I gazed around the room. Just about everybody was holding a wine or highball glass or a beer bottle. After consuming free booze at the party celebrating Glen Falconer’s exoneration from a vehicular homicide DUI charge, they would all climb into their cars and drive over the twisting, snow-slicked back roads of Lincoln.
“I don’t know about disgusting,” I said to the girl. “But it’s pretty damn ironic.”
“I lost two friends in high school,” she said.
I nodded. “I used to lie awake every night when one of my sons was out in a car. Now they’re away from home, and I only lie awake sometimes.”
She hugged herself. “It’s good money.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said.
I felt a tug on my sleeve. I turned and found myself mashed in a strong embrace. A big wet kiss landed directly on my mouth.
“Oh,” I said when she pulled back from me to give me a look at her. “Mary. What’re you doing here?”
“I heard you’d be here, you sexy man.” She grabbed my arm in both of hers, “Frankly,” she whispered, “I am delighted to see a familiar face. Doc said we had to come, and I told him he could go right ahead, but he insisted I come too, and now he’s off pontificating about impactions or occlusions or something. Probably to a bevy of beautiful young women. Gee, it’s good to see you.”
“How do you guys know the Falconers?”
“Oh, you know,” she said. “Dr. Charles Adams, the oral surgeon for the wealthy and influential. Kinda like you’re the lawyer for all of them.”
“A lot of Doc’s patients are my clients, it’s true. So how’s he doing? I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“Oh, he’s full of wanderlust as usual. He wants to buy another motorcycle. I keep waiting for him to grow up.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I said.
I felt a hand on my elbow. “Excuse me, Brady.”
I turned. Paul Cizek stood beside me.
I grabbed his hand and shook it. “Hey, congratulations,” I said.
He nodded. “Sure. Thanks.” To Mary he said, “Will you excuse me? I need to talk to Brady.”
She shrugged. “That’s okay.”
“Have you two met?” I said.
Mary smiled at Paul. “I’ve seen you on television. I’m Mary Adams.”
They shook hands. Then Paul and I excused ourselves. He gripped my arm and guided me into Roger’s library. Nobody was there except the goldens, Abe and Ike, who were snoring and snuffling, each on his own leather sofa. The lights were low and a fire crackled in the fireplace. We sat in the same armchairs that Roger and Glen had been sitting in when I had been summoned to Lincoln back in November.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I gotta talk to somebody.”
“You want a lawyer or a shrink?”
“I don’t know. Both, maybe.”
“There’s a top-notch oral surgeon here,” I said. Then I looked at him. His knee was jiggling and frown lines creased his forehead. I touched his arm. “I’m sorry, Paul,” I said. “You are upset. What is it?”
“I don’t know. I got this big empty sucking feeling in my belly. It’s been there for awhile. It keeps getting bigger and emptier.”
“You feel bad about the Falconer trial, huh?”
“That, yeah. It was like winning a ten-to-nothing baseball game, you know? You wish they’d get a few runs, make it close, at least. The prosecution did a lousy job, Brady. Hell, it was a game I should’ve lost, and the terrible thing is, I wish I did.” He flapped his hands. “And then…”
His voice trailed away and he stared into the fireplace.
“Then what?” I said.
He turned to me and shrugged. “Olivia and I are a little shaky. More and more she’s throwing all her frustration and energy into her work, and I guess I am, too.” He hunched his shoulders and squeezed his hands between his knees. “It’s all falling apart. I don’t know what to do.”
“Didn’t you tell me you and Olivia were going to get away for a couple weeks after the trial? Head for some tropical place and relax? Make a baby, I thought you said.”
“Yeah, well, we like to play with that fantasy sometimes. But she’s decided she’s got too much going on and can’t leave right now.”
“You don’t need a lawyer, pal,” I said.
“You think I do need a shrink, huh?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you just need a little down time. Big cases take a lot out of you, and there’s always that letdown when they’re over. The agony of victory and all.”
He looked up at me and smiled. “Postpartum blues.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“You were there yesterday, weren’t you?” he said.
“I heard the jury give their verdict, sure. I wanted to shake your hand, but you disappeared with Glen.”
“I had to get him out of there. That guy—”
“Gall? The husband of the victim? I heard him.”
“He freaked Glen out of his wits.”
“What about you?”
“Me?” Paul nodded. “Yeah, he kinda freaked me out, too. I mean, he didn’t really scare me, but the poor bastard had to sit there and watch the case against the guy who killed his wife go swirling down the drain. Honestly, I felt bad for him. I can’t blame him for being totally pissed. The hell of it is, it feels like it’s my fault.”
“People think a trial is supposed to reveal the truth,” I said.
“It’s just a lawyer contest,” he said, “and I’m getting sick of it.”
I sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you, Paul.”
“There’s nothing to say. Thanks for listening.”
“Let me get some names for you.”
“Names?”
“Somebody to talk to.”
He stared at me for a minute, then said, “Yeah. Okay.” He stood up. “I’ve gotta get out of here.”
“Did you bring Olivia?”
He shook his head. “She had some meeting or something.” He shrugged. “We don’t do much together anymore.”
