Going For Broke (13 page)

CHAPTER 9

             
The next morning after everyone had left the house, Victoria spurned her morning Oprah and instead called Jack Taggert, on the verge of tears.  The stress of the past six weeks had really gotten to the normally unflappable Victoria.

             
“Victoria, where are you?  I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said. 

             
For a moment, Victoria’s heart leapt.  “Oh, Jack, have you heard from Trip?” she asked. 

             
“No, no, not a word.  I’ve been worried about you though.  I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said.

             
Yeah, I’m great, Jack.  I’m living in sweatpants in my mother’s guest room with no money, no prospects and the FBI breathing down my neck.  I’m sleeping on sheets from the 70s.  Did I mention that I’ve gained 15 pounds and that you wouldn’t recognize me?

             
“I’m fine, Jack.  I just need you to help me.  What can we do?  We have to find Trip.  We need a plan.”

             
Jack was silent on his end of the phone.

             
“Jack?  Did you hear me?  We have to find Trip.  Do you have any idea of where he could be?  Did he really take all that money?  There has to be some mistake.  There has to be.  Is there any way to get them to release our accounts?  What are our options?” These were the questions that kept her awake every night. 

             
“Oh, Victoria, I wish I could be of more help,” Jack sounded genuinely concerned. 

             
“What do you mean, you wish you could be more help?  There have to be options,” she almost shrieked into the phone.

             
“Victoria, you know I’d help you if I could.  I’m just a partner at this firm.  It’s all about billable hours here.  As it stands right now, you’re not really in the position to be billing anything,” he said.  “My hands are tied.”

             
Bullshit your hands are tied.  You have been one of our best friends for over 20 years and you’re going to hide behind the billable hours defense?  Even Victoria knew that was the lamest excuse in the book.  “Jack, what am I going to do?  I need a lawyer!”

             
“Yes, you probably do, Victoria.  Good luck.”  With that, Jack hung up.  Victoria stopped herself from throwing the phone against the wall when she realized that she couldn’t afford to replace it. 

             
Initially, Victoria was indignant when the FBI first leveled charges against Trip.  It was unthinkable that he would do anything illegal.  He would never put Victoria or the children in jeopardy.  They had built the perfect life together - SHE had built him a perfect life.  He would never just throw it away.  There had to be some other explanation. 

             
Now, she was just plain mad.  Mad at Trip for putting her in this situation, and mad at every person in New York that three months ago would have been terrified of the infamous Wrath of Victoria Vernon who were now shunning her calls and backpedaling their way out of any involvement with her.  Mad at the FBI for taking everything she had.  Mad at her mother for just being her mother.  She was mad all right.  The question was, what could she do about it?

             
Of course her mother didn’t have a working computer in her house, so any thought of an internet search was quickly deleted.  She went through the drawers in the kitchen looking for a phone book.  No phone book, though she did find an old photo album in the bottom drawer of the sideboard. 

             
It was filled with photos of Victoria when she was a baby and toddler.  Taken in true 1960s fashion, most of the small square photos were filled with lamps and sofas, with only the bottom quadrant of the photo filled with Victoria’s little face.  There were pictures of her with her mother - who had to be about Victoria’s age at the time.  Victoria looked a little closer.  Damn!  Her mother looked good.  That was without the constant maintenance that Victoria was accustomed to.  There was just one photo of her with both parents.  Her father was holding her and her mother was smiling at her father.  They looked to be at some sort of fair, and Victoria had to be around three years old.  When Victoria thought of her childhood, she only focused on what she didn’t have and how different she was from everyone else in town.  Looking at the photo, she wondered what her life would have been like if her father had lived.  From the looks of the photo, they would have been happy.  Victoria shut the album with a snap.  No time for meandering down memory lane.  She had work to do.

             
Back on the hunt for the phone book, Victoria scoured the house.  Come on, she thought, her mother was the kind of person to keep all her phone books back to the ‘80s.  What brought on this new sense of clean living in the Brewster house?  It wasn’t until she got to the top shelf of her mother’s linen closet did she finally find one.  Who the hell kept their phone book in their linen closet, she thought as she dragged the tattered 1997 Yellow Pages off the shelf.  She flipped through the pages looking for legal aid, but was distracted when she got to the pages for “Salons, Beauty”.  It had been so long!  Even ‘Marjorie’s House of Style’ was looking good.  After a couple of minutes of wistful window shopping, she shook herself out of it and continued onto ‘Attorneys’.  That, too, had her easily distracted.  Who knew there were so many kinds of attorneys?  They had always just used Jack. 

             
Where to start?   Bankruptcy Law Attorneys?   Very likely.   Criminal Law Attorneys? Again, very likely.  Divorce Attorneys?  More likely every day.  If she had someone to divorce.  All well and good, though those attorneys would be billing hours too.  Probably not at the same rate as Jack Taggert, still any rate was more than she could afford.

