Authors: Lynda Simmons
Island Girl (24 page)
She nodded. “We probably have another month left.”
“So they’ll be suing a shell.”
I started to pace. Eight steps from the sink to the door and back again. “You have nothing to lose,” I continued, “while they, on the other hand, will have nothing to gain from continuing to hold on to your money. The moment that thing is delivered to their bank, all hell will break loose. Even if Champlain isn’t in any danger of going under, the letter will start a chain reaction.
“Their bank will immediately remove the amount of your claim from their line of credit, in case the petition is successful. If we’re lucky and they are indeed using the money they owe you to pay other suppliers, then their checks will start bouncing, suppliers will slap them on COD, and customers will run the other way. Even if they’re not strapped for cash, the petition will make their bank nervous, and no one likes a nervous bank.
“The directors will have to start tap-dancing to explain why they haven’t paid your bill, and nothing they say will make their bank smile. My guess is that whatever their financial situation, Champlain will cut you a check to keep any of this from happening.”
I smiled and straddled the chair next to her. “Trust me, Brenda. This is not business as usual, but it will work.”
“A bluff,” she said, and sat up straighter. Smiled and threw down the pen. “What a great idea! When do we start?”
“Should be soon as possible,” a voice with a thick Russian accent said.
We both turned to see Nadia in the doorway, huge and sweating in her bicycle shorts and beater shirt. As usual, her black brows were pinched, her mouth was a tight white line, but for the first time in months, her pale blue eyes were looking straight at me.
“So, brilliant lawyer,” she said. “who gave you such good idea?”
My spine stiffened. “Nobody gave it to me. It’s mine.”
“If you say so.” She looked past me to Brenda. “You are happy with bluff?”
Brenda smiled. “I’m delighted with it. In fact, we’re down to the details now and should be out of here in a few minutes.”
“Take your time,” Nadia said. “Is important discussion.” She came into the kitchen and plunked herself down at the table. “Is coffee still fresh?”
Brenda rose. “I’m sure it is. I’ll get you a cup.”
While she poured, Nadia reached across me for the cookie tin, as though I weren’t there.
“We don’t want to keep you from anything,” I said. “I know Saturdays are always busy.”
“Not for me.” She spooned sugar into her cup. “I have all day free now.”
“That’s great.” Brenda topped up her own cup and sat down. “How was the yoga class?”
Nadia frowned. “Good, but is hard work.”
“Those downward dogs can be a bitch,” I said. “But it explains all the thumping and banging in your room.” She finally looked at me. I smiled and held out a hand. “Nadia, isn’t it? I’m Liz. Nice to meet you.”
She ignored my hand. “I know who you are. And yoga is not just downward dogs.” She reached into the tin, took out a handful of cookies, and lined them up beside her cup. One, two, three, four, five. “I am on journey of self-discovery and spiritual clarity. Every day discovering potential for limitless joy.”
“Of course you are.”
She scowled at me. “You find that funny?”
“On the contrary, I find it fascinating.” I leaned over and nicked cookie number three, leaving a gaping hole in the middle of her lineup. “Should I assume that counting slices of bread and tea bags is one of the pit stops on this journey to limitless joy?”
“No, that is petty revenge.” She watched the cookie travel to my mouth. “But first night here, I find you on floor eating barbequed chicken I bought that afternoon.”
I shrugged and took another bite. “I don’t remember that.”
“No big surprise, but does not make it okay. I was furious landlord had not warned me about alcoholic next door.” She slid her remaining cookies into a line of four then pushed the tin toward me. “Take another.”
“Thanks,” I said, helping myself to one from the tin and one from her lineup. Number three again—always a lucky number. “They really are good. And I’m not an alcoholic.”
“No?” She eased her bulk forward and leaned on her arms. “Then what are you?”
“Nadia,” Brenda said. “This is not the best time—”
“No, is fine,” I said. “I will tell you I am drinker. I like to party. Have good time.”
Her smile was enough to make the cookie stall halfway to my mouth. “Did you have good time last night?”
