“Divorced? But they were there together?" Mel asked.

“They remarried."

“Oh, my gosh!" Jane exclaimed. "Stonecipher was her attorney?"

“What's so surprising about that?" Mel asked.

“I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. It's just that LeAnne never mentioned his name. She just called him — well, never mind. You see, they got divorced and LeAnne just picked somebody out of the phone book to represent her. And he absolutely cleaned Charles out. Left him virtually broke. LeAnne was real pissed and didn't care."

“Wait — how do you know this?" Mel asked. "She told me, of course," Jane said. "We were room mothers together last year. So her attorney — Stonecipher as it now turns out— wrung Charles dry. But when all the dust had settled, LeAnne discovered that she only got a pittance. Everything had disappeared into legal fees. She even went to another lawyer to try to recover some of it, and he pretty much told her she'd been a dummy. Anyhow, it created a weird kind of bond between her and Charles and they eventually got back together. They went to marriage therapy and so on and got married all over again. Which was great for them, but they hardly had anything left to live on. They had to declare bankruptcy and start over. Charles had worked for a bank or a mortgage company or something like that."

“Euuw," Shelley put in. "Companies like that aren't wild about bankrupt employees."

“Right. He lost his job and they both had to work like dogs to get back up to speed. They finally got enough saved to open that little cubbyhole dry cleaners next to the grocery store."

“I'd never heard this story," Shelley said somewhat resentfully. "I knew about the divorce and remarriage, but not the rest of it. I only knew Stonecipher was her lawyer because somebody at the bake sale was asking about divorce attorneys, and she said he'd represented her and she warned everybody to stay away from him."