The People in the Park (4 page)

“I’m a beast. Who knew?” Steffy stalked out the cafeteria and down the hall.

“Lauren, I’m so sorry,” Stacie said.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. I went to my locker to get books for my afternoon classes.

Who was I kidding? It did matter. In fact, it mattered more than I cared to admit.

What had happened? I was considered one of the popular students, a leader. In a matter of a few days I had become an outcast.

I felt rudderless. No one knew what to say to me. They averted their eyes and looked away when I was around.

After school, I worked on the story I had been assigned for the newspaper. When I walked into the newspaper office Mrs. Stevens smiled and said she was glad to see me. Even though I hadn’t felt like working on the story the past few days, I told her that the story would make the deadline.

“I knew I could count on you,” she said.

Just those words of support made me feel like a real student again, that I was actually contributing something to my school.

“I’m glad you realized you’ve got to keep going forward, even though you’re going through a difficult time,” Mrs. Stevens added.

I couldn’t stop myself from responding, “But my situation is worse than difficult. If you only knew!”

“I know about difficult situations,” she said. A glimmer of pain briefly landed on her face. “During the summer I went back to school to learn the tools needed to keep pace with the changes in journalism, media, and technology and how to use technology in the classroom to prepare students for the future. With what I learned I could easily handle the school newspaper becoming an online publication. I felt as if the Fairfield administration was using the newspaper conversion as an excuse to have one less African-American teacher.”

And I thought I was the only one with problems! Mrs. Stevens was her usual self every day. She’d acted as if her not being here next year was no big deal.

“What are you going to do?”

Mrs. Stevens smiled knowingly. “Right now I don’t have any idea what I’ll do. But I do know that all things work together for good for those that love and trust in God.”

“Is that something you heard from a TV preacher?”

“Lauren, it comes from the Bible, from Romans 8:28.”

“Mrs. Stevens, I just can’t see any good coming out of our situation. It is all bad!”

“God will never let you down, Lauren.”

Mom ordered Japanese food for dinner. We had chicken teriyaki and my favorite, teriyaki corn dogs. They were corn dogs piled high with crispy grilled vegetables. Absolutely heavenly!

“Your father talked me into going on our shopping trip to Chicago,” she said.

“Great! Do you need me to get any money from my savings account?”

“No, darling,” she said. “Your father reminded me that the jet was already paid for and we can still afford designer dresses for you girls.”

“The jet?”

Mom smiled, “Yes. It was going to be a surprise. He had chartered a jet to take us to Chicago and a limo to pick us up from the airport as a special treat for you and Tiffany.”

Between bites of my teriyaki corn dog, I gave Mom a big hug.

Dad came into the room smiling, knowing he had done something to make me happy. “I see you’ve heard the good news.”

I hugged him, too, a great big bear hug like he used to give me.

This might be our last splurge, but I felt really, really good. I knew they did it for me. This was a sacrifice for them, and they probably could’ve used the money for lawyer’s fees or something else to help Dad get out of this mess, but they used it on me. Going on the trip to Chicago meant that they truly loved me.

During dinner, we planned the trip from start to finish. Sitting around the table making plans felt like old times, even though those old times had only been a week ago.

“I want you and Tiffany to get to know each other on this trip and become close. You are kinfolk,” Mom said. “When I was growing up, I had your Aunt Ira. Neither you nor Tiffany have siblings. I want you both to know that you can depend on each other.”

“OK, Mom, I’ll do better and try to get to know her.”

“Then the trip will be worth it,” Dad said.

Before going to bed, I sent Tiffany an e-mail telling her that I was looking forward to our trip to Chicago shopping for prom dresses and how much fun we were going to have seeing the city. I’m sure she was shocked. She sent back a short text.

Me, too.

A few minutes later I received another text from her.
We’re still going?

Why did she have to ask if we were still going? I had just told her we were. She’s just trying to make me feel bad.

