Fixing Him, Fixing Her: A Short Romance Read online

  There’s really no harm in stalling, she thought to herself.

  She pushed the office door open to reveal a small room with pictures of New York sprawled all over the board directly opposite. Her leg kicked against the mini fridge.

  “Ouch,” she muttered, pushing the fridge out of the way.

  Getting to her chair, she’d pulled her sneakers off without reaching for them and dug her legs into the soft rug that lay on the floor. She took her checkbook from the drawer beneath the table, wrote out payment for the movers, and tore out a sticky note.

  Should I or should I not?

  She bit the end of the pen, considering playing with the fop a little longer.

  Live a little Minnie, this isn’t New York. And you’re done with Nathan.

  Nathan.

  The reason she stayed back in Willowshire. He was the last to arrive her parents’ house after their internment, offering a hug that lasted a tad too long. Her first boyfriend, her first love. Single again. And here they were in their hometown together. He kept his physique and still played a little football with an amateur club.

  There, in the office, while Graham waited outside, she recalled the times they had, the feel of his hands against her skin, the shivers that ran around her spine when his lips met hers countless times. The physical side rushed back to her, and over the next couple of weeks she lost herself in the improvement to both their performances. By the time she completed her parents’ estate, and invested in a garage of her own locally to be close to the man she thought she was falling in love with all over again, she concluded Nathan had improved physically but not mentally. He was still a boy at heart, and she needed something more than a hot body and hands that knew their place.

  Although it wasn’t too late to go back on the too-good-to-turn-down deal on the garage, she realized she didn’t want to go back on it. The business rates were cheaper than NYC, the air tasted fresher, and the people waved and said hello without bearing an ulterior motive like selling you something or slicing off your skin to wear like a suit … at least that’s what strangers in the city thought you were planning if you so much as made eye contact.

  “High school isn’t adulthood,” she said to herself as she put her number down on the sticky note she tore out earlier, jotting an exaggerated heart shape on the ‘i’ in her name.

  As soon as she stood, she heard a crashing sound outside.

  She ran out to meet the movers with surprised looks on their faces as if they were not aware of what just happened. She yelled a lot at them, swore as was her usual routine, and that’s all she could remember.

  Now she was alone with Graham, she reached into her pocket to get the sticky note which had her number on it … and then he said it.

  Spoke to her like a child.

  Like her dad might have.

  “Well, eff you mister!” she said bitterly. “Better?”

  His eyes widened and his mouth opened a little as he processed her reply.

  “I didn’t see that coming,” he said, visibly flustered.

  “’Cause you don’t mind your damn business.” She stared intently at him, still noticing his light green eyes. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Come get your car in the next three days.”

  “Three days?”

  “I got a lot of work on. And I gotta order a couple parts in.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. Needs new pads, a fluid change, and a nut in the pedal. Five hundred bucks, cash. Or write the check to Minnie McArthur. I ain’t set up for cards yet.”

  “But I need my car.”

  “Take my loaner, as long as you don’t leave the country in it. It’s out back. Nissan.” She tossed him a single key.

  Graham played with his finger nail a moment before flicking the hair off his forehead and wandering away, key in hand. But he turned back to her, plainly troubled by her change in attitude since he scolded her for swearing. “You know, I just said what I feel. About swearing. It’s not a big deal.”

  Minnie stifled the urge to yell a ton of expletives at him, but she was more annoyed that he was right. People don’t like swearing, by and large. People tolerate it. But no one actively likes it. Unless it’s funny. Joe Pesci in Goodfellas was funny. But Minnie wasn’t. She accepted that.

  “Goodbye, sir,” she said showing him back way out to the tiny parking space where her spare vehicle was parked.

  She made for her office again, but turned back to collect the iPod she left on the hood of the pickup truck. She noticed Graham had barely moved, scratching his salt and pepper beard and mumbling to himself.

  She walked into her office as she heard him sigh and finally walk away. Moments later, the ten-year-old Nissan fired up and drove out of the back way.

  Leaning into her chair, she replayed what just happened and realized she had been angry not just at what he said but because she actually kind-of liked him before he did all that. His fumbling apology over his commonplace assumption, his shy nature, the silver fox demeanor … like a shy Pierce Brosnan. Not quite a George Clooney.

  “I actually popped my ass for him,” she said to the empty office as she remembered herself leaning into the driver seat of his car.

  She burst out laughing, rebuking herself lightly for flirting like that.

  “It’s all good,” she said as she picked up some brochures from the table to order his pads and the brake pedal kit.

  Brochures, yeah. Like it’s 1995 again. The sooner the cable company sorted out her internet connection, the better.

  When the ringing of her office phone filled the room, she jumped, knocking her coffee so it spilled half the contents down the side of her desk. The shock was mainly because she forgot the place came with a landline installed when she moved in and it rarely rang since she gave her cellphone number on flyers and local newspaper ads.

  Coffee soaked into the thick blue carpet and spread, joining the different stain marks already there. “Shit,” she muttered, then sniggered as she remembered Graham’s suggestion that she swear less.

  She reached and picked the phone from the mini fridge, holding the receiver to her ear.

