“Call Dickie Murphree,” her Uncle Dennis said, when she finally got him on the phone. “I finally got smart and hired him the second time around. He’s the best divorce lawyer in town. Didn’t the two of you go to high school together?”
“Dickie! Of course,” Grace said, her black mood lifting, just a little. “That’s a great idea. Dickie took me on my first real car date. I haven’t seen him in a couple years.”
“Give him my best when you call,” Dennis said. “And tell him I hope I never have to see him again. No offense.”
She called the law offices of Murphree-Baggett-Hopkins twice a day, for two days in a row, each time asking the receptionist to please have Dickie call her about an urgent matter.
“He’s in court,” the receptionist told her. “I know, but I’m an old friend,” she said, giving the woman her maiden name. Might as well start getting used to it again, she thought glumly.
Things really were getting pretty dire.
As much as she dreaded another confrontation, she had to talk to Ben. Aside from business matters that had to be settled, she needed more clothes, her treasured interior design books and magazine files, and the macro lens for her camera. Also panties.
Finally, she decided on an ambush. Grace dressed carefully for the outing, as carefully as she could considering the fact that her hastily packed suitcase contained three faded T-shirts, two pairs of yoga pants, her jogging shorts, and a pair of skinny white jeans that she hadn’t actually been able to fit into in two years.
Now though, the jeans zipped with ease. Heartache, she thought ruefully, was the ultimate diet aid.
She tried calling Ben one more time, and when her message went directly to voice mail, she resolutely got behind the wheel of the Subaru and drove the ten miles to Siesta Key, her stomach roiling so badly that once, a mile from the house, she had to pull off onto the side of the road to barf on a white oleander bush.
On the way over, Grace rehearsed her lines.
“Hello, Ben. I know you’ve been avoiding me, and you’re probably still furious about me driving the Audi into the pool, but hey! I’m still furious about finding you and J’Aimee doing the nasty in the front seat, so why don’t we just call it a tie and figure out a way to get through all this with some courtesy and civility?”
She thought that was an excellent opener. And she would follow it up by letting him know that he would absolutely HAVE to unfreeze the bank accounts and credit cards and restore her access to the blog.
“It’s my business, Ben. It’s called Gracenotes, for God’s sake. Your preventing me from participating in it is foolish and shortsighted.”
That would get him. Ben was all about business. Since he dealt with all the blog’s advertisers, he would certainly want to keep them happy to keep the ad dollars flowing. Right? Surely he would be reasonable, now that he’d had some time to think things over rationally. Right?
Up ahead, Grace spotted the thick emerald green embankment that meant she was approaching Gulf Vista, their subdivision. A stately row of royal palms, underplanted with thick beds of asparagus ferns, lined both sides of the road, and a classic arched white stucco bridge crossed over a canal. A hundred yards ahead, she spotted the security gate and felt a sharp, unexpected wave of panic so strong that she had to clutch the steering wheel to keep from turning around and fleeing in the opposite direction.
Stop this! She told herself sternly. This is a business transaction. No need for emotion. Be strong.
She pulled the car alongside the electronic card reader and swiped her plastic key card through it, waiting patiently for the heavy iron gates to slide open.
Nothing. The gate didn’t move. She wiped the card on the leg of her jeans, a trick she’d used many times when the finicky card reader refused to open sesame.
Grace tried three more times with the same results. Despite the fact that she had the Subaru’s air-conditioner thermostat on the subarctic setting, she could already feel sweat beading up on her forehead. Her mouth was dry, but her hands as they gripped the key card were clammy.
The driver of the black Lexus behind her car tapped his horn impatiently, but Grace had no place to go. The gate wouldn’t open, and there were two more cars behind the Lexus.
The driver tapped his horn again. Finally, near tears, Grace rolled the window down and leaned out to address the situation. “I’m sorry,” she called, waving her key card. “It’s not working. Can you back up so that I can back up?”
The driver, an older man with silver hair, gestured impatiently. Finally, all three cars backed up so that Grace could get out of the line. She parked her car on the shoulder of the road and went to the guard shack, whose dark tinted windows obscured those inside. She felt limp and defeated, and she hadn’t even gotten to the house yet, a destination she was already dreading.
She tapped on the guard-shack window, and finally a uniformed security guard, a middle-aged guy with a graying military crew cut, opened the door. She was grateful for the cold blast of air-conditioning. The guard stepped outside and Grace recognized him
