Twelve Rooms with a View. Theresa Rebeck

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СКАЧАТЬ We can get Wes to file for us if it becomes necessary.”

      “When,” said Lucy. “When it’s necessary; there’s no use being naïve about this.”

      “How much is this going to cost us?” asked Alison, all worried as usual.

      “Much more than we have,” Lucy admitted. “The only way we’re going to be able to afford this is to get into a partnership with a real estate agency. I’m going to talk to Sotheby’s about it tomorrow.

      “That guy from Sotheby’s was an asshole. He was the least interested of anybody,” I pointed out.

      “That’s how I know he wants it,” Lucy said, spearing a shrimp with slashing efficiency. “We need someone who’s going to be willing to work around the legal problems. Those other two were too spooked to even mention it. Losers.”

      “What if Sotheby’s gets behind the Drinan side of this?” I asked.

      “I sent over a packet of the documentation. They’ll look at it and decide, but it’s pretty clear we’re going to win.” Lucy shrugged.

      “How can you be so sure? I just don’t know how you can talk about all of this like you know what’s going to happen. How could anyone know what’s going to happen?” asked Alison. “You keep acting like this is all going to just work out and I don’t see how you can know that.” I thought this was a pretty good point but Lucy didn’t even respond. Daniel reached for some beef and broccoli thing, and he didn’t bother answering Alison either. “These legal situations aren’t sure. They never are,” she persisted. “And if we spend all our money, if our money isn’t enough to cover the costs, costs can go through the roof and instead of everything what if we end up with nothing?”

      “Alison,” Daniel finally said, impatient. “I spent the day on the phone with four different lawyers; all of them gave us the same answer. This is a no-brainer. We’re in the clear.”

      “If it’s so totally clear that we’re going to win this, how come it’s all such a surprise to those Drinans?” I said. “I mean, they knew that he was leaving it all to Mom.”

      “They told you that?” said Lucy. “Wait a minute. They told you that they knew he was leaving the place to Mom?”

      “They didn’t say it. I just kind of figured it out,” I said, eating. “Anyway, they definitely knew.”

      “That he was leaving the place to Mom.”

      “Yeah, they knew that part. But they totally didn’t know the rest, that then we would show up and get it. Like, why would they know that part but not the other part?”

      “What else did they say?” asked Daniel. He sounded even more uptight so I looked up from the Chinese food finally, and they were all staring at me. For a second I considered lying some more, because I was beginning to feel like Lucy and Alison and Daniel were acting like such unbelievable sharks, that’s what they deserved. But I didn’t see any point in protecting those Drinans either. It was hard to know whose team I was on, already. And we had only been at this for a day and a half.

      “They were just sad and drunk and kind of mad, that’s all. I shrugged, opting for a vague non-answer for now. “One of them talked about all the furniture being gone like it was so sad. Like he was a little surprised, I think, that so much of it was gone.”

      “Why would that surprise him?” Alison asked.

      “Not totally surprised. But sad. Like they hadn’t seen the place in a little while, like they knew what it was like in here but not all the way. Sort of like that.”

      “They probably weren’t allowed in very much.” Lucy stared into her spicy shrimp, putting it all together. “By all accounts Bill was a Howard Hughes-level freak. Then when he died, if Mom didn’t want them around, she didn’t have to let them in. Maybe she was afraid they’d try and kick her out. They probably would’ve tried to kick her out; they haven’t been exactly civil, have they? Anyway it was only three weeks ago, they didn’t exactly have a ton of time to figure out a game plan. They probably didn’t even know they needed a game plan. Most people don’t think ahead.”

      “What was only three weeks ago?” I asked.

      “When Bill died.”

      “Bill only died three weeks ago?” I blurted.

      Okay, I honestly do not know why I didn’t know this. But I didn’t know; the whole situation with my mom was that screwy. One day she was living in Hoboken and working at some H & R Block office, filing tax returns, then all of a sudden she was getting married and moving to Manhattan. Then it was done before we even knew it, practically, when it became “Bill’s private, he doesn’t see a a lot of people,” or “We’re really busy this month, maybe the fall would be better. I mean, before she went off and married this guy it’s not like I saw that much of her anyway. Mostly we communicated through phone messages: the man who lived underneath her got a dog and it was barking day and night, or the phone company screwed up her billing and they were just driving her crazy, or she was trying out a new recipe and did I ever hear of Asiago cheese? It makes my head hurt now to think of how lonely those messages were and that obviously I should have tried a lot harder to see her, while I could. I’m not saying that all of us had abandoned her. Alison saw her more than me or Lucy, I knew that Alison would come out and see her and Lucy saw her too. But not all that much. So when she went ahead and married a guy who didn’t want us around it didn’t make a huge impression.

      The truth is last time I even spoke to her was almost a year and a half ago, when the three of us took her out to dinner. Mom suggested it. I think she felt guilty because none of us had been invited to the wedding. So there we were, six months after our mother went and married a total stranger, arguing over where we should take her to celebrate. Bill of course was not coming, but she made kind of a big deal about not going too far from home, because he might get uptight if she went too far. Then Lucy got bent out of shape about whether or not it would be a place we could afford, as she assumed we’d be “taking” Mom and she didn’t want the bill split two ways between her and Alison because she really got the short end of the stick in these situations since “Alison” covered Alison and Daniel which meant that she, Lucy, was stuck paying for me as well as half of Mom so expensive places got really quite expensive really fast, from her point of view. She was completely blunt about all this, as usual, which I took exception to, because even though I’m consistently strapped it’s not like an occasional nice dinner out is a complete impossibility. But of course Lucy was right—we ended up at a place that charged $22 for a plate of spaghetti with red sauce, which made everyone, especially me, uptight.

      So that more or less set things off on an unfortunate foot. Mom had a vodka tonic which I think cost $12, and the rest of us drank tap water. Lucy as usual totally monopolized the conversation, blathering on about the big corporations she did PR for and how difficult it was to work with corporate jerks and none of them really want to talk to a woman and how they’re all in love with themselves and their own power and she really thinks they’re all closet cases anyway. Alison never actually got over the prices on the menu, and she kept letting us know how worried she was about how much things cost, and then she got Daniel to keep a running tab on the paper tablecloth, which he did methodically, with a mechanical pencil. I told them all I was going to move out to the Delaware Water Gap with Darren, and how he had this business plan set up, that so many really wealthy people had summer homes out there now and he was putting together a company that did caretaking year round and he already had six or seven clients and I was going to help him with the СКАЧАТЬ