Free Revenge of the Cube Dweller by Joanne Fox Phillips Page B

align your ducks!”
    “Stu, can you please try to get your client under control?” Rick appealed, lawyer to lawyer.
    “Good luck,” Winston snickered as he leaned sideways in his chair so he could cross his legs. The bottom buttons of his shirt were straining to stay fastened as he unbuttoned his blazer. I could tell he was losing patience with the whole process. He glanced at his watch the way busy people do when they are looking at a packed schedule.
    “Can we please move this along?” Winston said, taking the reins. “What is it you want, Tanzie? There might be some errors in the documents, just tell us what’s missing and we’ll fix it. No one’s trying to cheat you. Honestly.”
    “Forgive me if I don’t believe these are honest mistakes. You haven’t been honest with me about a lot of things—”
    “Here we go again,” Winston interrupted. “You had it pretty good, Tanzie—golf, shopping, travel. You’ll wind up with a decent settlement and I have no doubt you’ll find some sort of job. You’re a CPA; the judge agreed you wouldn’t require spousal support after the divorce is final.”
    “My license isn’t current, Winston. You know that.”
    “Mrs. Lewis. Mrs. Lewis. Please. We’re getting offtrack.” Stu tapped the tip of his pen on the table to get my attention. “Let’s get back to the settlement offer.”
    “What offer? This is incomplete. I won’t agree to this.” I shoved the paper across to Rick and Winston’s side of the table. “I have no job and this man wants me to take the house and all that upkeep? He conveniently leaves out assets. Why am I the bad guy here?
You
left
me
, Winston.” I tried to hold back the tears but my eyes watered up anyway.
    “Don’t make me feel guilty about wanting something more in my life,” he grumbled. I watched as he grabbed the flab under his chin; a habit he had when he became irritated.
    Of course not, Winston, we wouldn’t want
you
to feel guilty
. I stared at the balding toad across the table and marveled at his gall. I sat back down and took the proxy out of my purse, pretending to reconcile the compensation information to what was on Rick’s settlement offer. My mind was in another place, though, and I rested my forehead on my hand as I looked down at the documents and then up at Winston, wondering why my life was falling apart.
    I thought back to when we first met, when he was the CFO for a client of mine in the early ’80s. Winston was very handsome back then, and I fell very hard very quickly. He was charmed by my bohemian upbringing on the West Coast and my eccentric family. Winston had grown up with strict boundaries in a disciplined WASP home, and I suppose he felt a bit of liberation hanging around the O’Learys. I would never forgetour first trip to San Francisco while we were dating. He was sitting at the Formica kitchen table when one of my sisters, Bumby, I think, handed him a baby to hold while she tended to some other task. I don’t think Winston had ever held a child before. Baby Molly unexpectedly reached up and hit Winston’s arm, sending a nearly full glass of red wine flying across the kitchen.
    Now if that had happened in Winston’s family, there would have been an immediate damage assessment and discussion about who was to blame for the accident. In mine, however, my mother called out, “Tanzie, get this boy some more wine! His glass is empty.” The horrified look on Winston’s face dissolved into laughter. The O’Leary home must have been a welcome relief from the stress Winston was used to. No judgments. Just acceptance. I think Winston was drawn to that at that time of his life. By the end of the evening he was singing “Goodnight, Irene” with Bumby’s husband Shamus. He proposed to me on the flight back to Houston.
    “I want it all liquidated.” I looked up at Winston. “We’ll split it all down the middle. We can divvy up the securities to save on taxes, but the house, the place in Santa Fe,