The Sugar Mill Sued Me After the Flood. Their Attorney Was the Girl I Was Supposed to Marry Twenty-Five Years Ago

Celeste Marchand. Forty-six years old, dark hair cut to her shoulders, a gray suit, a gold pen in her hand.

The mill’s lead attorney.

She looked up from her file. Her face went completely still.

“Beau,” she said.

“Celeste.”

My own lawyer, a young guy from Morgan City, looked back and forth between us.

“You two know each other?”

“We went to high school together,” Celeste said evenly.

That was one way of putting it.

The mediator, a retired judge with a white mustache, cleared his throat and started talking about the contract, the flood, the force majeure clause and whether a natural disaster excused my failure to deliver.

I didn’t hear most of it.

I was watching Celeste.

She was brilliant. She laid out the mill’s case calmly and precisely. She didn’t look at me once.

At the lunch break, I walked outside to get some air. It was still raining. I stood under the awning and watched the water run down the street.

The door opened behind me.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she said. “The case file said B. Thibodeaux. There are a hundred Thibodeauxs in this state.”

“Would it have mattered?”

She was quiet for a long moment.

“I asked to be taken off the case this morning,” she said. “The managing partner said no.”