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Part II

Coral and Marshall spent the better part of the morning walking around the yard, and the house, Marshall giving her the grand tour. It passed the time, and though things could have been much more awkward, considering the fact that they had only met last night, and had gotten married while they were too drunk to remember, they were pretty comfortable together.
Coral talked a mile a minute and Marshall found himself listening and responding to her each comment.
Too soon it seemed when Pearl arrived. She had not even fully gotten herself out of the car before she started yelling. Marshall felt rather than saw Coral’s body tense up at the sound of her sister shrieking.
“Do you realize, that I had to cancel a meeting with an extremely important client, just to come all the way from fucking San Francisco to bail your ass out of this mess!” the woman yelled as she stalked up to the front porch where Marshall and Coral were standing.
“I said I was sorry Pearl, there isn’t much else I can do about that, and besides, I said that if you were busy, I’d just ask Turkey to come,” Coral tried.
“Turkey is a twit and would fuck this up royally. That’s why she’s playing the personal injury law crap in our family’s firm.”
“There is nothing wrong with personal injury lawyers Pearl, people need them too.”
“It is a waste of time for a firm like mom and dad’s. You were the smart one Coral, you were supposed to be one of us.” Pearl snapped. Marshall caught Coral rolling her eyes and didn’t disagree.
“So, you’re that Eminem character?” Pearl asked turning her attention to Marshall, who so far had managed to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t especially fond of hitting people anymore, especially when it landed him with lawsuits that his record could not afford.
“He’s not a character Pearl, his name is Marshall, he’s a real person and you don’t have the right to yell at him.” Coral protested, surprising the hell out of Marshall. No one took the time to defend him, not from anything. He was supposed to take the full brutal force of anything anyone chose to throw at him, and handle it. Most times he could, but there were times when he wished that some things had been sugar coated, just once in a while.
“I certainly do have the right to yell at him. Taking my baby sister out, getting her drunk, taking advantage of her and then marrying her, under false pretenses, Marshall Mathers you are going to be so sorry by the time our law firm is finished with you!” Pearl shouted directly in his face. Coral closed her eyes and shook her head in disbelief.
“Marshall, I’m sorry,” Coral began but he cut her off politely.
“Not to worry about it. Excuse me, but I am the only person who gets to yell in this house and if you don’t mind, I’m going to suggest you keep your voice down.”
“Fine, but you will be taken care of.”
“Pearl, I didn’t ask you to take care of anything, you got that? His lawyer is drawing up the contracts and such and doing what needs to be done to get this taken care of,” Coral responded.
“Just to let you know Pearl, I’m not intimidated by you. You think you’re the only bitch lawyer that I’ve had to deal with, you got another thing coming.” Marshall retorted.
“You see Coral, how the hell did you get involved with someone like this, I thought you were brought up better than that.”
“Pearl, can we please, please, just go over to the apartment and get my stuff before Joey throws it all out?” Coral nearly begged. Pearl and Marshall were eyeing each other.
“You better not have too much crap, I’m not making two trips.” Pearl replied turning to her little sister.
“I’ll follow you then, make sure you don’t leave anything behind,” Marshall said gruffly.
“Oh no you don’t, you’re not coming any closer, you’ve done enough damage.” Pearl replied quickly.
“I go, where my wife goes,” Marshall replied, catching Coral’s eyes and getting her to smile slightly.
“Oh aren’t you too cute, just because you managed to fool my stupid little sister into crawling into bed with you doesn’t mean you’ll trick me.” Pearl stepped towards him.
“I said I’m going with you, and if you don’t like it, you can wait here,” Marshall’s voice took a tone of finality that even Pearl was a little hesitant to question, but she did anyway.
“What business is it of yours anyway?”
“We’ll meet you there, come on Coral, you can ride with me,” Marshall said grabbing Coral by the hand and leading her towards the garage. They moved so fast that Pearl didn’t have time for a reaction, the door from the kitchen to the garage slamming shut.

“You didn’t have to do that you know,” Coral said later as Marshall drove.
“What?”
“Stand up for me. Pearl, that’s just her, it’s just the way she acts, I’m used to it.”
“No one should have to get used to that, and they don’t have to. I should know, I’m a lot like Pearl,” Marshall replied gruffly.
