Things Unsaid: A Novel (30 page)

“You must be new in town.” Joanne grinned and stared straight at his camera, admiring her own reflection in the large lens. Surprising reflection, mirrorlike. Her face looked like it should.

“Yeah,” the younger man interjected. About thirty years old, Joanne guessed. Thinning blond hair, a friendly face, kind of soft in the gut. A bit taller than the other guy. Someone you would feel comfortable with.
But definitely not my type
, she thought. She liked the older one. The twenty-something, freckle-faced redhead now stepped forward, reaching for her business card in her expensive-looking woven-leather tote as she did.

“Hi, I’m Gwyneth Chambers, a reporter for
Sunset
magazine,” she said, carefully handing off her card as if it were a Tiffany diamond ring.

Joanne could feel her heart pounding.
Sunset
magazine! Did they want to feature her store?
What a stroke of good luck, and I badly need it
, she thought. Maybe it was the Tibetan white tea she drank every day—or maybe those Buddhist chants her sister recommended worked after all.

“These are my photographers, Brett Ashcroft and Keith Cherkoff.
They take all the photos after I decide who we interview. Then there’s a follow-up e-mail requesting any information we may need before publishing the issue.”

Joanne’s nervousness was almost freezing her insides.

“We’re doing a piece on downtown Edmonds and thought we would feature a few stores, no more than four,” Gwyneth continued. “Brett liked the looks of the mummy in the front window as a photo-op.” Brett smiled and looked right at Joanne with his steel-black eyes.
That sweatshirt probably hides quite the body, from lifting heavy camera equipment all day
, she reflected.

Joanne could feel the two photographers’ eyes checking her out. She’d always liked that. She slowly unlocked the drawers that held her most interesting minerals and semiprecious stones.

“Let me explain a little bit about what makes A Real Gem stand out from other jewelry stores. Then, why don’t you take a look around?” Joanne suggested, leaning over the counter to display herself. “Would you like to see a piece? For someone special in your life?” Joanne asked shamelessly. All the guys she had dated in the past had been losers. But her luck was going to change. She just knew it.

Brett looked for a long time at one case that held some of her favorite amethyst geodes. He flashed his perfect white teeth at her—a smile that she hadn’t seen or felt, even on her own face, for so long—and said, “There’s no one in my life right now. Don’t know how to get back in the game.” He smiled and slowly took shots of different parts of the store before landing the camera lens directly on her. “I’d like to take you home and place you around my coffee table,” he said, his voice low.

Joanne sighed to herself. He probably was a player after all.

“Well,” Gwyneth interjected. “We could linger here all day, but we do have to find two other stores besides this one. The Wine Sip’s a good choice as a showcase for some of the burgeoning wineries around this area. So, why don’t you”—she turned towards Brett—“get some background info on Joanne while Keith and I go off to take some wide-angle shots of the street and the harbor.”

As Gwyneth and Keith walked out, Brett awkwardly shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking down at Joanne’s high-heeled shoes—or maybe it was her bust he was focused on. She could never tell
about those things. Didn’t matter, though. Her cleavage was deep, and she was proud of her newly reconstructed breasts. Perhaps they would turn out to be a better investment than even she had first imagined.

“Guess I should just take photos of the merchandise … and you. You’ll be an eye-catcher on the page,” he said, gulping, his Adam’s apple moving up and down. That always endeared a guy to her. Had a vague phallic connotation. Sexy.

She was busy plotting a night’s fun with Brett—tonight’s happy pill—when the bells on the front door clanged, and her friend Pamela strode in.

“Hey, how’re you doing?” Pamela asked, not looking at Joanne but zooming in on Brett, curious, trying to figure out the connection.

“Hey yourself, Pamela,” Joanne grinned. “Want you to meet someone from
Sunset
magazine—Brett Ashcroft.”

“Hi. Would love to take some photos of customer-owner interaction. Always good for our magazine. Doesn’t look so staged.” He aimed his telephoto lens at Joanne, focusing and refocusing.

I’ll light aromatherapy candles to capture the right mood tonight
, she thought.

The next morning, Brett left very early—without even leaving a phone number or e-mail address. Joanne, uninterested in getting out of bed, phoned her sister. She was surprised when Jules actually picked up.

“Hey, Jules, what’s up?” she said. “I miss you. And I’ve been waiting for your response to my e-mail. Did you get it?”

Silence.

Uh-oh, what does that mean?
“And I went to see a lawyer. Followed your advice about that. Of course, good advice—besides yours—is expensive. Seligman—that’s my hotshot divorce attorney—charges $300 per hour. So freedom won’t come cheap.”

“Well, I need to talk to you about that, actually,” Jules began. Her voice didn’t sound welcoming. “I can’t talk long. Have to be someplace.” She continued, her voice sounding tight. “I’ve been thinking how to respond to the e-mail you sent. You know, Mike and I are not a money
tree. This is just too much. Have you thought about asking your healthcare providers for relief from some of your medical expenses? A payment plan?”

“You know I haven’t been able to make much money on my own. But I just found out that I’m going to be featured in
Sunset
magazine, so that will certainly help business. Maybe help me pay back some of what I owe you, too.”

