Chapter 2
Susana was numb. Things were not at all turning out as she had expected. Not even close.
She jogged up the stone steps of the lawyer's office, tugging down on her knee-length skirt and hoping to hide the small run that had started in her pantyhose in the car. She stopped at the top of the stairs and sighed. She adjusted the purse on her shoulder and smoothed out her navy blazer. She tried not to cry.
Crying would be entirely appropriate on such a morning, she told herself, but she knew that her tears were for all the wrong reasons. It was Thursday morning, and she told herself that she'd had plenty of time to recover, so what was the problem?
The problem? The problem was that her life was a mess with no hope of improvement. Okay, so perhaps it wasn't that bad. This kind of thing happened to people all the time. Still, she had no idea how to handle this. She had already felt completely unprepared for life in general and had always suspected that everything would come crashing down sooner or later, so maybe this latest curve ball hadn't caught her completely unawares after all.
She growled to herself under her breath, gritting her teeth. "Not now, not now, not now," she chided herself in a small whisper. She wished she could be as whimsically dismissive as Scarlett O'Hara and just throw her hands up in the air, exclaiming cheerfully, "I'll think about that tomorrow!" She certainly could use some levity right now, but it wasn't Susana's strong suit.
"Okay, I'll just get through this meeting, find out whatever the hell they need from me, and then just get out." She steadied herself, took a single step, and then exploded into tears. "Shit!"
Susana dashed into the nearest ladies room, grateful that it was deserted. Dropping her purse and her attache on the sink counter, she grabbed several wads of toilet paper from the nearest stall and blew her nose. "I have just got to get it together," she chided herself. "This is ridiculous behavior."
She caught her reflection in the mirror, and all the old judgements and expectations came rushing back. That inner critic immediately picked apart her entire outfit, even though Susana knew that she looked pretty good, even for a reading of a last will. She hated the way her face got all red and splotchy when she cried. She blew her nose again, wiping away the tears that wouldn't stop coming. Standing in front of the mirror, she squared her shoulders and held her own gaze, defiant. "Who do you think you are?" she challenged herself, "I mean, really?"
Defeated, she dropped her gaze to the floor and pretended to study the toes of her shoes. The toes of her $300 shoes, she reminded herself. She spied a tiny scuff along the outside of the left shoe and sighed; she'd never be able to return them now. That's all she had been doing since Monday: going through everything in her apartment, making an inventory of what she needed to keep, what could be returned, and what she could sell. She was going to need to move, and soon, before the money ran out.
She knew she was panicking. For an unexpectedly unemployed person, she was in much better shape than the others in her department, who had mortgages and kids who desperately needed braces. If only they had been able to see it coming! So much for job stability. She should have expected as much, she told herself. Even in Richmond, Virginia, the advertising industry could still be pretty cut-throat, and Simmons Media was no exception. The way they just swooped down out of New York, like a bird of prey -- some called them vultures -- and gobbled up the small and unassuming Treasure Chest Studio. Sure the senior partners had known about it for only a few days at most, but she still felt little sympathy for those who had cashed out. Her entire department had been dismissed, without warning, just 72 hours earlier.
Can't count on anything, Susana reminded herself silently as she combed through her hair in the mirror, her tears slowing to a trickle. She'd get through this. The severance package was adequate, and she didn't have any large debts to worry about. She was still young, she told herself. Thirty-one years old, and she'd bounce back, no problem.
But she wasn't sure that she wanted to.
"Ah, fuck it," she said at last to the reflection in the mirror, just as another woman entered from the hallway. Embarrassed, Susana smiled, not really looking the woman in the eye as she hurried to the bathroom stall. Susana gathered up her things from the counter, avoided her own gaze in the mirror, and cleared her throat. "Okay," she whispered to herself. Time to go see what this mystery will was all about.
* * * * *
The secretary showed Susana into the office of David Streck, attorney at law. She was the last to arrive. The few people seated in the office turned their heads as she entered. The only person Susana recognized was Lily, her younger second-cousin, and even that familiarity was vague. But Lily jumped up from her chair, her long dark hair shifting gracefully with each movement. She smiled in sympathy as she approached Susana and took her hands into her own.
"Susana," Lily cooed. "It's so good to see you again." Lily pulled her into a warm and unexpected embrace, though Susana involuntarily stiffened at the touch. Lily quickly released her cousin and took a step back, honoring Susana's need for space. "I'm just sorry about.... the circumstances."
