Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 391(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
She paused and looked back, her amber eyes finally on me. “The plan is to trust your mother.” She smiled, putting on her sunglasses.
“Mom—”
“Let’s go. We’re late,” she declared, opening the door.
Sighing, I looked up at the ceiling and finished my prayer before getting out myself, the air unseasonably frigid, even though the sun was so bright I squinted.
“Told you to wear the glasses, but no,” my mother called from the other side of the car.
Ignoring her, I walked around, staring at the needle-shaped glass skyrise in front of us.
“Thank you for waiting, Oliver. We will call when we’re ready,” she said to our driver, whom we didn’t really need, but she insisted on hiring anyway.
The old man just nodded to us both before going back to move the car off the street. Like always, my mother walked unnecessarily slowly with her head up and with a slight sway, turning the sidewalk into her own personal runway. I just followed her inside because there was nothing I could say. She’d been walking that way since before I was born, and she’d walk that way until she died, according to her.
I’d gotten used to it, along with the stares. It was my normal. However, she didn’t help at all with the Cruella Deville-inspired outfit she had on. She basked in all the attention as always.
“Hello. Welcome to the law office of Greensboro and Brown. How may I help you?” a woman said from behind the counter.
“Yes, Wilhelmina Wyntor-Smith for Mr.—”
“If it isn’t my favorite beauty queen,” said Mr. Greensboro, a middle-aged man with brown skin and green eyes. He had a voice that sounded like the soundtrack to A Christmas Carol, and he came forward with a whole army of younger lawyers behind him.
“Charles, darling, how did you know we were here?” My mother’s fake polite white-lady Southern accent surfaced as she held out her arms to hug the man.
It drove me insane because she wasn’t from the South. Whenever she was overly polite, she sounded like she was auditioning for a role in Steel Magnolias.
“I was coming to wait, of course. Our star client should not be left alone in the lobby for even a second.” The amount of kissing up he did for a star was both impressive and very, very sad, but then again, with the amount of money on the line, who wouldn’t become a lap dog?
“You’re always so kind. You remember my daughter, Odette.” My mother stepped back so they could see me.
“How could I forget? You are a beautiful young lady. You take after your mother so much that you could be twins.”
I hated it when people said that. “Thank you, Mr. Greensboro. I wish we were meeting again under better circumstance, of course,” I replied, outstretching my hand to greet him.
He took my hand and held on, petting it as if I were an injured child. “Don’t worry for a second. We won’t let them get away with what they’re trying to do. I have all my best lawyers on it.”
“Are you referring to the tagalongs you have here?” my mother asked, eyeing everyone behind him. She went over each one before frowning and looking back at him. “I am not impressed. I hope this is the B team.”
“Mom, why don’t we go upstairs first and then talk,” I injected quickly before she tore them down and left them weeping in some nearby supply closet, wondering why the hell they went to law school.
“I see you are up to your theatrics, as usual, Wilhelmina.”
Oh, God, no! Why?
“You haven’t seen theatrics yet, Yvonne,” my mother said as I turned around to the blonde-haired, big-boobed, blue-eyed Barbie who was my stepmother, Yvonne Wyntor, dressed in an all-purple power suit. Behind her stood her own team of lawyers.
“I think you’ve seen too many performances. You’re supposed to watch the play, Wilhelmina, not steal the costumes.”
“Says the seventy-year-old woman dressed as Barney.”
“I am not seventy, you—”
“Okay! Okay!”
I turned to see my half sister, Augusta, appearing out of nowhere and grabbing her mother just as I grabbed mine. We both gave each other a quick look of understanding before focusing back on her parent. You would have thought they’d be over it by now. But no. For some reason, they just couldn’t leave the past in the past. It was ridiculous how we were often left to play referee between them. And even more so how people always just watched. I could see the small circle gathering and the phones already in hand, ready to be lifted. Apparently, rich women fighting was all the rage now on social media—it trended as fast as the Kardashians.
“I’m fine, sweetheart. No need to hold on to me,” my mother muttered and gave me that look, the mother look. After almost twenty-seven years, you’d think the power would have worn off.