Page 33 of I’m Not Yours

“This divorce could have been settled months and months ago,” I said, my anger simmering.

“But I don’t want a divorce,” Grayson, my soon-to-be-ex-husband replied, clipped and definitive. His hair was brushed back, nice and tight. Some women thought he was attractive, in a well-groomed, fashionable, rich attorney sort of way.

I did not.

I grunted with deep frustration and tapped the conference table in Cherie’s office.

It was new. Another divorcing couple had had a fight on it over a lizard or something, and the table had split in two.

“That’s out of your hands. We’re not living in the caveman era where a man can refuse to divorce his wife, then go out and slay a dinosaur for dinner with a spear. ”

“I don’t think he’d be able to slay a big dinosaur,” Cherie said, beside me.

She was wearing a tight, red dress with a plunging neckline and a silky, animal-print scarf.

In the legal community, she is a legend.

Cherie held up her fingers, one inch apart.

“His spear isn’t big. He’d only be able to slay a dinosaur this big. ”

I did not miss the hidden reference, and neither did Grayson, who protested by saying, “Hey! Keep it civilized.”

“A teeny, tiny dinosaur. A weak dinosaur. A floppy dinosaur. A dinosaur who has to fake how big he is, because he is so small . . .”

“We get it, Cherie,” Grayson’s attorney, Walid, said. Walid had the same slicked-back hair as Grayson. He is five foot, four inches tall. Cherie and I always wear our heels when we meet with him.

Walid and Grayson had been friends for years. I thought he was my friend, too. That was incorrect.

“Knock it off.” said Walid.

“I was explaining to your client, the teeny dinosaur, how things are.” Cherie leaned her elbows on the table.

“Grayson, June wants out. She will never want back in. I have handled divorcing couples for many years and trust me when I tell you that she is not changing her mind. This is a fair deal we’ve offered. Sign it.”

“No,” Grayson bit out. “June, we can talk this out. I’m still waiting for you to sit down and listen to me.

You refuse to do it. You’ve been rash and emotional.

You took a vow, in sickness and in health, good times and bad, blah, blah.

So, we had a few bad days, now you walk out?

You were tired from work, overwhelmed, it was too much for you, and you take it out on us. ”

I actually laughed. It was ludicrous. He was ludicrous. He didn’t even surprise me anymore with his ludicrousness. “I’m done arguing, Grayson. Sign the papers.”

“I hardly recognize you anymore,” he said.

“I hardly recognize who I used to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that woman is gone. She landed somewhere off Neptune. We sell the house, we each take half. We each put half of the money down, so that’s fair. I left you half our savings and half of what was in the checking account. You got your Porsche, I got my Porsche.”

“Which you sold.”

“Yes, gladly.” I bought an old and grumbly truck with a lot of personality and a deep growl. I had needed the proceeds from the Porsche to start my business.

“Grayson, El Monster,” Cherie delights in calling him and Walid “the Monsters,” “you are ticking me off. All chat, no action. All style, no substance. All slick, no brain. All schmooze, no thinking person in there. Let’s wrap this up or I’ll have to get nasty.”

“Hey, Cherie,” Walid said. “No threatening.”

“I’m not threatening him, El Monster, I’m telling him. This is a simple divorce. The simplest one ever. Sign the papers.”

“We need to talk about the paper signing,” Walid said. He wriggled in his seat, shot Grayson a glance, and Grayson wriggled, too. Two wrigglers. “We think the house should go to Grayson.”

“What?” I semi shrieked. Not that I was surprised. They are ruthless and sneaky.

“No way,” Cherie said. “Fifty-fifty. On what insane grounds would you think we would give you the house?”

“Because of June’s business.”

That sentence, that one sentence, and Grayson leaning back in his chair, fingers steepled together as if he was smart and savvy, smirking, had my blood flowing, the ole MacKenzie temper flaring. “What about my business?”

“You have a business that you started when you were married to my client,” Walid said, his dark eyes condescending.

“I started sewing clothes, at night, and if I had time, on the weekends, because I was stressed-out,” I protested. “I wore the clothes.”

“It was a business,” Walid said, tapping his pen.

“You sold clothes. You designed dresses, wedding dresses, other clothes. You started the business while married, which makes your business, June’s Lace and Flounces, I believe it is,” he fiddled with the paperwork to give me the impression that my company’s name was of zero consequence to him, “communal property.”

