Part 4 (1/2)
”I'll go pick up twenty cases of something decent and we just switch it! How clever is that?” Mark was smiling from ear to ear. ”We put your wine in our cellar temporarily, sell it either to a broker or at auction later on down the line, and that'll put a cool twenty-five thousand in your pocket. Maybe fifty! So what do you think? Smart, right?”
Silence hung between us for a moment while I tried to figure out if they were serious.
”Can you drive the Expedition to h.e.l.l? 'Cause that's where y'all are going.”
”What do you mean?” Patti said, completely mystified by my apparent lack of enthusiasm for their plan to send me to jail on top of everything else.
”Do you understand fraud? Great G.o.d, Patti! Mark, if we switch the Chateau Magnifique 1980 for the House of Mediocre Rat p.i.s.s 2010, it's fraud, it's a felony, and it probably breaks about another twenty laws. Good grief, y'all!”
All the air left the room in a great whoosh to be immediately replaced with yesterday's heavily laden gloom.
”She's right, Mark.”
Mark, looking crestfallen as I pulled the plug on our adrenaline-pumping life of crime, shook his head in agreement.
”d.a.m.n it all! I thought it was such a great idea,” Mark said. ”I mean, wine? What regular judge in a New Jersey bankruptcy court knows jack s.h.i.+t about the value of rare wine? You know those guys don't drink anything but whiskey. Probably. Maybe single malts.”
I was now doubly appalled that my heretofore saintly brother-in-law would a.s.sert that those learned gentlemen of the bench, in whom our society places a powerful sacred trust, were to be found after hours down at some seedy pub on the corner, knocking back shots of Jack Black and perhaps even doing something as commonplace as playing darts. Shocking.
”But maybe not. Come on, Mark. That's a very dangerous a.s.sumption to make. With all the business they're doing these days? You said it yourself. Bankruptcy courts are crazy busy. And those judges aren't exactly a bunch of dummies, you know. It would take those guys all of about a week to get up to speed and get their own reality show on the topic. The Jersey Judges Do Vino! Besides, all they'd have to do is subpoena the books or whatever it is that they do to the auction houses and the big distributors around here.”
”She's right, Mark. It would be like, Oh, Mrs. Cooper, we see here that on such and such a day you sold twelve cases of pinot to so and so . . .”
”You know, you can stop all your robust agreeing with your sister any time now, Patti. I get the picture.”
”Oh, come on,” I said, seeing that Mark's pride was nicked. ”Have another doughnut. They're good for you.”
”Right,” he said, defeated, and stuffed an entire jelly doughnut in his mouth.
”Look,” I said, ”I'm going to sell my diamonds. They've got to be worth a nice chunk of change. And I've got about twenty thousand dollars in my safe.”
”Where's the safe?” Mark asked.
”Behind a fake wall in the wine cellar.”
”You'd better empty that p.r.o.nto,” he said.
”I'm going to do that this morning. There's cash in the bank but I'm thinking anything with Addison's name on it is going to be frozen.”
”Count on it. And everything else is held jointly, I imagine?” Mark said, turning his attention to the newspapers.
”Naturally,” I said and they rolled their eyes to the ceiling. ”Stupid, I know.”
”A woman should always have her own FU money,” Patti said.
”You're right. That's what the twenty thousand is but in this situation it's clearly not enough. I just need to get a job and find a nice little place to live and I'll be fine.”
”Right. And what do you think you'll do for a living?”
”I don't know. I haven't worked that part out yet. I've been a little busy.”
”True,” Patti said and smiled at me. ”Well, if I were you I'd bail on this whole town. Maybe I'd even bail on the state. There's no real reason for you to stay here anymore, is there?”
”Well, excuse me, but you're here. And where would I go anyway?”
”Well, there's Aunt Daisy, don't forget. I talked to her right before the funeral. Did I tell you that?”
”Um, no. Wait, maybe you did. I can't remember.”
”Poor thing. She was just sick about not being able to be here with you and the kids. But, with her broken foot, you know she can't get around very easily or drive. Anyway, she needs somebody to help her with the Porgy House and all her other houses.”
Our aunt Daisy, who raised us after our parents died and considered herself to be my children's grandmother, was something of a legend. She was known for her crazy hats and her even more colorful personality. Aunt Daisy purchased numerous rental houses over the years and had become the single largest property-holder on Folly Beach. I knew she had bought the Porgy House, which sounded like a good name for a butcher's shop to me, and for the life of me I didn't know why she would want such a funny little place. But it had historic value, as it was the place where Dorothy and DuBose Heyward composed the lyrics for Porgy and Bess with Gershwin. And it was true that she was getting older. Ella, her closest friend (read: life partner), had to be eighty-something, so she couldn't possibly be much of a help.
”Why in the world did she ever buy the Porgy House? It's so plain.”
”Well, she's got her thing for Porgy and Bess, you know. She's always been crazy for anything about the Gershwins or the Heywards and I think she's got a little museum going or something like that. Anyway, you might want to pay her a visit for a while, you know, clear your head?”
All of this was certainly something to think about.
”And abandon this lovely climate?” I said sarcastically.
”Right?”
”No doubt some vitamin D would do me good.”
”That's for sure. Mega doses. Hey, listen, you could help her with all those rentals, I think she has about twelve. That's a lot to handle at her age.”
What would I do for a living? Like my daughter, I had that handy degree in musical theater, but I was a little long in the tooth to buckle up my tap shoes. But there were other things I had always wanted to do in my life and I imagined I would sit down, make a list, and weigh it all very carefully.
”Maybe. I'll have to think that one over. You know, after a death you're not supposed to make any changes for one year.”
”And do what? Starve in the meanwhile? That's a load of nonsense.”
”Good point,” I said and knew she was right.
Meanwhile, while I considered my almost nonexistent options, I set up paper cups of oatmeal with raisins and honey for them to microwave. When Sara, Russ, and Alice got up, there would be something warm to put in their stomachs. I wondered if Aunt Daisy would even want me there. It suddenly occurred to me that this was a good time to clean the freezer, since I was going to be leaving.
”Hey, Patti?”
”Yeah?”
”You might want to look in my freezer and in the pantry to see if there's any food you want. I know there are about a dozen containers of chicken stock and there's pesto, too. And while you're in there see if there's any breakfast sausage. Russ loves sausage, you know.”
”All men do,” she said.
Over the next hour, I cooked sausage in the microwave on paper towels and b.u.t.tered toast while Sara, Russ, and Alice drifted in, took a cup of coffee, and drifted back to their rooms to have a shower. No one was happy about the snow or particularly enthusiastic about the oatmeal. But we did manage to make three pounds of the sausage disappear, picked up from the griddle on the back of the stove with our fingers, stuck between slices of toast like a sandwich, and held in paper napkins. We were in post-traumatic tailgate mode. Plus the plates were gone.
”I'll bet you a buck that our flight's gonna be canceled,” Russ said, watching the snow falling through the kitchen window.
”I'll call the airline,” Alice said.