a Philadelphia company? You live in New Jersey, so get work in New Jersey. Go and work for your kids' school district. You will be around them. You can always take a day off; you know all the news. You're a single mom! Leave the corporate world to bitches like Gamma Woods. Pennsylvania is an At Will state. Employers have all the rights there. They can fire you at any time for any reason at all, and you can't sue them for that. But there's something else here. Seems to me you've got in the middle of something. You want to sue them? Let's sue them! File a libel, slander and defamation of character lawsuit. Are they a corporation?"
"Yes, they receive government money for working with immigrants. It's a big corporation. I actually found it very bizarre the way they treat refugees. They have this interoffice code, and they call their immigrant clients `moo-moos'."
"I like that. I truly do." Joe frowned. "Let's sue them for a couple of million dollars. You'll get a half million-dollar settlement, buy a new house and start working for your local school district."
Joe pulled a pile of paper out of his drawer and offered Debbie an agreement to sign. She even smiled, listening to his intense speech. I heard him once in court arguing on my behalf and knew that he could be loud and eloquent in defending his clients.
Walking her to her car, I promised Debbie that everything would be great. She grabbed my hand. "I'm so glad you're a woman. You can understand me; how terrible this is! First divorce, then this… I try to do everything I can for my children, but I have to work and pay bills. I don't understand why I must suffer so much. Please, work on my case. This woman is evil."
I promised her to do everything in my power and returned to the office. Joe was sitting in the kitchen, munching on sandwiches.
"So? Why did you call me your assistant? This poor woman really hopes we will work on her case."
"So? Do you believe she is not a thief?" He had this horrible habit of giving you a question for an answer.
"I believe her. She's a single mom, and she needed this job desperately. The other woman was losing her job. They wanted her out after twenty years. It's not good either, but Debbie has nothing to do with it."
"Are you sure?" Joe looked at me with his impossible black eyes. "What if Debbie had a relationship with their boss? What if they're lovers? You're a nincompoop. Somewhere, somehow, there is a reason she got into this situation. If we find the reason, we find the best way to defend her in court. Now you, young lady, just look for this reason."
"Me?"
"Who else? Not me, thank you very much. I'm staying in my office because I've got other stuff to do. Some very urgent and important stuff. If you like her, if you like this case, be my assistant. Interview her co-workers, take depositions, arrange a polygraph test for her. If she doesn't flunk it, we will take her case to court. They bid for federal money, they need a squeaky-clean reputation. And in this case, their reputation won't be so squeaky-clean anymore."
Getting outside, I squinted at the shiny spring afternoon. I thought it could happen only to a book character, to have your life completely overturned in a moment. This morning I didn't know what to do and felt useless while my life was slipping through my fingers. My husband worked day and night looking for war criminals and defending their victims. My daughters opposed my slightest attempt to mother them. My house was cleaned, and food cooked by somebody who was making a living out of my laziness. Suddenly, it all started to make sense because I realized what I should be doing my entire life. I would be a lawsuit investigator! I would gather all the bits and pieces of information that would constitute our victory over evil.
Angels blew their trumpets, it was my life calling, I knew that.
"I'm a lawsuit detective," I repeated to myself over and over again, driving home. I felt a sharp intense energy boiling inside of me. "I'll become the damn best lawsuit detective ever." Since it was almost four in the afternoon, I decided to start my investigation right after dinner.
CHAPTER 4
The monkey see, monkey do principle would be the best way to describe my way of life until this point. I have always been worried about my future. I felt terminally ill most of the time. I always hoped to end up with a bigger paycheck and a balance of my long-term investments. And always, I was taking on new relationships and new jobs with the mad enthusiasm of somebody who has never been beaten and never been abandoned.
Pulling into the driveway, I cursed secretly, because Larissa's car was parked right in the middle of it. Larissa was my aide, but somehow, she tried to take a special place in the family. Alex insisted on hiring her as a part-time shopping aide for me and a part-time tutor for our girls. My husband believed modern children need a grandmotherly influence in order to grow into stable and mature adults. He used to say that in his old country, grandmothers constituted a special social institution: more influential than the Orthodox Church, and more advanced than an academic school.
We couldn't possibly get a grandmother in our own family. My mom was still working on her retirement plan. My husband's mother was a grand dame, socialite and full-time Londoner. There was no way she could fit two teenage girls in her schedule between lunch with the Prime Minister and dinner with Rupert Murdoch. That's why Larissa, being an old Jewish lady, fit right into our puzzle.
Entering our home, I received a doggy attack from Elvis. Forgetting that he had begged me out of my breakfast this morning, this source of eternal love jumped and slobbered all over me.
"Rachel!" Larissa summoned me to the kitchen. "I think the girls are upset with each other. Something happened in school. They don't want to tell me what. As a mother, I think you should talk to them."
As a mother, I would rather have a cup of coffee right now, especially seeing Larissa sitting at the table with her cup of Earl Grey and biscuits. Of course, I didn't say that. Alexander thought that the European system of rearing children was superior to the American. In his eyes, Larissa, after teaching English at some schools in Moscow, Berlin, and New York for thirty years, was an embodiment of this system. I went to the entrance hall and shouted for the girls at the top of my lungs. I knew it was a no-no, but I would rather have the girls come down to the kitchen, than walk up to their rooms. Frankly, it is healthy for kids to get in a fight now and then, because this way they build up their conflict-solving muscles for future adult life.
First, Iris showed up with a thunder of heavy footfalls. She was taller than the other eleven-year-olds, with long blonde hair and dark brown eyes.
"Mom," she crashed into a chair with a moan. "When is dinner? I'm starving."
I took her words about starvation with a great deal of healthy doubt, looking at her slightly bulging tummy and peach-like cheeks, but Larissa sprang into action. She turned to me with her well-groomed head with a strawberry blonde hairdo and offered to feed the child with something healthy.
"A couple of spoons of nonfat cottage cheese with a bit of sour cream will do her just fine before dinner," she let me know.
"Sour cream? Yuck." My sweet angel made a retching sound.
"What is so yucky?" Evana asked, entering the kitchen with a quiet grace of hers. She was my daughter's age, but shorter, slimmer, with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes.
"Mom wants us to have cottage cheese for a snack. Can you imagine?"
Evana considered the news for a moment. "Well, it might not be that bad," she said flatly.
I opened the fridge, found a tub of cottage cheese tucked away in the door compartment, and sniffed it. It looked fresh to me, but I tasted it, just in case.
"It's not even sour," I announced after taking a bite. "Tastes kind of chalky, but this is the healthy part, I guess." I spooned the white substance into tiny ice cream bowls for the girls.
"Mom," Iris looked at me with alarm. "Where did you get this jar?"
"In the fridge… No talking, just eat and go. We have to cook dinner."
"Mom," Iris insisted. "Show me the jar."
I showed her.
"Ah, this is not the cottage cheese. This is my dough clay, for my science project."
Somehow, eating clay