gratefully and watched as my mother opened the door and let Jillian in. She and my mother had a low conversation for a minute before my mother gave me a fond wave and walked out closing the door behind her.

  “Your mother is Vivian Dudley?” Jillian exclaimed, letting me know the subject of their conversation.

  I looked at Jillian’s ample bosom proudly displaying one of my mother’s Wearable Art T-shirts. I was amazed. Who knew? Jillian was a fan of my mother’s work? I swear, if the world gets any smaller, somebody was going to have to get off.

  “Yep,” I said proudly, still amazed by this moment of accord. That ended when Jillian’s expression turned crafty and I could almost see that adding machine she used for a brain calculating. Okay, so it wasn’t going to be a nice visit, but I hadn’t expected it to be.

  “Coffee,” I offered to give myself a moment to get into bitch from hell mode.

  Sonya had her modes and I have mine. Bitch from hell mode was reserved for nosy neighbors or rude reporters in my internet interviews, but Jillian could have a taste as well. I had to put the fear of God in Jillian, or at least the fear of me, or this meeting would make things worse.

  “No, but I’ll take some wine if you have it,” she said from her spot near the door.

  I lifted a brow. Wine? When she was driving? Or maybe she thought it would be okay as she would be leaving in a limousine on my dime.

  “No, I don’t keep it around with the kids,” I lied.

  I did have a bottle of wine. I had tracked down that Piesporter that I had had at Aiden’s and I’d be damned if I gave it to this girl. I had a hope of sharing it with Aiden when I invited him over for a home cooked meal to pay him back for the one he cooked for me.

  Or a motel cooked anyway, I thought as I looked around the small galley kitchen. It had everything I needed to make a meal as long as I didn’t get fancy.

  “Okay, then I’ll take a bottle of water,” she said as she walked over to the couch and plopped down, looking for all the world like a sulky teenager.

  I felt my brow lifting again. Between this girl and my mother, soon, my brows would go up and just stay there.

  I walked over to the couch with her water and my coffee and I wondered who this child’s mother was. My mother would have blessed me out for sitting like that with that expression on my face. I would have done the same for Tonya. Hadn’t this girl had any home training, as Grandma Gert used to say?

  I handed her the water and she screwed off the top and took a big gulp. I sat down with my coffee and the question seemed to bloom in my mind. I’m a writer and I write to figure things out. Suddenly I wanted to figure this girl out. Not for Harold’s sake or the kids sake but just because I needed to know.

  How do you get like this? Where you think the only way to make it was either a rich man or blackmail. What would you learn as a child that would make taking a man from his family okay? Why didn’t she think she could make it on her own?

  My mother had taught me from birth to be self-reliant. She was there and Grandma Gert was there, but I knew I was ultimately responsible for myself or I would be as soon as I became an adult. I was all my single and married life.

  Harold supported the house and the kids, but if he was abducted by aliens, I wouldn’t have had to take my children and set up housekeeping under a bridge. Why hadn’t this girl been taught the same?

  “What?” Jillian said apprehensively and I realized I was sitting there staring at her. I bit back a smile as she lifted a self-conscious hand to her headband that I assume was hiding her brown roots. If she played her cards right that would be dealt with today as well.

  “Nothing,” I said as I put my questions out of my mind to think about later. I needed to get my head in the game and I think the whistle signaling the start was about to blow. “You said we needed to talk,” I said encouragingly.

  Jillian straightened up on the couch and turned to me with an earnest expression. I bit back another smile, wondering how long she had practiced that in the mirror. She looked like the soul of sincerity.

&nbs
p; “ I know you and Harold have been having problems so I thought if you and I talked, maybe we could work this out. You know between us girls,” she said leadingly.

  I don’t know where I was supposed to be led and didn’t have the open RAM to figure it out. Yeah, Harold and I were having problems and she was the main one. How she thought she could fix things, I had no idea, but I must admit I was eager to hear this.

  “Okay,” I said noncommittally. No commitment here, not until I saw which station this train with the bleached blond conductor was headed for.

