Mack did not; he had no photos of his dad. But the idea of his father spying on them didn’t bother him so much. If he was really honest with himself, in his mind Warner Evans had been watching him his whole life. His father had been the invisible, internal audience throughout all of Mack’s triumphs, and especially during his defeats.
“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it,” he said to Hailey. “If he’s that big of a criminal still, he’ll have more interesting things to worry about than us.”
6.
Hailey
Why did everything always have to happen all at once?
Thursday, August 29. Mabel and Gigi’s camp had finished for the summer. But (of course) school and preschool didn’t start until the following week, so neither did the after-school babysitter. Mack had promised the girls one last trip to the pool at the Shoreby Club, and then inevitably swanned off to some mysterious department meeting. Yesterday, Hailey’s mother had selfishly decided to break her ankle in what must have been the only jazzercise class still running in the twenty-first century. Gulliver was only now starting to recover from a near-death experience; the incident with Mabel’s doll stroller had resulted in a strangulated hernia and an infection that cost $2,000 and nearly killed him, and now he couldn’t be left unattended, lest he try to chew at his freshly stitched-up manhood. And the grand finale: the firm’s best paralegal, the ballbuster rock star who worked all hours and rose to every challenge Hailey set for her, had chosen today of all days to arrange a call between Hailey and the impossible-to-get-hold-of David Rainier. Rebekah’s estranged husband was basically Batman, as far as Hailey could tell, so this wasn’t something that could be rescheduled for a more convenient time.
No matter: Hailey would dial in from the pool. She would put Gulliver into her big canvas bag and smuggle him past the club attendant. She’d blow up the swim floaties, wipe the chlorinated snot from Gigi’s face, and coax Mabel off the diving board a few times. She’d order the girls grilled cheese sandwiches and reapply their sunscream, as Mabel still called it. Then, after she’d squeezed in delivering the news to David Rainier about the two hundred and fifty grand he owed her, she would put the kids and the invalid sausage in the car and drive down to Akron to check on her mal-coordinated mom.
(A thousand dollars said Mack had been told about this meeting months and months ago, and just hadn’t bothered to write it down. Any sympathy Hailey felt over hisGoodfellaschildhood had evaporated.)
Gulliver hated riding in any kind of anything, especially now, which meant that Hailey knew ahead of time that she’d have to cover his head with towels and sneak past the zitty teenage pool attendant with a writhing, jumping beach bag on her arm. This had been her focus during the preparations, and so she hadn’t supervised Mabel’s final swimsuit choice. Which was why Mabel, who had just removed her cover-up, was now prancing around the very exclusive Shoreby Club in a tiny sequined bikini from Walmart and jelly plastic platform sandals, both gifted by Hailey’s mother. She looked like a six-year-old stripper.
Hailey took a deep breath, and a bit of luck came her way: there were three chaises free on the far corner closest to the lake. She could tuck Gulliver behind one of them and he could snooze undetected in the shade. She had even remembered to bring the leftover painkillers from the vet in case he had trouble falling asleep. She waved to Allison Murdoch as she passed, she of the six boys in seven years (and all in private school!), and then smiled at the old guy with the weird mustache who lived in one of the big houses on the shore. He was always around, walking the neighborhood, swimming laps in the pool, checking his perimeter. Oh, to be retired! Hailey was more than ready.
Too late she recognized the occupants of the chaises next to the ones she was aiming for: their next-door neighbor Betsy Wakefield and her two daughters. The eldest, Arabella, was wearing the exact same strawberry-print (one-piece) Crewcuts swimsuit that Hailey had laid out for Mabel that morning, and also the matching hair bow and the coordinating flip-flops. She and her equally well-turned-out sister, whose name Hailey couldn’t remember, were both reading books that looked very advanced for their ages. Hailey made a mental note to get Mabel brushed up on her phonics. Mabel was always a little behind in everything: she had been born at twenty-two weeks and, having fought like hell for six months to stay alive, now seemed to have only placid happiness left in her. No matter; Hailey would clear a path around Mabel for the rest of her life if she had to. Mabel had kept up her end of the bargain by not dying.
Neither of the Wakefield kids acknowledged Mabel or Gigi, and the snub was roundly reciprocated, even though the girls had all played together a few times. Hailey wished adults could indulge the same instincts; she and Betsy hadn’t even been able to get past vague pleasantries and empty discussions of meeting for coffee. Hailey said hello to the Wakefield females and made a comment on the beautiful day.
“We brought our dog Gulliver swimming,” Gigi immediately said to Betsy. “He has an infection in his privates and so we can’t leave him so now we’re going to take him in the pool so he can swim. Have you met Gulliver?”
“I certainlyhearGulliver all the time,” said Betsy, with a disgusted glance at the verboten four-legged pool guest. “But I don’t believe we’ve met formally, no.”
Hailey’s phone buzzed. It was a 212 number that flashed up; it had to be David Rainier. A full two hours ahead of schedule. Of course she took the call, directing Mabel and Gigi, who still hadn’t taken her T-shirt and shorts off, toward the baby pool. Fortunately, Mabel knew the drill, and Hailey’s voice came out calm and even when she spoke: “Mr. Rainier. Thank you so much for agreeing to this call today.”
“Yep.”
“I felt sure that if we could just connect and speak candidly, we could come to an arrangement.”
“You mean you’re sure you can talk me into paying you?” He laughed. “Rebekah told me you want two hundred and fifty grand?” He laughed again.
So this was how it was going to go.
“You think you shouldn’t pay me? You’d rather that I tell all the people that work for me that the hundreds of hours they spent fighting in your wife’s corner in good faith was just for fun?”
Rainier didn’t say anything, but he didn’t hang up, either.
“Then I’ll have to fire a few of those people, of course, because of the bank breathing down my neck, but I’m sure they’ll register for unemployment cozy in the knowledge that you and your wife have decided to rekindle your romance, at least for now.”
More silence. Hailey saw that Mabel had tugged up her bikini bottom so that it was basically a thong, and Gigi was sitting in the shallow water fully clothed. Any minute now they would be thrown out of here.
“Look, Ms. Evans. Hailey. I dislike my wife even more than you probably do. Off the record, she’s a nasty, narcissistic cokehead that I wouldn’t leave my children alone with for five minutes. We both know the family courts would try to make me do just that, and that she’d use custody as leverage. So Rebekah and I have come to an arrangement, as distasteful to me as that may be.”
“Then your arrangement needs to include settling her legal bills.”
“I don’t think so. I’m really sorry.” He soundedgenuinelysorry, which threw Hailey off. “I really am, but I don’t have two fifty to throw around just because your firm was dumb enough to give a crazy woman a huge line of credit. It’s the principle, is the way I see it.
“People change their minds about getting divorced all the time. Surely your policy should be to make your clients pay you up front, or at least as they go.”
“We extended credit in Rebekah’s case because—”
Gulliver had escaped Hailey’s bag and was sprinting toward the baby pool. He was going to pull the stitches right out of his dick.
She pressed on. “We made an exception because... because—”
