by Martha Carr
Ned walked in and took the stool next to his mother. A pocket on the side of his shorts shifted as a heavy object inside of it slid to one side.
“You have every pocket filled with something, don’t you?” said Wallis. “All I want to know is, if any of those things are combined would it become a bomb?”
“I’m not that stupid, Mom. If I was making a bomb I’d do it after hours and hide the components, especially from Dad.”
“Owww. I might catch on to what you were doing.”
“You haven’t yet.”
Wallis frowned and peered into her son’s green eyes.
“Nope. I’ve got nothing,” she said. “Okay, I’ll settle for, don’t take any of it out during school unless it’s homework. Okay?”
“That was already the plan,” said Ned. “I’ll take six, Dad,” said Ned, reaching for the butter and cutting the stick, carefully guiding half of it onto his plate.
“Ned, some day that bad habit is going to have some very real consequences,” said Wallis.
“I already checked. Dad and both of my uncles have very low bad cholesterol and Uncle Harry eats scrapple for a snack.”
“There’s a chance you got some of my DNA, Ned.”
“Meh,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. It was his usual signal he was done talking. He stuffed his mouth with two pancakes letting butter drip down his chin. “Oooh, bafana,” he mumbled, “good job, Dad.”
Ned gave Norman a thumbs-up as Norman kissed his son on the top of his head. Ned swallowed and folded up another pancake sliding it into his mouth while staring blankly at Wallis.
“That’s okay. The first date is always easy to get. It’s the second one you may find a bit more difficult, young man,” said Wallis. “I’m going to go get my things and put them in the car. Be ready by the time I get back.”
Ned folded another pancake and pushed it into his mouth.
Wallis grabbed her over-sized briefcase and a small box of files she had been going through for a divorce case that was coming up next week and backed her way out of the laundry room door. She felt her shoe squish as she stepped on the old horse hair mat by the back door.
“Ned,” she softly muttered, wondering what was stuck on the bottom of her shoe. She tried to balance the box and look down at her shoe as she kept moving but the box kept getting in the way. She gave up and kept moving.
Chapter Eight
Wallis was almost to her car, still scraping the bottom of her shoe along the driveway before she noticed the man pacing next to her car door. He was tall and lanky dressed in faded brown corduroys and a short-sleeve, pale blue dress shirt, badly stained under the arms, grasping a folder tightly in his hand.
Wallis sharply drew in her breath and almost dropped the box. She took a quick read of the man, wondering how far this was going to go. Should she start screaming now and risk looking silly? The man looked like he hadn’t slept in awhile.
“Are you Wallis Jones? You’re the Black Widow, right?”
“If you’re looking for a lawyer, you need to contact me at my office,” she said, bristling, making her voice as even as she could manage. “I don’t even consider taking clients who show up in my driveway. And for the record, I don’t appreciate the nickname.” Wallis glanced back at the front door hoping Ned was dragging his feet.
“Ray Billings said to find you…”
Wallis cut him off before he could finish. “I’m not Mr. Billings’ attorney, I’m his soon to be ex-wife’s and I can’t discuss the case. You need to leave, now.” This is a new one, she thought. Intimidate the opposing counsel with your crazy friend.
“Please,” he said in a bleating tone, moving quickly toward Wallis and grabbing her by the arms. “We need to talk.” A piece of paper slipped out of the folder in his hand and floated to the ground sliding behind the rear tire.
“Mom?” Ned was coming out of the front door, trying to maneuver a school project that had gotten stuck in the doorway. “Should I call Dad?”
Wallis jerked her arms away and hissed quietly at the stranger, “Leave now or I call the police and the judge, in that order. Never show up here again. If Mr. Billings has a problem, tell him to take it up with his lawyer. That’s the way the game is played.”
“You don’t understand…” he said, backing up, a look of fear creeping up on his face. “Don’t call anyone, not the police. Don’t even call me. Don’t say anything to anyone.” He glanced over at Ned who had stopped trying to get anything out the door and was nervously keeping an eye on his mother.
