“How did you find out?”
“I think the question should be: When were you going to tell me?”
“You can tell me how to run your business, you can’t tell me how to run my life.”
George got up and went to the macassar cabinet behind his chair. He opened the front panel and took out a decanter of brandy and two glasses. “Drink?”
“No, thanks.”
Ice clinked into the glass. He poured two fingers of brandy and replaced the decanter on the tray.
“What the hell have you got against her?”
“She’s not everything she seems, you know.”
“Meaning?”
“She’s a gold digger, Son. The apple never falls very far from the tree. I don’t want you taken for a ride like your uncle Billy.”
“You don’t know Mrs. Levine married him for his money. Even if she did, what good did it do her in the end?”
“Yes, she had a run of bad luck. She seems to think her daughter will help her turn things around again.”
“What?”
“I had lunch with her a few days ago. Did Liberty tell you?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I didn’t think she would.”
“Well, perhaps she didn’t know.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“So what did you two discuss—over lunch?”
“The future. She has great plans. That was when she told me you and Miss Levine were romantically attached. She also said that if I wanted to end your budding romance, then she was open to offers. I politely declined.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What you believe or don’t believe is up to you. But if you recall, I have always told you that honesty should be your byword, in business and in life. It is the only way a man acquires a good reputation. I may be many things, but I’m not a hypocrite.”
“Libby had nothing to do with this.”
“I’d like to think not as well. How did you meet her by the way?”
“She came into the office.”
“May I ask why?”
The old man knew, or he wouldn’t have asked the question. He just wanted to hear him say it: “She was trading on our connection to get credit.” How much of a coincidence was that anyway?
“The truth is, you hardly know this girl, Jack. You met her five minutes ago, whereas I have known her for a very long time. Now, everything I ever suspected about her appears to be true. Believe me, I take no great pleasure in finding myself vindicated.”
“To hell with you,” Jack said. He stood up and walked to the door. He hesitated, then turned and walked back, put both his hands on the desk. “We both know what this is really all about.”
“Be careful what you say, Son.”
“Why? Because it hurts? If it didn’t still hurt after all these years, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?”
“It has nothing to do with Clare.”
“It was just about the money for her too, wasn’t it? It still burns with you. That’s why there hasn’t been any woman since, right?”
“You’re going too far.”
“Libby is not like her!”
“How do you know that? Are you saying that you’re a better judge of women than I am? What about . . . what was her name? Emily. She married a senator’s son in the end. Did you hear about that? Our money wasn’t good enough for her; she wanted someone with a run at the White House as well.”
Jack didn’t want the Emily conversation. He went out, slamming the door behind him. He regretted it straightaway; the old man always said that petulance was weakness. The worst of it was, he supposed his father could be right. And anyway, he didn’t have to prove it; doubt was like rust, it started small, but then ate away everything around it. Just like Clare; she’d been eating away at his father for years. “I don’t want to end up like him,” he said as he got down to the street and turned up his collar against the cold and the rain. There weren’t going to be any Clares in his life. The next time he fell in love with a woman, he was going to be one hundred percent sure.
56
Jack was surprised to get a call from Art Woodward. They had never been especially close in college, had played on the football team together, but he had never been a great fan of the locker-room banter that was Art’s specialty. But being at Harvard was like having chewing gum on your shoe, and he supposed it was true of all colleges: there were some fellows who you could never shake off, who clung to former college pals at their alma mater as if they were family.
He wasn’t quite sure how Art got his number, but over the course of a few days, he left several messages with the doorman and with Miss Riley at Davidson’s, and finally Jack felt obliged to call him back. They arranged to meet at the Harvard Club for a drink one evening. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt.
The club reminded him of his father’s study, magnified a couple dozen times. It had almost the same miserable dead animals on the walls, except the club actually had an elephant’s head as well. He had wondered but never asked how it had got there. He supposed he didn’t really want to know the answer.
Walking in, there was even the same fug of cigar smoke. He heard the clink of crystal tumblers, recoiled at the depressing glitter of chandeliers. It was everything he tried to avoid: old white men reading the Wall Street Journal and sipping rye, the mahogany-paneled walls hung with the framed portraits of the forefathers who had blazed this same smug trail.
Art was already there, on his second bourbon judging by the unnatural brightness in his eyes. “Jack!” he shouted across the room.
Jack went over, ordered a single malt from the white-jacketed waiter. Art was effusive, started talking even before Jack had sat down, reminiscing about Harvard people Jack didn’t remember, so-called good times he would rather have forgotten, football games he didn’t recall winning.
Dutifully, he asked Art what he was doing these days. He said he had a job at Con Ed with his own office and a view of the Hudson. In his words, he was doing a-okay.
“That’s great, Art.”
“What about you, Jack?”
“Working for the old man. Textiles. He sent me to London to open an office over there. Just got back.”
