Chapter 5

The doorbell rang. It was Lisa, looking a little haggard.

"Sorry I'm running late. I had to squeeze in two more appointments after Ziv so that I can go to Tahoe tomorrow. So I sent Leah home with one of the staffers, so she could get home on time. And two home-cooked dinners in a row sounds like a wonderful treat. I love domesticity, so long as I'm not the one who has to be domestic."

Warren poked his head out.

"And you, young man. Do you know how much difficulty you've caused? It was a simple corporate structure problem until I was clear about all of the intellectual property ramifications of your business. If we had Michael Dell as a client we would just clone all of his paperwork. Instead, we've got to make it all up from whole cloth. It'll be a couple of days until we have something for you to sign."

Rachel and Leah poked their heads out.

"You need a bath before dinner..."

"Whatever. Lead on. I can't tell right from left at this point, and tomorrow promises to be a doozey." They started to lead her by the hand off to the bathroom.

Sarah came bubbling out of her room.

"Oooh. Mommy-Lisa's home. Hello, Mommy-Lisa."

The look on Lisa's face was somewhere between finding herself in the Twilight Zone and that of being suddenly dropped living into her favorite fantasy.

"Uhh, Daddy, is it OK if I call her Mommy-Lisa?"

"Whatever, Princess. That's between you and her."

Rachel and Leah led their charge off to the bathroom.

"Goody. So it's like everyone at school calling me Princess, just like you."

"What is this 'princess' thing? I heard them chanting 'Princess, Princess' at the end of your game yesterday."

"Oh, that. Two weeks ago in school May came over to my table. May says her great-grandfather, or maybe it was her great-great-grandfather, was a warlord in China. May has like a dozen girls who follow her around. She's tough. She scares a lot of people, sometimes. Anyway, she came over to my table where I was sitting with Cherie and Marcie, and she turned and looked at me and looked at her posse and said, 'This is Princess. Anything happens to her, and I hear about it, you don't want to know what happens.' Then she turned to me and asked if I could give her a hug. So I hugged her. She looked like she had won the World Series or the Super Bowl or something.

"So every day some of the girls come up to me at lunch and ask for a hug. I give them hugs and everyone calls me, 'Princess' just like you do, Daddy. And then skinny Jenny, her mom's a hairdresser up in the City, came to school with a fancy hairbrush and said, 'This is for Princess. Can I brush your hair?' and somedays at lunch someone brushes my hair while I chat with Cherie and Marcie and the other folks who come by our table. And then when you brought us home on Sunday and Rachel and Leah took me in for a bath, it just felt like the rest of what May had started.

"And Warren says it's magic, so I guess it's OK?"

"Of course, Princess."

Warren spoke up. "And then there was the incident with Margaret-Ann."

"I didn't see that."

"You silly, it was all around school. But I guess that they didn't want you to know about it. I heard about it from Alan, who wanted to be sure that you were OK. And Roger. And Kumar. And Itzhak. Margaret-Ann is someone who Mom wanted Sarah to be friends with. Most of us have no use for Margaret-Ann, she's too bossy and doesn't do anything for anyone. And she says nasty things about Indian and Chinese kids. And other kids. And her friends are like druggies or something equally nasty. So Margaret-Ann announced that she was going to 'take care' of Sarah. And when the teachers found her she was in the janitor's sink all covered with soap and water and the stuff that the janitors use to take care of the floors. She was all wet. They wrapped her in a blanket and sent her home in a cop car, and May and Alex who were both nowhere involved in the soaping claimed responsibility."

"Oh yes, Alex's Tiá will be taking me to soccer tomorrow. She's like a cuandera or something."

"You have a phone number?"

"Umm, here's Alex's home, and her Tiá's home and her cell. And you should probably call Alex's mom so she knows that you know that it's all OK."

I called and spoke to Alex's mom.

"Oh, you're Princess's Dad. I'm letting my sister take the girls to soccer and bring Princess home. She wants to meet you, is that OK? Princess is something special, and my sister says it's magic."

"Magic, I don't know about magic."

"Of course not, this is California. We have movie actors become Governor. What do we need magic for?"

