Wallis smiled. “Practical, even in your jokes.” She speared another bite of pancake.
Ned walked in and took the stool next to his mother. A pocket on the side of his shorts shifted as a heavy object inside of it slid to one side.
“You have every pocket filled with something, don’t you?” said Wallis. “All I want to know is, if any of those things are combined would it become a bomb?”
“I’m not that stupid, Mom. If I was making a bomb I’d do it after hours and hide the components, especially from Dad.”
“Owww. I might catch on to what you were doing.”
“You haven’t yet.”
Wallis frowned and peered into her son’s green eyes.
“Nope. I’ve got nothing,” she said. “Okay, I’ll settle for, don’t take any of it out during school unless it’s homework. Okay?”
“That was already the plan,” said Ned. “I’ll take six, Dad,” said Ned, reaching for the butter and cutting the stick, carefully guiding half of it onto his plate.
“Ned, some day that bad habit is going to have some very real consequences,” said Wallis.
“I already checked. Dad and both of my uncles have very low bad cholesterol and Uncle Harry eats scrapple for a snack.”
“There’s a chance you got some of my DNA, Ned.”
“Meh,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. It was his usual signal he was done talking. He stuffed his mouth with two pancakes letting butter drip down his chin. “Oooh, bafana,” he mumbled, “good job, Dad.”
Ned gave Norman a thumbs-up as Norman kissed his son on the top of his head. Ned swallowed and folded up another pancake sliding it into his mouth while staring blankly at Wallis.
“That’s okay. The first date is always easy to get. It’s the second one you may find a bit more difficult, young man,” said Wallis. “I’m going to go get my things and put them in the car. Be ready by the time I get back.”
Ned folded another pancake and pushed it into his mouth.
Wallis grabbed her over-sized briefcase and a small box of files she had been going through for a divorce case that was coming up next week and backed her way out of the laundry room door. She felt her shoe squish as she stepped on the old horse hair mat by the back door.
“Ned,” she softly muttered, wondering what was stuck on the bottom of her shoe. She tried to balance the box and look down at her shoe as she kept moving but the box kept getting in the way. She gave up and kept moving.
Chapter Eight
Wallis was almost to her car, still scraping the bottom of her shoe along the driveway before she noticed the man pacing next to her car door. He was tall and lanky dressed in faded brown corduroys and a short-sleeve, pale blue dress shirt, badly stained under the arms, grasping a folder tightly in his hand.
Wallis sharply drew in her breath and almost dropped the box. She took a quick read of the man, wondering how far this was going to go. Should she start screaming now and risk looking silly? The man looked like he hadn’t slept in awhile.
“Are you Wallis Jones? You’re the Black Widow, right?”
“If you’re looking for a lawyer, you need to contact me at my office,” she said, bristling, making her voice as even as she could manage. “I don’t even consider taking clients who show up in my driveway. And for the record, I don’t appreciate the nickname.” Wallis glanced back at the front door hoping Ned was dragging his feet.
“Ray Billings said to find you…”
Wallis cut him off before he could finish. “I’m not Mr. Billings’ attorney, I’m his soon to be ex-wife’s and I can’t discuss the case. You need to leave, now.” This is a new one, she thought. Intimidate the opposing counsel with your crazy friend.
“Please,” he said in a bleating tone, moving quickly toward Wallis and grabbing her by the arms. “We need to talk.” A piece of paper slipped out of the folder in his hand and floated to the ground sliding behind the rear tire.
“Mom?” Ned was coming out of the front door, trying to maneuver a school project that had gotten stuck in the doorway. “Should I call Dad?”
Wallis jerked her arms away and hissed quietly at the stranger, “Leave now or I call the police and the judge, in that order. Never show up here again. If Mr. Billings has a problem, tell him to take it up with his lawyer. That’s the way the game is played.”
“You don’t understand…” he said, backing up, a look of fear creeping up on his face. “Don’t call anyone, not the police. Don’t even call me. Don’t say anything to anyone.” He glanced over at Ned who had stopped trying to get anything out the door and was nervously keeping an eye on his mother.