Before I could answer, another text from her came through.
With what’s going on w/ Unc, wasn’t sure.

Why should I try to know her better? She is such a dweeb! I didn’t even respond.

5

I took extra care with dressing every morning.

Appearances were important. I made sure my clothes were neat and clean and every hair in place. My thick long black hair flowed past my shoulders. To get this look I had a standing appointment with my hair stylist every six weeks. She used a relaxer on my hair, so even though I had been running in the park and sweating, my hair kept its straightness.

Every morning I put on my Paparazzi shades by Tanevery, a hot new designer. If they were not on my eyes, they were across the top of my head. I topped off my look with one of my white long sleeved fitted buttoned shirts opened at the collar and a pair of jeans. I needed my appearance to speak for me, to say I was whole, my family was whole, and we were getting through this little setback.

My friends dressed the same way. The only thing that distinguished us from each other was our hair color and facial features. My hair was black. Callie’s hair was black. She was Asian, her ancestors from South Korea. The twins, Melanie and Stacie, had brown hair. And Steffy’s hair was blonde. Our classmates called us
The Fairfield Quints
, short for quintuplets. They’re going to have to shorten that to
The
Fairfield Quads
since Steffy had shown her true colors and didn’t want to be around anyone associated with me.

Soon things got back to normal or as normal as they could be. I went to school every day. I worked on my newspaper story after school. But my saving grace was being in the park every morning before school.

I ran every day for a week until I could run no more. Now I would come to the park and just sit. I sat on one of the benches overlooking the river and let the sounds of the water rushing down river wash over me. I could breathe out here. I breathed in gulps of fresh air, which rejuvenated me. The air revived my brain and cascaded through my lungs. It went into my pores and cells. I gulped in all the air I could until the numbness went away. Then I could go to school and have a normal day.

But there was something missing deep inside. My world had turned upside down, and I couldn’t put myself back together again.

Mom’s park friends spoke to me, but they had stopped asking about her long ago. I half spoke to them. I didn’t want to be bothered. I wanted to be left alone. I needed to feel normal, so I spent this time talking to myself.
I will get through this day unscathed. I will be happy today. My mind is strong, therefore, I can handle anything. I move through today with ease.
The fresh air revitalized me and made me human again for the hours I spent in school.

Being home had also taken on a semblance of normalcy. But there was something between Mom and Dad that wasn’t normal. They argued a lot. First, they spoke in hushed tones. When I entered the room, they would change the subject. I only overheard the end of their disagreement. But there was tension between the two of them when there used to be peace and harmony. I didn’t understand what this might mean for our family. I just couldn’t handle any more drama in my life.

Mom had started cooking again, mainly to feed the many people who worked at our dining room table on Dad’s case. Every day when I got home from school, Mom was in the kitchen cooking meals like spaghetti, lasagna, and chili, to feed lots of people. Sometimes the lawyers and law clerks worked late into the night and would order pizza around ten o’clock. I usually grabbed a slice on the way to my room.

The evening before our Chicago trip I came home from school and Mom was in the kitchen making hamburgers, fries, and a mixed green salad for dinner. The lawyers got their food and went back to the dining table. Mom, Dad, and I ate in the kitchen. This was our ritual, as if life was back to normal. We usually talked about our day, mainly mine, but today I had something else on my mind.

“Dad, what are they working on?” I asked, nodding towards the people in the dining room.

“Nothing you need to be concerned about, Kitten,” Dad said.

I put down my fork, which held an assortment of salad fixings. “Dad, I’m not a baby anymore. You can tell me what these people are working on.”

He looked at me, as if making a decision. I could see he didn’t want to talk about it. In his own way, I’m sure he wanted to protect me from the horrors of the real world.

Finally, he said, “Not now. Later, when everyone has gone home.”

