Part 26 (1/2)
”Is that a surprise?” I asked.
”No,” he said, closing his magazine carefully and setting it back on the table. This is the thing I find curious about lawyers. Even when they want to talk to you, they don't say very much. Mr. Long was clearly happy to see me and more than willing to talk to me while we waited to be called into our respective depositions; it's not like he was trying to ignore me so he could read his magazine. But he really wasn't going to say anything extra. After a moment I got embarra.s.sed and decided to keep this going.
”Are you here for our case?” I asked. ”I mean, I a.s.sumed you were, but maybe you're here on somebody else's case.”
”I'm here on your case.”
”Did I hear that the Drinans were suing you? I think Lucy told me that.”
”Their lawyers have suggested it, certainly. It would be part of the case they need to build around the earlier wills.”
”What kind of a case?”
”It's just one among several arguments they might make. That perhaps I was lax in probating Mrs. Drinan's will. The first Mrs. Drinan.”
”I'm sorry about that, Mr. Long. I feel bad that you're being dragged into this on our account,” I told him.
”Not on your account, no. Bill's wishes were very clear; he meant to leave the apartment and all his worldly goods to your mother, Tina. I am here because legally, as executor of his estate, I am required to enact his wishes.”
”Yeah, but he didn't mean to leave the apartment to us,” I said. Mr. Long tilted his head, like he had to sort of dramatically think about that, even though it seemed to me that all the legal shenanigans we were about to embark on were premised on that fact.
”Have you spoken to your lawyer about that thought?” he asked me.
”Not precisely,” I admitted.
”Perhaps you should, in private,” he advised. ”Before you give your deposition. Opposing counsel will be present, and the deposition itself will be recorded as a legal doc.u.ment. So the question of Bill's intent, as you were aware of it, will surely be raised. Haven't you been prepped on this?”
”They're going to prep me just before I go in, some underling is going to run through it with me,” I explained. But I was kind of touched that he felt like taking care of me. ”What kind of things do they ask you in a deposition?” I asked.
”Well, they'll probably ask you about your mother, the last time you saw her, what she told you about Bill, things like that.”
”Oh, no,” I said. ”I meant you. What kinds of questions will they ask you?”
”Oh.” He nodded, as if that were a really intelligent thing for me to be curious about. ”Yes, I will be deposed on completely different matters. Although there will be some overlap. I'm probably the only person who really spent time with Bill and Olivia together, and they'll want to know about that.”
”You did?” I asked. I don't know why this hadn't occurred to me. From the start everybody had said he represented Bill and his estate. And I remembered Lucy saying he was Mom's lawyer, the day we found out about the apartment. ”Of course you saw them together; they had to come into your office and sign things.”
”No, no, they never came into the office,” he corrected me. ”Bill wouldn't leave the apartment. I went to them.”
”You went to them? You went to the apartment?”
”Of course. I had dinner with them many times.”
”You had dinner with them?”
”Yes, your mother was a lovely cook.”
”My mother was not a lovely cook, Mr. Long,” I said, almost laughing out loud. ”My mother never cooked.”
”Oh. Well. She cooked for Bill. And for me, when I would come by with a legal matter.”
This was so far out of the realm of possibility I didn't know what to say. ”Well, what did she cook?” I finally asked, trying not to sound utterly incredulous.
”She would roast a tenderloin or a chicken,” he replied. ”Once we had salmon fillets with some kind of sauce. I think it was an anchovy sauce, it was delicious. And Brussels sprouts in a Dijon mustard dressing, she made that once. There were concerns about Bill's diet, which she was quite alert to. No potatoes, whole-grain rice occasionally. Dessert was usually fresh fruit. Pineapple. Strawberries when they were in season. Or mango! With a little yogurt, we had that several times.”
”Were there napkins? Napkin rings? Was there a tablecloth?” My incredulity had tipped over into a completely childish sarcasm and contempt. Mr. Long the Egg Man tilted his head thoughtfully for a moment and answered the question.
”We used paper napkins. There was no tablecloth because all they really had was that little coffee table next to the television set. I presume you've seen it?”
”Of course I've seen it.”
”Yes. That's where we would eat, so mostly we held our plates on our laps. It was quite pleasant, really, sort of like a little picnic, except with lovely food.”
”Made by my mother.”
”Once Bill made the salad.”
”You know what she used to cook for us? Fish sticks. Spaghetti with Ragu sauce from the jar. Hamburgers, the kind that came in those little flat frozen circles. When she really felt like doing something special for us, you know what we'd get? Frozen waffles.”
”Really?” said Mr. Long.
”Yeah, really,” I said. I felt like I was trapped in a c.o.c.ktail shaker and someone was giving it a go; the inside of my head had become completely dislodged. ”She was still drinking, right? I mean, please don't tell me, I don't care how s.h.i.+tty it sounds, but I really don't want to find out that once she was finished with the three of us my mother actually fixed her life. There was vodka all over the apartment when I got there, just vodka and red wine and and and nothing-like nothing else was there when I got there. She was still just a big drunk.”
”They both drank.” Mr. Long nodded, and like everything else it sounded like a fact coming from him. ”But I would never have called either of them 'a big drunk.' Neither one of them, to my knowledge, drank before six.” He stopped talking, like that was enough facts for now.
”What do you mean, they didn't drink before six?”
”I don't know if it was true when I was not present. But whenever I was present they did not drink before six. They had a certain reverence for the phrase 'c.o.c.ktail hour.'”
”But then they kept drinking.”
”We would enjoy wine with dinner and then I would leave. I don't know if they continued to drink after I left.”
”c.o.c.ktail hour. When I was a kid, c.o.c.ktail hour started at noon,” I said. I sounded like a big whiner, and in fact my voice actually cracked in the most horrifying way, as if I were about to start crying. Mr. Long just stared at the floor with a sort of deliberate and embarra.s.sed disinclination to continue the conversation. ”I'm happy, no, I mean I'm really happy for them,” I added. ”You too. I'm happy you got to have these lovely dinners with Bill and my mom, that sounds terrific.”
”It was, actually. She was a very good cook. Now that you tell me she didn't cook often before she met Bill, I understand the pleasure she took in it. There was always a real sense of surprise that she was good at it. And now I know why.”
”Yeah, all those lovely dinners sound terrific.” I picked up one of the magazines on the table so I could act like I didn't care. Like all the rest of the magazines in that sw.a.n.k office, it looked boring as h.e.l.l; besides which, I knew I was behaving horribly, so I immediately put it back down.
”She was his cleaning lady. So you knew that, right, before he married her? She was just, like, his cleaning lady?”
”Yes, of course I did. I was the one who introduced them.”
”You introduced them?”
”Oh. Yes. It hadn't occurred to me that you didn't know. Your mother was doing some cleaning for me, and I knew Bill was looking for someone as well, so I introduced them.”