Starter House A Novel by Sonja Condit Read Free Book Online Page A

when the firm could have gone another year without hiring. Uncle Floyd and many of his clients had lost money when Eric’s parents’ investment firm, Foothills Financial, went bankrupt, so Eric’s salary was maybe half what it should be, and Floyd expected Eric to be grateful.
    Lunch at the desk. It was nice of Lacey’s mother to make his lunch. He wished she wouldn’t. She was a gluten-free vegan, and what looked like cheese in his sandwich was actually some kind of pressed fermented soy by-product, and the bread was made of turnips and rice. Lacey had warned him Ella Dane would light candles and sing strange chants, but it wasn’t that bad, apart from the food. And that rotten little dog.
    Voices washed through the front office as the personnel of Moranis Miszlak returned. They brought a wonderful smell, becoming even more wonderful as it approached his office. Uncle Floyd opened the door. The old man was fabulous in his pink three-piece seersucker suit, green bow tie, and white shoes. He shoved Eric’s untouched files to the side of the desk and set down a white Styrofoam box. “Brought you Abernathy’s orange bourbon ribs. Baked potato. And ”—he indicated the slice of orange, twisted and stuck into the ribs with a toothpick—“salad.”
    “Thanks, Uncle Floyd.”
    “Heard from your parents lately?”
    “No.” After the Foothills pyramid collapsed, Eric’s mother had gone to Indiana to stay with her sister, and his father was still in jail. Eric wondered if Floyd had given him the job to find out if there was money hidden somewhere. If only. “Mom wrote once, but not Dad. I guess he’s ashamed.”
    “He should be.” Floyd reached across Eric’s desk to finger the files. “Loaded you up with judies, huh?” Those were the clients who picked Moranis Miszlak because they saw the ads on afternoon television, airing during Judge Judy: cheap cases, hardly worth the cost of his time. People suing each other over undocumented loans, minor car accidents, and of course the low-income divorces. These cases belonged in small claims court, except for the clients’ inflated value of their own pain and suffering. The divorces were people who had seen trouble coming and married it anyway. “Poor people need lawyers too,” Floyd said. “You’ll get better cases soon.”
    Eric straightened the picture of Lacey in its clear plastic frame. She stood beside the bumper cars at Myrtle Beach, with a snowcone in her hand, her hair blowing across her face in wavy strands of brown and gold. When Foothills went down, two weeks after Lacey and Eric got engaged, she kissed him and comforted him and promised to get him through law school. And she did it. Now she lay in bed with her feet elevated, wearing an adult diaper to catch the trickling blood.
    “I’ve got enough to keep me busy,” Eric said.
    Floyd took the picture from his hands. “It ain’t good enough to be busy. You got to be smart.” He laid the picture on the desk, facedown, and took the orange slice off Eric’s ribs and ate it, peel and all. “You know why they call this a doggy bag?”
    Eric nodded. This sounded like the beginning of an Uncle Floyd life-skills seminar, and the quickest way through it was to nod and smile.
    “Because you are that little girl’s bitch is why,” Floyd said. “Women all over God’s earth have babies and they don’t whine and carry on.”
    Eric couldn’t let this pass unchallenged. “She put me through law school.”
    “Good for her. Now she’s putting you through hell.”
    Eric pushed his keyboard away and tore a rib off the rack. It was still hot. These weren’t leftovers. Floyd must have ordered for him just before leaving the restaurant. He was such a terrible old man, and then he had moments of disarming generosity.
    “You got to be ready,” Floyd said. “You were smart about the house, not spending much; she’ll get half, but in a few years you’ll hardly notice.”
    “She’s my wife. I love