Chapter 17 Enough For Me
ENOUGH FOR ME
“Hello, Jolene,” Grace said.
She had a meeting in ten minutes, but when she noticed who was calling, she had to find out if there were any updates.
Things were moving slowly for Matt, but she expected as much.
It’s not as if Anya was banging down the door to come visit them as she had when she was a child.
Matt didn’t live at home either. She saw her son at work and nothing else unless it was a holiday. Rarely did they talk about anything other than work.
“Grace,” Jolene said. “I wasn’t sure I would catch you.”
“I have to go in a few minutes. Do you have anything to report?”
“I wish I had more. I came in before Anya’s shift started today. I was lucky enough to get a glance at the schedule earlier in the week to know she’d be here. It’s easier to talk to her when she opens than when she comes in for the second shift and then closes.”
“Does she know what you’re doing?”
“I’m pretty sure now thanks to all the meddling.”
Grace laughed. “You know how ironic that sounds, don’t you?”
“I do,” Jolene said. “Between everyone calling me out in front of Anya, then my son blocking me, I didn’t get anywhere. I was on my way to see your son, but he’s off.”
“Ben or Matt?” she asked. “Matt’s here, but he was off yesterday.”
“Ben,” Jolene said. “But that’s interesting. Does Matt like Carowinds?”
“He loved it as a kid,” she said. “I’m not so sure now. Why?”
“Well, I was chatting with Anya and we got sidetracked by the things happening in her life.”
“Such a shame.” Matt would fight hard for the Emersons. She couldn’t tell Jolene about that though.
“It is. I made a comment that she needed to have some fun in her life to relax. She said she was, that she’d spent the day at Carowinds yesterday.”
“Now that is something to think about,” she said. “I’ll have to drop some pins and see if they stick.”
“Keep me posted,” Jolene said. “I don’t know Matt well and I’m flying blind with Anya other than what I know of her as an employee the past few months. But I know what I saw at Ben’s wedding with the two of them and that is enough for me.”
“Your gut hasn’t been wrong once,” she said.
“It’s nice to be appreciated for the good work and taste that I’ve got,” Jolene said. “It only seems to come from our generation though.”
She laughed with Jolene. “Because we want to see our kids settled.”
Grace hung up a minute later and picked up her laptop to go to the conference room to meet with a client when her husband popped his head in.
“I’m on my way,” she said.
“Who were you talking to?”
There was no hiding this from her husband. “Jolene.”
“You admitted it. I wasn’t sure you would,” Tim said.
“You were eavesdropping outside the door, weren’t you?”
Her husband shrugged. “I might have learned it from you. What did she have to say?”
“I thought you weren’t interested in this.”
“Oh, I’m interested, but I’m not getting involved. There is a difference.”
She gave her husband a little playful nudge. “You don’t want to get your hands dirty. That’s the difference.”
“I plead the fifth.”
Grace hooked her arm in his. “You’ve been saying that since the day we started to date.”
“And it still makes you smile or laugh.”
“It does. I want that for Matt.” She lowered her voice. Her son’s office wasn’t that far away and his door was normally open unless he was on the phone with certain clients. “Jolene talked to Anya and found out she went to Carowinds yesterday.”
“How the hell did she get that out of her?”
She waved her hand. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that Anya and Matt have been talking. We know that, we see it and it appears he’s not pulling her hair or putting whoopie cushions on her seat.”
Tim laughed. “Thank God those actions changed.”
“And she’s not running out of the room shrieking or calling him a jerk,” she said.
“You’d think he would have learned back then the first time she did it?”
“He’s a stubborn one. My point is, Matt loved Carowinds as a kid. So did Anya when we brought her.”
“He took yesterday off last minute,” Tim said.
She put her finger to her nose and tapped it a few times. “We’ve got a meeting now, but I think between the two of us we might be able to solve this riddle fast.”
“Here’s hoping!”
“How is it going?” his mother asked him on Friday afternoon.
Matt put his phone down after seeing the text from Anya that she was pulling a double shift today. He’d hoped to see her tonight, but knew there was a possibility that it’d be so busy and they’d ask her to stay longer.
“It’s going,” he said. “Everything okay?”
His parents didn’t normally drop into his office together without there being a reason or a meeting scheduled.