  “ I think it would be the best thing for everyone concerned, it you moved home. You know with your kids. Or, since you’re having all that work done on your loft, you could take them there with you. Either way, your choice. I think kids should be with their mother,” Jillian said firmly with a resolute expression on her face.

  Chapter Fifty-Two: Helen

  I felt my brow making its now familiar journey up my forehead. Yep, much more of this and I would be able to play the Joker in the next Batman movie without prosthetics. Think of the money the movie studio would save. Jack Nicolson would have nothing on me.

  “Okay?” I said slowly, not sure which of her idiotic statements to address first.

  Should it be the fact she thought she got a vote on where my kids would be or who they would be with? Should it be the fact she actually thought anyone cared what she thought? Or maybe the fact she had just admitted she was in my loft, the loft that not even Harold or the twins knew the location of?

  “Jillian,” I said patiently as I could while I could feel my blood pressure pinging out higher than it had since I delivered the twins. “Their father and I have agreed with him having primary custody and that’s why it’s written that way in the divorce papers.”

  “Divorce papers,” Jillian said questioningly. I could tell she didn’t have a clue as to what I was talking about. Her expression of crafty resolution change to confusion then hurt. “But he said you were dragging your feet. He didn’t say the divorce was filed.”

  I felt sorry for her, I really did. She looked like a lost child and I was irritated with Harold for putting me in this position. Looks like he was getting his revenge for having to tell the twins the news of our breakup.

  Now, I have to tell his girlfriend about our divorce. Harold was a very bad boy and his time was up. He will have until noon tomorrow and if my lawyer didn’t have those papers signed, it was on.

  “Look, Jillian, I don’t know what Harold has been telling you, but I filed for divorce Friday the week I left. Harold has had the paperwork for a week. All he needs to do is sign them and we can be divorced in 60 days. The holdup is on his end,” I said kindly, my heart hurting for her as her big blue eyes filled with tears. Oh, this was not a scenario I was prepared for. I could not see me and my husband’s girlfriend sharing a box of tissue over the perfidy of men.

  “But he said…” she said then trailed off. The tears dried up and she got a hard look in her eyes. I think Jillian just got a very valuable life lesson and she was not enjoying it.

  “Okay, that’s fine,” she said, but her face said it was anything but fine. “If Harold doesn’t want to marry me, that’s fine. I’ll be happy to step out of the picture and let you and Harold work things out,” she said. The ‘for a small fee’ was unspoken but clearly heard.

  I looked at her blankly, waiting to see what she would do next. The girl had bounce back I had to give her that. The hurt on her face about the divorce papers were real or she needed to take her acting ability to Hollywood. There was an Oscar there with her name on it.

  “Okay, I thought you were ready to talk turkey when you gave me your number Saturday, but I can see you want to play games,” Jillian said in irritation. She grabbed her purse menacingly, which I didn’t even know as possible. A gun, yeah. But a purse? The girl had skills. “I didn’t want to do this, but you’re making me. Are you really going to make me do this?” she asked warningly.

  “Make you do what?” I asked in confusion.

  Jillian huffed and tossed her hair. Her headband shifted and I could clearly see the brown under the blond. She moved her headband back and gave me an angry look. “Fine, then I’ll do it,” she said, and then she reached into her purse and pulled out… you guessed it, the jump drive.

  Until that moment, I had the faintest hope that maybe she didn’t have it. That this little visit was really her just trying her hand at getting me to move home. I schooled my expression to confusion and got ready for the end game.

  “It’s a jump drive,” I said with more confusion. Jillian growled and I hastened to add. “A very nice jump drive,” I said soothingly, in the tone I would use for an inmate escaped from Bellevue.

  “Don’t give me that,” she said angrily. “You know what this is and you know what this means,” she said triumphantly.

  “It means you have a red jump drive,” I said still in that calm, but slightly nervous talking the crazy person back down from the ledge tone.

  “Stop that,” she shouted, shaking the jump drive at me. “I’m not crazy. This means I know who you are,” she said the jump drive an inch from my face. I was so tempted to open my mouth and swallow it. Yeah, it would be a little rough of the exit, but at least the damn thing would be gone.