“Dad?” Ned called out, watching the man in the driveway.
The man leaned in and whispered, “My name is Stanley, Stanley Woermer. We have to talk.” He looked quickly back at Ned again, lingering a little too long for Wallis’ comfort, and turned, taking a quick jog up the driveway, turning right at the end and disappearing from view, hidden by the tall bushes that grew at the edge of the driveway. Wallis noticed the expensive running shoes and the easy, loping way he had taken the long hill that led from the house to the street, keeping his posture erect.
“Have to get Laurel to check this one out,” she said quietly.
Norman came out of the door wiping his hands on a kitchen towel.
“Everything alright?” he said, looking at the expressions on Ned and Wallis’ faces.
“Everything’s fine, dear,” said Wallis, letting out a long breath. She realized she’d been clutching her keys in her hand. “Just a desperate move by a desperate client. He’s gone, come on Ned. Do you need some help?” said Wallis, trying to smile at Ned and let him know it was all okay. She put the box down on her trunk and quickly bent down, picked up the piece of fallen paper and folded it, sliding it into her skirt pocket.
Norman and Ned came out of the door carrying a school project almost as big as Ned made out of Styrofoam and painted gun-metal gray with coiled arms and wooden legs. It had a pair of race cars for feet. Wallis raised her eyebrows, relaxing a little. Being around Ned had a way of making her do that.
“It’s an alien. Mrs. Ward asked us to do it.”
“It’s scientific?”
“I don’t know. We had to include motion somehow.”
“Hence the cars.”
“They’re remote control cars. I can make the robot move and there’s a giant spring on the inside so it’ll bounce some while it goes.”
“Very clever. What are you studying in science right now? Energy and motion?”
“Weather patterns.”
“Really?” asked Wallis.
“You’re way too easy, Mom.”
Norman gave a small smile. “I’m going back inside if you people no longer need a man around.” Wallis smiled a little, and made a face at him.
“So, where’s the fun in it?” she said to Ned.
“I can’t always resist.”
Wallis carefully put the alien in a seat of his own next to Ned, gently pulling the seat belt around the middle and started driving in the direction of the school. Ned could take the bus but Wallis liked having the few minutes alone with him every morning and it was the one place Ned was most likely to tell her about how he was really doing. It didn’t happen often, but Wallis was always hopeful.
“Why don’t I have red hair like you?” asked Ned.
“Because you’re too young to dye your hair,” said Wallis, glancing at Ned’s face in her rearview mirror.
“And besides, the box clearly says this is auburn.”
Ned smiled and Wallis felt her stomach jump a little at the small unexpected gift so early in the morning. Strange morning, she thought.
As she pulled her older blue Jaguar into the long circular driveway in front of the school she saw children getting off of the bus in the side-by-side matching curved driveways. Some of them were holding similar concoctions as Ned’s but everyone else’s was no more than a foot tall. Wallis looked back at Ned’s project.
“Were there any instructions on size?”
“No, not rea
lly.”
“What does that mean? She gave hints?”
“She gave suggestions and I decided to do this,” he said, gesturing toward the project.
Wallis let out a sigh. “Do you need help carrying it in?”
“No, I’ve got it. Thanks, Mom,” said Ned, leaning forward to get a kiss. “See you later. Love you.”
“Love you more,” she replied, another of their games.
“Nah ah,” he answered, without looking back.
“Yah, hah,” she said, and waited for Ned to walk around and get his science project out of the car.
“I love you times infinity,” he said, once he had the project out, and quickly tapped her on the shoulder before closing the door. She could barely hear the muffled ‘got you last’ before he turned and walked away. Good one, she thought, and drove off, headed for work.
She came down Quioccasin Road and turned the corner back on to Pump to head toward the office. The route took her near her house. That’s how Wallis spent a lot of her days, crisscrossing the same paths. It made her wonder sometimes what she was accomplishing.