“Always,” his father said. “It’s the end of the workweek and we haven’t seen much of you.”
“We just wanted to make sure everything was okay since you took the day off last-minute yesterday. It’s not like you,” his mother said.
He frowned. One setback to working for family. They knew your every move if you were in the building, or didn’t come into the building.
“I’ve been slammed and needed a day off. I didn’t have court or anything pressing. I wasn’t aware I had to clear that with you.”
“Get that grin off your face,” his mother said. “You don’t.”
“That’s right,” Matt said. “We all have vacation time to use and rarely do in full.”
“We never want anyone to feel that way,” his father said.
It was the nature of their business. He understood that.
“I don’t. It comes with the territory. Which is why I take time off last minute and try to unwind.”
“Did you do anything fun?” his mother asked. “Or sit home and drink some beer in your shorts while watching movies?”
He laughed. “I might do that tonight.” It’s not like anyone was around he wanted to spend time with.
He could call a friend to go out, but that would mean a bar and the last thing he needed getting back to Anya was that he was out drinking. She might think he was looking to pick someone up.
Not that he ever did in a bar. Unless it turned into a relationship.
He had a reputation to uphold in the area and drinking and driving wasn’t part of that. Never.
Nor picking up strange women and bringing them back to his place.
“Guess you didn’t get to have any beer yesterday,” his father said.
“I had one,” he said. “Any more might not have stayed in my stomach.”
His mother frowned. “Were you sick?”
“No,” he said, laughing and leaning back in his chair. “I found myself on some rollercoasters yesterday. I don’t have the same stomach I did as a kid, but it was a great time.”
“Did it bring back memories?” his father said. “Of you torturing your sister to get on with you?”
Matt watched his parents looking back and forth at each other and couldn’t figure out what was going on.
“Phoebe was a good sport.” Just for the hell of it, he added, “Anya was the one that liked the rides more. She was a better sport about it.”
His mother’s eyes flickered. His father looked at her again.
Damn it all.
They were fishing.
The question was, why? Or how?
Or was it a coincidence?
He wasn’t opposed to letting them know he was dating Anya, but it was not something the two of them had talked about either.
“She was,” Grace said. “You two are getting along fine?”
He frowned. “Of course. I’m keeping it professional. I thought you had confidence in me not to be that person again?”
When his mother’s shoulder slumped, he knew she was feeling guilty. “We do. But you tried to talk to her at the wedding and she walked off the floor on you.”
“I wasn’t aware you saw that,” he said.
“We hadn’t. Someone else did and mentioned it. They thought it was funny.”
He snorted. “I’m sure they did. She wasn’t mad enough that she couldn’t call me for help. I know I was her second choice. She would have rather had Phoebe.”
“That stands to reason,” his father said. “They were best friends and her parents know Phoebe.”
“They know me too, but not as well. Everything is good. You get our reports weekly. I was just finishing mine, but since you’re here, I’ll tell you.
I talked with the ADA on Shelly’s case. It’s exactly as I thought.
Her attorney is pushing for a plea deal with no jail time, just probation if she pays back everything she stole. ”
“That’s great,” his mother said. “For them. And what a relief it would be.”
“I’m waiting for Shelly’s attorney to reach out to me. It will happen.”
“We all know it will go a long way if Elliot and Amber drop their lawsuit for Shelly to get that deal. Is that what you want?”
“It’s not about what I want,” he said. “It’s what is best for them.
I want to negotiate and we should. Shelly should pay back more than she stole.
She earned money on their money, they should get that as well.
Do I think they will or want to go for the whole two million Shelly is being sued for?
No. But they deserve more compensation for the damage. The trust that was broken.”
“The pain of that has to be hard,” Grace said. “I think to myself how I’d feel if Alyssa did that to us.”
Alyssa had been his mother’s assistant since he was a kid.
“That’s right,” he said. “This is about more than money, but those things may never get resolved.”
“And it’s not our job to do that,” his father said.
“No. If there isn’t anything else, I’ll finish my report and get it to you before I take off for a night of beer and baseball.”
“Baseball over movies?” his mother asked.
“Movies aren’t any fun alone. Baseball is better.”
His father lifted an eyebrow at his mother and the two of them left.
They were on to him, he knew it, and he’d have to let Anya know.