Kelton's Rules

“He’s pretty tough,” Sky observed.

“Yeah.” But he was fair. Like Justice, the blind lady with the scales that he always claimed he was dating on those rare occasions when he dressed up and went out at night—leaving Kat stuck with Marylou.

“Tough is good,” she defended him when Sky looked too sympathetic. “Navy SEALs are tough.”

“Not as tough as navy aviators.”

“Huh! They’re much tougher.” Someday she’d be a SEAL, just like Demi Moore in that movie, if she didn’t become—

“No way! Pilots have to handle terrorists and thunderstorms and icing on the wings and—” He shrugged. “They take care of people every day. My dad’s a pilot.”

“Really? In the navy?” Kat felt a twinge of envy. Her dad only worked in a stupid office.

“Um, no,” Sky admitted, fiddling with the sander. “He used to be, but now he’s a commercial pilot. Flies for American Airlines. He flies all over the country.”

That was still way cooler than sitting in an office, filling out forms. “Is that where he is right now, flying?”

“Yeah…” Sky didn’t look up. His hands had stilled on the sander. “That’s…why he couldn’t come with us. But he’ll catch up with us later on. Sometime soon. He can fly to meet us just about anywhere.”

“There’s an airport—a little airport—here, outside of town. But I guess he couldn’t land his jet.”

Sky shrugged. “That wouldn’t stop Dad. Sometimes for fun he rents a twin-engine plane, a Cessna. I was—I am going to learn to fly. He’ll teach me when I’m older.”

Kat could think of nothing to match that. So she put her earphones back on, crossed her eyes and twitched her upper lip and nose like a chewing rabbit, then sanded away.

The next time she swung around with an even better face, Sky had wandered off to the carport and stood kicking the tires of her dad’s winter car, the Subaru he’d accepted in trade for some legal work. Sky looked as bored as she felt. If only she weren’t grounded, she could take him around Trueheart. Show him the creek that ran through the center of town and how she could catch fish with her hands. They could buy ice cream at Hansen’s.

It would be nice to have a friend in Trueheart. She and her dad had only moved up here from Durango last fall. The girls were all mushy and prissy and talked about nothing but boys. The guys were more interesting, but then she’d tackled Sam Jarrett, a really big eighth-grader, in a football game last October. She’d sat on his foot and wrapped her arms and legs around his calf and ridden him almost to the goalposts before she’d brought him down. But instead of being impressed, the other boys had fallen all over themselves laughing. Ever since then, they just smirked when she asked if she could play. And Sam flat-out hated her. She sighed, realized her sandpaper had gone dull and stopped.

Sky appeared beside her with another square all cut to size and ready.

“I’m going to sail away on a tall ship someday soon,” she confided as she fastened it into place. “Like Rafe Montana’s daughter, Zoe. She sailed all over the ocean counting whales and dolphins. I’m going to be a ship captain someday, for Greenpeace, and I’ll save the whales.” If she didn’t become a navy SEAL; it was a hard choice.

“Cool.” Though Sky didn’t sound very interested.

But maybe he had a stomachache or something. He looked sort of funny and distracted, the way her dad had the time he’d eaten the bad taco. Her stomach rumbled at the thought of food. Or maybe Sky was just hungry.

The next time Kat stopped, she opened her mouth to ask if he’d like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but he spoke first. “You know how to weld?”

“Uh-huh. Um, well, sort of. I’m teaching myself.” She’d learned the most important lesson last night. You should never leave your torch on, then set it near a can of kerosene while you crouched down for the piece of steel you’d dropped.

“Cool. What are you going to weld?”

“I’m making—I was trying to make—a brand. But the metal wouldn’t bend. Guess I didn’t get it hot enough.”

“Guess not.” Sky nodded judiciously. “Why do you want a brand?”

She gave him a mysterious smile. “I’ve got something needs branding.”

