The Will of Wisteria

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  The research and deposition of Hazel Moses’s family members, tracing their genealogy back to the times of slaves, had proven even more taxing than her law school years. The frustrating part was that she couldn’t contact Everett and Associates directly to try to reassure Mr. Everett that she really was working on his behalf. She wasn’t sure he’d believe her anyway, but the stipulations of the will made it clear she was to have no contact regarding her business. And even though he had chosen another law firm to represent him, so as not to cause a conflict of interests, she still couldn’t risk it. She had already lost a small fortune on this case simply because he had taken his business to another firm. She couldn’t risk losing her entire inheritance on a technicality. And right now, playing along was still her only option.

  For once she wished she would run into a brick wall. But when it came to Hazel, every door seemed to fling itself open, daring her to enter. And one thing she’d never been good at was declining a dare. But she knew to survive she had to find some way to blow this case to smithereens, but so far she hadn’t come up with anything that would sabotage Hazel’s claim to the property.

  She had spoken with a cousin of Hazel’s, twice removed, who lived in Savannah. She was going to see him in the next couple of days, and from her initial conversation with him on the telephone, she hoped he might be the key. He didn’t seem inclined to do anything that would help Hazel Moses. Yet in spite of her hard edges, she had a soft spot for Hazel. And she didn’t want her caught in the crossfire.

  She dragged herself home and got in the shower, then stood in front of her closet staring numbly at the choices. Picking out clothes had become a burden, much like talking to Aaron.

  He still called her with weekly updates, but ever since their fiasco dinner, she had refused to talk to him. He’d leave her a message and she’d listen to it, but she never called him back. She rationalized her coldness, told herself she wanted him to think about his actions and realize what a good friend she really was. But deep inside she knew he was right, and she was embarrassed.

  Elizabeth pulled up to the curb in front of the office, sipped at her Starbucks, and closed her eyes, trying to gear herself up to go inside. She was still sitting behind the wheel when Ainsley jerked open the passenger’s door and climbed into the Jeep. “Don’t get out. Let’s go eat.”

  “Ainsley, I’ve really got a lot of work to do. I don’t have time—”

  “Elizabeth, the only work you have is what I give you to do, and today I’m giving you the work of taking me to breakfast. Besides, I’ve got some things I need you to help me with.”

  “Like you need my help.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Ainsley patted her arm. “Ooh, suede. Nice.” She stroked the sleeve of Elizabeth’s coat. “So, how about we go up the street to the Waffle House?”

  “The what?”

  Ainsley’s head darted in Elizabeth’s direction. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been to the Waffle House.”

  “I’ve had waffles,” Elizabeth hedged, her defensiveness rising.

  “You’ve never been to the Waffle House? You are a spoiled brat.

  The Waffle House, for your information, is that restaurant with the yellow and black sign, you know, that you see off the interstate all the time.” She laughed. “Oh, that’s right, you don’t see a lot of that from your private jet, do you?”

  Ainsley pointed her in the direction of the Waffle House. When Elizabeth finally parked the car, she stared at the tiny rectangular building. “Come on. You’ll love it.”

  “I don’t eat grease.”

  “The grease will love you, I promise.” Ainsley climbed out of the car. Elizabeth watched the back of Ainsley’s black coat as she made her way to the building. Only witches wore black all the time.

  Elizabeth exited the car reluctantly. She looked down at her own black trousers and wished she had put on beige instead. Ainsley held the door opened for her and they were greeted by the sound of sizzle. “Do you know they sell more hash browns, eggs, and grits than waffles?” Ainsley asked as she walked in behind her.

  “No, I can’t say I was aware of such trivia.”

  Ainsley slid herself into a booth. “And they have amazing coffee, I might add.”

  Elizabeth followed her. She jumped slightly when a copper-headed waitress appeared like a genie from behind a plastic partition. “What’ll it be, ladies?”

  Elizabeth eyed the long menu in front of her. “This menu has pictures.” She fingered the edge of the menu and flipped it over quickly, as if that might shield her from the film of grease on the plastic cover.

