He Sat Me by the Warming Racks, So I Pulled the Funding novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Bill

Curtis follows her to her office and she hands him a one-page bill; then a process server hands her divorce papers he filed before the gala.

Curtis followed me out of the foundation building and across the parking lot.

"You can't do this," he said. "Mo, stop walking."

I kept walking.

"They took my badge. Do you understand that? I stood at the garage gate in front of the valets."

"I understand that you were embarrassed in front of people," I said. "I stood in a service corridor for two hours."

He caught my arm at my car.

I looked at his hand until he took it away.

"That was a seating mistake," he said. "Kendra's office handled the chart."

"Kendra's office handled the chart, and you handed me a used plate."

"I didn't know it was used."

"You told two men I could eat in the car."

His mouth opened and closed.

I got in and drove to my office, and he drove behind me the whole way.

Tolbert Claims takes up the second floor of a brick building on Water Street.

Forty people work there recovering money from insurers who deny claims on purpose and hope nobody appeals.

Every one of them looked up when Curtis came through the glass doors behind me.

Bev Haugen stood from the reception desk with a coffee in one hand and her glasses on their beaded chain.

"Morning," she said. "Dr. Ainsley. Congratulations on the promotion."

"I need to talk to my wife," Curtis said.

"She's right here."

"Privately."

"Then I'd take it up with her in the conference room," Bev said. "The lobby's where the clients wait."

He looked around.

A man in a gray suit by the plant had a folder open on his knee.

A claims specialist at the far desk had stopped typing.

Curtis lowered his voice and turned on the smile he used for donors.

"Mo. Please. Five minutes."

I took him into the conference room and shut the door.

He sat down and put both hands on the table.

"Whatever I did on Saturday, I'm sorry," he said. "I was working a room. It's not personal. You know how those evenings are."

"I know how they are for the people who sit at the tables."

"You're being dramatic."

"Curtis, I paid $340,000 for your degree."

"I know what you paid."

"Do you? Say the number."

He did not say it.

I slid a single sheet of paper across the table.

I had written it at three in the morning on my mother's kitchen table, in plain numbers.

Medical school tuition, $340,000.

Residency living costs and loans, $118,000.

Six years of foundation wires, $2,400,000.

Below that, one line: Move your things out of Lindell Road by the closing on the twenty-eighth.

"The house is sold," I said. "It was always mine. You can have the number of a good moving company."

"You sold our house?"

"I sold my house."

"We've lived there for fourteen years."

"You've lived there for fourteen years," I said. "I've paid for it for fourteen years."

His face changed.

The smile went first, then the color.

"You're going to ruin me over a seating chart."

"I'm going to stop paying you," I said. "That's all."

He stood up so fast the chair hit the wall.

"My mother is going to hear about this."

"I hope she does," I said. "She told me not to spoil your night."

Curtis stared at me.

"Get out of my office," I said.

He stopped at the door.

"You think you're so strong," he said. "You were a girl at a card table when I found you. I made you somebody."

"You made me your accountant," I said. "Open the door."

He went through the lobby with his jaw tight and every person in the room watching him go.

Bev waited until the glass doors swung shut.

Then she turned and gave the whole floor a thumbs-up, and a woman from the appeals team started to clap.

I put my hand up to stop it.

I was shaking.

"I've got something for you," Bev said, quietly.

She held out a long cream envelope.

"A man dropped it at the desk while you were in there. He asked for you by your full name and made me sign."

I opened it standing by the plant.

The top page said, in bold: PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

It had been filed on Friday afternoon, a full day before the gala.

Curtis had asked the court to award him half of Tolbert Claims.

Under the line for grounds, in a lawyer's neat type, it said that I had abandoned the marital home.

I had not left it until Saturday night.

Bev read it over my shoulder and said a word I had never heard her say.

"He filed before he ever sat me by the warming racks," I said.

"He planned it," Bev said.

"He planned all of it."

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