“Already done. You can just relax. Lot of ladies would kill to be in your shoes, you know that?”
I closed my eyes. “You said I had thirty days to think about it.”
“But what is there to think about? It’s no contest.”
A phrase I’d heard over and over again in TV courtroom dramas had been trying to rise from my subconscious since yesterday, and now it did. I turned my back to Randy and whispered, “How do I contest the will?”
I heard the Adirondack chair groan behind me as Randy stood. I didn’t know if he’d heard me or not. I didn’t look back at him.
Mr. Dooley cleared his throat again. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. “It would be expensive, it could take years and you have nothing to live on in the meantime. That’s not a viable option.”
I turned to face Randy, who was glaring at me. I glared back.
“I’d like to do it anyway,” I said.
There was a pause. “As your lawyer, I have to advise against it.”
I gulped. “Then I’ll get another lawyer.”
Mr. Dooley laughed. “You need money for another lawyer. You don’t have any, and I don’t have time to argue about this anymore. Understood?”
I said nothing.
He put on a more jovial tone. “Petty, you’ve got a million dollars coming to you if you’ll just follow your dad’s wishes. That insurance policy is money in the bank.”
Money in the bank.
I gasped.
“What is it? Petty?” Mr. Dooley was still talking, but I pressed the end button on the phone and tossed it to Randy, who almost didn’t catch it.
“You got some stuff of mine?” I said, walking toward the Ram.
He followed me to his truck, pulled a box out of the bed and put it in my hands.
“Mr. Dooley said you’d give me rides if I needed them,” I said. “I need a ride into Saw Pole.”
“You going to scream or try to bust my window again?” he said.
“I’m gonna put this stuff inside first,” I said, ignoring him. “Get in the truck so I can let the dogs out.”
I ran the box inside then went upstairs to get my state ID. I locked up the house and opened the garage door. The dogs came tearing out and attacked the truck. Randy cracked open his window and yelled, “Get them off my rig!”
I counted to five before I made the signal for “off” and they obeyed. Then I got in the truck and buckled myself in. I studied the buttons on my armrest to see if there was a way to keep him from locking me in and saw I could lock and unlock the doors myself. He pulled onto the county road. I stared out the window. He turned up the country music station. I daydreamed until he said something I didn’t quite catch, then looked in his direction.
He turned down the radio. “I said, you should go to the beauty parlor. They could show you how to do yourself up. You’d be a lot prettier if you wore makeup.”
I shrugged and turned my face to the window. He didn’t talk anymore. When we hit the Saw Pole city limits, I sat up and said, “Can you take me to the Farmers National Bank?”
He parked in front of the bank. “I’ll wait here.”
I’d never gone into a building that wasn’t my house by myself. I wondered if there was an armed guard inside like I’d seen on TV. I opened the door, edged inside with my back to the wall. Found the exits. No armed guard. Two tellers. One customer at a window. I waited against the wall until the unoccupied teller called out to me, “Can I help you?”
Filled with resolve, I pushed myself off from the wall and ran to the counter. I pulled out my Kansas state identification card and gave it to the teller, a girl in a navy blue suit and a flouncy pink blouse.
“I have a savings account here, and I’d like to close it out.”
Chapter 7
THIS WEEK, INSTEAD of cashing my paycheck like usual, I was heading straight to Farmers National to deposit it. I wouldn’t buy weed and PBR, I’d bank the money to buy some new clothes for the gig and beers for my bandmates to try and make things up to them. I would be smart and disciplined this time, and I’d take whatever extra hours I could pick up at the grocery. Things were turning around—-I could feel it.
I opened the glass door to the bank and walked in, and there was Petty Moshen standing at the counter. What were the odds that, after all these years of living in the same town and never seeing her, now I’d seen her twice in one week? But then I remembered what a fool I’d made of myself the last time—-the only time—-I’d talked to her, and the humiliation drove me back behind a pillar, hoping she wouldn’t see me. But I could hear the transaction going on at the teller’s window. I tried not to listen, but the tile floor magnified every sound.
“All right, hon,” the teller, a girl named Britney, who was three years older than me, said to Petty. “What’s your account number?”