Over Her Dead Body(45)
The drive from the Valley to Beverly Hills took about forty minutes. I didn’t want to park underground because the lawyer’s building was super fancy and I knew it would be rudely expensive. So I drove around the block, hoping to find a meter within walking distance. After two full loops it was clear I was not going to get lucky. Plus it was raining like a monsoon and I didn’t have a raincoat (no one in LA did), so I sucked it up and parked in the garage, even though I knew it was going to cost me two hours’ pay in a week when I was already down a shift. My skirt had somehow gotten spun around as I was driving, so I readjusted it in the vestibule, then rode the elevator to the fourth floor, which Springer, Cohen, Keele, Dail, and Redding shared with another law firm with an even longer name.
“Are you here for the Louisa Lake George reading?” a receptionist asked me. I nodded and she pointed me toward a conference room. I had expected it to be overflowing with adoring friends and family, so was surprised to see only six people there: Nathan, Louisa’s lawyer, and four other people who I presumed were family members.
“Here, take my seat,” the lawyer said as he vacated the chair next to Nathan. I knew he was the lawyer because I recognized his snooty accent. He wore pretentious Oliver Peoples Gregory Peck eyeglasses (all the rage) and a slim-fitting Armani suit to complete his I’m-better-than-you vibe.
Nathan was looking incredibly handsome in his dark suit, which of course made me want to cry. Luckily, we were at a will reading, and I wasn’t the only one with shiny eyes. As I approached, he stood and pulled out my chair, and for a moment we were nose to nose.
“Hi, Nathan,” I said simply, respecting the circumstances with a solemn nod.
“What are you doing here?” He didn’t say it in a mean way, and I saw no reason not to answer him honestly.
“I have no idea.”
“Good morning, everyone,” the lawyer said. “If you are in this room, you are named in Louisa’s will. I want to state for the record that I have verified that this document is authentic, and that the directives herein are legally binding.”
The curly-haired guy across the table (her son, perhaps?) was staring at me, so I kept my head held high and my eyes glued to the lawyer like I’d been invited, which of course I had been.
“To my children, Charles Anthony George Junior and Winifred Elizabeth George,” the lawyer read, “I leave the contents of their childhood rooms.”
I snuck a glance at the curly-haired guy. He was looking at the woman on the other side of Nathan, an unconventionally beautiful ginger redhead with a heart-shaped face and mermaid-green eyes (his sister?), who just shrugged and shook her head.
“To my brother, Roy Bingham Lake, and each of his children, Nathan, Sophia, Lily, and Henry, I leave fifty thousand dollars each, for a total of two hundred fifty thousand dollars to Roy Lake and family.”
OK, that seems kind of normal . . .
“The rest of my assets,” the lawyer read, “including, but not limited to, my stocks, bonds, IRA, the balance of my husband’s life insurance policy, proceeds from the sale of my business, my home and all its contents besides what I have already bequeathed to my children, I leave to Miss Ashley Brooks.”
I don’t remember exactly what went through my mind in that moment, but I think it was something like—
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK?
“Ashley, what just happened?” someone asked. I think it was Nathan. Or maybe I imagined it. Because that’s exactly what I was wondering.
Five sets of eyes locked in on me like Jedi fighter jets on the Death Star. As evidenced by my acting career, I was never one who thrived in the spotlight. So I pushed back my chair and got the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 35
* * *
WINNIE
Charlie and I drove home from the will reading in silence. I was upset, but not about being cut out of the will. I know it sounds crazy, but I didn’t want Mom’s money.
I had a degree in economics from Stanford. If I wanted to be fabulously wealthy, I could have hit up any number of my classmates for a highfalutin job with shitloads of stock options and made my own fortune. So why hadn’t I? On some level, I think knowing I could be Real Housewife rich without having to lift a finger had crippled me. Why get a job if I didn’t have to work? Why start a business when Mom just wanted to give me one? What was the point of jumping into the rat race when the trophy was already mine?
Strangely, I hadn’t known my assumption that I would someday inherit millions had paralyzed me until I found out it was wrong. It was suddenly so obvious. Now that Mom was gone, I had a raison d’être, an imperative to do something with my life. I felt motivated. I felt free. Unlike Mom, whose goal was nothing less than world domination, I’d only ever had modest aspirations. Start a flower shop. Teach high school English. Run a food truck. But pursuing a vocation as mundane as selling flowers would have irked the great Louisa George. She expected world domination. So rather than risk disappointing her, I didn’t even try.
But now I could do whatever I wanted, without the stink of Mom’s disappointment trailing behind me. What a relief! That’s not to say I didn’t grieve her. Mom may have been a gun-slinging Cruella de Vil, but she was my gun-slinging Cruella de Vil, and I loved her like a prisoner with Stockholm syndrome loves her captor. I was bone crushingly sad driving home from Beverly Hills that day, but not about the money. On the contrary, on that front I was downright relieved.