Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

“Still, she signed it.”

“But I didn’t. I’d like to know who the unnamed ‘party of the first part’ is.”

“Impossible. The anonymity is as binding on this firm as your mother’s agreement to seek no further information was, and is, on her.”

“I’m not her. I want to know the name of the family that made arrangements for my domestic life. I want to know my family name.”

“You have a perfectly good, and fairly famous, one now: Devine. I advise you to be happy with it.”

“It’s a phony name, Mr. Brandon. Do you know where my mother got it? From her favorite Christmas hymn, ‘0 Holy Night.’ The line goes, ‘0 Holy Night, 0 Night Divine …’“

Brandon kept his eyes on his lizardskin desk set. “However it came to be, it’s very … telephonic. Stick with it and forget delving into the dead past.”

—The dead past’ involves how I came to be. I’m not going to leave it alone.”

“I can’t help you break the confidentiality of a document this firm constructed.”

“Why not? ‘The truth shall set you free.’ My mother was a naive teenager in desperate circumstances when she signed that document. Encouraging her to do so might be construed as fraud. Who paid her off to keep her, and myself, ignorant of my father’s identity?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“I have to protect the party of the first part, our client.”

“But it’s my birth, my life, hidden behind these three sleazy little pages buying silence and selling souls.” Brandon waved the papers at Matt again. His face crinkled with appeal. “That was almost thirty-five years ago, young man! Take my advice. Forget about it. You have a successful life. I assume you can take quite good financial care of your mother.”

“Someone felt guilty, or that paper would never have been drawn up. Guilt doesn’t melt like hailstones. It sits and festers. Whoever wanted that secrecy enough to buy it doesn’t really sleep well at night, thirty-five years down the drain or not. I’m doing him or them a favor. And I won’t give up or go away. Quite frankly, I started this on my mother’s behalf. I tried to advise her against it with the same platitudes you’re now urging on me. But Shakespeare said it best: ‘the past is prologue.’ That’s the story of all our lives, if you think about it, and we all deserve to know our own pasts.”

Brandon jabbed the papers at him one last time.

“Keep that,” Matt told him. “It’s only a copy. I’m after the originals.”

“You’re quite eloquent, you know that? I’m glad you’re not an attorney. But the law’s on my side. I can’t help you, or your mother. I’m sorry. I can’t.”

Matt stood up. “I want to know. I need to know. I intend to know. Maybe other attorneys in this city would like to know too. Maybe Amanda would like a personal story from an expert on her show. Maybe a lot of possibilities are out there somewhere. Like the truth. Thanks for your time. Give your wife my regards.”

It was a long walk to the door. He took it as if he had won, not lost. Hearing Brandon make the same arguments to him that he had given his mother had turned Matt 180 degrees on this whole issue.

She had a right to know. He had a right to know. They had a right to know.

Opening the door, he almost bumped into the lurking paralegal.

“Oh. Mr… . Devine. May I show you out?“He smiled. “Sure. Thanks. These offices are a rat maze.”

“Don’t we know it? So many junior partners.”

She happily led him through carpeted hallways that turned and twisted, always passing by more paper-filled work cubicles.

“When do you find time to watch The Amanda Show?” he asked as they neared the central reception area.

“Amanda Show? Daytime TV. Oh, I don’t. Ever find time, I mean. I know it’s a Chicago institution. Why do you ask about it?”

“Because it’s a Chicago institution, like Oprah,” he said, shrugging as if he didn’t care.

So her amazing interest in him didn’t derive from his TV appearances. Surely his recent Queer Eye for the Straight Guy hair highlighting job wasn’t solely responsible for these frequent dewy glances?

“Here we are. Reception, Mr. Win—” She glanced, mortified, at the appointment roster in her hand. “Oh, yes. Right. Mr. Devine.”

“Thank you.”

He’d never meant those two words more. Moving through the crowded reception area, barely seeing the blur of briefcase-carrying men and women, he mentally repeated the young woman’s slip of the tongue over and over: Mr. Win … Winthrop? Winston? Winter? Winterhalter? Winscott. Wingate. The Chicago phonebook would be crammed with enough possibilities to make his vision blur at the tiny type repeating W-i-n into infinity.

So, suddenly, there were possibilities. He had been mistaken for someone. A client. Apparently there was a marked family resemblance. He looked like someone alive in this world besides his mother.

The feeling was weird, and frightening, and infuriating. He would find out who, one way or another. Win is for Winning.

Chapter 31

Kissing Cousins

Matt’s mind was running in circles as he headed to his mother’s apartment in a cab through rush-hour traffic. He’d happened on a hornets’ nest at Brandon, Oakes, and McCall but exactly what variety of wasp had he stirred up? Legal shyster? Loyal attorney protecting a client?

Maybe he should have stayed. Watched the employees leave for the night. He had a hunch someone would be hearing about his visit. But … no one would be showing up until tomorrow. If ever. Let your fingers do the walking, use the phone or e-mail nowadays. Never show your face. Someone might notice your lying eyes.

“Here you are, bub.”

Said pointedly. While Matt had been enacting various scenarios in his head, they’d arrived at his mother’s apartment building. A bland block of windows. Horizontal glass windows, tall vertical exterior columns of stone. Plaid fifties-era urban high-rise.

Matt paid the driver, tipping him way too well. He couldn’t be bothered calculating a few dollars when his whole life was suddenly a million-dollar question. He entered the echoing lobby, so much more pretentious than the Circle Ritz’s music-box proportions. And therefore, so much less homey. And no Temple here to run into.

He was whistling by the time the elevator disgorged him on the twenty-second floor, thinking of Temple. The key his mother had given him on his last visit to Chicago turned in the plain apartment door with its lofty four-digit number. He was already relishing the peace and quiet of an empty apartment—Mom was at her job as a restaurant hostess, miles away. Wouldn’t be back until eleven P.M.

By then he’d have relaxed, chilled out, gathered his wits so he wouldn’t blurt out his discovery before he had any hard evidence… .

The door gave and opened before the key had finished its turns. A tallish young woman stood behind it. “Matt! Come in.”

“Krystyna! Krys. You’re here.”

“Yup. Live here, off and on. Didn’t Mira tell you?”

“Uh, no.”

“Don’t you look as yummy as a caramel sundae! What’s with the bleach, dude?”

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Blond in this instance. His cousin Krystyna’s hair was a kaleidoscope of platinum-on-blonde-on-black.

He put a dismissive hand to his hair, remembering it looked different. “Photo shoot for the radio station. I’m told it’ll wash out.” Close enough. “You, on the other hand… .”

“Madonna, Evita-in-Krakow style. You like the indigo highlights?”

“Colorful. I’m surprised to see you.”

“Have I got a Mae West line for you! Never mind. Not suitable for ex-priests. I guess my job is to entertain you until Mira gets home.”