Chapter 75

What Jack said about Arthur really bothered me. I went over and over what Jack told me about their conversation, comparing it to Jack's half of it on the phone which is all I actually heard. I knew he wasn't lying; Jack would never lie to me. This was a lot different from his habit of not telling me things to surprise me.

I think what bothered me the most is that I wasn't too thrilled with Arthur to begin with. Liz and I got along great and I trusted her completely. And immediately. Just like Alex and Bill Montgomery and everyone else involved in building the apartment. When I took on the judge about that provisional thing, part of the reason was that I thought it was my lawyer's job and he wasn't doing it. Yet Daddy told me I could count on Arthur, just like he had with all the others.

Jack said, "Would you like to see the pictures I took today?"

"Sure," I answered, half-heartedly.

He went over to his computer and put a memory card in the slot. He saved them to a Julie folder. He replaced the first card with one he took out of his camera and uploaded it, making a Jessica folder.

"Let's do Jessica first."

"Fine."

He opened the folder and clicked on the first picture.

"My God! What is that thing? It's HUGE!"

"That, my Dear, is a Newfoundland, sometimes called a Newfoundland Hound or Newfoundland Dog. They originated on the island of Newfoundland, which is off the coast of Canada and is the main part of one of their provinces."

"That thing looks like a province. Poor Jessica. She's covered in that thing."

"That thing is Rex. And she loves it. Rex has been part..."

The phone rang and he looked at me. "You'd better get it. It's got to be either Myra or your father."

I ran into the bedroom and got it in the middle of the next ring.

"Hello."

"What did you say to my lawyer?"

"Hi Daddy. How's everything?"

"Everything's screwed up. My lawyer is pissed off at me and you did it."

"It wasn't me. It was Jack. Something about being told he was after my money bothered him."

"What? Let me talk to him."

"I will, but I'd be a bit more civil if I were you, Daddy. Otherwise Jack will either act the same way you are or he'll tell you how he really feels and hang up on you."

"Hmmff. Just let me talk to him."

I took the phone into the living room and held it out to Jack. "It's my father. He's not very happy."

"I gathered that."

He took the phone from me and put it up to his face. "Hello, John."

I heard some squawking and then he said, "John, I'm not deaf."

He tilted the phone so the receiver was pointing up and motioned me over, pointing to it. I took a couple of steps over to him and leaned over so I could hear my father's side of the conversation.

" ... don't see why you would tell him you wouldn't pay for anything he does."

"I told him I wouldn't pay for anything I didn't authorize. I'm glad you called because I also told him I was going to tell you not to authorize anything for us with him."

"She's my daughter. I'll authorize anything I want."

"No, Daddy. I'm your daughter but I'm grown up now. I'm with Jack and we're a team. I love you to death Daddy and I appreciate any help you care to give us but I don't want you telling him to do anything for us. If we want him, we are perfectly capable of telling him what we want ourselves."

"So, what's going on here? Arthur told me he talked to Jill earlier about some problem with incorporating and he needed approval on something. Jill was supposed to talk to you and he got a call that you were too busy. The next thing he knows, you're on the phone with him, calling him at his house, yelling at him, telling him you aren't go to pay for any of his work."

Jack held up his finger to cut me off. "First of all, the only person I've heard yelling on the phone today is you, John. Secondly, he told Jill to have me call him if I had any questions. As far as today is concerned, he wanted Jill to interrupt me at work and decide on officers for the corporation because neither of us is legally an adult. I was supposed to tell my clients to take a hike while we discussed it over the phone. Is that the way he works with you, John? Does he call you when you're delivering somebody's baby and want an immediate decision about something?"

"Well, No. I use him for something else."

"What would that be?"

"These damned malpractice suits. I've had two of them and they were both total bullshit. I call Arthur and he makes them go away."

I couldn't help it, I cried, "Oh, Daddy!"

"Well, John. He did the same with us. He made us go away. Right after he told me I was after Jill's inheritance check and that's why I was delaying the incorporation. The incorporation that was going to cost us $800 plus his fee for the last six weeks of this year. I think he was actually disappointed that he couldn't slap me on the back when he made that comment about the check."

"I'm sorry. I thought he'd do a better job."

"John, I know you want to help. But that joker is not the kind of help we need. If you want to use somebody who works outside the law when he thinks it's necessary, I'm not going to say anything. But we don't need that crap. The only reason Jill asked for help is so we could start out right. That guy would have gotten us in trouble sooner or later."

"I'm sorry. Just so you know, Lizzie is completely different. I've used her for years and I'd bet my life on her."

"Daddy, I already know about Liz. You know what bothers me? I didn't feel comfortable with Arthur but I told myself there was something wrong with me because my Daddy told me he was a good man."

"I'm sorry, Babydoll. I don't know what else to say."

"Say goodnight for now, Daddy. Jack and I are in the middle of something. I'll talk to you soon."

"Jack, I apologize. God Damn it! I know you too well to think you'd pull what he was accusing you of. I won't let it happen again."

"Daddy?"

"What, Pumpkin?"

"Charlie was getting on Mary's case about her not getting paid for watching Laurie. You ARE going to give her something on Thanksgiving, aren't you?"

"I've got it all under control. She'll be happy come Thursday."