  “Hello,” she said. “Minnie McArthur of Minnie Motors, what can I do you for?”

  “Hello,” the person on the other line said briskly. “I’m Sophia Bennet of Pritchett, Prowleys and Co.”

  4

  It had been a heavy morning, but started like any other. As usual, Sophia Bennett walked into the elevator as she removed her sunglasses from her perfectly rounded face, heavily made up as women of a certain age are expected to be in a dynamically-run law firm. And by “dynamically-run” she meant “by old ball-breaking men.” Why she loved it here so much she couldn’t say, but she was one of the longest-serving lawyers on the books. And one of the most successful.

  Big fish, small pond? Maybe. But she wasn’t much for self-analysis.

  The other occupants in the elevator quickly gave way as she stood in the middle, the light of her iPhone shining in the smooth gold-plated panel, reflecting her eyes in the screen itself. She looked up and pushed her long blonde her to the side.

  “Top floor please,” she said to the youngster nearest the panel.

  Immediately, fingers rushed to meet the second-to-top button, the one immediately below the executive offices.

  “Thank you,” she said as she returned to her phone.

  The elevator emptied at different floors, leaving Sophia alone. Although she would disembark on eight, one before the partners’ wing, it was referred to as the “top floor” because it was the ceiling you could achieve here without making partner, an ambition for all those who made it this far. But most failed, poached by firms in New York and the surrounded area for more money, benefits, and promises of fast track promotions. Sophia herself had turned down eight offers, holding out hope that the old men would fulfil their promise of considering her … once a spot opened up. Meaning one of them had to die or leave.

  And like rich men all over Ameri
ca, their health was impeccable.

  Shame.

  The elevator doors slid open.

  “Good morning ma’am,” a shrill voice said as Sophia strode out and the four senior lawyers’ offices came into view.

  “Where’s my coffee?” she said not responding to the greeting.

  “Right here ma’am.” The lady in her mid-twenties rushed to the table to pick a bamboo cup with a composite lid that didn’t make the life-giving morning drink taste of plastic.

  “Cinnamon latte, right?” Sophia replied hesitating to put the cup to her lips.

  “Yes … yes, cinnamon latte,” the lady repeated, her eyes wide with anxiety, like all new hires seemed to react. Maybe there was a network of assistants trading hints and tips on how to handle folk like Sophia.

  Sophia hoped so. “Good”.

  She walked into her office, passing two desks with the sounds of tapping keyboards filling the air as the various assistants worked on their computers in the pool outside. Billing, correspondence, court papers.

  Sophia handed her briefcase to the young woman who gave her the coffee as she picked up some envelopes from her cherry table, the New York City skyline visible from the transparent glass wall behind her, misty in the distance.

  “What’s new on the DeVant case?” she asked.

  “Errm … Mr. DeVant brought some papers for, errr…”

  Sophia placed the coffee on her desk with a clump and waited for the woman’s eyes to meet hers. “What’s your name?”

  “Lindsey?” the younger woman answered, her lilt rising at the end.

  “Lindsey? Is that a question?”

  “No, ma’am. It’s Lindsey. My name is Lindsey.”

  “Okay, Lindsey, I’ve seen you around, but you don’t usually bring my coffee or sort my mail, so maybe you don’t know me so well. I hate two things: incompetence, and hesitation. You don’t know something, you say you don’t know. You do know something, you say it. No stuttering, no sugar coating, even if it’s bad news. So, do not stutter. Just talk.”

  “Sorry ma’am,” Lindsey said with her head down. “Yes. There are papers from Mr. DeVant.”

  “Good. Scan it, send it to the shared folder, then bring me the hardcopies.”

  Sophia dismissed Lindsey her with a wave of her hand and walked round the desk, removed her navy-blue jacket, and hung it on her burgundy office chair. She sat and sipped on her coffee and waited for her computer to turn on, savored the flavor before slipping a napkin from her drawer and dabbing her scarlet red lips.

  After reading the first email, she walked to her office’s entrance, her knee length skirt hugging what she knew was still a lean figure, where she stuck her head out and signaled for Lindsey to come. “Get me the files for the Fletcher property. She’s bugging me about not receiving some payment.”

  “Okay ma’am.” Lindsey rushed to the file cabinet at the corner of the office.

  Sophia settled back in her chair and sifted through her remaining emails, drumming her fingers on the table.

  “Got them ma’am.” Lindsey trotted in, barely missing a flower pot beside Sophia’s file cabinet.

  “Good.” Sophia took the files flipped through the pages, pausing occasionally to read something more thoroughly. “Hmmm.” Sophia traced her hands against a ledger on a page. “What’s the status on that property she owns in Willowshire? The garage or workshop or whatever it is.”

  Lindsey’s fingers fluttered over the tablet she was holding, a new addition for all the assistants on eight. “It’s still in her possession, but her brother’s been making use of it for a while.”

  “He’s supposed to be paying rent, right?” Sophia asked.

  “Yes.”

  “But she hasn’t received any rent for three months now.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Lindsey replied. “Her accountant sent the documents over just before the email came through.”

  “Get me all you can find on the garage, and on her brother.” Sophia returned her eyes to the file, dismissing Lindsey with that one gesture.