  But no, I couldn’t if I reacted like that, then she would know she had something. I didn’t know if she had made copies. I doubted it, but I needed this drama over forever today. The only way to do that was to make Jillian give it to me. She would before she left that motel room. She just didn’t know it yet.

  “I should hope you know who I am,” I said easing away from temptation. “You’ve been fucking my husband for the past six months.”

  Jillian flushed and that made me feel a little better about her. If she could experience shame, then maybe she wasn’t beyond redemption. Not that I saw myself as her savior, but it was good to know it was possible.

  “No, not that, I know who you really are,” she said rallying yet again. Bounce back, gotta give the girl her props. She’s like one of the punch balls that boxers practice with. No matter hard you hit it, it just keeps coming back.

  “That would be…” I said soothingly.

  “You’re Leslie Vandersmoot and this jump drive proves it. I got it from your loft so it’s yours and it has an unpublished Leslie Vandersmoot book on it so that proves you are Leslie Vandersmoot, she said laying out her very weak circumstantial case. If I were on Law and Order, I’d be screaming ‘objection’ at his point.

  “You’re saying you got that jump drive from my loft,” I said slowly. “Leaving out the theft of property, my question is, how did you come to conclude that was my loft?” I asked, ready to dismantle her case. “Harold doesn’t know where my loft is, so how could you?”

  “Um,” she stammered that flush of shame back. I wondered if anyone had ever taken her to task for the crap she pulled. I knew her history and the fact this was her first attempted marriage takeover. Or so I assumed as she hadn’t been married before.

  “I got the address from a friend of mine at the phone company,” she admitted, trying to look proud but she actually looked embarrassed.

  “Okay, and was I at this loft you wandered into?” I said crisply, in full prosecuting attorney mode.

  “No, but that man, the one you talked to at the soccer game was there and he said it was your place and you weren’t there right then,” she rallied again.

  “Okay, okay, let’s say that was my loft. What says that’s my jump drive?” I posited.

  “ Who else’s would it be?” she said scornfully.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the man you spoke to. Maybe one of the other workers who worked there. Maybe it was left from before I even bought the loft,” I said mockingly.

  “But you’re the writer,” she said quickly, determined to make her case.

  “Okay, that's true, but am I the only writer who’s ever wandered through that loft? Could one of the workers or someone els
e completely have artistic leanings and that jump drive contain their scribbling?” I asked with a faint smile.

  Jillian was hanging in there, but each time I shot her down the hand with the jump drive got lower and lower. She was looking at the jump drive as if it was a lottery ticket that had the right numbers but the wrong date.

  She also was acting as if this was not the first time she had heard these particular objections. I would love to know whom she talked to while she was trying to get a hold of me, but that was a worry for another time.

  “But the book…,” she said slowly, looking at me with big hurt blue eyes. I don’t know why she was looking hurt. I wasn’t trying to mess up her life. I didn’t start this, but by God, I would finish it.

  “Okay,” I said, deciding to change tactics. “Let’s just say I was Leslie Vandersmoot and you held in your hot little hands the means to prove it. An unpublished manuscript.”

  She perked up at that and her hand closed protectively around the jump drive. Suddenly her lottery ticket had value again and she wanted to see how much. She liked where this was going.

  “Like you said, I’m a writer, which means I like telling stories. Let me tell you a little story,” I said and hid a smile when she leaned forward like a kid at bedtime. I felt bad for her because this story was more likely to lead to nightmares than sweet dreams. Or maybe it would be the wake up call this silly bitch needed to understand she was not the biggest dog on the block.

  “But first let me ask you a question,” I said and smiled when she nodded mesmerized. “If I was Leslie Vandersmoot,” I stopped here and smiled wider when she nodded again more eagerly. ‘Why would I hide it? Why would I hide the fact I was rich, famous and infamous. Why would I not go on the talk show circuit, the book tour circuit, and every other circuit until everyone on the planet was sick of seeing my face?”

  “I don’t know,” Jillian said irritably like a baby with a wet diaper. So far this story wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear which was, I WAS Leslie Vandersmoot and how much was willing to pay to keep her quiet.