The Living Room

by Robert Whitlow

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Uh, deciding how much money we need to have in our 401k by the time we retire. If the inflation rate averages less than five percent a year—”

  “I have something more important for you to do than guess the rate of inflation,” Amy interrupted. “I want you to read a children’s book that Natalie and I wrote together. She painted the watercolor illustrations and wrote the first draft of the text, which I’ve changed and edited.”

  “You and Natalie have been working on a book? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’ve not had it that long. She gave it to me a couple of weeks ago to tweak. I ended up making a lot of changes and want your unbiased opinion. You can read it in about fifteen minutes.”

  Jeff glanced back at the computer screen.

  “Are you expecting the inflation rate to change significantly in the next fifteen minutes?” Amy asked.

  “Okay,” Jeff surrendered. “But I don’t see how what I think is going to matter. If you want to know what a child thinks about the book, you should show it to Ian.”

  “You’re right, and he’s the next person who will read it.”

  Jeff held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

  “Keep it in order. The pictures have to match up with the words.”

  “If I can read a blueprint, I can follow an illustrated children’s book.”

  Amy put the sheets on the coffee table in front of the couch so Jeff would have plenty of room, then retreated to the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water and leaned against the counter while she waited. After a couple of minutes, she heard Jeff chuckle. She suspected he’d reached the picture in which the children lure their father to the beach with the promise of buried treasure, which turns out to be his wife under a mound of sand with her head and brightly painted red toes sticking out. The minutes clicked by without any additional sounds from the family room. When fifteen minutes passed, Amy peeked through the door to make sure Jeff hadn’t returned to the computer without telling her. But his head was still bowed over the coffee table. She saw him pick up another page and turn it over. Several minutes passed before he came into the kitchen.

  “It’s great,” he said simply. “I finished it the first time and started over before realizing that you wanted an immediate answer.”

  Amy beamed. “I think it’s good, too.”

  “I can tell you wrote it.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I’m no literary critic, but I can recognize what you’ve done. What do you call it?”

  “Voice. But I tried to give the voice to the kids.”

  “You did, but the way the little girl talks reminds me of you.”

  “You didn’t know me when I was six years old.”

  “But I’ve been around you when that’s how old you acted.”

  Amy laughed.

  “What about finding a publisher?” Jeff asked. “Are you going to ask Bernie to help?”

  Even though she’d joked with Natalie about buying a beach house, Amy hadn’t really considered whether the book was marketable.

  “I don’t think he works in the children’s genre, and it’s really up to Natalie. This book is her baby, not mine. She may be happy self-publishing a hundred copies and giving them away as Christmas presents. My next step is to let Ian read it. That will be the real test.”

  Amy took all the pages upstairs. Ian was on the floor of his room with his hand underneath his bed. He awkwardly turned his head as she entered.

  “What are you doing?” Amy asked.

  “Checking under my bed. I always find something I forgot I lost.”

  “Let me give you something else to look at.”

  Amy retreated to her bedroom while Ian read the book. Twenty minutes later he appeared in her doorway.

  “What did you think?” Amy asked.

  “You know I don’t like to read too much, but it was okay.” Ian laid the pages on the end of the bed. “I saw Mrs. Graham’s name on the bottom of the pictures. She’s a good artist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you write the story?”

  “Mrs. Graham wrote the first draft, and then I changed it hoping to make it better.”

  Ian nodded. “You made the middle boy, Alfred, a lot like me.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “Yeah. But don’t you think his family should call him Al? Except maybe his mom when she’s mad at him? Alfred sounds like an old man.”

  It was a legitimate question.

  “I’ll ask Mrs. Graham about that. We don’t want anything to cause a reader the same age as the characters to think the story doesn’t seem real.”

  “Oh, it seemed real to me. It made me want to go to the beach. Have you and Dad talked about where we can go this summer? I want it to be like the place in the book where there is tons of stuff to do and neat things to see.”

