Water's Edge Page 3

  Clarice continued talking while she washed her hands in the kitchen sink, then took a bottle of wine from a small wooden rack. She poured two glasses and held one out to Tom, who took it from her.

  “Here’s to your future,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther lost a brilliant young lawyer today. Their loss will be someone else’s gain.” They clinked glasses and took a sip of wine.

  “That’s what you think?” Tom asked.

  “Of course.” Clarice sniffed. “After the shock wore off, I was furious. The loyalty-and-hard-work thing you tried doesn’t work in the twenty-first century. Law firms are getting to be more and more like big corporations where everyone is as disposable as a plastic water bottle. But don’t worry. You’ll collect a half-dozen job offers within a month and take your pick. Then, someday you’ll get a case with McGraw on the other side and teach him a lesson. Let’s eat.”

  Clarice handled chopsticks like an expert. The two slender pieces of wood frustrated Tom, and he defaulted to a fork. They divided the food, with Tom taking two spring rolls. While they ate, Clarice prattled about her day at work and a phone call with her mother, who lived in Sarasota.

  “Mom was completely out of line,” Clarice said between bites. “I told her it was none of her business whether Nicholas goes to culinary school in Charleston instead of getting his MBA at Wake Forest. He’s paying his own way, and she can’t order him around like she did when we were kids. And with a name like Charbonneau, any restaurant would be thrilled to hire him. Of course, she didn’t listen. All she wanted to do was vent.”

  Tom had met Clarice’s mother on two occasions. Her venting reminded him of a volcanic eruption.

  “You don’t think I’m like her, do you?” Clarice asked, stopping to take a sip of wine.

  “Not at all.”

  “Liar,” Clarice replied with a smile. “But I like it when you tell me what I want to hear.”

  “Your mother has unresolved issues.”

  “You think so?” Clarice responded, rubbing her temples with the tips of her fingers. “Every time she blows up, it scares me that I’ll end up the same. It took me an hour to calm down after she called.”

  “Was that before or after I phoned about losing my job?”

  “After, which partly explains how I felt. Like I said, I was already upset.”

  “Did you mention my situation to your mother?”

  “No, that would have made her talk for another thirty minutes, and I couldn’t risk that with Magellan on the rampage.”

  They finished dinner and the bottle of wine. Clarice had been right. The meal and the drinks calmed Tom down. Then they watched a sentimental movie that made Clarice cry. When the movie was over, she yawned.

  “I’d better head home,” she said. Clarice shared an apartment with another young woman in a modern complex about ten minutes away. “I have to be up early in the morning for a red-eye meeting at work before Magellan flies back to the West Coast. After that I’m going to Savannah and won’t be back until midday Saturday.”

  “Why Savannah?”

  “A photo shoot. There’s no need for me to be there, but Magellan wants to make sure the photographer knows how to focus the camera.” Clarice touched Tom’s hand. “We could have a lot of fun.”

  “No, I’m going to use this time to close out my father’s practice in Bethel.”

  “And you’re leaving tomorrow?”

  “The sooner I start, the sooner I’ll finish.” Tom paused. “And I need to get out of the city for a few days to clear my head.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “A couple of weeks at the most. Then I can dive into the job market.”

  Tom told her about Mark’s conversation with Nate Becker.

  “See, I told you,” Clarice said and nodded when he finished. “There will be a bidding war for your services. But it will be lonely without you.”

  “You could stay here and take care of Whiskers and Rover. They’re great company.”

  Clarice pulled back. “Whiskers is fine, but I’m not babysitting that dog by myself. Can’t he go with you?”

  Rover, who was lying at Tom’s feet, looked up and gave a moan that started as a deep rumble and ended as a high-pitched whine.

  “See, that’s all he does when you’re gone,” Clarice said. “Just hearing about you leaving sends him into the pits. When you were in Miami taking depositions last month, he moped around the house the whole time and slobbered twice as much as usual. I couldn’t go barefoot and almost slipped and fell in a nasty wet spot he left in the kitchen.”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll take Rover. I just hope Uncle Elias likes him more than you do.”

  Clarice stood and stretched. “Hanging out with your uncle and the dog should be interesting. My mother isn’t the only one with issues. Your relatives have their share too.”

  “You only met Elias once.”

  “Which was enough. I’m glad you’re not like him,” Clarice said with emphasis. “While you’re there you can collect the inheritance coming from your father. That should tide you over, and if you need help spending any of it, I’m available.”

  Tom swallowed. He’d kept information about his father’s affairs private.

  “There isn’t much in his estate,” he said.

  “You’re kidding. He was a lawyer for over thirty years.”

  “Who didn’t make a lot of money and did a bad job managing what he earned. I had to put the funeral bill on a credit card. After he sold the house and moved in with Elias, he gave most of his money away.”

  “Gave it away?”

  “He supported a bunch of religious causes, and there’s no shortage of them holding out their hands. The worst part is he didn’t keep back enough from the sale of the house to pay the federal tax due on his gain. I don’t know what he was thinking. Anyway, he worked out a payment plan with the IRS but was only partway through it when he died. There are thousands still owing. Also, he hadn’t paid any estimated tax on the income he earned at the law firm for the current fiscal year. I haven’t run all the numbers, but after the government is paid, there may not be enough left to justify probating the will.”

