“As you well know,” Ashley said with a smug smile, “Mr. Quackenbush does not have to pay alimony at all if his wife has committed adultery.”
“What? He started it!” I didn’t mean to shout, but the unfairness of it all got the better of me. Paloma shook her head, and I shut my gaping mouth.
“Well,” my lawyer said as she deliberately thumbed through my folder. “It seems Mr. Quackenbush ended the marriage first. I notice that you didn’t include the time and date stamp on your photos, but I would imagine we’d find that those pictures were taken rather recently. As opposed to these.”
She put the photos on the table one by one, ending with a money shot of Mitch’s bare white ass.
That wiped the smile off his face.
Mitch met my eyes, his own filled with hatred. “You know, we could make this all go away, Vivian. Just sell the house and take my revised alimony agreement.”
Paloma started to speak, but I held out a trembling hand to stop her. Probably not a wise move on my part, but this man I’d spent almost twenty-five years of my life with thought he could stare me down. So help me, I would let my eyeballs run dry and fall out of my head to the conference table below before I’d blink.
We sat like that, eyes locked, for what seemed an eternity before Mitch finally looked away.
“My client finds such a suggestion patently unreasonable,” Paloma said. “Youcould also make all of this go away by agreeing to her rather reasonable requests.”
Funny how she called my wants “requests” but his wants “demands.” I had to appreciate her use of semantics.
And our lawyers were at it again. This time, they didn’t bother cloaking their words in niceties; their kid gloves were off. Now Mitch’slawyer wouldn’t concede anything. She brought up my drunken video and said I should settle now because the court wouldn’t look favorably on such things.
Paloma only allowed herself a split-second look of surprise in my direction before wading back into the argument.
Then Ashley said that Mitch wanted a portion of any future profits from my YouTube channel since we’d been married at the time, and he’d suffered business losses from my slander.
“Oh, for crying out loud!” I shouted.
They ignored me. Ashley pointed out I was lucky that Dylan was old enough to avoid a custody battle.
I shuddered at the thought even as Paloma countered that Mr. Quackenbush hadn’t shown any plans for how he intended to help pay for Dylan’s college expenses.
“I would argue he shouldn’t have to shoulder that burden alone.Yourclient hasn’t even begun to look for a job.”
“Yes I have!” Why did no one think I was looking for a job when I’d applied to anything and everything, including Angelo’s Pizza Palace? And Angelo hadsaidhe’d get back to me.
“My client shouldn’t be penalized for choosing to be a stay-at-home mother! Your client even encouraged her to stay home, butnowhe has a problem with it, calling her a ...”—she paused to consult her notes—“‘cold, dead fish,’ ‘a real bitch,’ and, I quote, ‘a flabby freeloader.’”
“Hey, I muttered that last one under my breath!” Mitch said.
His lawyer ignored him. “No worse than your client calling mine a cliché—”
Well, he is.
“A lying liar—”
Also true.
“And a dick dentist.”
“Whoa, one of his patients called him a dick dentist. That wasn’t me,” I said. “I told him not to be a dick. There’s a difference.”
“Ms. Robbins,” Paloma started.
“Oh, so now I’m Ms. Robbins, Ms. Carter?” Ashley said.
“You well know that words spoken in the heat of anger shouldn’t enter into these proceedings,” my lawyer continued unflappably.
“I would argue words spoken in anger are the truest—”