  Amy smiled. She’d received the feedback she needed.

  “Yes, we’ll try to find a good place.”

  Amy couldn’t wait to contact Natalie. However, she couldn’t reach her on either her house phone or her cell phone. Going upstairs to the writing room, she sent the revised text as an e-mail attachment along with a summary of the comments by Jeff and Ian.

  Driving to work the following morning, Amy received a call. Glancing down at her phone on the passenger seat, she saw Natalie’s face.

  “I am so excited,” Natalie began. “Luke read what you wrote and got a big grin on his face.”

  “You wrote it. I tweaked it.”

  “Be honest, Amy. You completely redid the text and connected the book to the illustrations so much better than I could. I wish I could give you a big hug.”

  “I can feel it through the phone.”

  “Are we still on for tomorrow?” Natalie asked.

  “Probably, but I’ll know later today. There is a lot going on at the office this week.” Amy paused. “No surprise visits to Ms. Burris’s house, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  Early in the afternoon Mr. Phillips summoned Amy into his office. Chris was there, too. Seeing the young lawyer, Amy wondered how his talk with Laura had gone. Nothing in Chris’s face gave her a clue.

  “I was telling Chris that I’m going to cover the Kelly and Jackson depositions tomorrow,” Mr. Phillips said. “He’s given me his notes.”

  Amy glanced at Chris and picked up on his disappointment. She kicked herself for not considering that the young lawyer would want to seal the deal in the Dominick case. But arguing about it with Mr. Phillips would be fruitless.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. “Is there anything you want me to do beforehand?”

  “Organize Chris’s information the way I like it. That shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The young lawyer handed Amy a file folder.

  “I’ve already marked the deposition exhibits,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Amy replied.

  She turned to leave.

  “There’s one more thing,” Mr. Phillips said.

  Amy faced him again.

  “I want you to sit in on the deposition with me.”

  “Me? Wouldn’t Chris be a better choice? He’s done all the prep work.”

  “He’s going to be working on another project with the time this will free up. My thought is that you might have”—Mr. Phillips paused as he searched for the right words—“other insights that need to be explored when I’m deposing the witnesses.”

  “I don’t think that’s likely,” she responded as she felt her face flush.

  “How can you know?” Mr. Phillips asked.

  It was Amy’s turn to try to find the correct words.

  “Uh, I don’t usually—” She stopped. “I mean—”

  “That’s what I suspected.” Mr. Phillips nodded. “Plan on being there. We’ll start at twelve thirty with Beverly Jackson, so eat lunch at your desk in case I have something for you to do at the last minute.”
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  “Yes, sir.”

  Amy returned to her desk. Chris left Mr. Phillips’s office a few minutes later and slipped around the corner to Amy’s workstation.

  “I’m in deep now, aren’t I?” Amy said when she saw Chris standing in her doorway. “I wasn’t trying to steal your opportunity to score a big win in the case. Once Mr. Phillips knew what was going on, there was no way I could control what he was going to do.”

  “I know, and it wouldn’t have been right for me to claim credit for what you uncovered.”

  “I wish you could.” Amy hung her head. “I’m not trying to draw attention to myself. I liked it better when I was an anonymous typist.”

  “Those days are gone.”

  “How was your talk with Laura?” Amy asked.

  “You’d have to ask her, but I think I did a good job. She seemed happy, and I caught her smiling for no apparent reason a few times during the rest of the weekend. It could be because she’s pregnant, but I’d like to believe she was thinking about me.”

  “Probably both.” Amy brightened. “It’s important to follow up so she knows you’re serious—”

  “I thought you wanted to shut up and be invisible.”

  Amy pointed toward the closed door to Mr. Phillips’s office.

  “Only with him.”

  After Chris left, Amy sent Natalie a text message telling her they wouldn’t be able to meet for lunch.

  The following morning Amy took extra care with her outfit and makeup. Jeff noticed.