Art seemed to be in touch with everyone on their old college football team, knew what they were all doing, who had joined which company or got engaged to which girl. Jack expressed regret about a linebacker who had got himself shot in the Spanish Civil War, a wide receiver who had broken his neck skiing in Colorado with his father’s mistress. Jack observed that they had died for the same cause, trying to put a Republican out of a job, and Art seemed to think that funny.
Inevitably Art wanted to talk about women. He had no problems on that account, he assured Jack; he had so many of them trooping in and out of his apartment, they had worn a track in the carpet. He’d even had complaints from the neighbors downstairs about the noise.
“What about you?” Art said. “Seeing anyone?”
“Too busy for that right now,” Jack said.
“Really? I heard you were seeing that Libby Levine,” Art said.
“Who told you that?”
“People talk. New York’s the biggest village in the world. Someone saw you with her down on Swing Street, told Henry Devaux, and Henry told me.”
“But I mean, how did they know who she was?”
Art wouldn’t say. Jack had to press him.
“Look, Jack, you didn’t hear this from me, okay?”
“Hear what from you?”
“Well . . .” A nervous laugh. “Look, a lot of guys know her.”
Jack put down his glass. “What does that mean?”
“Well, she has, you know, a reputation.”
Jack gripped the leather arms of the chair, tried to keep his expression flat.
“You didn’t know? I mean, she’s Bill Dewey’s stepdaughter. Everyone knew Bill, God rest his soul. I guess that’s how she knew some of the fellows. And she’s
a good-looking girl. No one’s going to say no, are they?”
“Say no?”
Another nervous laugh. “A girl is looking for a good time, it’s a gentleman’s binding duty to show her.”
“Bull crap,” Jack said.
“Hey, she’s great in the sack, right? You’re onto a good thing there.”
Jack stared at him.
“Look, you’ve been away in England. I guess you weren’t to know. But I also heard that she was engaged to one of the brokers over at J.P. Morgan. Real high flyer. His old man owns an entire bank in California. Way I hear it, she got a nice little payday out of that.”
No one had ever thrown a punch at another member in the Harvard Club, not to Jack’s knowledge. If that was true, then he made history that afternoon. The ruckus certainly brought some of the old timers out of their chairs. Even the damned elephant raised its eyebrows, or perhaps he just imagined that.
He left as they helped Art off the floor and the steward ran to get him smelling salts. He didn’t wait for them to throw him out, and he didn’t give much of a damn if they banned him, because he was very damned sure he wasn’t ever going back.
Miss Riley peered at her over the top of her spectacles as she walked in. Her usual air of deference was gone. Something had happened.
“I have a luncheon appointment with Mr. Seabrook,” Libby said.
“Yes, Miss Levine. Come through.” Come through? Jack usually came straight out of his office to greet her. Miss Riley led the way through to Jack’s office. As Libby walked in, his secretary shut the door behind her.
Libby waited for Jack to get up and greet her, but he just sat there behind his desk, tapping his fountain pen on the edge of it, like he was irritated about something.
“Jack?”
“Do you know a guy called Art Woodward?”
“What? No. Why?”
“Because Art sure knows you.”
“Jack, what’s wrong? Did you talk to your father?”
“Sure did. He said he had lunch with your mother in Boston a few days ago.”
Still he hadn’t asked to take her coat, hadn’t found her a chair. What was wrong with him?
“Didn’t know that either, huh?”
She felt herself getting angry and tried to bite it down. “Jack, you want to tell me what this is about?”
“The old man wants to transfer me to London, but I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to go back there. Of course, if I leave the family company, it won’t leave me with much. I’ll have to get a job somewhere. I have some friends in brokerage and a degree from Harvard. Should count for something. I won’t be exactly broke, but I won’t quite be the catch I am now, I guess.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know as well as I do, the real reason your mother married my uncle Billy. Don’t you?”
“Wait, wait a minute. You think . . . you think this is why I like you?”
“I’d love you to convince me otherwise.”
Convince him otherwise? Perhaps she could have done so. Or perhaps his mind was already made up. Besides, why should she have to convince anyone how she felt? She didn’t know what had happened, but whatever it was, damn him to a hundred different hells if that’s what Jack thought of her.
“Well?” he said.
“Not inclined to convince you about anything, Mr. Seabrook,” she said, and walked out.
57
Her mother and Etta were at the stove, shoulder-to-shoulder, making kugel and matzo ball soup for their dinner. All of Etta’s family, plus the seamstresses, were crowded into the kitchen, listening to the radio. The king of England had just abdicated. Whoever heard of such a thing? Everyone was talking about it. He gave up the crown for an American woman. A divorcée, they all said, as if it was the same as being a dancer or a streetwalker.
Libby wanted to hide, be anywhere but with all these people in their apartment. Where was there to hide anymore? She took off her coat and put her arms around the stovepipe, trying to get the cold out of her body. She thought she would never feel warm inside again.
“What is wrong with her?” Ruben said.
So then they all started on her, her mother most of all, asking her if she was sick, why she looked so pale.
