“I know,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”
We rocked in silence for several seconds, both of us looking out over her front lawn, which consisted of a small square patch of grass, a beautiful magnolia, and a row of white hydrangea bushes planted along the front of the porch. The landscape was so simple it reminded me of a child’s drawing, right down to the yellow butterfly fluttering on a flower near us. I could tell Julie was watching it, too, both of us tracing its flight, in and out of the dappled sunlight.
“So you’ll be my lawyer?” I said.
Julie sighed. “I don’t know, Nina—”
“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re my best friend and you’re a Tennessee divorce lawyer.” I let out a dry laugh.
“I know. And I’m happy to take your case,” she said, as I noted her telling use of the word happy in this context. “And I certainly can handle it. But you may want to consider some bigger hitters.”
“Bigger hitters?” I said. “C’mon, Jules. Nobody hits harder than you.”
“True,” she said, smiling back at me. “But you know what I mean. There are lawyers who specialize in high-net-worth and celebrity clients….”
I shook my head and said, “No. I want you.”
“Okay, then. You have me. Always.”
I nodded and said, “So what’s next?”
“We get the PI…and you gather all the information you can. Any financial information, bank statements, investments, a list of all your assets….We’ll eventually subpoena records. But get everything you can for now. Once we get our ducks in a row, we will file a complaint. That’s followed by a mandatory sixty-day cooling-off period. From there, we do discovery….”
My stomach lurched. “So you think this will go to trial?”
“Maybe. Probably.”
“But don’t a lot of people settle? Or do mediation?”
“Yes,” she said. “But honestly, I don’t see mediation working with Kirk. Do you? He doesn’t know the word compromise.”
“Yeah…He’s going to be so shocked.”
“Oh, will the poor thing feel betrayed?” she said, her voice dripping with disdain.
“You really hate him, don’t you?”
She stared at me for a beat, as if trying to restrain herself—for the sake not of her new client but of her old friend. Yet she couldn’t help herself.
“Yeah,” she said. “I hate him, Nina.”
“Since when?” I asked, thinking back to when Kirk had sold his company, feeling sure she would cite that as a turning point.
“Um. Since the night I met him. When he cheated in putt-putt.”
Looking up at the sky, at least as much of it as I could see from the porch, I rewound to the first time I’d brought Kirk to my hometown from Vandy. I actually had a photograph from that night, which was unusual, because it was pre–camera phones. In it, Kirk, Julie, Adam, and I were all standing in the run-down parking lot of the Putt-Putt Fun Center on Bluff City Highway. The three of us from Bristol were wearing sneakers and T-shirts, but Kirk had on a polo shirt, khakis, and driving moccasins—which at the time I just thought of as loafers with funny rubber things on the bottom.
“What did he do, exactly?” I said, picturing him nudging the ball with his foot—or taking an extra turn. The joking, impatient ways a lot of people cheated in minigolf.
“He was keeping the scorecard, of course,” she said. “And Adam kept busting him shaving off his own strokes. Blatant cheating.”
“Wow…What else?” I said.
“What do you mean ‘what else’? Other than the cheating?” She raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that sort of like saying ‘other than his shitty character’?”
“I meant what else do you remember,” I said, feeling the tiniest bit defensive. Not of Kirk per se. But of the whole notion that his actions that night automatically translated to irredeemable character flaws. “Other than the minutiae around minigolf?”
“Minigolf,” she said with stone seriousness, “is a metaphor for life.”
I smiled and said, “Oh, really?”
“Yes. I mean, think about it….Do you take it seriously? Too seriously? Do you enjoy it? Do you keep careful score? Do you get upset when you lose? Do you cheat? And if you do cheat, how do you react when you’re busted? Are you sheepish? Sorry? Do you do it again?”
I held up my palms and said, “Okay, okay…All I’m saying is—I think cheating on your wife is a little worse than cheating at putt-putt….And I don’t think Kirk was that bad back then,” I said. “After all, I fell in love with him, right?”
“Did you?” she asked, looking more than a little skeptical.
“Uh…yeah. I married him, Julie,” I said, hearing how lame my comeback sounded given everything that was happening in our lives.
She heard it, too, raising her eyebrows as I continued.
“I don’t regret our whole marriage. That would be akin to regretting Finch….I just regret…the past few years. Since Kirk sold his business. I think that’s when he changed,” I said, stopping short of mentioning money directly.
Julie nodded and said, “Yeah. Well, he definitely got worse after that. More arrogant, more entitled…What’s the saying? Money makes you more of what you already are?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Something like that.”
Julie looked thoughtful for a beat, as if trying to figure something out, then said, “You know, in the past decade, I don’t think I’ve ever been around Kirk for longer than thirty minutes in which he didn’t excuse himself to go ‘make a call.’?” She imitated his deep voice, then muttered, “Self-important prick.”
I winced at her words, knowing she was right, thinking of how he couldn’t bear to be separated from his phone. In fact, the only time I’d seen him without it for any length of time was at the Masters every year, where cellphones were absolutely forbidden—no matter how wealthy or powerful you were. It was one of the few rules he actually respected—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the elitist context.
“Like, nobody’s that important. Herman Frankel doesn’t do that, and he’s a freaking brain surgeon,” Julie continued, referring to the valedictorian of our class, with whom Julie was still friends. “He never mentions his work unless other people bring it up. And he won’t even make plans to go out if he’s on call because he doesn’t want to have to insult people by stepping away from the table.”
She was on a roll now. Part of me was embarrassed for my husband—and myself for putting up with his behavior for so long—but I also felt oddly comforted by her rant. It was almost like therapy or validation.
“He’s such an insufferable snob,” she continued. “I mean, Nina, forget what he can afford. Because I get that—if you can pay for nice hotels and first class, fine, get your nice hotels and first class. I’d do it, too, if I could….I don’t begrudge Kirk all the perks that come with wealth and success. But he thinks of himself as a higher class of person. Like he, along with his rich, white, male friends, is truly better than the rest of us.”