Happy Endings

by Sally Quinn

  By six-thirty she had resigned herself to eating with the kids when the phone in her room rang.

  “Hello.”

  “May I speak to Mrs. Grey.”

  She recognized his voice, low, melodious, sexy, almost hypnotic.

  “It’s me,” she said.

  “Hi me.”

  There was a pause and they both sighed.

  “Could you… I mean, would you consider joining us for dinner?”

  “Your wife, is she…?”

  “She’s better. She’ll be at dinner.”

  She paused.

  “What time do you…?”

  “See you at seven-thirty.”

  * * *

  Sadie had the Secret Service agents walk her up to the Moroccan bar a little after seven-thirty. The Sokolows were sitting together on the banquette. Michael and Giselle were seated in chairs around a wicker table.

  The men stood as she approached. Even in the dim light she could see everyone in the bar peering at her.

  Her own curiosity was focused on Giselle.

  She looked her over as carefully as Giselle was inspecting her.

  Giselle was petite and very gamine, as Michael had said. Very French-looking. She had a pixie haircut that flattered her small face. She wore a stylish bronze-colored mini-skirt that showed off her slim, shapely legs, and a wrapped jersey top that covered what Sadie could tell with a sinking heart were beautiful full breasts.

  Seeing Giselle and Michael together for the first time, Sadie felt physically sick. When she saw the way Giselle looked at her she knew in that instant that she felt the same way, too.

  Michael started to introduce them. His voice did not have the usual confident ring.

  “Mrs. Lanzer,” Sadie said before Michael could speak, “I’m so happy to meet you. I’m sorry you’ve not been feeling well.”

  She had spoken too quickly. Did it sound forced? Part of the reason, she realized, was that she felt horribly guilty.

  “Madame,” said Giselle, “I am so happy to meet you also. I am only sorry that I haven’t been able to join you before. This flu is a really terrible one. The only thing good I can say is that I am getting a lot of rest. And I have been able to read a little.”

  She spoke in a husky French accent but her English was perfect. She had a natural charm and seemed friendly.

  The cocktail hour was pleasant if a bit awkward as everyone concentrated on keeping the conversation going. Sadie and Michael and the Sokolows had formed a bond over the past few days and Giselle seemed the outsider.

  Sadie was aware that Giselle felt it, too. As they walked into the dining room to dinner Giselle linked her arm in Michael’s. Then she grabbed the seat next to him so that he was seated between her and Judy Sokolow.

  “What do you think, Sadie?”

  Judy was asking her a question. She had no idea about what. Fortunately, if she seemed a little removed she could be excused. She was a recently widowed First Lady. Nobody could possibly imagine that she was thinking about Michael’s mouth on his wife’s breast, his hand between her legs. This was ridiculous.

  “I’m sorry, Judy,” she said. “What do I think about what?”

  “About Blanche Osgood. Do you think she’ll choose some sort of project? She’s going to have to do something. She’s not getting very good press.”

  “Well, actually, I was just talking to her about that the other day. In fact, the other night when I said I’d been talking about you”—she turned to Michael—“that’s what I meant.”

  They had been avoiding each other. Now, when he smiled at her she almost lost track of what she was saying.

  “Well—” she cleared her throat—“I was suggesting to Blanche that perhaps AIDS or even children with AIDS would be an important project for her. She’s in the entertainment business. She’s had friends who’ve died of AIDS. She’s desperate to go back to her singing but she feels funny about giving country music concerts. I thought if she did it for a cause like AIDS it would be okay. I was actually planning to discuss it with you. I was hoping you might give her some guidance.”

  “That is a wonderful idea,” said Judy. “Don’t you think so, Michael?”

  “I, uh, I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to give it some thought.” He seemed uncomfortable.

  “Would you be working on the project, too?” asked Giselle.

  Her question was directed at Sadie. The look on her face gave her away, even if the offhand tone of her voice did not.

  “Well, I, I don’t know,” said Sadie. “I suppose she might ask me to be involved. It was just an idea.”

  “Bon, alors…” said Giselle looking directly at Michael.

  She stood up, suddenly looking drained.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “But I am still feeling a bit under the weather.”

  She reached across the table to where Sadie was sitting and extended her hand.

  “Mrs. Grey, I hope you will forgive me if I leave a little early.”

  Michael stood and pushed his chair back.

  They said goodnight and left.

  There hadn’t been a glance or a nod from Michael.

  * * *

  She had no idea whether or not he would try to get away and meet her. Still she felt compelled to go even if he didn’t show up.

  She waited almost an hour. Dejected, she was about to leave when she saw him in the moonlight coming toward her.

  When he reached her he was out of breath.

  “I’ve taken a walk every night, sometimes staying away for two or three hours, just so I wouldn’t arouse suspicions when you came back,” he said dropping to the sand next to her. “If she knew I had been meeting you on the beach she would go completely berserk.”

  “Why? Nothing’s happened.”

