Trial and Error

Fourteen

Victoria wanted her mother’s advice.

How can I beat Steve in the Nash case and still preserve our relationship?

But, as usual, Irene Lord, aka The Queen, was wrapped up in her own melodrama. “I’ve never been so humiliated,” she huffed. “My daughter’s paramour suing me.”

“Mother, no one’s had a paramour since Barbara Stanwyck was making movies.”

“Your live-in lover, then.” Irene sniffed, as if she found the notion of cohabitation distasteful.

The air was tinged with rosemary, eucalyptus…and malice. Mother and daughter were settled into comfy chairs at the Bal Harbour Spa for their monthly pedicures. Irene wore a purple Herve Leroux bandage dress with a matching boomerang clutch. Her shoes-until she’d ditched them for her pedicure-were rainbow-colored Cavalli slingbacks with a heel just shy of four inches. Her hair-the color of champagne-was swept up, revealing her graceful and still taut neck. Over the years, many men had told Irene that she looked like Princess Grace of Monaco, and she never disagreed.

“Suing me is just so tacky,” she said as Ileana, the spa attendant, patted her feet dry.

“Steve didn’t sue you, Mother. He sued your country club. You just happened to be chairperson of the membership committee, so you were named in your representative capacity.”

Irene dismissed that notion with a wave of her freshly painted fingernails. “My name’s on the papers.”

“A technicality.”

“Tell that to Gloria Tuttle and Helen Flagler.”

Gloria and Helen. Her mother’s best friends. The royal bitches of the Biscayne Royale Country Club. Steve had sued the club on behalf of a client who’d been expelled after his conviction for mail fraud. Something about violating the high-moral-character clause of the membership agreement. Steve’s lawsuit claimed that his client was being unfairly singled out, given that a sizeable percentage of his fellow Royale members were philanderers, tax cheats, and alcoholics. He threatened to question every member, under oath, in open court.

“Ouch! Jesus, Ileana.”

“Disculpe, senora.” Ileana dropped her orangewood stick. “Lo siento.”

“You know how sensitive my cuticles are.”

Victoria had come today not only for the pedicure but to seek her mother’s counsel. The problem, as always, was to get The Queen to focus on someone other than herself. If self-absorption were an Olympic sport, Irene Lord would win the gold.

Ileana was rounding the corners of Irene’s little toe with a grit board when Victoria finally pleaded, “Mother, I need your full attention, and I really need your help.”

Irene raised her plucked eyebrows-dyed to match her hair-and smiled tolerantly. “Of course. What’s a mother for?”

It took Victoria fifteen minutes to describe the conflicts of interest, both professional and personal, plaguing her. Then, as Ileana finished up with a delicious calf massage, The Queen weighed in. “You’re in a lose-lose situation. If you win the case, you’ll lose Steve.”

“Why?”

“Men are fragile creatures with tender egos, dear. Let’s say you’re having dinner. If you mention that your man is losing his hair, he’ll never get it up that night.”

“Steve’s not losing his hair. Or his erection.”

“Not yet. But if you beat him in court, what then?”

“Steve’s ego is fine. He never hogs the spotlight when we try cases together. He always gives me credit when we win.”

“Sure, when you’re on the same side.”

“What about when I beat him in tennis? He just laughs it off.”

“Because tennis is your game. You were the college player. He’s just a hacker. But the courtroom belongs to him. It’s his identity. It’s where he keeps his cojones.”

Victoria thought about it while Ileana massaged her mother’s toes, pulling each one as if milking a cow. It wasn’t fair. Prosecuting a high-profile murder case was a huge opportunity. And just why was her mother so concerned about Steve, anyway?

“Why are you worried about my losing Steve when you dislike him so much?” she asked.

“My feelings for Stephen are quite irrelevant. You love him. And he adores you.”

“So you’re actually thinking of me?”

“What’s so unusual about that?”

That’s when Victoria decided. It was simple, really. Her mother was dishing out advice from a prior generation. Maybe the generation before that. The Queen was stuck in a time warp of her own mother’s making. Women nowadays didn’t have to defer to their mates. They no longer had to be subservient. Or worry about hurting delicate feelings.

“Mother, I am not going to back off.”

Irene exhaled a breath that stopped just short of a sigh. “As long as you know the risk.”

“There might be another way.”

“How?”

Victoria slipped a foot into a terry cloth sandal. “I have to get back to the office, Mother.”

“What’s your hurry?”

“I have a motion and a brief to write. Something that will catch Steve by total surprise.”

“Tell me, dear. I love surprises.”

“I’m not going to beat Steve at trial. I’m going to beat him now, before we ever get to the courtroom.”