As she neared her corner she saw the neighbor’s dog, Happy, sitting quietly with her leash still attached, hanging down beside her. Wallis thought about forgetting what she saw and going on to work but she knew if something happened to the Labrador the guilt would kill her. She pulled up to the corner and leaned across the seat to push open the passenger side door.
“Hi Happy! Hi girl. Come on, come on,” she said, in a sing-song voice, waving her arm to try and coax the dog into the car. “It’s me, Happy, Ned’s mom, Wallis. Come on. Don’t make me get out of the car, please. Come on,” she said, waving harder.
Happy looked around and started toward the car. Halfway in she tried to change her mind and get back out but by then Wallis had the big Lab firmly by her collar, pulling her the rest of the way in and yanking the door shut.
Wallis tried both doors at the Blazney house but got no response.
“They must not know you’re out,” she said, looking down at Happy patiently waiting by her side.
She walked Happy around to the back yard and put her in behind the privacy fence, shutting the gate. As she walked back to her car she had the strange feeling of being watched but there were only a couple of cars parked along the street and no one was in sight.
Strange morning, she thought again, rubbing her arms through her coat, trying to shake the cold.
Chapter Nine
Weiskopf, Jones and Bremmer was less than five miles from Wallis’ house, nestled in a small row of Colonial style white townhouses that fronted the busy corner of Church and Broad Street Roads between a fortune teller and a real estate agent. The far end was a Chinese restaurant. The fortune teller, Madame Bella, was on the end closest to Broad Street Road and had a giant sign in the manicured grass out front displaying a glowing purple hand with neon white lines inside the palm. A smaller multi-colored neon eye was in a first floor window. At Christmas the Madame would decorate all of it with small white twinkling lights. Ned called her sign in front the fickle fingers of fate. Harriet saw the proximity as a scandal in the making and was always trying to get Wallis to call the county and protest.
“Protest what, mother? That it lights up?”
“Well, I don’t know what people will think.”
On more than one occasion Norman would hand Harriet a twenty after a few minutes of listening to her whine and tell her to go ask the Madame, that she would know. Harriet would look hurt but always kept the money.
Only two yards away was the smaller, white wooden sign of the law firm with the three names painted in understated black script. In an equal distance of two yards each were similar quiet signs for the real estate agent and the Chinese restaurant. Sometimes, when Wallis had to work late at night she would glance out of her office window on the second floor at the purple hand and try to figure out what neon sign they could erect. When she was tired she thought of things like a big giant mallet. That could be taken so many different ways.
Wallis walked into the office from the back door that faced the parking lot and said hello to her paralegal, Laurel, a pretty young woman with two small children. Wallis had handled the divorce and child arrangements for her last year. No one in the office, not William’s assistant Patty, an older heavy-set woman twice-divorced, or William, still a bachelor, was happily married, except for Wallis and Norman.
“Norman in yet?” asked Wallis, “Hi Patty.”
Patty looked up over the half-glasses she was wearing and gave a small wave.
“He’s on the phone with an irate client,” said Patty, rolling her eyes. “Amazing how you two start out together in the morning but still need to ask us to figure out each other’s schedule.”
“Nice dress,” said Wallis, ignoring the comment and looking at the larger-than-life pattern of roses that enveloped Patty. “Maybe it’ll make spring get here a little faster. Not too fond of the last days of March. So dreary right to the bitter end. Out like a lamb is a lie.”
Patty looked up over her half-moon glasses and raised her eyebrows making the tight gray bun move on the top of her head. “I’ll remind you when it’s August and a steam bath.”
“Positive attitude as usual, Patty.”
Patty was a fixture in the office and had originally worked for Wallis and Norman before William had come along. “Just trying to keep your feet on the ground, dearie.”
“Thank you, keep up the good effort.”
