Kristen Ashley - The Will

Here. Home.

Here was where I put my father behind me.

Here was where I put my world behind me.

Here was where I got the call from a girlfriend who had moved to New York to do something in the fashion world (anything, she didn’t care, and she succeeded and was then working as a minion for flash-in-the-pan diva designer who thought he was everything who had recently been fired from his job designing clothes for discount department stores).

A girlfriend who told me Henry Gagnon was looking for an assistant and she knew I loved clothes, I was an admirer of his photos and she could talk to someone who could talk to someone who could maybe get me a meeting with him.

And here was where I took the next call when I learned she got me a meeting with him.

Here was where my life ended…twice, even as it started again…twice.

It still smelled like Gran here even though it had been years since she could get up to this room.

She was everywhere in Lavender House.

But mostly she was here.

And now she was gone.

And on that thought, it happened.

I knew it would happen. I was just glad it didn’t happen at her graveside, in front of people.

It happened there, the safest place I could be, the safest place I ever had, with Gran all around me.

The first time in over two decades when I let emotion overwhelm me and I wept loud, abhorrent tears that wracked my body and caused deep, abiding pain to every inch of me rather than releasing any.

I didn’t go out and buy a bottle of wine.

I certainly didn’t get a bucket of chicken (not that I was going to anyway).

And I didn’t watch the real housewives of anywhere on TV.

I fell asleep on that window seat with tears still wet on my face and with Gran all around me.

The safest place I could be.

“Ah, Josephine Malone. I’m Terry Baginski.”

I stood from my chair in the waiting room and took Terry Baginski’s outstretched hand, noting her hair was pulled severely back from her face and secured in the back in a girlish ponytail.

I noted this thinking that there were many women in the world with strong or delicate enough features to be able to wear that hairstyle at any age.

She just wasn’t one of them.

This thought wasn’t kind. However, it was true and I caught myself wishing I could explain this to her as well as share that she may wish to use a less heavy hand with makeup and perhaps buy a suit that didn’t scream power! but instead implied femininity, which, if done right, was much more powerful.

Then I didn’t think anything at all except wishing she’d release my hand for when she took it, she squeezed it so hard my hand was forced to curl unnaturally into itself and this caused pain.

Fortunately, she released my hand only an instant after she grasped it in that absurdly firm grip.

She kept talking and what she said confused me.

“Mr. Spear is late, which isn’t a surprise. But I’ll show you to my office and we’ll have someone get you a coffee.”

She then turned and walked away without giving me a chance to utter a word.

I had no choice but to follow her.

As I did, I asked her back, “Where is Mr. Weaver?”

Arnold Weaver was my grandmother’s attorney. I knew him. He was a nice man. His wife was a nice woman. On the occasion I was there for Christmas, we always went to their Christmas party. This meant I’d been to a goodly number of Weaver Christmas parties and therefore I knew Arnie and Eliza Weaver were nice people, my grandmother liked them a great deal and I thought they were lovely.

“Oh, sorry,” she threw over her shoulder as she turned into an open door and I followed her. “Arnie is on a leave of absence,” she stated, stopped and turned to me. “His wife is ill. Cancer. It’s not looking good.”

I let the shock of learning the sweet, kind Elizabeth Weaver had cancer and it was “not looking good” score through me, the feeling intensely unpleasant, but Ms. Baginski didn’t notice.

She waved a hand to a chair in front of a colossal desk that was part of an arrangement of furniture that was far too big and too grand for the smallish office. She also kept speaking.

“I’ll send someone in to get you some coffee. But as Mr. Spear is late, and I’m quite busy, if you don’t’ mind, I’ll take this opportunity to speak to a few colleagues about some important issues that need to be discussed.”

I did mind.

Our meeting was at eight thirty. I’d arrived at eight twenty-five. She’d come to meet me in reception at eight thirty-nine. She was already late and that had nothing to do with the unknown Mr. Spear. Now she was leaving me alone and I had not one thing to do for the unknown period of time she’d be gone.

And last, I still did not know who Mr. Spear was.

“I’m sorry, I’m confused,” I shared as she was walking to the door. She stopped, looked at me and lifted her brows, unsuccessfully attempting to hide her impatience. “Who is Mr. Spear?”

Her head cocked to the side sharply and she replied, “He’s the other person mentioned in your grandmother’s will.”

I stared at her, knowing I was showing I was nonplussed mostly because I made no attempt to hide it.

“I’ll be back,” she said to me, giving me no information to clear my confusion, and she disappeared out the door.

Therefore, I stood there staring at the door.

And doing so, I thought on meager information she imparted on me.

What I thought was that my grandmother was well-known and well loved. I would not have been surprised if there were a dozen or more people at the reading of her will. I wouldn’t even be surprised if she willed parcels of money and trinkets to half the town.

What surprised me was that the only other person that was supposed to be there was a person whose name I’d never heard in my life.

Without anyone to ask further questions, I moved to the chair she’d indicated, took my handbag off my shoulder and tucked it at my side.