  “Tell it to the judge.”

  “Nothing has. We’re just friends.”

  “All I can say, Sadie Grey, is that this is the damnedest friendship I’ve ever had.”

  The way he looked at her made her get up and walk closer to the water, into the waves, holding up her long full jersey skirt. She stood, letting the waves wash over her, cooling off. Then she walked back to where he was sitting and lowered herself next to him.

  “I thought Giselle was terrific,” she said. “She’s extremely attractive and bright. Very charming.”

  “She thought you were very nice.”

  That was it. But there was a warning note in his voice.

  She changed the subject.

  “Tell me what you do?” she said. “Talk to me about your work. You’ve hardly mentioned it. I know you discovered AZT and you’re head of the National Cancer Institute. But what do you actually do? What is your day like?”

  “It’s changed a lot. I’m hardly a scientist anymore. Every day I feel I’m getting farther and farther away from the lab and from the clinic. I’ve really become a politician now and a p.r. man. The first fifteen years at NIH I lived under a rock. I got up, went to work, worked eighteen hours, came home, and went to bed. I spent most of my time in a laboratory with rats.”

  “Maybe that’s why you’re so socially retarded.”

  “Now it begins,” he said, with expectant pleasure.

  “You seem to like it.”

  “I’m just more comfortable with the notion that someone who looks like you and talks like you would want to give someone like me a lot of lip.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about what my dear sister Naomi calls shiksa madness.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “I have all night. You’re the one with a curfew.”

  He looked at his watch and groaned.

  “I’m going to have to get back.” He paused. “Thank God. I need protection from myself.”

  “C’mon. Tell me. What is it really?”

  “What do you want to know except that I’ve obviously got a terminal c
ase of it.”

  “No, I’m serious. What is it about? Explain it to me.”

  “When I was in high school, we were all seated alphabetically. Jennings, Jenkins, Jones, and Klein were in front of me. They were all girls. Three gentiles and one of us. I would get so excited by my fantasies that I used to hold a book over my lap in case I might embarrass myself in class. It was interesting that my fantasies were always about Jennings, Jenkins, or Jones. Never about Klein. That’s shiksa madness!”

  “Have you ever been in love with a shiksa?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. No.”

  “How much about that is a fantasy?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You would be sure if you’d ever been to bed with one.”

  She was fishing.

  “Sadie.” He said this very slowly, very carefully. “I’ve never been to bed with another woman besides Giselle in my life.”

  She was so stunned that she didn’t know what to say. She was aware that her mouth was open.

  “You look as if I’ve just told you I’ve tested positive for the AIDS virus.”

  “I couldn’t be more surprised if you had,” she said. “Michael. I’m not sure I believe you. How is this possible?”

  “Because that’s what you do if you’re a nice boy. You grow up, you go to religious school, you go to college, you meet a nice girl, and you get married—forever. My father told me that if I had to go to bed with a girl before I was married, I should only do it with a shiksa, not one of our kind. Of course I never took him up on his advice. I was too young and too scared at the time. You see, shiksas were the forbidden fruit. Obtaining one was a perverted form of accomplishment. Now I realize that the advice was a terrible degradation of both Jewish and gentile women.”

  “And what’s in it for the shiksa?” she asked. “Being a trophy? Assuming she succumbs.”

  “In order for her to want to buy into the trophy thing she has to need something that she’s not getting where she is. She has to want intimacy and involvement that she is not getting in her present life. She has to want to share the pain. Some people believe that with WASPs there’s no intimacy, no involvement, no pain allowed. Their culture doesn’t permit it. They have to deny and suppress. The man she is looking for has the passion, the sensitivity, the intimacy, the trust, the capability of sharing pain. She’s got to know that somebody else can share her pain. She needs to know she’s needed. She’s never had a man tell her what’s in his heart.”

  “So what if I get a man who’ll tell me what’s in his heart. What indication do I have that he’s interested in what’s in mine? He hasn’t talked about me, asked about me, shown any curiosity about me since he met me. It all seems very one-sided.”

  “Did it occur to you that he’s afraid of seeming to be too interested? That he knows you can have any man you want? That you’ve always had any man you wanted.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I know you. I know who you are.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “You’ve probably had affairs. You’re having this little flirtation for your own amusement. It’s just a dalliance.”

  It was the first time she had any idea how sensitive he was. So much of what he said was couched in humor that it was hard to tell how serious he was about anything.

  “Oh Michael,” she said, angry and hurt at the same time, “please don’t talk like that.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “About what?”

  “About anything I just said.”

  She felt bewildered and a little afraid. She didn’t know what she thought or felt about anything.

  “Are you asking if I’ve ever had an affair?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  She was provoked into telling him and it stunned her as much as it did him.

  “His name is Desmond Shaw. It was three years ago. While Rosey was President. I’ve been in love with him ever since. At least until now.”

  “Sadie, I…”

  “Don’t say anything more, Michael. I think we should say goodnight.”