  “What’s going on at work today?” he asked as they each poured coffee into a travel mug.

  “I’m going to sit in with Mr. Phillips during a couple of depositions.”

  “Why does he need you? Is he afraid he’ll forget to ask the right questions?”

  “No, his mind is as sharp as ever, but if he tells me to do something, it’s never a debate.”

  Jeff kissed her on the cheek.

  “Just like you and me,” he said.

  Amy was nervous and jumpy the entire morning. Mr. Phillips acted as if he didn’t have a worry in the world. Discovery depositions were a way for lawyers to find out what the other side knew about the facts and circumstances of a case. For that reason, attorneys treated them more casually than courtroom testimony. Mistakes made by a lawyer during a deposition were corrected prior to trial. Mistakes made by witnesses, however, would be fodder for effective cross-examination in court. Amy knew Mr. Phillips’s goals in deposing Dr. Kelly and Nurse Jackson were to obtain admissions and uncover inconsistencies. She had no idea how he was going to interject the information from her dream.

  She sat at her desk and nibbled on an apple for lunch. Mr. Phillips didn’t bring her any last-minute work, so she was left with nothing to do but fret about what lay ahead. Dr. Kelly and Beverly Jackson were the people who had done something wrong, but Amy was having trouble convincing herself that she wasn’t the one on the hot seat. Five minutes before the depositions were scheduled to start, Mr. Phillips stuck his head into her office.

  “Let’s go. Beverly Jackson is here. Bring a legal pad for notes.”

  With a sigh, Amy got up from her desk and followed Mr. Phillips into the largest conference room on the main floor.

  thirty-six

  At one end of the shiny table sat a dark-haired court reporter with a recorder and stenomask in front of her. Beside her and wearing a dark blue outfit was a trim, middle-aged woman with green eyes and auburn hair. Mr. Phillips extended his hand, and the woman stood up.

  “Mrs. Jackson, I’m Harold Phillips. I represent William McKay, the executor of Sanford Dominick’s estate, and this is my legal assistant, Amy Clarke. She’s going to join us today.”

  Nurse Jackson shook Mr. Phillips’s hand, but her eyes went to Amy and opened wider.

  “Are you the writer?” she asked.

  “Uh, I’m a novelist.”

  “You wrote A Great and Precious Promise, right?”

  “Yes.” Amy glanced at Mr. Phillips, who looked caught off guard.

  “Our book club read your book and loved it,” Jackson continued. “I saw on your website the other day that a new book is coming out soon. Is it a sequel?”

  “No, it’s a stand-alone novel with new characters.”

  “I can’t wait to read it. I wish I’d brought my copy of A Great and Precious Promise so you could sign it.”

  “We need to get started,” Mr. Phillips interjected.

  “What’s the name of the new book?” Jackson asked as she sat down.

  “The Everlasting Arms,” Amy replied.

  “I can’t wait to tell my friends that I met you.”

  Mr. Phillips cleared his throat. “Mrs. Jackson, you’re here pursuant to a notice of deposition, and it’s my understanding you’ve chosen not to have counsel present.”

  “You mean a lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “I called your paralegal, and she told me you were going to ask me questions about Mr. Dominick. I’m not being sued, am I?”

  “You’re not currently named as a party in the litigation.”

  “Could that change?”

  “Possibly.”

  “How could I be dragged into a lawsuit?” Jackson asked with a puzzled look on her face. “All I did was help take care of Mr. Dominick for the last two years of his life.”

  Amy knew Mr. Phillips hated dealing with people who didn’t have lawyers. He leaned forward and put his hands together on the table.

  “Mrs. Jackson, I’m here to talk to you about Mr. Dominick, but I represent Mr. McKay, the executor, which means I can’t give you any legal advice. I won’t know what you’re going to tell me until the court reporter swears you in and I ask you some questions. It’s impossible for me to predict what could happen as a result of your testimony.”

