Charlie crossed her arms. “Tell me more about Oliver.”
“He’s such a gentle, sensitive old soul.” She put her hand to her chest, seemingly unaware that she was contradicting herself. “Even when he was a little boy, he was always looking for ways to help people. That’s what he wants to do. All of us, really. We want to help Flora, but Oliver feels it more keenly.” She leaned against the counter, hand still to her heart. “One time, when Ollie was a little boy, I remember him asking me, ‘Mama, why do homeless people smell so bad?’ and I was, like, ‘Honey, it’s because they don’t have a home with a shower and a place to wash their clothes,’ and the next thing I know, he’s talking to this homeless man on the street—in downtown Atlanta—and offering to bring him to our house so he can have a shower and wash his clothes. Of course I couldn’t let that happen, but still, it tells you what a sweet heart he has.”
Charlie wondered at the woman’s practiced tone of voice. She was getting the distinct feeling that she had a front-row seat to the best show in town.
The woman said, “And Nancy is our pride and joy. Sharp as a tack. Not really book smart, but she can figure things out so fast. We’re so proud of our little angels. There’s my big boy!”
Charlie turned around, expecting to see the family dog, but she found instead an older man with salt-and-pepper hair, a chin cleft that could slice open a bagel, and bronzed skin that had likely been cured under a tanning bed lamp.
“Mark Patterson.” He held out his hand, flashing a too-white set of teeth, a heavy gold Rolex and a pelt of hair on the back of his arm that fell in line with having a capuchin monkey for a son. He said, “You must be the lawyer. Flora told us to look for you. What can we do to help?”
Charlie shook his hand, which was damp with sweat. “Tell me what Flora’s living situation would be like if she moved in.”
His eyes cut to his wife. “Well, she’d be like one of our own children. We’d do everything we can for her. I realize that the emancipation means that she’ll legally be an adult, but she’s still a sixteen—”
“Fifteen,” Jo mumbled.
“Sure, fifteen now, but she’ll be sixteen when she moves in. Still a girl, is what I mean. A teenager.” He added, “A good teenager. I mean, Flora’s stellar, but still a teenager.”
Charlie took out her notepad. “Would she have her own room?”
“Of course. We’ve got plenty of space here.”
Jo added, “She might want to be with Nancy, though. Two peas in a pod.”
Charlie wished she’d thought to turn the “two peas in a pod” thing into a drinking game, because she’d be drunk by now. She asked, “Could I see where Flora would be living?”
Mark and Jo exchanged another look.
Jo said, “It’s a mess upstairs, but I’d be glad to show you another day. Or take some pictures and send them to you. Would pictures work?”
Charlie wondered how many empty rooms she’d find upstairs. And then she wondered how she was going to get the truth out of this couple. “How about a car?”
“A car?” Jo echoed.
“Like you said, Flora will be sixteen soon. She’ll need a car to drive.”
Again, Jo’s eyes shifted her husband’s way. The obvious answer would be to say that the trust would pay for Flora’s transportation needs, but Mark jumped in with another option.
He said, “Nancy will have a car as soon as she turns sixteen next month. Beat-up Honda I plan to buy off an old client. I imagine they’ll share. They always go everywhere together anyway. They’re two peas in a pod.”
The peas/pod thing was like a mantra to this family. In fact, it had almost a rehearsed quality.
Charlie asked, “What about food? Clothing? School fees?”
“Not an issue,” Mark said. “Flora is already like a daughter to us. We’ll gladly provide for her. She’s an amazing girl. We couldn’t love her more if we tried.”
Charlie saw Jo wince at the statement, which employed the exact same words the woman had used before.
It’s like they were going off a script.
Charlie asked Mark, “They get along like a house on fire, do they?”
“Exactly.” He beamed, as if he’d passed a test. “Like a house on fire.”
“Anyway,” Jo said, trying to do clean-up. “The Faulkners, her grandparents, are not good people. I’m sorry to say that, but we are talking about Flora’s future here, her college education, her life as a young woman. They try, but their character is—” She stopped herself, probably about to repeat the same line Flora had given Charlie in the bathroom at the Y this morning.
Instead, Jo said, “I know Flora won’t say a word against her Meemaw and Paw, but Leroy has a drug problem and Maude is … well, you’ve met Maude. You know what she’s like. I wouldn’t cross her for all the tea in China, but we love Flora so much. She’s an amazing girl. We couldn’t—”
“Love her more if you tried?” Charlie asked.
“N-no,” Jo stammered.
Mark jumped back in. “I imagine what my wife was going to say is, we couldn’t live with ourselves if we let Flora stay in that awful situation.”
“What’s so awful about it?”
Mark’s well-tanned nose wrinkled in distaste. “That apartment complex is horrible. It’s directly off the highway.”
“I think that’s all they can afford. There’s no crime in being poor, is there?” Charlie watched their expressions, which were as fixed as a marble statue. “Unless you mean the trust?”
“Trust?” Mark said, his voice going up at the end. “Why wouldn’t we trust her?”
Charlie almost laughed at the poor attempt. “Flora told me that she told you guys about the trust.”
The lie made them both relax a tiny bit.
Jo laughed uncomfortably, which was the second laugh in her arsenal, right behind the belly brawl.
Mark said, “Well, we weren’t thinking of the trust because, obviously, that’s for Flora’s college, and to help her get started in life. She’s a very smart girl. She could go to any school, really.” He indicated the house. “I don’t want to sound crass, but, obviously, we don’t need the money.”
“Obviously,” Charlie said.
Jo laughed again, but only twice—a “ha ha” that literally sounded like she was reading it off the back of a box of cereal.
“One more thing—” Charlie always loved the one more thing, because it was usually the thing. “I’m sorry to say this, but Leroy had some unkind words to say about you, Mark. Something about your being crooked?”
“Oh, dear.” Jo gave laugh number one, deep from the belly. “We’re standing in the middle of a joke here: a builder and a lawyer walk into a bar…”
Mark joined in, actually clutching his stomach.
Charlie stared at them both until their guffaws gurgled down the drain.
“Ah.” Mark wiped bogus laugh tears from his eyes. “Well, you know how people feel about builders. They paint us all with the same brush.”
“I thought you were a developer?”
“Builder, developer. Same difference.”
“Really? One seems much more speculative than the other,” Charlie said. “And financially risky.”