Pamela Samuels-Young

Part One
When All You Have Is Hope
Chapter 1

L

awyers get a bad rap. Strip away the arrogance, the greed and the half-truths, and you’ll find a decent human being underneath. That’s exactly how Waverly Sloan saw himself. A decent guy who’d screwed up.

Waverly pulled his battered BMW into the parking stall outside his Culver City townhouse and turned off the engine. He dreaded going inside. All the way home, he imagined his wife’s face contorting in horror in reaction to the news he was about to deliver.

He closed his eyes and rehearsed the spiel in his head. I’m about to be disbarred, he would tell her. So you’ll have to stop teaching Pilates three days a week and get a real job.

Waverly exited the car and climbed the short flight of stairs to their unit. He was a large, solidly built man with skin the color of honey. Borderline handsome, his lopsided smile was the primary source of his appeal. It compelled people to like him.

“You’re home early,” Deidra called out the second he opened the front door.

Waverly found her in the kitchen, poised over a cutting board chopping carrots and bell peppers. He dumped his keys on the counter, walked up behind her and swallowed her up in a bear hug. “I’m home early because I couldn’t stand being away from you for another second.” 

Deidra reared back to peck him on the lips, then returned to her chopping.

Resting against the center island, Waverly folded his arms and stared at his wife. At thirty-seven—five years his junior—Deidra had the firm, voluptuous body of a highly compensated stripper. Her long, auburn hair fell past her shoulders, perfectly accentuating her barely brown skin. After two years of marriage, Waverly still had no idea what her real hair looked like underneath the five-hundred dollar weave.

“Is everything okay?” Deidra glanced back at him over her shoulder.

His wife had good instincts, at least about him. Waverly eyed the knife in her hand. He had a mental image of Deidra accidentally chopping off a finger when she heard what he had to say.

“I love you,” Waverly said, not in an effort to sidestep her question, but because it was how he truly felt.

“Ditto.” She smiled, then waited.

Waverly had wanted Deidra from the second he spotted her walking out of a store on pricey Rodeo Drive weighed down with shopping bags. Instinct told him there was little chance that a woman like her would give a guy like him a second glance. He had only been in Beverly Hills for a meeting with an opposing counsel. Risktaker that he was, Waverly turned on his charm and, to his surprise, it worked. Too bad that same skill couldn’t get him out of his current fix.

He took a bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator and poured a glass for each of them. “What if I decided not to practice law anymore?” he began.

The pace of Deidra’s chopping slowed. “I thought you liked being a lawyer.”  She placed the knife on the counter and turned to face him. “What would you do instead?”

He shrugged and cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about insurance investments.” 

Deidra put a hand on her left hip. “Insurance? That doesn’t sound very exciting. Can you make any real money from that?”

Waverly shrugged again. “I hope to find out.”

According to a guy he’d met at a legal conference, he could make a bundle in the viatical business. Waverly had no idea what a viatical was, only that it had something to do with insurance. He had an appointment to talk with the guy in a couple of days.

He could tell that his wife wasn’t happy about his possible change of professions. The men in Deidra’s life before him had given her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. Waverly now worked hard to do the same, often placating her with promises of better things to come. Deidra enjoyed the prestige of being a lawyer’s wife and was banking on Waverly eventually landing a case that propelled them to the big leagues.

“This doesn’t mean we’ll have to put off moving, does it?” Deidra asked.

Waverly had agreed that she could start house shopping as soon as his next case settled. But even if he saved every dime he made for the next thirty years, he still wouldn’t be able to afford the gated communities where Deidra wanted to relocate.

“Maybe,” he said.

She was about to complain, but apparently noticed the angst on his face and retreated.

Waverly took a sip of wine and debated delaying his planned conversation with Deidra until he was absolutely certain about his situation. The written decision from the State Bar Court could arrive any day now. There was a slim chance that he might be hit with a suspension rather than disbarment. He’d hired Kitty Mancuso, a sixty-plus, powerhouse mouthpiece whose client base consisted exclusively of rich, white-collar criminals and lawyers who’d screwed up. If anybody could save the day, it was Kitty.

“I’m going to put on my sweats,” Waverly said, wimping out. “How long before dinner’s ready?”

“Not sweats,” Deidra replied. “Find some nice slacks. They’ll be here at six.”

“They who?”

Deidra smiled sheepishly. “Mom, Dad, and Rachel. Didn’t I tell you?”

No, because if she had, he would have faked a migraine. “Uh, I just remembered a motion I forgot to file.”

Deidra squinted and playfully pointed the knife inches from his nose. “Don’t even think about it.”  