“You and Pearl are nothing alike.” Coral replied quickly.
“That’s right, you haven’t talked to my ex-wife,” Marshall laughed.
“Marshall, I’m going to be one of your ex-wives soon,” they both laughed.
“But really, why did she leave, if you don’t mind me asking?” Coral asked carefully. He gripped the steering wheel tightly and took a deep breath.
“We just stopped caring about one another. I stopped treating her right, so she found someone who would. I can’t say that I blame her, I see a lot of my actions a lot clearer now when I look back. If you accuse someone for so long of going behind your back, they eventually do it. I put my hands on her too many times, we fought too much in front of Hailie, and I just never respected her enough. We were together since we were teenagers, but that didn’t make it any easier to stay together, or even give us any reason to try again. We were on and off for years.” Coral listened and for the first time since she’d met him, she saw how lonely he really was.
“But anyway, how could you yell at your ex boss there, and not at your sister?” Marshall asked turning to look at her quickly.
“That’s just the way it is in my family. I can’t really get the nerve to yell at them. Besides, I need a place to live, so I got to put up with something.”
“You don’t have to put up with anything you don’t want to,” Marshall said stoutly. She shrugged her shoulders and sighed.
“I know, as soon as I land a job and have a couple paychecks saved up, I’m out of there.”
“You don’t have anyone else you could stay with?” Marshall asked.
“No, I don’t. Like I said, the boyfriend and me are splitsville, and the reason being, my best friend. So, I’m out of options except for the ever ‘helpful’ family. Jesus, I should just take a job at the office so they’ll get off my back,” Coral leaned against the door and shook her head.
“Don’t do anything that you don’t want to do, otherwise you’ll regret it later.” Marshall replied.
“You know, my mother, says the same thing, except its ‘If you don’t go to law school, you’ll later regret it’, some how, that has never happened. With all the crappy jobs, and shitty apartments, I’ve never regretted not going to law school.” She laughed slightly at this.
“You really don’t want to be a lawyer?” Marshall asked laughing.
“What for? The last honest lawyers in my family are my grandparents. They put murders and rapists behind bars. My parents help big companies buy smaller companies and rip them to shreds, laying off tons of people. My brother Mica is in the movie business, he works as a legal representative for agents, actors and BMG records. Pearl is a criminal defense attorney, basically keeping rich criminals out of prison. Opal does that as well. Onyx, she’s a divorce lawyer, a killer at it as well. Does all the big celebrity divorces. She’s representing Nick Lachey as a matter of fact.” Coral said, remembering the time she’d run into him at the office.
“You met him?” Marshall asked.
“A bit pompous if you ask me, but he’ll get what he wants with Onyx for sure.”
“Well, with the twit he’s got for a wife, she deserves what ever she gets.” Marshall laughed.
“I stay out of it.”
“So how come Onyx didn’t come out here to kick my ass then, it seems right up her ally.”
“That was the whole reason I didn’t call her. I had to make Pearl swear that she wouldn’t tell her. She’d come out here and find some loop hole and try to sue you for, I don’t know, looking at her funny.” Marshall was taken aback. She’d purposely not called the expert divorce lawyer because she didn’t want him to get swindled.
“That was the real reason you didn’t call her?”
“Marshall, we got a little drunk and made a mistake after meeting at a bar. I’m not gonna try and swindle you out of a million dollars or something. I don’t take what I don’t earn.” Marshall was nearly floored and thought back to the conversation he’d had earlier with Paul.
“Look Marshall, this is California. All marriages are legal, drunk or sober and you didn’t have a prenuptial agreement. If she figures out she can get half with a divorce, it won’t matter that you were married in a drunken stupor. It is still legal, and she can get half of everything you own.”
“I know about the property laws Marshall, I grew up in a household that bred lawyers. If Onyx heard I was married she would have been out here in about two seconds and she’d be battling for half your bank account.” Coral deadpanned.
“Thanks for the honesty.” Marshall replied truthfully.
“Your welcome.” She smiled at him with her genuine smile, and he sighed in relief.

They arrived at Coral’s apartment complex near six o’clock and by then Coral was not ready to listen to another diatribe from her sister. And that was definitely going to happen since Coral had rode with Marshall instead of Pearl.
