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Women were lambs to the slaughter in so many ways. And at Her Safety Net Accounting and Investments I was trying to change that.
I had a few wealthy clients, women for whom I managed a low-risk hedge fund. But most of the women I met with were like the one sitting across from me, Denise.
On their own for the first time and at varying levels of broke.
“You gonna answer that?” Denise asked, casting a long look at my phone buzzing on the Formica table between us. We were in my auxiliary office—the back-corner booth of Patsy’s Pies.
“No,” I said and turned the damn thing off. Which was what I should have done from the beginning. Sabrina’s been after me all morning. “It’s just my sister.”
“She’s been calling a lot.”
“She’s not good at taking hints.”
“She in trouble?”
Denise was pretty well versed in trouble these days. She could probably smell it on my phone. “Not her.”
After my disaster engagement party, Sabrina landed on her feet in Hollywood. She was kind of a big deal. Bea, on the other hand…
“But I have another sister who is kind of…always in trouble.”
“I got a brother like that. He’s always in trouble. But I got another one that tries to keep us out of trouble. It’s not easy.”
I had sudden and deep empathy for the brother trying to keep Denise and her brother out of trouble.
“Anyway…” I made an effort to put us back on track. “You have to declare the money your ex-husband gives you for child support on your taxes.” She sat with one child on her lap, the other beside her in the booth.
I had a real office above Patsy’s, but it was amazing how much better scared, embarrassed women felt with a milkshake in front of them. Or, at least, in front of their kids. Surrounded by a little hustle and bustle. Free coffee refills helped, too.
Upstairs, it was just two chairs and a desk, and some plants I couldn’t keep alive. The office could be quiet and intimidating, and women with no childcare options always worried that their kids were going to break something.
Patsy’s Pies had a real anything goes vibe to it.
“But it’s cash, and it’s not like he gives me what he’s supposed to,” she whispered with one eye on her toddler, who wasn’t listening. He sucked chocolate shake halfway up his straw, pinched the end and then let it go so all of the liquid fell back into his cup.
“Look Mom!” he said,
“I see it, buddy.” She wasn’t looking. Denise had the pulled-too-thin look of a woman who has woken up from a dream and doesn’t recognize where she is. I saw this look a lot.
“I understand.” I stacked up her tax forms. “But having a record of what he does give will help you in court if you go back. It will protect you.”
The word protection meant something. It was shocking to realize how little protection other people gave you. A brutal lesson.
Denise nodded and kissed the infant’s head. “What else do you need from me?”
I gave her the single sheet of paper that I handed to every woman who was filling out her own tax forms for the first time. Seriously, the number of women who went from their father or mother doing the forms to their husband doing them, without ever once doing it on their own, was staggering. Women who lived below the poverty line were convinced they didn’t actually have to do taxes. But filing your taxes could open a lot of doors to aid organizations. Government funding and grants.
This was what my mother’s foundation was supposed to do when I took it over. This had been my plan all along, teaching women about financial independence. And I was doing it.
Just on a really small scale.
“You could email me the stuff on that list,” I told her. “Or, if you want to bring the originals, we could make copies of it upstairs.”
“When?”
“Soon,” I said carefully. “It seems hard, I know. I do. But it’s not once you do it. Once you just…do it. You’ll be like—jeez, what was I so scared of? It’s no big deal.”
“Easy for you to say,” she said, trying to make a joke. And I was relieved to see her smile.
Sometimes I told clients what I’d had to do to get to where I was now. Most of the time I didn’t, because these meetings weren’t about me. And I had had a diamond fucking necklace to pawn. Some of these women barely had gas money.
That night five years ago, the clothes on my back and the jewelry around my neck were the only things I took from my father.
The ranch, my life as a King, my fantasy married life as a Rorick—I left it all behind. When I sold the jewelry and the dress I was able to open up my own accounting business and put all that King Family Drama behind me. I rented a nice little house in a not-so-nice neighborhood. I stayed in touch with Sabrina and, of course, Bea, who moved in with me four years ago. But everyone else was dead to me. My father sent his lawyers, trying to tempt me back with money. I sent them all packing.