  Ainsley jerked the menu from Elizabeth and handed it to the waitress along with her own. “We’ll have two eggs, scrambled,” Ainsley began.

  “Over light,” Elizabeth interjected.

  The waitress bit her eraser. Ainsley continued, undaunted, “Okay, two eggs scrambled, and two eggs over light, two sides of grits with cheese—”

  “Ah, no cheese on my grits, please.”

  Ainsley raised her right eyebrow. “Okay, like I said, one side of grits with cheese and one without, two orders of bacon, two helpings of your hash browns, scattered, smothered, and covered—”

  “No hash browns,” Elizabeth interrupted.

  “Would you hush and just let me order? You’ve never even been here before. Could you just trust someone for one second?”

  “The menu has pictures,” Elizabeth reminded her, as if she might not have heard the first time.

  She turned back to the waitress. “Two orders of hash browns, and a waffle for each of us, with pecans, please. And two cups of coffee, black.” She grinned at Elizabeth. “Now, was that so difficult?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know when my food arrives.”

  Elizabeth jumped again as the waitress yelled their order back toward the kitchen. She presumed it was their order anyway, although it was completely incomprehensible to mere mortals.

  “It’s their special language,” Ainsley informed her.

  “Oh, I’m not surprised that you would need a special language for a place like this.”

  The waitress smacked two mugs of coffee down in front of them.

  “Oh my word. They are not. I know they are not.”

  “What?” Ainsley looked over her shoulder in the direction of Elizabeth’s gaze.

  “Those children are drinking the half-and-half cups.”

  “You’re a snob, you know that?” Ainsley said flatly. “If it doesn’t fit into your tiny way of life, you just pooh-pooh it.”

  “I don’t pooh-pooh anything,” Elizabeth muttered, her words lost beneath the yelling of the waitress.

  “You pooh-pooh everything.”

  Elizabeth stirred her coffee with a vengeance. “Why am I here?”

  “You’re here because I have some questions.”

  The waitress dropped two plates down in front of her and then returned with two matching plates for Elizabeth.

  “How in the world does anyone eat this much food?”

  “It won’t go to waste, I assure you.”

  “It’s noisy in here too. Why do you come here?”

  “Shut up and eat. You’re more attractive that way.”

  Elizabeth’s instinct was to stick her tongue out, but she repressed the desire. Instead she forked up a bit of the hash browns and tasted them cautiously. Ainsley watched her with a smirk.

  “Oh my . . .”

  “Good, aren’t they? They’re better like this.” Ainsley grabbed up the ketchup bottle and squeezed a circle next to Elizabeth’s potatoes.

  Elizabeth stuck her fork back in the hash browns and dipped them lightly in the ketchup. “What all is in here? These are delicious.”

  “I told you,” Ainsley said, taking a bite of her own. “Onions and cheese.”

  “How long has this place been here?”

  Ainsley rolled her eyes. “Over fifty years.”

  Elizabeth drenched her waffle in syrup and took a huge bite.
“Oh wow,” she said with her mouth full. A bit of the waffle came out, and syrup dribbled down her chin. She started to laugh.

  “What? Why are you laughing?”

  But Elizabeth couldn’t answer, couldn’t get control of herself.

  Before Ainsley knew it, she was laughing with her, not even knowing what was so funny.

  “Ooh, ooh,” Elizabeth said, trying to talk again. “Who would have ever thought I would be sitting in the Waffle House with Ainsley Parker, snarfing down lard and loving every minute of it?”

  They continued laughing and eating until every morsel of food was gone from their plates. Elizabeth finally set her fork down and leaned back into the vinyl cushion, sighing heavily. “I cannot believe I ate all that.”

  “Loved it, didn’t you?” Ainsley replied, wiping her mouth.

  “Every bite.” Then they both laughed again. At last Elizabeth regained her composure and signaled the waitress for more coffee.

  “So, what was it you needed help with?”