  “That’s wrong,” Clarice responded emphatically. “Your father should have thought about you first when it came to his money. This makes me madder than you losing your job. At least McGraw was your boss, not your dad.”

  “It hurt,” Tom admitted. “But then I haven’t paid a lot of attention to him for the past few years.”

  “Which is no reason to leave a mess for you to clean up.” Clarice waved her finger in the air. “If your father was such a godly man, he would have paid the government its due and left something for you to enjoy, not given his money away to strangers. I can’t imagine my parents doing that to me. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  “I was embarrassed,” Tom replied with a shrug.

  “Yeah, I can see why.” Clarice stepped back. “I’d better get going.”

  “And you’ll pick up Whiskers tomorrow?”

  “After the meeting with Magellan. Brittany can help out while I’m in Savannah.”

  ______

  After Clarice left, Tom turned on the gas logs in the small fireplace in the living room and sat in a leather recliner watching the flames. The harsh reality that John Crane had left him nothing except the hassle of dealing with the IRS and the responsibility of closing down a law practice hurt more than Tom wanted to admit.

  While the fire flickered, Rover lay at Tom’s feet. The dog’s world was simple. His master’s presence was enough to bring him contentment. No such person inhabited Tom’s world. He was as isolated as a castaway on a desert island, a man alone in a city of millions.

  chapter

  THREE

  The following morning Tom unpacked the boxes he’d brought home from the office. He took out the photo of his mother taken during a trip to Callaway Gardens when he was five years old. Quiet and reserved, she taug
ht high school English composition and literature for twenty years. Her death from breast cancer when Tom was a junior in high school took away the only ears he knew would listen.

  Caught in a web of joint grief, Tom and his father shared space in the same house for a year and a half until Tom left for college. By the time he graduated four years later, Tom had convinced himself that he’d grown stronger through the tragedy because it forced him to be more self-reliant. This became a mantra, and he repeated the theory whenever he told someone about his past. Not everyone was convinced. A girl Tom dated shortly after moving to Atlanta told him it sounded like something a redneck football coach would tell one of his players. They only went out to dinner once after that.

  Tom’s cell phone buzzed. It was an unfamiliar number.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Tom, it’s Arthur. I called your office, and the receptionist told me you no longer work at the firm. What in the world happened?”

  Tom’s stomach twisted into a knot.

  “I met with the three main partners after you and I talked yesterday. We lost a major client. I was the first of several casualties.”

  “Did you tell them about our conversation?”

  “No. You asked me to keep it confidential until you had a chance to talk with Mr. Snyder. I didn’t want to violate your instructions.”

  “Talking to Lance was a formality. If I’d known your job was in jeopardy, I would have given you permission to bring it up. Who’s the real decision maker at the firm? Give me his direct number. I’ll call him as soon as we hang up and get this straightened out.”

  Tom was shocked. It wasn’t the response he’d expected.

  “Uh, I’m not sure how they operate. But I doubt they’d be willing to change their minds—” Tom stopped.

  Joe Barnes, Reid McGraw, and Olson Crowther would do anything to entice Pelham Financial into their fold. They’d reinstate him in a second and might even throw a cocktail party to celebrate his return. But asking Arthur to step in made him feel like a kid on a baseball team begging his father to intervene with the coach. It ran counter to every independent bone in Tom’s body.

  “Thanks,” he said. “But it’s time for me to move on. If I can’t trust the judgment of the people I’m working with, Barnes, McGraw, and Crowther isn’t the place I want to be for the long term.”

  “I can appreciate that,” Arthur replied thoughtfully. “I’ve had the same conversation with employees over the years. Trust among coworkers is as much a key to our business as it is to yours. But are you sure about this?”

  Tom searched his heart one last time. He knew if he turned down Arthur’s offer of help, it was the end of one road. Where the next road might lead was uncertain.

  “I’ve cut the tie,” Tom said with finality. “When I find another job, I’ll let you know if the new law firm can provide the kind of representation you deserve.”

  “That will take time to determine.”

  “Yes, sir, because you deserve the best legal advice available. Do I have your permission to contact you if I end up with another firm that might be a good fit for Pelham?”

  “Of course. And with your father gone, you have an open invitation to ask my advice about anything. Do you have my cell and direct phone numbers?”

  “No, sir.”

  The older man gave the numbers to Tom, who entered them into his phone.

  “Tom, I’m sorry about the job,” Arthur said. “I know it stings, but this isn’t a failure. It’s a stepping-stone to something better. I’ve seen it happen over and over.”

  “I believe that,” Tom replied with more confidence than he felt.

  “Don’t hesitate to call.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good-bye, son.”

  Midmorning, Tom left for a couple of hours to run errands before leaving town. When he returned and walked through the living room on the way to his bedroom, Whiskers wasn’t in her usual place on top of the sofa. Tom stuck his head in the kitchen. The cat wasn’t in her second-favorite spot in the corner beside the oven.