“I would’ve liked to see her.”
“Some other time, I guess.”
Paul and I walked out into the party. He turned and shook my hand. “We’ll have to get together. Do some fishing.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I’ll be in touch with you.”
Paul weaved his way through the crowd toward the front door. I looked around for Alex. Instead I saw Doc Adams coming toward me. “They let the hoi polloi into this affair, huh?” he said.
“Apparently,” I said. “You’re here.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You got lipstick on your mouth.”
“Your wife attacked me a little while ago. She seems sex starved.”
“Must be, to go after an ugly son of a bitch like you. So what’s new?”
“Actually,” I said, “maybe you can help me. I could use a referral to a good psychiatrist.”
“Midlife angst, counselor?”
“Well, yeah, sure. But it’s not for me.”
“Of course it isn’t.”
“Well, it’s not. Can you get me a few names?”
“Can do,” said Doc. “What about lunch? I’m at Mass General on Wednesdays and Thursdays.”
“Sounds good. Give me a call.” I scanned the room. “I’m ready to get out of here. Have you seen Alex around?”
He grinned. “Why, sure. I was holding her in thrall with a tale of a miraculous mandible reconstruction I performed last week. Young housewife whose husband smashed her face with his fist.”
“Jesus,” I said. “What a world.”
“Amen,” said Doc.
At that moment Alex appeared. “Hi,” she said to me.
“Hi yourself.”
“You got lipstick all over you. It’s not mine.”
“It was this guy’s wife. She attacked me.”
Alex put her arm around my waist. “I don’t blame her.”
Doc sm
iled at us. “Hard to believe,” he said. “You give her a perfect opening and she doesn’t insult you.”
“Not in public,” I said.
“And she’s not jealous.”
“Nope. She trusts me.”
Doc grinned. “She’ll get over it.”
Alex squeezed my arm. “About ready to go, handsome?”
“Yes. Definitely. Have you seen Glen? I really ought to say hi to him.”
“I haven’t seen him,” she said.
“I heard he refused to attend,” said Doc. “I was talking to his wife.”
I grinned. “You hit on all the women here?”
“Only the pretty ones. All she’d say was that Glen wasn’t feeling well, which sounded to me like he was either in the bag or seriously hungover.”
“In that case,” I said to Alex, “we’re out of here.”
I had lunch with Doc Adams the following Thursday. He gave me a list of four psychiatrists. “They’ve got good reputations for helping men through depression and midlife anxieties,” Doc said. “They’re friends of mine. They’re pretty booked, but they said they’d be willing to take on a new patient on my referral.”
“Contrary to popular belief,” I said, “you are a kind and thoughtful man.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Don’t tell anybody. It’d ruin my reputation.”
I called Paul Cizek’s office that afternoon and left a message asking him to call me. A week passed and I called again. All his secretary would tell me was that he wasn’t in his office. I repeated my message, adding that I had some names for him.
He didn’t return that call, either. I tried him again a few weeks later, suggesting lunch, and again a month or so after that.
He never returned any of my phone calls. Winter turned into spring and the leaves began to pop out and the days lengthened and I stopped trying to reach Paul Cizek. I thought I understood. He didn’t want my help and regretted exposing his fears and weaknesses to me. When he wanted to get together, he’d let me know.
7
WHEN I GOT HOME from the office on the first Friday in June, the sliding glass doors that gave me my view of the harbor were wide open and a damp east wind was whipping the curtains around.
I found Alex slouched on her spine in one of the aluminum chairs on the balcony. She’d taken off her shoes, and she had her legs stretched out in front of her with her heels propped on the railing. Her skirt was bunched up around her hips so that the wind could blow on her bare legs. She held a bottle of Samuel Adams on her chest, and she was staring out at the thunderheads that were building on the horizon in the fading daylight.
I bent and kissed her forehead. It tasted damp and salty. “You’re gonna get wet,” I said. “It’s raining.”
“It’s not raining yet,” she said, still gazing out at the roiling sky. The dark clouds were tinged with orange. “The wind is picking up water from the top of the ocean and blowing it around. It’s refreshing. It feels tingly on my skin.”
“You don’t want to change your clothes? That’s an expensive silk skirt you’re ruining.”
She took a long swig from her beer bottle, placed it on the concrete floor beside her, and returned her gaze to the sky. “I’m cool. I’m extremely cool. I’m wicked cool.”
I noticed that there was a six-pack of Sam Adams on the floor beside her left elbow. Two unopened bottles were left in the cardboard container. “How long’ve you been here?” I said.
“I don’t know. Ten minutes. A few hours. I forget. I’ve been watching the clouds. They’re pretty awesome, don’t you think? It’s like there’s this big guy out there at the edge of the ocean, and he’s blowing up all these big black balloons. I can feel his wet breath on my legs when he blows. It feels good. And those balloons are getting bigger and bigger and they’re filling up the sky, and I’m waiting for the sky to get so crowded with those big black clouds that they’ll all explode.” She held up her hands, then spread them wide apart. “Boom!”
“Let me change my clothes,” I said. “I’ll sit with you and watch the big guy blow up the balloons.”