             
She finally came across ‘Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago’.  Even when she was living over the fried chicken joint, she never thought she’d be dialing for free legal help.  She put the phone book down and went to the refrigerator instead.  If she was going to hit a new low in her life, she might as well do it well fed.

             
After polishing off last night’s leftovers and half a carton of ice cream, Victoria worked up the steam to call for a lawyer.  Her trepidation at calling for public assistance was soon replaced with frustration.  She spent the good part of an hour in a maze of TelePrompTer announcements, being placed on hold and being transferred to someone who would promptly disconnect her.  After finally getting to speak with a real live person - who Victoria swore could not have possibly graduated from 6th grade, let alone law school - they told her they couldn’t offer any advice over the phone and that she should come downtown to their offices instead.  No appointment was necessary - it was on a first-come, first-serve basis.  The last person she spoke to suggested that she plan to spend the day there.

             
Defeated, she retreated to her favorite place on the sofa.  Fritzie hopped up to take his place beside her.  She grabbed the remote and had to laugh as “Judge Judy” was the first thing she came across.  Finally, here was some legal advice she could afford.

             
Parker and Posey came home from school, and as had become their routine, they grabbed a snack from the kitchen and came out to join Victoria on the sofa.  The fact that their mother had regressed into the World’s Most Accomplished Couch Potato didn’t disturb them in the slightest.  Suddenly they both found their mother more accessible than ever. 

             
Barbara walked into the house, exhausted from a long day of work.  She slumped when she saw Victoria and the children glued to the television, empty plates and snack boxes surrounded them.  The phone rang and none of them even noticed.

             
“Can someone get that?” Barbara called.

             
No answer.  Barbara put down a bag of groceries on the dining room table and grabbed the phone as quickly as she could. 

             
“Victoria, it’s for you,” she had to yell over the volume of the television.  No answer.  She walked in front of the TV to block the view.  All three groaned audibly. 

             
“Victoria, telephone,” she scolded.  Barbara’s yellow princess phone was still attached to the wall, which required that Victoria  leave her perch on the sofa.

             
“Oh, mother, who is it?”

             
“It’s the mother a friend of Parker’s.  She’s calling for a play date.”

             
“Please.  Can you handle that?”

             
“Victoria!  She sounds nice.  You should talk to her.”  Barbara wanted to get her out of the house.  Maybe she could even make a friend or two. 

             
“Honestly mother, scheduling play dates is not in my skill-set.  Besides, you or Bud would have to drive him, you should make the date.”  She turned back to her program, effectively dismissing her mother.  Barbara shrugged and went back to finish the phone call, for Parker’s sake. 
             

             
After she set up the date in question, she came back into the living room and shooed Posey and Parker into the kitchen to do their homework.  She turned off the TV and sat next to Victoria for a much needed and much overdue talk.

             
“Victoria,” Barbara said with a scolding voice Victoria remembered from her youth.

             
“Mother, I don’t do play dates.  That’s why I have a nanny.”

             
“Had a nanny,”  Barbara corrected.  “Vicky, this has got to stop.  It’s getting out of control.”

             
“What?”

             
“The TV, the junk food, it’s ridiculous.”

             
“They’re my kids.  They’ll be okay.”  Victoria was bored with the conversation and just wanted to get back to her TV show.  She was never one much for ‘talking it out’.

             
“I’m not talking about Parker or Posey.  I’m talking about you,” Barbara answered.

             
Victoria sat up on the sofa and looked at her mother with genuine confusion.  “What are you talking about?  I’m fine.”  She looked at the coffee table littered with soda cans and wrappers.  She picked up the butt of a Ho-Ho and popped it in her mouth.  “Mother, in the last twenty years I have not had dessert.  Ever.  I have never had a hamburger or a potato chip.  Don’t you think I’m due?”

             
“Honey, it’s not just the food.  Although I think you’ve had your due and then some.  Look at yourself!  You’re a mess.  When was the last time you wore anything other than sweatpants?”

             
“I wear leggings,” Victoria protested.

             
Victoria remembered vividly the last time she had tried on a pair of her New York pants.  She could barely get them over her thighs.  She had worn Bud’s sweatpants every day since.  “So I’ve put on a couple of pounds.  So what?”  She was more than a little defensive.

             
“Vicky - what do you do all day?  Watch TV?  Eat?  Do you even leave the house?” Barbara realized that when she laid it out, it sounded horrible.

             
So did Victoria.  She had never really had a plan beyond what she was doing.  “It’s working just fine for me,” she protested. 

             
“Obviously.  Victoria, we’re going to make some changes as long as you’re in my house.  First new rule is no more TV.  Second rule is that you need to get out of the house at least once a day.”