The Opposite of Everyone: A Novel (5 page)

“Hello, Mrs. Winkley,” I said. She flicked her hand, maybe waving hello, maybe shooing me aside. She angled right and I matched her again, staying between her and the door. Behind me, Julian slipped out and headed toward our offices. “I understand we need to schedule a meeting?”

At last she spoke. “Do you? Because I understand that we should have met an hour ago. I don’t have time now. I’m not that interested in being shunted off on you, anyway.”

I remembered Oakleigh’s voice as high-pitched and kittenish. Not right now. She looked a little sweaty, a little pink, and her practiced lilt was bordering on screechy. In this morning’s deposition, Oakleigh had lost her crap. Nick’s panicked text had actually read, “she lops he crake,” but I was fluent in autofill. On the phone, he’d told me in a terse whisper that when Oakleigh’s fit was at its zenith, the husband muttered something Nick did not quite catch. Oakleigh understood it, though. She physically attacked her husband, leaping up and beating him about the head and shoulders with her outsize Hermès bag. The camera was rolling, and the husband cowered perfectly. His lawyer tried to look shocked and appalled instead of so thrilled he was practically having an orgasm. He was now threatening to take the case in front of a jury if negotiations didn’t turn his way.

Most of our divorces settled in mediation. If mediation failed, we went before a judge. But in Georgia, either party could choose to let a jury decide who got the dogs and who got the silver spoons. It was risky, but a viable strategy, especially if the client was a long-suffering saint with a spouse who sinned spectacularly on YouTube.

Juries could be punishing, much more so than judges, and they came in with a host of biases. Now that there was video of our client beating her husband into jam with a handbag that cost more than the average Atlanta juror’s monthly income, a jury trial was a real threat.

Nick did a lot of things beautifully, including tennis, oral sex, and mediation, but he did not do juries. Neither did Catherine. My name attached to a case could often make opposing counsel feel re-interested in fair. They’d go right back to mediation. And if it didn’t? Fine with me.

Divorce by jury was all about which lawyer could spin a better tale, and I’d grown up with a woman who could make a heap of stolen parts sound truer than the truth. She could shade a story I’d heard a thousand times until all at once the meaning inverted and it became its own opposite. I was her kid. I operated inside the ethics of my profession, but I could spin like nobody’s business.

That made
Winkley v. Winkley
the exact type of case my partners tossed to me. I had not been there to catch it. Again. Dammit. I could feel a familiar post-freakout headache rising up behind my left eye.

“You’re not being shunted, Mrs. Winkley.” I spoke in my lowest register. I’d met Oakleigh only twice, but I knew her type well. She reminded me of a milky-colored Arab pony one of Kai’s old boyfriends had owned. She was a flirty, saucy piece of business, but if you turned your back, she’d sink her teeth deep into the meat of your shoulder. Oakleigh and the pony both responded better to an alto.

“Evans. I’m taking back my maiden name,” she snapped, tossing her head. “And now you’ve let my elevator get away.” She reached around me and pressed the call button.

I said, “Since we have a minute, you may as well explain what made you—” I caught myself about to say
lose your shit
to an already door-bound client. Damn Julian Bouchard and his familiar eyes. I edited on the fly. “—made you so unhappy at this morning’s meeting?”

Oakleigh twitched one shoulder in a furious, small shrug. “Clark robbed me.” She must have seen confusion flash on my face, because she said, “Clark? My husband?”

I hadn’t met the husband, and I wasn’t 100 percent sure who was repping him. Nick had said from the beginning that I should be sitting in on
Winkley v. Winkley
.

“He came to the house yesterday to get some clothes,” Oakleigh went on. “I was there, but I stayed downstairs while he packed. He left with a suit bag, and that’s all. But this morning, I was in the dressing room, and it didn’t look like he’d taken any suits. I started looking around, and you know what he really packed?” Her eyes squinched up, small and mean, and her lips made an ugly, angry bow. I would have to train this face out of her repertoire. No juror should ever see it. “Everything from the upstairs safe. We kept ten thousand in cash there, and some bearer bonds, and my Cartier watch. That was an engagement present, so it’s purely mine. Then at the deposition he looked right at me and said, ‘What watch?’ Smiling like a viper. I swear I can see his old nose when he makes that smile, and I invented his new one. It was my present to him, and he took my watch, so I should get that nose back. I should get to tear it right off his smug face.”

