“I'm bankrupt.”
Rodney Lambert clutched my hand, his eyes rimmed red.
So I quit my stable job, delivered food by day and worked as a paid chat companion by night, scraping together that astronomical sum for him.
He slowly pulled himself back together. I started getting ringing in my ears, shaking hands, meals at all hours or no hours at all.
That day my fever had only just broken, and I happened to pass down Main Street.
Through the floor-to-ceiling window, there he was, dabbing the mouth of the woman across from him. The steak had two bites out of it. His watch would have taken me three years to earn.
My hot soup spilled all over my shoe.
When I walked in he froze, scrambling to his feet. “She was the one who insisted……”
“Done with the act?”
I set the divorce papers on the table. “You burn through my life, she enjoys your money. You two suit each other.”
Rodney smashed his glass, his voice cracking. “Who gave you the right to decide for me!”
I smiled. “Because at home you wear a ratty T-shirt, but you walk out wearing Jo Malone. A bankrupt man, who can afford that scent?”
His face went bloodless.
The woman rose to leave, but he grabbed my wrist. “Let me explain.”
“Touch me again,” I pulled my hand back, spacing out each word, “and those few shares of yours will be just enough for me to sue you for marital-asset fraud.”
That night, he slid the black card under the door, with a line attached. “Don't go.”
I dialed my lawyer.
……
The lawyer was eating a late dinner when he picked up, the chewing pressed right against the receiver. “You sure?”
“Sure.” I gave him the unit number. “Come now.”
I hung up and sat down in the entryway.
The black card under the door caught the light, like a snake's flicking tongue.
My phone buzzed. He'd sent a voice clip, three seconds. I opened it and there was only the sound of crying.
Another came through. “I'm begging you, don't do this.”
I sent back a period.
The lawyer arrived at two in the morning, carrying a folder and a takeout box of fried noodles.
He came in, caught the smell, and frowned. “There's perfume in your place.”
“He was here.”
“Where is he now?”
“No idea.”
I took the fried noodles. “Maybe at some hotel, maybe crouched in his car. He won't dare go far.”
The lawyer opened the agreement. “This share-transfer part. You want fifty percent?”
“Sixty.”
I snapped apart the disposable chopsticks. “He used company money to plug the hole in that garbage project. I still haven't settled that account with him.”
The lawyer drew a line across the paper. “At sixty percent he'll fight you to the death.”
“Good.”
I swallowed the noodles. “Fighting to the death is exactly what I want from him.”
Before I'd finished the words, someone pounded on the door.
Hard and fast, the whole door shaking with it.
The lawyer glanced through the peephole, then turned and mouthed at me: it's him.
I walked over and pulled the door open.
Rodney was leaning against the frame, hair a mess, shirt collar twisted to one side, a bruise on his face, no telling whether he'd walked into something or someone had hit him.
He saw the lawyer, his pupils contracting, then stared straight at me. “What did you call him here for?”
“You don't get it?”
He reached out to grab my arm. I stepped back, and his hand stopped in midair.
“Listen to me,” his voice was badly hoarse, “that thing at the restaurant——that woman, she's Mr. Chavez's daughter, I had no choice.”
“Mr. Chavez's daughter's steak, and you were feeding it into her mouth?”
I pulled the door wider. “Come in. Standing in the doorway is embarrassing.”
He stumbled a step inside, his eyes sweeping over the folder the lawyer had spread open, his face paling. “What are you two signing?”
“Divorce papers.”
“I won't sign.”
“Suit yourself.”
He suddenly laughed, and on that bruised face the laugh looked vicious. “Sue me with what? Do you have proof? The company's books are spotless. You won't dig up a thing.”