“See what I mean Coral, this is as far as you’ll ever get, a crappy apartment, in a bad part of town, if you would just go to law school, you could have your degree in three years if you went full time, and took classes during to the summer.” Pearl started right up while they were climbing up the stairs.
“It’s late, I’ll order some pizza for us while we pack up,” Coral said directly ignoring her sisters comments.
“You coming to clear out your stuff?” a gruff voice asked from down the hall while Coral fiddled with her keys.
“Yes Joey, and I want my deposit back too, if you don’t mind,” Coral retorted.
“We’ll see what the place looks like when you’re gone, then we’ll talk about deposits,” Joey snipped.
“Look you overgrown foul mouthed pig, I have had just enough of your shit and you are going to waddle your fat ass back down stairs and get me my six hundred and seventy five dollar deposit, because without any warning you changed the lock on my apartment, and didn’t even give me a thirty days notice. Now I could be a bitch and say I was gonna take you court, but all I want is my money back, and considering that I gave you this month’s rent early, I want that back too. So that brings us up to a grand total of one thousand one hundred dollars. Do I make myself very clear?” Coral asked, as she finally found the key to the new lock and stuffed it in the lock. She turned, a hand on her hip and glowered at the old man.
“I well, it’ll take me a couple of days, see the bank is closed and I don’t,” he stammered. He looked panicked.
“Then I suggest you figure out something because I am not leaving until I have that money, in cash, in my hand when I leave here.” Coral replied icily.
“Well, I can, I guess,”
“Just get out of here and go find the money, I’ve got things to do,” Coral turned the key, kicked the door and went inside.
“Nice job Coral,” Marshall marveled.
“See, and you say you couldn’t be a lawyer,” Pearl snickered.
“Give it a rest Pearl, would you?” Coral asked, dropping her keys on the side table by the door.
“Where do you want me to start?” Marshall asked looking around.
“Um, well, Pearl and I will do the clothes, if you want you can start with the kitchen?” Coral suggested.
“Boxes, Coral? Do you even have boxes?” Pearl snapped.
“Yes, I have the ones I moved in with. They are in the closet. But I have suitcases for the clothes and storage bins for the breakables.” Coral retorted quickly. She made quick work of emptying the boxes from the closet and left Pearl and Marshall to sort them out while she called for pizza.
“Are you always such a bitch to her?” Marshall didn’t hesitate in asking once Coral had left the room.
“No, only when she does something wrong, which is all the time,” Pearl snapped sharply.
“Why can’t you just lay off her, maybe she really doesn’t want to be a lawyer.”
“That’s just too damn bad. What I can’t understand is why she wants to mess around with food, get paid no money, when she could have her own office and assistant and nearly be her own boss.”
“She is her own boss, if you’d only let her be.”
“So, mom and dad, planning out my future are you?” Coral asked loudly as she came back in the room.
“I’m just stating the obvious that you can’t get through your thick skull, that’s all.”
“Then maybe you ought to shut it the fuck up Pearl, because if my skull is that thick, and apparently it is, cause it’s been ignoring you for the past ten years, then your constant bitching is not having any affect.” Coral hurled at her sister.
“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that! I’m doing you a favor you little bitch!” Pearl drew herself up to her full height and narrowed her eyes. She looked like a cobra poised for the kill.
“Then do it for somebody else. Get the fuck out of my house.” Coral said calmly.
“You’ll be sorry, you will, I’ll have Onyx down here and your little precious boy toy here will be ripped to shreds.”
“I already am sorry, sorry that I called you, sorry that you’re my sister, sorry that you came here, sorry that I thought you could be gracious enough to help me out and not be a bitch about it.” Coral turned and walked away before Pearl slammed out the door screaming,
“Just you wait Marshall Mathers, you’ll be sorry too.”
“You okay Coral?” Marshall asked as he walked into the kitchen to find Coral leaning back against the counter with her arms crossed.
“You’ve been nice, and you didn’t have to, and maybe I’m being ungrateful, but just don’t talk to my sisters about what I am, or what I want to do, or anything of that nature. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate someone sticking up for me, its just that its my time for me to say it, and about time that I prove to them that I’m not going to put up with it anymore.”
“I completely understand.” Marshall said in complete honesty.
“Thanks.”