A few minutes later, a young woman came and asked me my coffee preference. I gave it to her. When she left, I emailed Daniel on my phone to remind him to charge Henry’s iPod before they got on the plane for Rome the next day. He’d need to do this since Henry liked to listen to music all the time but especially on long haul flights and LA to Rome was definitely long haul. The young woman brought my coffee. By the time Ms. Baginski returned, I was half finished with it, it was nine o’clock, I’d sat there for twenty minutes with nothing to do and I was fuming.

“He’s not here yet?” she asked without greeting, entering the office while surveying it with unconcealed annoyance.

“Ms. Baginski—” I started just as the young woman who brought my coffee appeared in the door.

“Terry, Mr. Spear phoned. He said he’s been held up but he’s five minutes from the offices,” she announced.

“That means he’s twenty minutes away,” Terry Baginski murmured strangely as well as irately and reached out to the phone. “Thanks, Michelle,” she called and her eyes moved through me. “As I have a bit more time, I hope you don’t mind if I make a phone call.”

Actually, I again did mind and I opened my mouth to tell her that but she hit one button and a quick succession of tones filled the air. Before I could make a sound, she grabbed the handset, put it to her ear and swiveled her large, pretentious chair slightly away so I had her side.

I felt my mouth get tight, turned my eyes to my foot and started tapping my toe.

I felt slightly mollified looking at my shoes.

They were beautiful shoes.

Indeed, all I had were beautiful shoes. I didn’t own a pair of sneakers or flip-flops and I hoped to God I never would.

Handbags and shoes were my passion.

Actually, apparel on the whole was my passion.

But I couldn’t take comfort in viewing my garments as I couldn’t see my outfit though I was again wearing black. I’d donned my outfit because I felt it was apropos for the occasion. A black pencil skirt that fit like a glove all the way down to my knees. The hem fell further, to mid-calf and it fit so snug to my hips and legs, the only reason I could walk was that there was a slit that went up to the top of the backs of my knees.

My blouse was also black, and it was silk. It looked from the front like a simple blouse (though, with a fabulous high collar that hugged my jaw and had an equally fabulous wide strip of matching cloth that I tied in a big bow at my throat). The back, however, had a cutout that exposed skin from the base of the neck, and from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, the rest of my back was covered.

It, too, fit me perfectly.

The outfit (outside the extraordinary fit, simplicity, excellent quality fabrics and that cutout) was quite unremarkable. Elegant (I thought), but unremarkable.

My shoes, however, were very remarkable

Dove gray patent leather slingbacks with a pencil-slim four-inch stiletto heel and a pointed toe. The toe was black patent leather. The heel and sole, however, were bright fuchsia.

They were divine.

My hair, as it always was, was pulled loosely back in an elegant chignon. This one I’d teased a hint to give it volume but it sat smooth and full along the length of the base of my skull.

My makeup, as ever, was superb.

And I usually didn’t give way to these thoughts as Gran had taught me there were pointless (not to mention unkind). But in that moment, staring at Terry Baginski’s profile, taking in her arrogant, dismissive demeanor along with her hair, her harsh makeup and her clothing that had been bought off the rack, which wasn’t bad except for the fact it was the wrong rack, I allowed myself to feel smug.

Gran would be disappointed but I couldn’t help but admit these thoughts made me feel better.

She murmured into the phone.

I leaned forward and took another sip of coffee.

I was replacing the cup in its saucer on Ms. Baginski’s desk when, from behind me, I heard, “Mr. Spear has arrived.”

Apparently, as Ms. Baginski alluded, he had not lied. It wasn’t twenty minutes. It was five.

I looked around my chair to see the young woman standing there.

One second later, my back shot straight in shock when the man who had been staring at me at the funeral strode into the room.

Today, he was wearing a superbly cut black blazer, a tailored black shirt, blue jeans and black boots.

It was far less formal attire than his suit of the day before but, oddly, it suited him far better.

Far better.

His eyes hit me.

My lips (expertly lined, filled and glossed, though some of that was now on my coffee cup) parted and my stomach twisted in a knot.

“I have something happening,” Ms. Baginski said into the phone. “It won’t take long. I’ll call you back later.”

She said this and I ignored it for I was watching with rapt attention as that man walked into the office. Thus, I was also watching when he came to a stop several feet from the back of the chairs. And thus, I could feel the full force of the fact that the office wasn’t big but we could be in an amphitheater and his overwhelmingly male presence would fill the space.

“Finally, we can get started,” Ms. Baginski stated. “Ms. Malone, do you know Jake Spear?”

I slowly rose from my chair, turned to him and started to move around the chair, lifting my hand, doing all this finding myself in his overpowering presence unable to speak.

I saw him lift one of his mighty paws as I walked toward him thinking I was not petite but his hand would engulf mine when he took hold of it.

Something about that made my skin feel funny, like I wasn’t comfortable in it or it needed soothing attention.

And it was on this thought the point of the toe on my shoe caught on the thick pile of the overlarge rug that covered the office carpet (for some odd reason) and I stumbled.

This happened frequently. I found it annoying and, regardless of how cute Gran found it or how amusing Henry did, I detested it.

I detested it more that I’d done it in front of that man.

I couldn’t think on that, however. As I flew forward, I felt my hand caught in a firm grip even as I brought up the other one to brace me wherever I was to land.