“Let’s get naked.” She stood, unsnapped her skirt, balled it up, and threw it over the rail. It opened in the wind, flapped like a big drunken bird, and sailed away. Then she turned to me and stripped off my jacket.
“No, wait,” I said. “That’s an expensive suit.” I grabbed it from her and threw it into the living room behind me.
She yanked my necktie off and tossed it over the balcony. “Now do me,” she said, and I unbuttoned her blouse while she worked on the buttons of my shirt, and both shirt and blouse went out into the storm. She wanted to sacrifice my pants to the guy who blew up the black balloons, but I snatched them from her and threw them inside, and then we were standing there, Alex in her pink bra and matching panties and me in my boxers, holding each other while the wind blew cold and wet on our skin. She trembled in my arms, and when I teased her chin up with the knuckle of my forefinger, I saw that she was crying.
I kissed both of her eyes. “What’s the matter, honey?” I said.
“I guess I had too many beers.”
“Okay. That’s okay. You’re entitled. Why did you have too many beers?”
She ducked her head against my chest and mumbled something.
I bent to her ear. “I couldn’t hear you.”
She tilted up her face and looked at me. “I got it.”
“You got what?”
“The contract. Sally called today. My agent. They sent her a contract.”
“Hey,” I said. “Slow down. What agent? What contract are you talking about?”
She slumped back into the chair. “I was going to tell you. But I was afraid it would be bad luck to talk about it. To want it. And I didn’t know if I wanted it or not, anyway.” She shivered. “I still don’t.”
I put my arm around her. “A contract for what, hon?”
“A book.” She shivered. “They’re giving me money to write a book.”
I stood up and held my hands out to her. “Come on. Let’s go inside, make some coffee, get some clothes on. I want to hear all about it.”
Fifteen minutes later we were sipping hot coffee at the table. We’d changed into sweats, and on the other side of the sliding glass doors, the sky was full of dark clouds and it had begun to rain.
“Now,” I said. “Tell me about your book.”
Alex smiled quickly. “Remember that series I did on abused wives?”
I nodded. “Sure. There was Pulitzer talk, as I recall.”
“Well, they want me to do a book on it. A different book. The publisher liked my slant. It looks at the dynamics that produce these abusive relationships.”
“You mean how women drive men to it?”
She looked sharply at me, and I quickly held up my hand. “Joke, kid.”
She nodded. “I know when you’re joking. You’re not always funny. It’s about how mothers raise their boys to beat their wives, and how fathers raise their daughters to seek out abusive men to marry, and how abusers and victims seem to seek out and marry each other, and…” She shrugged. “Anyway,” she said, “I got the contract. Sally called today.”
“And that’s why you drank more beers than usual and threw away your clothes.”
“Yup. I’m gonna be a real writer. I’m sorry, Brady.”
“Sorry? Why? This is wonderful news.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before.”
I reached across the table and put my hand over hers. “That doesn’t matter. Congratulations. It’s an appropriate occasion to drink a lot of beers and discard your clothing.”
She was shaking her head. “What if I can’t do it? What if I spend the money they give me and I can’t write anything? What if the paper dumps me and won’t take me back?” Tears welled up in her eyes. “What if…”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m proud of you. You’re going to write a wonderful book. You’re a hard worker and a terrific writer. Publishers d
on’t invest money in people who can’t do the job.”
“They don’t know me like I do,” she said.
When we finished our coffee, I took her hand and led her to the shower. We stripped off clothes and stood under the steaming water. Alex cried and pressed against me, and I held her tight until she whispered, “I’m okay now.” I lathered her up all over and twirled her slowly under the hot spray. “Now your turn,” she said, and she washed me. We toweled each other dry and then she took my hand and led me to the bedroom.
We made love. We dozed.
Sometime in the evening I awakened. Alex had her arm thrown across my chest and she was breathing softly on my cheek. I slipped away from her, pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, went into the kitchen, and dumped two cans of Progresso minestrone into a saucepan.
While it heated I smoked a cigarette and stared out the sliding door at the storm that raged over the harbor. Raindrops as big as acorns splattered against the glass. Six stories down, frothy white combers rolled across the black water. Now and then lightning lit up the sky.
I felt Alex press herself against my back. “I love a big storm,” she whispered.
“It reminds us who’s boss.”
“Yes. It puts things into perspective.”
“I’ve got some soup heating on the stove.”
She snaked her hand under my T-shirt and rubbed my chest. “So what if I can’t do the dumb book,” she said.
“You can do it.”
“I think I can.”
“We should be celebrating,” I said.
“We already did.”
“That was it?”
She chuckled. “No. That was just the prologue. Let’s have some soup. Then we can celebrate some more.”
Later we lay in the dark staring up at the ceiling. “I’m sorry for acting like a female hysteric,” Alex murmured.
“I think that’s a redundancy.”
“What is?”
“ ‘Female hysteric.’ The word hysteria comes from the Greek word for ‘uterus.’ Originally, at least, they thought only females were susceptible to hysteria.”
“Because they had a uterus,” said Alex.
“Because they were female, which was more or less defined as having a uterus.”
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