  “Whiskers!”

  Going into the bedroom, Tom opened the door to his walk-in closet, the cat’s secret hideaway. What he saw stopped him in his tracks.

  All his shirts, suits, and pants were neatly lined up in a row. On the left were his casual clothes and the heavy winter coat he wore on the few days in Atlanta when the temperature dipped into the teens. But the section of the closet he’d vacated so Clarice could keep a few outfits available at his apartment was empty. Feeling like he did when his car was once towed from a downtown parking lot, he stared at the empty spot as if the clothes would magically reappear. They didn’t. He glanced over his shoulder at the bed and saw an envelope on the bedspread. He took out a heavily scented piece of paper.

  Tom,

  What’s happened the past twenty-four hours has made it clear to me that it’s time for both of us to move on. Your trip to Bethel makes the separation easier. If you find anything else that belongs to me at the apartment, let me know. Whiskers is with me. I promised to watch her while you’re out of town, but what I’d really like to do is keep her as a positive reminder of the fun times we’ve had together.

  Hugs,

  Clarice

  Move on. It was the same phrase Tom had used when he told Arthur Pelham that he didn’t want help getting his job reinstated at the law firm. Apparently Clarice thought about Tom the same way he did about Reid McGraw. Opportunities to become more self-reliant were coming faster than he could process them. He lowered the note so Rover could sniff it.

  “She perfumes a note breaking up with me and wants the cat?” he said to the dog. “I can only hope she and Whiskers will be as happy together as I am with you.”

  Returning to the kitchen, Tom thought about the girl who’d taken him to the humane society the day he first met Rover. Her fate would be his. In a few years, Tom would be a barely remembered footnote in the book of Clarice’s life, Whiskers an entire chapter. He dropped the envelope and note in the trash can and closed the lid.

  Tom sat at the small table where he and Clarice had eaten many ethnic meals together. There was no use delaying a response. Tom’s fingers raced across the phone keypad.

  You’re right. Whiskers is yours. Best of luck. Tom.

  An hour later Tom’s car crawled through Friday afternoon traffic. Rover lay contentedly in the passenger seat of the car, a towel positioned to catch any stray saliva. It was a hundred miles north and a hundred years back in time from Atlanta to Bethel.

  Once clear of gridlock, they traveled another hour before leaving the interstate for a cross-country drive through a rolling rural landscape dotted with weathered farmhouses, an occasional cluster of mobile homes, and massive new estates that were surrounded by horses grazing behind long white fences and Angus cattle in herds near small ponds. The owners of the estate properties were akin to eighteenth-century English gentry who made their money in the city and moved to the country to enjoy it.

  Bethel was nestled in the northwest corner of the state. Uncle Elias, the family historian, claimed the original member of the Crane family came to America from England in 1825 and migrated to Etowah County shortly after the Cherokees were expelled from the region in 1837. When he was a boy, Tom found bucket loads of Indian artifacts in the fields that surrounded the ancestral home where Elias now lived.

  The population of Bethel remained stagnant until 1910 when a railroad spur connected the community to the surrounding region. This led to an economic boom that changed the region—the growth of the textile industry. Words like creeling, spinning, tufting, and doffing became part of the local vocabulary. Cash wages replaced sharecropping. People moved to Bethel, not away from it. Men became supervisors in the mills and built houses in town. Plant managers joined the country club established by the owners of the mills. Then, after two generations of prosperity, the bottom dropped out. Even the low pay in the area’s nonunionized mills couldn’t compete with the mi
nuscule wages paid to workers in China, Guatemala, Pakistan, and a score of other countries. Mills closed. Those that stayed open became niche manufacturers for the most expensive garments. Then help came from an unexpected source.

  Arthur Pelham saved his hometown.

  Pelham Financial refurbished a bankrupt textile mill building and hired five hundred people to perform telephone marketing, customer assistance, data entry, mail processing, bookkeeping, clerical activities, and other support functions that didn’t require a high level of formal training or professional licensure.

  When he was in Bethel, Arthur lived in a restored home near the center of town. The antebellum Parker-Baldwin house was already the grandest residence in town when Arthur bought it. He then poured a large sum into a major restoration. Now the house appeared in guidebooks about places to see in north Georgia.

  Tom crossed the shallow creek that marked the eastern boundary of Etowah County. The road gently wound its way through the hills. Shortly before arriving at the city limits, he saw the driveway that led to the house where Derrick “Rick” Pelham, Arthur’s son, lived. Tom could barely see Rick’s house nestled on top of a hill. A shiny black pickup truck came barreling down the driveway into the road directly in front of Tom, who honked his horn. The driver of the truck slammed on his brakes and got out of the car.

  It was Rick Pelham.

  “Let’s settle this right now!” Rick yelled as he charged toward Tom’s car. “I’m ready to pound you worse than I did when we were in the fifth grade.”

  Tom flipped on the emergency flashers and got out of the car. Rick, a short muscular man with close-cut dark hair, grabbed him in a bear hug.

  “I won that fight,” Tom replied when Rick released his grip. “You had a black eye.”