Wallis put the box she had been carrying on the floor near Laurel. The waiting area was comfortable but sparse. Two small brocade upholstered sofas and two hardback chairs were separated by small wooden mahogany tables and brass lamps with green metal shades. The magazines on the small tables were all at least a few months old and well-worn. Wallis wasn’t very fond of the style but didn’t care enough to change it. Harriet had done the decorating. Norman’s contribution was a small clay pot with a cork in it and an inscription on the front that read ‘Bad Clients’.
“I’ll get with you in a few minutes, Laurel. Let me get settled first,” said Wallis, starting up the stairs. It was Wallis’ routine. Check her messages, unload her briefcase, look at her schedule for the day and then find out what had already changed or gone wrong. That was the nature of family law, someone or something was always throwing a curve into the plans.
She took a turn at the top and headed to her office with a nice view of the street and the fickle fingers. Norman’s office was on the back and overlooked the parking lot and a few more small shops across the way.
Wallis put her briefcase down on the large oak desk that had been her father, Walter’s, when he worked for the fabric mills as a salesman. It was plain and sturdy, which was a good description of her father. He had worked long hours traveling all over the mid-Atlantic region carting samples of corduroy and sateen when there were still enough clothing manufacturers left in the states.
Eventually, trying to make ends meet and keep Harriet moderately happy wore him down and he quietly passed away in his beloved recliner one night while watching the news. His starched collar was loosened and his polished brown leather Florsheim’s with the well-worn spots on the soles were neatly lined up next to the chair. His dinner was getting cold on the tray beside him. Wallis had already moved out and was living in D.C. but missed him terribly all the time. He had been easy-going and quick with a joke and unlike Harriet, always saw the best in everything.
“Your mother doesn’t just see the glass as half-empty,” he had once said, “she wonders who the hell stole the other half. I, on the other hand, wonder if I can interest them in buying just a little bit more and filling it back up.”
Wallis knew, though, that Walter was the love of her mother’s life and Harriet never got over the loss. She once noticed her mother gingerly tucking a gold chain into the top of her dress, her beloved Walter’s wedding band dangling from the bottom.
Harriet still wore her matched platinum set wit
h the quarter karat diamond on her finger where it had rested since Walter had placed them there and she had never mentioned taking them off.
Wallis glanced at her schedule, noting the child support hearing that afternoon and the recorder concert at Ned’s school. She knew it was going to be tough to make it in time to the school. Maybe Norman could go alone, she thought, already feeling a little guilty.
She headed down the steps pulling the dropped paper out of her pocket as she quickly took the stairs and unfolded it, stopping halfway down. It was a spreadsheet of boys names cross-referenced with schools, churches, clubs, awards. Wallis recognized a few of the names. The boys were the same age as Ned but according to the piece of paper they all went to one of the three private schools thought to be necessary to maintain a social standing in Richmond. The clubs were mostly elite social clubs where only the right family name could gain someone admission. Same with the churches. A regular body could get into one, but they’d never let you feel comfortable enough to stay.
Wallis didn’t really socialize with any of the names that were listed but had been the attorney, sometimes several times, for some of them as they remixed their families. In the last column on the paper was a series of short numbers next to each boy’s name, sometimes repeated. 845 or 671 or 907, repeated as if at random.
“Wallis?” Laurel was calling to her. “You coming down?”
Wallis refolded the paper and put it back in her pocket, heading down the last few steps and around the corner.
Laurel was walking toward the storage room with the box Wallis had left on the floor.
“Hey, where are you going with that? We couldn’t have won yet, could we?”
“Don’t you listen to the morning news? We won by default, Ray Billings is dead. Shot himself in the head yesterday. His widow won’t be needing a divorce after all.”
Wallis self-consciously pushed against the paper in her pocket, startled.
“They’re sure it’s suicide?”
“I think the phrase the news used was apparent suicide. What’s wrong? You have that look.”