A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [21]
“So.” She peered at them across the spread of papers as they sat down. “Last chance to back out. You’re really going to do this thing?”
Almost as one, they burst into laughter. “Are you kidding me?” “Silly question!” and “Let’s get on with it, Delores! We’re missing the party!”
“All righty, then. The closing documents are pretty straightforward. I’ll go over them as you sign, and Sheryl here will witness. I’ll fax them to Virginia first thing in the morning and we’re done. Here’s your Agreement to Enter into Joint Venture.” She distributed three copies of the document between them. “It covers everything from how much each of you is required to contribute to household expenses each month to how many pets you’re allowed to have.”
“I still think this is unnecessary,” Cici said.
“How many pets are we allowed to have?” Bridget asked.
“As many as we want,” Lindsay said.
Delores answered Cici. “It’s like a prenup. Everyone thinks they’re unnecessary until they don’t have one.”
Cici murmured, “Well, I guess I can relate to that.”
Delores said, “You’ve been lucky. Everything has gone smoothly up to this point. But what if things start going bad? How much more are you willing to invest? Where are you going to draw the financial line?”
Lindsay said, “What line? It’s drawn. All I’ve got left is my retirement fund, and I’m not touching that.”
Bridget spread her hands. “My financial life is an open book. All I have to live on until Social Security kicks in is what’s left of Jim’s life insurance, unless we’re talking about selling my jewelry.” Absently she fingered the emerald and diamond ring which had been Jim’s last anniversary gift to her. It was extravagant, but he hadn’t been able to afford an engagement ring when they had gotten married, and this had been his way of making up for its absence.
Cici said, “And I’m not borrowing money from my ex. I don’t care if he is richer than God. So there you go. We’ve invested all we can afford to.”
“Exactly.” Delores tapped a clause on the document with a sharp red fingernail. “All written down plain as day in paragraph 12-A.” She flipped over a page. “Heirs and assigns, fair use of property . . . okay look at paragraph 15, term of contract. We talked about your agreement to give this situation a year before reassessing. We still good with that?”
She glanced around the table, and received three nods. “Okay, so at the end of a year, any one of you can offer your share of the property to any of the other two, or jointly agree to offer the entire property for sale to a third party at a mutually agreed upon price, or renegotiate this agreement or any part thereof in any way you choose. Understand?”
“It all sounds so lawlerly,” complained Lindsay.
“Can’t help it, dearie. I’m a lawyer. Now I need a date of termination. Shall we say January first?”
They consulted each other with a questioning glance, and shrugged. “Sure.” “Suits me.” “Sounds fine.”
Delores scrawled the date on her copy of the contract, while Sheryl went around the table and did the same to everyone else’s. “Okay, ladies, get out your pens. Let the signing begin.”
Six minutes and a flurry of signatures later, they all sat back and looked at each other in a kind of stunned astonishment. Just like that, it was over.
And it had just begun.
Spring
Starting Over
5
Moving On
Nine months to the day from the evening they had spent at the Holiday Inn with two laptops, a bottle of wine, and a legal pad between them, making their plans, a caravan of shiny SUVs pulled into the rutted and overgrown gravel drive that led to Blackwell Farm. They were loaded down with suitcases, pots and pans, nonperishable food items, art supplies, tools, pillows, linens, photo albums, electronics, toiletries, and all of those essential items that one snatches first from a house fire and refuses to trust to the movers. They had been driving for five hours, but the journey had taken most of a lifetime.
Lindsay, leading the procession, stopped fifty feet into the drive, sprang out of the car, and opened the back hatch.