Susana managed a quick, inappropriate laugh. "Yes, well, you knew him better than I did." Looking around the room, to find only an assistant and the lawyer present, she immediately regretted the comment.
David Streck rose from his desk and nodded toward Susana. "Miss Randall, I'm David Streck. We spoke over the phone."
Susana nodded dumbly in response.
"I'm glad you could make it to our... proceedings here this morning." He motioned toward two leather-upholstered chairs facing his desk. "If you ladies would like to have a seat, we can begin." Streck resumed his place behind his desk and straightened the documents in front of him.
Susana sat down and turned to her cousin. "No one else is coming?" she asked quietly.
Lily shook her head. "We're the only two he put in the will," she said, with a quick glance across the desk at the lawyer. "And since there was no funeral, I wonder if anyone else even knows he's dead." Lily looked down at her hands in her lap. "Or cares," she added, bitterly.
"Right," the lawyer interjected. "Miss Randall, what Miss Scott has indicated is indeed the case." He adjusted himself in the chair, which was too big to comfortably accommodate such a short man as himself. "This reading this morning is really just a formality. Your uncle..." he began slowly, as his finger guided his eyes across the top page of the will. "Sorry, your great-uncle, Thomas Icarus Frye...." Streck cleared his throat and reached for the glass of water on his desk.
"I never even knew his name," Susana whispered to Lily. "I mean, not his real, full name."
Lily smiled. "Hardly anyone did."
"Mmm," the lawyer cleared his throat again, recovering. "Sorry about that. Yes, your great-uncle. Thomas Icarus Frye, has left you his entire estate." Streck looked up, his gaze shifting back and forth expectantly between the two young women.
Susana blinked at the words. "I'm sorry?" she stammered.
"Umm, yes. Thomas-"
"Tic," Lily corrected him.
"Right," the lawyer answered slowly, amused. "He has left you all of his possessions, bank accounts, his business..."
* * * * *
Susana sat in the coffee shop's overstuffed arm chair, hunched over her warm mug, watching the tiny marshmallows slowly dissolve into her hot chocolate. Across the table, Lily leaned forward, watching her cousin sympathetically.
"When did you hear the news?" Lily at last broke the silence.
"Hmm?" Susana looked up in a daze. "The news? You mean, the news about 'Tic?" She took a deep breath and swirled the hot chocolate in her mug. "Monday. Monday afternoon."
"Yeah," Lily relaxed back into the comfort of her chair. "It happened that morning, you know. It was pretty quick. He must have known it was coming. The lawyer said everything was all laid out, neat as you please. He'd made sure all the paperwork was in order just that morning. Even laid out his clothes on the bed upstairs."
"His clothes?" Susana asked.
"Yeah, you know...." Lily gestured absently in the open air. "What he wanted to be wearing when they burned him."
Susana shuddered. Lily had a tendency to be a bit too direct for her tastes. "You don't think...?"
"No," Lily dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. "The coroner said there was no way it was suicide. It was just his time. You know, natural causes and all that."
Susana squinted down and the dark table, then looked back up at Lily. "But how did he know? I mean, it's not like he'd been sick or anything? Or had he?" Susana shook her head and sank back into the chair. "How the hell would I know? It's not like I'd seen the man in... years, really."
Lily smiled at her cousin. "Tic was just like that. He knew things." She stopped herself from saying more, but added, "He always liked you, you know."
"I guess so," Susana snorted. "Given that he's just left me -- us -- everything."
Lily crossed her arms in her lap and leaned forward. "Yeah, about that...."
Susana sat up in her chair. "I suppose we should go take a look at the property, have an appraiser come through, get the most recent city tax assessment. I'm guessing my brother-in-law can recommend a good real estate agent." Susana ran through her mental to-do list, not sure when she had stored such items away. At least she was comfortable, being organized and in charge like this. "Then we'll need an accountant, to go over the different bank statements and such..."
Lily waited for her to finish. "No," she replied.
Susana looked at her and frowned. "I'm sorry?"
Lily wanted to plunge in, to tell her how they wouldn't be selling the house or the business, how Susana's life was about to take a wide and wildly unexpected left turn. But she smiled to herself instead. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," she answered at last. "Let's just go take a walk through the house, see what's what."
Susana nodded in agreement. She pushed the mug of hot chocolate across the table, realizing she wasn't going to drink any of it. "Yes, it's all more than I can really think about right now."
Lily stood and reached for the spring jacket draped across the back of her chair. "There's an errand we need to run first," she suggested. "And then something we need to do for Ol' Tic, at his place."