Around nine thirty that night, Dad called me into his study. I was amazed at the disorder. Papers were everywhere, file drawers were open, and stacks of folders were piled on the floor. In the past when I had come in here to talk to Dad, everything had been neat and in its proper place. Dad, behind his desk, motioned for me to sit in a chair across from him.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

I looked at the disarray. “Everything.”

“I don’t know where to begin,” he said.

“Start at the arrest,” I said.

Dad smiled. “That’s a good place to start.”

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. When he began talking again, his voice was barely above a whisper. I had to lean in to hear him.

“I am managing director at Williams Ortiz L.L.P. In a nutshell, the senior officers of the firm are accused of bilking money from clients and using the money to create grand lifestyles. As I told you last week, I was not involved in taking any money.”

“Then why are they accusing you?”

“It seems that Peter may have used hedge funds to raise money for the firm. Unfortunately, he made up fake financial statements for one of his clients and together with fake notes he also crafted, he sold the notes to hedge funds. The crime was that he did it without the clients’ approval or knowledge.”

“So how do you come in?” I asked. “And Mr. Ortiz?”

“Well, Sam has his name on the firm. He’s a partner, and naturally, all partners will be investigated. I’m a senior officer of the firm, therefore I’m being investigated.”

“Did you know what was going on?”

“No,” he said. He drew in a deep breath and leaned across the desk. “There’s more.”

I waited, afraid of what he was going to say next.

After a while he continued, “The firm sometimes receives settlements for clients that are invested and paid out over a number of years. These are called structured settlements. Sam is accused of forging financial letters and financial statements that showed that the money was still in the accounts when it was not. The authorities are saying that he sold those accounts to investors who paid a reduced amount for them. The money was supposed to go to clients but didn’t. And Sam is saying that he didn’t forge the letters. He says Peter or somebody else did and signed his name.”

My heart stopped. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear anymore, but I had to ask. “What are they accusing you of?”

“Right now, they’re accusing me of being a party to this scheme.”

Dad looked me in the eye. “But I wasn’t. My first hearing of this was when everybody else heard.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“My job was to manage the other attorneys in the firm. I assigned them cases. I oversaw their work. That’s all I did. I’m not a partner in the firm. I didn’t sign anybody’s checks or have signatory authority on any of the firm’s accounts. Only Peter and Sam had that authority.”

“Can you prove you had nothing to do with it?” I asked.

His eyes seemed far away, as if he were looking into the future. “Yes, Kitten, I can.”

“How? Can you get back into the office to go over your files?”

“No, a receiver has been appointed to sort out the whole mess. It’ll take months to finish everything. But I’m no fool,” he said. “Ever since I started my first job, I’ve kept duplicate records of all my work. What’s not in these files is on computer disks. That’s why these people are here every day and night. My lawyers have them going through my files to build my case.”

“If the receiver is going to find out the same thing, why do you have to use your money?”

“I want to make sure we’re on the same page. Take last week for instance. The receiver said there’s a notation in the files that I received an $8 million bonus last year. I didn’t. On the same day that the $8 million is recorded, I have a cancelled bonus check for $780,000.”

“Uncle Peter is trying to implicate you?”

“I don’t think he did it intentionally,” Dad said. “I just think he was trying to make the books balance.”

I slumped down in my chair. Uncle Peter isn’t really my uncle. He’s always treated us like family and said I should call him Uncle Peter ever since Dad started working at his firm.

“Don’t worry,” Dad said. “The truth will come out. I wasn’t involved in any of the financials of the firm. I had a salary, plus a bonus, each year. This was meant to be a new type of firm. There would be no partners, except the two founding ones.

“However, no matter what Peter is saying, I know I’ve not done anything wrong. I believe God is good, and my faith in God is going to help exonerate me.”

“Then this will be over soon?”

“Yes, I have faith that it will.”

Dad and I sat there, not saying anything. I wondered where our lives were headed.

Before long, Dad said, “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

His voice was hoarse and his eyes spoke before his words. My heart fell. I knew what he was going to say.