  Jackson shifted in her seat. In spite of what she saw in her dream, Amy found herself wishing the nurse would tell Mr. Phillips that she wanted a lawyer to represent her. Jackson looked at Amy, who had no idea what message her face might reveal.

  “I hate to spend the money to hire a lawyer,” Jackson said slowly, then paused.

  Amy held her breath. She saw Mr. Phillips get ready to speak again.

  “Mr. Dominick was very kind to me,” Jackson continued. “I’m sure you know he gave me $150,000 to help with expenses for my son who has cerebral palsy. It was an unbelievably kind thing to do, but after he met him, I think Kenny’s struggles touched Mr. Dominick’s heart. I don’t have anything to hide, but—”

  Mr. Phillips interrupted her. “Mrs. Jackson, we’re here today to take your testimony, so please hold off for a minute. May I ask the court reporter to swear you in?”

  Jackson looked again at Amy, who saw a silent plea for help in the woman’s eyes. Amy felt her face flush.

  “I want to have a lawyer with me,” the nurse said.

  “Are you sure?” Mr. Phillips asked.

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Phillips pressed his lips together for a moment. “If you’re not going to go forward with the deposition without legal representation, there’s no use in continuing this conversation. I want to hear what you have to say, but it needs to be under oath.”

  “Okay.” Jackson glanced at Amy again. “I guess you can’t recommend a lawyer for me, can you?”

  “No, we can’t,” Mr. Phillips replied. “How long do you think it will take you to retain counsel?”

  “Uh, a couple of weeks, I guess.”

  Mr. Phillips turned to Amy. “Prepare a new notice for Mrs. Jackson and set it three weeks out.”

  “Please don’t do it on a Wednesday,” Jackson said. “Kenny is in treatment every Wednesday.”

  “Check my calendar and avoid Wednesday,” Mr. Phillips said.

  Amy left the conference room and walked rapidly toward her office. When she turned a corner past Janelle’s desk, she almost ran into Chris.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  “Nowhere. Beverly Jackson is going to
hire a lawyer.”

  “Did he get anything out of her at all?”

  “She was never sworn in.” Amy looked over her shoulder at the conference room. She lowered her voice. “She read my novel.”

  “What are the chances of that? Do you think she was on the level?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Amy that someone would lie about reading her book.

  “I hope so. Anyway, I have to get out a notice rescheduling the deposition.”

  “At least Dr. Kelly will have a lawyer sitting beside him. Mr. Phillips will find out something at three o’clock.”

  Amy continued to her office and quickly printed out a new notice for a Thursday morning in three weeks. She returned to the conference room with the original and two copies. Mr. Phillips signed them and slid one across the table to Beverly Jackson.

  “Is that date satisfactory?” he asked.

  The nurse took out her phone and checked her calendar.

  “Yes, I can move a couple of things and be here.”

  “Then we’re done for now,” Mr. Phillips said, getting up from the table. “Please ask your attorney to contact me prior to the deposition.”

  Mr. Phillips turned toward the door. The court reporter started packing up her gear.

  “I’ll be back at three o’clock,” she said to Mr. Phillips.

  “Who was your favorite character in A Great and Precious Promise?” Amy asked Nurse Jackson.

  “Of course everyone in the book club loved Jasmine, but her great-aunt Lilly stood out to me. When Lilly told Jasmine how she regretted never asking her husband’s forgiveness before his death, I cried buckets.”

  In Amy’s mind it was one of the top three scenes in the book.

  “That scene moved me emotionally when I wrote it. I’m glad it touched you, too.”

  “Amy,” Mr. Phillips said, his voice rising.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It was a thrill meeting you,” Jackson said to Amy. “May I bring my book with me the next time I’m here so you can sign it?”

  Amy glanced at Mr. Phillips, whose face was getting red.

  “Sure.”

  Amy silently followed Mr. Phillips out of the conference room. When she prepared to go around the corner to her office, the senior partner spoke. “Come with me.”