I should have backed off right there, gone out to fetch some sand for her coffee. But I was still feeling good, even a little cocky after my talk with Brenda, and it made a strange kind of sense to take a real stand. To put the cookie down and lean forward on my arms with my nose only inches from her. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“You should tell us about it,” she said. “About your good time. And where you got this.” Her hand shot out and lifted my sleeve, revealing the bruise.
Brenda drew back. “My God, Liz. Did you know that was there?”
I slapped at Nadia’s hand. “Of course I knew it was there.”
“But you do not know how it got there, do you?”
Heat moved through my body again, up into my face. “Not off the top of my head, no.”
“Or why there are holes in your jeans.” I watched her sit back in the chair, fold her hands on her stomach. “If you like, I can tell you, because I was there.”
“You’re lying.”
“No, is true.” She picked up cookie number one, held it daintily between her thumb and forefinger. “You were on College Street, sitting on streetcar tracks, holding up streetcar and swearing at driver.”
“Bullshit,” I said, ignoring the sudden dryness in my mouth, the roller-coaster drop in my stomach. “She could say I was dancing on top of the CN Tower or running naked through Nathan Phillips Square. Wouldn’t make any of it true.”
“But she did know about the bruise,” Brenda said softly.
Nadia took a bite of her cookie. “Bruise came from man trying to pull you off tracks. Long hair. Beard.” She screwed up her nose. “Not attractive.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said, trying to picture the table at the Duck. Trying to remember a man with long hair and a beard, a man who might have been buying me drinks. A man I might have been going home with. Nothing came. Nothing at all.
Nadia shook her head slowly, heavily as though it was her lot in life to deal with dolts. “Does not matter what you believe. Is what happened.”
“Go on,” I said, and managed a smile. “I always like a good bar story.”
“Is natural you are curious. Lost nights are always problem.” She brushed crumbs from her T-shirt and went for the next cookie in line. “Time was two fifteen A.M. I was in taxi, coming home from friend’s house. I saw woman on tracks. I told taxi to stop and bearded man to leave you alone. He said you passed out in bar and got kicked out. Then you got belligerent in streetcar and driver kicked you both out. Bearded man called you pain in his ass and grabbed you again. I knocked him down and picked you up. Taxi would not let you in, so I carried you home.”
“You carried me? Why?”
“Because you passed out again. I could have left you on curb for police, but is not like me.” She wagged a finger at me. “Do not think this makes you special. I would have done same for any woman in trouble.” She went back to the cookie. “Still think you had good time last night?”
“Up to that point, I’m sure I did,” I said, trying not to think about what would have happened if the police had come. If I’d gone to jail. If Nadia hadn’t shown up in a taxi. “The rest is Brenda’s fault anyway. If she’d been there to put me into a cab, none of it would have happened.” I watched Brenda’s mouth fall open and gave myself a mental slap. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I don’t know where that came from. I know it wasn’t your fault.”
“Sadly no,” Nadia said. “She does not.”
I shoved my chair back and stood up. “Why are you such a bitch?”
“I am not bitch. I am only worried your friend will trust you with important matter. And you will let her down.” She lifted a shoulder, let it fall. “Is way of all drunks.”
“How have I let her down? I’ve already told her what she has to do.”
“It’s true,” Brenda said, and smiled at me. “And I’m ready to do whatever is necessary. Just tell me when we start.”
“You start by finding a lawyer who’ll take you on.”
She looked confused. “Aren’t you my lawyer?”
“Me?” I laughed and shook my head. “Trust me, you do not want me as your lawyer.”
“You see?” Nadia said. “Already she lets you down. I should have left her on tracks.”
I stuck a finger in her face. “You can shut up any time.”
For a big woman, she was extremely quick, towering over me before I could make a break for the stairs. “And you can help friend any time. But you will not because you are useless drunk.”
“I’m not useless. I’m just not the best person for the job. I’m not even a lawyer anymore.”
“Why?” Nadia asked. “What happened to you?”