  She had the frantic urge to be alone, to think things out.

  He jumped up and reached down to help her. When he did they found themselves face to face. He still had her hand in his. It was the first time they had touched each other. Greetings were too threatening. They had never even shaken hands except the very first time they were introduced.

  They pulled their hands away from each other as if they had felt an electric shock and turned to walk down the beach.

  What was she doing? Her husband had only been dead for six months. She had loved him and she mourned him now. How could she have forgotten that love? How could she feel this way about Michael when she was still in love with Des? Could she have gotten over Des so quickly when he had been the grand passion, the great love of her life? It didn’t make sense. Was it just that she was terribly wounded and he was sympathetic? She didn’t trust herself anymore. Newly widowed women often took lovers to affirm their existence. It was normal for people in her situation to feel vulnerable and confused. But nothing had prepared her for this… this mishegoss, as Michael would say.

  When they got back to her villa he turned to her.

  “Tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve,” he said. “I hope you’ll join us. There’s going to be a party on the terrace.”

  “Oh Michael, I’d love to, but I’m afraid I’d feel so conspicuous. Like a fifth wheel.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The idea of you as a fifth wheel.”

  “What matters is how I would feel.”

  “If it will put your mind at ease, Giselle is still feeling really lousy. I don’t think she’ll be up for it even by tomorrow night. Besides, she hates holidays. She always refuses to go out on New Year’s Eve. So you don’t have to worry about being a fifth wheel.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  * * *

  Sadie loved New Year’s Eve. It was festive and sexy. New Year’s Eve always held out some promise to her of good things to come, of romance.

  They were to meet for dinner at nine-thirty. Giselle had conveniently had a relapse and would not be joining them. Just as Michael had predicted. She was giddy with anticipation. She worried a little that she might be thought callous to be enjoying New Year’s Eve so soon after Rosey’s death. She had to be careful tonight not to look as if she were having too good a time. She probably shouldn’t dance. She decided to wear black again, off the shoulder, ankle length. Sexy but covered up. It was appropriate for the holiday, it didn’t look too mournful, and it sent the right message. The kids were going to be at dinner at their own table, then they planned to go into town.

  What did she think was going to happen tonight? Her fantasy was that he would come back to her villa and they would make love. That was impossible. He was married. Monica and Willie were in the bedroom on the other side of the living room. The agents were all around them.

  The Secret Service! Oh God, she had forgotten about them. She wouldn’t stay at the party until midnight. But if she left with him her agents would follow. She’d better talk to Toby. Make sure he was on duty. He’d already been through her affair with Des and had proved his discretion. He let her have her privacy and made sure she was protected at the same time. And he never gave any indication that he disapproved of her activities. Now she wasn’t even married, so she wouldn’t be doing anything wrong, but Michael was. Very married. She didn’t know why that should make a difference but she sensed that it did to him. She sensed that no matter how attracted to her he was, even how much in love with her he might be, that it would be very hard for him to have an affair, much less leave his wife. What was she thinking of? She really was obsessing on this man. It was making her crazy.

  She also felt guilty about her kids, though they seemed to be having a wonderful time. She was there for them in body if not in spirit. A fe
w times on the yacht trip to St. Bart’s they had remarked about how remote she seemed.

  She decided to spend the day with Willie, or rather Willie and his baseball mitt—the two were now surgically joined. It was spooky the way he had attached himself to that mitt, as though it were an extension of himself. It was almost as if he knew who had given it to him and why.

  Just as interesting was her own reaction to watching Willie play with the mitt. She realized that it no longer caused her pain. In less than a week she had gone from feeling intense sorrow to lightheaded hopefulness. She could only attribute that fact to her newfound attraction to Michael. It shocked her to realize that she could have changed so much in such a short time. Now, instead of trying to forget Des, it was Michael she wanted to put out of her mind.

  Spending the day with Willie would help take her mind off Michael and assuage her guilt about her child. A trip to town for lunch and ice cream would be fun and a nice treat for Monica. Maybe a little drive around the island. Then when they came back there would be only a few hours until he came for her.

  * * *

  “You look beautiful.”

  She knew he meant it. It embarrassed and pleased her at the same time. She never knew quite how to respond when he complimented her. It wasn’t that she was unused to compliments. It was just that Michael was so different from other men. She couldn’t count on her old wiles to work with him. He saw through her too easily. She knew he enjoyed her flirtatiousness with him but she also knew with certainty that one false move could turn him off just as easily as she could turn him on. In normal circumstances he would have been a challenge. She would have gone after him for the pleasure of the chase, for the sport, because he was so unpredictable and so elusive. In this case, the chance of losing him was too upsetting. In fact it was unthinkable.

  He looked wonderful. He was tanned, which made his high cheekbones look even more exotic. He was wearing a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up and it showed off the muscles of his wiry body and made his eyes look even bluer. She wondered if he had thought of that or whether it was just coincidental. Still, she could not bring herself to compliment him.