Page 111 of Anyone But Her

"Alrighty then. You wanna be all business? Then I'll get right to it." He folds his arms over his chest. "I've seen them commercials you've been doing."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Heard you'll be doing more."

"Why do you care? What's this about?"

"I bet them companies pay real well, don't they?"

I shake my head in disgust. "So you want money. That's why you're here?"

"We've got a lot to discuss, kid. You sure you don't want to go somewhere? Someplace with air conditioning? This Arizona heat is enough to melt your damn skin off."

"I'm used to it. Now hurry up. Just tell me what you want."

"Last week I got a phone call. It was from some fancy lawyer. He was looking for you. Said he hasn't been able to find you. I could've told him where you were but I was curious what this was about."

He's scheming. I can see it in his eyes. They get a glimmer, a thrill of excitement when he's convinced whatever get-rich-quick plan he's come up with is going to work. But then it never does and he loses all his money.

This time I'm the one he wants to con. I can feel it. I can feel his greed and it's making me sick.

"What did the lawyer want?" I ask in a flat tone, refusing to let my dad know how nervous he's making me.

"It seems you've come into some money."

"What money? What are you talking about?"

"The old guy who died...the one you mooched off of after you moved out."

"Albert?"

"Yeah, that's him. Turns out he put you in his will."

"No." I shake my head. "He didn't. They read the will over a month ago and I wasn't in it. Everything went to his kids."

"That's what they thought. But apparently, the old man changed his will around the same time the lawyer was moving offices. The will never got updated in his files so what they were reading from was old. He found the changes just last week and guess what?" He grins. "You got the old man's house and some money."

"Are you making this up?"

"Why the hell would I make it up?"

"He said I own the house?"

"And the money."

"But he didn't say how much."

"He wouldn't tell me. He said you needed to call him up yourself or show up there in person. Your mom and I have been trying to figure out how much it'd be. The old man didn't live any better than us. He couldn't have had much."

Albert said he had money but I never asked him how much. I thought it'd be rude to ask and frankly, I didn't care. I wasn't interested in his money. He helped me financially but that was his decision, not mine. I never once asked him for money. He paid for things because he wanted me to fulfill my dream to golf for a living.

"Fine. I'll call him. Did you get his number?"

"Before we get to that, why don't you tell me how you're doing?"

He doesn't give a shit how I'm doing. He thinks I have money and he wants it.

I glare back at him. "I don't have anything."

---