FRIDAY, AUGUST 13, 2010
What now?” I ask Dori as we drive away from Chopper Babe Palace.
“The bank?”
“What good would that do? Aubrey and I both have to be there.”
“Well, who knows? Maybe they can tell you if there are any extraordinary circumstances clauses or something. Or you can get them to just transfer the money straight to Peninsula. I don’t know. Do you have a better idea?”
“Besides beating Tyler Moldenhauer like a circus mule? Not really.”
Which is how I end up in a line at the bank while Dori takes my car to zip over to PETCO and pick up the gourmet cat food that her grumpy, obese cats, Three-Way and Green Beer, insist upon.
When, at last, I actually get to speak to a teller she looks maybe thirteen. I thrust the irrevocable trust document at her and explain that I know I can’t withdraw any money without my daughter being present, but I just have a few questions.
The teller’s long, silky brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She’s wearing a gray empire-waist dress with a tiny white cardigan pulled over it. Her smooth skin wrinkles as she studies the trust agreement. “You’ll have to speak with an officer of the bank. If you’ll just have a seat in our waiting area, someone will be with you as soon—”
“No,” I interrupt. “You don’t understand. I’m not cashing out or anything. I just need to know—”
“If you could just step over to the waiting area,” she repeats, already holding her hand out for the deposit slip the man behind me is passing her over my shoulder. He eddies around me and I am edged out of line.
In the waiting area, I mechanically drink bad coffee until I realize that I’m sending myself into tachycardia and my heart is beating like a hummingbird’s. This causes me to recall that I hate coffee and never drink the stuff. After a long wait, I’m ushered into an actual office inhabited by an actual grown-up wearing a reassuring blue shirt with white cuffs and collar. He looks familiar, but it’s not until he leans across his desk, and sticks his hand out for me to shake that I remember him. “Brad Chaffee.”
Perfect. Of course. Of course I would get Joyce Chaffee’s husband. Luckily, it doesn’t appear that he remembers me. “What can I help you with today?”
I hand over the trust agreement. “Actually, as I tried to explain earlier, I just have a few questions.”
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here.” He spreads the trust out on the desk. Turning it toward me like a car salesman, he produces a Cross pen, touches Aubrey’s name, and says, “And the beneficiary?” He glances up, looks around.
“Aubrey’s not here. Again, just fact-finding. I know I can’t get any money unless she’s here.”
“And the grantor is …” He searches the document, finds Martin’s new, famous name, takes another look to make certain he’s reading correctly, and asks, “Stokely Blizzard?”
The first time Martin used his new Next name was when he had the trust drawn up sixteen years ago.
“The Stokely Blizzard who’s …” He rumples his eyebrows in my direction, prompting me to fill in the blank if his suspicion is correct and not wanting to insult me if it’s wrong. “With all those pictures with …?” He holds his hand out as if to block the lens of an intrusive paparazzo. Next has been in the news quite a bit lately, what with Singapore banning Nextarians from entering the country and an IRS investigation into their status as a church.
I give Brad a nod tight with censure, warning him to back off the celebrity chicken-hawking and be professional. “Could you check on this account? I’d like to see if there might be a way to just direct-deposit it as tuition payment. Or, really, all I want to do is find out what the options are, since Aubrey is … unavailable.”
“I can do that for you.” Brad swivels to face the computer screen. “Let’s take a look.” His fingers skitter over the keyboard. He works the mouse with needless flourishes, as if to emphasize the heroic measures he is taking on my behalf. “Come on, come on,” he urges his computer, circling his hand in a hurry-up gesture.
While he waits, he asks, “Where is Aubrey going this fall?”
I am flustered that, apparently, Brad Chaffee does remember me. But, of course, any boob-whispering single mom would be a Parkhaven gossip staple.
“Uh, Peninsula. That’s what the trust is for. And Madison? Duke, right?”
“Yeah. She’ll be closer to her mother out there.”
“Joyce? Joyce is …”
What? Going to college with Madison? Sharing a dorm room?
“She moved out to Chapel Hill. After the divorce last winter. Joyce has family there. We made sure Madison got into Duke before we filed.”
“Oh. I hadn’t heard. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, you know. These things happen.” Brad is a little too cavalier: Joyce must have been the dumpee. I search his desk and spot a photo of Brad and a petite, dark-haired woman who looks young enough to be one of Madison’s friends. They’re both wearing running shorts that show off their matching long, muscular legs. Numbers are pinned to their tank tops. Gleaming with sweat, they hang on to each other and grin, having obviously just clocked a couple of personal bests.
“All right,” Brad announces, beaming at his monitor. “That’s the page I was looking for. Just have to access that account now.” He places his finger beneath a number on the document, types it in, hits “enter.” A few seconds later Brad’s smile fades and he hunches forward, squinting at the screen with his head poked out between hunched shoulders like a vulture.
“What?”
He ignores me.
“Brad, what is it?”
Brad straightens back up, swivels around to face me, states, “The available distribution has already been made.”
“In what sense do you mean ‘made,’ Brad? Because no distribution is possible since I wasn’t here.”
This is a mistake and it will be cleared up; Brad has confused me with some other boob-whispering ex-wife of a cult bigwig.
Brad resumes his vulture study of whatever carcass he’s seeing on the screen. “No, our records show that all available funds were distributed to Aubrey this morning.”