  “Just bringing your walls down.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I just wanted you to let your walls come down, and I’ve never found a cookie I couldn’t break by taking them to the Waffle House.”

  “So you brought me here just to make me laugh?”

  “For no other reason. It was worth the ten bucks I’m going to have to pay.”

  “This only cost ten dollars?” Elizabeth started to laugh again.

  Ainsley nodded. “For both of us.”

  The waitress refilled their mugs, sloshing coffee onto the Formica tabletop. Elizabeth soaked up the mess with her napkin. “Why do you care about my walls, Ainsley?”

  “Because believe it or not, Elizabeth, I care about you.”

  Elizabeth grunted. “You care about one-upping me, and I know it.”

  “You don’t know all you think you know, Elizabeth Wilcott.”

  “I know that from the first moment I came, you had it all planned out how you were going to make me your little minion, and it all started with my initiation.”

  “I initiate everyone that way.”

  Elizabeth blew her off. “Yeah, right.”

  “Ask them. Every single person in my staff learned how to operate the phones all by themselves. It’s the best way for people to figure everything out quickly. Throw them in the fire. Then you know if they really want to be there.”

  Elizabeth cocked her head, still not wanting to believe her. “You do that to everybody?”

  “Everybody.”

  “It wasn’t just because you wanted to torture me?”

  “If that was my goal, I would have come up with a far better method, I assure you.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I stayed. Because I hated you so much that day, I wasn’t about to let you have the last word.” Elizabeth almost regretted what she was revealing.

  Ainsley placing her stubby fingers on the tabletop. “I know.”

  “You knew?”

  “Yeah, I knew. I knew that if you hated me enough, you wouldn’t dare leave. You’d be too proud to let me win. And eventually, what you discovered about the job, and the people, and maybe even yourself, might keep you here for the rest of the year.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “You’re good.”

  “I know.” Ainsley gave a smug little grin. “And just for the record, Elizabeth, I never hated you. Not even in school. It was never about competing for competing sake. You always made me pull the best out of myself. And you may not want to admit it, but I helped pull the best out of you.”

  “You infuriate me.”

  “I make you dig deep.”

  “You make me crazy.”

  “You were already crazy.”

  That made them both laugh.

  “I could be your friend, you know. You’d like me if you’d stop hating me long enough. And stop this charade, whatever it is, that brought you here. Let yourself actually enjoy what you’re doing. Find some fulfillment in it.”

  Elizabeth paused and studied the sincerity in Ainsley’s face. “I don’t know how to not hate you. It’s what I’ve always done. And I told you why I’m here. I’m here to learn.”

  “That’s a load of crap, but you’re obviously not ready to concede that territory. So regarding hating me, how has that worked for you?”

  Elizabeth pondered this question, and Mary Catherine’s words reverberated in her head. “Not too well,” she said at last. “Apparently I’m mean and bitter and sad.”

  “Well, honesty is the first step to recovery.”

  “I do have friends, you know,” Elizabeth interjected.

  “No, you don’t.”

  Elizabeth turned her gaze down to her syrupy plate. “You’re right. I don’t have any.” She paused. “I did have one though.” She held up her index finger as if that would solidify the statement. “I didn’t even deserve him.”

  “Everybody deserves at least one friend, Elizabeth. But you could have more than that if you’d just learn to be nice.”

  “I am horrible, aren’t I?”

  “Insufferable,” Ainsley said, straight-faced.

  Elizabeth smiled. “I don’t know how to be friendly.”

  “I’ll help you. The smiling is good. Just keep trying it.” Ainsley slid out of the vinyl booth. “Come on, let’s go help people. That always takes your thoughts off yourself.”

  Elizabeth sat staring up from the booth. “Why do you care what happens to me, Ainsley?”

  “I don’t know, Elizabeth. I really don’t. Truth be told, you’re one of the craziest people I’ve ever met. Downright certifiable. And you’re not even very charming. But I like you. For some odd reason, I like you.”

  Elizabeth stood up from the booth. “You’re too honest. You need to learn to edit.”

