CHAPTER SEVEN #2
Stuart looked at Chris with a grin on his face. He was propositioned almost daily. But never this bluntly.
Chris nodded. “Oh yeah. She’s the town’s slut alright. Every man still with a pulse been with her. Including me. Yes, I have. So if you want a good time, give her a call like she said. She’s good for it. But she’s a strange one. So watch her.”
Stuart wasn’t thinking about being with some whore. “About my mother’s estate,” he asked again.
“Speaking of strange ladies. Now that mama of yours was a strange lady. I mean, I know she didn’t want a funeral,” Chris said, “but damn. She didn’t even want a wake. Nothing. She wanted nothing.”
Stuart didn’t respond to that. The woman he knew was the second most insufferable human being he’d ever met. Second only to his also deceased father.
“Have you at least picked up her ashes from the funeral home?” Chris asked.
“No. And don’t intend to.”
Chris stared at him. “You don’t regret that?”
Stuart didn’t respond. Because, deep down, he did have a sense of regret that his mother was gone. That it was final that he and his mother would never reconcile. But that was what she wanted, not him.
Then Chris grinned. “If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand your family.
Your daddy disowned you while you was still a teenager stealing and robbing people like you was a zip dang fool.
Your mama used to beat you so bad you ended up in traction several times.
Then she die and you don’t seemed bothered in the least?
No matter how awful my mama was to me, if my mama dies there ain’t no way I’m not gonna be devastated. ”
“You can’t give what isn’t wanted. She didn’t want any love or devotion or commitments from me. I would have given it to her had she wanted it. But she didn’t. So I didn’t.”
“What did she want from you then? Money?”
“Once she realized I had some, yes. And that is all she wanted. I gave her what she wanted.”
“Money was all she cared about, it seemed to me,” said Chris.
“I tried to have a relationship with her after Dad passed away. But she wasn’t interested. ‘Keep those checks coming. That’s all you got to do for me,’ is what she told me over the phone once. So I kept the checks coming.”
“It’s a crying shame though,” Chris said. “You had terrible parents.”
Stuart wouldn’t argue with that.
“But nevertheless,” Chris said and finally stopped rocking. He sat upright. “I know you didn’t come all this way from New York City to listen to me. I have your mother’s will in front of me. Since you’re her only heir, you’re the only one invited to be here.”
“Just read it, Chris.”
Chris opened the envelope and read it. “‘I, Vera Clementine Jacobs, leave everything I own to Stuart Jacobs, my son, since he was the one who paid for it all anyway. This way, I won’t owe him a dime. This way, I can at least rest in peace.’” Then Chris looked at Stuart. “And that’s it. That’s all she wrote.”
Stuart wasn’t surprised. “Where do I sign?” he asked, Chris put the papers in front of him, and Stuart signed them.
“She still owns the big house on Felix you purchased for her two years ago, and a couple smaller houses around town she bought with all them big checks you were sending her. And she’s about two thousand bucks still in the bank.
But she didn’t mention that in her will.
So there may be more assets. Who knows?”
“And who cares,” Stuart said as he stood up. Chris stood up too. “I’m meeting a realtor at the house when I leave your office, and then I’m out of here.”
But as they walked out of the office, Chris decided to tell the truth.
“Your mama wasn’t a nice person, Stu,” he said.
“She hated everybody and everything and everybody and everything hated her. Except for men. What I would call gigolos and gold diggers if you get my drift. She had plenty of them down through the years. Used to parade’em around town too. It was disgraceful.”
“Coming from a married man who’d been with the town slut is rich, Christoper. Really rich.”
Chris laughed out loud. “True that,” he said. “But I’m not joking about this. Miss Vera was something else.”
They were now standing on the sidewalk in front of his office, but Chris, a big talker, was still holding Stuart up from leaving with his nonstop talking. “Did you catch that Yankees game last night? I heard it was a doozy. Or are you a Mets fan? I’m all-in with Cleveland myself.”
As he continued talking, across the street from where they stood Tabby was rushing back to her car after making that lunch delivery at the beauty salon.
Stuart saw her, because he was looking in that direction, and the speed with which she hurried to her vehicle made him view her as a young lady on the move.
Which he liked. So many twenty-somethings were so lazy these days, or felt the world owed them a living, that he rarely hired any.
But that young lady, it seemed to him, was going places.
Tabby didn’t see him at all as she hopped into her car and quickly began checking her phone to see if she could grab another passenger pickup or delivery gig.
But just as she was about to press accept for a passenger pickup, the driver of a big black SUV sped past her car, stopped, and then backed up and slung into the space in front of her car.
“Well damn,” Chris said when both men saw that SUV. “Why don’t you go over there, Stuart, and tell her to slow her ass down.”
Stuart looked at him. “Why don’t you go?” Chris laughed. Then Stuart shook his head as both men continued to check out that SUV. “I don’t get involved with other people’s drama. I have enough of my own.”
“Amen to that,” agreed Chris.
But when that SUV slung into reverse with that same fast, jerky driving, they both were stunned. “What is she doing?” Chris asked.
“Hell if I know,” said Stuart as that SUV kept backing up so fast and furiously that it backed right into the front end of Tabby’s little Chevy Bolt so hard, and with such force, that it caused Tabby’s small body to slam against the back of her seat. and for her phone to fly out of her hand.
Stuart’s heard dropped when he saw Tabby slamming back against her seat. “Let’s go,” he said as he patted Chris on the chest and then began hurrying across the sidewalk. “The driver of that car may need help getting out!”
“But I thought you said you didn’t get involved,” a confused Chris said.
And Stuart usually didn’t get involved. He rarely ever in any circumstances.
But for some reason he felt compelled to get involved in this one.
And without waiting on Chris, he began rushing to the scene of that accident.
The traffic was a tad heavy on Grant Street in the moment, and people were rubbernecking which made it worse, as both men had to wait to get across the street.
Inside that car, Tabby was so stunned by the sudden crash that she had no clue what had just happened.
But when she looked up and saw through her now-shattered windshield that a massive SUV had crashed so violently into her car that it curled her hood and its backend was, in fact, sitting on her hood, her heart slammed against her chest. Which caused her to panic.
Which caused her to quickly unbuckle her seatbelt and jump out of that car as if it was on fire.
As soon as she got out, she could see that the weight of that SUV had caused the back end of her car to hoist upward, and when she hurried to the front end and saw the full extent of the damage, she was amazed at how close that SUV came to crumbling her up too.
It was a miracle from God Almighty, Tabby was certain, that that big tank of an SUV hadn’t easily pushed on through.
She staggered backwards when she saw all that damage.