Icing On The Cake

“Where would you expect me to be at this time of day?”

“At the reading of Dad’s will.”

“I told you there’s no need for me to be there.”

“Dad’s attorney thinks there is. He’s refusing to read the will until you arrive.”

This I need like another hole in my head. “I’m really kind of busy. Tell him I said to go ahead without me.”

There’s a pause, then Riley’s voice comes on line. “Mom, get over here now!”

“Jeez! Okay. I’m coming.”

I give three seconds’ thought to changing out of my baker’s white back into the Dana Buchman I carefully hung out of harm’s way, but why bother? I am what I am. If this is so bloody important, what does it matter what I look like?

Chapter 5

“I’m glad you could join us, Mrs. Talbot.”

The attorney of record, Lionel Dunlap, and I face each other across the conference table in the law offices of Dunlap, McDougal and Feinstein. He doesn’t glance at his watch but he doesn’t have to. Sarah has already told me that I’ve held up the proceedings by a billable top-attorney hour. Wonder who’s paying?

Maybe I should have rethought my optional Dana Buchman. Every other person present seems to have realized the sartorial significance of the moment.

On my right, Sarah, prim and serious as her tweed business suit and tortoiseshell glasses, clutches my hand. At my left elbow sits Riley in a man’s pin-striped seersucker suit sans shirt. The flexible dancer’s leg folded against her chest puts considerable strain on the one button holding closed the jacket. A colorful batik fabric snugly wraps her head. I hope my urban Amazon aka vegan counter-culture purist hasn’t shaved her head, again.

To one side and a little behind, she sits between two men-in-black-Halston attorneys. So far, we’ve avoided making eye contact. That’s because she’s wearing, yup, a mafiarina-style mourning veil. Yet her widow-black Carrie Bradshaw-goes-Goth micro sheath exposes enough leg to distract even me. If possible, she’s even tanner, with deep red undertones. Swinging from the toes of her crossed leg is a Moschino black-heeled sandal with a crystal-encrusted suede-flower ornament. The pair would pay my flour bill.

“Shall we begin?” Lionel is an old-school lawyerly type, In an impeccable custom-made suit, terribly expensive and understated. Doubtless he would never wear anything as vulgar as a designer label. “For the record the date is Monday, September12. The last will and testimony of Edward Duncan Talbot…”

I’m still at a loss as to why my attendance is such a big deal. Surely, Ted left everything to her and our girls. If he did leave me anything, it’s probably something completely useless like a case of eight-track cartridges. Hmm. Collectors’ items could be sold on eBay for cash. If that’s why she brought in the former law review, to stop me from owning the Bee Gees and K.C. and Sunshine Boys, she can have them.

My attention swings back to old Lionel just as he reads aloud, “…I devise and bequeath to Elizabeth Jeanne Talbot all goods and possessions…”

My first thought is, of course he left everything to his wife. Elizabeth Jeanne Talbot? “Me?”

“Oh, Mom!” whispers Sarah.

“Holy crap!” echoes Riley.

“What!” she gasps, and jumps out of her chair like a goldfish jerked out of her bowl.

“This is, of course, a mistake,” begins one of her attorneys as the other snags his client by the elbow to draw her back into her chair, “one, unfortunately, not uncommon in instances of divorce and remarriage.”

“Teddy would never do that to me. He made another will.” She points at Lionel. “Tell them.”

Lionel nods slowly. “While it is true, Mrs. Talbot—”

“For the record, I’m Mrs. Talbot, too.” I may be in shock but I’ve watched enough episodes of Judge Judy to know that if you don’t protest these little items at the time, they can come back to bite you in the ass. “The Elizabeth Jeanne Talbot referred to in the will, that’s me.”

I can’t see the expression behind her veil but I can hear it in her voice. “But you’re not Teddy’s wife, I am!”

Sarah grips my arm. “Mom, what does this mean?”

I lean toward her to murmur, “Who the heck knows?”

Lionel waits to see if there will be another volley before saying, “As I was saying, while it is true this office apprised Mr. Talbot repeatedly of his need to alter his will after his second marriage he never in fact signed the new document.”

“What does that mean?” We all hear her whisper to her attorneys. After the more subdued whispers of counsel she wails, “But how could Teddy do that to me?”

I can answer her question, though I wouldn’t dream of it.

“Dad didn’t like the idea of wills,” Sarah offers.

“What exactly do you mean, Miss Talbot?” Her attorney looks like a tiger that has scented prey. “Do you have knowledge that your father was coerced into signing this will?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Riley snarls. A tigress in her own right.

Reluctantly I decide to weigh in on the topic.

“I’m surprised but not shocked that Ted didn’t make a new will. This will is the result of the one and only time I could drag him to an attorney to make one. We’d just been in an accident. We escaped with a few cuts and bruises, but a totaled vehicle. It brought home to us the fact that the girls were just eight years old and would require legal guardianship if something happened to us.”

“There! That’s proof that Teddy would want his family, his new family, taken care of,” she says to no one in particular.

Not looking her way I say, “Ted viewed having a will as tantamount to signing a death sentence.” I’ve read that this is not an uncommon reaction even among smart, upwardly mobile men. “Mr. Dunlap can confirm that Ted paced like a caged bear the entire time.”

Lionel nods his head. “He was a very impatient man.” Of course, Lionel did present us with enough estate-planning and trust options to rival the choices on a Starbucks menu.

But I’m happy to take his side and give him a big smile. “As I remember it, Ted cut the conversation off by saying, ‘Just give us the stripped-down, vanilla, no frills version. I die, Liz gets it all. She drops dead, it’s mine. We both die—Jesus H. Christ! Liz’s mother, Sally, gets guardianship of our girls. Okay?’”

Again, Lionel nods.

One attorney for her says, “Mr. Talbot may not have crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s, but certainly his intent was clear in his decision to have a new will drawn up.”

“Mr. Talbot might be forgiven for thinking that the courts would understand when he named his wife he meant whichever wife held the title at the moment,” says the other.

“Which-ever?” Riley snarls. “You make my father sound like a serial bigamist.”

I lay a soothing hand on her forearm, then again engage old Lionel’s gaze and smile. “There is no mention of a ‘wife.’ I am named in the will as sole beneficiary.”

Lionel smiles back. For a member of the firm who dug my financial hellhole during the divorce, he seems almost amused by this turn of events. “It is not the usual wording for a will. I pointed that out to both of you at the time. Naming a beneficiary without a designation of the relationship can prove legally difficult should one’s situation in life alter at a later date. However, as I have said, this is a legitimate will in accordance with New Jersey law.”

Her mouthpiece says, “New Jersey law provides for a widowed spouse in ways that cannot be circumvented by any will.”

Lionel’s expression sobers. “Quite right. Mrs. Brandi Talbot is entitled to a significant share of the deceased’s estate. Providing there are no other documents to supersede it, such as a prenuptial agreement.”

She gasps. “Teddy would never have asked me to sign anything like that.”

“You mean my mother will have to share?” Riley demands, as if it’s her and not me who has come into this dizzying windfall of unexpected possibility.