  “If I edited, you’d still hate me for no reason.”

  “Oh, I still hate you.”

  “Good. I wouldn’t want this to be too easy. I’ve always loved a challenge.”

  chapter twenty-nine

  Jeffrey pulled down the driveway and stopped to grab the mail. He had been so busy with checking in on Claire and hanging out with Matthew over the weekend that he had forgotten to pick it up on Saturday.

  The large white envelope on top arrested his attention. It was from a law firm, and his mind immediately latched on to the possibility of malpractice. Who would want to sue him? With his abrupt departure from his clinic, the options could be limitless.

  That one woman—he couldn’t remember her name—hadn’t been happy with the nose job he gave her last year. She wanted to go from looking like Barbra Streisand to Cindy Crawford, and there were just some things even he wasn’t capable of doing.

  He put the car in park and ripped the envelope open. It was a petition for divorce.

  Jeffrey drove on out through the gates past the golf course, thinking about Jennifer. If he were being completely honest, he had never loved her. And it wasn’t her fault. He had been selfish and arrogant.

  He had called her a few times to try to get her to talk, but she refused.

  Still, he felt obligated to try to work out their marriage, even though his heart wasn’t in it. But he knew it was a commitment he needed to try to keep. And he desperately wanted to see their daughter, Jessica. He didn’t want another Jacob experience on his hands, a child he never knew.

  Jennifer had never returned a single call, but simply had her attorney deal with his attorney. He wasn’t sure what the problem was, since she had signed a prenup, but he would find out sooner or later. It didn’t matter. He would be fair with her, regardless of what she asked for. All he wanted was to be a father to his daughter.

  Jennifer would never in a million years believe that. Why should she? The only wife he had truly cared about was Claire, and even she had fared no better with his self-centeredness. Three broken families washed up in the wake of his egotism.

  He thought briefly of Pamela. He hadn’t seen her or spoken to her since he cance
led the Charleston Magazine cover. He hadn’t missed her. Apparently she hadn’t missed him either.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Jennifer’s cell number. It had been disconnected. He’d call his attorney later and talk through the papers. But with the graffiti on the garage door just recently painted, he’d do whatever he could to lessen her anger. Maybe letting her go would somehow release her from her hatred. He could only hope.

  Dr. Nadu met him in the hallway of the hospital. “Are you ready to be a part of something extraordinary?”

  Jeffrey nodded. “I’m ready to help someone, if that is on the agenda for the day.”

  “Helping is always on our agenda. Follow me, please.” They turned the corner and headed toward the surgery holding area.

  “So, are you going to tell me who we’re going to see?”

  “We’re going to see a young boy who has no chance of a normal life without us.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Dr. Nadu pulled back the thin curtain. “I’ll let him tell you.”

  A young African boy, perhaps eight or nine years old, sat upright in the bed surrounded by a cluster of interns and residents. He turned his head to look at them when they entered the room. A large tumor protruded from the left side of his neck, making that entire side of his face pull. When his eyes lit on Dr. Nadu, he managed a lopsided grin.

  “Tell this doctor with me who you are.”

  “I’m Selemani,” the child announced with more power than Jeffrey expected.

  “That’s Swahili for Solomon,” Dr. Nadu informed the room. He walked over and patted the young man on the back. “Today is Selemani’s day to get rid of this old friend he’s been carrying around.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “All right, here we go.” Dr. Nadu unlocked the wheels and rolled Selemani’s bed toward the operating room.

  Jeffrey wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a doctor wheel his own patient to surgery. But Dr. Nadu guided the bed, talking to the child as they went. He leaned over the little boy’s face as the anesthesiologist induced sweet dreams. “Sleep well, my sweet friend. And when you wake up, we’ll all have some ice cream.”

  Jeffrey assisted in the surgery. The tumor ran much deeper than he would have thought, and its mass had been slowly decreasing Selemani’s ability to swallow. Friends and family members had motivated the entire country to help him come to the Medical University to have this procedure.