By the time their dinner guests arrived, Waverly was seated in the den, insufficiently buzzed and ready for the show. Watching his wife’s dysfunctional family was better than reality TV.

Leon Barrett, Deidra’s pint-size father, strutted in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He waited all of three beats, then started boasting about his new sixty-inch flat screen. Rachel, Deidra’s older sister, showed off a diamond bracelet a new boyfriend supposedly gave her.

Leon spotted Waverly sitting in the den and made a beeline in his direction.

“How’s the law business these days, counselor?” Leon’s thumbs hung from his belt loops like a cowboy and he rocked back and forth from heel to toe.

Waverly didn’t bother to stand. “I’m making it.”

Leon walked over to the sliding glass door and surveyed their small patio. Waverly wondered what he would criticize first.

“So when are you two going to give up this place for a real home?” Leon joked.

Instead of answering, Waverly reached for his wineglass and took another sip. The thought of Leon Barrett finding out that he’d been disbarred made him want to puke.

“They’re building some new homes in The Estates,” Leon continued. He always referred to Palos Verdes Estates as The Estates. Waverly figured he’d moved there just so people would think he lived on an estate.

“If you’d bought over there when I told you to, you’d have nothing but money in the bank.” Leon owned a small construction firm that had done well, in part, because he was a major tightwad.

The wine was doing nothing to reduce Waverly’s irritation level. Too bad his own father was dead and gone. Henry Sloan wouldn’t have just thought about telling Leon Barrett to kiss his ass, he would have done it.

The evening plodded painfully along as it always did. Deidra’s father and sister talked nonstop about themselves while Deidra’s mother Myrtle, smiled and nodded like a big bobble head.

“I have to go to Paris at the end of the week to interview a bunch of obnoxious designers,” Rachel said, feigning annoyance. She was a fashion editor for Vogue. Like her sister, Rachel was a good-looking woman, but she lacked Deidra’s talent for capitalizing on her beauty.

“I hate you,” Deidra exclaimed. “I’ve been dying to go back to Paris.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” Rachel prodded. “I’ll be there three weeks. It’ll be fun.”

Deidra gave Waverly a hopeful look.

Having Deidra out of town for a few weeks would give him time to get a backup plan in place. But the funds for a ticket to Paris didn’t exist. His face must’ve conveyed that.

“If you can’t afford it,” Leon said facetiously. “I’d be glad to pick up the tab.”

Waverly smiled across the table at his father-in-law. “That’s a very generous offer.” He paused to take a sip of wine. “And we’d love to take you up on it.”

A razor-sharp silence whipped around the table. No one was more dazed than his blowhard father-in-law. Leon Barrett frequently offered to share his money, but never actually parted with any. Waverly thought the man might actually choke on his toothpick. Deidra shot Waverly a look hot enough to scorch his eyeballs, but he pretended not to notice.

Pleased with what he had just pulled off, Waverly got up and retrieved another bottle of wine from the wine rack.  

The minute her family walked out of the door, Deidra went off.

“What in the hell was that about?” she shouted. “How dare you let Daddy pay for my trip?”

Waverly headed back to the den with Deidra on his heels. “Well, he did offer.”

“He’s offered to pay for a lot of things, but you’ve always refused. Are we having money problems? Because if we are, I need to know.”

“Cases have been a little slow coming in, that’s all.”

“So slow that you can’t come up with four or five grand for a trip to Paris?”

Four or five grand? He wanted to laugh. “Look, I’m working everything out. Just give me some time.”

“Well, you better figure something out fast because this is not what I signed up for. We were only supposed to be living here for a few months and it’s been two years. I’ve never lived in a place this small before, but I did it for you.”

Small? Their townhouse was more than two thousand square feet.

“And now you’re telling me that we’re basically bankrupt.”

“We’re not bankrupt.” Not yet.

“If we can’t blow a few grand on a vacation, that’s bankruptcy as far as I’m concerned,” Deidra barked. “And please don’t embarrass me in front of my family like that ever again. If we’re having money problems, I should know about it before they do.” Deidra stalked out of the kitchen.

Waverly opened the cabinet over the bar, grabbed a fifth of brandy and took a gulp straight from the bottle. His wife’s little tantrum was really uncalled for. But what the hell? He had never expected to keep a woman like Deidra happy forever.

Too bad he hadn’t listened to his father. After divorcing his third wife, Henry Sloan swore off pretty women. Way too much work, he’d told his son. Find yourself a basic broad and she’ll ride with you until the wheels fall off.

Waverly chuckled to himself. Right now he could use a woman who could hang, because the ride was about to get rocky.  

 

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