“Nothing. I’m just taking a break. Can’t a person take a fucking break?”
She glanced over at Brenda. “Drunks always lie too.”
“I hate you,” I said.
“Is mutual.”
I wasn’t surprised when Brenda squeezed herself in between us, exactly as she had when Mitch and Hal were squaring off in the park. “This is ridiculous,” she grunted as she tried to nudge Nadia backward. “Both of you need to cool off.”
Nadia stepped back on her own. “You are right. Is not productive.” She scowled at me over Brenda’s head. “What is productive is to stop taking break and help your friend.”
Brenda looked as though she was about to argue, to point out that Nadia was butting into a situation that didn’t concern her. But then her expression changed, softened toward my overbearing roommate. “Why are you doing this? Why do you even care?”
“Because you need help,” Nadia said as though it should have been obvious. “If I was brilliant lawyer, I would do it for you, but I am substitute school teacher. What do I know about courts and laws in this country?”
“You’re a teacher?” Brenda asked.
“Elementary only. I love little children.”
“On toast,” I muttered, and Brenda turned on me.
“Shut up, Liz, she’s got a point. You said it yourself—you wouldn’t have ended up on the streetcar tracks last night if I’d been there to help you the way I have been for the last two years. Literally saving your ass by pouring you into a cab because I liked you. You were a drunk, yes, but there was something about you that was different, that I thought deserved saving. But now, when I need your help, you won’t do it, and I want to know why.”
“Because she is coward,” Nadia said. “Is obvious something bad has happened to her. That is why she has beautiful, expensive furniture but lives here. That is why she is on break from good job. And that is why she drinks too much and has become pathetic coward.”
“I am not a coward.”
Brenda advanced on me. “Then prove it. Help me out. Do the petition.”
Nadia shook her head. “Be careful. She may say yes now but will not follow through.”
“What the fuck do you know?” I took a step back, giving myself room to breathe, but not to think. Because thinking required logic, and logic required rational conclusions. And the only rational conclusion a logical person could come to would be to keep Liz Donaldson the hell away from Brenda’s petition. I was the last person she needed on her side—the last person anyone needed on their side.
But Brenda didn’t understand that,
wouldn’t
understand that, which made a strange kind of sense. She was desperate, and desperation led to illogical thinking, irrational conclusions, and trusting my pushy roommate—and everybody knows you can’t trust the Russian judge.
wouldn’t
understand that, which made a strange kind of sense. She was desperate, and desperation led to illogical thinking, irrational conclusions, and trusting my pushy roommate—and everybody knows you can’t trust the Russian judge.
Yet, how could I say no when Brenda was looking at me like I was the answer to all of her problems? And Nadia was looking at me like I was a bug under a magnifying glass and she’d found the perfect angle for the sun. The situation seemed impossible, like there was no way out. But I have always been resourceful. “Even if I wanted to do this,” I said. “I don’t have the money, the staff—”
“I will be staff,” Nadia said. “You tell me what you need and I will get it.”
Brenda nodded. “I can help too. And Mitch will pay your expenses. I have a checkbook in my purse. I’ll give you a down payment or a deposit or whatever it is you call it, today.”
“A retainer,” I said, my resourcefulness slipping away, trumped by their enthusiasm. “It’s called a retainer.”
“Would a hundred dollars be enough to start things off?” Brenda asked.
I smiled. “Sure, why not.”
“Okay,” Nadia said. “You have money and staff. What else do you need?”
The idea of the three of us pulling this off was ludicrous in the extreme. But some part of me must not have been paying attention because without me even trying, the files began to open up again, the words floating up slowly into the light. “Information about the company,” I said. “Names of the directors, address of the operation, and all pertinent phone numbers. Copies of the invoice, the purchase order, the letters you’ve sent to them. Notes on any communication that went on between them and Mitch’s company. I need pictures of the building and where the big guy sits so I can hand him the notice.” I laughed, a high-pitched, slightly hysterical sound. “I know there’s more, but I have no idea what it is.”
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