She jogged up the stone steps of the lawyer's office, tugging down on her knee-length skirt and hoping to hide the small run that had started in her pantyhose in the car. She stopped at the top of the stairs and sighed. She adjusted the purse on her shoulder and smoothed out her navy blazer. She tried not to cry.
Crying would be entirely appropriate on such a morning, she told herself, but she knew that her tears were for all the wrong reasons. It was Thursday morning, and she told herself that she'd had plenty of time to recover, so what was the problem?
The problem? The problem was that her life was a mess with no hope of improvement. Okay, so perhaps it wasn't that bad. This kind of thing happened to people all the time. Still, she had no idea how to handle this. She had already felt completely unprepared for life in general and had always suspected that everything would come crashing down sooner or later, so maybe this latest curve ball hadn't caught her completely unawares after all.
She growled to herself under her breath, gritting her teeth. "Not now, not now, not now," she chided herself in a small whisper. She wished she could be as whimsically dismissive as Scarlett O'Hara and just throw her hands up in the air, exclaiming cheerfully, "I'll think about that tomorrow!" She certainly could use some levity right now, but it wasn't Susana's strong suit.
"Okay, I'll just get through this meeting, find out whatever the hell they need from me, and then just get out." She steadied herself, took a single step, and then exploded into tears. "Shit!"
Susana dashed into the nearest ladies room, grateful that it was deserted. Dropping her purse and her attache on the sink counter, she grabbed several wads of toilet paper from the nearest stall and blew her nose. "I have just got to get it together," she chided herself. "This is ridiculous behavior."
She caught her reflection in the mirror, and all the old judgements and expectations came rushing back. That inner critic immediately picked apart her entire outfit, even though Susana knew that she looked pretty good, even for a reading of a last will. She hated the way her face got all red and splotchy when she cried. She blew her nose again, wiping away the tears that wouldn't stop coming. Standing in front of the mirror, she squared her shoulders and held her own gaze, defiant. "Who do you think you are?" she challenged herself, "I mean, really?"
Defeated, she dropped her gaze to the floor and pretended to study the toes of her shoes. The toes of her $300 shoes, she reminded herself. She spied a tiny scuff along the outside of the left shoe and sighed; she'd never be able to return them now. That's all she had been doing since Monday: going through everything in her apartment, making an inventory of what she needed to keep, what could be returned, and what she could sell. She was going to need to move, and soon, before the money ran out.
She knew she was panicking. For an unexpectedly unemployed person, she was in much better shape than the others in her department, who had mortgages and kids who desperately needed braces. If only they had been able to see it coming! So much for job stability. She should have expected as much, she told herself. Even in Richmond, Virginia, the advertising industry could still be pretty cut-throat, and Simmons Media was no exception. The way they just swooped down out of New York, like a bird of prey -- some called them vultures -- and gobbled up the small and unassuming Treasure Chest Studio. Sure the senior partners had known about it for only a few days at most, but she still felt little sympathy for those who had cashed out. Her entire department had been dismissed, without warning, just 72 hours earlier.
Can't count on anything, Susana reminded herself silently as she combed through her hair in the mirror, her tears slowing to a trickle. She'd get through this. The severance package was adequate, and she didn't have any large debts to worry about. She was still young, she told herself. Thirty-one years old, and she'd bounce back, no problem.
But she wasn't sure that she wanted to.
"Ah, fuck it," she said at last to the reflection in the mirror, just as another woman entered from the hallway. Embarrassed, Susana smiled, not really looking the woman in the eye as she hurried to the bathroom stall. Susana gathered up her things from the counter, avoided her own gaze in the mirror, and cleared her throat. "Okay," she whispered to herself. Time to go see what this mystery will was all about.
* * * * *
The secretary showed Susana into the office of David Streck, attorney at law. She was the last to arrive. The few people seated in the office turned their heads as she entered. The only person Susana recognized was Lily, her younger second-cousin, and even that familiarity was vague. But Lily jumped up from her chair, her long dark hair shifting gracefully with each movement. She smiled in sympathy as she approached Susana and took her hands into her own.
"Susana," Lily cooed. "It's so good to see you again." Lily pulled her into a warm and unexpected embrace, though Susana involuntarily stiffened at the touch. Lily quickly released her cousin and took a step back, honoring Susana's need for space. "I'm just sorry about.... the circumstances."
Susana managed a quick, inappropriate laugh. "Yes, well, you knew him better than I did." Looking around the room, to find only an assistant and the lawyer present, she immediately regretted the comment.