“Ha! Incorrect, El Monsters!” Cherie said. “June was sewing dresses for herself to wear, purses for her to carry her things, her guns and knives and a book on how to take revenge on small husbands.” She seared my ex with a meaningful, mad gaze. “It wasn’t a business.”

“I disagree,” Walid said.

“So do I,” Grayson said. “You get your business, I get the house. You started the business in my home. We aren’t divorced.

We’re still married. You developed this business during our marriage.

I was supportive of you and encouraging.

I helped with the design, the inspiration, the early development of your company.

Without me, you would not have launched it to the point you’re at now. ”

I actually saw red, I was so steamin’ mad.

“You didn’t encourage me. You barely asked what I was doing.

I worked on my dresses at night until two in the morning.

I worked weekends. You told me once that it was embarrassing to be seen with me when I was wearing one of my lace skirts.

You called it too ‘redneck country.’ You said the wedding gowns were too ‘repulsively unconventional. A bridal circus.’ You said nothing I ever made would sell, and that I should wear my ruffled shirts only at home in the bathroom where no one could see them. ”

“Nah,” Grayson said, shrugging his shoulders.

“I don’t remember that. I remember long nights being up with you while we worked.

I remember analyzing your designs and making corrections.

I presented a plan for marketing and making contacts in the wide world of fashion .

. .” He smirked again. He knew he was lying.

He knew I knew it. He was simply using lawyer talk to pressure me into capitulating.

I grabbed a law book off a nearby shelf and heaved it at Grayson’s face. Cherie sat back, relaxed.

“Nice one, June.” Grayson ducked.

“Control your client!” Walid shrieked, rather high-pitched for a man who tried to present himself as a manly man.

I threw another book at Walid. He squealed and bent under the table.

“I will sprout wings before I give you the house, Grayson. Half of it is mine.”

“Then start sprouting wings,” Grayson said, running a hand through that perfect gob of slicked-back hair.

I pelted another law book.

“And I will take my business with me.” My voice pitched high.

“The house for the business, June,” Grayson said, ducking again. “That’s the deal.”

So that was it. That was the exchange. I would lose all my money in the house in exchange for a business that I was barely making money on. I thought of how much equity I had in that house. “No. Never.”

I grabbed another book as Walid’s pokey head poked above the table.

“That’s for you, you freak. I thought you were my friend, Walid.” He hid again and squealed.

“Never,” Cherie said. “Ever. Ridiculous. Tiny dinosaur man, you are ridiculous. Small and flippy-floppy ridiculous.”

Grayson flushed again. He was mad, but I saw what I always saw in his beady eyes: relentless stubbornness and a sick desire for control over me. “Then no divorce. That’s what I wanted anyhow. We’re still married, June.”

This time I didn’t bother to grab only one book, I grabbed two and threw them at the same time until he and Walid scuttled out, like infected warthogs. Both books smacked Grayson in the butt.

“Monsters!” Cherie called out. “Limp monsters!”

“I’m afraid, June,” Cherie said later, as we both nursed Bloody Marys at a bar around the corner, “that you’re in a bad place.”

“How can I be?” My hands were still shaking I was so infuriated. And I was mad at myself for letting Grayson make me infuriated. “I was sewing at night when I was married to him, I didn’t have a business, I wasn’t even planning on a business for a long time . . .”

“But you made patterns for about a year before you left him. Patterns for wedding dresses, bridesmaids’ dresses, the white lace shirt and skirt you have now.

You started selling your clothes when women came up to you and asked how they could get what you were wearing.

That’s an issue.” She ate peanuts. I knew she was thinking hard.

She’s a bulldog with sharp teeth. “I will harass him for you repeatedly, and I don’t think he has a solid case, but he clearly doesn’t want a divorce and he will drag it out and drag it out and eventually you’re going to have to settle. ”

Financially, I knew that. Cherie and I were longtime friends and she’d discounted the divorce costs, but hey, I’d had to write her a check with several zeros. If Grayson and I went on much longer it would be more economical to eat a hundred-dollar bill for breakfast each morning for two years.

“How badly do you want this to end? How much longer do you want Grayson in your life, manipulating your emotions, bringing all this negative stuff in?”