She stomped her foot. She was wearing this season’s clompy Balmain booties. They cost about nine hundred dollars, each, which meant one of her shoes was a fair trade for both of mine.

At least I had her in a conversation now. “Ms. Evans, if this goes to a jury, you need a lawyer who can put this morning’s depo tape into a context.”

She seemed to be listening, but all at once she sidestepped and went past me, saying, “Thank you. I’d best go find me one.”

A second later, the elevator dinged, arriving. She’d seen the call light go out and done a perfect end run. I shouldered forward to stop the doors from closing behind her. Her heels had a good two inches on mine, but I was tall, and she was tiny. I got a pretty good loom in.

I said, “There are a ton of lawyers in this town who can get you a fair settlement. But between you and me? I don’t think you’re interested in that. We’re past fair, here, aren’t we? He took us past fair when he stole your watch.” I racked my brain for any bit of info from her file that I could use. Her husband owned his own company, I thought. Consulting? I couldn’t remember, so I kept it vague. “You don’t want alimony trickling in for a few years. You want to take that company he’s so proud of, and hack it up, and set the bits on fire. Make him watch while we sell the burning pieces for a chunk of capital.”

Oakleigh’s eyes seemed to focus on me for the first time, so I kept going. “You want to raze his fields and salt his earth so nothing ever grows there again. You want to drag him through thorns until he’s throwing all your rightful money at you with a shovel just to make it stop.”

I’d given variations of this speech before. It was my standard BANK case speech, and I was good at it; I gave it all I had.

“You want his sins unearthed and dragged screaming into sunshine. You want your own small sins explained, so it’s clear you were driven to them. By him.” Oakleigh had stilled, and her neck had lengthened, her shoulders curling toward me as I spoke. I leaned in toward her another inch, let her feel how much taller I was. “That’s what I do. It’s what I do best, in fact. And all the things you want? Your husband wants them, too. He wants to go to a Denny’s one day and have you be his waitress. That’s what he’s telling his lawyer, right now. This morning, you gave him ammunition. What else does he have on you?” Her long lashes swept down, so thick they had to be extensions. When she looked back up, I smiled as coldly as I could. “You want me. Between him and you. Between you and his lawyer. Who’s he got?”

“Dean Macon?” she said. “Everyone says he’s really good.”

“I’m better,” I said. “I’ve eaten Macon from the ground up, more than once.” This was true on several levels, back before I’d traded in my libido for panic attacks.

I had her. I knew I had her, but before I could close, the elevator began making a loud, obnoxious beeping noise, complaining that I had held it for too long. The spell I’d cast on Oakleigh broke.

“Let’s schedule a meeting, Oakleigh,” I said, too loud and too late.

“I’ll think about it.” She waved a hand at the blaring doors. “Ugh, that sound!”

I pulled my card out of my bag and held it toward her, trying to recapture her. “You’re going to want this.”

I didn’t step back. Oakleigh compressed her plumped lips, as if I was handing her a dead bug. I stood my ground, though, ready to let the elevator shriek until we both went deaf and died of old age.

Finally she snatched the card and stuffed it in her handbag. I smiled and stepped back. The doors closed, framing our BANK as she was going, going, gone.

The smile fell off my face, and I turned and leaned against the wall. They were such rare things. Our last true BANK had been
Skopes v. Skopes,
which felt so far away from where I was now that it was practically mythology. I was sick down in the pit of me, and it was more than the panic-attack hangover. I hated losing, and I hated letting down my partners, especially Nick. Oakleigh’s brand of ugly put him off his feed, and he counted on me to handle cases like this.

I pushed off the wall, checking my watch, though I wasn’t sure why. There was nothing left on today’s calendar but Birdwine. If the gods had any mercy, he would have brought me nine good reasons to take a pass on this pro bono.

When I opened our door, I saw Julian standing by the coffee table, looking ill at ease. Verona was away from her desk, but Julian wasn’t alone. Birdwine had arrived a little early. He sprawled on the sofa with both arms stretched along the back and his long legs stretched under the glass coffee table, taking up enough room for two of him.