David Streck rose from his desk and nodded toward Susana. "Miss Randall, I'm David Streck. We spoke over the phone."
Susana nodded dumbly in response.
"I'm glad you could make it to our... proceedings here this morning." He motioned toward two leather-upholstered chairs facing his desk. "If you ladies would like to have a seat, we can begin." Streck resumed his place behind his desk and straightened the documents in front of him.
Susana sat down and turned to her cousin. "No one else is coming?" she asked quietly.
Lily shook her head. "We're the only two he put in the will," she said, with a quick glance across the desk at the lawyer. "And since there was no funeral, I wonder if anyone else even knows he's dead." Lily looked down at her hands in her lap. "Or cares," she added, bitterly.
"Right," the lawyer interjected. "Miss Randall, what Miss Scott has indicated is indeed the case." He adjusted himself in the chair, which was too big to comfortably accommodate such a short man as himself. "This reading this morning is really just a formality. Your uncle..." he began slowly, as his finger guided his eyes across the top page of the will. "Sorry, your great-uncle, Thomas Icarus Frye...." Streck cleared his throat and reached for the glass of water on his desk.
"I never even knew his name," Susana whispered to Lily. "I mean, not his real, full name."
Lily smiled. "Hardly anyone did."
"Mmm," the lawyer cleared his throat again, recovering. "Sorry about that. Yes, your great-uncle. Thomas Icarus Frye, has left you his entire estate." Streck looked up, his gaze shifting back and forth expectantly between the two young women.
Susana blinked at the words. "I'm sorry?" she stammered.
"Umm, yes. Thomas-"
"Tic," Lily corrected him.
"Right," the lawyer answered slowly, amused. "He has left you all of his possessions, bank accounts, his business..."
* * * * *
Susana sat in the coffee shop's overstuffed arm chair, hunched over her warm mug, watching the tiny marshmallows slowly dissolve into her hot chocolate. Across the table, Lily leaned forward, watching her cousin sympathetically.
"When did you hear the news?" Lily at last broke the silence.
"Hmm?" Susana looked up in a daze. "The news? You mean, the news about 'Tic?" She took a deep breath and swirled the hot chocolate in her mug. "Monday. Monday afternoon."
"Yeah," Lily relaxed back into the comfort of her chair. "It happened that morning, you know. It was pretty quick. He must have known it was coming. The lawyer said everything was all laid out, neat as you please. He'd made sure all the paperwork was in order just that morning. Even laid out his clothes on the bed upstairs."
"His clothes?" Susana asked.
"Yeah, you know...." Lily gestured absently in the open air. "What he wanted to be wearing when they burned him."
Susana shuddered. Lily had a tendency to be a bit too direct for her tastes. "You don't think...?"
"No," Lily dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. "The coroner said there was no way it was suicide. It was just his time. You know, natural causes and all that."
Susana squinted down and the dark table, then looked back up at Lily. "But how did he know? I mean, it's not like he'd been sick or anything? Or had he?" Susana shook her head and sank back into the chair. "How the hell would I know? It's not like I'd seen the man in... years, really."
Lily smiled at her cousin. "Tic was just like that. He knew things." She stopped herself from saying more, but added, "He always liked you, you know."
"I guess so," Susana snorted. "Given that he's just left me -- us -- everything."
Lily crossed her arms in her lap and leaned forward. "Yeah, about that...."
Susana sat up in her chair. "I suppose we should go take a look at the property, have an appraiser come through, get the most recent city tax assessment. I'm guessing my brother-in-law can recommend a good real estate agent." Susana ran through her mental to-do list, not sure when she had stored such items away. At least she was comfortable, being organized and in charge like this. "Then we'll need an accountant, to go over the different bank statements and such..."
Lily waited for her to finish. "No," she replied.
Susana looked at her and frowned. "I'm sorry?"
Lily wanted to plunge in, to tell her how they wouldn't be selling the house or the business, how Susana's life was about to take a wide and wildly unexpected left turn. But she smiled to herself instead. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves," she answered at last. "Let's just go take a walk through the house, see what's what."
Susana nodded in agreement. She pushed the mug of hot chocolate across the table, realizing she wasn't going to drink any of it. "Yes, it's all more than I can really think about right now."
Lily stood and reached for the spring jacket draped across the back of her chair. "There's an errand we need to run first," she suggested. "And then something we need to do for Ol' Tic, at his place."
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