"Good. Night, Daddy."

"Goodnight, Sweetheart."

I took the phone and pressed the Off button.

"I feel better. I'm sorry, too, Jack. I doubted you for a bit there. I don't know ... It was so hard to believe my Daddy would tell us to use a scumbag like that for a lawyer."

"That's one of the reasons I wanted you to hear both sides of the conversation with your father. Plus, I figured you'd probably have something to say to him. Once again, you didn't disappoint me."

I stuck my tongue out and walked back to our room with the phone. I didn't even get to the door when it rang again. What did he forget to say?

"Hello?"

"Jill. It's Myra."

"Oh. Hi. I was just talking to my father and I thought it was him."

"No, Jack said he might call me tonight and I haven't heard from him and..."

"And you're worried we're going to fire you and never talk to you and you'll miss out on Thanksgiving dinner and..."

"I am worried."

"Myra, I told you there wasn't anything to be worried about. Look, I suppose it won't hurt to tell you now that it's not going to happen right away. Our ex-lawyer called this afternoon while you were here and he wanted us to have our parents pretend to be president and vice president of the company until I get my emancipation finalized. He suggested that we make you the secretary / treasurer. I didn't want to say anything before I talked it over with Jack. But we're going to wait to get the emancipation before we incorporate."

"I wouldn't know how to be that."

"I don't know how to be president but it can't be too hard. It's not like you'd be doing anything different. You're already doing the books and you know we'll have you do most of the banking and give you a credit card or let you sign checks for stuff we need you to order. And you're doing most of the outside communication stuff with the clients and potential clients. You'll do it a lot better than either of us could. Anyway, Jack's over there waving his arms so he's either having a fit or he wants to talk to you. Stop worrying, Myra. You're fine."

I gave the phone to Jack.

"Hi, Myra. Myra. Myra. Stop blubbering, Myra. I can't stand blubbering. I know. We will incorporate and we will put you on the board. That is unless you decide to quit and start your own company or something. OK, OK. Myra, it's OK. I took a bunch of pictures today and I'm going to need proofs for tomorrow night. And I need you to set up something with the proofs you just did. You did? That's Great!"

He held his hand over the mouthpiece. "She went over to Nancy's after she left here today and she got an order with two extra 8X10s. She's going to print them tomorrow and deliver them tomorrow night."

He went back to the phone. "Good. I'll talk to you tomorrow, Myra. Goodnight."

He handed me the phone.

"Damn. That woman gets emotional. Hasn't anybody ever been nice to her? I know her parents were assholes but what about her husband?

"I don't know. She hasn't said much about him. They were high school sweethearts, he got her pregnant, he joined the Army and they moved out here. He knocked her up again, went to Iraq and got killed. She's never talked about him or their marriage or how they got along or any of that. You know how high school sweethearts are."

"Hey, don't be too tough on them. We're high school sweethearts, you know."

"Nope. We go to different high schools. Doesn't count." I spun around and took the phone into the bedroom.

Jack was plugging in the new cell phone when I came back.

"Almost forgot to charge this," he said. "That's all I'd need."

"Yeah, if she came here tomorrow and it wasn't waiting for her like you promised, she'd probably freak, thinking she did something to disappoint you."

"You know, that's a pretty common thing in abusive relationships."

"What is?"

"They play a kind of have, can't have game. Like promising the kids a trip to Disneyland, then saying it's canceled because they didn't clean their room. Adults do it to one another, too. A lot of the time it's affection that's promised and not delivered."

"That might explain Myra."

"Yeah, or it might not. One of these days the time will be right and she'll tell one of us about her husband. In the meantime, we just let her do as much as she can and praise her for it. You know, she's worth a lot more than the ten bucks an hour we're giving her. I think we should just make it $12.50."

"That or we could give her a Christmas bonus."

"She's worth the extra now. If she deserves a bonus, we'll give her one. We won't say anything until she gets her first check."

"Speaking of which ... Are we going to be able to write checks without being incorporated?"

"I have no idea. Do you think Liz would know anything about that?"

"She might. If I remember right, Arthur was the one who suggested incorporating but she agreed right away and said it should be one parent corp with a couple of DBAs. I'll bet you anything she knows a decent lawyer. She may even be able to do some of the stuff Arthur was going to do."

"It's too late to bother her at home. I'll have Myra call her tomorrow." He opened up a new file and started typing what he needed.

"We need someone to do our payroll, too."

"Good idea. Didn't Liz say something about that?"

"Just that there were several companies that did it and that Sam's or Costco might have something in their top business membership packages."

He wrote that Myra should ask Liz for suggestions and check out the web sites for both stores if she needed to.

"Ask her what it takes to open company bank accounts, too. And to be able to take credit cards."

"Damn. This just gets more and more complicated. I didn't want to have anything to do with any of this stuff."

"That's why we've got Myra to do the legwork. We just tell her what to do, she'll do it and then we just look at what she's found out and make our decisions."

"You're right. I could easily spend two or three afternoons tracking all this stuff down."

He minimized Myra's To Do list and got back to the pictures. Now that I wasn't blown away by Rex, I took a closer look at the picture itself. He was just lying there, his massive tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Bozo's not a little dog by any means but Rex was easily three or four times his mass. Like Bozo, he was completely black.