He sat up and grinned as I came in, showing me the gap between his front teeth. I’d always liked that gap. When he first started working for me again, I’d gotten mostly the close-lipped smile he gave strangers. But now? I saw this one on the regular. Something about me screwing my life to the wall had made him comfortable. It wasn’t schadenfreude, though. It was more like one fuckup relaxing in the presence of another.

I smiled back, and then I said to Julian, “I’m sorry. It looks like our receptionist stepped away. Someone should come help you in a sec, okay?”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Oh, sorry. I’m not in a hurry.” He seemed to preface a lot of his sentences with an
Oh
and an apology, like a verbal tic.

“You can sit down if you like,” I said.

He swallowed, eyeing the sofa. “I didn’t realize it would be so, um, fancy.”

“You want to come on back?” I asked Birdwine. He stood to follow me. I told Julian, “Please help yourself to coffee.”

As Birdwine came around the low table, Julian flushed again and said, “I don’t think I should. I mean, I’m not a real client. I’m here for something personal.”

That was odd. He did seem too young and broke to be a client, but the only creatures who came to see Nick for something “personal” were thirty-something brunettes with Pilates abs and red lipstick. Catherine, a full partner with a husband and three kids, barely had a private life.

“I think we can spare a coffee. Maybe even sugar, if you keep it to one packet,” I said, mock stern.

Julian smiled and turned toward the coffee station. As he and Birdwine crossed paths, Birdwine said, “Are you really interested in this one, Paula? I can dig more, but—”

When Birdwine said my name, Julian whirled back, stepping toward me, and they banged together. Julian fumbled his folder, and all the papers spilled out in a scatter.

Julian didn’t seem to notice. He pushed past Birdwine and came at me, fast. For the second time he grasped my elbow, putting his face too close to my face. “You’re Paula? Paula Vauss?”

“Vauss,” I said, automatically correcting his pronunciation. His grip on my elbow was so tight it almost hurt. He’d gone pale, and I felt something bad, almost electric, prickling in the air between us.

Birdwine felt it, too. He ignored the dropped papers and stepped toward us, purposeful. I gave him a little headshake. Birdwine would break this bendy straw of a boy in two. I felt a threat, but it wasn’t this bewildered kid. It felt like it was rising up around us both, enveloping us.

Birdwine took my hint, backing off, but only by a step. Julian blinked in slow motion, like he was waking up. He stared down at the papers spread across the floor.

“Oh, sorry.” He let go of my elbow. He dropped to his knees, ineffectually swabbing at the mess. He scooped a couple back into the folder, but his crescent-shaped eyes stayed fixed on me. Two hectic spots of bright color burned in his cheeks, and that bad current was still running back and forth between us. “Is there another Paula Vauss?” he asked me.

“I’m sure there must be several, somewhere,” I said.

I dropped to my knees by him, helping him gather his things. I wanted this kid gone. I didn’t want whatever fresh, electric hell he’d brought in with him, tucked into his pocket with his waxy mini candies.

Julian said, “But you’re Paula Vauss, the lawyer. The one born in Alabama? And you went to Emory Law?”

“What the hell?” Birdwine said.

I froze. “Did you have me investigated?” I said, outright belligerent now.

Julian stared at me with such intensity, and the more he stared, the more upsetting I found his eyes. They were so perfectly the color of my mother’s.

He said, “I thought that you’d look different. You know?”

I didn’t know. I shook my head.

“What’s going on here, kid?” Birdwine asked.

Julian talked over him, saying, “I thought that you would look a different way.”

He scrabbled through his scattered papers, then picked one up and held it out to me.

I took it. It was a birth certificate issued in Georgia, but not from a town I knew. The lines had been filled in by hand, and it was a copy, so it was very hard to read. It certified the live birth of a male child, six pounds, nine ounces. The first name started with a G. Maybe Garrett? The last name was easier to read, maybe because it was so damn familiar. The last name was
Vauss.

My lungs tightened a notch, and my gaze jumped around on the page, hunting for the mother’s name.

Karen Vauss.

“Paula?” Birdwine said, from somewhere very high above us.

The certificate was twenty-three years old. So this kid had been born when I was twelve. When I was in foster care. My heart stuttered, straining forward like an impatient horse hoping for the cue to canter. If this pale, unlikely boy was truly Kai’s, then he’d been born while she was incarcerated, just like me.