“It’s her boyfriend,” Yaakov said. “I will bet my shirt.”
“That Jack?” Sarah said. “What is it he has done?”
“Nothing. Please let me be.”
“Tell me, I’m your mother.”
“He hasn’t done anything. I don’t want to talk about Jack anymore. Forget him! You won’t ever have to worry about Jack again, all right?”
Sarah nodded, like this was what she had expected all along. “You don’t see him anymore?” she said.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I warned you from him!”
“Yes, you warned me. Congratulations, Mama. You always get what you want.” She went to her room, pulled a suitcase down from the top of the wardrobe, started throwing her clothes into it.
Her mother appeared in the doorway. “Where are you going?”
“I can’t stay here,” she said.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll stay in a hotel for a few days until I get something figured out.”
“Bubeleh!”
“What were you doing talking to George Seabrook, Mama?”
“Who tells you such things? To that man, I never talk, ever.”
“Don’t lie to me, Mama. Tell me what you did!”
“Anything I do, I do only for your own good.”
“What have you done, Mama?”
“What do I do? I will tell you what I do. I do everything in my whole life only for you, work every day, my fingers to the bone to give you the life you should have had!”
“Life I should have had? What do you mean?”
“Just money and nice things,” she said.
“Is that all that matters to you? What about Dewey? Was that for me, or for you?”
“How can you ask me such things?”
“Look, I don’t care anymore. Whatever you said to Jack’s father, it worked. I hope you’re proud.”
Her mother went to put her arms around her, but Libby pushed her away. She forced the lid down on her suitcase, snapped the locks shut.
“Bubeleh, you can’t just go like this.”
“Watch me, Mama.”
She stormed out the door, never a look back.
Sarah stood there staring at the door, couldn’t believe it. Not my Liberty, she wouldn’t leave. Any minute she will come back. “Sorry, Mama, all a big mistake, let’s talk.” But she didn’t.
Everyone was staring at her like she was a stranger. Even Yaakov shook his head at her. But what else could she have done? Impossible to do anything else.
She looked at Etta.
“What happened to you, Sura?” Etta said.
“You don’t understand.”
“No, you’re right. I don’t understand what happened to the sister who saved my life, who saved Bessie’s life. No, don’t touch me. Yaakov, he has a job now. We will move out tomorrow, day after, soon as we can. Let you be, just like you ask me.”
She shepherded Bessie and the boys toward the door.
Yaakov went to follow them, stopped to look over his shoulder at her. “I still don’t know how she got such red hair,” he said.
One by one, they filed out. Sarah wiped her hands on her apron and went back to the stove to finish making dinner. She couldn’t think of what else to do. Fats Waller came on the radio, singing “It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie”: “If you break my heart, I’ll die.” Never heard of Fats Waller in the shtetl, she thought. Only in America can a girl learn to tell such lies.
Libby took a room in the hotel Frankie had stayed in near Penn Station, and every day she went to the shop like nothing had happened. When her mother came in, Libby talked to her about business things, nothing else. Her mother seemed to
accept it. Perhaps Sarah thought that she only had to give it time, that Libby would come around.
Libby waited for Jack to come by the shop, maybe leave a message for her, something. But three days and nothing. Lunchtime of the fourth day, she took a cab to Davidson’s. By the time she got there, the rain had turned to snow.
Miss Riley looked up from her desk as she walked in. What was that look on her face? Like a cat licking cream off its whiskers. “I want to talk to Mr. Seabrook,” Libby said.
“I’m sorry, Miss Levine. He’s not here.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“He is no longer working here, miss. He has returned to London to resume his duties with our office there. Would you like to speak to our new general manager, Mr. Elliot?”
“Oh. Oh, I see.” She smiled at Miss Riley as if it wasn’t much of a surprise at all. She wanted to scream; she wanted to drop to the floor and be sick; but instead she thanked her and went back outside to her taxi and told the driver to take her back to the Village.
On the way back, she resolved not to let this touch her. She wouldn’t cry, she wouldn’t think about it, not again, not ever again.
“Ma’am,” the taxi driver said, “are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just fine.”
58
Libby got to the Sherry just after five, put her samples portfolio on the table. She peeled off her wool coat and beret and ordered a manhattan. She glimpsed her reflection briefly in one of the gilt wall mirrors, couldn’t avoid it; the management seemed to think that all its customers wanted to look at themselves from every possible angle. I look a fright, she thought. Like I’ve been hollowed out with a spoon.
She was on her second manhattan by the time Sarah arrived. She watched her mother searching the lobby for her. She was wearing a caramel sable coat, had on the right amount of rouge, and her hair was in sculpted waves. She could have been an advertisement for Vogue.
I should be grateful, Libby thought, she’s not your usual Jewish mother.
Libby raised a languid hand, and Sarah smiled and came over.
She ordered a martini from the white-jacketed waiter and took off her gloves and coat. There was snow melted on the fur collar.
Loving Liberty Levine Page 30