"So she'll be home at five-thirty or six?"

"Depends on when the game ends. And you've got all of our numbers?"

She repeated her cell number, and her sister's home number, and her cell, and then described her sister's van. And her car, and her husband's, just so that I knew.

Rachel and Leah led out a very different Lisa than they had led into the bath. Her hair had a sheen of something lovingly brushed into her curls. The business suit was replaced with a silk dressing robe over silk pajamas, and she floated, rather than walked.

"You can just pour me onto the couch, and wake me in the morning..."

"Nonsense. A little wine, some roast chicken, and you'll be bounding around. Anyway, Warren sleeps on the fold-out."

"I wish. And what is it your daughter is calling me, 'Mommy-Lisa'?"

"Yes, Mommy-Lisa." Sarah came over and she and Lisa wrapped their arms around each other.

"I'm not even the girlfriend, and you're calling me 'Mommy'?"

"Yes, Mommy-Lisa."

I chuckled, "I could fix that, you know."

"You would, too. And right now I'm still the lawyer. I've had that for all of twenty-four hours. You are so sweet, and all I've done is chase your kid nineteen ways around Robin Hood's barn to see if his business plan had legs."

Warren looked at his watch. "Twenty-seven. And you can endorse the representation agreement over to Mr. Al-Noori."

"How do you know all that?"

"I talked to Rajiv. And someone in this family has to be business-like, and it ain't my Dad. Ideas, yes. Decisions, yes. Paperwork and business, not him. My mother is a shark, a predator, not a businessperson."

The phone rang.

"This is a collect call placed by an inmate at the Solano County Correctional Facility. If you wish to accept the charges, please press or say 'One.' If you wish to block further calls from this facility, please press or say 'Two.'"

I didn't know who could be calling me from Solano County. That was halfway to Sacramento. I hit '1.'

"Scumbag, you need to sell that fucking Porsche and get some money to get me out of this joint." It was Susan. More invective followed.

"I don't think I'll do that. I'm not signing for you." I was distant, but polite.

More invective and threats of bodily harm and threats of harm to the kids and threats to the termination of my parental rights followed.

"If all you want to do is curse, I'm going to hang up."

More invective. I hung up. The phone rang again. I let the message run, and hit '2.'

Warren looked at me, "I guess you'd better call Karen."

That number was set in the speed-dial. I was surprised when Karen answered instead of the machine.

"Herb, what can I do for you?"

"Emergency custody."

"What has that bitch done this time?"

"This time, she's in the Solano County lockup for something. So I need an Emergency Order protecting the kids until this gets resolved."

"Herb, I promised you meltdown, and this smells like it might be the meltdown we've been waiting for and we may be able to swing things around. Finally.

"I've got four motions calendared for tomorrow afternoon, so I was making sure that I had my I's all dotted and my T's all crossed. And I'm double checking. I can probably get your case added to the calendar in the morning, so it can be heard in the afternoon with all of my other pleadings. Judge Emerson loves me, so I get afternoon court where we duel over all the obscure connections of where Family Law meets Criminal Justice and Civil Law. It makes law school seem like a walk in the park. She takes me apart all Thursday afternoon, and then she uses my briefs in her law seminar on Friday morning.

"She says that this will get me onto the bench - I'm fluffy enough for the Democrats and vicious enough for the Republicans. And idiots who are crazy enough to take the bench at Family Court are hard to find. And I'll see your case through to completion though before I move on: there's no way I could brief any sane member of the Bar on what your case has been through.

"Anyway, you may have to show up in person for an emergency hearing on Friday afternoon, but we'll know where we stand by the end of the day, tomorrow.

"Do me a favor and see if you can find out what she's in for. Call one of the bail bonds guys. They'll tell you what she's in for, even if you don't want to bail her out. And please don't. Serious waste of your money. If it's something juicy, we may be able to kill that Domestic Violence restraining order, or turn it around. And having her unable to conspire with Margy before a hearing may be just the lever that we need."

"Let me see what I can find. I'll call you back."

I dialed the number from one of the smaller ads in the phone book.