Flirting With Pete: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

by crisis.
    “Where is Stuart?”
    “How the hell do I know. I’ve made a dozen calls.”
    “We need the police.”
    “Pu-leeze. This is private. He’s a friend.”
    “ Your friend. From way back.”
    “What were we thinking, letting him handle the funds?”
    “He did it because none of us wanted to do it.”
    “He’s always been perfectly rational, which is more than I can say for some therapists,” remarked Renée, Casey’s fellow MSW.
    “Excuse me,” John said, bristling. “I take offense at that.”
    “It was a joke.”
    “I don’t think so. You and Casey don’t always understand that without us, you’d have no validity.”
    Casey took offense at that . “We would have validity.”
    “And a more pleasant work environment,” added Renée.
    “Go, then,” John dared. “That’ll be less office space we have to rent.”
    “What landlord’s going to rent us space?”
    “Hey, we didn’t default on anything,” argued the adolescent specialist, Marlene Quinn, needing to absolve herself for being the one closest to the thief. “Stuart signed the lease. His name was the only name there. He’s the only one in default.”
    “He has our money.”
    “How do we get it back?”
    “I don’t want to move.”
    “Can we come up with the money ourselves?”
    “Casey worried about money?” John mocked. “You’re such a softie, you counsel clients for free .”
    “What I do,” Casey argued, “has nothing to do with being a softie and everything to do with needing to give closure, whether insurance agrees or not. Have I ever been late shelling up money for rent?”
    “No,” Renée answered, “and neither have I. Eviction is unthinkable. I have patients to see.”
    “Clients,” John corrected. “I see patients. You see clients.”
    “None of us will see anyone if we’re evicted,” Casey put in. “And this landlord does evict tenants. Remember what he did to the lawyers on the third floor?”
    Marlene said, “They landed on their feet, actually got a much better deal in another building.”
    “Why do we have to be right in Copley Square? If we’re willing to move four blocks over, we’d get a better buy.”
    “ I’m not working in the South End,” declared John.
    “How can Stuart have wiped out the account?” Casey asked in disbelief.
    “He had the authority to do it. The bank didn’t have cause to question it.”
    “ Why, then? Is he in debt? Does he gamble? Is his marriage a wreck?”
    Renée picked up where Casey left off. “And none of us saw it coming? Insight is our business.”
    “Well, hell, we’re not mind readers,” Marlene argued. “We can’t be insightful until we’ve worked with a client enough to break down walls of denial and distrust.”
    Casey didn’t see the analogy to Stuart. “That’s not it.”
    “Yes, it is.”
    “No,” she insisted, forsaking formal theory for good old common sense. “We’re human. Stuart served a purpose here, so we saw what we wanted to see.”
    “Well, that gets us nowhere,” said Renée. “We need money fast. How are we going to get it?”

    *
    The meeting ended without a resolution. Exhausted, Casey left the office and headed out of Copley Square. She took long strides, breathed deep from the belly, yoga-style, as she went down Boylston Street to Massachusetts Avenue. Turning left, then right, she cut through side streets until she reached the Fenway with its row of brownstones overlooking a ribbon of water and trees.
    The yoga breathing helped only marginally. Her tears had long since exhausted themselves, but as many times as she came here to visit, she couldn’t be calm. This was not where she wanted to be, here, seeing her mother. If she could change one thing in her life, this was it.
    Up five stone steps, she let herself in. With a short wave to the receptionist, she trotted on up two more flights of stairs. She leveled off at the third floor and greeted the nurse on duty. “Hi, Ann. How’s she doing?”
    Ann