in a white tux on his wedding day, smiling, holding a drink, his bow tie hanging from one side of his collar. Her dad posing with his bowling buddies-four dudes decked out in their red King Louie shirts with black trim. In another one, her dad was holding up a center console assembly.
Karen had been a senior at Garden City High at the time. She'd planned to go to Michigan State and major in advertising. It looked like a fun business. She liked TV commercials, the funny offbeat beer spots like the Bud Light spot where the only word of dialogue is 'dude.' She had $1,700 in the bank, money earned working part- time at Meijer's Thrifty Acres in the toy department, wearing a red vest, making $7.25 an hour.
After her dad died Karen knew she'd have to postpone college for a while and get a job and help support her mom and sister, Virginia. But doing what? Friends had always told her she should model. She had a unique look and a great figure. Karen would stare at herself in the mirror, thinking she didn't look bad. Five seven, a hundred and fifteen, and she was in shape. She was a former twirler and started on the volleyball team.
Rumor had it that a girl in her English class, a tall quiet brunette named Stephanie, was modeling and making a lot of money. Maybe it was true. She was five ten and good-looking, and she drove a BMW. Stephanie, as it turned out, was surprisingly nice and helpful. She knew a photographer who agreed to take some shots of Karen for her comp sheet, and helped arrange interviews at talent agencies around town, and two weeks after graduation Karen was posing for Hudson's fall catalogue.
Samir fixed his kind dark eyes on her, sitting close, a table against the French doors, and touched her arm. They'd been together for maybe an hour and she was relaxed, comfortable with him, like they were old friends.
Over dinner-four courses-Samir told her he'd been married for twenty-three years, divorced for five, the marriage arranged by his father and a friend of his in the village where they lived outside Beirut. He didn't even know the girl, who was only sixteen at the time, and he, twenty.
Karen said, 'How can you marry someone you don't know?'
'It was custom, tradition,' Samir said. 'You didn't have a choice.'
'Was she good-looking?'
Samir took a sip of wine, holding it in his mouth as if he was trying to decide.
'Very,' Samir said. 'I couldn't believe my good fortune. But she didn't speak English and my Arabic was not so good.'
'Maybe that was a bonus,' Karen said.
Samir smiled at her and said, 'She didn't know how to cook, either, and that wasn't a bonus. I said to her one day, what do you know how to do?'
'What did she say?'
'She looked at me and said, 'I know how to shop.'' He finished his wine, picked up the bottle, poured some in her glass first and then his own.
'Girls are the same everywhere, huh?' Karen said.
Samir said, 'Exactly what I thought.'
'So what happened?'
'It didn't work,' Samir said. 'We had nothing in common.'
'Twenty-three years,' Karen said, 'and you had nothing in common?'
'You go along and suddenly ten years pass by, and one day I thought, I can't do this anymore.'
'Do you have kids?' Karen said.
'Two. Both grown.'
Karen said, 'Where's your wife live?'
'Ex,' Samir said and grinned. 'She bought a condo in Naples.'
Karen said, 'Italy?'
'Florida,' Samir said.
Karen said, 'Do you ever see her?'
'No reason to,' Samir said.
The waiter appeared with plates, rack of lamb Genghis Khan, and served them. Samir picked up his knife and fork, cut a piece of pink lamb and put it in his mouth. 'You're not going to believe it.'
Karen picked up a lamb chop and bit into it. He was right; it was delicious.
After dinner they went back to Birmingham and had a drink in the Rugby Grill at the Townsend Hotel. Samir said, why don't we get a room? Karen said she liked him but it was way too fast for her.
They started going out, seeing each other a few days a week, and then every day. There was a trip to Napa, and another one to France: Paris, Bordeaux and Burgundy-tasting the latest releases from the top vineyards. It was a new experience-traveling by private jet and chauffeured limo.
After that Karen moved into Samir's West Bloomfield compound. He asked her to quit modeling and be available. He took care of her and showered her with gifts. They talked about getting married. He was fifty-two and she was thirty-six. That was close enough, and they had a lot in common. He asked her to call him Smoothie, the affectionate name all his close friends used, but Karen couldn't do it.
She had three hundred grand in a mutual fund that wasn't doing well-money she'd saved working as a model for eighteen years and asked Samir what she should do. He offered to invest it for her. Thought he could double it in three years. She said, are you kidding? Karen sold the fund and gave Samir a check for $299,560, her life savings. How could she miss with him handling her money?
Six months later their relationship started to unravel. Samir wasn't the kind, patient listener he first appeared to be. He was surly and chauvinistic and wanted to know where she was every minute. He'd call her ten times a day to check up on her. The other problem was living in the house with Samir's people-all his hangers-on. She couldn't do it anymore and told him she was leaving and she wanted her money back.
He said, 'I leave you, you don't leave me.'
She said, 'Watch me.' He hit her in the face with his fist and she went down on the marble floor of the foyer.
He said, 'Get out.'
That's what she did. Got up and walked out the front door and got in her car. She looked at her face in the rearview mirror. Her left cheek was bruised and beginning to swell but she felt relieved. She'd known for at least a month that it wasn't going to work, but was too nervous, too afraid to make her move. Now she'd never have to go back there and pretend again.
She'd kept her condo, a rental in Birmingham, the one smart thing she'd done, figuring if things didn't work out she'd need a place to go, and went back there now. She'd left most of her clothes at Samir's. That didn't bother her, but what did was getting her money back. She had no proof she'd given it to him. No forms or receipts or anything. Not even a canceled check with his name on it. At the time, he said, what do you need a receipt for? You think I'm going to steal your money? She'd made the check out to cash like he suggested, which, in retrospect, was pretty dumb. She tried calling Samir, but never got him on the line. She wrote him a letter but never heard from him. Why not give her money back? He was rich. It wasn't going to change his life. But she'd insulted him and he was an old-fashioned guy, and you didn't do that.
She talked to Robert Schreiner, an attorney who lived down the street. Based on his knowledge of contracts-and he was no expert in the field-she was up to her ass in alligators and somebody had drained the swamp. But he agreed to give it a try, and Karen didn't have to pay him unless he got results, and if he did, Schreiner's fee was 20 percent.
'That's fifty grand,' Karen said.
Schreiner said, 'The standard fee is a third.'
She studied him. He was wearing a tee shirt that said Make Love Not Law Review in bold type. She stared into his puffy eyes. He didn't give her much of a feeling of confidence. He needed a shower and some clean clothes for starters.
Schreiner said, 'How much you got now?'
'What?' Karen said.
'You don't want to cut me in for 20 percent, but how much do you have now? Nothing.'
He had a point.
'Come in have a toke,' Schreiner said. 'We'll discuss your legal travails.'
What did she have to lose?