“SO IT’S…going to need a little work,” Abby finished her carefully edited tale, trying for a note of brisk optimism. She never should have called her mother, but she’d promised to stay in touch. Phoning her friend Lark in Sedona to report their delay had given her the momentum, but it was now fading under her mother’s grilling. Seated in the swing, she held the cell phone to her ear and glanced overhead. Forty feet up, looking like a snowy, feather-fluffed owl perched in the crook of a branch, poor DC returned her rueful gaze. His rounded eyes were black pools of dismay. He could no sooner climb down this tree than he could fly.

“How much is ‘a little work’?” her mother demanded, as usual going straight to the bottom line. “And how much will this cost?”

“Oh, possibly a week’s worth.” Or more, if Whitey could only work weekends. And how long would it take him to scrounge the parts? “I’ve found—my neighbor found—an excellent mechanic, whose prices are very reasonable.” She hoped and prayed. Though Whitey moved about as swiftly as his Pekinese. If he cost half as much as a garage mechanic, but took three times as long to…

No. Surely Jack wouldn’t have recommended him if he couldn’t—

“What’s he do?”

“The mechanic? He’s a cowhand, I believe, at a ranch north of—”

“Your neighbor. The nice man who drove you into town. What does he do for a living? And please don’t tell me he’s a cowboy, because if he is, I understand that cowboys never settle down.”

“He’s a lawyer, Mom, not that it matters in the least.”

“O-oh… Lawyers are very good. They always make a living. The worse times get, the better they seem to do.”

Abby sighed softly. Her late father had been a portrait painter, a really wonderful artist, whose hobby was painting houses, as he’d always put it with a wink and a grin. They’d had enough money, but not a penny more, while he was able to work.

After he’d fallen three stories off a ladder and was no longer able to pursue his “hobby,” times had gotten much harder. But he’d stayed happy to the end, painting his portraits of their friends and neighbors and even getting the odd paying commission. He’d have been so proud to know that, seventeen years later, his work was starting to receive critical acclaim.

To Abby’s mother, who’d sold all but one of his portraits years ago, this was the final drop of frustration in a bitter cup.

“Is he a trial lawyer? Or perhaps corporate. They do extremely well.”

“He’s in family law, Mom. Small-town stuff, I imagine, but—listen to me—it doesn’t matter. I’m not shopping for a lawyer, a tailor or an Indian chief. Really, I’m not. I’ve only been divorced since March.”

“It’s never too early to plan.”

Abby bet she could hit the bus’s side mirror from here, if she threw the phone. She took a deep breath instead. “Mom, please try to understand. I’m not in the market for a man.

“And if I was, the last man on earth I’d choose—the very last—would be a lawyer. I’ve had it up to here with lawyers.”

She was only beginning to realize what a poor choice she’d made in a divorce lawyer. When she’d first hired him, Mr. Bizzle had seemed kindly and wise and avuncular. He’d agreed with her completely that two people who’d once loved each other shouldn’t try to snatch and maim when they parted. That the high road was always the best road.

Meanwhile, Steve had found a lawyer who was considered to be the best divorce specialist in northern New Jersey—a smiling, hard-eyed man who could smell a wounded wallet a mile away. Who thought the high road was for losers and fools. Who knew how to turn caring into weakness, selfishness to strength.

Under his cynical tutelage, the Lake family assets had melted away like dirty snow in springtime.

Abby had protested that only months before they’d seemed to be doing quite well, that between Steve’s income and her teaching salary, they’d amassed a reasonable cushion of stocks and savings. Where had that all gone? she’d wondered. Mr. Bizzle had patted her hand and sworn he’d get to the bottom of the mystery—well, he’d hire a couple of two-hundred-dollar-per-hour accountants to get to the bottom of the mystery—and then he’d squeezed her shoulders, walking her out of his office, and asked her for a date!

By the time the whole miserable process was finished, Steve’s lawyer had done magnificently for himself. And quite handsomely for Steve and his new family. Mr. Bizzle’s fee had taken a hefty slice of what remained, which seemed to console him for Abby’s inexplicable coolness to his advances.

So Abby had walked away from twelve years of marriage with twenty-thousand dollars that must be carefully hoarded for the coming year.

And a lifetime loathing of lawyers.

“You feel that way now, dear, but later on I’m sure you’ll—”