  Alone, Sophia bit on the tip of her pen as she looked at her computer screen as another email on the subject bonged into her inbox. She read it briefly and made some mental calculations whilst keeping herself calm. It might not be the goldmine she hoped for.

  But it might just be. And if it was…

  “Ma’am, I’ve got what you asked for,” Lindsey said as she walked back into the office.

  “Good, just got another mail from Ffion Fletcher, she’s on my neck for this.” Sophia stretched her hand for the file. “Wait here, we’ll go through this together.”

  Sophia opened the file and began circling different places with her pen.

  “So, for three months Ffion Fletcher’s brother hasn’t paid the rent and now the garage is occupied by a certain Minnie McArthur.” She tapped her pen on the table.

  “Yes ma’am,” Lindsey replied.

  Sophia sighed and tossed the file aside. “Send the file to Mark, the newbie, this should be a walkover for him. Decent money but the property is too small to get the attention of the old men.” She said turning back to her computer, wondering exactly what it would take to get the attention of the “old men” on the floor above.

  “Okay,” Lindsey replied, “thought you’d want this one though, it’s quite a catch.”

  Sophia stopping her typing. “Meaning?”

  “Well, her brother normally pays her a rent of about two thousand dollars a month as he also pays for some equipment. It’s a business arrangement, yet the brother isn’t contactable at present. We think he’s abroad.”

  Sophia frowned. She started to see where her new—and plainly ambitious—assistant was going with this. “Fraud.”

  “Not enough for a criminal conviction, but a civil case could mean substantial damages.”

  Sophia immediately stopped listening to Lindsey and began mentally calculating the amount she could recoup for her firm in legal fees drawn from the defendant, not to mention the personal bonuses. And taking a straightforward property dispute and building it into a civil fraud case might just make someone upstairs take notice.

  “Could be close to a cool million,” Lindsey concluded.

  “If the defendant and the brother don’t go bankrupt over it,” Sophia pointed out. “But good work, Linds. Leave the file here and put a call to the current occupant of the garage for me.”

  “Sure thing ma’am.” Lindsey hurried out of the office.

  Sophia leaned into her chair and smiled.

  Pratchett, Prowleys, Bennett and Co. Sounds so right.

  The sound of ringing interrupted her thoughts. She picked up.

  “She’s on line two ma’am,” Lindsey said through the receiver.

  Sophia pressed on the button numbered two and waited.

  “Hello, Minnie McArthur of Minnie Motors. What can I do you for?”

  Sophia pursed her lips and squeezed her brows. “Hello. I’m Sophia Bennet of Pritchett, Prowleys and Co.”

  “Oh. Law firm?” Minnie asked.

  No. Daycare service, Sophia thought.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, so what can I do for you guys? Car’s broken down before a big case or something?”

  “No,” Sophia said coldly.

  “Oh. Then what?”

  “You are occupying a property which belongs to my client, rent is supposed to have been paid which hasn’t, and your landlord is incommunicado. So, we are suing for damages. Just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

  “Am I being pranked or something?” Minnie asked. “Lawyers usually send a letter, don’t they?”

  “To formalize it, yes. But I like the personal touch to kick things off.”

  It also panics them. Usually, it was indeed a letter, but with this hanging over a person they often act rashly, do something that incriminates them. Something Sophia could use in court.

  “I think this is some sorta joke,” Minnie said. “Nathan put you up to this?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t care what you think but I advise you get your lawyer ready.”

  “I’m not getting anything ready miss. You better go find who you’re really looking for. I bought this place fair and square, and I got the papers to prove it. I don’t owe rent to no one.”

  Sophia restrained a whoop of delight. The poor girl thought she owned a property that no one but her client had the right to sell.

  “Well, that’s sweet,” Sophia said. “When you receive the papers, be sure to get something ready.”

  “Whatever. Goodbye.” Minnie hung up.

  Sophia put down the receiver, smiling too herself. This is gonna be fun.

  5

  Graham banged on the steering wheel in frustration as he drove the loaner into the college parking lot.

  “Hello sir!” someone called from the adjacent lawn.

  Graham stuck his hand out of the window and gave a careless wave, not looking at the person. He was more concerned about his encounter with Minnie McArthur.

  He got out of his car and banged the door shut, startling himself a little. Moving to the trunk, he carried his briefcase out along with some books he collected from home on the way in.

  He turned briskly and bumped into a lady who was standing behind him.

  “What the—” He didn’t complete his question as he struggled to catch himself, letting his books fall to the ground in the process.

  “For God’s sake, Becca, you scared me.” He bent down to pick up his books.

  “I know,” Becca said, still standing. She was a little younger than him, but just as tall, and her hair color changed as often as Graham’s suits. Today, she was a lustrous red. “Hope you know you’re up for the tenure that everyone is talking about. No time to be downgrading your car to … this.”

  “Oh.” Graham stood, losing all interest in what she wanted to say.

  He didn’t really care about the tenure. He wanted it for the security of his future, not for the academic opportunities. He brushed off his creased grey trousers and made for the college campus.

  “You’re not gonna say anything?” Becca called after him.