“That’s great! I mean it. Congratulations on
Sunset
, Jo. But still, you’re going to have to find another way out of debt. Sell some jewelry Mother has given you, for example. Right now, Mike and I have to think of our own daughter. Try to understand. We’ll try to help, but we can’t do it all by ourselves. We’re in serious trouble ourselves.” Jules began to cry.

“Sis, don’t cry. It will be okay. But the money stuff … you’ve got to help me out there. I feel trapped.” Joanne cradled the receiver. “I still feel like ending everything sometimes. Maybe it would be easier on everyone if I did.”

“It’s okay, Joanne. It’s okay,” Jules said. “We’ll work something out. Got to go.”

Joanne promised herself she wouldn’t refuse to see what lay ahead and make matters worse by spending more … on her face, her clothes, and jewelry. She would not be like their mother. But she did want a way out of the mess she was in. Nothing but bills, bills, bills. She was on her way to give them all to Seligman for the asset disclosure review.

The settlement conference was happening tomorrow. Al would be present with his lawyers to negotiate the settlement over the house. Since they lived in a community-property state, she was confident she should get 50 percent. Still, this year was not exactly the best for real estate. She’d be lucky to get $300,000. They had had the house a long time, at least, so there was some equity built up.

Joanne could imagine the relief on her sister’s face when Joanne told her she was getting that kind of money from the settlement. And maybe she could help Jules out later. When she got back on her feet.

“Keep your emotions out of it,” Jules had advised her when she first told her she was looking into hiring a divorce attorney. “Try to settle without destroying your family or bankrupting yourself. Don’t fight for petty things. It could cost you $1,500 in attorney fees to get $200 more—that’s what my divorced girlfriends told me. And remember, don’t let Al’s lawyer inflame the situation. You’ve waited the required ninety days for cooling off. Remember this is a ‘good faith’ settlement, not an adversarial one. Not hostile. Do not polarize things. Soon it will all be over. I know this is tough for you, little sis.”

Easy for Jules to say
, Joanne thought as she left the box of past-due bills at Seligman’s front desk.

Seligman was there waiting when Joanne arrived the next morning, wearing a very conservative, serious black suit. He smelled like an overdose of aftershave.

“Hi, Mrs. Grant. Your husband and his attorney will be here shortly. Are you ready?” he asked, peering too closely into her eyes. “This may be difficult for you—an intense discussion over financial affairs.”

Then Al and his attorney walked into the room. Her husband avoided making eye contact. Rusty Weisbroth, his attorney, made with the niceties and then started negotiations. Joanne liked that—the meter was running. The less time they spent there, the better.

“Both parties seem to be in agreement over everything except the house,” Seligman said after the preliminary rundown of assets.

“My client feels that the house shouldn’t be split down the middle, 50/50, because of the work he has done to repair and remodel. Here are the receipts, although you’ve received these disclosure documents previously,” Weisbroth said.

It just isn’t fair
, Joanne fumed. She had lost the lottery. She actually preferred her small loft apartment—beautiful, open, and airy—to the house she’d shared with Al. Her new place was spare and minimalist, the opposite of the home she had moved out of, the one her parents had bought for her. She could see the harbor, where the ferry carried commuters and tourists, and the Cascades from her porch—that was
the reason for her exorbitant rent. But she had downsized significantly. And most of the time, she had the girls with her.

“You asshole,” Joanne blurted before she could stop herself. “Do you want to destroy any shred of dignity I have left? Bankrupt me and our daughters? I need half the proceeds from the sale of our house.”

“Bitch. I’m not the one who wanted this divorce,” Al said.

She wanted to chew the smugness right off his face. “And I suppose your living in that house while I had to pay rent somewhere else doesn’t count in the housing settlement?” She wanted to listen to Jules’s advice:
“Don’t fight over petty things. It will cost more.”
But she couldn’t help herself. This wasn’t petty.

“If we don’t come to an agreement, we’ll be forced to go to litigation,” was all that Seligman said.

Papers were signed, subtracting the amount of the home repairs but not Al’s estimated labor. No consideration was given to the rent she paid for her tiny apartment. The net sum that would go to her after attorney fees would be enough to pay off her loan, but not all of her surgery and therapy. It would leave her nothing to live on but what Jules could provide. A Real Gem still had no value.

Where was Jules when she needed her?

“M
other’s suffered a stroke.”

Jules had received the same message every day for three days from both Joanne and Andrew. Joanne had enlisted Sarah and Megan into the mix, too—Jules had gotten a
“Grandma is dying”
text from each of them.

“I know,”
she texted back.

Jules was walking while reading their texts. It was two blocks from Bayview Apartments to the Palo Alto Addiction Recovery Services. That was her routine now. Her morning began by standing below the window of Zoë’s room and waving. The front desk receptionist, Trudy Wang, had given her Zoë’s daily schedule—against all rules and regulations, but Trudy seemed to feel her pain, so much so that she was willing to risk her own employment by giving Jules that information. Did she have a family member going through the same thing? Jules wondered. Her actions made more sense if that were the case.