“Oh, Stark. I’m counting on it.”
That Sunday night, it was time to start a new module in my online paralegal education. I’d turned in my last project, so Legal Research, Part One, was in my rearview mirror, as were such scintillating topics as law office management, estate planning/probate, criminal law, and family law.
Probably best not to mix those last two. Unless I wanted to be a consigliere, which might require a course entitled Criminal Family Law.
All in all, I’d already taken seven of the thirteen courses I needed for my paralegal certificate and was on pace to complete the program at the end of the year—thanks to adding an extra course here and there.
My next two courses would be Civil Litigation, Part One—who knew civil litigation was so vast that it needed two parts?—and Tort Law. Sadly, tort law appeared to have nothing to do with tortes.
What had I learned from these past few months? I still preferred letters and words to numbers, and it was just as well I had never gone to law school. I found the subject of law intriguing, but I liked keeping my own hours and not having to go to an office each day.
In an odd sort of way, I suppose I owed Ken a thank-you note for sending me down a different path, a career path I liked a whole heckuva lot better than I would’ve liked working in an office and/or trotting off to court, which was, sadly, more boring than television and movies would have you believe. Far better to have the flexibility of doing both private investigation and paralegal work from home than to be a buttoned-up lawyer.
But no thank-you note for the Douchecanoe.
As Little Miss Petty, I had a lot of better options for him, and as soon as I figured out how, I just might become my own best client. In the meantime, however, I needed a fancy dress for this gala.
I knew just the place to get one.
“Stella Bella Mortadella!” my nana said as I walked through the door of Shindigs and Soirées, her boutique shop that specialized in weddings and other formal events. As of late, she’d been doing brisk business in quinceañeras, partially thanks to some work I’d done for a bilingual lawyer down in Buckhead. Her added success probably explained her excitement to see me as well as the extra few seconds of her hug.
“It shouldn’t take needing something for you to come see your grandmother,” she chided, just as I’d expected she would.
“I know, I know. It’s been ... a lot.”
“That Ken. I never liked him,” she said.
“You’ve made that abundantly clear over the years,” I said. “Would it help if I said you were right and I was wrong?”
Her brow furrowed. “It doesn’thelp, but ... I’m not mad at the acknowledgment that your nana does know a thing or two—especially since you had me open up the shop just for you.”
“Thanks, Nana.”
She shrugged. “That’s what grandmothers do. Or what they try to do if only their prickly granddaughters will let them.”
I took in her earnest brown eyes and sleek navy sheath dress. She colored her hair to an ashy blond and kept it just long enough to graze her shoulders. She’d be seventy-four in September, but she said she wasn’t ready to retire just yet.
“I’ll try to do better at asking my nana for favors. Do you have anything suitable for a gala?”
“Which one?”
“The Malone Gala.”
She gave a low whistle. “I’ve never managed to snag an invite to that one, but I should have something. I can’t promise anything from a major designer, though.”
“I don’t need a major designer.”
She tilted her head to one side. “No, but I needyouto look good ifIwant to attract the attention of everyone there, now don’t I?”
Always both thinking ahead and thinking of her bottom line, that was my nana.
She led the way from the front hallway down to a room that had probably once been a dining room for some wealthy Marietta family. The hardwood floors creaked under my feet in a familiar way.
The formalwear market had changed many times over the years, but Nana’s storefront had changed very little. She now owned rather than rented the Queen Anne house a few blocks off the square, but it still sported buttercream-colored walls, all the original fireplaces, a rainbow of gowns on the bottom floor with a bridal boutique upstairs, and the lingering scent of mulberry potpourri.
“Okay, summer gala. Over at the fancy Hilton, I’m guessing?”
“You know it.” I touched a satiny skirt. Nana smacked my hand as she must’ve done a hundred times before. “A girl gets Cheeto dust on one dress, and she’s never allowed to touch any of them ever again?”
