The next morning, after throwing up her breakfast, she made herself drive down to the hardware store where the guy had been nice and bought paint to cover over that word. She thought of buying soda crackers. That was supposed to help, wasn’t it? The diner where Winston had taken her for breakfast was on the way to the grocery store, so she decided to stop for some soup and see if their crackers would help. It was almost lunch time, if you were up early. There weren’t very many cars in the lot. She figured this was a safe haven. It wasn’t the sort of place where the women of the town hung out. She got out of the truck and immediately heard Winston’s voice from behind the building. He was angry.
“I won’t do it, goddamn it!”
She walked over to take a peek . He was standing back there with Jack and Edward. They all had cigarettes lit and were puffing at each other.
“You don’t have any choice in this!” Edward told him.
“I quit! You two can go hang yourself!”
Edward grabbed him by the shirt collar.
“You shut up and listen! You have liabilities. You want to see your missus in a lot of pain?”
Winston shoved him off.
“You son of a bitch!”
Jack got between them.
“Listen, both of you! Calm down. We are clever guys. We can figure out ways to get her to leave. Think, you’ve both been with her. Is there anything we can use?”
Winston stopped himself from saying something.
“Out with it,” Jack said.
“Let me think about it,” Winston told him.
“I can get the bank to foreclose on the apartment building,“ her lawyer said.
“That’s a start. Let’s talk tomorrow. You two need to keep calm,” Jack told them. He started out toward her. Daydee hopped back into her truck and hid from him. He walked right by her without even seeing the truck that he knew well. There was a huge scowl on his face. What the hell was this? Edward came out next and got into his car and left. She got out again when he turned out of the lot. She went back to where Winston was standing by himself. He looked at her frightened.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. You need to leave Paris!”
He rushed by her and ran for his car. He drove away without looking back.
Daydee went back home without her soup. They had been arguing about her- that was obvious. But why? Was she sitting on something she didn’t know she had? They wanted her out of the way for some reason. She tried to imagine what. The only thing she hadn’t seen was what was in the locked garage at her great-grandmother’s house. There didn’t seem to be any mysterious paperwork or deeds or bank accounts. Maybe there was oil under one of the properties she had inherited and they wanted her out of town so they could drill without her knowing about it. Or maybe there was something buried out at the cemetery they didn’t want her to find. Those were two places she would have to root around in . She’d break into the garage and take a close look through the cemetery office. She got out the paint and began to cover the lettering across her front door. It was going to take more than one coat. This got her angry. This had to be one of them. If it was Winston, she would kill him. And she had invited him to dinner and had gone to church with him. Of all the goddamn nerve. What was worst, she had been conned. She hadn’t believed that there was a man in the world that could pull one over on her.
Sarah pulled up out front with a couple in the car with her. Daydee quickly opened the front door of her apartment so that the middle of the red word couldn’t be seen. She moved the ladder she had up with her can of paint on it to hide one side of the door jam. They got out of the car and came up the walk. The couple were young and probably newlyweds or at least boyfriend and girlfriend.
Sarah introduced them as Mark and Amy.
“They are interested in an apartment. I told them about the first month free promotion you had going.”
“Sure. Let me get the keys.”
She came back and showed them the first one that was next to hers. They wanted to move in tomorrow. The rent was agreed upon. They would come back tomorrow with their belongings and sign a lease and take possession. It was like falling off a log. They wanted to look around the apartment some more and take some measurements. Daydee wondered if they were going to go buy furniture that afternoon.
“The kids were concerned that you might care if they were married or not,” Sarah told her. “I told them you could care less.”
“That’s right,” Daydee told them. “Just back over when you are done. I need to talk to Sarah for a minute.”
They left them there.
Daydee had never ever gone to another woman for help in her life. She might elbow a fellow hooker and share a look or a joke, but she had never relied on any of them. There were quite a few that she saw almost daily in the Quarter. They knew not to ask her for favors because she never asked. But now she was at wit’s end and this was the only soul she knew that might know enough to help.
“Sarah, I appreciate you helping me out with finding me renters.”
“You’ll get my commission invoice.”
“Sarah, there is a favor I need to ask you. I barely know you. Your ex is going to get the bank to foreclose on me. I don’t honestly know why, other than he’s just a bastard and he doesn’t like me.”
“What makes you think that?”
She told her what she had overheard at the restaurant, but left out the argument part. She wasn’t sure why, other than she still felt a little loyalty to Winston.
Sarah looked thoughtful.
“There are some things he didn’t like about your mother, but that doesn’t seem like much of a reason to sabotage you.”
“You think I should talk to the bank myself?”
“That wouldn’t hurt. You know, you should write Edward a letter to fire him, send a copy to the bank president and then go in with another lawyer to pay them a call. I’ll call you later to give you the names at the bank. You want another lawyer’s name too?”
“Sure.”
“I know the wives of two of the bank execs. Let me see if I can grease the wheels a little. You, of course, will need to sign over your first child to me.”
“I don’t know if I can do that,” Daydee said smiling. She found herself touching her belly. Stupid.
“We’ll work something out. I’ll keep you posted.”
The young couple was walking back.
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